Bring Your Appetite Comes to Montreal

The end of November is a time of transitions: the final leaves are falling from the trees, the air is getting colder, and winter approaches, as does a new year. This November is time for a major transition for Andrew and me. To say that the last month has been busy would be an understatement. “Chaotic” also fails to capture all of the insanity that the past few weeks have entailed. I’ll settle with saying it’s been chaotically busy, and it isn’t over yet. The reason is that after over three fantastic and enriching years in Seattle, Andrew and I have moved back to Montreal. We have loved living in a different country, on a different side of the continent, in a place that is breathtakingly beautiful, full of lovely people, and, of course, rife with great restaurants and great food. Montreal is home to us, though, and we’re thrilled to be back here again.

The final days leading up to moving day always feel a bit surreal. The rooms that you had grown accustomed to looking a certain way, filled with your furniture and your belongings, are slowly emptying out, while boxes start to cover the floors and stack up against the walls. You go get yourself a glass of water, then remember that you packed the glasses an hour ago; you look at the bare walls of your living room and know that they’re different, but you can’t quite picture how they looked before. Your home is no longer your home, and even when you know where you’ll be living next, you can’t see yet in your mind what it will look like once you’ve properly moved in. It’s all very exciting, but at the same time, you feel a little lost, a little unsteady. You look forward to being back on solid ground.

I’ve found that this particular move has felt especially surreal. Andrew and I knew when we moved to the States that we would eventually be coming back to our home country, and hardly a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about coming back to Canada. After three years in the U.S., though, it is now taking a while for the fact to sink in that we are leaving Washington. It’s a bittersweet feeling: as homesick as I’ve often felt while I’ve been away, I’ve loved this part of the world, and I’ve made some amazing friends who I will miss dearly. At the same time, I’ve been yearning to be back in my favourite city in the world, back closer to my family, and closer to my oldest friends for a long time, so I’m ecstatic to realize that it is happening at last.

This big change in my life will mean some changes for this blog as well. I’ll still post about the food I cook, and though it will be from a different kitchen, that will be more or less the same. I hope to post more about my culinary life outside of my kitchen as well, though. We will be living in NDG, a neighbourhood in Montreal that is positively teeming with great food, from many different ethnicities. I want to post about the “fruiterie” around the corner, the amazing pizza place a few blocks away, and the food co-op down the street. I want to talk about the fantastic culinary experiences that Montreal has to offer, from bagels to poutine, and from Schwartz’s to Joe Beef. If you live in this city, I want to give you ideas for places to eat and shop; if you’ve never been to Montreal, I want to introduce you to how delicious this city can be.

Today is our first day back in Montreal, and the city is welcoming us with a blanket of fluffy white snow. It’s supposed to melt tomorrow, which is fine with me, but for now, I’m admiring it as I sit writing this at my parents’ dining room table. In a little over a week, Andrew and I will move into our new apartment and start to truly settle back into this place that for me, feels more like home than any other place in the world. Readers, bienvenue à Montréal. I think you’ll like it here.

A Competition, an Internship, and a Graduation

I’ve left you sitting on the edges of your seats, I know. Tales of my pre-competition preparations and jitters were a promise to reveal what became of it all, a promise that you might think I have broken. I haven’t, though: I have lots to tell. The past two months have been eventful for me.

First, the competition: great success, or embarrassing failure? Neither, really. I would describe the experience as a great personal success, although I did not place in the competition. To be honest, I was just happy I finished. Those three hours of cooking were more challenging than I had imagined, mainly because of what the mystery boxes contained. As you know, I practiced for this competition, but I wasn’t prepared for this:

-A live Dungeness crab
-A whole, bone-in lamb shoulder
-Two quail
-1 lb. sweetbreads
-A fennel bulb
-1 lb. Yukon gold potatoes

As you can see, there is no chicken on that list. You also might notice that there are not four or five ingredients: there are six … and four of them are proteins. Keep in mind that we were only to make three courses using these ingredients, and one of those courses was dessert. They’re not simple proteins, either. Two of them, some would argue, take more than three hours of cooking to prepare properly (the lamb shoulder and the sweetbreads), but I suppose that was just part of the challenge. I had never worked with sweetbreads before, and only had a vague idea of how to prepare them. It turned out, I wasn’t the only one—the competitor who came in first was the only one who really knew what to do with them. The black box was full of curve balls, to say the least, but we each made the most of it. I made a composed salad of crab, quail, and tomato for my appetizer, seared lamb au jus, with fennel and Yukon gold purée and braised sweetbreads for my main, and individual berry tarts with a berry reduction for dessert.

Curve balls or no, I am glad that I competed. I am proud of myself for finishing, and for having three complete courses to present on time at the end of the three hours. If I had to do the competition again, I would do some things differently, but that was the point of taking the plunge and doing this: to learn. I learned about time-management, sweetbreads and butchering lamb shoulder. I also learned more about what judges are looking for in culinary competitions, and what is important to them, and what is not.

In other news, I completed my culinary school internship. I was lucky enough to get to work at one of my favorite restaurants in Seattle, Chef Holly Smith’s Café Juanita. The restaurant features Northern Italian cuisine and uses almost entirely local, organic, and seasonal product. Interning there was my first venture into being in a fine dining restaurant’s kitchen, and it was an eye-opening experience. Holly is obsessively committed to quality; each item that leaves her kitchen must meet her high standards. Thanks to this, she has an excellent, award-winning, nationally recognized restaurant.

As an intern, I was on the bottom of the totem pole. I worked four days a week, ten or more hours a day, doing basic prep: stemming thyme, dicing turnips, cleaning greens, shelling crab, and so on. I got to do a few more interesting things, like making some of the basic sauces and curing guanciale and pancetta, but the highlight of the stage was from observing and talking to people. I learned a lot just from watching the line during service, asking questions, and trying to soak in as much information as possible. I was only there for about a month, but it was a month I won’t soon forget.

And, oh, yeah, I finished culinary school. I am now finally, officially, a culinary school graduate, ready to venture out into the big, scary world. Yay! It’s a good feeling to be done. What I will do next is still up for debate, but I hope good things are to come. The future looks delicious.

THIS JUST IN: Exciting Updates at Bring Your Appetite!

First of all, because I think I forgot to say it in my last post, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

All right, that’s done. Now, for some exciting new developments here at Bring Your Appetite! Are you trembling in anticipation?! Aren’t things more exciting when an exclamation mark is put at the end of every sentence?! Sorry. I’ll stop now.

First, I got a new camera!
Andrew did good and got me a Christmas gift that I was definitely in need of! It’s a Pentax Optio A40 and has features like 3x optical zoom and 12 megapixels. This should mean a vast improvement in photo quality on this blog. At least, I hope so. I’m a cook, people, not a photographer, so I do my best! Seriously, though, this camera takes much nicer pictures, even by someone as non-photography savvy as me. Everyone say, “Thanks, Andrew!”

Second, check out the awesome apron my Dad made for me:
Isn’t it cool? I love it. And I’ve been meaning to get an apron as I’m a pretty messy cook and tend to get food all over the place, including on myself when I’m at work. Now I not only have an apron, I have a special customized one that is sure to make me an even better cook. Right? Right. Everyone say, “Thanks, Dad!”

Finally, check this out:
Now, you may be thinking, so? What the heck is the Chef City Grill, where is Lake Washington Technical College, and why should I care? WELL. Chef City Grill is the restaurant run by the culinary arts students at Lake Washington Technical College, which is located in Kirkland, Washington (close to Seattle), and you should care because that is where I have started attending the culinary arts program. Yep, yours truly is officially a culinary student, soon to pass officially into the exciting, scary world of professional cooking. In terms of how this relates to the blog, some of that remains to be seen, but it will certainly have an impact. First of all, while I will continue to write about my at-home culinary adventures, I am certain that I will also be sharing some of my experiences in the culinary program with you. Secondly, and regrettably, I am quite certain that being a full-time student will cut into my blogging time. So, I’ll do my very best to continue to post about three times a week, but some weeks, that may be impossible. But I wanted to let you all know because even if there is a slow week here at Bring Your Appetite, it doesn’t mean I’ve laid my blogging pen to rest. It just means that I am having a crazy week at school, and I will soon return to tell you all about it. Everyone say, “Thanks, Lake Washington Technical College!”

So that’s what’s new and exciting in my life. What’s new with you?

Introductions

Hi, my name is Jessica, and I have a confession to make. Actually, I have a few …

I have never flambéed.

I often substitute bouillon cubes in the place of real stock.

I’m always apprehensive about cooking anything without a recipe.

Until recently, I had no idea what sabayon was. And I only know now because I looked it up on Wikipedia.

I have never dined at a five-star restaurant. In fact, I’m not entirely sure whether or not I have, and doesn’t that make it even worse?

If you asked me now, I couldn’t name a single famous chef who doesn’t have a show on the Food Network.

But these things are also true:

The aromas of sautéing onions, roasting meat, and simmering sauces make me swoon.

I get excited to go grocery shopping.

I try a different recipe nearly every night, and the ones I return to are often the ones I failed at the first time, because I am determined to get it right.

If there is a warning at the top of a recipe that it is difficult, I want to try it even more.

I never think of cooking as work. In fact, cooking dinner is usually the highlight of my day.

When traveling, trying the local food is often more important to me than seeing the famous sights of the place.

I love cooking.

I love food.

My thirst for food knowledge is something that excites and inspires me, and, consequently, is something I want to talk about … all the time. And while my boyfriend Andrew is kind enough to indulge me and listen to my tales of how I got that particular flavor in the ragu, or why I’m going to use more flour in the gravy the next time I make it, I know I would be trying his patience if I went on about this stuff for as long as I want to. And no matter how great one person’s opinion is, it’s always better to get a few more. By keeping all this in mind, the solution for finding more people to discuss my passion for food with has become clear to me: start a food blog. I like writing. I like writing about things that I love. I love food. It’s pretty much a no-brainer.

So follow me on my adventures learning about the wonderful world of food, both exotic and familiar, both complex and simple. If you’re an amateur like myself, maybe you can learn along with me. If you’re a seasoned expert, perhaps, at the very least, you will be entertained. Either way, just don't forget to bring your appetite.