Gluten Free in Halifax : Meal times are family time...a review of Chef Michael Smith's Family Meals

Courtesy of Penguin Canada

When I first received the email asking me to review Family Meals by Chef Michael Smith for Penguin Canada, I was a little hesitant. I am single with no "family" of my own that resides with me 24/7. I do have family of course; my parents, my brother and his family, my cousins and my friends who are as close to me as family, but I wasn't sure that this was a book meant for me. But I began to realize that families come in all shapes and sizes. I am a family of one with a large extended family including friends. If I do not cook for myself, then I do not eat. Fast food is not an option for me either as I have specific dietary needs, and I do not mind making a big batch of something and eating it for the week to make life easier for myself. I do however miss the conversation that a family dinner affords and I am always grateful when people join me for dinner at my place. Never mind that I am slightly control freakish when it comes to cooking now, since I am the only one that can meet my needs, but also I love to cook and I am always experimenting with new things, but again it is hard when the TV, the DVD or the internet are your only dinner companion.

Growing up, dinner time was always family time. It did not matter what you were doing, what you were right in the middle of or how hungry you were or weren’t; as soon as the call to the dinner table arose, you came. The only time you were ever excused from dinner time was if you were too ill to come to the table or, as we got older, if your shift at your job was over the dinner hour. Dinner was a way for us to connect and talk about the day, sometimes the discussion started earlier over a cup of tea before dinner but generally the discussion about the day was over dinner. Today’s generation, from what I can gather from the stories of students and friends, does not know what it is to sit down to a family meal every single night. Schedules are more hectic, traffic a little more crazy, convenience foods and fast foods a little more convenient and it leaves families disjointed and heading in different directions and very little time to sit as a family and enjoy a meal together. Even as adults it is hard to coordinate schedules to share a meal together and catch up on events.

Chef Michael Smith believes that "cooking real food for your family is easy and fun," and he organized a number of recipes that are a collection of tried and true family recipes and recipes sure to become new family favourites to prove this theory. The book is visually stunning and jam-packed with full colour photographs of the recipes. Not only does he showcase his creations but he also intersperses photos of him with his family, cooking and enjoying the meals that they have prepared together. Chef Smith is a proponent in this book that kids should be involved in the planning and preparation of family dinner times etc...He believes that the better the connection they have to their food the more likely they will be to try new things. If they meet the farmer that grows their food, at the local market, they will gain a better understanding of where their food comes from and in turn eventually gain an understanding of how the economy works and why we should be supporting local. He gives 10 tips at the beginning of the book of how to work with your children in the kitchen and cook with them; instead of regarding it as a solitary chore he proposes that you make it a fun family time. He also includes weekday tips to guide the adults of how to save time and keep the kitchen running smoothly and also tips on how to organize your kitchen. Of course everyone has their own unique style when it comes to their kitchens but it never hurts to see how a professional chef operates and incorporate a few good ideas now and again. Cooking, creating and being in the kitchen are constantly an evolutionary process.

The layout of the book is like most cookbooks, it begins with breakfast and works its way through the major meals of the day, but it also dedicates space to slow cooking, hacks to make food fast but not fast food quality and the meatless Monday that has become popular as of late. Each section has its own cover page and then a separate table of contents so that you can easily scan the recipes for that section and find what you desire. This actually annoyed my Mom when she looked through the book, but then again she is from the Company's Coming generation whereby the books had a meticulous, orderly fashion of retrieving recipes. Whereas I am from the Pinterest generation, who scans and flips through things with fingers and thumbs and quickly reads and evaluates to determine whether something is worth the time to prepare. Mom missed the picture index at the back all together but I found it to be quite useful because if the picture appealed to me, I went in search of the recipe and its ingredients based on the page number listed. It is through this flipping and scanning that I stumbled upon Chef Smith's tip for cooking bacon (found in the prelude to the Frittata recipe) and I happened to employ it while making his Everyday Egg Sandwich for lunch one day. Thanks to this tip, I will never be spattered with grease again I hope. I also used the index to eagerly find the recipe that I committed to try in order to write this review. Normally I would choose a salmon recipe, but since it is summer I have been on a bit of a burger kick; so Nacho Burgers ended up on my long weekend menu.

Courtesy of Penguin Canada

The Nacho Burgers are not a complex recipe to follow, the picture shows how simple and delicious the appeal to them is; who wouldn't enjoy their salsa and chips in the burger rather than on the side. So I went to the Halifax Seaport Farmers Market and the Brewery Market to collect my ingredients and make myself some nacho goodness in a bun.

The recipe was simple to follow and did not require any complex use of equipment. If I had been able to have my nephew in the kitchen with me I would have been able to give him little tasks, such as crushing the nacho chips, to help prepare the meal. The burgers combined quite easily and while I will admit to having reservations as to the amount of cumin in the recipe and wondering if it was a typo, it really added to the uniqueness and aroma of all the different ingredients. I did make one swap in the recipe though and that is because I had a lot of fresh oregano that I needed to use up so I opted for fresh over dried. The only other reservation about the recipe that I had was when it came to buttering and toasting the bun with chili powder. I usually try to avoid using excessive amounts of extra fats and oils if I can possibly help it, but as I needed to use a gluten free bun and occasionally must employ this trick to keep it moist, I kept to the recipe. The end result was a moist burger with a smokey, citrusy flavor that words really cannot describe nor do justice to. The butter/chili pepper on the bun in combination with the salsa, melted cheese and the surprise crunch of nacho chips led to a supremely satisfying burger experience that cannot be had in a fast food restaurant. It is definitely a recipe that I will make for my extended family, if we can ever get our schedules coordinated that is.

I thoroughly enjoyed Chef Michael Smith’s cookbook Family Meals and I have already lined up a couple of more recipes that I want to try and very soon. My mother eyeballed the Cinnamon Oatmeal cookies, so I know that I will have to move that to the top of my list. I can also see myself using a lot of his lunchbox recipes, when I go back to work in September, to keep lunch interesting for myself but also passing them on to my sister-in-law, for my nephew who begins school in September, as well. The only drawback to the book that I am critical of is his use of full fat meats for certain recipes, but this could be due to my health consciousness and refusal to purchase full fat items, especially meats, because I do not want the excess calories that comes with it. I know that full fat does lend flavor and preserves moisture, especially where meat is concerned, as I have worked in restaurants and learned a few tricks here and there. Full fat meat items sometimes require a few extra steps to drain the excess to ensure that the fat does not end up in the final product, so sometimes it is easier to purchase the lower fat content in the first place but it also comes down to the preference of the family chef. This family chef though has learned well from the Master Family Chef, her mother, but I think I can learn a few more things from the other Master, Chef Michael Smith. I will definitely be reaching for his book, Family Meals, to make new and interesting things for my family to sit and enjoy a family dinner as soon as we can get those silly schedules coordinated.