All The Food (and Wine) In The World

I am generally not a big fan of Fine Dining. Somehow along the way fine dining in North America turned into a big masturbatory exercise in which the Chef crams as many ingredients as is possible into a dish and stacks the plate way up high to the sky. (Sweeping generalization, I know. There are exceptions, and the tide does seem to be turning.)

Give me a perfectly prepared piece of fish with a simple sauce and the freshest vegetable possible, and I am happy. Keep your whatever rolled in porcini dust and glazed in reduced balsamic chili sauce, with deep fried mashed taro root croquettes, thank, I don't want 'em.

I like my food to look and taste like what it is. Food is a pretty amazing thing. The universe provides all of these incredible things, each of them practically perfect in their own right. No need to fuck around with it - just treat with respect and care.

It's a lot harder to cook food that is simple and keeps the integrity of the product than it is to mask the natural flavours in a sea of what is hot and trendy. So I am often disappointed with contemporary fine dining.

But when it's done right, it is amazing. I was not disappointed this weekend. J and I went to a local food and wine festival and sprung for a big deal fancy pants dinner. 6 courses, each served with 2 different wines.

And it was gorgeous. Each course was simple and clean and damn near perfect. I could have lived without the underdone snail ravioli - but other than that, it was damn fine food.

Six courses. 12 glasses of wine. I may never eat or drink again.

I need to be able to replicate the poached sablefish and pine mushroom broth. I'll try to post a recipe for it once I've figured it out.