Cattlemen’s Steakhouse upholds Western ways

Posted on by Pat and David
Every time a server places a grilled steak before a hungry diner at Cattlemen's Steakhouse, the refrain is the same. “I'll have you cut right into that,” the server says, “and make sure that we cooked it right.” It's hardly a surprise that beef gets special treatment at Cattlemen's. It's Oklahoma City's oldest continuously operated restaurant. Originally called Cattlemen's Cafe, it opened in 1910 right in the midst of Stockyards City to serve the ranchers, cowboys, and cattle haulers involved in sending beef to the markets back East. Located slightly west of downtown, today's Stockyards District remains the home of one of the biggest livestock markets in the West. Shops specializing in jeans, boots, 10-gallon hats, and belts with big buckles line the streets. In...Read More

Film Row gives a new twist on OKC fun

Posted on by Pat and David
Hollywood met the High Plains in Oklahoma City as early as 1907. By the 1960s, literally hundreds of film exchanges operated in OKC as distribution points for almost every film studio in the U.S. Films fanned out to 37 cities from Film Row, until changes in movie technology changed the means of distribution. The heart of the current Film Row (www.filmrowokc.com) is the corner of Sheridan and Lee Avenues. Many old buildings remain, complete with ghost paintings of their studio names. The neighborhood has begun to emerge as a center for arts, entertainment, and dining. A concert venue/dance club is rising behind the 21c Museum Hotel. Meanwhile, there's plenty to entice, ranging from the main gallery of Individual Artists of Oklahoma (www.iaogallery.org) to the quirky...Read More

Imagining fresh starts in Oklahoma City

Posted on by Pat and David
The southern plains horizons of Oklahoma City seem to stretch to infinity in every direction. So do the streets, which line up in orderly grids. When a storm gathers, tumbling balls of black clouds pile up to the top of the sky and you cross your fingers that they don't drop a funnel to the ground. When the sun shines, the whole landscape gets so hot that it looks like it's about to sizzle. The heroic scale of the land and sky in this quintessential American frontier city of 610,000 allows it to sprawl 30 miles across in places. With all that elbow room, its distinct neighborhoods have matured like siblings in a big family—undeniably related but each with its own quirks. You get a...Read More

Christo’s Floating Piers rise like Franciacorta bubbles

Posted on by Pat and David
For 16 days in late June and early July, the artist Christo let art-lovers walk on water. His “Floating Piers” project was his first outdoor installation since 2005 when he and his late wife and collaborator, Jeanne-Claude, installed 7,500 panels to make gates in New York's Central Park. Like the gates, the piers gleamed with celebratory saffron-colored fabric. Some 220,000 high-density polyethylene cubes supported the 53-foot wide walkway. Nearly two years in the making, the environmental artwork connected two small islands in Lake Iseo with each other and the mainland. And now it's all gone — but not before an estimated 1 million visitors experienced it. The poignancy of Christo's works lies in the tension between the heroic scale of their vision and their ephemeral...Read More

Healthy poutine is not an oxymoron

Posted on by Pat and David
“Eating vegetarian is a culture that grows every day,” acknowledges Gérôme Paquette, chef at L'Gros Luxe (www.lgrosluxe.com), a small chain of restaurants committed to a healthy lifestyle. “People are more cautious about what they are eating.” But that doesn't mean that diners want to give up flavor—or comfort food favorites such poutine. And Paquette (above left) is happy to oblige. “Creating a vegetarian version of poutine is not that complicated,” he says. He points out that it's all about balancing flavors and textures of the sauce and topping ingredients. In place of the typically rich meat gravy, Paquette creates a vegetable stock that he seasons as if it were a meat stock. For his Poutine Thai, he ladles the thickened veggie stock over the frites...Read More

Caribbean flavors explode in jerk chicken poutine

Posted on by Pat and David
Montreal's multiculturalism is one key to the city's enduring appeal and its ability to constantly reinvent itself. Chef Jae Anthony is a case in point. His parents came from Barbados and Trinidad, and while Jae has roots in both Caribbean nations, he's a Montrealer through and through. He operates the Seasoned Dreams restaurant in the Côte Saint-Paul neighborhood, just over the Lachine Canal bridge near the Ambroise-McAuslan brewery. You can get his cooking all year long at 5205 rue Angers, Montreal (514-769-2222; seasoneddreams.com). Seasoned Dreams specializes in Caribbean fusion cooking, He also A portable version of the restaurant travels around to festivals. Finding Seasoned Dreams was a breeze at the Montreal Poutinefest. You could literally follow your nose. Chef Jae and his partner Julien Chemtof...Read More

Poutine plays nicely with lobster and bacon

Posted on by Pat and David
Poutine's simplicity seems to spur cooks to increasingly baroque inventions. Think of a preschooler fantasizing about crossing a T. Rex with a firetruck, or wondering what superpowers the offspring of Superman and Wonder Woman might possess. Fries, cheese curds, and brown gravy have a salty, starchy goodness all their own. So what happens when you cross poutine with, say, a cheeseburger? Or lobster? Or lobster and bacon? It's the kind of thinking that led to a number of the ice cream mashup flavors at Ben & Jerry, but it suits the spirit of a poutine food truck festival. Especially in Montreal. What if...? One of the more successful forays into hybridizing fast foods turns out to be the bacon cheeseburger poutine. Think about it. It...Read More

Montreal smoked meat shines at Poutinefest

Posted on by Pat and David
Maybe it was preordained. The quintessential delicatessen specialty of Montreal--smoked meat--had to meet up with poutine at some point. Perhaps the only thing that kept it from happening sooner is the kosher prohibition against serving meat and dairy (i.e., cheese curds) in the same dish. The exact origins of Montreal smoked meat are murky, but it was clearly introduced by Eastern European Jewish immigrant butchers around the end of the 19th century. In its modern incarnation, smoked meat is made from beef brisket dry-cured with salt and spices, hot smoked, and finally steamed before serving. It resembles New York pastrami, but is usually cured with far less sugar and far more spices—especially cracked pepper, coriander, mustard seed, and garlic. The flavor is so addictive that...Read More

Argentine poutine spices up Montreal Poutinefest

Posted on by Pat and David
Sandro Guerrero hails from Córdoba, Argentina. “It's a good country with a lot of meat,” he says with almost ironic understatement. The average Argentine eats nearly 100 pounds of beef annually. That equals the annual consumption of an American and a Canadian combined. When he moved his family to Montreal three years ago, Guerrero had never heard of poutine. He admits to an initial skepticism about the favorite dish of Montrealers. “I thought it was impossible to eat potatoes with the sauce,” he says of the often nondescript salty brown gravy. “But when I tried it, I had to admit that this is a very good product.” Guerrero's regular gig is as a chef at Le Smoking BBQ (see previous post). His Argentine skills with...Read More

Montreal Poutinefest rocks the waterfront

Posted on by Pat and David
Certain foods seem destined to go together. Bacon and eggs. Peanut butter and jelly. Shrimp and grits. If you are Québecois, the gastronomic holy trinity is French fries, cheese curds, and gravy. The dish is called poutine (pronounced poo-TEEN). Roger Hubert says it has become “the meal” in Quebec. That's why he and his son Greg, proprietor of the Montreal restaurant Le Smoking BBQ, launched the first Poutinefest at Montreal's Old Port in fall 2015. It was such a success that they pulled out all the stops for an even splashier version at the end of June 2016. Featuring 18 food trucks with a panoply of poutine variations, the festival took place for three days on the Quai de l’Horloge (Clocktower Quay). Admission was free,...Read More