Steak Spice & Eau de Conscience N°01

Appetite for Revolution · The Chronicle by MJ Guertin

Originally published in French in Dress to Kill magazine. Translation note: “steak spice” is a deliberate choice, faithful to the original “épices à steak,” over the American “steak seasoning.”

During the Q&A after my cooking demo at the McCord Museum, part of the Montréal en Lumière festival, someone in the audience asked me what my favorite spice was. I answered right away: steak spice. Instant objection from the room: “You don’t even eat steak?!” The red carpet of culinary activism rolled out all by itself.

Two generous pinches of steak spice, Joe Beef’s¹ no less, can you believe it, were among the secrets behind the famous Philly Burger at Mimi & Jones. Urbania documented the making of it one masked winter. Aromatics, spices, herbs: that’s what gives a dish its little kick, its yum, its tone. They’re its signature, what makes it memorable. Just like the words that form a sentence, choose them well if you want to be heard. The first place where it all plays out, that “rehearsal dinner,” is in your head, where ideas simmer, where you taste what you’re about to experience. The lab where you compose, before you even serve. A little spritz of a fragrance from a certain house whose name I’ve forgotten. Eau de Conscience N°01. That’s gotta be from Paris.

Paris, Paris. I Feel Love… A masterpiece by Malcolm McLaren, designer, also manager of the Sex Pistols. Sung by Catherine Deneuve, as good as a candlelit bubble bath. My heart melts, beats to the most harmonious rhythm, in perfect synchronicity, and gently seduces my parasympathetic nervous system.

A summer in Montreal. The vines, the flowers, it’s hot, it’s beautiful. Even in the rain, the scent of asphalt becomes an intoxicating olfactory experience. Everything expands. Everything becomes possible. Because we know: the sun always comes back.

What changes everything often escapes the eye. Whether in cooking, in a perfume, in a melody, in a sentence, or in a thought, it’s the elements we add that leave their mark. What we activate and what we reveal.

Night and day. The silence of the night. The light of the day. A hunger that breathes, that opens, and that always comes back.

The Hunger for More.

That’s where it all begins. A vision. An appetite for more: more life, more clarity, more expansion. Because when the appetite opens, the rest follows.

So, those beat-up slippers, toe fossils: museum or trash? Habits settle in, too familiar to be questioned. One morning, toothbrush hanging out of my mouth, wiping my splatters off the mirror, I catch myself looking straight into my own eyes. It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other! How are you? After devouring a few self-help books, I think what we need is more self-YELP. Today’s rating could be as brutal as a night when the kitchen ran slow. We all have a pair of old slippers to let go.

I stuff them in a bag, I toss them to the curb. Ciao bye, gousse d’ail!² as my construction guy used to say. I spot my neighbor watering his lawn and that rosebush so beautiful it kinda looks fake. It smells good, I take the biggest nose puff until my rib cage is at full capacity. I hold it loaded, then finally release. Space opens up, room for possibilities. I admire the sky and the moon, on the Ad Vitam program. It’s free, air included. No extra fee. Hands on my hips, straight as Superman, I take another puff, like hitting reset, crossing the bridge, or blowing into the cartridge.

“Vegans just eat grass?!” As soon as my vision returns after rolling my eyes in bean grease³, Clark’s maple syrup beans (accidentally vegan), I tell myself that, yeah, fair, sprouts could pass for grass, with far more nutritional power than a full-grown vegetable. This unsolicited echo takes over the mental space where a few jingles⁴ sometimes live: Barbies Resto Bar Grill, Clan Panneton, or Pacini, “so Italian at such a good price!”, which now offers several vegan options. If that isn’t proof that everything can evolve! Mic drop. Almost.

Flavor lives in composition, curiosity in experience. By stepping back, we open up the field of possibilities⁵. That, at its core, is the philosophy of steak spice.

One Monday⁶, Sacred Day of the Neighborhood Restaurateur, I realized that everything seeks coherence, and everything influences everything. Food influences energy. Energy guides our choices. Our choices shape our environment. And our environment, in turn, transforms us.

Appetite for Revolution was born from that search.

Notes

1.        Joe Beef is a famous steakhouse in Montreal.

2.        “Gousse d’ail” means garlic clove. It’s a joke, because in French it rhymes with “bye.”

3.        Americans roll their eyes. In Quebec, a very old expression sends them “into the bean grease” on top of it, meaning a glazed-over look.

4.        Quebec ad earworms that stick in your head for life. Also, Pacini is an old-school Italian restaurant chain, which makes its vegan options a surprising and much appreciated evolution.

5.        A wink to the Champ des Possibles, a popular outdoor space in Montreal. The wordplay carries the meaning too.

6.        In Montreal, it’s well known that many neighborhood restaurants, the independents rather than the chains, close on Mondays.