NOTES FROM THE SKAGIT VALLEY

There’s a beautiful adorable seven-month-old chlid sitting with his parents in the seats in front of me. And every other seat in the plane is full too. Welcome to the direct Seattle-Toronto Air Canada flight on Sunday September 16.

This morning in the Skagit Valley, as we started to drive south to Seattle, there was soft mist along all the contours of the landcsape, the hills and mountains that frame the valley were outlined in softly shaded blue like a Japanese watercolor, and a thick layer of pale mist obscured the wide valley, so that the hills seemed as if they were floating on a sea of mist. Lovely. 

It’s always nice to head home, but I have to admit to huge regret at leaving beautiful Skagit country, and the welcoming hospitality of the people in and around Mt Vernon who hosted and animated the Kneading Conference West these last few days. Like the original Kneading Conference in Skowhegan Maine, (the sixth annual one there took place in late July) the Kneading Conference West (this was the second annual) brings together millers, bakers, farmers, oven builders, and scientists for two full days to talk about grain and bread and milling, about sustainability, the bakery business, the farming business and more; to argue and discuss many issues around all these topics; to make and taste breads and crackers and other grain products; and to build ovens.

I’ve learned a lot. And hopefully people have learned from me too. I worked with Dawn the baker, my good friend Dawn Woodward of Evelyn’s Crackers, me assisting her with her two workshops, and she helping enormously with my two. We got there a full day ahead to prep and discovered at the Washington State College Ag Research Station a sense of anticipation and a wonderful preparedness. 

The whole place is set in a remarkable garden like a Garden of Eden, especially at this time of year, with pears hanging heavily on beautiful espaliered trees, vegetable bed of greens and vines and more, and endless educational plantings of all kinds. Signs on the beautiful fruit trees ask visitors to please not pick the fruit (they need it intact for research purposes). And so in another way too it also had a garden of Eden feel, loaded as it was with temptation!

Our main job on that first prep day was to make plain crackers, flour and salt and water crackers, out of as many whole grain single varietal wheat flours as possible. Steve, the director of the Station milled some flours from small stocks of unusual varieties that he had available. Others we’d brought with us from Ontario, and others we took from the huge array of flours sitting in large sacks in the baking room.  Along with the wheats, we had several spelt flours, an emmer, several ryes, and a barley to make into crackers. Altogether we had eighteen different samples to work with.

The idea was to have a tasting, to try to identify taste characteristics of not only different varieties but also of the same wheat grown in different locations (we did this with Red Fife, comparing three different ones; and with spelt).  But to do the tasting we needed crackers to taste. That involved hand kneading and hand rolling a lot of small batches of dough. We managed to stay organised about our labelling, a good and necessary thing. And there was a four deck stack oven to bake the crackers in.

In the process of making them we discovered huge differences in the aroma of the freshly wetted flour, in the kneading and rolling out characteristics, in the taste of the fresh crackers, and then, the next day, in the taste of the day-old crackers. The session was fun, as people came up with descriptors for the tastes and aromas they discerned. It made us realise how much more we could do next time. (And it confirmed both of us about the remarkable deliciousness of Red Fife wheat.)

The tasting was perhaps equivalent to a first stab at tasting different red wines, if you had only ever drunk  blended batch wines. We searched for descriptive vocabulary, and we didn’t all agree - yes, both exciting and a little daunting!

Dawn’s other workshop was a cracker one, which took place at a wood-fired oven with a big crowd. Crackers are a new idea for many people. They’re a great way to bake with whole grains and a blend of grains. But anyone who has made crackers knows that because they are very thin, they bake unevenly and thus baking can be tricky. It’s even more so when you’re working with a wood-fired oven. But Mark, the guy whose oven it was, wasn’t fased and helped make it happen without stress. We relied on him too for both my workshops, one on leavened flatbreads, and one on sweet baking with yeasted doughs. 

The flatbreads were diverse: a version of snowshoe naan using yogurt and a partially whole wheat dough; a barley bread from Finland made with yogurt, pearl barley and barley flour and no wheat flour; pittili, the Pugliese loaf made with an extremely sloppy dough that is a little tricky to shape and delicious to eat; and finally, my first time out in public with a recipe from the BURMA book, the bread called nan-piar from Burma. Fun! We had a large crowd, people very interested in flatbreads and in the possibilities they represent for more flexible baking and for baking with whole grains and non-wheat flours. 

The sweet baking doughs we’d made well ahead. We made one kouignaman (delish Breton butter cake) the night before, so we could have samples ready at the workshop. Then I shaped a second one in front of the crowd. We also made a cake flavoured with currants, fabulous local walnuts, and some coconut; a version of sweet anise crispbreads; and about five fruit tarts, using local fruits of course.

The tarts were a wow, topped with sliced pears (Red Crimsons) or chopped apple (can’t remember the variety right now, sorry), or sliced purple plums. There’s nothing better than a yeasted dough enriched with butter, as the base of a fruit tart. And no-one seemed to disagree. The tarts vanished down hungry gullets. No leftovers to cope with. And then the conference was over.

I should mention too the stimulating talk I heard about flour and bread science. It was much too short. I wanted to hear each aspect explored in detail. The geek in me likes to understand the minutiae; that’s how I can understand best, from the basics up. Just to give you an idea: we heard about the starch structure in wheat flour (amylose and amylopectin, as in rice), and about amylase and beta amylase; (the enzymes that break down starches). We got a glimpse of the complexities in the discussion about the temperatures at which they are most active, the interaction of proteins and starches in the absorption of water; what all of it means for the baker, and on and on. It was enthralling and left me hungry for more.

See you there next year, perhaps?

GREEN AND MAY IN NEW YORK CITY

Once again I’m writing here while sitting in an airport, this time JFK. I’m on my way back to Toronto from the James Beard Cookbook and Broadcasting and Journalism Awards that took place last night. It was, as always, a treat to see people I haven’t been face-to-face with for awhile. And it’s also a pleasure to have a little time in New York to get reminded of other worlds. This time I got swallowed up by the Metropolitan Museum. They have out-of-town memberships, which means that for $50 I can come and go as I please any time I’m in the city.

This trip I headed first to the Alexander MacQueen exhibit, stunning in its inventiveness and wild imagination, as well as its beauty...I hadn’t really understood what a conceptual artist he was. After that I stumbled on the Frank Stella drawings retrospective. In tall small rooms there were large black painted squares, transforming the room each time, altogether trippy and powerful., especially in combination. The impressionist modern Europe rooms I came to next were such a contrast, rich and warm, Berthe Morissette’s couple of paintings gleaming treasures, Manet Monet Sisley, all astonishing, ending with the drunkenness of Van Gogh.

It was time for an airing. Up onto the roof I went, where there are Robert Caro sculptures sharp-edged in the clear air and sun of a perfect early May day, the trees greening in the park below and the city skyline like an imagined landscape.

I wandered down then to see the Cezanne cardplayers, on its last week. It’s a small show about the cardplayer theme not just in Cezanne’s work but by others as well. The chance to compare similar paintings, usually hung in museums far from each other, and to see them side by side in temporary intimacy, is such a privilege.

Back out on the sidewalk under the leafing trees I headed up to the Guggenheim. The Art Gallery of Ontario has a complementary membership arrangement with the Guggenheim, so I was given a member’s ticket and could ramble up the spiral ramp, looking at the show of 1920 to 1918 works from the museum’s collection. I felt no pressure to see it all. When I’d reached my limit (fairly soon, because of all the time I’d spent at the Met), I strolled back down and out the door.

The next stop was at Kitchen Arts & Letters, storied cookbook store on Lexington between 93 and 94. I bought the fat and wonderful new Oaxaca book by Diana Kennedy, a book full of treasures lovingly unearthed and explained in words and photos and recipes. The book won Cookbook of the Year last night, for it is outstanding and remarkable. I can’t wait to try some of the recipes.

But in the meantime I’m heading back to the Burma book saltmine! I saw my editor Ann Bramson while I was here, and she was, as always, so encouraging and positive “I can’t wait to see the Burma book”... How lovely to have that good energy coming from her! Now it’s just up to me to do the subject justice and give her a good book to shape and edit.

I got to spend today in Brooklyn, along Atlantic Avenue and the side streets around: Court, Smith, Henry. Very beautiful and also very interesting to see the gentrification and changes in the neighbourhood. I hadn’t been to Atlantic Avenue for over ten years. Shocking how time flies... and how hard it is to get out of Manhattan!

Of course I had to eat some Yemeni food. The Yemen cafe has moved to an upstairs spot two doors away from where it was and in its place is another Yemeni restaurant called Hadramaut (after the region in southeast Yemen). I was there with Andrea Weigl, who was game to try anything and everything. The television was on, showing footage of the ongoing struggles for democracy in Yemen, and then talking heads. There were men in the cafe eating and watching the TV, but no women apart from us. We ordered Salta, a hot lamb stew with frothy fenugreek sauce in it (there’s a recipe for it in Flatbreads and Flavors, completely yummy). It came with two huge fresh tandoor breads, a clear soup and salad. We also ordered malokiah, cooked jute leaves, which came fresh-tasting and green and silky (some would say slimy), a nice complement to the lamb.

For a “dessert” we ordered a dish I’d never had, “Fatteh Date” it said on the menu (which should really have been fatteh tamar, tamar being date in Arabic). I know of fatteh as a layered savory bread dish, with chicken or legumes layaered with bread; this was described on the menu as a mixture of bread and honey and date. When it came it wasn’t torn bits of flatbread but instead a kind of semolina or coarse bulgur cooked with honey and date, not very sweet, and really delish. It had a slightly chewy texture, and looked like a semolina halwah that had crumbled a little.

Has anyone eaten this elsewhere? Highly recommended.

Usually at JFK while I wait for my Toronto flight I sit at the bar at the corner by the gate and have a draft beer. There’s often an interesting conversation or two to be had with other solitary travellers. But tonight with a bright sky outside and a load of Yemeni food in me, I don’t think I feel like a beer, or anything else to eat or drink. So I’ll just sit here and read my book. Or perhaps it’s time to do a little more editing on the Burma book, maybe on the soups chapter? All right, here I go!

PS The Conservatives and horrible Stephen Harper won a mjority; the compensation is that the NDP have over 100 seats - a first, and a wild swing. Now home and able to connect and post this... Lovely to come home to homemade chicken soup and rice, and DOm and Tashi and a friend, all cosy.

FAREWELL TIGER, & HELLO TO THE YEAR OF THE RABBIT

it's the last day of January, the first day of this year's immersethrough week in Chiang Mai and north of here, and also this is probably my last post in the year of the Tiger, since the Rabbit is due to come loppety-lop into our lives on February 3. I have nothing against rabbits, in fact precious Dom is a Rabbit, but since my birth year is a Tiger year, I am sorry to see the end of another one.

One more the cycles remind us that there are things to look forward to and enjoy, and that there is also a time for them to be over, for us to move on. I'm moving on by remembering that this Tiger year has given me health and happiness, deepening friendships, a small but growing understanding of culinary and other culture in Burma, and an optimism that even if tomorrow is harsher or more painful than today, I have the resilience to weather hard times. Yes, that optimism may be misplaced. But I don't care, just am happy to be feeling this way.

Today we shopped in Warorot Market, now celebrating its centenary, and then came back to make, under Fern's mother's direction, a wonderful meal: gaeng om (a simmered layered-with-flavor beef soup/stew); gai nung (chicken pieces rubbed with a spice paste and then steamed to make a wonderful broth and tender meat); laap pla northern style (catfish minced with cleavers, then fried with aromatics, then mixed with separately fried heaps of of crispy fried garlic and the fish skin, and topped with more aromatics); gaeng pakat (Chinese kale in a broth flavored with pork ribs etc); ep moo (pork cleaver-minced and then mixed with lemongrass and other flavors, then shaped into small flat patties, wrapped in banana leaf, and grilled); and lots of fresh vegetables; all made and eaten with a great vibe. That's my immersethrough report! Very local doings here in Chiang Mai.

I feel rather cut off here from the huge world events of the last week: the turmoil and awakening in the Arab world. To stay with food, for a moment, apart from all else they have in common, the places where change has happened or is seething at the surface are all flatbread places: Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Lebanon.

When I was in Tunisia (for an Oldways conference and also to do research for the Flatbreads book), the place felt heavy, authoritarian, much more than Morocco. Once when I was in a car driving north of Nefta, not far from the Algerian border, the taxi driver had some great music on the radio. It was sufi/qawali music, being broadcast from Algeria. He made me promise not to tell, for that radio station was banned in Tunisia. He could be arrested. It was a small thing, in a way, but a reminder that people's lives and thoughts were not their own. And Mubarak's Egypt of course is notoriously oppressive. But for years Tunisia has often been referred to approvingly, in the media and by politicians, as stable. Does "stable" just mean "successfullly repressive?" It seems to, when it comes to US allies in the Arab world and in other places too.

How disgraceful.

Here I find myself on a political path in this post...how did that happen?

And as I write out here on Fern's balcony (she has wi-fi and I don't) I can hear a call to prayer, in the dusk, a call with elegance and intensity both. It's a good reminder. When I think of the people demonstrating in the streets of Cairo and elsewhere, and those injured and killed, I want to think of them not as an abstract mass but as human beings with feelings and aspirations, wanting the freedom to listen to the music they choose, to believe as they wish, to be safe under a secure rule of law.

Maybe the year of the rabbit will bring them that. Let's hope so...

And may the year of the Rabbit be a generous and fruitful one for all of you.


AND AN AFTERWARD: There's an article in the NYTimes by Ross Douthat that engages in a brief way with the guessing games played by the US and other governments about whether or not to intervene, to support repressive regimes for fear of worse, etc. It's here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/opinion/31douthat.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage

Basically everyone would like sure outcomes, but such things are not available...and often then, the US and others tend to stick with the devil they know rather than supporting uprisings, even when the devil they know is deeply authoritarian, undemocratic, corrupt, etc.

SAN MATEO EXCURSION

We headed out on a flight to San Francisco earlier this week, destination San Mateo, an attractive small town not far south of the airport.  That unbelievable blend of eucalyptus air and clear blue skies and slanting shadows that is California in the fall, was like a tonic.

We were in San Mateo to talk at a cooking class/supper at Draeger's.  The people who came were engaged and interesting, and the people doing the cooking were a delight.  We felt very taken care of.  The menu included Napa and Red Onion Salad; Uighur Lamb Kebabs; Tajik Flatbreads, beautiful, and full of flavor because the dough had been made the day before and had done a long slow rise; Tomato Salsa, with its hint of sesame oil; and Black Rice congee, topped with chopped persommin and ginger, a great idea from Terri, who was in charge of the kitchen.  We did no work, just chatted to people.

In the course of the evening, May, who was in the class but in fact runs the restaurant kitchen at Draegers (the restaurant is called Viognier), talked about the homeless and their food culture.  She contrasted their relatonship to food with that of all of us in the room that evening.  The homeless need to spend a large part of their days figuring out how they can feed themselves, while we work to earn money which we can then go and spend on food.  So there's a huge cultural difference that doesn't get talked about.  We told her that she should consider writing a book...

Now I'm back in Toronto, while Jeff, who flew west from San Fran, is happily in Chiang Mai, in the warmth and last rains of early November.  Lucky guy!