Just a reminder that tomorrow night at 8:00 pm we’ll be welcoming Andrew Clark to the Urban Deli for another of our musical Saturday nights. He’s from across the pond (Leeds) and our music guru Wes tells us, “His vocals have been compared to Roger Whittaker meets James Taylor.” Should be interesting!
Hope you can join us!
What a week! The Chop Chop “Feast”-ival is a wrap and it sounds like a lot of people enjoyed a lot of good food from a lot of Uptown’s diverse restaurants. Including the Urban Deli! We received some really nice compliments about our Montreal Smoked Meat pizza.
And wow! Did we ever have fun Saturday night with Terry Whalen and his performance. Our music man Wes Jagoe joined him later, as did a few others, and they were jamming for quite some time. Here’s what our man Wes had to say:
Terry Whalen’s performance Saturday night was a roller coaster mix of good old rockin’ country and grass roots blues right from the delta itself; a one man army not afraid to chance the trenches for the sake of the song.
His own songs were well delivered pieces of love and woe tapestries, all introduced by a story. Terry performed a great range of music. Yes, from AC/DC’s “It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll,” all the way to John Cougar’s “Pink Houses.” And it was all glued together with an oozing baritone tinge.
Hats off to a great performance.
Saturday coming up, we’ll have Andrew Clark and we expect we’ll have just as much fun. Hope you can join us!
We’re excited about Saturday night (Nov. 7). Terry Whalen will join us for a solo performance here at the Urban Deli. He’s a roots, rock, blues kind of a guy and we love that sort of thing. If you’d like a bit of info, have a look at our Live Music page or have a look at the Terry Whalen Band site.
Coming up for the Saturday following, November 14, we’ll be welcoming Andrew Clark to the Urban Deli. Wes, our music guy, tell us Andrew hales from Leeds, England and is, “… a gifted song smith and fine guitar player.”
Yesterday we mentioned that Mike and Gord had been south of the border, in New York, taking a course (Charcuterie, Smokehouse, and Condiment Workshop).
We asked Gord to tell us a bit about it, and here’s what he had to say:
It was a great experience even for a neophyte cook like me, albeit a little intimidating at times …
The school itself is amazing (The Culinary Institute of America). Located on the banks of the Hudson River, the main campus building reminded everyone of Harry Potter’s Hogwarts Hall with its high ceilings and dark rich wood paneling. The region boasts some notable estates: the Roosevelt estate and Presidential Library and the Vanderbilt estate both are within a few miles for the campus.
From a workshop perspective … the first hour or so was spent in a class room environment to understand the science of smoking, curing and sausage making, then the balance of the day (about 6 hours) was spent in the kitchen.
There were five teams of three. We were given a progressive menu to work on through the week. Some of the items were:
Believe it or not, that’s just a partial list. There were others on it, plus a number of condiments, marinades and rubs.
As a result of the course, we’ll likely be refining a few of the menu items plus looking at adding a few others once the recipes have been perfected in house. Yes, we had a fabulous time!
We went to school last week. Actually, “we” didn’t. Our cook Mike Buchanan and the Urban Deli soon-to-be in-house smoker expert Gord Hewitt went to school. They took a week long Charcuterie, Smokehouse, and Condiment Workshop at the Hyde Park Campus (New York) of The Culinary Institute of America.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term you’ll find a good deal of information on Wikipedia. Basically it means (from Wikipedia):
(Charcuterie) … is the branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products such as bacon, ham, sausage, terrines, galantines, pâtés, and confit, primarily from pork. Charcuterie is part of the garde manger chef’s repertoire. Originally intended as a way to preserve meats before the advent of refrigeration, they are prepared today for their flavors derived from the preservation processes.
What Mike and Gord experienced in the workshop was a set up similar to Gordon Ramsay’s ‘Hells Kitchen‘ where they broke off into six teams of three each day to prepare dishes and compare finished products and to also work towards the big buffet of all the samplings on their final day, which was Friday.
And with that behind them, Gord and Mike spent the weekend in Manhattan visiting delis and restaurants that specialize in smoked foods. Those foods are very popular in New York because of the simple, economical and tasty ways of preparing foods.
Now we expect Gord and Mike will give us the best of the best for new menu ideas. And we’ll be having fun tasting what they’ve learned and testing out those new ideas. 🙂
On the subject of smokers, but of another kind, we’re expecting Terry Whalen will bring his version of smokin’ to the Deli on Saturday with his roots, rock and blues.
Related posts:
The Chop Chop “Feast”-ival is underway in Saint John’s uptown and it promises to be a tasty week. Last week we mentioned what the Urban Deli would be featuring. If an eyebrow or two was raised when we mentioned our Montreal Smoked Meat Pizza (vegetarian also available), let’s provide a bit of information …
This is may not be be “pizza” in quite the way you may imagine. It’s a bit like an open-face sandwich and it is served on toasted pita. We did a number of tastings to get it just the way we wanted, so you may want to give it a try. Keep in mind, as well, we do offer a vegetarian version for those inclined that way.
Music
We had a great Halloween with Wes Jagoe providing the music. Now we’re looking forward to this Saturday, the 7th, when Terry Whelan will be here, 8 to 10 pm, doing his musicial thing. It looks like it will be another great night!
It’s a Halloween and we’ll be taking it in at the Deli with a bit of music tonight courtesy of Wes Jagoe (who is also our music guru, arranging our music nights). Wes will be playing from 8:00 pm till 10:00, (10 is a ballpark estimate). So if you get a chance, pop by. We’d love to see you.
And as a head’s up … Next Saturday (November 7), Terry Whalen will perform beginning at 8:00 pm.
With all these mentions of time, we should also toss out a reminder that tonight is the night we turn clocks back an hour as we go back to Standard Time. So as of tomorrow, mornings shouldn’t be quite as dark. Late afternoon, however, will. 🙂
Finally, there’s a nice article in the Telegraph-Journal about next week’s Chop Chop “Feast”-ival here in Saint John. It’s the one titled Saint John restos want foodies to Chop chop. It’s worth a read.
Hope to see you tonight — and have a great Halloween!
