Monday, February 25, 2008

Noma 1: Definitely not your average morning Danish, rev. ed.

noma fig. a: Noma: Nordic Cuisine

There's something downright exhilarating about René Redzepi and Claus Meyer's Noma: Nordic Cuisine (2006). It begins with the photographs that grace the cover and continue throughout the text. Sometimes stark (like the photo above), oftentimes almost absurdly picturesque (like this photograph),

nordic landscape fig. b: landscape by Noma 1

and at times even sublime, much of the impetus behind Noma's photography has to do with situating the restaurant's cuisine within Denmark's formidable landscape, and the impression one gets is of a countryside that's equal measures forbidding and abundant. Thus, alongside pictures of Greenland's desolate glaciers (what remains of them),

greenlandic landscape fig. c: landscape by Noma 2

you get pictures of lovable old Danish hippies carefully collecting herbs

danish hippie fig. d: lovable old Danish hippie

that may very well end up on Noma's artfully composed plates--in this case, Hay-baked Celery Root, Black Pudding and Yellow Archangel, the first of the book's winter recipes.

archangel fig. e: Hay-baked Celery Root, Black Pudding and Yellow Archangel

The thing is, according to Noma's philosophical outlook, Greenland's glaciers and southern Denmark's countryside don't form the strict binary opposition one might think they do. Where others see mountains of ice creeping across the landscape, the folks at Noma see "a rich flora and fauna, with crowberries, reindeer, grouse and musk ox." Bounty is in the eye of the beholder.

Now, if you've noted a little Nordic Pride in my description of the Noma cookbook, you're definitely onto something. Already, when the restaurant first began to take shape, there was the idea that a restaurant housed in an old warehouse that had once been part of the Royal Greenland Trade Enterprise and that would soon be the new site of the Nordatlantens Brygge (North Atlantic House) should have a vision that was pan-Nordic in orientation. But over the next nine months, in the lead-up to the restaurant's launch, Noma's vision really took on form. For one thing, Claus Meyer, the owner, and René Redzepi and Mads Refslund, the restaurant's two chefs at the time, took an extensive trip across the north, including jaunts to the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland, to search for ingredients and begin the process of making the contacts necessary to establish an alternative to the distribution networks available back in Copenhagen. The trip was a revelation, exceeding all expectations, and immediately the three "gastronomic explorers" knew they were onto a good thing, even if it might mean a lot of extra work.

By the time they returned to Copenhagen and began to work in earnest on what would become Noma's cuisine their vision had begun to develop into a full-fledged philosophy. Among its central tenets: take the Mediterranean notion of terroir, as well as the cultivation of biodiversity and the celebration of seasonality that goes along with it, and use it to utterly reject Southern European cuisine and its dominance of fine dining internationally. In other words, develop a cuisine "built on a basis of traditional and non-traditional Nordic ingredients," as Claus Meyer noted after one early planning meeting, one that would give "expression to the seasons' changes in a maximum way, taking things all the way to the limit." By March 2004, just four months into Noma's life, this sort of feistiness, this proudly anti-Mediterranean attitude, was already paving the way to the Nordic Cuisine Symposium, where in true Danish fashion--this is the same country, after all, that gave birth to Dogme 95--they banged together a 10-point manifesto that set the parameters for this New Nordic Cuisine. There were twelve signatories to this manifesto, representing Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, and Greenland, and René Redzepi's signature stands front and center.

manifesto fig. f: manifesto for a New Nordic Cuisine

Anyway, there's a lot here that appeals to us here at "...an endless banquet": seasonality and a focus on indigenous ingredients, Nordic pride and the development of a cuisine that's both innovative and steeped in tradition and that truly represents the region, and, yes, even a manifesto. We've said it before and we're going to say it again: for all the talk about Montreal's "European" flavor, this city, this province, is often at its best when it readily acknowledges its peculiar Nordic character (let's not forget that Montreal is at roughly the same latitude as Milan). Noma: Nordic Cuisine offers a virtual blueprint for how to develop a region's cuisine, how to create a cuisine that truly reflects the terroir, and how to do this within the context of a northerly climate.*

That said, Noma: Nordic Cuisine did present us with a couple of problems. First of all, I would characterize it as being one of those cookbooks that's more interested in spreading the reputation of a particular restaurant and its chef and in communicating with other top chefs than it is in communicating with the amateur. There's nothing necessarily wrong with this approach, of course, but it often results in vagueness when it comes to articulating recipes, and that's certainly the case with Noma. Take the Hay-Baked Celery Root recipe, for instance, which begins like this: "Light the hay with a match, some place away from the kitchen, and burn off the first bit of smoke." The ideas are there, and they're frequently brilliant, but you might have to be a chef (or a psychic) to figure out how to bring them to life. Secondly, Noma's tireless efforts when it came to tracking down indigenous Nordic ingredients means that quite a few of the recipes are impossible to replicate without access to their alternative distribution networks. It might be a little difficult to find local sources for musk ox, yellow archangel, and seakale, but Noma certainly leaves you with the desire to broaden your repertoire of regional and indigenous ingredients, and, overall, there's a surprising amount of overlap between the seasonal specialties there and here: fiddlehead ferns, lobster, hare, jerusalem artichokes, oysters, pears, ramps, and so on.

When it came to actually putting Noma: Nordic Cusine to use, however, we started off very tentatively. Michelle took elements from a couple different recipes and paired them, creating a new breakfast combo all her own. The first was a wonderful spice bread recipe, one that had that exact Northern European spice bread flavor that Michelle had been seeking but had otherwise failed to find. The second was a novel and, quite frankly, ingenious approach to the poaching of an egg, one that allowed for the egg to be aromatized as it cooks--in this case with white truffle oil.** She then added a caramelized scallion as a finishing touch.

Danish poached egg fig. g: spice bread, truffled egg, caramelized scallion

Spice Bread (metric)

5 g cinnamon
5 g clove
2 g nutmeg
2 g green anise
150 g rye flour
150 g wheat flour
20 g baking powder
50 g wholewheat flour
100 g honey, preferably chestnut honey
150 g maple syrup
125 g whole milk
125 g eggs
fresh rosemary
butter and salt

Preheat the oven to 160º C. Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Crush the spices and sift them over the dry ingredients. Stir in the honey and maple syrup, then the milk, and finally the eggs. Place in a buttered loaf pan and bake until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, about 45 min. Let cool on a rack.

Spice Bread (imperial)

1 1/2 cups rye flour
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tbsp baking powder
2 tbsp cinnamon
2 tbsp cloves
1 tbsp nutmeg
1 tbsp green anise
1/3 cup + 1 Tbsp honey
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup milk
2 whole eggs
1 egg yolk

Preheat the oven to 325° F. Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Crush the spices and sift them over the dry ingredients. Stir in the honey and maple syrup, then the milk, and finally the eggs. Place in a buttered loaf pan and bake until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, about 45 min. Let cool on a rack.

Truffled eggs

1 egg per person
truffle oil
microwaveable plastic wrap

The basic method is as follows. Line a coffee cup with a small piece of plastic wrap, making a bowl. Take a small amount of truffle oil and spread it on the bottom. Carefully break an egg into the cup, gather the edges of the plastic up around the egg and twist it tightly closed. Secure it with twine or a twist tie. Repeat with as many eggs as are needed. Bring a small saucepan of water to simmer and maintain its temperature. Drop the eggs into the water and let them poach about 4 minutes. Carefully remove them from the water and gently take off the plastic wrap.

[both recipes from Noma: Nordic Cuisine]

To serve:

Lightly toast the bread and spread it with butter. Top with an egg and a caramelized scallion, season with salt and pepper, and enjoy.


This initial experiment having turned out a smashing success (if a modest one), we decided to take bigger steps with Noma: Nordic Cuisine the next time around.

To be continued...

am/km

P.S. If you'd like to read an actual firsthand account of what it's like to dine at Noma (complete with a whole slew of beautiful photographs)--which just received two Michelin stars in their Main Cities of Europe 2008 guide--check out Very Good Food's in-depth report.

P.S. 2 May 4, 2008: Now The New York Times has published a review of Noma as part of a piece on New Danish Cuisine in Copenhagen. Check it out here.

* More thoughts on cuisine and le grand nord: Just two week ago I attended a conference where one of the presenters, a local poet, waxed poetic (what else, right?) about Quebec's essentially Northern spirit, about the Idea of North that lies at the heart of Québécois culture. Well, as much as I wish this were true on some level, I couldn't help but think that the same culture that declared "Mon pays c'est l'hiver" some forty years ago, has spent the last 50-60 winters focusing its collective energies and fantasies southwards, towards places like Florida and Las Vegas. And, frankly, cuisine here in la belle province oftentimes suffers from the same fixation, which is why Montreal's standout restaurants are the ones that are the most fiercely independent, the ones that recognize that not only does it pay to support local and regional producers, doing so can be a source of inspiration and a sure-fire way to put yourself on the map. Does this mean we're advocating some kind of entrenched provincialism when it comes to cuisine? Of course not, but if you're going to transpose the cuisine of northern Italy or of southwestern France on the Québécois milieu, why not transpose the strong sense of terroir that goes hand-in-hand with those traditions?

** "Whoa! White truffle oil?!? Isn't that as Mediterranean as it comes?" Not at all. Locally harvested truffles figure prominently on Noma's autumn menu. Of course, the truffle we used was Italian, but that's another matter. Those fabulous Tennessean truffles we've been hearing about haven't made their way north in the form of truffle oil yet, to our knowledge.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Sure, there's something to be said for a Whitman's Sampler, but...

outside

Wouldn't you really rather receive something like this?

inside

Chloé brandies her own sour cherries. Then she enrobes them in dark chocolate.

It's enough to turn the most hardened cynic into a foaming-at-the-mouth card-, bouquet-, and boxed-chocolates-wielding Valentine's Day fanatic.

Les Chocolats de Chloé, 375 Roy E., 849-5550

am/km

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Little Old Lady From Cozumel

tortilla press fig. a: tortilla press: Hecho en Mexico

So it was just before Christmas and we were in the process of finalizing our holiday food shopping. Christmas Eve was accounted for, Christmas was accounted for--Boxing Day was the only remaining question mark before New Year's. Except that it wasn't that much of a question mark. We'd enjoyed our Boxing Day meal--a home version of the classic Puerco Asado a la Cubana--so religiously the year before that we knew we wanted to stick with some kind of Latin American-style, slow-roasted pork dish. But the question was, do we repeat last year's recipe, or do we try something brand-new? As much as we love testing out new recipes, there's also something to be said for the tried and true, for tradition, and we're definitely not the kind of people who feel the need to innovate at every turn. So we were leaning towards an encore performance of the Puerco Asado a la Cubana when, suddenly, things took an unexpected turn.

You see, we'd just picked up a lovely pork shoulder from Porc Meilleur at Jean-Talon Market, and I'd already made sure that we had plenty of sour orange juice (i.e. Seville orange juice) at home in the freezer. We didn't need all that much more in the way of ingredients in order to make that succulent Cuban-style pork--just some Mexican oregano and some banana leaves and we were good to go. But when we stopped in at Olives & Épices to pick up the Mexican oregano, our good friends Ethné and Philippe were there, and the next thing we knew we got wrapped up tighter than a pork shoulder in a banana-leaf envelope in a full-on roast pork referendum. It's not that Ethné and Philippe didn't like the sound of our menu--they did--it's just that their book having just come out recently, they had Latin American roast pork ideas of their own.

So they started telling us about Yucatecan Cochonita Pibil and it's safe to say we liked what we heard. Like Puerco Asado a la Cubana, Cochonita Pibil is slow-cooked in a pit (or pib as it's known in the Mayan tongue), and it, too, is traditionally made with a suckling pig, as the Spanish term cochonita implies. As in the Cuban version, the pit barbecue appears primitive--a rectangular pit, 2 feet deep, is lined with stones that are then heated with a wood fire, the meat is then wrapped in banana leaves, placed in a metal container, covered, and slow-cooked for hours--but it requires a great deal of expertise to get optimum results and each community has its ackowledged master/s. Digging a pit in Montreal in December poses a bit of a problem to those aspiring to make a truly authentic Cochonita Pibil for the holidays, but, as with Puerco Asado a la Cubana, it's possible to make a convincing and utterly delicious home version. The primary difference between the two dishes has to do with marinades: while the Puerco Asado a la Cubana's consists primarily of simple blend of garlic, sour orange juice, and herbs, the Cochonita Pibil's is even more exotic, with the gorgeous color and haunting flavor of achiote seeds (bixa orellana, the outer layer of the hard seed of a tropical tree native to the Yucatan that's also known as anatto or annatto in English, rocou in French) playing a prominent role.

The Cochonita Pibil seemed like a perfect compromise--some degree of familiarity, some degree of innovation--and we were already sold on the idea, when Philippe sealed the deal: he took us to his freezer and told us about the Little Old Lady From Cozumel. Now, I'm not sure what kind of car, if any, the Little Old Lady From Cozumel drives, and I have no idea if she's a hot-rodder, but I do know that she makes her Recado Rojo--achiote paste--according to a time-honored recipe, and that the De Viennes have a contact in neighboring Cancun who ships her Recado Rojo to Montreal fresh on a regular basis. Of course, you could make your own Recado Rojo (and you'll find directions to do so below), but chances are you've never had a traditional Yucatecan Cochonita Pibil before--we certainly hadn't. That being the case, why wouldn't you want the Little Old Lady From Cozumel on your team, helping things along?

yucatecan pork fig. b: Cochonita Pibil with fresh tortillas and refried black beans

Cochinita Pibil, a.k.a. Yucatecan "Pit-Barbecued" Pig

4-lb pork shoulder
banana leaves, thawed and wiped clean
4 tbsp recado colorado or recado rojo (recipe follows)
6 cloves garlic
1/2 cup Seville orange juice or mild white vinegar
2 tsp salt

Pierce the pork shoulder all over and rub in 2 teaspoons of the salt and 2 tablespoons of the juice.

Crush the garlic cloves and mix them with the recado colorado and the remaing Seville orange juice. Smear this mixture all over the pork shoulder making sure to cover it thoroughly.

Wrap the pork in the banana leaves and allow to season in the refrigerator for a minimum of 6 hours and preferably overnight.

Preheat the oven to 300º.

Place a rack at the bottom of a Dutch oven and set the wrapped meat on it. Add the water and cover the dish with a tightly fitting lid. Cook for 2 1/2 hours. Remove the Dutch oven from the oven. Turn the meat and baste it well with the juices at the bottom of the dish. Place the Dutch oven back in the oven and cook for another 2 1/2 hours, or until the meat quite literally falls off the bone and shreds with ease.

After you return the pork to the oven to finishing cooking, prepare the sauce.

sauce:
1/2 cup finely chopped red onion
3 habañero chiles, minced
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup seville orange juice or mild white vinegar

Mix all the ingredients together. Set aside to mellow for 2 hours.

To serve the pork, shred the meat roughly. Pour the fat and juices from the pan over it. Serve hot with tortillas and condiments and the sauce in a separate dish so that each person can make his or her own tacos.

[recipe based on Diana Kennedy's Cochonita Pibil from The Essential Cuisines of Mexico and on Ethné and Philippe de Vienne's Cochonita Pibil from La Cuisine et le Goût des Épices]


If you don't happen to live in Montreal, and therefore don't have access to the Little Old Lady From Cozumel's magic via Olive et Épice's freezer, or if you absolutely insist on making your own Yucatecan recado, here are two different versions:

Recado Colorado

1/4 cup achiote seeds
1 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp clove
1/2 tsp cumin
2 tsp dried mexican oregano, Yucatecan if possible
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp powdered chile seco Yucateco or hot paprika
Seville orange juice or mild white vinegar

In an electric spice grinder, grind the achiote seeds, cumin, oregano, peppercorns, and allspice together in a fine powder.

Add just enough Seville orange juice or vinegar to make a firm paste.

[recipe from Ethné and Philippe de Vienne's La Cuisine et le Goût des Épices]

Simple Recado Rojo

4 rounded tbsp achiote seed
1 tsp crushed dried Mexican oregano, preferably Yucatecan
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp mild black peppercorns
12 whole allspice
3 tbsp water, approximately

Mix the spices and grind one third of the quantity at a time--or as much as your spice grinder can safely accomodate at a time. Make sure to grind them as finely as possible. Sift the ground spices through a fine strainer and grind the residue once again. Stir the water in gradually and mix well to a stiff paste.

If you are not going to use the paste immediately, form it into a round thick cake and divide into four pieces. Wrap well and store in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator. This method makes it easier to use later.

To dilute for use, crush this amount with about 20 small garlic cloves and sea salt to taste, and dilute to a thin cream with bitter orange juice or its substitute, a mild vinegar.

[recipe from Diana Kennedy's The Essential Cuisines of Mexico]


Our default salsa is a blackened tomato salsa that I devised a number of years ago after a trip to California, but this meal was begging for a Yucatecan version, so that's exactly what we made. Two words of advice: 1) don't fear the habañeros and 2) use the best tomatoes you can get your hands on. If you don't yet have a salsa that you call your own, this Salsa Xi Ni Pek is pretty much a perfect fresh salsa and it's dead-simple to make. Win-win.

salsa fresca fig. c: Salsa Xi Ni Pek

Salsa Xi Ni Pek, a.k.a. Yucatecan fresh salsa

1/2 cup tomatoes, finely chopped
1/2 cup red onion, finely chopped
2 habañeros, finely chopped
1/4 cup Seville orange juice or mild white vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp finely chopped cilantro

Mix all the ingredients and let stand 30 minutes to allow the flavors to mingle.

[recipe from Ethné and Philippe de Vienne's La Cuisine et le Goût des Épices]


We hadn't made corn tortillas in quite some time--Tortilleria Maya, nearby, has made us lazy--but Philippe insisted that if we were going to the lengths of making Cochonita Pibil that we absolutely had to make our own tortillas (hence the photo up-top). Who were we to argue?

Corn Tortillas

1 1/4 pounds tortilla masa
water if needed
2 1-litre plastic bags for pressing tortillas

If the tortilla masa has been freshly made [we wish!], it will probably be the right consistency for working immediately--a soft, smooth dough. If the masa has been sitting around and drying out a little, then add a very little water and knead until it's smooth and pliable, and not the slightest bit crumbly.

Divide the dough into 15 equal parts--each should weigh just over 1 ounce (30 g)--and roll them into smooth balls about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Place all but one of the balls under plastic wrap so they do not dry out.

Heat an ungreased comal or griddle or cast-iron pan over medium heat. Open up the tortilla press and place a small plastic bag on the bottom plate. Place a ball of the dough on the bottom plastic bag, a little off center toward the hinge rather than the pressing lever, and press it out with your fingers to flatten it a little. Cover with the second platic bag and press down firmly but not too violently. Open the press, remove the top bag, lift the bottom bag up in one hand, place the dough onto the fingers of your other hand, and very carefully peel the bag off the flattened dough. Do not try to peel the dough off the bag.

Keeping your hand as horizontal as possible, lay the tortilla flat onto the comal/griddle/cast-iron pan. There should be a slight sizzle as the dough touches the surface of the comal. Leave for about 15 seconds; the underside will have opaque patches and be slightly speckled with brown. Flip the tortilla over onto the second side and cook for another 30 seconds; the underside should now be opaque and speckled. Flip back onto the first side again and cook for 15 seconds more.

If you have done everything correctly and the comal is the right heat, the tortilla should puff up, showing that the extra moisture has dried out of the dough.

As the tortillas are made, they should be placed one on top of the other in a basket lined with a cloth to preserve the heat and keep them moist and supple.

Tortillas can be made ahead and reheated and they can also be frozen.

[recipe from Diana Kennedy's The Essential Cuisines of Mexico]


Was the Cochonita Pibil good? Do you even have to ask? It was phenomenal. I mean, just look at that photo above. Now, I'm not sure that that picture is worth a thousand words, but it is worth a least a few and all of them are making me hungry.

Oh, and if you're worried about taking the plunge with achiote paste, worried that you're not ready to commit to making Yucatecan Barbecued Pork more than once over the next several months, or if you're just not that into pork in the first place, fret not. Achiote paste makes for an outstanding and substantially less involved Yucatecan "Barbecued" Chicken too, as we found out just a few days later.

Pollo Pibil, a.k.a. Yucatecan "Barbecued" Chicken

1 chicken, cut into pieces
4 tbsp achiote paste
4 tbsp water
salt to taste
1 large banana leaf, torn into two pieces and cleaned with a wet paper towel
2 tbsp lard or vegetable oil
1 white onion, sliced thinly
2 tomatoes, sliced
1 tsp achiote paste

Prick the chicken pieces all over with a fork. Dilute the achiote paste with water and set 1 tsp aside. Thoroughly rub the remainder, along with the salt, into the chicken.

Wrap the banana leaf around the chicken to make an envelope. Set it aside to season, refrigerated, for several hours or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 375º F.

Heat the oil or lard in a skillet and fry the onion until translucent. Add the tomatoes and the extra teaspoon achiote paste and fry the slices gently on both sides.

Unwrap the chicken. Put half the onion and tomato under the chicken and the other half on top. Wrap it up again to make a tight envelope.

Place the envelope into a Dutch oven and cover it tightly. Cook for 20 minutes. Turn it over, baste with the juices, and cook for another 20 minutes, or until just tender and cooked through. Do not overcook.

Turn the oven up to 450º F, remove the cover, open up the leaf, and let the chicken brown on top.

Serve, still wrapped in the banana leaf, with fresh tortillas and condiments of your choosing.

[recipe adapted from Diana Kennedy's The Essential Cuisines of Mexico


This chicken was another huge coup. One particularly enthusiastic guest declared that it was the best Mexican-style chicken he'd ever had, anywhere: California, Mexico, whatever.

How's that for a flurry of recipes?

aj

Saturday, February 09, 2008

The Taste of Comfort, Winter 2008

With things looking something like this around Montreal at the moment,

birch, mount royal cemetery fig. a: birch tree, Mount Royal

we need our simple pleasures, our sources of comfort.

Mahrousé's sweets fig. b: pistachio pastries, Pâtisserie Mahrousé

1. Michelle and I have long been fascinated with Montreal's largely overlooked Petite Belgique neighborhood, a tiny sliver of the north end of the city tucked between Boul. de l'Acadie and Rue St-Hubert that includes Avenue d'Anvers, Rue de Liège, and, yes, even the miniscule Avenue des Belges. Predictably, a lot of our interest in this neighborhood stems from the fact that it's a treasure trove for those who appreciate good food, and one of la Petite Belgique's greatest gems is Pâtisserie Mahrousé, a humble Rue de Liège storefront that just happens to produce some of the city's finest, freshest, and most subtle Middle Eastern pastries. We're especially fond of their wide variety of pistachio pastries, like the beauties you see pictured above.

Pâtisserie Mahrousé, 1010 Rue de Liège W., 276-1629

cream earl grey fig. c: Cream Earl Grey, Un Amour des Thés

2. Montreal, "the Paris of the North," is a city that, like Paris, is much more closely associated with coffee than it is with tea. In fact, Montreal might actually be more coffee-centric than Paris, which, after all, is home to Mariages Frères, Betjeman and Barton, La Maison des Trois Thés, and several other top-flight salons de thés. Montreal is no Paris, of course, but that doesn't mean its tea lovers are completely without options. Camellia Sinensis is the city's most accomplished tea house and tea shop, and the only absolute "must" for tea aficianados visiting from out of town, but there are a number of neighborhood tea merchants that also hold their own. Un Amour des Thés is probably Outremont's best tea shop, and we've recently fallen in love with their Cream Earl Grey blend. It's so smooth that it requires neither any cream, nor any sweetener, but that hasn't stopped us from giving it a little shot of each to make it even smoother, even more comforting. After years of favoring the feminine charms of "the Lady," Lady Grey, this blend has made us believers in "the Earl" again.

Un Amour des Thés, 1224 avenue Bernard, 279-2999

aj

ps--TY, S.B.!

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Happy Chinese New Year

chinese bakery, nyc

"Chinese Bakery, NYC"

aj

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Which side are you on?

det. "pure canadian honey" fig. a: det. "honey vs. sugar," a.k.a. "pure canadian honey"

it's all I can do
it's all I can say
I will send you to your mama next payday
send you to your mama next payday
got no use for the red rocking chair...
got no sugar baby now
--Dock Boggs, "Sugar Baby"

I've done all I could do
and I've said all I could say
and I'll send you to your mama next payday
and I can't go on living this a-way
and I ain't got no honey baby now
and I ain't got no use for your red apple juice
and I ain't go no honey baby now
--Benji Aronoff, "Red Apple Juice"

Whether you're in need of a little sugar or a little honey, we, here at "...an endless banquet," have got you covered. Our brand-new 2008 postcard series-- "honey vs. sugar/sugar vs. honey"--is hot off the presses, "Printed in Canada" on high-quality card stock in glorious black and white, and ready to be mailed around the globe to anyone you know who might need a spoonful. Send us a mere $3 (CAN) via cheque or paypal and your address, and we'll send you a set of two postcards plus our latest full-colour (!) AEB "golden delicious" bookmark

golden delicious bookmark fig. b: the new AEB bookmark: it works!

anywhere in the world, from Needlemore to New York, Mile End to the Mission, Tulsa to Timbuktu. For more details, drop us a line.

aj

Friday, February 01, 2008

top ten #23

benji aronoff

1. Benji Aronoff, The Two Sides of Benji Aronoff

2. Eastern Promises, dir. Cronenberg

secret ingredients

3. Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food & Drink, ed. David Remnick

4. The Office (U.S.), seasons 2 & 3

5. Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

quinces 2008

6. quinces

7. Sullivan's Travels, dir. Sturges

8. La Caprese

in the future

9. Black Mountain, In The Future

10. Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities, vol. 2

aj