Yep. That's right. I was lucky enough to get an opportunity to participate in one of La QV's "La QV été" wine tasting events back in July, and now it's Michelle's turn. Not only that, but she'll be teaming up with La QV on their final event of their Winesdays season! And she'll be serving a delectable chestnut terrine (!). And if all that wasn't enough to shake you out of your stupor and get you to attend Montreal's most convivial weekly wine tasting event, well, how about this? The wines on offer will be Domaine Bourdy's totally biodynamic (and totally awesome) crémant and Côtes-du-Jura white, and they'll be served by François Bourdy himself. How's that for a monster of a wine event? A veritable Jurassic Lark!
Let's just say that you happen to be living in a place where you can still get some of those beautiful Italian prune plums grown locally. Nice ones. Juicy ones. In October. Yeah, I know--it seems hard to believe, but there are such places.
Let's also say you have a half a loaf of day-old bread kicking around. And let's just say it's half a loaf of a day-old sourdough. Who knows? It might even be half a loaf of a sourdough you baked yourself. It might even be half a loaf of a hazelnut sourdough you baked yourself. It's certainly possible.*
And, finally, let's say that the temperatures at night have been getting a little nippy (as they're supposed to at this time of year, in this part of the hemisphere). And you're in the mood for a lovely fall dessert--a simple one, a heart-warming one.
Well, you've come to the right place.
Michelle got me a copy Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's The River Cottage Cookbook late this summer (better late than never, right?). And although I've found the book full of inspiration, and I've since made good use of it, for some reason, it was one of the book's simplest, homeliest recipes that caught my attention the first time I leafed through it: Fearnley-Whittingstall's bread pudding with plums.
From the moment I laid eyes on it, I just knew I was going to love it. And I couldn't wait for the Italian prune plums to arrive on the scene. Fearnley-Whittingstall doesn't specify a type of plum, although he always insists sourcing the best local ingredients whenever possible, but those Italian prune plums are among my favorites, and I had a feeling they'd pair well with one of my sourdoughs.
I was right.
Plum Bread & Butter Pudding
6-8 large plus, or about 12 Italian prune plums, halved and pitted
1 cup sugar, plus extra for the plums
about 1/2 loaf of day-old bread, preferably sourdough and homemade, possibly even a hazelnut or walnut sourdough
2 tbsp softened unsalted butter
1 vanilla bean
2 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup whole milk
3 eggs
2 egg yolks
clotted cream or crème fraîche (optional, but highly recommended)
Preheat the oven to 400º F.
Place the plums in a baking dish and place about 1/2 teaspoon sugar in the center of each one. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until they are tender and their juices have run. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
Cut the bread into slices that roughly correspond to the depth of the baking dish you'll be using for your pudding. I recommend a square one that's fairly deep. Fearnley-Whittingstall recommends cutting the crusts off the bread, but I love the crusts on my sourdough and I'm fond of them in my bread pudding too. Whichever way you choose, spread the slices of bread with the butter, and use any extra (or, more likely, a bit more butter) to grease the baking dish.
Arrange the buttered bread slices in your greased dish. Place the roasted plum halves between the bread slices, trying to distribute them fairly evenly throughout the pudding-to-be. Plug any glaring gaps by cutting leftover bread slices to fit; your dish should end up full but not overcrammed. Any syrupy juices from the dish in which the plums were baked should be poured over the bread and plum concoction at this stage.
Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and place it in a pan with the cream and milk. Bring them almost to a boil (scald them gently), then remove them from the heat and set aside for a few minutes to allow them to infuse.
In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, egg yolks, and 1 cup of sugar together until they are thoroughly blended. Remove the vanilla bean from the hot cream mixture ("you can rinse it, wrap it in plastic wrap, and use it again," the always resourceful Fearnley-Whittingstall notes), then pour the cram over the eggs and sugar, whisking all the time, until you have a thin but smooth and well-blended custard.
Strain the custard over the bread slowly and carefully, a little at a time, so it can seep and ooze between the cracks. If it looks like it may flood over the sides of the dish, wait a few minutes for it to soak into the bread before adding any more. Don't feel the need to add all the custard, but use enough so that only about 1/4" of the unsoaked bread protrudes out of the custard. The ratio isn't exactly the same, but think of an iceberg, about which it's often been said that 9/10ths sit below the surface of the ocean. In any case, allow the pudding to infuse for at least half an hour before baking.
Preheat your oven to 350º F. Bake the pudding for 30-40 minutes, until the top is golden brown and the custard is just set, but still slightly wobbly in the center.
This pudding is great hot, warm, or cold, and doesn't really need any accompaniment, but it's extra-fine with a dollop of clotted cream or crème fraîche, not to mention a tumbler of bourbon.
Serves 6
1. Patience (After Sebald), dir. Gee
2. Canadian Thanksgiving 2011 (with fresh hazelnuts!)
3. The Book Shop, Penticton, BC
4. The Ides of March, dir. Clooney
5. P.G. Six, Starry Mind (Drag City)
6. hiking, swimming, and picnicking in the Okanagan Valley
7. Wilco, The Whole Love (dBpm Records)
8. Tasting wine in Naramata and Naramata Bench, BC
9. The Waterfront, Kelowna, BC
10. Herman Melville, Moby Dick
aj
Well, now that the cat's out of the bag, I guess we can go ahead and tell you definitively: Yes, the stories are true. As of right now, Michelle is no longer at Laloux. She's moving on.
And her next stop? Well, it's not 207th Street Station in Upper Manhattan, it's the Société des Arts Technologiques' brand-spanking-new FoodLab right here in Downtown Montreal. Are we excited about this turn of events, here at AEB? Again, the photograph above might be a little misleading, but, YES, very!
What can you expect from this bold new venture? Well, for the moment, that's a secret, but we'll be sure to keep you informed of any and all late-breaking FoodLab-related news, as it becomes available.
In the meantime, be sure to check out the Grumman '78-curated "Food Court @ FoodLab," tomorrow, September 30, in the Place de la Paix (adjacent to the S.A.T.), from noon till 7:00 pm. Michelle won't be participating, unfortunately (she'll be on her way to New York to attend StarChefs 2011!), but in addition to the Grumman '78 crew, you'll find representatives from a number of Montreal's most talented purveyors of food & wine, including Fou du Cochon, Nora Gray, and La QV, along with DJs Matt Cerf and Julian Prince.
Finally! The food court that Montreal has been waiting for!
aj
We'd been plotting a pizza pilgrimage (another one) of some sort to New Haven, CT, for some time. Would we visit Frank Pepe's, Sally's Apizza, or Modern Apizza? Would we visit all three? All of them have histories dating back 70 years or more. All of them have their devotees. And all of them have such colorful names. As you can probably tell, we find ourselves going to New York with regularity, and New Haven is only about 80 miles away. New York and New Jersey have no shortage of outstanding pizza, but a side trip to New Haven certainly seemed like a worthwhile (and tasty) way to improve our pizza literacy further.
So, like I said, the New Haven pizza tour was something we'd been thinking about for a good while. But then a couple of things fell into place, and, the next thing we knew it was actually happening. First off, we had a wedding to go to in New York. Secondly, on this particular occasion, we needed to head to New York by way of Eastern Vermont, which meant that if we just continued along Interstate 91 all the way down south, we'd end up in New Haven (yes!). And, thirdly, when I did a little exploratory "what if..." research on New Haven's pizza scene I came across Adam Kuban's "8 Pizzas That Haunt My Dreams" slideshow from 2009, and #8 on the list was the plain tomato pie at Sally's. Not only did that photograph + caption seal the deal ("That's it! There is no question about it! We are going to New Haven!!"), but it placed Sally's at the top of our list.
What do you need to know about Sally's? Well, first off, Sally is a man. Or, at least, he was, god rest his soul. Salvatore "Sally" Consiglio founded his pizzeria way back in 1938, and Sally's Apizza is still a family-owned joint--in fact, Flo Consiglio, Sally's wife, can still be found doing the accounting in her booth on most nights, and Ruth, Bob, and Rick, their children, are still integral to the whole Sally's experience.
Sally's Apizza specializes in New Haven-style Neapolitan pies* baked in a blisteringly hot coal oven. We were close enough to the kitchen to actually see the production line and the pizzaiolo in action, and, let me tell you, it was quite a show. Sally's recalls a time when pizza was still an Italian working-class staple--it's a no-frills operation, that somehow, miraculously, produces these true works of art. Not surprisingly, the backstage banter was absolutely classic.
Anyway, Kuban's write-up had warned us that if you order a large plain tomato pie for yourself, "you can eat for days," and that sounded pretty good to us. Especially when we looked at the menu and saw that it was retailing for $11.80. We weren't going to leave without trying at least one other pie, though, so we scoped out the specials and settled on the white potato pie with rosemary.
Kuban was right. That large plain tomato pie was humongous. It's a simple pizza, one that really shows off the genius of Sally's crust. It comes topped with just a bright and lively tomato sauce and a dusting of grated Parmesan, but you have the option of having thinly sliced garlic added to the mix. We took them up on that offer, partially because Sally's looks like the kind of place where they might actually slice their garlic with a razor blade, the way they did in Goodfellas. We weren't close enough to find out for sure, but I can tell you that that plain tomato pie with extra garlic was awesome, and we were glad we had plenty of leftovers.
The potato pie was yet another classic: basically, just some thinly sliced potatoes, some cheese, and some rosemary topping another perfectly executed crust. It took some will power to resist eating the whole thing on the spot, but we thought it might be nice to have some leftovers of that pie, too. And we were right. It tasted pretty damn good when we finally got to Brooklyn, later that same night. And it tasted even better the following afternoon, when we had a little backyard pizza brunch.
Sally's Apizza, 237 Wooster St., New Haven, CT, (203) 624-5271
* The name, with its Neapolitan dialect, gives away Sally's roots.
We've waxed poetic about the joys of pizza in Vermont on more than one occasion, but if you pick up today's Montreal Gazette, you'll find a new, more comprehensive article on Green Mountain pizza, featuring three of our very favorite establishments:
American Flatbread (of course), Parker Pie Co., and Pizza on Earth.
I would imagine we've all had the experience of going to a restaurant with high expectations, but going to a place like Arthur Bryant's in Kansas City, MO, is an altogether different experience. This is a barbecue joint--a "grease house," as Mr. Bryant used to put it--of the highest order, easily ranking among the 10 most famous in America.
This is an establishment that Calvin Trillin once referred to as, "possibly the single best restaurant in the world," in the pages of Playboy (in an article that later appeared in American Fried). Of course, Trillin hails from K.C. originally, but there was a lot more than just hometown pride behind his claim. There were ribs, there was Arthur Bryant's legendary barbecue sauce, and, most importantly, there were burnt ends.
So when you got to a place like Arthur Bryant's and it actually manages to meet or exceed your expectations, you know you've experienced something special, and that's exactly what happened. I was blown away (which is pretty amazing for a place whose patriarch passed away almost 30 years ago).
I mean, just look at those ribs in the image up top. And you can't tell from the photo, but those beans are the real deal. Tender, smoky, savory, and laced with a major dose of Arthur Bryant's phenomenal burnt ends. Even their fries are excellent. And their brisket? Ridiculously succulent. I haven't had the pleasure of a barbecue tour of Texas (yet), so I'm hardly an expert, but this brisket was a work of beauty.
Arthur Bryant's being a serious barbecue joint, your ribs, your brisket, your bbq pork, etc., all come to you unsauced (unless you're taking them to go, in which case you'll be asked if you want them slathered or not). Arthur Bryant's is world famous, in part, for their sauce, but, generally, the saucing of the barbecue is left up to you, the customer. You take your tray to your table, and there you'll find a battery of Arthur Bryant's special brews: their original sauce, a sweet sauce, and a spicy sauce. Both the sweet sauce and the spicy sauce have their adherents (and with good reason: they're excellent), but Arthur Bryant's true believers all swear by the original recipe, and nothing but. Who can blame them? It's an utterly beguiling barbecue sauce, unlike any other I've ever tasted. Jane and Michael Stern have described the sauce as, "a gritty, red-orange blend of spice and sorcery that is not at all sweet,... packs a hot paprika wallop and tastes like a strange soul-food curry," and, as strange as that last part may sound, there's something to it.
The interior of Arthur Bryant's flagship restaurant is pure mid-20th-century soul,* from its no-nonsense decor, to its cafeteria-style service, to its low-key, down-tempo blues & soul soundtrack. It's also a true barbecue shrine. Arthur Bryant's website features photographs of Tom Watson, Calvin Trillin, and Jimmy Carter under the caption "Our Fans," but its walls feature images of fans like Steven Spielberg and Sally Field alongside African-American heroes like Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Charlie Parker.
That hickory-smoke flavor and the tang of that Arthur Bryant's original sauce lingered deliciously on my fingertips for hours after my visit, even after I'd washed up, but eventually, sadly, they faded away, like everything else in this mean, old world. And ever since, all I can think is: "how the heck will I ever be able to get back to K.C.?" Thank God I left Arthur Bryant's with a bottle of their magical elixir.
Arthur Bryant's
1727 Brooklyn Ave.
Kansas City, MO
(816) 231-1123
aj
* While the Arthur Bryant's tradition has roots that date back to the early 20th century, the 1727 Brooklyn location was established in 1958.
For those of you oyster lovers who've been asleep at the wheel, the third annual Montreal Oyster Festival takes place this Sunday, September 11, from 2:00 PM to 9:00 PM, in Old Montreal.
There'll be thousands upon thousands of oysters, plenty of beer and wine, and all kinds of other edible delicacies on offer, including peach and sour cherry tartlets with bourbon whipped cream by Michelle--served by Michelle herself, along with her two lovely assistants, Natasha and Thea. Stop by and say "hi."
Added bonus: Remember those phenomenal Tomales Bay oysters we told you all about last year (the ones you see in the photograph above)? Well, one of Daniel "Montreal Oysterguy" Notkin's fellow brothers-in-oysters will be hauling some up to Montreal all the way from California for this very occasion. Get psyched. The coast-to-coast selection will be mind-blowing.
The last time I had the pleasure of tasting Montreal Oysterguy's oysters, freshly shucked by his very hands, was at a killer La Q.V. Été event earlier this summer. Not only did we have a selection of fantastically tasty oysters from New Brunswick, Massachusetts, and Washington matched with a lovely Sancerre, but we had the option of buying oysters by the dozen to take home with us, at rock-bottom prices. Yes!
I brought three dozen home with me, and the next night we held our very own oyster festival in the privacy of AEB HQ. And because we had a relatively plentiful amount, and because we'd gotten them at such a good price, we went ahead and prepared them California style: on the grill.
They looked something like this,
and they tasted like paradise.
Never grilled an oyster before? This is what you want to do:
Prepare a medium-hot grill, preferably one that's burning wood or natural charcoal.
Scrub your oysters clean.
Place your oysters on the grill, either directly, or on a piece of aluminum foil. Cover the grill with a lid to get more of that beautiful smoky flavor.
Grill the oysters until they begin to open, about 5-8 minutes. Do not wait until they've all opened. Whatever you do, you don't want to overcook them, and you definitely don't want to dry them out. So, as soon as the first couple open, take 'em all off the grill.
Once you've removed the oysters from the grill, shuck them, leaving each of your oysters with its precious juices in the half-shell. Remember, these oysters will be HOT. They've been grilling. The ones that have begun to open should be easy to shuck. Those that haven't opened up yet will be a little more difficult. Either way, remember to use a towel to handle them, because, again, they will be HOT.
When you've shucked your oysters, add the toppings of your choice. In Tomales Bay we saw all kinds of adventurous combinations being created around us. At Big Sur Bakery, they dressed their wood-fired oysters with a simple California-style mignonette. In the photo above, we went with bacon, parsley, green onions, butter, and grated Parmesan. Kind of a modified Rockefeller vibe.
Place the oysters back on the grill, covered, for another 2-4 minutes. Just long enough for the oysters to come back to temperature and for certain toppings (butter, cheese) to melt.
Remove the oysters from the grill and serve immediately.
