Back to the future and Japanese jello
Wow, from the sand and surf to the realities of Ottawa. From ice in a mojito to trying to walk on sidewalks that are in better shape than the Canal during Winterlude for skating. Perhaps we have this backward. We should be putting up flags on sidewalks of whether they are good for skating or not.
Anyway, it was nice to come back to the warmth of emails that continue to pour in from people that hear about ZenKitchen and want to participate in dinners, cooking classes, etc. I didn't plan on a dinner in January because of my holiday, working on a major project, and trying to take some time to reflect on the year past and focus on plans for the year ahead. Well, you know what they say, plans happen when are busy making them and I find that the momentum and interest in ZenKitchen is pulling me along like a big gust of wind and I can either resist or just put out my arms and enjoy the ride. I have been somewhere between the two this past year, like trying to hold on to your umbrella and avoiding it from turning inside out while big gusts of wind come your way. Sometimes, you just have to forego the umbrella, just say*** it , and join the forces of nature than trying to fight them. Here I stand, having already taken a big leap by opening ZenKitchen and putting myself out there - heart, soul, and food - and people seem to love it and want more. It's a big order and I feel honoured.
So, I have started to have big visions, thoughts of what ZenKitchen could become in the future and how to make this happen. Oh yes, insecurities come in all the time... what about the money??... what about the failure rate of food businesses???... how will you do this??? But then, I have to tell the ghosts of the past to go home, nicely that is. It's funny that most of the barriers, true barriers we experience, are in our heads, isn't it? What if we didn't have those critical, negative voices? What we do? Where would go? Who would we become? It's like trying to become children again who have endless hopes and dreams, and see possibilities. By the way, read a great true story over the holiday called The Sand Castle, and it was a fascinating, touching and inspirational book about a girl that is born into a very poor family but from her view and imagination the world seems more hopeful and bright than you would think and she makes this world her reality as she grows up and becomes a successful writer in NYC. I am glad she told her story. We need more stories like that.
Anyway, back to ZenKitchen. Since coming back, I have been on Rogers TV with another Caroline in the Kitchen show on Kanten or Japanese jello. Kanten is agar agar and is a natural form of gelatin made from sea vegetables and is very good for you, full of calcium and minerals, vs. regular gelatin that is made from parts of animals like hooves and stuff I won't talk about here. You mix the agar agar, in the form of a block or flakes, with juice (you choose what kind you like), and voila you get a very healthy, low fat and delicious dessert. Once this kanten hardens, by pouring it in a pan, you can cut it into squares like jello and then mix it with fruit and what you like like adzuki beans, ice cream, etc. I demoed a vanilla sauce that is vegan and talked also about a yoghurt cheese that you could easily make by draining yoghurt overnight through a coffee filter and then mixing it with natural sweetner, vanilla and other spices as you like. I thought of making this dessert as it's the time of year where many people are watching their weight again but still having those cravings of sweets from the Christmas period and the overload of sweets, me included. Kanten has been made for ages in Japan and used in different dishes such as mitsumame, a dessert with kanten, various, fruit, etc. Kanten is one of the desserts that my mom used to make often when I was child. Funny, that I would have to go to a school in NYC and start using agar agar as a great natural food product, only to find out that my mom had been using this a long time, even before I was born.
I have been keeping a low profile on the food front but have been doing a few catering and other gigs from time to time, while working at the Chelsea Club part-time as usual. I just did an interesting catering gig on Monday for the Actra (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) Awards Reception at the National Library with about 100 from the acting community. It was a great oppotunity to showcase the vegetarian food of ZenKitchen and the audience seemed to enjoy it with several people that are vegetarian amazed that they could actually eat the food when asking the servers what was in the hors d'oeuvres. There was actually one woman who wanted to meet me, thanked me profusefly and said it was so great and avante-garde. I liked the word "avante-garde" and will have to add that to my ZenKitchen vocabulary. It's funny that vegetarians or vegans are often seen as nuisance or second thought in restaurants, who would rather focus on meat and fish and that's it, and the vegetarians are often not asking for much. They just want options like everyone else. It's a growing part of population and trends indicate that more and more people want to include more plant-based foods in their diets, so why does it seem like we live in a world where everyone is in love with foie-gras, pork belly, and roasted pig on a spit, according to the restaurant and food columns and chef menus? I just don't get it. I guess it takes the media to be more open, progressive, and god-forbid vegetarian or vegan, to write from that approach and to cover things that are more than duck fat, beef and tartare. I don't condemn this but I do think we need a balance, another point of view. Even Joanne Kates in the Globe and Mail wrote a column recently on the increasingly interest in vegetarian food and ethnic foods, and even featured an Asian vegetarian restaurant in Toronto, which she said was a big departure for her as she is a real carnivore. But, I have to applaude her for that. If you look to media reporting about restaurants, food and trends in larger newspapers in NYC and San Francisco, there seems to more of the focus on just good food, whatever it may be - meat or fish or vegetarian or vegan. There is not this big distinction and divide between meat and fish on one side and vegetarian and vegan on the other. It doesn't need to be molecular gastronmy level food and you don't need to eat it in a fancy setting, actually the trend is the opposite and going toward more gastro pubs were you can have excellent food in a casual setting. Good food is good food. And just because it's meat doesn't make it good food and just because it's vegetarian doesn't make it good food. It's good because it tastes good and there is passion and care that has gone into for the love of the person consuming it, not to please a chef's ego. I want to be passionate when I cook, I want to cook things that people will be curious about and hopefully love, I want to cook things that are good for people and will fill them with energy and inspiration, I want plates to be beautiful like a present that comes to you and you don't want to unwrap, I want the food, the atmosphere, the company and the spirit to be memorable, something that people can take home with them long after the dinner. And, I just want it to be good.
Anyway, it was nice to come back to the warmth of emails that continue to pour in from people that hear about ZenKitchen and want to participate in dinners, cooking classes, etc. I didn't plan on a dinner in January because of my holiday, working on a major project, and trying to take some time to reflect on the year past and focus on plans for the year ahead. Well, you know what they say, plans happen when are busy making them and I find that the momentum and interest in ZenKitchen is pulling me along like a big gust of wind and I can either resist or just put out my arms and enjoy the ride. I have been somewhere between the two this past year, like trying to hold on to your umbrella and avoiding it from turning inside out while big gusts of wind come your way. Sometimes, you just have to forego the umbrella, just say*** it , and join the forces of nature than trying to fight them. Here I stand, having already taken a big leap by opening ZenKitchen and putting myself out there - heart, soul, and food - and people seem to love it and want more. It's a big order and I feel honoured.
So, I have started to have big visions, thoughts of what ZenKitchen could become in the future and how to make this happen. Oh yes, insecurities come in all the time... what about the money??... what about the failure rate of food businesses???... how will you do this??? But then, I have to tell the ghosts of the past to go home, nicely that is. It's funny that most of the barriers, true barriers we experience, are in our heads, isn't it? What if we didn't have those critical, negative voices? What we do? Where would go? Who would we become? It's like trying to become children again who have endless hopes and dreams, and see possibilities. By the way, read a great true story over the holiday called The Sand Castle, and it was a fascinating, touching and inspirational book about a girl that is born into a very poor family but from her view and imagination the world seems more hopeful and bright than you would think and she makes this world her reality as she grows up and becomes a successful writer in NYC. I am glad she told her story. We need more stories like that.
Anyway, back to ZenKitchen. Since coming back, I have been on Rogers TV with another Caroline in the Kitchen show on Kanten or Japanese jello. Kanten is agar agar and is a natural form of gelatin made from sea vegetables and is very good for you, full of calcium and minerals, vs. regular gelatin that is made from parts of animals like hooves and stuff I won't talk about here. You mix the agar agar, in the form of a block or flakes, with juice (you choose what kind you like), and voila you get a very healthy, low fat and delicious dessert. Once this kanten hardens, by pouring it in a pan, you can cut it into squares like jello and then mix it with fruit and what you like like adzuki beans, ice cream, etc. I demoed a vanilla sauce that is vegan and talked also about a yoghurt cheese that you could easily make by draining yoghurt overnight through a coffee filter and then mixing it with natural sweetner, vanilla and other spices as you like. I thought of making this dessert as it's the time of year where many people are watching their weight again but still having those cravings of sweets from the Christmas period and the overload of sweets, me included. Kanten has been made for ages in Japan and used in different dishes such as mitsumame, a dessert with kanten, various, fruit, etc. Kanten is one of the desserts that my mom used to make often when I was child. Funny, that I would have to go to a school in NYC and start using agar agar as a great natural food product, only to find out that my mom had been using this a long time, even before I was born.
I have been keeping a low profile on the food front but have been doing a few catering and other gigs from time to time, while working at the Chelsea Club part-time as usual. I just did an interesting catering gig on Monday for the Actra (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) Awards Reception at the National Library with about 100 from the acting community. It was a great oppotunity to showcase the vegetarian food of ZenKitchen and the audience seemed to enjoy it with several people that are vegetarian amazed that they could actually eat the food when asking the servers what was in the hors d'oeuvres. There was actually one woman who wanted to meet me, thanked me profusefly and said it was so great and avante-garde. I liked the word "avante-garde" and will have to add that to my ZenKitchen vocabulary. It's funny that vegetarians or vegans are often seen as nuisance or second thought in restaurants, who would rather focus on meat and fish and that's it, and the vegetarians are often not asking for much. They just want options like everyone else. It's a growing part of population and trends indicate that more and more people want to include more plant-based foods in their diets, so why does it seem like we live in a world where everyone is in love with foie-gras, pork belly, and roasted pig on a spit, according to the restaurant and food columns and chef menus? I just don't get it. I guess it takes the media to be more open, progressive, and god-forbid vegetarian or vegan, to write from that approach and to cover things that are more than duck fat, beef and tartare. I don't condemn this but I do think we need a balance, another point of view. Even Joanne Kates in the Globe and Mail wrote a column recently on the increasingly interest in vegetarian food and ethnic foods, and even featured an Asian vegetarian restaurant in Toronto, which she said was a big departure for her as she is a real carnivore. But, I have to applaude her for that. If you look to media reporting about restaurants, food and trends in larger newspapers in NYC and San Francisco, there seems to more of the focus on just good food, whatever it may be - meat or fish or vegetarian or vegan. There is not this big distinction and divide between meat and fish on one side and vegetarian and vegan on the other. It doesn't need to be molecular gastronmy level food and you don't need to eat it in a fancy setting, actually the trend is the opposite and going toward more gastro pubs were you can have excellent food in a casual setting. Good food is good food. And just because it's meat doesn't make it good food and just because it's vegetarian doesn't make it good food. It's good because it tastes good and there is passion and care that has gone into for the love of the person consuming it, not to please a chef's ego. I want to be passionate when I cook, I want to cook things that people will be curious about and hopefully love, I want to cook things that are good for people and will fill them with energy and inspiration, I want plates to be beautiful like a present that comes to you and you don't want to unwrap, I want the food, the atmosphere, the company and the spirit to be memorable, something that people can take home with them long after the dinner. And, I just want it to be good.
posted by Caroline at 6:19 PM
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