Wednesday, January 9, 2013

School Nights

As the holiday hubbub wraps up, the ornaments get tucked into boxes and the wreathes seek shelter in a corner of the basement, the energy shifts. The new year is always such a time of cleaning (I love the sparse ways of January after the crowded ways of December), organizing, sorting, creating order for the coming months. At bistro, this shift of season has led to much cleaning and organizing. We recycle all our glass bottles and in December we simply can't keep up so we have a wall of empty wine and booze bottles waiting patiently in old wine boxes to head to the recycling depot. Janine has taken multiple trips in the truck over the past week to take them. You can feel the sigh of relief from everyone at bistro as one more zone gets cleared out and we have a wee bit more space to work! New menu planning is underway. New projects are being ignited. Everyone is taking a deep breath, exhaling relief that we made it, and finding space to move forward.

And, for so many, January also means the return to school. As homeschoolers, we have always just worked when we felt inspired and followed the rhythms of ourselves. For the past two years, I have had 2 kids dipping their toes into academia and so we also returned to school this week. This has been helpful in reminding us that it is time to fire up School Nights again at the bistro.

A few years ago, Alex and I were staying in Toronto at the Drake Hotel. I love the Drake for many reasons (and it is not the peaceful night's sleep that you get, be ready to embrace a party!), in particular I love the creative energy that is sparking away in that place: from drinks, to food, to art, to music, the place is abuzz at all times. There are curated art shows. Like, for real. As many of you know, I like art. My restaurant is chock a block in real, actual pieces of art. My home is crammed with art. I love being surrounded by visuals that engage me, challenge me, soothe me, and generally make me happy. The chef, Anthony Rose, has got some awesome food happening, from the diner, to the lounge, to the 3rd floor, year round outdoor patio, there is yummy food going on. There are bands and theatre productions happening. The Drake is what the Albert could/should be. And every Monday night, there is 86'd hosted by Ivy Knight.

As far as I can sort out, Ivy used to be a cook, working in the kitchens in Toronto. She is cook with a knack for connecting people, writing, and being in tune with the zeitgeist. At one point, I believe she was writing about the Toronto food scene and brunches around town. She has recently started up the fantastic website, swallowfood.com. We first met when Alex and I were brought out to cook at the first annual Cheese Festival in Picton, Ontario ( www.cheesefestival.ca ). Go if you can. Seriously. Cheese in this bucolic setting with wineries every ten feet. Heaven. After the Cheese Festival, we headed to Toronto where we were staying at the Drake, and Ivy invited us to her weekly 86'd night at the Drake. Every Monday for years, Ivy has been hosting a party at the Drake on Monday nights that is connected to the restaurant industry. Whether it's a pickle and pate showdown, a raw milk film screening (complete with cookies and, sadly, pasteurized milk), a cookbook launch or an oyster night, somehow there is a connection to the industry. Hence the 86'd name: code word in restaurants for something we're out of. The first time I attended an 86'd night I thought: I want to host a party like this at my place. An irreverent, funny, pleasing night. Of course, at that point, we weren't big enough. But along came The Other Side.

When we opened The Other Side (as I have since found out it is called out in the world), I began pretty quickly trying to make this happen. I'm like a dog with a bone when I've got an idea. Fortunately, I have friends who are irreverent, funny and pleasing, and who were game to get involved. Sarah Zaharia and Talia Syrie were willing and took up the project. We decided to run it Sunday nights and decided to call it School Nights as it's the last night of fun before having to get up and get back at it. Originally, we had a 'teaching' component to tie in with the theme, but that became cumbersome. We tweaked the concept a bit and came up with a plan to have some fun food (often involving other restaurants or chefs), a fun drink, and some music. And sometimes an activity: pumpkin-carving anyone? We had a hot-sauce throw down where the crowd judges the hot sauces made by various people. We had plum-pudding and punch; spaghetti western night with spaghetti to eat and a spaghetti western film showing; poutine night (which will make a reappearance this spring); opera night where a chorus member came and sang for us and got us all singing! We have had Mariachi's Ghost, the Brothers Landreth, and Mama Cutsworth play. Every week it is a a moment to join people in an evening of snacks, drinks, and music hosted graciously by Sarah and Talia. I am proud and excited by how this event has taken on a life of its own, bringing people from all over the place to have fun in our lounge.

And so, as with the way of January, the planning has begun. School Nights begins again this Sunday. It may involve some grilled cheese. It will absolutely involve some fun, good music and nice people. The @School_Nights twitter account and Facebook pages will keep you in the loop about what were doing. Or, just stop by on a Sunday evening and be surprised and have a little fun.

Of course, School Nights is not the only project I have cooking for the lounge. I really want to do a live art show. And I want some sort of poetry reading or author event. And I want to hear ideas of what people would like. We have this space and we want to do fun, creative things in it.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Digging deep and growing


I fear jinxing it. I have a slight bit of superstition in me. Don’t pass anyone on the stairs. No shoes on the table (which seems both sensible and wise), no mixing red and white flowers, if I spill salt, over my left shoulder it goes. I grew up with my most amazing and awesome Grandma Renee who was incredibly superstitious, as well as a freakishly accurate tea leaf reader, and some of it rubbed off on me. So, I am hesitant to make note of the bistro’s state of relative calm and goodness for fear of tempting the fates. But I am going to forge ahead and make note: Bistro is looking pretty good.

The past year has been so crazy intense I couldn’t even bring myself to write about it. I felt like I was herding cats at all times: money was bonkers with the reno overbudget and the expense of operating a situation more than twice the size of the old one; staffing hit some huge snags (more about the 120% idea of staff in another post); Alex and I hit some major and near fatal bumps in our relationship; and, I was still pretty grief-stricken for my cousin. All in all, it was the most unpleasant of years.

Over the past few months, however, a slight shift has begun taking place. I am remembering how to run a business, get my feet under me. Alex and I have more good days than bad in our 24-year old relationship. We have some awesome staff who care about the bistro whole-heartedly (as did many of the former staff.) We are busy and the food is good and the service is good. School Nights has evolved into its own delighful situation, hosted so graciously by Talia and Sarah. We have once again created a good place to be.

Of course, Alex and I are not ones to sit for long. We have plans afoot. I believe we function best when stretching ourselves. In December, we did a soft launch of our Bistro To Go line. Over the years, people have asked us for jars of things we make, like fennel marmalade, tomato confit, or bacon jam and we have hunted down some form of container and sent them home with whatever their heart desired. We have formalized that process a bit. Our great day Sous-Chef, Grant, who is meticulous and a very smart cook, has embraced this project, creating jars of beautiful concoctions for folks to take home. December proved to be wildly successful for this project and we plan to expand on it. We will set the website up to sell them, I think. And we’ll see if any stores want to stock them, like our fantastic butcher, Marcello, at Marcello’s Meats (shop there – he and his family are amazing!)

We are also going to expand the Bistro To Go line into meals. Recently, our youngest has added “Hockey Mom” to my portfolio. Given that our eldest is almost 15, I felt that we had probably dodged that bullet. Yet, along comes the youngest and not only is she seriously into sports, she is freakishly good at them. And so my life has the added challenges of juggling a hockey schedule. Which, in turn, has added to my craziness around feeding the family. More than once, I have resorted to a roasted chicken from a grocery store. Not with pride but with a little bit of sadness in my heart. All of this has led me to ponder the plight of the families who are juggling 14 things and want something yummy on the table.

We are going to start by offering pre-made meals. You can stop in on your way home and get some short ribs for 4, or ½ a roasted free-range chicken, or some beef bourguignon. We will offer these with sides like mashed or scalloped potatoes, grilled polenta or some quinoa with veggies. Soups made from scratch by our cooks or homemade stocks to make your own. We are open to requests. Which I think will lead us into the next phase of this project: chef services.

Part of our renovation was putting in a large kitchen in the basement, both for prep at bistro and for our other endeavour Bistro Caters! We started Bistro Caters! a few years ago. Alex and I have always loved catering. It’s this really unique opportunity to push our creativity and hospitality into new places. No two caterings are the same and they all provide some opportunities for us to think creatively. We cater all sorts of events, from 4 person dinner parties, to cocktail parties to weddings for 300 people. Ultimately, I would love to have a party planning service but that’s not yet. For right now, we are thinking about ways to use the space and staff we have. We have two sets of really dear friends whose schedules make ours seem like play time. These friends, independently of each other, have hired chefs to cook for them a couple of times a week. Just dropped off, ready to be warmed up, plated and served. Aha!, I thought. This would be a pretty straight forward service for us to offer. And so, Bistro Chefs! is born.

And so the business keeps expanding and doing its thing and creating its own energy. Outside of that part of our lives, Alex and I have also been keen to expand our horizons. We haven’t travelled as much as we like but have had some great adventures. We fell in love with Gimli, like head-over-heels, mooning for her when we are apart, aflutter on the drive, love. We have both started writing for the new prairie on-line paper The Spectator Tribune (Alex has been able to be a bit more prolific on that front than me but I am hopeful!) And we have all sorts of cool and funky little projects started with some friends so we’ll see what shakes out of it all and will write about it as it goes.

Finally, Alex and I had a really ridiculously great opportunity this year. Alex was invited to represent Manitoba at the Canadian Chefs’ Congress. Possibly the most amazing event I have ever attended: incredible food, brilliant creative chefs, political conversation about food, land, sustainability, resources, and one or two parties. At this event, our creative juices really got going again. We are hoping to host this event in Manitoba in 2014. We got engaged in some great national-level conversations about food. And, (this is the biggie) we finally clicked on the topic for a book. Alex and I both enjoy writing and have for years tossed around the idea of what to write about. Something happened in Nova Scotia at this congress, some sparky alignment of the stars, that had us agree on what we are going to write. This past November, our newly 13yo son wrote a 50,000 word novel as part of the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month – look it up!) event. Needless to say, there is some inspiration to be found in his accomplishment for both Alex and I. And so, an outline has been written and we have both begun our work.

Initially, I started writing this post feeling like 2012 was a disaster. And it was certainly a year of challenges and significant unpleasantness but as I come to the end of this writing, I am reframing it to be the murky place from which beautiful things will be born.