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!

OMG GMO! or requiem for corn.

Just this last week, Mexican Government approved 15 out of 35 permits that will enable GMO corn planting. The beneficiaries of such permits are Monsanto and Dow AgroScience. This news has been received in a couple different ways. On one hand Greenpeace has strongly objected to this, arguing that SAGARPA (Secretary of Agriculture) is ignoring international agreements and advice from experts in the field. On the other hand, mainstream press personalities have expressed their approval of the motion. Their argument: that this will improve the yield of our fields, enabling a sort of "Argicultural Revolution".

I for one, find the move appalling. I believe that the press is missing on some big issues such as quality of the produced food, and where the revenue from that nasty corn is going. It's definitely not going into the poor journeyman's pocket. And that is where all the problem spawns. For a good deal of our history, we have had a history of exploiting the people tending to our fields. And it has been the greed of the people buying dirt cheap products from them that has led to the ruined state our fields are in. Take Vanilla, for example. Veracruz is the home of Vanilla, and for decades, Papantla vanilla was regarded as the best available. Seeing that their product was in demand, sellers (not the growers) entice extract producers to start messing with the product. Buyers notice and demand for our vanilla spirals down, resulting in being perhaps third-string option. Gladly, as with Coffee, responsible growing and movements like Fair Trade have started their rescue of Vanilla.

With corn, however, the outlook is definitely stark. I had the chance of meeting Diana Kennedy, recently. She asks: how can a country as rich as ours embrace a crap product like Maseca? We've just embraced worse. Lots of mexicans don't know what nixtamal tastes like. Now, I am reminded of David Patterson when I feel we're en route to forget corn.

The only word I can think of to describe what's going on right now is shameful. Eight years ago, when I was in France, you could see the strength of the anti-GMO shift. Producers were proudly boasting: Non-GMO in their labels. We seem to be bidding them welcome.

Need more? How about watching Michael Ruhlman and Dan Barber at Chautauqua. Mr. Ruhlman goes, as Mr. Patterson earlier, into detail about why the corn produced by the mass industries is wrong, even explaining how it affects the rest of the food chain. Chances are, you already read Michael Ruhlman's Blog but as I said earlier: if you don't, start doing so.

Finally, a big Thank You to Donna Turner Ruhlman for kindly letting me use her "Ear of Corn" picture. See more of her amazing work at Ruhlmanphotography.com.

Pics from the job

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Taking pictures onsite is challenging, to say the least. Lighgting in kitchens isn't quite adequate for good photography. However, I have been trying to get some better pictures into this blog.

Here's a sampling of some pictures taken of both dishes from our menu and others created for our wine tasting events.

Cocinero del Año Menu

Last september I participated in the local semifinal of the Cocinero del Año contest. It was my first contest and I learned a lot about what needs to be improved for following attempts (meaning I didn't do that good).

Here's the menu I prepared:

Appetizer 1:

Smoked Salmon and Xiqueño Mole Tostada

Appetizer 2:

Escabeche Carrot Cappucchino and Pig Trotter Croquette

First Course:

Salt-Cured Nopal and Confit Tomato Salad.

Main:

Red Snapper with Beet Mole, Cacahuazintle Corn Raviolo, Oyster Mushrooms and Cilantro Pesto

Dessert:

Chocolate and Corn Millefeuille, Garapiñado Ice Cream, Coffee Sauce.

Maybe next year!

2nd CANIRAC Culinary Symposium

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Last year the State's Restaurant Chamber (CANIRAC) organized a culinary symposium focused on the "rescue and preservation of Northeastern Mexico's cuisine". Many of us were surprised to see that the seemingly simple cuisine of the northeast isn't shabby at all. True that we don't have the culinary complexity or popularity of the central and southern regions. But it's still worth taking a look into.

Last Wednesday, CANIRAC hosted their second edition of the symposium, and again, there was a fair share of great information to chew on.

The event kicked off with the early day being mostly about conferences, starting with Dr. Glafiro Alanís, from the State University's Faculty of Biology. His conference was a presentation of the edible plants available in Nuevo León, some of which were unknown to many of the assistants.

Eduardo Alvarado, host of the show "Reportajes de Alvarado" presented a recap of some of the show's moments highlighting the people of the state and their traditional foods. Asado de Puerco, Sweet Bean Paste, Beef Cortadillo and many other regional specialties were highlighted in them. After his presentation, CANIRAC presented Mr. Alvarado with a special recognition for the show's labor in the rescue and preservation of local culinary traditions.

Nina Mayagoitia, from Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma came up next and after a brief talk, gave way to Sommelier Humberto Falcón. Humberto talked about the company's premium brand: Bohemia, the characteristics of the different varieties, proper service for each and even pairing tips.

After a Short break, consultant Miguel Espejel took the stage and briefly gave us some pointers on Restaurant Marketing.

For the second part of the Symposium, we moved to the Museum of the Northeast's terrace for the cooking demos. Unfortunately, it was a bit hot last week so both Speaker Chefs and attendees were in a bit of an uncomfortable situation. The good part of this was that the demos were both entertaining and illustrating and more than made up for the weather.

First up, Saltillo's Juan Ramón Cárdenas shared one of his passions: Pecans. Being native of the region, pecans make up a pretty important part of our cuisine, particularly in the sweet side of it. Chef Cárdenas told us about how the Tlaxcaltecan women, finding themselves lacking avocado leaves to cook with, took upon the pecan tree for substitutes and proceeded to make a Pecan Tree leaf green mole. It was served over some pork rib carnitas... delicious! He also shared a quick way to make "Queso de Nuez", a local candy similar to Marzipan.

Chef Abdiel Cervantes was up next. Chef Cervantes has dedicated himself to promoting Mexico's culinary heritage both locally and internationally. He spoke to the many culinary students in the audience about the importance of discovering and mastering the local tradition. He also prepared a Prickly Pear Ceviche and a "Cactus Flan" flavored with saffron and served with a poblano sauce.

Last but definitely not least, Chefs Alberto Sentíes and Adrián Herrera took the stage and prepared a three course menu using flowers as ingredients. This was definitely one of the highlights of the day, as their contrasting culinary styles meshed together in some quite interesting dishes.

I was forgetting, there was one last, surprise demo held by Chef Rodolfo Onofre on fruit carving, unfortunately it was getting late and I had to go back to the restaurant to our regular Wednesday wine tasting.

Congratulations to CANIRAC and all the speakers for this second Symposium, our region definitely needs more efforts like this one.