I love caribou meat, but I guess not this year

I love caribou meat and serve it at the restaurant until a client made a comment. After a bit of research I realized that there is some concern about this powerful beast. So I adopted my caribou George from WWF, fuck, we all do at one time or another. Because as we know it is not necessarily what we source and eat, but often what we are not eating. The text below is taken from Environment Canada, Species at risk. good reading for good eating.

There are many threats that directly and/or indirectly affect local populations of boreal caribou and their habitat, including:

• habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation;

• predation, mainly by wolves and bears;

• over-harvesting (hunting, poaching);

• noise and light disturbance (from forestry; oil, gas and mining operations; low-level aircraft flights; use of snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles);

• parasites and disease; and

• changes in weather and climate.

The main threat to boreal caribou is unnaturally high predation rates as a result of habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation (the breaking up of continuous habitat into smaller pieces). These habitat alterations impact boreal caribou in many ways. Firstly, the clearing of forests and building of roads for industrial activities reduces the amount and quality of habitat available in which the boreal caribou can live and reproduce. In addition, these activities often lead to an increase in area of young forests, favouring species such as deer, moose and elk, which then increase in number. This increase in the number of deer, moose or elk in turn supports a higher number of predators, such as wolves. Finally, large-scale habitat alterations can also affect boreal caribou by making it easier for predators such as wolves to move across the landscape and prey on caribou. The resulting increase in predation can have a serious impact on boreal caribou, causing their populations to decline.

last of the fiddleheads, rabbit chorizo and the communion at le Presbytère

"...all my vital memories are of these first years. These were the days when I smelled the bread, I saw my first red poppy, the moon, the innocent seeing. Since then these memories have become iconography, the shapes even the colors: millstone, red earth, yellow wheatfield, apricots etc."

Archile Gorky

Reading this I was reminded of my grandfather, Janus, of Latvian decent who was a farmer. As a child I would carefully walk through the massive vegetable garden he grew. For me it was like a buffet, picking a carrot here, a radish there, a green onion, quickly rinsing them before I ate them. Not to mention all the wild blueberries, raspberries and strawberries which grew in abundance in and on the periphery of the dense forest surrounding our cottage. These I ate directly from the plant, until one late afternoon I saw the drunken neighbour pissing on my favorite blueberry patch. Lesson learnt. The innocent seeing. A powerful phrase.

As I drove towards the Centre du Québec region with Fromagerie du Presbytère in mind, I had a few other places I wanted to visit beforehand. I had quickly jotted the address and phone number of a company in Pierreville who pickles fiddleheads and cattails (quenouilles). Down highway thirty I decided that I would get some more asparagus from La Sublime Asperge. Why not. I pass by, but there is a shortage because of the weather. I buy a mere 5 lbs at 3.50 a lbs. Normal production he tells me is around 1500lbs a day. I leave surrounded by immense stretches of farm lands which seem to me to be vast expanses of mono crops, corn, soy, corn, soy. I thread through a few minor highways, along the Yamaska river again and see a sign announcing asparagus for sale. I U-turn and pull in. A tall young guy looking like a hockey player comes out with a friendly smile. Funny I thought, not the build, the 'type' I associate with asparagus, but then what type should be selling asparagus? He presents himself immediately as Julien and asks me my name. One of the few, and we talk. There is none of the bustle of La Sublime Asperge, or the decor. The point of sale is his garage with a fridge in the back. Nothing kitsch, no frills, no campagnaisms. I see a paper tacked to the wall. Ferme Besner Pagé, Julien Pagé, élevage de lapins, culture d'asperges. Rabbits. I taste his asparagus. It is true. It tastes like a great asparagus, but there is something more complex to the Sublime Asperge`s, which are delicious. Price too. Julien has them at 2.25 a lbs. I buy 20lbs for the resto, and a couple of lbs for home, as well as a whole rabbit and a few rabbit chorizos. In the car I tear open one of the chorizo and devour it. Beautiful. Something one realizes is worth the voyage.

Off again over the bridge at Yamaska, highway 132 east in Odanak, Pierreville region. At a stop sign I read; Channa, Arrêt, Stop. A trilingual stop sign. I look over and see a sign Indian Reserve Abanakis d'Odanak. Driving thr0ugh the reserve along the Saint Francois river with a delicate sun over everything. A sublime moment. I kept on driving expecting a sign for the fiddleheads. Nothing. I pulled over and ask a Québecois man who scratches his head and tells me that the address that I have might be the right one 'Nothing here is what it seems.' Ok. I go back to the address, someone's home and ask two guys fixing a car if this is Fougère et cie. Oui. He disappears in the house and out comes a short woman with a generous smile. The company, she tells me, no longer exists. All the labeling laws....the cost of analyzing all the products for labeling of nutritional value etc...So now she takes care with a local community center. Just as well. Nonetheless she takes me across the road into the bushes and schools me on fern plants edible and not. The one we can eat in Canada is the ostrich fern (la fougère à l'autruche) I look through the bushes, the bramble with little plants popping up everywhere, and don`t see any. The season is already finished. She shows me different varieties, and the differences meticulously explaining the differences, which one's to 'cultivate' although wild. 'those which look like a mini celeri rib are the one's we want and those we eat are the sterile ones'. They will return year after year in the same place. We walk through a fern patch which is already more than knee high. I turn and Yolande opens her hand. A fat green fiddlehead. Ah. 'These are really the last ones of the year.' We spend 10 minutes looking close to the ground for more, easier I must say than morel hunting. This year they cultivated for only 10 days. A ten day season! I was more determined than ever to find some, any. In the end I had 12. At least she tells me I have my entree when I get home. She invites me to come back next year a little earlier to pick them. As for the cattail, there are none yet, but if I gave her my number she'll call me when they are ready. Yes, I will be there. I ask her about the Channa. Québec she tells me voted to have unilingual Stop signs in 2004. The law does not apply on an Indian reserve. Pretty cool I thought.

I navigate through the web of byways and little towns consisting of a couple of houses, past another dozen villages with the Saint something name. Started thinking about empires. I was amazed to think that the world was not made up of one race or one language. Incredible that through all the brutalily of empires whether Roman, Turkish, or English... that they really never succeeded. I was amazed to think of the variety in the world, so many languages, so many cultures. There is something comforting in that, the history of resilience humanity has....this intense history of opposition seems to be humanity's real history. I turn onto the 259 south and down to Saint Perpétue. I ask around town where to find rang St-Edmond. Someone easily indicates a right at the store, and a left. When I get there it is closed. Shit. The chances one takes sometimes. Stupid I thought. Could have called. So I call. Hello, yeah, are you open, no, domage, when would you like to visit, well, uh, I am standing in front right now. Wait a moment. Two minutes later a woman comes walking down the highway to meet me. Down to business. She unlocks the store and after an elaborate ritual of changing according to the MAPAQ norms she brings out a little tasting platter. Goat yogurt, 3 day old goat cheese, a sort of strong camembert with a washed rind still with no name reminding me of something out of the Haut Savoie mountains, savoureux de biquette and délice de Fiona an incredible mix of yogurt and fresh goat cheese perfect for a dessert with maple and rhubarb. Maryse and her husband originally arrived from Switzerland 17 years ago and have been raising goat and cows for some time and began the fromagerie in 2005. Their cheeses are great, but the yogurt spectacular. No gelatin, no thickening agents, just a straight slightly acid yogurt, so far the best that I have ever tasted. I fill up the cooler with as much as I can and looking at my watch realize I am going to miss le Presbytère. In twenty they close and Maryse tells me they are about 40 minutes away. Fuck. I through the cooler in the trunk and race.

I call the fromagerie and tell the young girl who I am and if I can pass a cheese order. They close at four. Oh please, I know Jean Morin, tell him it is me, it is a tradition, somehow I am always late. She sighs. I pass the order and begin to speed. 10, 20, 30, 40 over the speed limit. J man, relax, you are in the country. Then, paf, I hit a bird. I slow down. Feeling like shit. I hate being late. I hate the thought of the bird's mate flying around maybe strangely wondering about the disappeared mate. Ok, don`t get too emotional, things happen. I cut through a few rangs, the farmer way as they say, and arrive 20 minutes late, but Morin is changing the recycling bin and waves. Inside, he pulls out a 5 kg piece of his Louis d'Or and a few beers and chat in the late afternoon sun. He is in fact one of the founder`s of Ancêtre, and realized that one of his passions was to make fine cheese. The fromagerie`s building which they bought in 2004 is the old town's presbytery which is in fact still shared with the local parish, the priest's office upstairs He giggles, full of blessings, and cutting me a piece of cheese calls it my communion. After having visited the Jura region for technique and friends from Gré des Champs he decided to begin his own. Along with his brother they were well aware what the touristic value of having a good artisanal cheese can be for the region, a region they love enormously. We talk of organic in general, and how since Québec has no real form of AOC or certification, organic at least is an assurance that many European countries have. His cows, Jersey and Holstein, are fed entirely with what they grow on their land, We drink more beer, and he brings out his Bleu d'Élizabeth, one incredible bleu cheese, creamy, less salty than most, piquant, with the right amount of rot. One of the best blue cheese's in Québec. Some clients come, and although he is closed he serves them, and that is what I realize with Jean Morin, he loves what he does. It is not simply a way to make money, it is a lifestyle, it is the fabric of life, the love of meeting others and the sharing of the effort of his vision of thing, the language of a good cheese.

Cage au corn, the first asparagus and organic bikers

Mai 9th, mother's day. Woke up. Michèle is back from Argentina and New York. Familiar sounds. Cold. Difficult to get out of bed. Maybe it is the biography on Gorky I read the night before. Terrifying. Maybe it was the wine. I get up and open the curtains...of course, snow. The trees below St Joseph`s Oratory are lush and green in contrast with this dense cloud of falling snow is very pointillist, blurred and kind of annoying. Call my mom, she is great, life is great. Something that makes me happy.

Not the type of visiting a farm weather, but there always seems to be something more intimate, more physically acute with this kind of weather....

We decide to visit a few fromageries that we have always passed on previous trips in the Sorrel Tracy area and the Centre du Québec region. Highway 30, powerful landscapes of industrial and immense flat farm lands. Why bother at all visiting these places? I was reminded while driving of when I lived in Rome that I did the exact same thing, I set out every weekend to Termini, looked at the train schedule, consulted a guide book and made my way through the Italian country side to cities and small towns, searching for something, something elusive but always this movement, this physical dimension which seems to be so necessary to even every religion, we cannot ignore the body, the senses and its complex relation to our wonder, our imagination, our selves. Sorrel Tracy, blue collar town, big industrial buildings everywhere, lining the Richelieu river, brown bricks, quaint houses, balconies of another time. Hunger, that magnificent master of the human race, gives order, we park the car and wander Sorrel in search for a quick bite. The cold biting wind does not lend to a thorough search of downtown Sorrel, but then neither does its size. We settle for a restaurant which looks decent. Mother`s day. Big tables with their families. Wonderful to see so many generations at a single table. A reminder of the true fabric of any society...of any healthy society. We order, our plates come, and elements return, befuddling elements of North American life...pre-made sauces, frozen veggies, bread with an undesirable longevity. This big monumental idiocy of the prefab which has strangled so much, and here we are eating it again, like some strange tautological toxin, some constant subtle threat, hating it and eating it because hunger demands it. Maybe mass produced is cheap, but the exchange rate may be even worse.

We leave, Boulevard Friset. Fromagerie Riviera. Already we are confronted with an immense ugly building, we pass the loading docks and park near the entrance. It might as be Zellers or Walmart. Two young girls are serving customers and look like if they were selling shoes or rubber peaches it would really have been the same. I check the cheese selection. Swiss, curds, cheddar, herbed cheddar, vegetable cheddar, all sorts of fucked with cheddar...bbq cheese strips. Ok. I hear Michèle ask one if they give dégustation and one of the cashiers responds quickly, No. Ok. We have entered another universe. Generic cheese for generic tastes. Silently I am screaming against the universe and everything that is shit in it, but I hear Michèle ordering a frozen yogurt. I pick up some BBQ cheese because the idea seems so absurd that I need humour myself. Grounds for revolution. We leave, laugh, wondering what a place like that is doing on the Route des Fromages. Perspective. We pull out for the next fromagerie in Saint-Cyrille. I eat my BBQ cheese, Michèle refusing, but what the fuck I think I guess it is better than Kraft. Or maybe not. It always depends the politics behind the purchase, their policy.

On our way through the back highways we notice a sign advertising asparagus. Rang St-Thomas. We slow and turn. All these fields, real farm country and we ask ourselves what is everyone growing, to whom? We see a type of huge upright rectangular cages with tons and tons of corn in it, rotten looking, and what it was doing there? Like some strange post modern sculpture. On we go, past countless hippy and punk rock scarecrows in front of people's front yards...a mystery we have yet to solve. I catch up to a Porsche, we laugh in our crappy little car and find La Sublime Asperge which the Porsche also turns into. Kind of a bric a brac entrance whose bouncer seems to be a sculpture of an angel with her wings chopped off. Follow a little path we are suddenly in a little back room where cagettes of asparagus are being pulled out by Simon and Nicole, like some black market trading. There is a lot of coming and going, clients coming in not knowing if they want food, or salvation, a lot of confusion it seems. They offer us to eat raw asparagus, and shit they are good. But what is going on here? I see two tags on a string with colourful clothes pins reading Toque and Pied de Cochon. Ah. I understand. Tasty. I buy some for the restaurant and ask if they deliver, yes of course, and then Nicole shoots off all the top restaurants in Montréal, it seems more like a cult than an asparagus grower. There are too many customers, our questions are kind of flooded by necessity. We are processed, smiles, nice people....What I did gather is that they took over from a neighbour whose land could not take it any longer (apparently asparagus production has a 15 to 20 commercially viability) and taking her know how continued the tradition for ten years now. From May to June. Barely two months, that is the story of asparagus. But a passionate two months she tells us. Otherwise he teaches. Why not. I buy ten pounds aware that thirty Montréal restaurants are obsessed by this one place.Hype? Voodoo? Product? Something to research.

Asperges au beurre bio et oeuf cuit dur ...kept simple

10 very fresh knife cut green asparagus quick blanched for 2 minutes
2 tbs organic butter
2 diced hard boiled eggs
pinch of merquen

put a tbs of the butter in a hot pan (medium heat) until it bubbles, add asparagus with a little fleur de sel and cracked pepper and cook gently until heated through. Remove, putting 5 on each plate. Add the other tbs of butter to the pan and add the diced hard boiled egg, pinch of merquen. Spoon mixture evenly over the asparagus with the butter (use some good bread and soak up the remains in the pan!) Delicious!

Out of Saint Aimé, cross the Yamaska river, beautiful, yet looks like an agricultural river. Would probably not fish in it. In Amerindian it means 'where rushes grow'. Michèle spots another cheese place nearby, Coop Agrilait, Fromage St-Guillaume. In the 1940's she reads, around fifty dairy farmers group to form the Coop of Agrilait. This is good I thought. This kind of empowerment. Controlling production and sales as a group instead of simply being an employee. I'd love to create a Coop, always weary of the lazy though.... I still have no cheese for the cheese plate at the restaurant, and when we pull into the address and realize that it is also a gas station and hardware store, perhaps it will have to stay that way. We walk around, once again, cheddar, swiss, grain cheddar and something called Fromage pour grillé. Cheese to grill, or grill cheese. All surrounded by the same crappy junk food you would find anywhere, and shovels, and propane, but then again a coop is better than a multinational. I buy an aged cheddar and the 'grill cheese'. We ask for directions to Saint Cyrille, lovely people.

Fromagerie Lemaire. Same type of building. Big. They have a cantine. Oh fuck. It is going to be more poutine cheese. Sure enough. Same kind, same types, same odor, same marbled cheddar, same strange floors. Promising the same selection of 'fine cheeses', but the truth I guess it really is who you are addressing. At the counter I notice a package of Lemaire instant powder gravy for poutine. Under it cans of St-Hubert BBQ sauce. We smile awkwardly to the young workers on the other side of the counter. Dispirited, feeling out of place we leave without buying anything. Back in the car I start thinking, they have been around for 52 years...and fresh cheddar is tasty. I get out and return, buy some fresh cheese, something which they are famous for. Pretty good, nothing out of the ordinary, but pretty good.

Off again. Fromagerie Ancêtre. On the other side of the St Lawrence river from Trois Rivière. Organic. Walking in we found the same formula as the previous fromageries, cheddar, swiss, grainy, but this time organic. Three couples walk in, bikers, all with Harley Davidson jackets...talking about how organic is making life better for everyone. 'Tabarnak, c'est juste plus normal. Christ j'ai vu sur Youtube des affaires foqués.' And that could very much sum it up. Organic does not mean elitist either. I bought a case of their organic butter and a bit of cheese reassured that a great alliance was taking place without much else being said, it felt like the right place to be, and although I did not have a cheese plate for the week, it did not matter; I'll make some déclinaison with asparagus or some such thing, but on second thought when found this fresh perhaps simply sautéed in some organic butter may be just right.

Pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Lourdes, the blind man and the bison

Although I was driving on land I was thinking about water, huge bodies of it with its hidden abyss beneath. I pictured myself suspended on the water`s surface in a state of wonder and terror with everything beneath me that I could not see, half known, half imagined....Overwhelmed by being a living creature. Overwhelmed that a pumpkin should exist, by watching a raven with its head buried in a dead raccoon`s guts, by our need for food. I need more cheese. I am doing a little gig for the English consulate for election night and was thinking of raw milk cheese and then something from a bison farm La Terre des Bisons. The thing about the consulate is that they are people that you want to share these discoveries with, people with interest, with taste, a great couple. People one would love to see more and more of in positions of power. Oh well, suffice it with luck to be able to do this with them anyway.

Region of Lanaudière. L'Assomption, L'Epiphanie, Saint-Gérard-Majella, Sainte-Marie-Salomé, Saint-Paul, Saint-Thomas, Saint-Pierre, Saint-Charles-Borromée...this has to be the highest density of towns by the names of Saints in the world. Then I arrive at Notre-Dame-de Lourdes. A little town of 2000 people. I probably would have never had a reason to visit this town if it was not for my pilgrimage to the Fromagerie Du Champ à la Meule. I pull into the drive way wondering about the sick, the disabled, people living in fear of some immediate catastrophe, those who don't and will never have enough . Out of the car there is only silence. I can smell freshly mowed grass. I think how fortunate some of us are, like now, about to taste some raw milk cheese, which is senseless compared to most of the world's sufferings....I think about Bernadette Soubirous and all those Marian apparitions she had back in 1858 and how the town of Lourdes changed forever, apparently 2nd to Paris for density of hotels. Impressive. I suddenly began to appreciate a thing like having taste buds, transmitting all those wild colours of taste to me, for better or for worse.

Du Champs a la Meule begun in 1995 by Martin Guilbault. Raw milk, artisan cheese. We start with the Fétard, semi ferme, washed rind with Maudite bière. Slightly bitter, creamy, pungent. Rich, firm, with a hint of earth, roast butter and subtle aromas of fruit. To my left through a window the room where they mix their milk, an ubiquitous sight now in most fromageries. There is nothing there though. I would prefer to see the cows which now belong to their neighbour. It always seems to me that these little windows were put there as a rebuke to the paranoia of the MAPAQ. Anyway. Next La Terre Promise, like an emmenthal, more subtle, piquant, butter and almonds aged minimum 4 months. A great complex cheese. Then the Victor et Berthold duo. First a 2 month and then a 4 month reserve. The first, pate presser non cuite, hazelnuts, butter, floral with herbal whispers. Creamier texture than the two first. The 4 month is slightly more pungent with obvious intensification of taste. These would do very well for the consulate. I buy a few kilos asking M. Guilbault's niece if there was a grotto or something celebrating Soubirous` visions. Not really, closer to Rigaud or somewhere. I leave. The sun is being swallowed a dark gangs of clouds.

Driving along this country road there is a feeling of tranquility. I remember the insular feeling of driving up the mountains in France in Haute Savoie to taste Reblochon cheese. Intimate discoveries which taught me just how much a land and people could do. These were locals outside the marketing racket, a racket in which we each now feel an inevitable pull to learn, perfect....To crack me out of these wandering thoughts I see a blind guy walking along the highway. What he did out here I could only imagine.

I turn onto Rue du Lac Marchand and then onto a semi dirt road. Meet with Josée and her husband. We talk a little at random, a flux between the personal and the professional. They bought their lands in the early 90`s as a form of investment and rented them out. But this would not even cover the taxes. They began with some chickens and veal but then slowly started thinking about other markets. They needed an animal which was a little independent, they thought emu, ostrich but they were a little too demanding since they both worked in Montreal still. They started with 3 bison. People would pass and ask if they sold meat. They did not. Slowly the idea took form, first by selling another farm`s bison meat and then as soon as they increased their heard to sell it themselves. We talked for an hour and I realized that in a culture where mass production and low cheap food became expected, I see people reacting against what these two were doing, with no real experience beforehand. This meant redefining a land, a region, and also the self. I bought some steaks and asked if I could take pictures of the heard. Of course, but don't get too close or put your hand out. They look sluggish but can be quite aggressive. Then they told me that they can run up to 50 or 60 km an hour. Something I would have never thought possible.

Bison in the rain, a low rain alternating between a mist and a silent pour. This powerful force we call Nature, with its incredible beauty, devastating mindlessness, the solemness of it, this sole force of its kind, of each region and its effect on our perception. Incredible that these beasts were once almost driven to extinction. Everyone is talking local this and local that, and it seems to me that the cow is much more foreign and ill adapted to this climate than the bison. They stand there in the drizzle, no longer really a testament to human greed which almost drove them to extinction although the wood bison, larger, are still on the endangered list in Canada. Strange also I thought that one of these were going to be broken down and shipped to my restaurant. Powerful beasts. I had a renewed respect for them. Lightning. A deep low thunder rolls as if across the tree tops. The rain falls harder, they look unaffected. I run for the car happy again to have met people who are inspired to do it a little differently, and caring.

Diodati cheese, Saint-Clet and leave the fish alone

I was having a quick coffee in Saint Clet Québec in the Vaudreuil-Soulanges region, when I wondered who was this saint. I do not wonder often given that every second town in Québec is named Saint someone, perhaps this one sounded a little odd. I look around me, early Sunday morning, nobody looks awake. I could ask the waitress, but she does not look like being bothered, even serving my coffee was another spark to potential pandemonium. I text message a friend in Montreal instead. His reply a few minutes later was 'weird question at this time of day J, are you in a church or something? Clet. Third Pope. circa AD 79. Call me when you get back. Explain please. You are not in Rome or something?'

18 degrees outside. Smell of fertilizer everywhere. Lazy. Figure I would visit a few places but have to be back at work to prep for a Fair Trade launching of Eric St-Pierre's new book. I figure I would try a goat cheese at Ferme Diodati to go with a Fair Trade dried pineapple and dried mango chutney from Équita that I would serve on top. I thought of serving it with my guinea hen and pistachio terrine but a very fresh and young goat cheese would be a lot better.

Terrine de pintade de la ferme La Sabinoise aux pistaches

340g pintade
380g pork shoulder
3/4 cup pistachios
3/4 cup chopped and sauteed pintade livers
10 g 7 spice
60g crust-less bread
60g milk
1 egg
10 chopped parsley
30ml brandy
20g salt
5g pepper
25g smoked bacon lardons
20g diced shallots
20g garlic
1 cup porto or red wine
enough barde to line one terrine mold

1-grind meat keeping 1/3 big grind for texture, the other 2/3 grind small
2-saute bacon with shallots and garlic, deglaze with porto and reduce by 3/4 quarters. chill.
3-soak bread in milk and mix to make a paste.
4-saute pintade livers in a little butter until golden but still rare in the middle (they will finish cooking in the terrine. this adds a little taste, texture and colour.)
5-once all ingredients are cold mix well.
6-line a terrine mold with the barde, put mixture in, cover with remaining barde.
7-cook for 30 minutes at 450F and then for 1 hour for 350F in a bain marie in the oven.
8-take out, let sit for ten minutes, press in fridge until the next day.

When I arrive at the Ferme Fromagerie Diodati I am looking at a house/tenement which looks at lot like something in Saint Leonard than the area of Les Cèdres. A little worn and time locked. I open the door and a woman tells me to enter. Her smile slightly eases the thoughts I was having of a Tarantino movie involving a gimp etc...She, Giovanna, explains the Montefino cheeses to me, from a few days fresh, to aged to something which she calls a Parmesan. I ask her if her family is from Abruzzo (Montefino being in the east). No. Napoli. Her father who started the fromagerie in 1972 was born in Galluccio, but that is in Campania. She laughs a little in that kind of that is how it goes and gives me a slice of fresh goat cheese which is two days old. Almost like a very floral tasty ricotta. Incredible...a soft spreadable texture which I see already with tomatoes and olive oil, but also with my Fair Trade dried fruit chutney. I ask Giovanna if she is the next Maitre fromager. Her father Antonio is ninety two. A few more questions and things are making more and more sense. When he first came to Canada by boat in the 40's he worked construction. This could very well explain the building. Only later did he start the farm. They are five children so they waiting to see who will keep the business going. They know they have to modernize it a little but, for now, our father, like a patriarch, has the last word she says giggling a little. I try the next cheese which is the same but aged a little longer. Beautiful. Roasted on a piece of toast in the oven for a couple of minutes. The third is what she calls Parmesan like. In 1972 it was difficult to sell this type of cheese she told me because Quebecois found it smelled too much like goat. Not now. We talk a little of Italy, a place I miss. I buy some cheese for the restaurant. I see a sign saying Farm fresh eggs. The simple pleasures. I buy a dozen for home. Arrivederci, gracie, a la prossima!

I decide to drive to Coteau du Lac wanting to see the water. The great gift of a large body of water. I found myself at the National historic site of Coteau du lac along the St-Laurent river where the first canal lock system in North America was built. A few stone formations of British military fortifications remain. I walk around. The beautiful St-Laurent river. A no fishing sign is posted. Funny. I kind of read it that the fish will not bite so don't bother. Sitting there listening to the passing water I felt that I was coming up for air, not unlike Orwell's George Bowling returning to his home town 20 years later. I don't need to go back to see how quickly our points of reference are changing, how we age with all these evanescent points of reference.

My friend sends me a text message "Cletus meaning in ancient greek 'one who is called' or his other name Anacletus meaning 'one who has been called back'...what the fuck are you doing anyway? Where are you?" Perhaps I thought that is exactly what our memory constantly does. Calls us back. Calls us back to something before the trend. Giovanna's stories remind me of just that, the cross roads of all our memories and the capacity to keep on moving with them and in fact the St-Laurent river reminds me of that of too.

the blessed, the roadkills and the casse croute

Early. Saturday morning. Too early. Seven am. Did last night's service until 11.30pm which meant no sleep until at least 1. Dreamt that a truck pulled up behind the restaurant and dumped a load of thousands of oysters into the kitchen from the back door. Oysters everywhere. One guy was cleaning them with a huge brush while another beside was madly shucking oysters with me but there was no end to it. Orders from clients just kept on ticking in, over and over, more and more with no reprieve. Then I hear somewhere somebody saying that there is another truck full of different oysters coming. We had to make room.

oysters with sake pearls

1/2 cup of sake + enough sake to cover the pearls
2.5 g of agar agar

1/2 cup of cold vegetable oil (in a container in the fridge)

put the sake in a pan and slowly heat. add the agar agar. Bring to a boil while whisking, reduce heat and cook for one minute. Remove from heat.

remove oil from fridge. fill a dropper with the sake mix and one drop in very cold oil one drop at a time.

strain the pearls from the oil. Rinse under warm water to remove excess oil.

cover the pearl with enough sake which helps retain their flavour.

to serve. open oyster. garnish with a little spoonful of pearls.

I have to drive Michèle to Ottawa from Montréal for a conference she has.

Early. Grey day. A thick fog has swallowed everything. Coffee is not working. The vague outline of trees is spectral. There is a silence to this fog which I covet.

Mechanically I get into the car and we are off. 15 north, highway 40. My attention is enough only to drive. We arrive in Ottawa and I drop her off at her work. Now what? I don`t feel like being in the city. A little introspective...started wondering about food. Already I was hungry, but I started asking questions like what is food really? We all eat for one reason but there seems to be an enormous set of secondary reasons. People have been mentioning comfort food so much lately that one had to wonder. What are people really trying to say about comfort food? That it is good? That it reminds them of their youth? Simplicity? Culture? Something I never heard of when I lived in Italy.

I remembered reading about a monastery in Québec not far from Hawksbury of Greek Orthodox nuns who make some goat and sheep milk cheese. Fuck it. Now or never I thought. Without calling to see if they are open I drive in the general direction. I could use something spiritual. I take the 17 towards Hawksbury. A beautiful drive through Ontario villages and farmland. Full of picturesque sagging wood barns which most of us love. The thing is that we would never buy one, but we realize that they are still being used, perhaps that is their charm, along with the old rusted tractor; that they are not pristine. But then again some people can where socks with innumerable holes in them and could not be bothered. Nonetheless the presence of these barns is something I almost expect. Perhaps as something to invalidate the milk carton picturesque ideal of a farm pure and smiling and simple and clean living. There are few cars on the highway. So many road kills though. Pink insides folded outward like warning signs. Dangerous. With the lack of sleep, such vibrant colours bulging out of all the bellies of this and that creature my eyes tend to fixate on them a little too intensely...behind the wheel is not a good thing. So many still lifes. What is so appealing about these farms? The organization of the pastures? Maybe it is the idea of self sufficiency that is so attractive. I often wonder if we do not realize somewhere that unless we know how to hunt or farm or tend a garden that we are not only removed from surviving but are neurotically subconsciously aware that we are dependent on people that we do not know, on a system that we vaguely trust, but have little choice to expect them to deliver?

Over the Ottawa river, into Québec from Ontario. I become aware of my incredible hunger. I pull into the first place I find, a casse croute. The menu. Hot dog, poutine, hamburger, pizza ghetti and then half a pizza with half a portion of spaghetti with meat sauce with poutine. My hunger is savage but I suddenly wonder who invented this kind of dish? Is it comfort food? Unfortunately it probably is for someone. At this moment I feel nothing comforting about it, nothing of the community I am in, nothing of terroir, suddenly feeling that it is not even food...it is the remnant of a North American system of mass production hopefully coming to its end. I reconsider. Not far to go. I buy some nut bread at a local bakery, tear off a few chunks and race off for the blessed flock. Chemin Staynerville, Montée Wert and then a muddy dirt road. The forest looks wild. Nothing arranged except the power lines feeding some unseen source.

I pull into the drive way, past some open iron gate with the orthodox cross and...well it is not Europe. Perhaps I expected Monte Subasio, or Chartreuse, or Syria. No. Something very new. A house in the distance like any other, only bigger. Nearer, a collection of buildings made to look as if we were on the Mediterranean coast, ersatz middle ages. Oh well. I walk into the boutique with its books, CD's, icons and cheese. I am served by a traditionally black hooded nun with a brilliant smile, the kind of smile which gives one a sort of feeling of relief. The kind of smile that suddenly makes me feel like a fool, like a tourist helped by the fact that everyone in the store is speaking Greek. We talk about their production, how they sold their flock to a neighbour because it was too much work for such a small community, but they still produce their cheese. I buy 3 varieties. More hungry than ever.

I have the cheese for the restaurant. I sit at a picnic table. I pull out the nut bread and cut a piece of Athonite. 100% goat. 6 months old. Nutty. Floral. I try another. Le Bon Berger. 100% goat. Same production date. More floral, like a cheddar maybe with a light taste of annatto. Then the Graviera, sheep's milk. A little over six months old. Delicious. The best by far. A sharper even toasted taste. I finish the bread, saving some cheese for Michèle. I watch the tiny river moving over huge rocks, into the wild looking forest, and the half finished construction of their buildings. Except for the constant agitation of the river there is absolute silence, not the kind of silence there must have been before the big bang or God's grand gesture, but the silence of something inarticulate, the silence of something which needs to be constantly said.

spring is edging in with its blossoms and drinks

The more and more we set out in the Quebec country side I realize how it is a sort of therapy or maybe it is all the strange artisan alcoholic drinks we are tasting along the way.

Under a slightly grey sky Michele and I set out through the early Sunday morning streets of downtown Montreal via Mont Saint Hilaire. It has been one those weeks and I need my 'therapy'...besides I need some cheese for the restaurant I work at, and might discover some other farm or ingredients I can use. The ice pack in the trunk is filled with random leftovers from the fridge, and by the time of our first visit to an apple orchard we realize that we simply taking our leftovers for a joyride. We arrive at Les Vergers Petit et fils expecting to taste some apple ice cider and instead wandered to the back of the shop...where of course there happens to be the distraction of a kitchy restaurant serving enormous buckwheat crepes with apple syrup, sausages etc....So be it, there has always been a fine line between research and pleasure for us. The leftovers in the trunk will have to wait. We sit. Gum chewing waitress pours each of us a coffee, we order while looking through the window over the budding apple orchard. That orchard the future of tasty apples, tasty apples and tasty drinks!

And what crepes! What a pair of enormousities! Michele finished half the plate (half a crêpe = a whole one but folded in two...so a plate is two half crepes meaning two whole stuffed crepes) and I left some debris of apple, sausage with a tiny pool of sirop. What the fuck I thought, this is obscene and yet with the sun suddenly conquering the clouds, the Quebecois music playing, fuck the kilos, the calories...this is research. We paid and walked out a little dazed from this unexpected brunch, forgetting to try their Petit Frisson apple ice cider. On the way back we say. Now for cheese. La ferme Mes petits Caprices. Goat cheese. Only sold at their farm. Cheese, the staff of life, or pretty close. Somehow though, the 5 minute drive to their farm turned into a quarter hour...another Michele and Jason excursion through the country side.

A wrong turn, somewhere, somehow, every time...a little frustrated (not like we fought or anything!) we pulled into a the driveway of what I thought was a farm that sold ostrich meat. Instead a sign reads that we were at a ceramist's shop. A woman comes out of her garage cum shop 'Bonjour!' She greets us. Above her is the sign which reads Ne faites pas l'autruche (Do not be like an ostrich). I comforted myself with this simple mistake. Where are we from etc...and suddenly we are in her atelier surrounded by pottery done in the Japanese Raku technique. I never set out to look at pottery, but end up always sucked in, falling in love with some piece etc...

description of this technique

Raku is a centuries old firing technique developed by the Japanese. The pieces of pottery are fired outdoors in a kiln fueled by wood or propane. The pieces are heated very quickly to the red hot stage and while the glaze is still molten, they are pulled out of the kiln and into the air. The iridescent colors and/or crackle surfaces are a result of the chemical reaction of the glaze materials oxidizing when the posts are removed from the kiln. To stop the oxidation process and control the surface effects and colors, the pots are then places in a pit or container, covered with combustible materials and sealed airtight with a lid. This is called a reduction atmosphere. This reduction of oxygen stops the flaming and produces thick black smoke which permeates the clay body and produces the unusual, spontaneous surface effects.

all glazed and random sensuous lines with a fossil like look. And as Jose Drouin is explaining this technique to us I somehow had one of her pieces in my hand, a tiny ceramic container with its lid and mentally I already had it filled with my homemade mead wine mustard.

J's homemade mead wine mustard
85g honey wine
90g cider vinegar
55g brown mustard seeds
15g black mustard seeds
1 tbs mustard powder
8g sugar

soak for 2 days in the fridge then blend half of it with
30g honey
5g garlic
8g mustard powder
pinch pepper

mix in the unblended half keeping the seeds whole

adjust to personal taste (adding a little more honey or sugar with make it less fiery, but then why would you want that!)

She tells us of another ceramist who does more restaurant style pottery, Louise Bousquet. Michele is thrilled. We must visit, her work is sublime. I pay for my mustard pot, happy. We set off in the direction of Bousquet's shop and see a sign for La ferme Mes Petits Caprice. Yes! All is ok in this bubble like Sunday in the universe. Before we get there though there is a sign which reads Cryo. Apple ice cider. Open. Why not. I turn in the driveway where we meet owner Hugo Poliquin, animated, lively, smiling, ex-light engineer turned minister of apple ice wine. Now there are a lot of apple ice ciders on the market, even overwhelmingly so, and there are some incredible apple ice ciders on the market, and this will have to be added to that distinctive list. I think Hugo looks at an apple's life cycle differently and has tried to tell that cycle's story through the liquor. This is complex, not overly sweet liquid which we sip, enjoying its slightly oxidized aroma, happy it is good because there was no crachoir in sight. "And Quebec is unique in that we make our ice ciders with the apples that we eat and not only like most others in the world with apples destined solely for the production of alcohol. And the reason for this he explains is in part prohibition. Making illegal alcohol was easier with apples you ate so when the authorities came around there was little suspicion. But that is one long complicated story and an hour later I found myself hungry again and if we were going to see everything we wanted to we would have to go.
I buy 9 bottles for the restaurant and 3 for us already wondering what I can serve it with other than the obvious foie gras.

Off again. Michèle suggests that we visit Louise Bousquet first since the thought of eating more on top of the buckwheat crêpes would probably make her sick. I was hungry already though. She pulls out some almonds she brought back from Lebanon and by the hand full I managed to finish the bag. There are few experiences in life that I can say are inspiring and challenging at the same time but this was indeed one of them. Louise meets us in her store, serene, wizened, soft spoken surrounded by fine porcelain which I can really only describe as sublime. This translucent quality the dishes was something I was not expecting. In one moment I felt like some aesthete lamenting the modern world until I heard Louise mention to Michele that she studied with Raynaud of Limoges who makes plates for Thomas Keller's Per Se. She had a sample plate to show us for the new collection at his New York restaurant. Here, beside Mont St-Hilaire and I was reminded of my trade as a chef, of our struggles, its stress and of one of the best restaurants in the world. We talked for an hour or so and who I saw a caring professional and her art, matured, accomplished, covered in dust. I felt awe and a certain jealousy that she seemed to have found that peace with her material, a comfort I suppose we are all looking for. I also suddenly understood what admiration meant.

And finally...CHEESE. The wonderful simple pleasure of it. We drive 5 minutes back towards the Cryo ice cider and meet Diane (co-owner) of La ferme Mes Petits Caprice. No time is wasted and she cuts a piece of one of her cheeses explaining that this may be the best part of year because naturally the goat's milk is fat because of the winter whereas in summer it is leaner. So instead of having a slightly chalky texture we are used to in artisanal goat cheeses. This first one was the cream of the creamy. Bang on. We then tasted the Hilairemontais accompanied with a little burp of apple ice cider fumes and it made absolute sense. A perfect pairing. It would be a great week at the restaurant although minus the Louise Bousquet porcelaine to serve it on. I bought a few kilos of cheese feeling that something which comes out of these excursions, this kind of therapy, this kind of sharing with people, this deeper satisfaction of connectedness with people with that yearning to return home and taste it all over again. I was ready for another week.