OWNER: The andouillette. It is not…
ALL FOUR OF US: Yes, I mean it’s great, but it’s just not what we were expecting. It’s a little different than others we’ve had…
As more pathetic excuses and untruths were spoken, he smiled and nodded understandingly. After a moment he told the waitress, who had been lurking behind him, more than amused, to clear our plates and asked us if we would like to order anything else.
ALL FOUR OF US: Four omelets, please.
OWNER: Will that be all?
ALL FOUR OF US: And more wine.
As we waited for our assuredly benign entrées to arrive, we decided that it was not only the brave Allied forces that caused the Germans to pull back. Most likely it was the fear of having to eat andouillette day after day as penance for their brutal conquest of Normandy that also precipitated the Nazi retreat.
Here is the objective, very politically correct Wikipedia definition of andouillette.
Andouillette （French pronunciation: [?dujεt]） is a coarse-grained sausage made with pork （or occasionally veal）， chitterlings （intestine）， pepper, wine, onions, and seasonings. Tripe, which is the stomach lining of a cow, is sometimes an ingredient in the filler of an andouillette, but it is not the casing or the key to its manufacture. True andouillette will be an oblong tube. If made with the small intestine, it is a plump sausage generally about 25 mm in diameter but often it is much larger, possibly 7–10 cm in diameter, and stronger in scent when the colon is used. True andouillette is rarely seen outside France and has a strong, distinctive odour related to its intestinal origins and components. Although sometimes repellent to the uninitiated, this aspect of andouillette is prized by its devotees.
Need I say more?
13
I have heard that Edward G. Robinson would do three films a year, one for love, one for money, and one for location. Someday I hope to be in a position to be that choosey. There are a number of questions I ask when I am offered a job as an actor. Who’s directing? Who’s in it? How long will I be needed? How much money? Where does it shoot? But the last question, location, is a really crucial one. I do my best to find interesting and/or lucrative work close to home as often as possible, because in over thirty-eight years in this business we call “show,” I have acquired more air miles than I would like to remember flying between locations and home so as not to be away from my family for long stretches of time. For this reason obviously the farther away the location, the more I grapple with the choice. The other reason is the food.
If the project is filming in Europe, the choice is pretty simple, as good food is plentiful and frequent trips home are easily done. If I am offered a job across the Atlantic, say, in Toronto, Vancouver, or Montreal, even though I’m aware the “commute” will be exhausting, I know I will be in cities that are home to a plethora of great restaurants and food shopping. I mention these cities because for many years now countless television shows and films have been shot there. Most people think that Los Angeles is the home of filmmaking, but Canada and England are now the meccas of cinema production. This suits me just fine as I love Canada, I live in London, and I hate LA. For instance, I know that in Vancouver I’ll be able to eat amazing Chinese or Japanese food, explore the great homegrown restaurants that spring up every year, and find great fresh seafood, meat, and produce to cook myself. I know also that my first stop will be my favorite restaurant, Cioppino’s in Yaletown, run by chef Pino Posteraro and his brother Celestino.
I first visited Cioppino’s about twenty years ago when I was making a film for which I was well paid and which no one should ever see. Pino and Celestino, who, like my family, hail from Calabria, treated me like a brother from the moment I entered their restaurant. When Kate, our two-year-old twins, our one-month-old, and my parents came to stay with me, we would eat there whenever we could because the brothers created the warm atmosphere of an Italian home on a Sunday afternoon. Even though twenty years have passed, Pino, Celestino, and I have remained friends. But it is not this friendship that prompts me to say that Cioppino’s is one of the best restaurants I have ever eaten in. It’s the food.
Coming from an aristocratic Calabrese family, Pino learned the basics of cooking from his mother, who herself had studied with professional chefs. He worked with Armando Zanetti, the two-star Michelin chef, in Turin, after which he became chef de cuisine in Ristorante Bologna at the Mandarin hotel in Singapore. The midnineties found him and his young family in Vancouver, where he had been offered the job of head chef at the famous Il Giardino. Soon afterward he teamed up with his brother Celestino, who had owned his own successful restaurants over the years, and they opened Cioppino’s. Pino’s ability to combine the many facets of his culinary education and experiences has allowed him to create dishes that take Italian cooking to another level. His expert use of the sous-vide method of cooking alone, especially twenty years ago when he first opened, sets him apart from so many chefs, as does his ability to integrate Asian flavors and techniques into Italian dishes.