TGIF! GCF! Cheers to the weekend ladies and gents! As your cheese, wine, and cooking musings master and occasional weather forecaster/complainer, I thought I would fill you in that, guess what, this weekend it is supposed to be in the middle to upper forties, almost even in the fifties, woohoo! Spring here we come...don't worry, I won't continue with my venting about the weather, I know that's not why you read my blog posts..
So tonight, my boyfriend and I went to an event entitled "Anarchy in the Kitchen," which was a part of the Umami Art and Food Festival -- a festival that brings to light the manner in which food is utilized as an art form and how certain individuals are challenging our boundaries for what we perceive as food -- it is an opportunity to bring together the worlds of art and food with a unique creative point of view.
In case you were wondering what Umami is, let me tell you: the name Umami is perceived as the fifth taste (the other four are: sweetness, sourness, bitterness, and saltiness) and comes from Japanese and basically implies a savoriness developed from the presence of glutamate, an amino acid. I believe Umami to be that savoriness that has that pucker your lips and dries out your mouth in an awesome way that makes you want more of it or drink a lot of Torrentes or another light acidic white wine that is the perfect pairing for the savoriness of umami.
Our event this evening was composed of two distinct parts: there was an hour of video/performance art pieces utilizing food as their subject matter such as "lemons making their own lemon merengue pie," and an improvisational video mime piece of a mime who hadn't eaten in three days being told what to eat and then acting out the process of eating everything from a quiche to an unopen coconut. The other aspect of tonight's event was "edible cocktails" provided by the outstanding chefs at the French Culinary Institute -- they ran with that quintessential umami flavoring mixed with an inventive technologically creative edge. Here's what was served:
Gin Cucumber, Fruit Salad, Gazpacho
Grilled Cheese Sandwich with tomatoes
Tea sandwich with smoked trout, dashi
"Peanut Butter and Jelly" sandwich
Porcini parfait with yellow tomato fluid gel
Guess which dish we are going to discuss here? You guessed it the grilled cheese! This baby certainly stretched your mind when it came to what you imagine grilled cheese to be. It was that delish German pumpernickel bread with parmesan and a pickled tomato and all of the flavor and extra special oomph was packed into one tiny bite. I know it seems like a weird mixture of flavors, but it was outstanding...sooo I thought I'd play off of that and make my own version of an Umami GCF:
The thing that was important to maintain in my Umami GCF, was the simplicity of the ingredients and
Take some of Grandaisy's plain flatbread, homemade olive oil foccacia, some of the best thin crust focaccia in town! Now you need to top each toasted slice of bread with a few slices of Roquefort. In case you aren't familiar, there was a bit of a scare last year that then President Bush was going to raise the import tax on Roquefort so it simply was too expensive for American cheese retailers to sell, needless to say, with the Obama administration in place, we are safe with our Roquefort! In case you aren't familar with Roquefort, this baby, like champagne has had its name and methods protected since 1411 and trust me they should be! Raw Lacune Sheep's milk is aged for three months in caverns in the midi Pyrenees and you end up with this delish combo of sweet, spicey, picante, amazingness. Then with the beets and cheese, I like to add a few leaves of arugula to add that green side to the sandwich that also breaks up the cheese, beets, and bread. So now, with the toasted bread, drizzle a little sunflower oil on either piece of bread, then top with cheese, pickled beats and arugula and toast away. I know this is a different way to go with the umami flavors but I think it will definitely be successful.
Good night all....check back tomorrow for longer musings! Happy Friday all!
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