Fusion

During the time before, when I would come over to Canada, I used to watch a lot of the Food Network Canada. It's not that we don't have a food channel in Britain, but it used to be on one of the very high numbers channels and only available at certain times. The shows were always ones which had been on BBC or Channel 4 already. I also had no great interest in watching it since I relied very heavily on Sainsburys and Marks and Sparks to do my cooking for me.

Kevin likes to cook and he is very good at it so it seems reasonable that he would watch the food channel, thus, so did I. I saw Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson's programmes for the first time over here. There are many other great food shows, there's one that is all about barbecuing which will be back in April.

Our very favourite TV chef is Alton Brown, an American with a lot of charisma. I hesitated to use that word because just maybe it smacks of evangelism. Not so with Alton, he's very down to earth, he's funny and explains the science behind food and cooking. He is also a man after my own heart in that he is not a fan of the single use appliance or gadget. Anything that makes it into Alton's kitchen has to work hard. So for example, Alton has a melon baller but I have yet to see him use it to ball melons, but it's in use all the time.

A show that Kevin likes but I don't, is Iron Chef. I can no more sit and watch competitive cooking than I can sport. There's too much time wasted with discussing and repeating everything to build up the tension and not enough time showing us how it's done.

We both, however, like Michael Smith. He is a Canadian chef and one of his series is 'Chef at Home'. Michael's home just happens to be Prince Edward Island (PEI) and his house overlooks sloping gardens that lead down to the sea. Spectacular.
Yesterday, Michael decided he was going to make some fusion recipes. This immediately made me less interested. My experience of fusion cooking in restaurants has been that it is rather forced. I think that fusion in cooking, as in life, tends to happen naturally, like the Québecois Poutine, french fries and curds with gravy on the top, now don't tell me anyone sat about inventing that. It just happened somehow.

As it turned out, this was one of the best shows I have seen, I should have trusted Mikey. His starter was a variant on sushi. I find sushi rather boring, we had a time in Britain when it was big, but then it died back, fun for a while, but then no-one wanted it more than once in a while. And in fact, it would make an interesting starter occasionally, so long as there is something that isn't just..well, more sushi to follow. Michael Smith made a chick pea mash and rolled it in smoked salmon and then seaweed. How perfect! He made some amazing salmon fishcakes which were more like burgers and an interesting salad with rice noodles and a dressing of peanut butter, marmelade and soy sauce. He made an iced tea with maple syrup - interesting combo of flavours, but may be a bit too syrupy for my taste, but his pudding, coconut tarts with chocolate and coconut cream sound just divine. I'm not sure what his fusion is here, but it works for me because I consider anything that dilutes chocolate down from being just...well, chocolate is fusion.

Michael Smith always makes it all look easy. He is a very laid back chef, he gives you the impression that you could actually create some of the things he makes in his kitchen, in yours, but he certainly got past my initial distrust of fusion. And his house and garden are sooooo lovely.