The build up to the Congress was slow, we spent months meeting, fleshing out details, assigning tasks all very mundane stuff. It wasn’t until the Friday of the weekend of the event that I realized just how amazing a thing we were about to pull off. I had no idea!
The week leading up tho the event was nuts. I only had a vague idea of what I would cook, I had never used the oven not to mention that it hadn’t had a fire in it for no one knows how long. One thing I learned about wood burning ovens over the last 2 years is that they have personalities of their own and I had barley met this beast. But I knew that I had many resources nearby, and that I would not hesitate to use them.
One thing that didn’t work out for me that week was making or procuring any meats, I spoke to my friend Luc at Choux Choux on tuesday and found out he was prepearing to close for two weeks, I usually order, process, smoke, store and otherwise prepare for events involving pork at his shop but not this time it turned out.
Upon meeting Chef Rob Belcham (finally) I mentioned my situation, I won’t call it a dillema as I had lots of other ingredients at my disposal. And he said he’d try to get his cook to bring some cure over from Vancouver, he was successful and Ted showed up with three pieces of Rob’s salame, a fennel pollen, soppresatta, horse meat, yes horse meat!
Peter Zambri had been in the throws of opening his new restaurant, and I had been meeting with his baker and Pizzaiola in the preceeding weeks, we decided that using his new facilities and staff to practice with dough would be a perfect way to get things rolling at Zambri’s 2.O
unfortunately on Thursday night Peter informed me that the power wasn’t on yet and it wasn’t going to work, but he and B(rad) had worked things out for me to use the kitchen at the Italian Bakery, perfect except I would have no help. Getting the dough made and stored properly was my biggest worry as I was planning a 24 hour cold ferment and in a new environment with unfamiliar equipment and flour I was worried that something could go wrong.
The huge mixer at the bakery made my life really easy, I made 2 batches in a massive 2 arm mixer totalling around 100 lbs of flour.
For the first, and main night I decided to try for a tradition Neapolitan style pie, 225 gram portions, proofed till really relaxed, stretched by hand and baked at the highest temperature possible, between 600 and 900 degrees F I eventually figured that the oven and dough were better suited for a larger NY style pie baked a little slower, but that didn’t stop that first night going off like a firecracker!
By the time we got things under way Saturday night, there was a pretty good drizzle coming down, the floor of our “line” was quickly becoming a sloppy mess of flour, dirt and rain. Sloppy good times.
Once everyone was done with all the other food and decided it was time to get out of the rain we had been cooking pies in the oven for an hour or so and starting to get the hang of it. I am used to using very dry, very hard wood, but had spent a few minutes figuring out which of the woods supplied were burning the hottest, so we were picking out the pieces of fir and avoiding the yellow and red cedar.
A crowd of very interested and slightly drunk chefs started to gather, and before I knew it there was a crowd leaning in to catch the action, Greg Aspa (photographer) was right up in there with his lens right in the oven door. I have seen lots of his photos before and been photographed by him myself so I let him get in the way, I knew having a record would be worth it.
It was getting late in the evening, Derek Damman Chef from DNA in Montreal, friend, and former to chef to me was hanging around. I mentioned that I had found 3 lobes of fois gras in the reefer truck. He pulls me aside and says “OK, here’s what we need to do, sear a whole lobe of fois, chill it and make a calzone with some of those roasted grapes you got there” the wheels were in motion for a very decadent late night snack. I started right away as I knew it would take some time to cool it down, and in the mean time started making sure a few key people knew what was in the works, Michael Staadlander, Robert Clark, Vikram Vij, Rob Belcham, Cory Pelan and a few other key organizer types. But by the time we were getting close to making the calzone word had gt around and everyone was waiting around hoping for a taste. Did I mention that I had alreay been offered a whole large sheet pan of pre sliced fois? Anyway Cory was getting a bit tipsy and announces “screw it, lets break out the rest of it” So away we went.
Seared slabs of fois gras, pizza with fois and grapes, smoked sturgeon, fois and caviar pizza!
we all ate, and licked, and smeared that fat duck liver around till it was all gone, and the James Barber memorial oven has a grand splash of fat stained across its front as a testament to that crazy night.
5am, Sunday morning, I’m sitting around Tara and Kyle’s campsite with John “thunder” Brookes myself and Rob Belcham talking about the night we just had and the stain on the oven. Rob says to me “ I think James would love it that there’s a fois gras stain on his memorial oven”
I think I agree.
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