20 Questions with a Slashfoodie: Jonathan M. Forester

You've been reading our ramblings here at Slashfood for over a year now, so isn't it about time you get to know us? We like to play 20 questions with our bloggers, just so you can see what kind of insanity is cooking in our brains. And kitchens. We've already met Nick, Joe, and one of our illustrious leads, Nicole. Let's meet NY-based Jonathan Forester, who definitely knows his drinks.

-- Sarah J. Gim

Do you have a personal blog?

As opposed to most of the other Slashfood bloggers I don't have a personal blog, just a simple website www.JonathanForester.com, which I don't update much. I have so many hot pans on the stove, that blogging other than Slashfood would be impossible right now.

er, what do you do when you're not food blogging?
That's quite complicated; I do quite a few wildly differing things. I like being my own boss and having the option to take off a few weeks or months here and there to travel. I am a food & travel writer and a consulting chef/food & beverage business consultant. I am also partner in Winterport Winery and am opening Penobscot Bay Distillery & Brewery in Winterport, Maine. I used to be a mental health counselor and personal coach. I also worked as a corporate trainer/seminar presenter, an outdoor and wilderness educator, licensed wilderness guide, Outward Bound Instructor, and professional outdoorsman, and am also licensed to work with reptiles, including endangered species and venomous ones, and I occasionally do some work for beer, wine, and spirits companies. I also worked in the tobacco industry as a cigar/pipe expert, and designing pipe tobacco blends. In addition I have done a gazillion other fun things and plan on doing many more.

How long have you been blogging with Slashfood and what is your favorite post?
Since late October 2006. My favorite posts are my posts on libations, especially some of my reviews which can be just plain fun and a wee bit whimsical. I really enjoyed my review of Disaronna Originale Amaretto -- it was lots of fun to sip and write about all the things that just popped into my head.

Do you have any non-food-related, non-blogging hobbies?
Tons. Besides going to school almost professionally, I read incessantly and have an enormous personal library. I gave away several thousand books 15 years ago and regret it today. I have books on every subject like food and wines, psychology, anthropology, plants and animals, outdoor activities, wilderness survival, gardening, mysteries, adventure, science fiction and fantasy, travel, and more.

I like to travel as much as possible whether it is a weekend road trip, a month long cross country jaunt, or by plane, train, or ship around the world. I love the outdoors and camp, hike, rock and mountain climb, backpack, snow shoe, white water and flat water canoe and kayak, bicycle, practice wilderness survival skills, and forage for wild edible and medicinal plants. I have a great GPS'r that I play with when I travel in the backwoods and also use it for geocaching.

I am into different parts of my heritage since I am a mutt, part Lakota Sioux, English, Swedish, Italian, etc. I have traced my genealogy back extensively and have over 50,000+ documented ancestors with names, dates, etc. Including some who came over by foot to America (Native American), ones who came over on the Mayflower and other ships during the 1600-1800's, and back through peasants and gentry in Europe and North Africa to 700BC. I spend time with Native American studies on culture, philosophy and spirituality, and making their crafts, art, and traditional weapons. I carve stone and wood and like making useful things. I used to be into pipes and cigars and have a collection of over 200 pipes, old and new, from all over. I quite smoking and now they collect dust in storage. I collect antiques and art of various types, especially watercolor paintings and old Asian items like woodblock prints, tea pots, sculptures and bronze work, as well as Japanese snuff bottles and assorted Samurai items.

I also collect food and libation related items like old bottles and cookbooks. I am into gardening and plants, just playing in the dirt is a lot of fun. I have had a motorcycle of one sort or another since I was 12 and used to ride a lot, mostly cruisers. Although I had a race ready sport bike once that could do close to 200 mph. and scared the hell out of me because I kept trying to redline it. I had to get rid of it because tickets for doing over 140 mph cost a fortune and put too many points on your license. Now I have a hard time finding the time to ride, and my bike has been sitting for a year untouched, but this winter I plan on rebuilding the motor and next spring is just around the corner. As I said earlier I love learning and am always taking courses, getting certifications, etc. In between all of the above, when I get a chance, I like to sleep.

Not every foodie does, but do you cook?
Yup. Every day I cook one or two meals. I like to recreate dishes at home that I enjoyed when eating out. I like making things that require long, slow cooking. Also I make vinegars and liqueurs from scratch (which takes months), as well as homebrew beer, mead, and hard cider. I started cooking when I was around 8-9 and a few years later my mom went on strike and I took over the cooking for the next few years until I moved out after high school.

What is your most prized utensil/gadget in the kitchen?
My knives. I have a few trusty chef knives including antiques, as well as my new hand crafted and engraved Japanese sushi/sashimi knife.

List three things in your refrigerator right now.
Which one? I have several. In the refrigerator here in my office I have apple cider syrup hand made in Maine, frozen raw foie gras from Hudson Valley Fois Gras, and a rare, aged sake from a Toji's (head sake brewer) private stock, personally given to me when I visited his sake Kura (brewery) in Kobe, Japan.

You have to impress a date with a home-cooked meal. What are you going to make?
It depends upon her tastes and temperament. If she likes fine food I would focus on a meal that is easy to prep ahead of time, and which I can quickly cook while she watches and we flirt and chat. I would start with a nice aperitif like a tall flute of sparkling rose cava wine. To start the meal we would have a small serving of a roasted root veggie soup, followed immediately by a medallion of quickly seared foie gras with a sweet and tangy noble wine reduction sauce. Then for the main either a simple seared ribeye steak drizzled with a tiny bit of soy sauce, melted butter, and toasted sesame oil or sautéed scallops in green garlic butter. For the vegetable some sautéed fresh green beans and a light and tangy mesclun salad. For dessert some port / coffee poached heirloom pears from a friend's orchard covered with a dab of sweet, fresh whipped Chantilly cream made with Clemant Rhum Creole Shrubb liqueur, served with some cardamom laced Turkish style coffee. Finally a dessert wine while lounging in front of the fire, most likely my new favorite, the tangy Errazuriz Late Harvest Sauvigon Blanc from Chile, which makes your mouth feel so alive.

What is the last thing you ate?
Spaghetti with my home made meat and veggie sauce, with lots of rough grated pecorino romano cheese.

Confession time – what do you eat that will get you banned from Slashfood?
I loathe junk food so I don't know if there is anything that would count. Hmmm, a few times a year I have baked beans on toast. It's an English thing I inherited from my mom.

If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Pho, a great, big as your head, steaming bowl of fragrant Pho bo dac biet (special combination beef pho.) that meaty and spice filled Vietnamese broth crammed with noodles and assorted meats like rare round, tendon, omasa, and brisket; then scattered with fresh Asian basil, sawleaf herb (culantro), squeezed limes, crunchy bean sprouts, and slices of fiery chiles. Mmmm....Mmmm... Good!

Your Mom makes the best _____.
Ummm, how do I say this nicely so I don't get beat senseless by her? She doesn't like to cook and doesn't quite cook to my taste. I basically stopped eating her cooking at around age 11-12. But when I was a kid she learned how to make shrimp tempura from a Japanese friend and that was pretty tasty.

Which chef would you most like to have come into your kitchen and cook you dinner?
Tony Bourdain or the late Julia Child. Or even better, both at the same time. I bet that would be fun and I'm sure it would be a fantastic feast with plenty of great libations.

Who would you most like to eat dinner with?
Any volunteers? If so I'm sure you can find a way to contact me.

Your drink of choice?
That's a tough one, soft or hard? Soft drink, tamarind juice. Hard, if I narrow it down to just one it would have to be gin. Which specific one? I'll tell you after I have tried them all. Get back to me in a few decades.

Where was your best restaurant dining experience?
Well it wasn't exactly in a restaurant. It was a formal meal served by torch light in a sand filled dry riverbed while I was on safari in the Ruaha in Tanzania, Africa.

The worst?
I can't remember the name but it was some cheap seafood chain restaurant where they burnt everything that wasn't raw, and what was raw wasn't supposed to be.

Do you want fries with that?
Crispy outside, fluffy inside, and twice cooked in goose fat.

What foods do you think should be banished from existence?
Instant oatmeal, most chain food, granola, modern breeds of pork "the other white meat", white meat in general (meat shouldn't be white, not even on chickens).

What do you see as the biggest "thing" in food for the coming year?
More spices bringing in big ethnic and global flavors. Spices in general are becoming big news, and not just the new and strange, but the old tried and true. As I wrote about not long ago I think this will be the Year of the Peppercorn, expect to see many types become even more available. Add salt to the list and expect to see more than just regular salt and basic sea salt at your local market. Hawaiian red, smoked salt, you name it. They're moving out of the gourmet stores and going main stream. Also more spice blends and salt/spice blends will be on the shelves in the next few months. For those who can't have salt you will see more good tasting salt substitutes as well, not just at the market, but in prepared and frozen foods too.