Conversation with the Cooking with Booze Guys
by Tara Lee
Book: Cooking with Booze, by Ryan Jennings and David Steele, Whitecap 2006, $29.95


Meet the Cooking with Booze dynamic duo, Ryan Jennings and David Steele, who have combined their love of eating and drinking to create a book that draws upon the liquor cabinet for cooking inspiration. Cocktails in hand, they offer a light hearted look at incorporating booze in a range of culinary creations. Full of wit and great recipes ideas, Cooking with Booze demonstrates that alcohol really is the ultimate good time flavour enhancer. Maybe it is possible to be naughty in the kitchen and still come up with something nice!


CityFood: How did your love affair with food begin?
Ryan Jennings: I went to journalism school and I took some culinary courses along the way. I then ended up at ELLE magazine and I was the resident foodie there.
David Steele: I studied management of theatre and special events at Ryerson. I worked with venues and catering organizations when I was doing special events in the college and university circles. I staged national award shows in Halifax and Toronto. The one in Halifax was at one of the big hotels with an Andy Warhol theme. Soup cans and tin foil everywhere.


CF: How do you come together to collaborate on this book project?
DS: Ryan and I both went to Ryerson but we didn’t know each other in the college days. We met through mutual friends. We looked at the marketplace and there really wasn’t anything that takes the flavours that are found in booze and applies them to food in order to expand the spice rack into the liquor cabinet.
RJ: So, one night, David and I drank, we cooked, and we agreed to do a book together. David likes to cook. I like to cook and we both like to drink.


CF: You dedicate the book “to your mothers, who never fed us a TV dinner in our lives.�
RJ: Well, we are smart businessmen. We knew that if we didn’t dedicate it to our mothers, there would be hell to pay.
DS: Our mothers are our biggest customers and our biggest fans.


CF: What is the cooking with booze food philosophy?
RJ: Open up your liquor cabinet and look at the bottles that you have there and their flavours and come up with pairings. If you like to drink certain cocktails or liqueurs, come up with ways to use them in food.
DS: Experiment. Try a few tablespoons in a dish that you are really comfortable with and that you have made a million times. These alcoholic flavours are ones that you can’t possibly recreate in your kitchen.


CF: What would be a dish that captures the essence of cooking with booze?
DS: One of the flagship recipes for cooking with booze actually takes longer to explain than to make it. It is strawberries, drizzled with sambuca and sprinkled with freshly ground black pepper. It is a great dish because the flavour pairing is fabulous. The sweetness of the sambuca offsets some of the sourness from the strawberries.


CF: You provide an alcohol burn-off chart in your book. How much alcohol typically remains in your dishes?
RJ: It depends on how much is used and the cooking method. It is generally speaking, quite a small amount once you divide it up by the serving size.
DS: We had a hard time at a cooking demo trying to figure out how much residual booze was left in the gazpacho. Neither of us are math guys, nor do we pretend to be math guys.
RJ: We figured it out. It was 85% of an ounce per person. A shot of booze per person.
DS: 85% of a shot per person.


CF: Can you explain the science of the alcohol burn-off process?
RJ: No, we are keeping it all a secret! Science guy?
DS: The key thing to understand is that when you are cooking and the alcohol starts to evaporate, you are left with the residual flavour of whatever components went into that alcohol. You are getting rid of what can be the unpalatable chemical flavour of the pure alcohol itself. It is the flavour of the alcohol that we want more than the alcohol itself.

F: How does alcohol enhance the flavours of the other cooking ingredients?
RJ: At a recent event, we made the Caribbean pork tenderloin which is coated in a dry rub of turmeric, cumin, cardamom, and allspice. We handed the spice rub around. Then, we added a teaspoon of pear cognac and handed the rub around again to show that the aromas had completely changed. It had mellowed out. All the flavours had become sweeter and were able to work together better.


CF: Did you always test your recipes sober? Was there any impairment of judgement?
DS: We were always sober when we started …
RJ: There may have been some impaired judgement a couple of times but the best thing is that we woke up in the morning and embraced the truth again. With some dishes, we came to the realization that maybe they weren’t such a good idea even though we were touting them the night before.


CF: Any experiments that didn’t work out?
RJ: Early on, we tested wasabi mashed potatoes with lychee liqueur, Soho. Not very good.
DS: We tried to convince ourselves that it was good. When you are going into new territory, there are always going to be some tragedies. It is part of the fun of experimentation. I think that we both now have a bottle of lychee liqueur sitting on our shelves somewhere.


CF: Do you tend to limit the number of types of alcohol that you include in one recipe?
RJ: There are a few dishes that use more than a couple of different alcohols. For example, the gazpacho uses wine and vodka. However, most of the recipes are about showcasing the flavours of one since alcohol is a flavour enhancer, like adding vanilla to your cookie batter.


CF: Are there any rules on figuring out what booze to put in what dishes?
DS: There are some obvious connections. If you look at the classics sections for example, you have all the traditional pairings. Red wines and meats. Marinara, beef bourguignon.
RJ: However, in general, there aren’t really any rules. In the book, we have Jägermeister with an egg recipe for brunch. When we came up with the recipe, we tested different liquors with the eggs like Jägermeister, sherry, and cognac. These were just experiments with things that we thought would taste good together. We cooked them all at the same time, tasted them, and the one with the Jägermeister was the best one.


CF: What are some other unexpected alcohol and food combinations that you discovered?
RJ: Red snapper in banana curry was an unusual one because of the crème de banane that gives it a tropical, Caribbean feel to it. The gin and grapefruit granita is also one since the combination is not something that you normally would associate with dessert.


CF: Is there a particular alcohol that you like cooking with the most?
RJ: I love all my babies in my liquor cabinet. Equally. You have to spread the love around. DS: They are all special in their own way.


CF: Why do you think that people are apprehensive about experimenting with booze in their cooking?
DS: I think people have investments in their liquor cabinet. There is apprehension about using something that they perceive as expensive in a way that they don’t necessarily understand. But this fear is really easy to overcome by starting out small and simply.


CF: Is there a difference in cooking flavour between cheaper and more expensive bottles of alcohol?
RJ: It depends on what you are cooking with. A more expensive bottle of wine usually has more refined tastes than a cheaper bottle.
DS: With alcohol like gin and vodka, it is probably less important. With liqueurs, typically the more expensive ones either have more ingredients or went through more complicated processing.


CF: Most people in their twenties and early thirties tend to stay far away from the kitchen. Do you think your cookbook will make cooking more approachable and enjoyable for them?
RJ: I think that the booze aspect will definitely reach those people. Plus, we wrote it in a cheeky and fun way. We don’t take ourselves too seriously.
DS: The cookbook is very much targeted at the everyday cook who is at a basic skill level. We are not professionally trained chefs. We tried to be very accessible.


CF: You have menu suggestions for a romantic Midsummer’s Night Picnic. Can you attest to its success rate?
DS: We wrote that one in the winter so we haven’t tried it yet. We have made the recipes, like the muffuletta sandwich, many times but we haven’t pulled it all together. I really would be scared to look across a picnic into Ryan’s dreamy eyes. It would make me nervous.


CF: What would you recommend serving for a summer party?
DS: There is a great recipe for Cuba Libre ribs. The ribs are boiled in coke to soften them up and then brushed with a rum barbecue sauce. There is also traditional beer can chicken that is really easy to pop on the barbecue.
RJ: Also, the Thai shrimp with mango kabobs are really easy to throw together. There is a white wine and peach sangria with Alizé and fruit that makes enough for a crowd and is absolutely delicious. For dessert, there are the Tia Maria semifreddos. You flavour it with alcohol, scoop out a bit, and then pour a shot in the middle. DS: We call that the happy hole.


CF: The book does a fabulous job of highlighting the social aspects of cooking with booze. Can you share any examples of great parties that you have thrown?
DS: Ryan is renowned for his Christmas party. I have a seventh day of May party.
RJ: I made the B-52 cupcakes for his May day party and they were a huge success.


CF: How did you come up with the drink recommendations that accompany each recipe?
RJ: We were trying to go for something that would complement the dish but occasionally, we did a drink that mirrored the taste of the dish. For example, for the white chocolate and raspberry panna cotta, we did a white chocolate and raspberry martini so that you would be able to eat one and drink one and compare the flavours.


CF: Can you comment on the hazards of “drinking and cooking�?
RJ: We do want to stress moderation. You have to be responsible in the kitchen.
DS: Statistically speaking, the number one cause of household fires used to be smoking but it is now cooking fires, typically from people who either forget about something that they have left on the stove or fall asleep because they are inebriated and have left something on the stove. It is actually a serious thing. Stand by your pan, especially if you have a cocktail.


CF: Any plans to expand the “boozing� philosophy beyond just cooking?
RJ: Exercising with booze.
DS: Spinning classes with a cocktail.


CF: Have people been eager to adopt the cooking with booze philosophy?

RJ: People have been saying, “I love cooking with booze.� Cooking should be a good time and shouldn’t be a stressful activity. And having a drink while you are doing it takes some of the edge off of it.
DS: An excuse to be slightly naughty in the kitchen.


Tara Lee lives in Vancouver and writes the blog Literary and Culinary Rambles.