Jackson Heights Life

We're getting there. Michael Fiori's story on progress for the Jackson Heights Post: http://jacksonheightspost.com/frenchamerican-restaurant-to-open-on-37th-avenue/

Stew
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Hey Stew, they say it's French and American food, but is it perhaps Canadian? Even New Canadien?


I ask because New Canadien is possibly my favorite type of food, though I'm not exactly sure what it is.

Hi Jeff,

I think that the problem with characterizing contemporary cuisine in the U.S. and Canada is that they are both multicultural societies. The influences come from many sources. It is much simpler for a restaurant to say that it is French, Colombian, Italian, Thai or Chinese, or to use a regional label like Southern, Louisiana, New England, etc.

To take an example, there is nothing more archetypical of eastern North American cooking, from Nova Scotia to New York, than chowder. We'll be offering a lobster chowder as a signature dish. But the use of classic French techniques in its preparation means that it will be very different from what most people have experienced.

Thanks, you gave me the idea that it might be fun to offer French-Canadian tourtière for brunch over the Christmas season

oh, for a good tourtiere (forgive the missing accent grave)....one of the greenmarket vendors used to do one, but the bakery changed hands and they stopped offering it.

oh, for a good tourtiere (forgive the missing accent grave)....one of the greenmarket vendors used to do one, but the bakery changed hands and they stopped offering it.

In French speaking Canada it is served every Christmas, and there are as many recipes as families who make it. However, there was a beloved Québec cook named Jeanne Benoit, who in the 1960s was in Québec as important as Julia Child was in the U.S., whose recipe for tourtière is the inspiration for many families today. You won't have trouble finding her recipe on the internet. Like Julia Child, she had a TV show, and some of the footage may well be on YouTube (although it's all almost certainly in French).

Paul dePoo, our designer, is in London this weekend working on the new musical about Josephine Baker: https://instagram.com/p/6IxU9ntJHY/

Yes, I'm jealous. I love London.

I'm half French-Canadian and I have such fond memories of tourtiere at Christmas time.  Used to make a mean one myself, at one time.

Madalyn Benoit  (perhaps a distant relative Jehane)

I think dssjh and you have convinced me to have tourtière on the menu for Christmas.

I was at our local Greenmarket today. There are some great vendors, such as Peter Henry for Vermont's Consider Bardwell Farm cow and goat cheeses, and John Martini, who owns the Finger Lakes winery Anthony Road. I'm pretty sure that we'll be working with both. A couple of photos from this morning's market (on whichever social medium platform you prefer):

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Twitter

very nice to see your relationship with ottomanelli and sons. they've been my go to butcher for ages -- since i lived in astoria back in the early '90s. high quality meat and really great service.