Introducing my parents to Journeyman

My parents were recently visiting for a couple of weeks. As we like to do every time they come over, we introduced them to some new experiences.

This included visiting the Ryan and Wood Distillery and the Taza Chocolate factory (both of which I highly recommend); watching the July 4 Nathan's hot-dog eating competition (which I highly don't); and dining at Journeyman.

I've written about Journeyman before. We don't go often, but when we do there's a feeling of quiet celebration about it.

We were pretty sure it would be a whole new world to my parents, who don't get a lot of exposure to the latest gastronomic trends. If you want a fantastic Sunday pub lunch, my native turf will oblige, but there's not much call for foams and charcuterie.

Or, for that matter, asparagus ice cream, which tasted exactly as you'd hope.



Next came a salad, everything fresh and crunchy and vivid with just-picked flavor.



My mom said, "It's like when you're a kid and you're wandering through a field, just pulling up things you know will taste good."



Next came a lettuce soup. The Boy and my dad had it with a single tender oyster, finished with tapioca balls:



My mom and I had the alternative, mustardy squares of potato; I because I'm not supposed to eat raw stuff (immuno-compromised as I am) and my mom because even she has limits.



It was good, though I'm convinced the oyster was probably better.

Then the fish course: a very nice piece of mackerel, to which ham had been fused (using what the server called "a protein enzyme," probably transglutaminase. There, go learn something). Whatever, it was delicious.



The blueberries were a surprise, and at first seemed a little random and nouvelle cuisiney. But their sweetness actually worked very well with the ham and the fish.

Next came rabbit two ways: sausage and roularde.



The meat was light and tender; not what we're used to from bunny (which is usually baked into pie).

Then there was cheese; unfortunately I don't have good photos, but I do remember that the Corsican L'Empereur was fabulous and should be sought out.

And then a strawberry sparkler as a sorbet to cleanse the palate:



And on to dessert, which involved black locust flower ice cream. Our server described it as being from a tree with very hard, durable wood, with a flower that blossoms for a short period. (Wikipedia describes the flowers as toxic until cooked and causing anorexia and depression in horses, but thankfully our server left that part out.)

This was definitely a first for all of us.



The ice cream was ... well, woody. "It's like when you're sawing something and you get wood dust in your mouth," said my dad, and he meant it in a good way. And it was good, in a slightly sweet, tree-reminiscent fashion.

Alongside the ice cream was honey cake, a milk-and-honey sauce, something white and fluffy I don't recall (eek!) and delicious toasted marshmallows.



But of course, that wasn't really the end of the meal.



Almond financiers, intensely chocolatey bouche noir brownie squares, salted caramels, strawberry jellies.



Even my mom, an unrepentant member of the Clean Plate Club from childhood rationing days, wasn't able to finish them off.

My parents loved dinner at Journeyman.

Mission accomplished.

2011: A year in (tasteful, tasteless) review

Everyone else seems to be doing end-of-year lists, and I'm nothing if not a bandwagon-jumper, so here's my run-down of most memorable Things Consumed in 2011.

It's hard to do a rated list, because this year was a challenging one: Some things were painful to eat, some things had no flavor, and anything consumed in the last few months has been the Best (insert ingredient here) Ever, purely because I could taste it.

So instead of a Top Ten countdown, we'll go (mostly) chronologically.

Hospital food
In January, I spent a week on the cancer ward, and became a little too familiar with hospital food. I'll be honest: I find it hard to even look at the images in this post. Especially the last one. It took a while before I could enjoy a golden sunrise without thinking about processed cheese squares.

I have awesome friends
Why? Because they recognized that the best way to respond to my illness was by bringing me food. Precious few of their gifts were healthy (ha!) but they were suitably high-calorie and, of course, delicious.

Losing it
I can't talk about this year in food without mentioning the three-month period where I was unable to taste anything. Yes, it gave me a new appreciation for the subtleties of the palate and the distinctions between flavors, but mostly I learned that having no tastebuds is the opposite of fun. And it's very nice when they come back again.

Home cooking
Not a single incident, this one, but a variety of memorable dishes made at home. Or at the house we rented in Gloucester, where the vintage kitchen was a perfect place to make blueberry cobbler, lemon meringue pie, and beef Wellington (The Boy's birthday-meal request).

And also a great location for inviting friends to share steak with chimichurri, grilled chourico, and various salads.



Back at our apartment, I got into a baking Thing, and managed to fill the freezer with chocolate-zucchini cake:



and peach cake:



My intention with the latter is to save it for the crummiest winter day possible. Nothing better than eating summery peaches during a snowstorm.

British food
Between finishing treatment and going back to work, I had a small window of time to zip back to England so my parents could see all my limbs were still attached. Even though my tastebuds weren't completely recovered, I still managed to eat ev-er-y-thing.

Which includes the obscene Sunday lunch, including baby's-head-sized Yorkshire pudding, at the Toby Carvery:



My dad at the gravy station. STATION. Because one type of gravy is not enough.



Dessert was Eton Mess, a bucket of meringue, cream and fruit:



Celebrations
There were lots of reasons for good times (come on!), including The Boy's grandmother's hundredth birthday; the wedding of our good friends Eric and Nicki, with a fabulous reception at Oleanna; and my almost-completely recovered sense of taste, with an incredible dinner at Journeyman.

Honorable mentions
I don't write about everything I stuff in my face, obviously. But I do record a large quantity thereof. Delicious things I had to capture for posterity this year included:

This treat, almost (almost!) too gorgeous to eat, buttery with a hint of lemon, from The Cookie Countess:



Rich, sweet figs stuffed with peach brandy ganache and covered in dark chocolate from Capone's in Cambridge:



And a stunningly complex housemade fig vermouth at Island Creek Oyster Bar (very small-batch; there was only one bottle left when we tried this):



You know, despite evidence to the contrary, I feel as though I've been very lucky this year. Yes, there were long-drawn-out moments of suckiness, but there were also a lot of extremely fun times and reasons to be thankful, especially for The Boy, and for friends and family.

I'm also very grateful to everyone who posted supportive comments on this here blog; I'll probably never meet most of you, but your kindness meant a huge amount during a tough time.

So happy New Year — wishing good health, happiness and delicious food to all!

Journeyman, Somerville: Fifty flavors in two hours

I'd been battling a cold all week, which left me lumpen and miserable. By Saturday, I was starting to feel more human, so The Boy decided to lift my spirits with a trip to Journeyman in Union Square, Somerville.

Our last dinner at Journeyman was back in February; interestingly, it was also a cheer-up respite from illness. Not that I want this to become a habit, but if poor health ends with food like this, I may start paying small children to cough on me.

We had a six o'clock reservation, so the place was almost empty, which was lovely. And we were seated at the counter, looking into the tiny kitchen, which was perfect.



I love watching the dynamics between people in a kitchen. Here, the four chefs worked almost in silence, leaning close to talk (no loud voices), moving around each other in a fluid dance. The motion was constant and focused, calm and confident.

We started with cocktails: for The Boy, an Old-Fashioned made with his choice of spirit. He went with genever, which came nicely finished with citrusy Bittermens' Boston Bittahs. I chose the Dartmoor, a milk punch infused with heather and lapsang souchong tea. The result was so extraordinarily good, it made me misty; it was light, slightly citrusy, with complex floral and smoky notes.



We got to chat with Meg, who made this incredible drink, and she gave us a quick history of the milk punch.

Not to be confused with the New Orleans-style milk punch, which is essentially a boozy milkshake, the (very) old-school version involves curdling milk with lemon juice, scooping out the curds, and combining the remaining liquid whey with spirits and botanicals.

And then she came back with the recipe for the Dartmoor. I might have told her I love her.



But wait, it gets better: there was food as well.

Journeyman offers three prix-fixe options: three, five, and seven courses. We went for the three-course; The Boy took the "omnivore" version and I took the vegetarian, so we could try each others' entrées.

First, an amuse-bouche of smoked bluefish rillettes,



and white bean consommé with a tiny biscuit stuffed with an amazing miso butter. The former was light and refreshing. The latter, unfortunately, was eated before it could be photographed.



We'd decided to add a charcuterie plate to the three courses, because meat. There was a choice of six options: you could order one for $5 or four for $15. Which meant we had to decide which two not to get. We ended up nixing the lardo (regretfully) and the bluefish, which we got to try anyway. So it all worked out.

And then came the charcuterie: quail galantine, oxtail scrapple, duck liver pâté, and a terrine of lamb tenderloin.



Everything was beautifully made, but we decided the winners were the rich, creamy, duck liver pâté:



and the warm, earthy, beef-hash-like scrapple:



Next came what was described on the menu as "salad." Which is like calling the Sistine Chapel "painting."



Each ingredient stood on its own, and each also added to an overall harmony of tastes and textures: cubes of sweet root vegetables, a single, warm Brussels sprout, paper-thin slices of pear and black radish, wilted leeks, a marinated mushroom, crunchy red cabbage, swirls of creamy caulflower and celeriac sauce, drops of vibrant red pepper purée, and my favorite: a rolled red carpet of beet leather.



And then the mains: for The Boy, Chinese roasted duck leg and seared duck breast, served with black rice on a ribbon of huckleberry sauce.



(The next shot is a little NSFW.)



The main reason I chose the vegetarian option was that the entree was described like this:

SWEET POTATO
cheese, coffee, hazelnut

How could I not?



The tortellini were filled with tangy, melting taleggio. The potato was a sweet, creamy swoosh of sauce. The foam and the croutons held varying intensities of coffee. And there was a single, perfectly roasted shallot.

It's hard to explain how — or why — these flavors worked together. But they did, unexpectedly and yet completely naturally. I'm not sure how easy it would be to replicate it at home. It was a delicate balance that probably took a lot of work to refine; too much coffee could overwhelm the milder flavors, but too little could make the whole thing seem insipid. This was perfect.

Of course, we weren't done yet. Next was a palate-cleanser of cat-mint ice cream garnished with Sichuan pepper leaves. It was —

Wait. Cat mint?

Yes.

As in cat mint?

Yes!



The flavor was distinctly catnip; a muted, almost sagey mint. I was a little concerned about the pepper leaves; chef Diana explained they would "leave a tingle on the tongue," which to my (now-teenaged) tastebuds could have meant "carpet-bomb the forest floor." But actually the leaves were light and fresh, with just the slightest buzz. So maybe my 'buds are all grown up now?

Then came dessert, described on the menu as:

CARAMEL-APPLE
brioche, scotch

What this actually meant was fresh brioche roll, sliced and filled with a smoky bourbon cream, served with a bright, fresh apple sorbet and a hunk of caramelized apple.



Again, flavors balanced each other, and variations in texture and temperature made every mouthful different: cold and hot, tart and sweet, creamy and spongy. A lovely fall dessert.

But wait, there's more: a final plate of sweetness. This one had chocolate brownie bites, pumpkin spice-filled eclairs, and chipotle marshmallows.



Oh yeah.



As we made our way home, we tried counting up how many different flavors we'd tasted over the course of the two-hour meal. We decided it was close to 50.

Fifty distinct, individual flavor types. How often can you say that?

Journeyman is a good place for a last meal

Given last week's unexpected dance with mucositis that led to a liquid-only diet, and knowing that worse is to come, it's hardly surprising that I've started counting my chances to eat good food. Not that I'm on death row, of course, but I'm definitely aware that each dish could be my Last Meal — at least for a while.

Yesterday, my mouth was 90 percent back to full working order and cabin fever was setting in. So when I read a message on Journeyman's Facebook page noting that the night's special was cassoulet, I knew there was only one thing to do.

I've been wanting to visit Journeyman in Somerville since before it opened, following the progress of the chef-owners (a historian and an IT guy who just really enjoy cooking) as they got permits, struggled with utility companies, and solicited haiku to replace the mundane "Employees must wash hands" restroom signs.

So the early evening saw us bundled up in a cab, headed for Union Square.

Journeyman is in a high-ceilinged space that manages to be spare and industrial and yet warm and inviting. It's also tiny, with fewer than 30 seats. The boxes on shelves in the window are for growing herbs and edible flowers to use in the kitchen.



And best of all: no music. The room was quiet and peaceful.

How often does that happen? Maybe it was just last night, because so few people were in, but it was refreshing to be able to have a conversation without overhearing other people and without being subjected to whatever music is supposed to enhance the ambiance. The only noticeable sound was the fan in the open kitchen, and that acted more as white noise. Other restaurants should take note.

Because snowstorms have been making life hard (for all restaurants, let's face it), Journeyman wasn't doing the usual menu last night — though as the dishes change weekly, if not daily, there really is no "usual" menu. Instead, it was "chef's whim": a three-, five-, or seven-course menu, or the cassoulet.

We were able to compromise by asking for the five-courser with cassoulet as one dish.

I've been avoiding wine as directed by my medical crew, but the idea of not having a glass with this dinner was just wrong. And when I explained my dilemma to the hostess (who was delightful and attentive all evening), she suggested another compromise: "How about I bring you a half-glass of white and a half of red?"

Oh, you doll. (And those were really more than half-glasses, I think.)

So there was a crisp French Sauvignon Blanc and a dry, fruity Italian Dolcetta d'Alba.

And there was a fabulous brioche-like bread with good butter served on a stone.



And then an amuse-gueule of carrot-miso soup, finished with pickled carrot.



We eat a lot of carrot soup; it would never have occurred to me to blend it with miso. But the flavor was unexpected and lovely, subtle and sophisticated, with the pickled veggie providing a bright contrast.

Next, a salad of diced and mashed root veggies (Japanese sweet potato, turnip, sunchoke, beets) with spinach, each one a reminder that roots can be sweet and full of flavor.



The brown crumbs are onion crumble, which tasted like really good onion-ring batter reduced to powder. It melted in the mouth and would, I think, sell by the bagful.

Next up, a creamy roasted cauliflower soup with housemade mortadella, garnished with pickled cauliflower.



The mortadella made me realize I hadn't had a decent pork product since an Anna's carnitas burrito three weeks previously. This meat was a lovely thing.

And then some beautiful duck breast, the fat crispy on top and sweet and melty, served with Gilfeather turnip and pickled watermelon radish. Duck often comes with an overly sweet, fruity foil; the turnip was just sweet enough to balance the meat without overwhelming it.



The cassoulet came in a pan in a cloud of porky fragrance. There was coffee-rubbed pork, perfectly fatty confit, just-right cannelini beans, hints of coffee and — genius touch — Meyer lemon, which gave this often dense and heavy dish an unexpected ... I want to say youthfulness. Does that make sense?





Then came a palate-cleansing tiny bowl of lime jelly, rice granita and elderflower, light and refreshing — again, an unexpected combination that worked beautifully.



And then dessert: a dense coconut pound cake, coconut panna cotta (much like tembleque), a deeply flavorful coffee mousse, a bright lemon-rose sorbet, and some chewy, tasty tapioca balls.





But wait, there's more: a final snacky of very good walnut bread with cardamom, a light spice cake, and some cookie that sadly was too hard for me to eat.



We left happy. Very happy. And if that was indeed my last really good meal for a while (some sources say it can take up to a year for the mouth to fully recover from radiation), then it was absolutely the right way to go.