From left to right:  Paul Rogalski, Michael Dekker, Anthony Bourdain, Eric Ripert, and José Andrés.

From January 12-15, my buddy Paul Rogalski and his sous chef Michael Dekker will be setting sail to the Cayman Islands to stamp their feet and gnash their teeth with a whole bunch of wild chefs at the Cayman Island Cookout.

Paul Rogalski, chef and co-owner of Rouge Restaurant (voted top 100 restaurants in the world, dontachaknow) used to live in the Cayman Islands during his younger travelling chef days. He shared some of his memoirs and food at a fundraiser dinner hosted at Rouge restaurant. It was an epic multi-course feast that touched on various aspects of his vast culinary repertoire and was a lovely sampling of things to come at the Cayman Cookout. With some seriously gourmet, luxury sponsors at the event, it truly resonated as a once in a lifetime event. And there’s still time to book a trip…

Paul will be hopping on a plane with sous-chef Michael Dekker (Who recently won Gold Medal Plates, nicely done!) along with food critic and local legend John Gilchrist when they head down to join the party.

Have fun guys!

The Cow’s head has been illuminated. Model Milk is open in Calgary.

Chef Justin Leboe’s been incubating this bistro for what seems like forever. But the wait is over and it was certainly worth it.

The Kitchen is open and they have an excellent view of pretty much the entire open-concept restaurant. The crew is is quietly fierce (I wouldn’t want to fight any of them) and seem proud of what they are doing. You also get the sense that they are enjoying themselves.

The dinner menu changes every couple of weeks and will be updated with a red stamped numbering system. I hope they hang on to the Shrimp and Grits, made from house ground hominy  and slow cooked and topped with a fried egg and perfectly cooked shrimp.

Order shareable things like Crab Rolls and Oysters or big plate mains like Fried Chicken and a Burger.

The food is not as rustic as the names suggest. Justin Leboe was the forward thinking chef from Rush and lends his pro-skill arsenal of high-end tricks to the food’s prep and presentation. The salads are considerate and beautifully plated. There are dishes with gravitas like semi crudo tuna with ham vinaigrette. I quite like the cheeky use of pork alongside all fish dishes. Good luck being a pescatarian… like that’s even a real thing.

Charcut’s Connie DeSousa swears the Chanterelle cheesey gooey thing will “blow your mind!”.

Here’s what I’m most excited about. They are closed for lunch.

In lieu of lunch they are staying open late and serving a special late-night menu of all their best drinking food.

My favourite recollection was the fried chicken on a cheddar cheese waffle with a slightly sweetened gravy. I wish my inhibitions were intoxicated more often.

Look for a Manitoba Maple shaded patio next year in the back.

The Charcut ad design is simply evolving.The original ads for Charcut Roast House were quite simple, photo + copy. But as the restaurant evolved they decide to evolve their design along with it. They asked me to come on as a designer/illustrator and come something to work with their existing branding.

Keeping with the mantra of evolving simple ingredients we worked with some of their favourite features and prized posessions: The Pig, their vintage red hand-crank meat slicer and their always changing hanging meat display window (or Meat Curtains, as they prefer me not to call it).

John Jackson, co-chef at Charcut Roast House and I have been working on a new ad design for the fall. Continuing with the Charcut mantra of Evolving Simple Ingredients, we have come up with a clever new design inspired by Connie’s end-of-summer tomato canning adventures. Look for it in Avenue Magazine and City Palate.

Did you just watch Breakfast TV Calgary? Thanks for checking out the recipe…

Click the pic to go watch the video at Breakfast TV Calgary…

If you have more mouths to feed, check out the Lazy Loafer’s Meatloaf.

TURKEY PATTIES

300g ground turkey

1 egg

¼ cup  crumbled crackers, raincoast crisps rosemary, raisin, pecan

½ tsp poultry seasoning or assorted fresh minced herbs (parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme)

salt and pepper

vegetable oil or duck fat for frying

Get a large frying pan on the stove over medium heat to warm up.

In a medium bowl combine ground turkey with crackers, poultry seasoning and egg. Mush it up really well with your hands. If you want to check it for flavour and seasoning, just pick a little bit out and fry it til it’s cooked and taste it. Add more salt, pepper or seasoning if required.

Divide the mess into 2 large patties or 4 small patties.

Pour some oil in the hot pan and place the patties in gently. Fry until it gets a crispy brown bottom, then flip it over and cook until it’s done. Set it aside to rest while you whip up the Brussels sprouts.

BRUSSEL SPROUTS

4 slices of bacon, chunked

10 brussel sprouts

1 clove of garlic, grated

zest and juice of 1 orange

a few craisins or dried cherries

nob of butter

salt and pepper to taste

Get a large frying pan over medium high heat and pile in 4 slices of bacon cut into small chunks. Fry the bacon until crispy, then remove, but leave as much of the fat in the pan as possible. Crank up the heat and toss in 10 Brussel Sprouts that have been pulled apart into just the leaves and one whole clove of garlic. Add the zest and the juice of 1 orange (or ¼ cup of OJ), a few craisins, a nob of butter and swirl until it makes a nice creamy sauce. Season with salt and pepper and serve with crispy bacon on top.

CARROT COINS

2 carrots, cut into coins

2 Tbsp butter

1 large nob of ginger, grated

1 tsp honey, optional

salt to taste

Place a small pot over low heat. Pile in the carrots, butter and ginger. Place a lid on top and cook for 15-20 minutes until the carrots are tender and the butter creates a lovely orange sauce. Season with salt and serve.

Everybody knows that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles love pizza…

It was a totally bodacious surprise when the tubuloso eatery UNA Pizza + Wine approved the TMNT over the other two pitches of Commedia Dell Arte and the classic renaissance artists. You can check out your four fav turtles, Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Raphael and Donatello at UNA for as long as they stay up.

Here is the mural up on the wall at UNA. It goes nicely with the far-out 4-Maggi Pizza and maybe some righteous patatas bravas! Party on dudes!

I’ve been to Una a few times since the mural went up and I’ve even made attempts to get the servers to make disparaging remarks, but overall the mural seems to have been well received.

The big question I’ve had is “Why do the ninja turtles all have the same coloured head bands?”

For those TMNT nerds who can remember way back to the comic book origins of the characters you’ll recall that the original Eastman and Laird foursome all wore the same red bands… but their weapons were enough to tell them apart. Leonardo swings katanas, Raphael sports a pair of sai, Donatello has the reach with his bo staff and Michelangelo gets funky with his nunchaku. Cowanbunga dudes!

Give me a home where the bison roam and the water buffalo make mozzarella. Bison bison are the big brown beasts of the open prairie plains, but they are often called Buffalo. A true Buffalo (or water buffalo) Bubalus Bubalis is also a member of the Bovinae family indigenous to Asia, but best known in Europe for producing fatty milk used to make creamy mozzarella cheese. We can blame the French fur trappers for mislabeling the Bison, a misnomer that still to this day has folks using Bison and Buffalo interchangeably. To alleviate any naming confusion and showcase the difference between these two bohemeth bovinae here is a pizza topped with the distinctly delicious Bison pepperoni and Buffalo mozzarella.

BISON and BUFFALO PIZZA

INGREDIENTS

1 package of sliced Bison pepperoni

from Olson’s High Country Free-Range Bison or Valta Bison

2 large balls of Buffalo Mozzarella

from Lina’s Italian Market or Janice Beaton Fine Cheese

1 package of pizza dough*

from Lina’s Italian Market

500ml container of Lina’s Bruschetta or 1 cup of tomato sauce of choice

½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

PROCEDURE

If you are using the frozen dough, allow it to thaw on a parchment paper lined baking sheet for 30 minutes before topping.

Preheat oven to maximum power. Try 600˚F. If that doesn’t compute your max temperature is likely 550˚F. Either way, crank it up. Making a good pizza requires high temperatures.

If you are using the fresh dough, dust your counter top before dropping your blob down with a gentle thud. Dust with more flour and roll out your dough in to some semblance of a circle using a rolling pin or wine bottle. I try not to worry if it ends up looking like the shape of African, just make sure it is an even thickness.

Get the dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet before adding toppings.

Evenly top your pizza with either bruschetta or your favourite tomato sauce. Distribute the bison pepperoni all over the pizza. Use your fingers to tear the buffalo mozzarella into small pieces and distribute evenly all over the pepperoni. Grate the parmesan directly on top of everything, making sure everything is evenly covered.

If the oven is up to temperature, chuck the pie in the oven quickly so you don’t lose heat and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the top is beautiful and golden brown.

Remove from the oven and leave it in the baking sheet for 5 minutes to cool slightly before cutting it into wedges with a pizza cutter or a long knife.

Enjoy while the mozzarella is nice and stringy and the crispy pepperoni is pipping hot.

Try it once with this simple recipe, but next time feel free to customize with your own spin on toppings.

fresh pick

The ingredient list today requires a bit of roaming. But if you follow the Bison philosophy of roaming to eat you can start off with breakfast at the Calgary Farmer’s Market  (510 77^th Avenue S.E.) or Valta Bison (703- 23^rd Avenue S.E.) while you get Bison Pepperoni. Then hoof it up to Lina’s for lunch while you pick up pizza dough, bruschetta and mozzarella at Lina’s Italian Market (2202 Centre Street N.E.). Finally you can meander to the best pizza joint in the city for dinner (insert your address here).

These spoof covers have nothing to do with Kitchen Scraps, but I just discovered them while searching through old file archives. They are spoof covers I used to make when I was bored working as a designer at a newspaper. They are still as funny as they ever were… if they ever were.

The girl who drew this is like me. But different. Maybe better…

Check this awesome work by Illustrated Food Blogger Katherine Verhoeven. It’s from a dinner she enjoyed at Woodlot in Toronto.

Let it be known that she kicks ass.

Check out her art blog

or her food blog

or her portfolio

Recap from the French Twist collaborative cooking class with Jessie Willis of  VineArts.

Jessie was absolutely fantastic to work with. He is passionate and full of energy and knowledge without the slightest hint of winey pretention.  Look for Jessie to dominate the Cookbook Company calendar this fall with classes about beer, wine and other spirits.

Also keep your eye on this young guy as he climbs the wine ranks in Calgary with his own wine shop opening (hopefully) later this year.

Photos are courtesy of a class volunteer (thank you) who very graciously helped serve while simultaneously taking snaps of the food. They may be a little grainy but you’ll get the idea…

Petite Tarte Flambée

with fresh apple, crème fraiche and bacon hollandaise, chives and bacon bits

Clam Chowdére

Potato velouté with sautéed chowder accoutrements: chorizo, mirepoix, tomato concasser, clams, parsley, etc.

Quail au vin

red wine reduction, bouquet grandmere, pistou

Pommes Frites (apple fritters)

Grand Marnier chocolat chaud with Cloven whipped cream

Jessie appears to have had his way with this one already…

Have a yabba daba doo time at the next week’s Paleo Cooking Class.

Monday September 26, 6:30-9:00 at the CookBook Co. in Calgary. It’s pretty full but since it’s demonstration and not hands-on, we can accommodate a few more cavemen and women. Class is $85 and you will learn and eat lots. Call 403-265-6066 to book now.

For those of you who missed the last issue of Impact Magazine or accidentally had it recycled prematurely by an unnamed family member, here is the muffin recipe you’ve been asking for.

Chocolate Banana Paleo Muffins

Foraging can get a little frustrating, especially when modern obligations get in the way of eating convenient food. Plan ahead and make paleo muffins that will keep beautifully in the freezer and are super handy when you’re on the move.

You get the familiar sweet taste and handy convenience of a handheld snack. These muffins are best baked a little under and kept frozen in handy little baggies for when you’re on the go.

MAKES 12 MINI MUFFINS

ingredients

1¼ cup of Almond flour

1 banana, preferably looking like leopard print

¼ cup almond oil

2 eggs

1 tsp baking powder

¼ cup cocoa

big pinch of ground clove

big pinch of ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350˚ F.

In a food processor place the banana, almond oil and eggs. Blend on high speed until totally smooth. Scrape down the sides as needed.

Add the almond flour and continue blending until totally smooth. Transfer to a bowl and add baking powder.

Mix together the wet and dry ingredients and quickly scoop some into a mini muffin tin.

Bake for 7 minutes and check for doneness by poking a toothpick into the muffin. If the toothpick comes out clean, the muffins are ready.

Underbake them slightly so they stay moist. They can get a little dry if you don’t keep an eye on them.

Don’t miss…. Monday September 26, 6:30-9:00 there will be a Paleo Cooking class at the CookBook Co. in Calgary. It’s pretty full but since it’s demonstration and not hands-on, we can accommodate a few more cavemen and women. Class is $85 and you will learn and eat lots. Call 403-265-6066 to book now.