Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. I celebrated with my good friends and neighbours - we had a lovely party. This is a picture of Sloane and Michael - the candles on the cake is a combined age of the Marks. Got in touch with Paul the leader of Toronto Slow food I want to be more involved in establishing links between farmers and chefs.

Meat

I finally felt the music in me today around 4pm. I might be pulling out of the hole I've been in. I made this stunning saddle of lamb. Stuffed it with chestnuts thyme and lamb forcemeat. It'll make somebody happy. If not myself.

I took some pictures of a beef loin, taking out the tenderloin. Should have taken pictures of that saddle, it'll be gone tomorrow. It was a beautiful day today all sunny, made me wish I brought a towel for the beach. This afternoon made me think of my old motorcycle and how my mechanic has it hostage in storage. Did he repair the electrical problem and the oil leak over the winter, or will I have to wait till June to get it back? I'll call him in the morning to get a status. It’s been a busy six months, I can't wait to go for a ride.


This is a beef loin. Under that fat is the tenderloin, the most prised cut of meat.


Here it's shown being teased away from the spine. You can see the New York Striploin is closest to the block if you were to do a cross section of this with the tenderloin attached it would be a T-bone towards the thick end of the tenderloin its called a porterhouse yum!


The tenderloin removed - it has a lot of tough membrane, silverskin and fat that needs to be removed.


It's all clean now.


Here it's tied and ready to be portioned.

To load or not load

Ryan passed along a flow chart today that he got off the Canadian Pork Council's web site. It was astonishing to see that there is a need to have a flow chart made for people that operate farm equipment, and potentially a PC that explains whether an animal is to sick to send to slaughter, detailing if it can't walk by its own means it should not be loaded. Makes you think what we might be eating. I like to think that animals raised for their meat deserve to be treated as more than just a commodity.
This is a photo of all our cured meats. We have prosciutto braseolas, lardo and cured duck magret. We’ll have more in a few more weeks.

Happy Valentine's Day

Hello, a long day today. I walked from Lansdowne to Bathurst before a streetcar passed me. It was a brisk walk and my beard froze rock solid so I couldn't smile without a tug of pain. I took down 2 hips of beef, 1 chuck, 1 cross cut and some other stuff. It was my first high-speed tenderloin removal. Needless to say my blade is dull again, like I ran it across the curb all afternoon. I have fond memories of filing Popsicle Pete sticks like that on the curb. You can get those sticks sharp as shives like that.

The order came in today as well. Trevor the driver always has a little thing he does just before you lift something. For example, there was a gigantic chuck well over 170lbs, he says 'here is a little guy for ya' then he waits till you get your back into it before he says anything. It was my turn for a hip and he says 'that one belonged to that chuck' and then laughs as my spine compresses.

Max seems to be über sensitive lately since Rip's death. He’s ready to cry at the simplest things. I feel for him. We have talked about how we miss her and that things are different around the house now. It’s hard to lose a pet, no matter what age.

For my baby

Happy Valentine's Day. It's sort of a heart-shaped steak. Enjoy!

I love you,
Karin

No more fluffn' I promise

I got my knife sharp as a razor today and made a tonne of sausage. Took down the bregeolas that were hanging in the original posts and sampled it. Very nice. It was a cold walk home and we are expecting 20 cm of snow tonight. Tomorrow we'll smoke kielbasas and poach boudin blanc.

The kids are making Valentines Day cards and are being very cute. This will be my first Vday that I'll be home since I can't remember. When Karin was pregnant with Sloane her due-date was the 14th of February. I was worried because I would not be able to share a birthday with her. New Year's Eve, Valentine's, and Mothers Day are the busiest days in restaurants.

I don't foresee a big rush on for steaks tomorrow, although it is a perfect treat for me.

Karin and I went to see Pan's Labyrinth. We both enjoyed it. I think I liked the walk up Queen St. better, its different than at a three-year-old's pace. Sloane is going to be four this week and she says she looks and feels like 4, that is a good thing.

Today I prepped Brageolas and hung some from a couple weeks ago. These were rubbed in a cure for a week, kryovaced and then re-rubbed for another week. After that they will hang for three more weeks. Ryan was working on summer sausage and kielbasa when an interesting question came up about the term 'emulsification'. It was brought up that in order to make an emulsion you needed an acid i.e. lemon in mayonnaise or vinegar in a salad dressing. I argued that an emulsion is purely the suspension of material within a semi-liquid state and that the acid is there solely for culinary purposes. For example, margarine is an emulsion of some weird stuff - oil and water and -oh yes- yellow. I think I'm right about this.

Here are some pictures of what has caught my eye this week.

Elk

What is amazing about Game meat is that it breaks down so easily.

The fat and membrane that connects the muscles is weak and you can easily separate them. I've worked with a lot of Caribou and red dear this was my first elk. Talked to an organic duck farmer this week about the feed and conditions for the ducks. It's all very interesting. I love eating meat. I do believe that it tastes better when the animal lives well. Happy animals living in conditions that they were intended to live in, eating food that they intended to eat (not corn). Produce better quality ingredients. For me as a chef I can handle not having a perfectly marbled steak if the flavour is there.

Other qualities arise when talking about meat such as toughness. A happy animal is not tormented finishing its life on a feedlot, crammed shoulder to shoulder to others knee deep in fecal. I believe that industrial (conventional) farming practices encourage the use of antibiotics /corn feed and god-knows-what-else-in-the-feed feed, in order to counter the stresses that feed lots produce on the cattle. Forgoing flavour. It’s a basic disassociation of cattle to meat that seems to be at the core of our problems.

Holy Crap, I'm Six

Lets keep those clickies clicking we can roll to number 5 with your help!!!!! click here

This is the head cheese in the display case.









We are in our Steve Zissou hats feeling like pirates.










DDay making light of our delivery.










Malloy posing in the back alley.











Sent off some e-mails today, both should provide some fruit. Got a chance to try Rocco's cassoulet last night, it was awesome. Saw my friend Jong at Gate 403, missed J it was getting late. Karin and I have a date Saturday sans the kids should be good.

Oh the times are a chang'n.

It was order day today. We picked up a side of grass-fed beef. I didn't know where they got the grass in January, so Trevor the driver informed me it was hydroponic. Either the loads are smaller or I'm getting stronger because I didn't feel my spine crush today. I think I am getting more efficient at taking down a hip, I can see the cuts a lot clearer. It was Chris's last day (he worked the counter) so he was played with a bit. Who knows how long he had a beef gland on his back for? I finished the head cheese, cured some duck breasts and made porcetta.

Karin called me this afternoon and said she picked up Ripley's ashes, she was crying. It's been two weeks but I think it will take a long time before we are totally healed.

On another note, I made it to number 7 on chefdb.com lets make a push to 6 yaaeeeeeeeeh!

These are not the droids you're looking for

Today I got a new jacket and toque of my own. Mario, the owner of the butcher shop, has been busy fixing things up around the place. "It's plumbing not rocket science," he said in a spare moment that we shared.

I made sausage today and finished the head cheese. I took a picture but I won't put it up till it is unmolded and finished. The sausage press (affectionately called the R2 unit) is a hydraulic cylinder. It forces the forcemeat (sausage mixture) through a tube and into the casing. For something so simple there is a lot that can go wrong (i.e. not tightening the top down correctly - if you ever have a chance to use one of these don't make this mistake, big mess). You also can control the speed of the forcemeat coming out and the density going in the casing - that’s tricky.

Saw Rocco today, always a treat. He is using a pear stilton sausage for a cassulet, adding a lamb chop and some duck confit. Yum. I love winter just for meals like that.

Also caught wind that a high profile Toronto chef may be joining the butcher ranks soon. John says "the butcher is a refuge for wayward chefs." I had to agree.

This is a pic of Dave showing Renee (a cook at OB) how we work with pork. It goes to show you that this is a lost art, and that people are interested in learning it. Cooks should be embarassed that they can't say for sure where a sirloin tip is from or how many cows it takes to get you though the weekend of ribeyes.

This is were I was going with that Tshirt reference a couple of days ago. Can you dig it? Can you count? Love that trippy beat. Gil Scott Heron. Thanks to Maloy for pointing the way.

We're #8

I've had some time off. It has been a nice weekend. Went to 7 Numbers on the Danforth with friends we haven't seen since the summer. Go clicky here and help make me #7 (currently I'm #8 which I found really funny). I also moved the TV down to the basement.

Today I made head cheese at work which was fun, had to kill production though due to unforeseen difficulties. I'll start again tomorrow.

Head cheese is essentially a terrine of meat from the head or trotters of hogs, simmered over a long period of time with aromatics. The cheeks and jowls are then diced put into a form and the stock that it was cooked in is reduced and poured over top. I think tomorrow I will add fine herbs, white wine maybe some mushrooms. No cheese or brain or buggers, The name head cheese is an unfortunate translation of fromage de tête (sounds better en francais). In English it sounds like something scraped out of an old sneaker. I think the Brits -clever as they are- have a different name sans any mention of cheese. Brawn is the name, and in Scotland it's potted heid. I like that as it reminds me of Mike Myers - " Heid. Pants. Now!" "He's gonna go cry on his huge pillaw."

This is a picture of some of the butchers - DDay, Malloy & Geordie. At the top of the pic is a brasoala curing, we all have extra pairs of clothing on because it's so damn cold.

Yesterday I met up with a friend for drinks and dinner at a place called Coca - it was inspiring. Very much a tapas bar but they do things right, like making their own bregoala (a cured outside round of beef). They had citrus cured olive that was very tasty and a cider braised sausage (I think they called it a chorizo but it was unlike a typical Spanish/Portuguese style). We had a cheap and cheerful bottle of plonk. Later on an old high school friend showed up at the bar (he manages the restaurant across the street) and tequila shots were in order. Needless to say, not such a good idea after a hard day's work. Fortunately I remembered this lotion that a friend recommended to us called Traumeel, so I bought it and put it on my shoulder - by God it really worked and thankfully made the day a little easier.

Today we received an elk from one farmer and a New Zealand red deer from another, both organically raised. The deer is fed winter grass (dry) and carrots. The meat was so tender I could have used a butter knife to clean it. This is the first farmed dear that I have broken down so I took a picture of it. The stripes on the back were really beautiful. I hope we can work with this product again.

I cooked a flat iron steak from the butcher the other day for me and the kids. It was dry and purple and smelled great - like you could just take a chunk out of it fresh from the butcher paper. I paired it with some leftover mashed potatoes and braised onions, and made for a scrumptious quick dinner. We don't often eat red meat so it was nice to see the kids both enjoy a steak, especially one that was so good.

It seems that the Queen streetcar is getting worse. The cars are infrequent and jammed. I was left with the option to wait or walk today so I walked, even though I was tired. Not one streetcar passed in the 30 minutes. Karin asked me to pick up chicken breast for dinner tonight, I couldn't find any - the good thing is she really wanted chicken stock. [Karin states: the Queen streetcar has been like this FOREVER and it's just Mark's first experience waiting at rush hour - trust me Mark - FOREVER!!! I've walked from University and made it to Dufferin before another streetcar passed.]