Moving

Asides from rarely writing, I feel that my blog has not been quite on the subject that I had in mind when I created it. Thus, the move to a new address. The title is just a nod to one of the greatest chefs of our time, and something that expresses what I feel about the cooking going on in a lot of places in this country.

So there we are, new address, same old stuff.

I will keep all of the contents here, but it's also been moved to the new place: http://sansturbot.blogspot.com/

Helping

A week ago, Chef Mauricio Martínez suffered an accident that left in in a grave state. Unfortunately, Mauricio has no assurance or social security benefits, so all the medical expenses have to be covered by his friends and family. The cost of his medical attention has been significant since we're dealing with neurosurgery.

Antonio Márquez of LMA FoodConcepts and Edna Alanis of CEC Roccatti have been working to set up a help network and raise the funds needed to help the Martínez family.

The bank account where people may send help is:
SCOTIABANK
Luis Arturo Martinez Carreon
00 105 922 437
Clabe 044 18000 105 922 4372

Another way to help is attending to the benefit dinner hosted by Adrián Herrera at the Fonda San Francisco. It will take place tuesday, march the 2nd. Reservations can be made through Ada Guillén at (81)8336 6706.

St. Valentine's dessert

De Blogger Pictures

Simple: Warm Brownie, Balsamic Strawberries, Port Reduction, Rose Ganache, Spice Tuile, Chocolate Ice Cream.

February 4

An international company from a town up in the border contacted me about catering a very important dinner. They wanted a Mexican inspired dinner and I thought it would be adequate to showcase some good Mexican wines too. Sommelier Humberto Falcón, provided the pairings. Here's the Menu.

Cucumber and Jicama Salad, Aguachile Shrimp.
Mariatinto Blanco 2008.

Green Pozole, Duck Confit.
Maat 2007

Zucchini Blossom Risotto, Pepitas and Cotija Crisp
Kojáa 2007

Entrée options:
Rack of Lamb, Cinnamon Mole, "Esquite" purée

Duck breast in Adobo, Glazed Camote, Guajillo and Agave Sauce

Red Snapper in Achiote, Grilled Peppers, Orange and Mezcal Sauce.

The wine for these was La Borde Vieille DCR 2007. A great wine made by Hugo D'Acosta in the Languedoc Rousillon Region.

Making the dinner was a lot of work and dealing with unexpected issues. In the end, I was happy with the results, but more importantly the customers were happy too.

Highlighting 2009

This last year was, to say the least, a very busy one. I had left teaching to take on the opening of Buké, later on I re-took it. We ate a bunch of things both in Monterrey as well as on our trips. So here's a list of the best things of 09. This list is bound to grow as I keep thinking of more cool things that happened on the year.

Best Restaurant Meals

If we were to keep tabs on the cost of the dinners, then the Highlight would definitely be either Thierry Blouet or Las Ventanas. However, as good as those were, I don't think they were the best of the year. Of course they had their highlights.

At Thierry Blouet's I had one hell of an Escolar, one of the best fish dishes I've ever had. The cheese plate, although tiny, was really creative (and It was kindly given to us as a comp). The dish at Las Ventanas that stuck the most wasn't definitely the best of the night, and while it was good, it was definitely not mind-blowing. Again, for full disclosure, I must say that we got complimentary glasses of Danzantes mezcal, apparently to make it up for not having the cheese dish I had ordered.

Probably the best meal this year was at Frida!. Chef Antonio DeLivier's flagship restaurant at the Pueblo Bonito Sunset Beach. It's really sad that it doesn't have a website, but that was the one dinner where all but one courses were incredibly delicious. I didn't love the dessert. A really close second, or even maybe tie, were the meals I had at Pangea. Those three were also great, but I think that the extremely refined service at Frida! made for a superior experience.

Other remarkable meals of 2009:
Nick San Cabo San Lucas
Kitchoan
Aquiles Chavez cooks at La Catarina
Street and Typical Food in Michoacán, La Paz and San Luis

Dishes I enjoyed making this year:
One of my pet peeves is gloating over the food that I make. Thus, this section is not about the dishes that I think were the best, but instead, the ones I had more fun making:

Beef Tartare with Pimentón, Chocolate Sauce
Danablu, Onion Agrodolce over Tesinois
Plancha U8 Shrimp, Oyster Mushroom, Potato, Rouille
Red Snapper, White Beans, Spicy Tomato Stew
Pecan Pain Perdu, Pluots, Blue Cheese Ice Cream
Salt Roasted Red Beets with Chocolate Vinaigrette
Instant Chocolate Cake with Ancho Confit, Blueberry Compote
Sweet Bean "Buñuelo", Chipotle-Piloncillo Sauce, Vanilla Ice Cream
Brown Butter Cake, Spice poached apples, Danablu foam, Vanilla Ice Cream
White Pepper Ice Cream with Strawberry Chutney


Other cool things that happened this year:
The Book
The huge flop at the Cocinero del Año Semifinal (I'll try again this year)
The still unpublished webisode thingy for the guys at ElGusto.tv
Tasted lots of really good wines.

Let's just hope this year is as cool or better!

Xmas Dessert

For more than a year now, I had been obsessing about Dulce de Frijol. While I have tasted azuki paste and my parents told me about sweets made from beans or garbanzo, it wasn't until last year's Culinary Symposium that it stuck. I didn't get a chance to do much with the lingering idea for a good long while. I even wento to the Second Culinary Symposium...

Luckily for me, the same presenter was on this year, and he showed the same clip. This year, I recorded the clip and later I took note of the recipe. So now I had the information needed to tackle my obsession. What I didn't have was a purpose other than pure curiosity. Then I read this. Author Haalo talks about interchangeable ingredients. So instead of azuki, our pinto bean paste went in. Some people relate wontons with tortillas (and why not), but the look of fried wontons reminds me a lot of Buñuelos, a typical dessert for the holiday season.

Buñuelos are usually served with a syrup made with piloncillo and accompanied by some hot drink such as atole, champurrado or hot chocolate. We simply decided to add some heat to the syrup by putting a bit of chipotle in there.

Other elements in the dish are chipotle crumble and vanilla Ice Cream. This dessert made with playing with regional flavors will be available for Holiday Dinners this season.

Published

I really can't complain. This has been a very eventful year. Of course that the events leading up to this actually started since last year when I had the chance to join the team at Buké. Things have been crazy since then, we've cruised (or dragged ourselves) through some very bad times like the whole H1N1 flu craze, a couple of holidays and overall a slow economy. While we're not at all where we'd like to be, I'd like to think we're well on our way.

Personally, this job has landed me a few interesting opportunities, such as participating in the "Cocinero del Año" semifinal, taped an episode for a web-based show (which hasn't aired because suppposedly it's going to go on TV) and had a couple of press mentions.

One of the best things that have happened this year was being invited to be a part of the "Cocina de Autor" cookbook. The project was born as a charitable project for the Mano Amiga Foundation, who give out scholarships for elementary education. Mano Amiga managed to gather some of the biggest names in the Culinary Industy in Mexico like Thierry Blouet, Enrique Olvera, Paulina Abascal and Guillermo Gonzalez and other very important chefs from Monterrey like Antonio Marquez, Adrián Herrera, Mima Gonzalez, Alberto Sentíes and others. I am really blessed to have my name on the cover among theirs and as it's the day for it, Thanks are in order to all of those who have allowed me to have such luck.

I guess I'm a published author now too... cool!