Melissa Craig laughs at an image taken from her trip to Japan earlier this month.
The Bearfoot Bistro executive chef points out two batches of ramen noodles. The thin, orderly noodles are made by a Japanese master, the more robust noodles were Craig’s attempt at Japanese cooking — not bad when you consider her sensei spent the last 35 years perfecting his craft. Thirty-five years of magically rolling round dough into a perfect square in one skillful push of his rolling pin. Thirty-five years of cutting perfectly symmetrical, and same-thickness noodles at the speed of which they are later slurped up.
In Japan, culinary masters specialize in one art of Japanese cooking, however Craig carries on her specialization of adopting the new in her Whistler kitchen.
The art of ramen noodles was only one of many adventures over her two-week tour of three Listel Hotel kitchens in Japan, the host company of the Bearfoot Bistro.
A ramen knife now adorns her kitchen collection, along with cooking chopsticks, tuna knives and other gifts bestowed by her Japanese hosts in Inawashiro, Hamanako and Shinjuku.
The young female chef flew to celebrity status once jetting over Canadian borders and hitting the streets of Tokyo in a chauffer-driven Rolls Royce. A female executive chef in Japan is as rare as finding French cuisine in a land of cherry trees. The Canadian ambassador spoke at cooking schools, hosted a media dinner and both taught and took instruction from Japan’s finest chefs.
Her hosts tried to make their Canadian guest feel as at home as possible by cooking the French cuisine most fine dining establishments are accustomed to, but Craig wanted the full Japanese experience, even if it meant eating the slimiest of noodles for breakfast and the breast bone of a chicken for lunch.
“It was on top of a skewer of chicken; it looked like an onion,” she says, laughing again.
Craig was in high spirits when we sat down to talk about her trip before dinner service at the Bearfoot Bistro on Friday evening. A new environment refreshed her spirits and her new knowledge will soon refresh the Bearfoot Bistro menu, slated for a makeover next week.
From learning how to skin a live eel with one swoop of her knife to shaping Japanese desserts based in beans and sugar, Craig will gingerly work her Japanese travels into the French-based Bearfoot Bistro cuisine.
Not that Craig was ever afraid to experiment and push the line. Her foie gras fascination has shapeshifted into everything from a foie gras mousse ice-cream-like cone to a breakfast-inspired dish with foie gras, pancakes and bacon vinaigrette as a dinner appetizer.
She opened her media dinner with a foie gras terrine on brioche. The Japanese are not accustomed to wine pairings with their dinners, so she introduced a B.C. Mission Hill ice wine with her opening act.
Learning Craig’s cooking methods were difficult. When her support staff asked for recipes to prepare the ingredients necessary for her dinner, she could give them none — she never transcribed her dishes. The students were determined to learn; oil poured into a bowl by Craig was immediately poured out into a measuring cup by her students.
Two days before, she visited the famous Tokyo Fish Market to chart out her media blitz in the freshest, local ingredients. She accommodated peaches into the pork belly dish diners are familiar with in Whistler, roasted zucchini flowers and worked with Japanese beef — which Craig said is equivalent in quality to Kobe beef found in Canada.
Worries about serving tuna to the world’s biggest tuna experts were pushed aside with newspaper headlines touting the Canadian talent. At her farewell dinner, she watched her Japanese experience air on the five o’clock news.
Although square watermelons grown in wood boxes found at the market impressed Craig, Japanese cuisine’s simplicity left the greatest impression on her palate.
“Everything is so simple; they don’t mess around with anything,” she said. “They could have a bowl of rice (with nothing on it) and they could just appreciate the rice for what it was. Even a simple slice of tuna. They would tell me when to use soya and when not.”
This simple tutelage is in perfect time for summer.
“It’s good timing,” she said of her trip and the inspirations it produced. “Fresh, raw and light. It’s perfect for summer. It’s kind of what I needed… It’s so important to do things like that; to get away and get to see different food. I can read all I like about it, but to sit down and experience the real thing, there is nothing like it.”
Craig is happy to be home and raring to get started with her staff. Revitalizing the bistro menu is at the top of her list.
Pastry chef Dominic Fortin, who recently returned from studies in Switzerland, also brings a fresh take to the menu.
While Whistlerites await the impact Craig’s trip will have on their dining experience, seafood lovers can indulge in the set-menu Lobster Fest offered over the next two weeks. The local three-course favourite of crab bisque, whole lobster or steak, and crème Brule returns for $35.
