Author: Daniel_25

A long-timeI friend who I have known 37 years, back to my working times in London as a journalist, used to assert most jobs could be done by most people who put their mind to it. I sort of agreed but said there were some...jobs I could not see myself capable of doing on a daily basis. Here they are: A surgeon of any kind, never mind brain surgeon; a truck driver driving those long-articulated lorries which barrel forth night & day across national highways, & being a chef at a restaurant with a complicated enough menu & a fair number of seats. People who do these jobs every day are my heroes. I salute them all, especially now. To be clear, I am not talking about running an eatery where it is mostly combining good ingredients, usually using simple recipes. In fact, that I would love & have long had it on my bucket list, as I appreciate good food & even more making it for family I love & people I care about. I am taking rather about orders which come in non-stop, requesting steak to be medium rare, but not too rare, or salmon to not be overcooked but not raw in the centre, Or where one has to produce Beef Wellingtons by the dozen, or myriad portions of foie gras, where cooked too long the dish is closer to a near puddle. Timing is crucial with both of these. I have cooked both successfully, the fresh foie gras with Julia Child at my elbow & while I have always been a confident cook, willing to cook anything, the evening I cooked it for the inaugural meeting of my wine group, called In Search of the Divine Bottle aka The Quaffers, I knew the piece of foie gras procured at Hills, paid for collectively to accompany the collectively owned 1971 Chateau Yquem , could fast disappear in the cooking. I had invited Park Heffelfinger, then manager at Liberty Wines on 10th, near U.B.C, & cofounder of The Wine Academy with fellow wine education, Mark, to taste it with the group of 10 I formed in 1998. He said yes as it is not often even someone in the wine business gets to taste a good vintage which is 27 years old. This was a year before Park & his partner, George, had had their epiphany tasting of smoked meat at Memphis airport ,en route back to Vancouver from New Orleans. Believing there were many here who, too, would fall in love with Southern -Style smoked meat, cooked slow & low, they set up their first location of Memphis Blues Barbecue in 2001 on W. Broadway, which they were forced to close this January as the building was to be demolished. They have another location on Commercial Drive - & are smoking it with people wanting to open MBB franchises. I, was there watching this endeavor get started, supportive, eating there in its first days of opening & getting my wonderful son a sizable gift certificate to take his friend out for this meat-forward eating experience, MBB are currently open for takeouts. Keep smoking Posted by S FullerMore