During the days of May 2-6, come upstairs from Le Marché St. George with a coffee or pastry in hand, hang out with the chefs while they prep for service and view the curated art showing in the space. Naomi Horii of Butter on the Endive has brought together photographers David Zilber, Hana Pesut, and KIN Chan, and visual artist Nathan Grimson. BOTE is excited to have these Vancouver-based artists show their work with Chef in Residence. Some of the artists’ prints will be for sale, which can be purchased directly through the artists. Information available upon request.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

David Zilber
A native of Toronto, Ontario, David Chaim Jacob Zilber (b. 1985) is a professional chef and butcher who has worked in fine dining establishments across Canada since 2004. Photography has been one of his chief creative outlets over the past 4 years, alongside cooking, painting, writing and industrial design. Working exclusively with 135 format film, his work has been shown across North America, and featured in projects such as Vice, It’s Nice That, 01 Magazine and Street Carnage. He is the creator of the on-line photojournal Recidivism and Prolix, a book of black and white photographs, was released in September 2011 through Montreal’s Trapshot Archives. He was the creative spark of “Good As New”, a group photography exhibition at Ed Varie Gallery in New York in January 2012 alongside Jeremie Egry and Aurelien Arbet, Bruno Zhu, Nicholas Gottlund and curator David Brandon Geeting. He currently lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Hana Pesut
Hana is a self-taught photographer raised in Whistler and currently living in Vancouver, Canada. Her main focus in photography is the “little moments” that people sometimes miss and later wish they had captured. She hopes to inspire others to take more photos in their day to day life.

KIN Chan
KIN is a photographer based in Vancouver Canada and London UK.
He shoots refined stories and raw ones;
beautiful boys and strong girls;
captures the moments when everything is perfect, but also when it is exposed and vulnerable.

Nathan Grimson
Nathan Grimson is a printmaker currently living in vancouver, where he is the studio technician at Malaspina Printmakers on Granville Island. His work utilizes modern and traditional printmaking techniques, while creating a multi-layered space that employs geometric shapes culled from the public sphere.

Butter on the Endive Pops-Up

Butter on the Endive is gearing up for another great event. This time we will be taking over the beautiful space above Le Marché St. George from May 3-6 to hold 3 consecutive 5-course dinners, with a casual Sunday brunch to cap it all off. Each of the dinners will be created collaboratively with other local chefs/friends and will celebrate the transition from grey to green. We are really excited at the chance to come together with these fine folks and create some memorable meals for all of you.

All dinners (excluding the Sunday brunch) are $65 and require a ticket, which can be pre-purchased by pay pal below. Alcohol is BYOB for each event.

Thursday May 3 ~ I Wanna Live With A Cinnamon Girl

Collaborator: Adam Chandler

Chef Owen Lightly will be collaborating with Adam Chandler of BETA 5 Chocolates to offer a multi-perspective approach to what defines tasteful exploration in food elegance. Chandler, former-chef-now-chocolatier, creates magic between savory and sweet. His obsessions grow deeper as he pushes the line between traditional practice and innovative flavor design. Although they come from different paths of the culinary arts, both chefs enjoy the challenge of developing ideas from good ingredients and solid technique. This anticipated collaboration will be a unique interaction between focused detail and vast flavours and we are excited to bring it to supporters of both BETA 5 Chocolates and BOTE.

Menu
albacore tuna with charred ramp, yuzu and brown rice

chocolate ganache tart with olive oil

 
Thursday, May 4th – 5:30 pm and 8:30 pm seating
sold out….email here to be put on the wait list.
 
 

Friday May 4 ~ Smells Like Teen Spirit

Collaborator: Jane Cornborough

Whether it is running a restaurant or popping up with the infamous Pig Dinners, the elusive Jane Cornborough has always got her hands in a different culinary honeypot. Her fine touch and sense of surprise while honoring place, memory, and history, will definitely grace the table on this evening. Cornborough has a solid knowledge of and feel for food-love and the experiential process of cooking and eating. In this lovely menu, Lightly and Cornborough will pay homage to their coastal upbringings by studying seafood and their connections to spring gardens and other such earthly delights.

Menu:

sawmill bay oyster with wood sorrel

eirkuchen: german pancakes with quince, rum, raisins and pecan-vanilla ice cream

 
Friday, May 4th, 5:30 pm and 8:30 pm seating
sold out….email here to be put on the wait list.
 
 

Saturday, May 5th ~ Besame Mucho: From Peru With Love

Collaborator: Alvaro Musso

Alvaro Musso and Butter on the Endive will be collaborating on an inspired, multidisciplinary menu that pays homage to the cuisine of Peru. Chef Lightly with Musso will offer the opportunity to experience the interplay between traditional processes and tangential food desire. Musso’s artistic practice encompasses a hungry, forward-thinking respect for precision with the ability to hold flavour composition, diaspora, and seasons, like a tree.

Menu:

anticucho de corazón: marinated beef heart skewer

corn cake with dulce de leche

Saturday, May 5th – 5:30 pm and 8:30 pm seating
sold out….email here to be put on the wait list.

May 6 ~ Salon Brunch

Collaborator: Le Marché St. George

Cultural observer and critic Andrew Morrison, for Monocle Magazine says “Le Marché is a refreshing haven from the high-street chains, which boasts a queue that is as quick as it is cordial.” Le Marché is not just a coffee shop, it is a space wherein everything beautiful comes together. Products from local and international artisans, suppliers, and cultural community fill the shop and the senses. While Chef in Residence inhabits the apartment upstairs from Le Marché, Butter on the Endive will open the doors during business hours so that guests of can come up with their coffee, and enjoy a casual, made-to-order brunch. Walk-ins are welcome, and served on a first-come, first-served basis. Guests are encouraged to simply lounge and relax, do a crossword, or catch up with a friend. Brunch will only be offered May 6th, however Chef in Residence doors will be open for lounging during Le Marché business hours on May 2nd- 6th.

Walk-ins Welcome for brunch on Sunday, May 6th from 11 am-3 pm

Menu:

smoked sablefish Spanish tortilla on ciabatta with aioli and soffrito

duck confit rillette, boiled egg and pickled ramp on ciabatta

there’s talk of fritters of some kind…..stay tuned

Call 778-989-9349 or email info@butterontheendive.ca for more information.

Nettles are here so spring can’t be far behind. My sister brought some tender young shoots over from Gabriola this weekend and they made there way onto pizza yesterday and into a fritatta this morning. I’ve never gone searching for them in Vancouver, but am sure there are some out of the way places in town to find them. Last year I served them with oysters, which I want to explore more this year. There’s nothing like super-healthy, delicious, free food that grows like a weed.

This is some next level shit. I hope I’m still cooking at 85.

I challenged a colleague to a cook-off today. One hour to make one dish with mussels or clams as the main ingredient. An impartial judge would then taste the two dishes and makes a decision. Sounds like fun, right?

I made a riff on clam chowder – kind of Italy meets the Northeastern United States. First I made a fish stock with some sablefish bones and bacon scraps that were around and used that as the base of my “chowder sauce”. The usual suspects were then sauteed (onion, carrot, celery, fennel, garlic) in butter, deglazed with white wine, followed by fish stock, and finished it with a little cream. While the sauce was being made, I had a potato baking in the oven, which became herb gnocchi. Some herbs were kept aside to garnish to finish the sauce, but I accidentally threw some crispy bacon bits in with them (not my intention), and a lightbulb went off – how about bacon gremolata? Some lemon zest and crispy breadcrumbs were added and there was the garnish. The clams were steamed in the sauce, blanched gnocchi added, finished with lemon juice, plated simply and scattered with my newfangled bacon gremolata.

It was determined to be a draw by the judge. More cook-offs are in order.

Check out this mesmerizing video of Tuna fisherman in the 50′s? 60′s? I’ve been trying to find the source, but there doesn’t seem to be any information on it. My best guess is somewhere in the Pacific………Any guesses people?

Thanks to my brother-in-law Vahid for the link.

If you find yourself without a smoker, there’s always cheater barbecue. Rub one trimmed beef brisket liberally with Magic Dust (recipe below), and refrigerate overnight. Wake up early, say around 6 a.m., and preheat the oven to 225°F. Place the brisket on a rack over a roasting pan and cover with aluminum foil. Cook for 8 hours, basting with the juices that pool on the bottom of the pan whenever you get a chance. Remove the aluminum foil and cook for four more hours, basting still. Turn the oven up to 350°F and cook for 1 more hour, basting with barbecue sauce (recipe below) for the final hour. Once a nice crust has developed, remove it from the oven and wrap completely in foil and rest for 1 hour. Remove from the foil, slice thinly and eat. If all has gone according to plan, it should be around 8 p.m.

Magic Dust Spice Rub
yields 300 grams

This recipe is adapted from Peace, Love and Barbecue an amazing cookbook on the subject by Mike Mills, a former world champion pitmaster.

Ingredients:

• 52 g paprika
• 48 g kosher salt
• 48 g sugar
• 12 g mustard powder
• 40 g chili powder
• 40 g ground cumin
• 24 g garlic powder
• 4 g black pepper
• 12 g cayenne

Method:
1. Mix all spices together in a dry mixing bowl and store in a sealed container.

Barbecue Sauce
yields approximately 1.3 litres

This sauce is adapted from a recipe in the same book and is awesome.

Ingredients:

• 600 g ketchup
• 300 ml rice wine vinegar
• 250 ml apple juice
• 125 ml apple cider vinegar
• 160 g brown sugar
• 60 ml soy sauce
• 60 ml worcestershire sauce
• 30 g dijon mustard
• 2 g cayenne pepper
• 6 g garlic powder
• 2 g white pepper
• 200 g onion, peeled and minced
• 100 g green apple, peeled and grated

Method:
1. Combine all ingredients in a heavy-bottomed pot and bring to a simmer over medium-low heat. Reduce until the sauce thickens slightly and tastes delicious, approximately 30-45 minutes. Cool and store in a sealed container in the fridge. Will keep for up to 2 weeks.

Interesting look into the kitchen notebooks of Sean Brock, chef of McCrady’s and Husk in Charleston, North Carolina.

You can easily get lost on the internet, and I often do. Here’s what we’re reading at the Butter on the Endive office this week:

An interview with Chef David Kinch of Manresa on Eater.com. Hat tip to Jake for the link.

Interview in the New Yorker with Tom Muller, author of a new book on the sometimes nefarious world of olive oil.

With a gluten-sensitive mom, this recipe for a flour substitute called “What IiF” from the folks at Ideas in Food got my attention.

A profile on Alex Stupak (former pastry chef of Alinea and WD-50) in The New York Times, who now is the chef/owner of 2 mexican restaurants in New York City.

A cool little piece on the trials, tribulations and triumphs of staging in high end kitchens from Chef Justin Yu of the soon to open Oxheart in Houston

What are you reading?