| 26 July 2010
It’s the antithesis of the gourmet food industry — rich in artery-clogging fat globules, containing levels of sodium that would make even the salt flats of Nevada cry, mass-produced on a scale and with a speed never before imagined. It’s fast food. And it’s the food world’s Next Big Thing!
I’m sure that, right now, you’re thinking that I’ve been enjoying a little too much vino with my hash browns. Not so. Even I know that coffee, tea and juice are the best accompaniments to that breakfast staple. Just for a minute, stretch the imagination, and (more importantly) the definition of fast food. Think Portuguese barbecue. Think churrasqueira (shoo-rash-kay-ra). Fast food just got a makeover.| 22 July 2010
There are two types of oyster eaters — people who like the occasional oyster, and bona fide oyster fanatics. If you’re not sure, I know a failsafe way to tell which camp you belong to. Day-trippers call the liquid inside the oyster “juice,” and they care no more for it than the water found in a can of tuna — spilling it when they shuck the shell and disregarding it when they slurp the meat. But an oyster lover knows its true name: oyster liquor. They treasure it like liquid gold. An oyster eaten without its liquor is — as the Good Book says — like salt that’s lost its savour; good for nothing and trodden under the foot of men.
“Liquor” is the perfect name, not only because it’s a distilled essence that captures the flavour of the sea, but also because it’s intoxicating and aphrodisiacal. Perhaps it is this fact that led me to venture some strange experiments at my last dinner party. I started infusing cocktails with oyster liquor. It may sound ill advised, but the iconic Canadian cocktail is the Bloody Caesar and that is made with clam juice, which has a much stronger taste and fishier smell than oyster liquor.