Eating My Words

An Homage to my BBQ

2010-05-24T13:18:00.000-07:00

We're moving to a condo building and my bbq can't come with us. I feel like we're taking our old dog out to "a farm" from which it'll never return.

Oh the times we've had. The boozy night when I assembled it out of the home depot box after having drunk a bottle of wine (I never was able to find the ignition button). The freezing day in February when we attempted to cook Mr Piggie on the rotisserie. The sad day when the knobs melted off, and the glorious day when the new knobs arrived!

We had a celebratory farewell last night... a bavette and a ribeye,

a round of the Brit's chips,

coleslaw, grilled asparagus....

But I am happy to report that the lovely Stef is moving into my old flat and will assume custody of the mighty 'q. Long may its rickety, ignition-less self live.

My Love Affair With Pork

2010-05-10T19:17:00.000-07:00

BUT NOT ALL PORK. The product development test kitchen taught me too much about supermarket pork. And let me tell you it has a peculiar, particular taste which I do not care for. Wet sock? Garbage? Miscellaneous funk?

Our sterile way of describing it (in the development kitchen) was "age" as in "hmm, you can taste the age in this sausage". As in, the beast lived a bit too long in less-than-awesome conditions. Not a desirable quality. It means that when I have to taste supermarket pork I routinely spit it out. Blech.

But oh man, when pork is good, lawd above it's good. This humble, plain loin (wrapped in glorious, naturally-raised fat) needed nothing more than salt. And roast potatoes, braised cabbage and garlic, roasted asparagus, carrot and pea salad. Then some simple rhubarb compote with rich vanilla yogurt.

Return to salad days

2010-04-25T07:50:00.000-07:00

Out of all my Top 5 Single-girl Meals*, a bowl of greens (preferably red leaf lettuce) with feta, orange segments and chopped avocado must be the one I've consumed most. In fact, even just writing that makes my mouth water. Back in the day I even used to make a toasted seed-and-nut mixture to sprinkle overtop. There's something simultaneously virtuous and wicked about eating an enormous quantity of foods that are good for you.

As per usual, this week's version (also containing chick peas, grated carrots and celery) goes into my favourite plastic bowl which is light enough to hold in my lap while sitting on the couch watching Law & Order. It takes more than half an hour to chow through the entire thing, after which I'm totally full and only vaguely interested in a kitkat. And since I'm no longer a single girl, the Brit got his own bowlful too.

Top 5 Single-girl Meals
1. Tofu with greens and quinoa
2. Pasta with garlic, olive oil and whatever
3. Fried egg sandwich with pickles
4. Rice and dal
5. La Grande Salade

Friday night burgers

2010-04-23T18:56:00.000-07:00

There's something new happening for me. It's this Friday thing, I believe they call it "TGIF". I feel peppier and generally more cheerful all day. Is it the promise of a stiff martini (x 2) at day's end? Or what?

Whatever. Food-wise, Fridays have become fake take-out nights -- curries, pizza, Chinese -- but homemade of course. And tonight, burgers. I've ranted about burgers before, but these may well have been the simplest and best of the bunch. A single pound of the city's best butcher's ground beef with salt, pepper and a splash of water, some Ace buns and a plateful of condiments...oh and a ton of cheap red wine on the side.

Yes, you're wondering about the little jug of scotch in amongst the condiments. It's for afters.

Note my hands going in for the kill.

That's coleslaw on the side -- good old coleslaw made with mayo and ketchup and yumminess. Perfect.

So...much...food

2010-04-18T18:56:00.000-07:00

Clearly, I've been working and eating so much that all other duties have fallen by the proverbial wayside. To catch up, there has been:

Coconut lentil curry with Japanese eggplants and couscous (for the July issue).

Creamy and so comforting and good.

Shepherd's pie made with leftover lamb and featuring a cheesy mash crust.

With many lashings of ketchup and worcestershire of course.

Another of Cumbrae's ridiculous prime rib roasts. Gorgeous Yorkshires too and gravy. Oh and roasties and carrot+turnip and broccoli oh my!

And then this simple little plate of grilled polenta and etc -- a perfect vegetarian grill meal.

Grilled sandwiches

2010-03-24T18:51:00.000-07:00

I'm developing a *top secret* teeny tiny little grilled number at work this week (among about 4,500 other tasks). It contains a meat, a cheese, my favourite yellowish condiment and something pickle-like. I SIMPLY CANNOT SAY ANY MORE WITHOUT COMPROMISING MY PROFESSIONAL INTEGRITY. Except that it's all grilled into toasty yummydom and served with a summery alcoholic beverage and I "tested" it many many times over the course of the afternoon.

Put cheese and anything between two breads and grill...and I'm yours.

Breakfast

2010-03-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

I'm not the kind of person who can "skip breakfast." I'd be a basket case by 10am, hands shaking, unable to concentrate and irritable as hell. So no matter how far I've slept in, there has to be breakfast. It doesn't have to be big or elaborate but it has to exist.

Most mornings a small bowl of Shreddies and a cup of tea is plenty to get me at least to elevenses. But on days when it's cold out, or I slept funny, or if there will be no elevenses (eep!), then the comfort of an egg is required. And having recently re-learned how to properly scramble an egg (thank you Jean-Georges and Bittman)*, today it was

One egg, one toast
cost: about 75 cents
location: the kitchen counter, eaten with my hands.

*Melt a small pat of butter in the pan (medium heat or lower), crack in an egg, sprinkle in some salt and immediately start whisking. Then you whisk frequently until it's just set. As Bittman says, "it's a revelation". Creamy, light, perfect.

Birthday Week 2010

2010-03-21T18:43:00.000-07:00

Last year's Week of Eating Deliciously set in motion such a wonderful, jeans-tightening Year of Eating Deliciously, that I'm determined to repeat the experience: all week I'll eat some of my favourite things.

1
Every kind of Cheese
cost: about $20
location: friends' ski chalet

Here's a selection of Quebec's finest (all purchased at the grocery store in a little rural village. Sigh, what a great province). From left to right, Victor Berthold, Lady Laurier, Ermite and Le Voyageur. Please note the totally awesome 1980s wine glasses, the perfectly good $8 bottle of wine and the roaring fire. Life simply doesn't get better.

p.s. the Lady Laurier is ridiculous, bonkers, gahhwwww delicious.

Go go go mixer

2010-03-15T17:31:00.000-07:00

The other day I came home to a frantic message on my machine. My girlfriend Mary had come face-to-face with a display of ON SALE KitchenAid stand mixers and, having coveted one since forever, was ostensibly looking for my blessing on her purchase. But since I wasn't home, she bought one anyway, and hopefully they'll all live happily ever after.

It seemed the right opportunity to put my own little black beauty through her paces, so Friday was pizza dough:

Saturday a goat cheese souffle using Alexis de Portneuf's unparalleled Caprano cheese:

And Sunday homemade pasta that became spinach-ricotta cannelloni.

Go girl!

The Opening of 2010 BBQ Season

2010-03-10T20:06:00.000-08:00

A gloriously sunny weekend brings out the best in the city. Everyone seems to be smiling at each other, luxuriating in a no-mitts+toque, coat-open scarfless freedom. A few yahoos are wearing shorts and flipflops, and everyone is busting out the barbecue sauce.

Ahh, the perfect bbq meal: flatiron steak, roastie potatoes, and a giant salad with beets and goat cheese.

Just ignore that fact that by the time we got home from a long leisurely sunny day walk we couldn't be bothered to clean the darn bbq so I cooked the (fatty, delicious) steak on my grill pan. There's always next weekend.

Maybe lame, maybe genius

2010-03-09T20:07:00.000-08:00

You take the meat off a rotisserie chicken and layer it on baked tortillas with refried beans, various yummy crunchy things and sour cream with a chipotle or two mashed into it. Then you drink half a bottle of wine and fall asleep on the couch at 10:15pm while watching food tv.

That's my Friday night. I'm not ashamed.

Return of the Tofu

2010-02-25T17:35:00.000-08:00

Experiencing a bit of a dry spell these last few weeks, brought on by a) the new job b) the olympics and c) my brother's wedding. It means I've not been cooking or writing. So tonight's homemade-by-me meal feels like an achievement after so many evenings of the Brit's (excellent) cooking, take-out, and Sad Excuses for Supper (such as the unfortunate mozzerella-chardonnay-toblerone marathon last week).

As mentioned, I heart tofu to the max for many reasons -- not the least of which is the way a vac-sealed pack of it that may have been purchased lo 2 weeks ago, is still hale+sound tonight.

Said tofu hit a marinade of soy, sesame and grated ginger, then went into a 350 F oven while I sautéed a sliced onion, some ginger and garlic, a red pepper and steamed some broccoli over the simmering rice. Then I remembered a miso dressing we used to make by the vat-ful at the hippie bakery-cafe -- puree 1 clove garlic in the food processor, add about 1/2 cup miso, a good glug of rice vinegar, a glob of Dijon, tons of pepper and then thin it out with water.

In about 20 minutes the whole affair came together in a giant pile of LE YUM which I then doused with a generous drizzle of miso dressing. And now for the women's gold medal hockey game and the women's long program.

Changes

2010-02-10T11:16:00.000-08:00

I was just looking at my "what's the deal?" rant (in grey on the right) and wondering if it really still applies to my/this blog's raison d'être. Back in the salad days of Eating My Words I was a single gal who had pretty well forgotten the joys of cooking for oneself. But these days I'm all over it. Various factors, including the happy addition to my life of a gentleman food-lover, means that I am more likely to make homemade pasta on a weeknight than to pick up a styrofoam box of coconut mushroom soup (yum). And weekends are veritable food festivals -- planning sessions, trips to the market, cook-offs, baked goods.

That said, I've had take-out for supper twice in the past week, and the Brit has done all the cooking otherwise. Hm.

I'm moving onwards and upwards to a new job next week -- still food editing but more of it and with more of an everyday food angle -- which means back to long hours and (sigh?) more styrofoam boxes. So maybe I won't edit the "what's the deal" for another few weeks yet.

The T word

2010-01-30T14:42:00.000-08:00

It always surprises me that TOFU isn't a superstar. (Among the non-veg/flex-itarians of the world, that is).

If I had to make a list of my Top 50 meals (home and away), tofu in its myriad forms would surely occupy more spots than duck and chicken combined. Cinnamon-braised tofu; Northern Chinese fried tofu; stir fried black beans with tofu; Kokyo sushi's age tofu; Buk Chang Dong's tofu kimchi stew. All so good, and that's just the beginning.

Some days, I just crave it, so I just fry up an onion, some tofu and some kale or spinach, douse the lot in soy sauce and Sriracha and eat the whole mess in front of the TV.

But frankly, I'm sick of bigging it up to people who scrunch up their noses in disgust at its mere mention, so I'm done with that. I'm just going to sit right down an enjoy myself a tofu-hummus-cucumber sandwich.

Mr. Pork Belly

2010-01-19T13:54:00.000-08:00

Oh pork belly, how far you've come. You're the new darling of the restaurant world, and your resplendent fattiness is no longer spurned but adored. Look at all your lovely fat:

So much fat that we had to slice the crackling away and pan fry it in order to obtain the appropriate (addictive, eaten before the plates made it to the table) crispiness:

We serve your tender unctuous meat with roasted fennel, braised red cabbage, scalloped potatoes and roasted butternut. After a week of brown rice and kale, your awesomeness is balm (metaphorical and actual) to our own bellies.

A humble supermarket dessert

2010-01-17T14:01:00.000-08:00

Take 1 tub Kozy Shack rice pudding (yum), 1 tub Liberte plain 10% mf yogurt (ga ga yum), 1 jar unsweetened applesauce and 1 apple. Mix however it floats your boat. At once decadent and yet somehow still virtuous.

Detox

2010-01-10T07:51:00.000-08:00

As surely as a hangover follows a night of tequila and red wine, January is detox month. If I had a nickel for every time I'd heard that word this week, along with variations on "I'm not drinking til April", well, I'd have enough for a small coffee.

Truth is, I'm in the same bloated, too-tight-pants boat. Blergh. Although there was a distinct lack of boxed chocolates, frosted cookies and mixed nuts, the foie gras - goose -- pommes dauphinois - Champagne - whiskey extravaganza was over the top. And I drank enough booze and slathered enough bread with butter to be feeling the after effects. And it wasn't cheap either.

And so a few weeks of restraint have come into effect. To satisfy the duelling guilt trips of over-eating and -spending, step 1 involves eating less meat. I'm devoted to my luxury butcher, so even a pork chop is by no means a cheap meal. And his pork chops come with a respectable edge of fat.

So I returned to 2 favourites from my vegetarian days: Spicy Peanut Noodles with Egg and this, Chipotle Black Beans with Lime and Feta on Cornbread.

To celebrate a week of restrained eating, the Brit is roasting a very happy-looking wedge of pork belly for dinner tonight. That's ok, right?

New Christmas traditions

2010-01-05T09:52:00.000-08:00

This year it was all about eliminating stress while increasing calories and pleasure.

1. eat Chinese take-out on Dec 24
Christmas eve usually involves some kind of blow-out meal like tourtiere, baked beans and ham or lobster and scallops in a creamy sauce followed by endless tins of shortbread and Florentines. The cook's exhausted and the kitchen's a mess. Someone inevitably croaks out a defeatist "I'll never eat again".

Chinese take-out tastes totally different from anything you'll be eating on the following day, leaves you very hungry for the next day's meals, and it requires no shopping, chopping or dishwashing.

2. enjoy a no-cook boozy breakfast on Christmas day
Much as I love my family's traditional eggs Benedict, a lazy holiday morning is no time to soft-poach a dozen eggs and make fresh Hollandaise. Good smoked salmon, cream cheese and rye toast provide a perfectly wonderful accompaniment to cold Champagne. And then everyone's happy.

3. roast beef for the family
It's so much less stressful than a goose or turkey. Or if gravy terrifies you, roast a ham.

4. then roast a goose a few days later -- just for yourself and your single best food-loving pal
A goose doesn't go too far, so save it for those who really care. Add some foie gras as a starter. Use full-fat cream in the scalloped potatoes. Drink Champagne recklessly. Die happy...then turn the leftovers into Peking goose in Mandarin pancakes the next day.

5. make enough Christmas cake this year to last until next year
I found one of last year's cakes tucked away in my catch-all closet behind a suitcase and the humidifier. Still good.

December's Greatest Hits

2009-12-28T07:35:00.000-08:00

There's been a lot of cooking this month. I hosted a party for 25 people, then helped friends stock the freezer for their mom who is sick. We cooked an obscene amount of food -- ribs, mac & cheese, turkey a la king, spaghetti sauce -- and packaged it all up in ziplocs.

Then the Brit and I went skiing for a week, but we cooked all of our own meals. Of course then it was Christmas! A smoked salmon champagne breakfast

Mr roast beef

A few mince tarts

And then best of all, in the sleepy, hazy days after the big day, a table laden with leftovers, pickles and a hearty soup:

Merry Christmas!

More ham tales

2009-12-07T16:34:00.000-08:00

Friends, I once again need to commend ROAST HAM as the little black dress of entertaining. Last week I followed through on my threat to host a Christmas Mixer - Tree-trimming soirée. And yes, as always I made chicken liver paté along with Jenny's Famous Spiced Nuts and a round of gingerbread chocolate cookies.

But that's not enough food for a party that begins at 5pm and goes on for an indeterminate time period. And so ROAST HAM. I had it all carved and plattered, alongside sliced bread, pickles and Dijon mustard. The crowd went wild. And they stayed for 9 HOURS (and would have stayed longer if I hadn't begged them to let me go to bed).

ROAST HAM!!

A New Weeknight Pasta

2009-12-01T16:02:00.000-08:00

Against all precedents (set by months and months of lazy weeknight meals), we made hand-rolled pasta last Tuesday night. It took 2 and a .5 hours. On a Tuesday, after work. Not recommended, well not unless there was some kind of post-work peanut butter-on-toast snack to tide you over.

You see, the Brit had braised some short ribs on the weekend and while I loves me some short ribs, really there is nothing better than short rib LEFTOVERS (all broken up with their juices) poured over homemade pasta. It's just the business, and I crave it mightily.

And so it begins, the humble dough ball of 2 eggs and 1 cup flour, which you then knead for 10 minutes, separate into 6 portions and then send through the magic roller thusly:

There's a zen-ness to it, roll, roll, roll your dough..... until you have 6 lovely sheets of pasta:

Which take up all of your counter space, but you don't care because SHORT RIB TIME IS GETTING CLOSER. You slice the sheets into ribbons, boil them ever so briefly and toss with melted butter:

And then add the motley mess of braised beef, melted collagen, carrot and onion bits. Grrrmmmmmh.

Tea paraphenalia

2009-11-22T10:38:00.000-08:00

It's been a slow process over a number of years, but I've become a Tea Person. I must have a cup within 30 minutes of waking up and I find it restorative at other times of the day in a way that even liquor is not (!!).

However, I fear the worst about what this might mean for my current disregard for cats and the art of macramé. If I'm ever given the gift of a teapot-shaped brooch or a fridge magnet that says "friends are like a pot of tea blah blah blah" I shall surely faint. For the time being, I want it hot, strong and milky. The end.

Or is it? Killing time before a flight at Heathrow this fall I wandered through the Harrods boutique, quietly laughing at the various teapot-shaped cookie tins, oven mitts and Christmas balls. And then I saw a cheesy little collection of tea mugs bearing the *humourously* combined names of London streets like "Faith St" + "Hope Lane" on one or "Milk Street" + "Sugar Quay" on another. And, well, um.... so, yes. This one had to come home with me.

It is the perfect size, the perfect weight, has the perfect handle and goes safely into the dishwasher. And I love it irrationally.

Carrot slaw

2009-11-09T14:31:00.000-08:00

Winter approaches and we are once again staring down the barrel of a season without much in the way of locally grown fruits and veg. What we get are the contents of the root cellar -- rutabagas, onions, cabbages and carrots -- and much as I love and cherish these over-winterers, one gets tired of one's usual ways to cook them. And a 3-lb bag of carrots does seem to last an eternity.

Enter the Mediterranean Carrot Slaw: grate or mandoline some carrots, add a good amount of fresh lemon juice and a very hearty dose of salt (using lots of lemon and salt seems to be the key). Stir and let sit about 10 minutes while achieving other goals (I like doing some stretches or calling a relative whom I can only stand to speak to for 10 minutes or less). Stir well, drizzle with olive oil and enjoy. Chopped parsley, that other hardy fridge standard, is welcome here too.

We've had this with leftover meatloaf, chick pea curry, roasted chicken, and even salmon with couscous. It's crunchy, zippy, easy, cheap and delicious.

Ham and Mushroom crepes, oh my

2009-10-30T04:10:00.000-07:00

Although I've now determined that ROAST HAM is the easiest party meal in the world, there's really just one reason to roast a ham: the leftovers are truly excellent. There are very good ham-Cheddar-Branston sandwiches, even better ham omelettes and even just plain cold ham eaten out of the tin foil. And then there are ham and mushroom crepes.

Imagine a warm, creamy mushroom sauce full of matchsticks of ham with parsley, pepper and lots of fresh lemon juice. Then imagine wrapping this lovable sauce with tender whole wheat crepes. It's an old recipe that Mom always used to make in the post-ham week and I'm delighted to report that the recipe has stood the test of 30 years time.

So so sosososo good.

Kitty, curious

2009-10-25T04:10:00.000-07:00

There's a window at eye level in my near-basement kitchen and it's rather a convenient spot to stow dishes that are in transition between the oven and the fridge. I've taken to leaving a rack in the window ledge for cooling cookies and pies and such too.

This particular casserole (penne, 3-cheese sauce, bacon, peas) (oh yeah) was awaiting a delivery of breadcrumbs and I was pottering about in the kitchen when one of the countless neighbourhood meowzers came by for a sniff. I did let out a bit of a shriek (it's surprising to see anyone -- human or feline -- making an attempt on your supper) but she turned out to be pretty cute.

She then stood guard for a while.

Orphans' Thanksgiving

2009-10-16T08:23:00.000-07:00

In university days I was too far from home to make the 22-hour train ride just for little old Thanksgiving. Instead I'd host a potluck for all the other "orphans" who were from far away.

The menu was typical university frugal-hippie carbo-mix up: tofu lasagna, and someone would bring either that broccoli salad with dried cranberries or the spinach salad with candied walnuts that was making the potluck rounds at the time, store-bought bread or coleslaw or pasta salad. There was little in the way of traditional Thanksgiving fare -- a turkey would have been too big an expense. But Dave insisted on making a pumpkin pie from scratch...starting with a whole pumpkin and no recipe. His first attempt was a wet, fibrous, eggy disaster but by the end of our undergrad degrees, he was making decent pies.

Thanksgiving still feels more like a friends holiday than a family one. Happily, I've got a few more pennies than I did in those days, so this year we roasted a naturally-raised ham. The guests are still "orphans" (though I hesitate to call them such). The Brit of course, and our charming LadyBrit friend, as well as my second cousin who is too much fun to be family.

But may I recommend ROAST HAM as the easiest, most bang-for-buck, affordable and effortless roast of them all. It's ready whenever you are and goes well with anything you can throw at it -- from cheese to nuts to eggs the next morning. I would challenge anyone to name a vegetable that didn't work brilliantly as ROAST HAM's wing-man.

Roast ham, whipped carrot & rutabaga, boiled new potatoes with dill butter, roasted cauliflower with cumin seeds, spicy cranberry chutney, tomato chutney, lots of wine, then pumpkin pie (tinned pumpkin: I'm not as ambitious as Dave was), whipped cream and brandies.

Table for 1

2009-10-07T10:09:00.000-07:00

Judith Jones's new book, The Pleasures of Cooking for One, came across my desk last week. She never thought she could cook "well" for herself after her husband died, but proved herself wrong (as the book sweetly elucidates). She now routinely whips up hollandaise for one, fries up a single serving of pommes Anna in a tiny pan, and keeps a big batch of béchamel in the freezer so she can dole it out by the spoonful. Smartypants.

After reading that, I couldn't well make yet another plate of Pasta for One. A small roast chicken then, with roasted golden beets, garlic-sautéed beet greens and Marcella Hazan's brilliant if plainly-named "roasted mixed vegetables".

Add one (very large) glass of wine and one tv movie (Master and Commander, swoon) for a perfect Saturday evening in.

One red onion quartered, 2 tomatoes quartered, 1 red pepper in wedges and 4 small potatoes in wedges. Drizzle with much olive oil and lots of salt and roast at 400 F for about 35 minutes. The result is magically so much more than the simple sum of its parts.

A dozen food hits from England

2009-09-26T09:48:00.000-07:00

1. Ginster's mini pork pies, purchased at a gas station on the M3, eaten cold
2. A giant hot Cornish pasty: crumbly, flaky pastry, hunks of tender beef, turnips and carrots and lots and lots of pepper
3. Cheese and onion sandwich with salad cream on whole grain bread from a chain called EAT
4. grilled sausages from the Blandford butcher
5. fish and chips in Swanage: moist and flaky cod in great batter
6. "jumbo" sausage roll in High Wycombe
7. unpasturized Stilton on plain crackers with a pork pie and a wonderful British apple
8. a bacon sandwich in Dorchester
9. clotted cream on a raisin scone
10. chicken tikka curry
11. proper pappadams loaded with lime pickle, mango chutney and raw onions
12. oven-poached plaice fresh from the ocean, simple and perfect in Weymouth

Fergus vs Heston, an Epic Battle

2009-09-21T06:46:00.000-07:00

The tired old cliché about the blandness of British cuisine is just so tired, old and clichéd. Even the sandwiches sold at gas station tuck shops are amazing. More on that in another post. But I had 2 of the Best Meals Of My Life last week in England and unintentionally created a show-down between 2 super-lauded chefs, Fergus Henderson (St John restaurant in London) and Heston Blumenthal (The Hind's Head in Bray). Heston won, but just by a hair.

At St John, the room is whitewashed and without decor, and servers wear short white coats reminiscent of butcher's aprons. Coincindence? Unlikely, since the restaurant is known for serving the entire nose-to-tail beast. The famous bone marrow starter is ordinary except for the lemony, sharp parsley salad that takes it into the stratosphere of "oh help me, that's delicious"-ness. Then there's the braised half rabbit with hunks of soft bacon and a creamy mustard-cider sauce, and the whole grouse served with bread sauce (sounds weird, tastes amazing) and its yummy livers spread on toast. Oh my.

(I know, I broke my own rule about not taking snaps in restaurants)
And the Savoy cabbage, and the simple boiled potatoes. And the Eccles cake (heritage desserts are huge in the UK right now) served with a wedge of Lancashire cheese, an extraordinary, head-scratching wonder of tangy-cheddary, crumbly-ness.

So when we get to Heston's pub (walking by the Fat Duck, his other, famouser, way more expensiver and posher restaurant) the stakes are already very very high. But oh, look how inviting the pub is:

It's the essence of cozy, welcoming and lovely and we immediately fall in love with it (even though they do not have the equipment to make us a martini). The pea and ham soup is a dream come true of fresh pea purée, ham stock and a tiny drizzle of mint oil; the chicken-ham-leek pie is a perfect incarnation of savoury pie; the oxtail and kidney pudding is rich enough to cause gallbladder failure on the spot. Even the bread and butter are so good that we can only just look each other, speechless, before devouring more of it. And then there's the broccoli with anchovies and almonds and the ...help me...triple-cooked chips.

There's more? Yes, treacle tart for dessert...gaspingly good, and then a "quaking pudding" (another heritage sweet), a wobbly warm gob of milk, eggs, nutmeg and cinnamon which could cure anyone of any hardship, plague, hangover or bad mood in an instant.

It may be worth mentioning that neither meal broke the bank in any way, and that we are already planning return visits to both, asap.

Fish bargains

2009-09-08T14:26:00.001-07:00

There's a high-end fish shop in town, and though their fishies are pristine they're also very expensive. So it's a treat. Until we figured out the Rainbow Trout Matrix.

It goes like this: buy 1 or 2 small whole rainbow trout (the least expensive fish in the shop), then ask the very expert fishmonger to fillet the little darlings (which they'll do for free) and take home nothing but the exquisite boneless flesh. I have neither the expertise nor the laser-sharp knives to fillet the little fish without wrecking the delicate flesh.

Then crank the bbq to holy-moses-high, oil the skin of the fish, season all over with salt and pepper, and grill it skin-side down -- lid closed, no flipping -- til the flesh is just about cooked through. The skin gets crispy and lifts right off the bbq and the fish is a dream, at only about $11 for 2 portions.

Simple food

2009-08-28T16:02:00.000-07:00

Sometimes life gets complicated. You wake up from a restless sleep wondering how exactly you might make it through til the cocktail hour.
A chopped egg on toast and a cup of hot tea sets things to right pretty quickly.

And then it turns out that the day isn't nearly as >blergh< as anticipated.

Summer of the Chicken

2009-08-26T19:12:00.000-07:00

I've been barbeque-ing the hell out of this summer. Between recipe development for work and feeding myself, the Brit and friends, my restored and rejuvenated bbq has been givin'er most nights of the week. And so?

I have learned how to grill chicken. Finally.

It's the slow + low method. Use bone-in, skin-on pieces or joints. Crank the heat to tippity-top high. Add the chicken skin-side-down, reduce to the lowest possible heat, close the lid and drink an entire adult-sized martini before event thinking about it again. Then flip the pieces, shut the lid, drink another martini, maybe share a cigar, or just stare out into space for a good, long while. The chicken will be tender and juicy and cooked and the skin deeply golden and irresistible. A marinade helps too.

Why did it take me this long to figure this out? ...meh, who cares, this chicken is delicious.

Hurricane food

2009-08-24T09:08:00.001-07:00

A tornado touched down in these parts last week. It got me to make jerk chicken for the first time in my life. Why? Well the Brit narrowly escaped the wrath of Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and at the time he was living in Cayman, eating a fair amount of jerk chicken. So you can see how I put the two together.

I've never been into jerk because it's full of allspice, a characteristic that does nothing to endear it to me. Allspice comes into my life once a year, as a 1/2 tsp measure in a family-sized batch of large fruitcakes. But what the hell, right? You only live once, and you never know when the next drastic weather event could change things.

Success! Something about mixing the allspice all up with chilies, lime juice, garlic, etc etc etc seems to make it palatable. Even tasty.

Tuna, humph

2009-08-17T18:21:00.000-07:00

I had a little revelation about tuna steaks: they're bland. And for $32/lb, bland is not acceptable. It's not a bad bland, it's just a plain, if-I-was-blindfolded-I-couldn't-identify-it nothingness. The texture is interesting, sure, but there's a reason why restaurants soak them in soy or miso or wasabi -- they're trying to amp up the flavour.

Nevertheless, the Brit did an admirable job of these two little numbers (with soy and sesame seeds and a very quick visit to the screaming hot surface of the bbq) and we certainly enjoyed them, but we both craved...more flavour. We agreed that we might well prefer sardines.

But as far as summer salads go, this everything but the kitchen sink coleslaw was pretty decent. Carrots, napa cabbage, celery, onion, fennel, apple and parsley in a mayo-Dijon-lemon juice dressing, mmm.

Just...wow...

2009-08-03T13:20:00.000-07:00

Oh my stars, there aren't words to describe the over-the-moon deliciousness of these little fish fillets. Panko-breaded, olive-oil fried (on the bbq so my apartment isn't too whiffy), served soaked with lemon juice and Maldon salt, with British "mushy chip shop peas" (a revelation, so tasty!) on the side.

Pizza ...on the barbeque

2009-07-26T09:23:00.000-07:00

Being lazy, I make pizza dough in the food processor. But this always turns out a very thick dough which twists and squirms and generally resists being rolled out. So I used my other favourite Helper Monkey (the stand mixer) and adapted a recipe from infamous pizza master Chris Bianco.

VICTORY. The dough rolled out beautifully, and when I flung it on the screaming hot grill it sort of stuck to itself for a moment but I was able to adjust it with tongs.

The bbq pizza method is simple but requires some balls. You fling the dough onto the grill and blast one side of it over very high heat, then flip it off the grill and onto a baking sheet (cooked side up).

Top with very little, just raw onions, sliced cheese and tomatoes for example, return to the grill (now the uncooked side is facing the fire), turn the heat down to nearly nothing, close the lid and let cook til the cheese melts. Upon removal, you can add a bunch more toppings, like prosciutto and rocket tossed with lemon and oil. Mmm mm mmm.

Tossing the raw dough directly onto the grill is one of those acts you have to convince yourself is going to work. It does -- beautifully -- but like bungee jumping, it's hard to believe before you just do it.

NYC must-eats

2009-07-21T05:20:00.000-07:00

New York City is my idol. Before visiting, I spend weeks poring over New York magazine, the NYT, Serious Eats NY, all in search of the latest and greatest in food. But no matter what, I need to have these 4 things:

1. quiche at Bouchon Bakery
As a friend once memorably put it, "if I could be reincarnated as a chicken so I could lay an egg that would be a part of this quiche, I'd be happy." The texture of the custard is indescribably wonderful, closer to gently jellied heavy cream than to an eggy quiche mixture. You take a bite and it seems to both melt into your tongue and evaporate off of it. Amazing.

2. pizza
People criss-cross Manhattan and beyond seeking out The One, but my tastes here are more simple. Any NY pizza. This trip it was from nondescript "Ben's Pizza" next to the hotel and it cost $3.65 which seemed plenty to pay for an ordinary-sized slice. But it's so so so good. Crust neither thick nor thin, sauce in moderation (and it has a gentle sweetness to it, and not much herb or garlic taste) and tons of grated mozzarella -- the stretchy, tangy, salty kind.

3. something ridiculous
Last trip it was a $900 meal at Le Bernardin (totally worth it). This trip it was 2 suppers in one night. First at Buddakan, second at Momofuku. Both, curiously, involved pork belly steamed buns.

4. Fage yogurt, full fat
What is it, like 12% fat? Mmm.

Hot Buns

2009-07-12T09:51:00.001-07:00

Before anyone accuses anyone else of "going too far" being too "foodie elitist" or having "too much time on her hands" let me just say that these homemade burger buns KNOCKED MY LITTLE COTTON SOCKS OFF.

The relatively lazy effort of making them is so so very worth it. I thought I loved burgers before; now, well, this has changed the water on the beans.

But enough talk. This recipe makes exceptional, perfect hamburger buns.

A few notes: the dough is very very sticky, and (luckily) advice from smitten kitchen forced me not to add extra flour. If you're up for the task -- and I couldn't recommend this recipe more highly -- use the stand mixer. Oh, and Canadian flour has a similar protein level as American "bread" flour, so no probs using all a-p flour here.

!!!!!

Out of respect for the buns, we had minced steak burgers (start with a sirloin and mince it) and excellent condiments. The combination was out of this world.

** by the way, the bbq is back in business thanks to a new set of knobs courtesy of the excellent lifetime warranty on my broilmate q.

Fool Pie

2009-07-09T13:21:00.000-07:00

I was hit by the unstoppable desire to bake something, and after reading raves and raves about a certain raspberry brown butter tart on the interweb, I gave it a go. Only to discover that it is not really a great recipe. The crust is amazing but the filling is only just so-so. Ok, kinda gooey, but overall barely worth the calories. But the crust! Crispy and buttery and --best of all-- so so so easy to make. You melt some butter, add some flour and sugar and press into a tart pan.

So I made the crust again on Saturday, baked it through (empty) and filled it with rhubarb fool. It's pretty well curtains on the rhubarb season, and this seemed a fitting finale. Three of us killed the whole pie in one sitting.

The Epic Breakfast

2009-07-06T18:53:00.000-07:00

All the stars were aligned. We had British-style bacon from the Mennonites, black pudding from the British shop, leftover roast potatoes, eggs, toast.

The Brit's plate:

And mine:

Do not be fooled by my "restrained" plate. That is not just toast, it is in fact one hell of a fried egg sandwich. The Signature Classic, with mayo and thinly sliced kosher full sours. (For my mother's nerves: yes, we went for a run beforehand at the very least).

This was just about the best breakfast I've ever eaten.

Pasta is back

2009-07-03T09:26:00.001-07:00

Where did it go you ask? Not sure. Time was, pasta and I were in a very serious relationship, the kind where a day doesn't go by without a nice intimate rendezvous. But over the past many months, there just hasn't been a heck of a lot of pasta in my life.

So when I was stumped for dinner by a national stat holiday this week (no grocery stores open, nothing at the corner store, nothing much in the pantry) I fell back on my old friend, Basic Tomato Sauce. The devil is (as always) in the details, but if you SLOWLY cook LOTS of SLICED garlic over LOW heat then add one tin of good Italian chopped tomatoes and cook it out for a while, then drizzle in a bit of cream and finish with a TON of Parmesan, well then Bob is your uncle.

Back in the groove, last night I was still without groceries, but there was a head of kale leftover from a photo shoot. Survey says? Fusilli with garlicky kale. Again, slowly cook LOTS of SLICED garlic in PLENTY of olive oil over LOW heat, add a spoonful of magic Oggi brand spicy anchovy-caper melange, cooked chopped kale, a GENEROUS SPOONFUL of salt, and finish with LOTS of Parmesan, and you'll just never go hungry again.

Pasties

2009-06-21T18:56:00.000-07:00

After an extraordinary, fun and yet long week involving raging backache, work stress, not living at home, visiting with my sister and more, the Brit consoled me with homemade Cornish pasties.

And Heinz beans, or I should say "beanz" which are the "proper" British import (more tomatoey than ours and still yummy).

Flaky pastry, very tasty beef, diced rutabega and potatoes all very hot and utterly gorgeous.

More pantry clean-out meals

2009-06-08T16:39:00.000-07:00

Sigh. It continues.

Filed under "yum":

Mix 1 tin tuna with 1 small tin white beans, some chopped sundried tomatoes, chives, a glob of mayo and a smaller glob of Dijon. Mix. Take to work for lunch, with or without salad greens.

Grate 3 carrots. Ponder the fact that eternity is defined as a single girl and a 3-lb bag of carrots. Mix into carrots a small handful of chopped roasted cashews, some raisins, chopped chives, a generous pinch of curry powder, a glob of mayo and the juice of half a lime.

Boil some fettuccine. Meanwhile, pour a good glug of olive oil into your favourite pasta bowl, add a ton of grated Parmesan, a ton of ground pepper, some chopped chives (will they never go away??) a pinch of chili flakes and a double pinch of salt. Add the hot fettucini and toss with a fork while walking towards the couch.

Happy Anniversary

2009-06-07T08:21:00.000-07:00

This blog began as a creative refuge from the drudgery of my daily job. I was in a dead-end chef's job where the people I worked for cared less and less about food and more and more about the bottom line. I spent far more time at my desk than at the stoves. On top of that, I was living alone in a very hot apartment with a strange kitchen. I was a professional chef who didn't cook -- either at home or at work. Making chicken liver paté for a party was the highlight of my month.

Ok, quit it with the miniature violin. All this is simply to say hurray. It's been a year. A wonderful, full-of-changes year. The food has been extraordinary, heart-melting, boring, simple, fancy and perfect.

Thank you for reading.

When a red pepper is more than a red pepper

2009-06-03T18:04:00.000-07:00

It struck me as I was riding home that there was a red pepper in the fridge. Elation. Glee. Oh the possibilities. And here I was thinking there was nothing vegetal left but onions and some softening potatoes. So a lovely Spanish tortilla for supper used the pepper, the remaining eggs and potatoes as well as some scratchings off a very very dry hunk of Parmesan from the depths of the fridge. Oh and 2 big spoonfuls of our endlessly-useful tomato chutney from last summer. (There are 2 open jars of chutney in the fridge. Oops.)

But there's a wrinkle in my Pantry Attack Regime: tomorrow I'm due to develop 5 recipes for the September issue, which means all sorts of new ingredients will be coming into the kitchen. Thus prolonging the assault.

And now for the lentils

2009-06-02T18:12:00.000-07:00

I needed to make at least an attempt on the surfeit of legumes, so into the soup pot went 2 chopped onions, 1/2 cup of red lentils, all of the basmati rice and the remaining capon stock. While it burbled away, epicurious.com told me that if I only added some saffron and a squeeze of lemon, this mish mash of pantry excesses could be called harira, the traditional fast-breaking soup for Ramadan. Well if that isn't the prettiest sounding word. Talk about a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Ooh, and lunch for the next few days.

And if you're keeping track, there are just 3 types of rice left -- brown basmati, parboiled and sushi.

Pantry Attack Update

2009-06-01T08:51:00.000-07:00

It's going very well so far. Of note:

Scallops with bacon and peas over egg pasta used half the available frozen bacon and most of the peas.

Celery risotto used up the last of the wilty vegetable, half of the capon stock and all of the arborio rice. I served it with roasted chicken thighs from the freezer. Now there are only 4 types of rice to use up.

We split the leftover Bolognese sauce for today's lunch.

So far I have only bought milk and a french stick, but I'll likely need green veg over the next day or two. I've also realised that it would be physically impossible to eat all of the jam in the fridge, and that eating all the available lentils and dried beans might be unwise.

Full scale pantry attack

2009-05-27T16:01:00.000-07:00

I'm on a bit of a penny-pinching regime right now, and it struck me today that my house is full of food that I never eat. So I'm going to try to eat my way through the freezer, fridge and pantry. I'll allow a few fresh vegetables to supplement, but otherwise, I'm quite curious as to how I'll do.

Step 1: Inventory.
Freezer: 1 lbs scallops, 1 lb hamburger, 2 half-pounds bacon, a capon, 4 oz smoked salmon, 1 bag egg pasta, 2 thighs and a chicken breast, 1 bag suet (leftovers from the burger fest), 2 cups Bolognese sauce, 1 1/2 lbs wild blueberries, 1/2 bag peas, almonds, pinenuts, hazelnuts and 2 cups of frozen wine.

Pantry: 3 tins Heinz beans, 1 tin salmon, 1 tin turkey, 1 tin tuna, lots of various shapes of pasta, a bag of barley, a tin of lentils, chipotles in adobo, 3 tins tomato paste, 1 tin pumpkin, 1 pack lard, split peas, red lentils, cornmeal (2 containers), 5 types of rice (five?!), tinned tomatoes, quinoa, potatoes, onions.

Fridge: Oh lord, I can't even begin.

I'm already exhausted. But I threw the capon in a pot with some very wilty celery and gnarled up carrots, 2 soft onions and half a head of drying-out garlic. And now I'll make dinner....

Boo Hoo Q

2009-05-26T18:37:00.001-07:00

This began as A Post of Victory. Look, awesome spring veg all ready for the bbq!

And here, half a pickerel (in foil) plus various flavourful additions for the bbq!

And yet, this is a sad, sad post. As I was grilling like the primitive human I am, chatting away with the Brit, we noticed flames licking up and around the front of the bbq. Moments later the left burner knob melted clean off the damn thing. And before I could utter "what in the homemade hot dog buns is going on here?!", the right burner knob melted off too. We turned off all gaskets (with the aid of a screwdriver) and stared, stupefied, at it.

Is it over? Has my valiant little bbq given up before we'd even had a year together? Please help!

Super Q

2009-05-19T15:21:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling pretty proud of us today. We welcomed the opening of "summer" (even if it was cool enough to wear a sweater) with this awesome spread of wonderfulness:

A butterflied leg of lamb marinated for about 30 hours in yogurt, lemon, garlic and rosemary, grilled and sliced.

And sides of the Brit's super-terrific buttery garlicky potatoes, my new old-standby Mediterranean orzo salad, some sliced up cuke and tomatoes and a pot of good tzatziki.

Summer!!

Roma {sigh}

2009-05-10T06:32:00.000-07:00

This time last year I was in Rome with my auntie. Ah, me. Ever since my first visit, I've always felt like Rome is my home in some sense -- like maybe I was a Roman in a previous life. I don't need a map to get to my favourite places (though the "streets" of Rome form a kind of drugged-out honeycomb), and once even gave (correct) directions to a lost couple IN ITALIAN, which I believe I can speak. (This is not true; do not let a successful run at high school Latin lead you to believe you can speak Italian. You end up ordering an entire litre of red wine by yourself at lunch).

And while the city is magnificent in so many ways, of course I fantasize about the food. So today I am reminiscing about whipped cream-covered gelato at Giulitti

Linguini with creamy radicchio sauce that I must eat within my first 24hrs in the city

A crazy picnic we ate after buying our way through the Testaccio market -- fresh favas with pecorino, head cheese salad, artichokes braised in oil and lemon, burrata cheese (gasp), miniature pickled peaches, prosciutto, melon, cherries, etc etc

Deep fried zucchini blossoms filled with mozzarella and an anchovy, pizza by the slab, perfect cappucinos at San Eustachio, white buns with Nutella for breakfast, bresaola-arugula panini from a street cart near the Campidoglio.

And homemade gnocchi with braised oxtail at Sora Margherite (that one really slayed me; I had to cry a little it was so good). Sigh.

White Food

2009-04-29T19:53:00.000-07:00

I've never partied with white food. White chocolate, white pepper, white truffles, white balsamic -- none of them has any integrity in my warped scheme of food values. They're all diluted versions of the real black or brown thing. And until today, the same went for white asparagus -- albino colour, ridiculously expensive, just generally weird.

But here it is: poach the little weirdos in butter and white wine and taste the magic.

My job has some excellent perks, like being invited to wine tastings and such like. Today I sat next to the charming young oenologist from Dom Perignon while he introduced us to the Dom "oenotheque" series -- 12 yrs old++ vintage bottles. Lunch was provided by one of the city's best chef's, designed to match the 1993 Champagne. And while the wine nerds can speak volumes about the wine, I'll just say one thing: YUMMMM.

Butter poached white asparagus beneath very delicately grilled halibut and a few shaved radishes, paired with extraordinary Champagne. Lucky me.

Mango Love

2009-04-28T18:29:00.000-07:00

Blackberries in cassis sauce, Liberté's out-of-this-world 10% plain yogurt, and the ubiquitous mango....

A decent breakfast.

Best Burger

2009-04-27T14:12:00.000-07:00

At this moment it's kind of hard to type -- my arms (and back and legs) are so very very stiff and sore from the weekend's dirt biking adventure. It was super, all mud and puddles and wet rocks and I leaped over a large log and caught about 3 inches of air in a jump. But the after effects on my poor little body are staggering. If this is age 34, I'm not interested in age 60. Yikes.

As fuel to heal our bruises and aches, we feasted on burgers when we got home.

Now, "hamburger" is one of the top-Googled recipes on this planet. But why? Good beef + salt & pepper + hot grill = good burger. There is simply no need to complicate matters with bread crumbs, relish, onion soup mix, eggs etc.

Really, the only "secret" ingredient is fat. Extra lean beef makes tough, dense burgers that taste like nothing. Fat delivers flavour and keeps the texture loose. But since it's hard to find anything richer than lean ground these days, here's my solution: buy a bag of shredded suet.

A few weeks ago I hooked up with the daughter of a farmer who sold me 5 lbs of very lean grass-fed ground. So I mixed a few tablespoons of frozen suet into the meat before shaping the patties. There were some flare-ups on the grill, but the burgers were so moist and yummy that we both ate 2 (!!). And so quickly there wasn't time to take a photo.

Mango Failure

2009-04-26T14:10:00.000-07:00

I didn't do it. The final 4 mangoes had to go into the composter yesterday, too bruised and funky-smelling to keep in the kitchen for another day. This after I hit a new level of mango ingenuity when I had toast with peanut butter and sliced mango for breakfast. Delicious!

Let this be a lesson to all you single gals and guys out there: 20 mangoes is too much.

Sad but true.

A Case of Mangoes

2009-04-21T08:51:00.000-07:00

I got a little excited at the Asian superstore the other day and bought a case of Ataulfo mangoes for $10. That's 20 mangoes, all at the peak of perfection. Granted, these are the good mangoes -- all silky sweet, thin-skinned, easy-to-peel lusciousness. But 20. I've eaten 2 today and frankly I'm a little afraid of the potential consequences of eating too many mangoes. Stay tuned, friends.

Mango Salsa
Finely dice 4 mangoes. Add lots of chopped fresh cilantro and the juice a large lime. Serve with grilled fish, then toss the leftovers on top of a green salad.

Rotisserie Love

2009-04-20T14:07:00.000-07:00

It wasn't strong enough for the 17-lb piglet, but my cheap new rotisserie was all over these 2 small chickens. We only made a few novice mistakes (forgot to put a fat-collector below the birds and so set the whole bbq alight, and the birds ended up a bit overcooked).

As a new fan of the craft, this weekend I learned that one of the best parts of rotisserie-ing is the enforced relaxing time. Once the birds are rotating slowly on the spit, there isn't much to do but sit nearby, drink in hand, and stare out at the setting sun. The gentle groan of the spit in the motor lulls you into a seriously chilled-out state of mind. We smoked a cigar to add to the effect, then served the birds (to ourselves, on the couch) with leftover Mediterranean orzo salad and sugar snap peas.

Cuba

2009-04-14T18:34:00.001-07:00

We knew the food was going to be bad, ok? Everyone said, oooh, Cuba, great beaches, shit food. No worries, dude, I can survive on salad, my secret supply of roasted almonds, rum and cigars. We went to flake out on the gorgeous beach, sleep 10 hours a night, and generally not give a crap about the world for a few days. It was a wonderful trip.

But oh man, the food. It ranged from fairly good (Cuban black beans and shredded beef) to bizarre (smoked fish-pea-mayonnaise salad) to bad (pasta coated in something pasty... cornstarch?) to scary (marinated mussels at room temp in a 3-hr buffet) to oh honey no, please, no, please (a pork chop destroyed by an unidentifiable sauce and cold days-old soggy spring rolls).

Thankfully, there was decent ham, cheese and tiny buns, and we lived on this miraculous trinity of International Foods That Save the Day -- for breakfast with great coffee, for supper after running out of the pork chop-wet spring roll debacle, even at the airport while our flight was delayed.

(But speaking of oh honey, no, what's up with resort-stayers bringing their own oversized travel mugs to fill up with free mojitos? There is something about the all-u-can-eat/drink resort that brings out the primitive gimme-gimme in people. Yikes!)

There will be no photos of the Monte Cristo

2009-04-06T14:09:00.000-07:00

I'm against taking food pictures in restaurants; that's why you'll never see covert snaps of "what I got served last night at Such-n-Such" here. Taking the snaps requires a kind of guerrilla-style no-flash photography that I'm simply too untalented to succeed at, and furthermore it interrupts a lovely meal. And there's something just so 21st century - "me me me" rude about it. My mom wouldn't approve.

So allow me to describe in words the breakfast that we destroyed this past Saturday. The Brit (bless him) had run an 8km race to end prostate cancer and I'd had rather an exhausting morning of cheering him on (hard work, I deserved a big breaky). We pulled into a local diner, cold, tired and hungry. Since there's no love lost between me and restaurant breakfasts, I dove into a triple-decker Monte Cristo sandwich instead.

Of course, this being a diner, the sandwich was not the artisanal ham-sourdough bread concoction of a posh brunchery. It was 3 layers of supermarket challah interspliced with deli ham and turkey, processed Swiss, then dipped in egg and grilled. You might wonder what is served alongside such a behemoth. Chips and salsa of course, and a warped little metal teapot full of orange pekoe.

So much yum I couldn't even think about having a Scotch egg at the football game.

The Top

2009-03-31T06:08:00.000-07:00

The blow-out birthday meal was has left me so speechless that I've been trying to write this post for 3 days.

Tasting menu with wine pairings
cost: more than the pizza meal, and let's leave it at that
location: Splendido
soundtrack: the hushed din of an elegant restaurant
dress code: dry-clean only clothing
value: priceless -- one of the best meals of my life

Tasting menus can be tricky -- some lesser restaurants just small-size their menu offerings, pair them with whatever wines are open, and throw in an amuse-bouche to round out the affair. Not so at Splendido. Chef and sommelier have considered and tended to every single mouthful, from the wickedly good tiny blue cheese shortbread cups filled with impossibly smooth leek purée to the hit of preserved lemon with butter-poached lobster, to the headiness of an extraordinary Californian cab-sauv served with sous-vide squab.

Other highlights are hard to pin down, since it was all just so preciously good, and served with such elegance and something like a refined tenderness -- everyone who works here loves this food too. And then when we complimented the chef on his homemade boudin noir, he insisted we take a large portion of it home with us. Who does that? What a guy. What a meal.

And what a wonderful, indulgent, happy week.

Birthday dinner

2009-03-27T23:28:00.000-07:00

It's all about balance. Tomorrow night we'll eat at one of the best restaurants in the city. Tonight, we dined on fast food.

Take out pizza, garlic bread, chicken wings...served with a bottle of Sardinian wine

cost: $35 plus wine

location: back at the wobbly IKEA table

soundtrack: a rented Woody Allen film

dress code: back into the track pants (should I be worried?)

value: priceless

Does it get any better than this? Gooey pizza, loaded with bacon, pineapple and mushrooms, lashed with Tabasco, garlic bread soaked with buttery niceness, chicken wings !? and a bottle of good wine. I was so content that I fell asleep on the couch at 10:30.

Up next: 5-star dining at Splendido

Salmon sashimi

2009-03-26T21:19:00.001-07:00

This is the hardest thing to order. Try saying it>> it inevitably comes out as shamon sassimee. And that's before the double Jamesons.

But alright, another favourite thing: raw salmon.

Salmon, crudo
cost: $6.95
location: Kokyo Sushi, a wonderful dirty little hole in the wall
soundtrack: an guy at the next table bragging about how he's "been to Japan"
dress code: the same damn outfit I've had on since 7am
value: high

Up next: dirty pizza

The fruits of the sea

2009-03-25T19:50:00.000-07:00

I really cannot stand the lingering stank of fish in my apartment and so my favourite restaurant is a fishie one -- I gorge on fish, my apartment remains pristine.

Dinner at Starfish
cost: all in about $400 for 4 ppl
location: downtown
soundtrack: the racket of a busy restaurant (take that, recession)
dress code: better-than-average
value: very high

Gorgeous little jewel oysters from St Simon, NB, peat-smoked salmon (amazing -- as if the salmon got repeatedly drunk on Talisker), grilled sardines with a chorizo-corn chip mash-up, sea bream with saffron risotto cake and other yummies and some pickled herring. Mmm.
Oh, and one wicked good warm, gooey sticky toffee pudding.

Toast with butter

2009-03-24T10:41:00.000-07:00

“Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts.” James Beard

Toast with butter, served with hot tea
cost: about 25¢
location: home kitchen
soundtrack: morning news on TV
dress code: jeans
value: high

Up next: dinner at Starfish

My Birthday Week Begins

2009-03-23T12:51:00.000-07:00

To bid adieu to "33"(my best year so far) I will spend the week eating as many of my favourite things as I can afford/find/handle.

1
Prime Rib with roasties and beets, served with Chianti
cost: $70 for the roast (naturally-raised superyum from Cumbraes) plus more for mise en place, veg and wine
location: the Brit's apartment, on a wobbly IKEA table
soundtrack: a Lee Evans comedy dvd
dress code: track pants
value: priceless

I mean come on. Ridiculously good. Perhaps the best roast beef I've ever eaten, made even more wonderful by our almost inappropriately casual dress and setting. Not sure how the rest of the week could possibly even come close.

Up next: toast with butter

A Serious Breakfast

2009-03-22T12:28:00.000-07:00

During the week my typical breakfast is a slice of whole wheat toast with peanut butter, eaten while standing in front of the sink and taking giant drafts of hot tea. On ambitious days, I might carve up a grapefruit to go with. Super.

Weekends have a different tone. A tone of gross overindulgence. A tone of grease. But since restaurant brunches are the epitome of everything I hate in the world, the Brit and I have agreed that beans on toast at home is a far superior weekend meal to anything we could go out and spend $40 on.

He decided it was time for me to experience a Proper English Breakfast:

Although there were some necessary modifications to accommodate our non-British country of residence -- peameal since we cannot get English-style bacon, and no black pudding since we couldn't find it in any smaller quantity than Too Much.

2 fried eggs
2 broiled portobellos
1 fresh tomato, halved and broiled
2 thick slabs peameal
3 very good plain pork sausages
1 can Heinz beans mixed with 1 can tinned tomatoes (!!?)
Toast
Some sliced Cheddar
Hot mustard, Branston pickle

Chef's Tip

2009-03-11T12:49:00.000-07:00

It's exciting that even at this stage in the game, after 15 years in the food industry, I can still discover a new "chef's tip" for myself.

If you're roasting 1 chicken, just go ahead and roast 2.

After all, with the right roasting pan (may I recommend the wonderful petite roti by All-Clad) roasting 2 is just as easy as one. And even with just 2 eaters on hand, the benefits are plenty:

1. we both get 2 wings, all crispy-salty-greasy wonderful
2. even after a big Sunday dinner I'm left with 1 de-meated carcass and 1 almost whole chicken which becomes:
2a. 2 chicken sandwiches (1 breast + 1 thigh)
2b. enough chicken bits for a pot pie
2c. bones to make a decent chicken soup (just add to sauteed veg, mmm).

LMP

2009-03-07T11:58:00.000-08:00

A baking fever has taken hold of me. Last weekend it was brownies, the weekend before was chocolate cake, and now I've got meringue on my elbow and temple and have that sick-tummy feeling of having eaten too much raw pie dough (my mother's if-it-tastes-good-cooked-it-must-taste-even-better-raw genes at work). The Brit simply mentioned in casual conversation something about lemon meringue pie, and now there's one in the oven. Hmph.

While playing the role of #1 Slave in a gourmet takeaway several years ago, I used to make LM pie every other day or so. We sold it by the slice so it was crucial that the filling stay "gelled" even when sliced into. We finally figured out the perfect ratio of yolks: cornstarch, and built the whole affair on a shortbread cookie crust for better stamina. As I recall, that pie is the fucking bomb.

It's a 4-stage process:
1. toast almonds (or hazelnuts, so long as you haven't had any Frangelico-related unpleasantness in the past 10 years) and bzzz in the food processor til fine.

2. make awesomest crust ever in the food processor, press it into the pan (no rolling!), prick all over with fork and bake blind (nothing to do with eye-masks, but more how you line with parchment and fill with dried beans so the crust holds its shape).

3. Make lemon curd, strain and whisk in butter. Taste for seasoning. It is very important not to just go ahead and eat all the filling at this stage.

4. Make one shit-ton of meringue, cover, swirl, bake for another hour and a half or so.

There wasn't any cream of tartar in house, and somehow there was waaaay more meringue than I could get onto the pie, but I still have a good feeling about it all.

Mr Piggie

2009-03-03T07:42:00.000-08:00

The Brit had a single-minded focus for his birthday dinner: a rotisserie suckling pig. Being one to oblige birthday wishes (I'm very bad at gifts and try to redeem this fault with special dinners and baked goods), and also being a fan of culinary adventures, I was delighted. We spent 2 weeks figuring out the logistics of 1) adding a rotisserie to my lame but valiant BBQ and 2) sourcing the perfect little piggie.

It took all day Saturday, between the sleeping in, two (2) visits to Home Depot, two (2) visits to Mr and Mrs Pork at the farmers' market, making sure there were two (2) propane tanks at the ready, and two (2) pints at my local before the rolling rotisserie even got going. We scored his skin, went crazy with the kosher salt and pepper and seasoned his belly cavity with my special Italian herbs for pork. All was going according to plan.

But then I had to clip off Piggie's adorable ears because they were in the way of the rotisserie action; snipping through ears with my kitchen scissors is a sensory experience I'll not soon forget. And we decided to wrap him in foil for the first little while so as not to burn the skin. But then the rotisserie started rolling back and forth instead of all the way around. Command decision: transfer Piggie to the oven. In one of those crappy foil roasters lined with more foil set over 2 overlapping baking sheets. After about 3 hours in total, we cranked on the broiler to get some sweet crackling action, braised a head of red cabbage and boiled some Desiree potatoes.

I have to be truthful and admit that I was prepared for the worst. I've never done a pig like this and it has always seemed something to leave to the professionals, like haircuts and chiropractic. I was ready to enjoy a delicious meal of nothing but red cabbage and potatoes.

But when my Brit fed me that first little shard of crackling, I nearly wept with pleasure. We stood over the cutting board and pillaged the crackling right off (and the tender cheeks for that matter) before I even began to carve.

Another lame chef move

2009-02-23T09:37:00.000-08:00

I love to bake but do so rarely, mostly because I live alone and so the responsibility of eating the baked goods falls to me, but also because baking really is a sharing thing. Anyways, when it comes to birthdays we always make Nana's famous sour cream-chocolate cake, and it was my turn this weekend to get it looking good for my brother's 40th.

One of my dearest friends is a professional pastry chef and he has tried to explain to me on more than one occasion his "foolproof" method for making Italian buttercream, which he swears is the very best for cake frosting. But I must admit that on a Saturday afternoon I wasn't in the mood for buttercream. I was in the mood for a nap. So I made my cheater's frosting -- just whipped chocolate ganache -- and glazed the whole affair with straight-up mocha ganache. The cake was frosted in less than 15 minutes. Rich, oh man, yes, almost too rich to eat. But pretty enough. And I got my nap.

Cheater's Frosting: Bring 250 mL whipping cream to the gentlest simmer. Pour over 8 oz chopped bittersweet chocolate and stir until melted. Let cool to winter room temperature, about 19 C (this can be sped up by using an ice bath). Whip on high til fluffy.

Cheater's Mocha Glaze: Bring 250 mL whipping cream to the gentlest simmer (does this sound familiar?). Pour over 8 oz chopped bittersweet chocolate and 1 - 2 tbsp instant coffee. Stir until melted. Let cool just a bit then pour over the frosted cake. Put it in a cool place to set (the back porch works well so long as the dog/raccoons/neighbours aren't sniffing around).

Steak Rules

2009-02-19T19:11:00.000-08:00

Ok, another cookbook on the way, What to Do With Your Keg Leftovers. Because really, besides my bottomless-appetited Brit, who can finish the whole 16-oz ribeye? (and don't ask about ordering another, smaller steak; at the Keg, it's ribeye or nothing). To wit:

Supper last night -- leftover steak on baby arugula with instant marinated mushrooms (more on them another day), avocado, parmesan. Said leftovers have also starred in excellent sandwiches and as Dijon-slathered finger-food for The Hungover. As if the original meal wasn't wonderful enough, this beauty actually lasts 2 distinct meals. Sigh of love.

The Way to an Irish Girl's Heart

2009-02-16T09:20:00.000-08:00

Words not really required here. The Brit boiled-then-pan fried chips (proving he is British), and served them with easily the nicest roast chicken that has ever emerged from my circa-1952 Eaton's Viking oven. I mean come on.

Le Long Weekend

2009-02-13T09:11:00.000-08:00

Oh, I can hardly wait. We've got the next 3+ days mapped out:
Friday night: Spicy chicken curry at my place, with tons of rice and I really hope there's enough hot lime pickle in the fridge.

Saturday: egg salad sandwiches for breakfast in the car heading north, then corned beef sandwiches for our mid-ski break (plus a warming dram from the hip flask), then roast chicken with salad, garlic bread and potatoes once we get home.

Sunday: the fridge is loaded with eggs, good prosciutto, cheddar and other breakfast-related goodies. Then after a few warmer-uppers at the pub, we'll head to the bistro for a quiet little lovey supper. I've been dreaming about chicken liver paté.

Monday: finally got my hands on a set of Lincolnshire sausages from the good butcher. The Brit is in charge of this one. There may well be something called Toad-in-the-Hole in my near future....

Chili, close up

2009-02-04T20:06:00.001-08:00

OK, let's just chat about chili. REAL TEXAS chili. No beans, no carrots, no mofo tomatoes, you mofos. Meat, chilies, cumin (arguable), garlic, water. C'est tout.

Anyone who has read A Bowl of Red understands that the pursuit of REAL TEXAS CHILI has nothing to do with beans, sweet peppers or ersatz grocery store chili powder. It's about slowly braising good meat with the purée of a motley, sacred, half-mad melange of rehydrated chilies. It's about serving boiled pinto beans on the side, with Fritos or freshly made cornbread. It has nothing to do with vegetarians, potluck suppers, or church bazaars.

And if anyone says anything about tofu, TVP or tempeh, well.....watch out.

A hunk of beef fat, $30 of minced venison, six anchos, 4 guajillos, 3 de arbols, 1 miscellaneous dried-on-top-of-the-fridge-by-Sean chili, a shit-ton of fresh garlic, paprika and oregano, half a bottle of beer, 4 days and a wee smidge of very fine cornmeal = REAL TEXAS CHILI (soo very far from Texas I can hardly admit it).

Lunch

2009-02-03T09:37:00.000-08:00

Years ago I gave my dad a copy of John Allemang's great book The Importance of Lunch, which he continues to quote from to this day. Sometime around then, my brother dared our dad to list his Top 10 foods (Dad is a slave to the Top 10 list, though he usually refines the food-related ones -- "top 10 desserts" etc). Deep in the list, somewhere near #5, Dad listed "cheese", which Dylan argued wasn't allowed, saying "that's like saying your favourite food is lunch".

Long intro: in a few words, suddenly, I am in love with lunch.

I am at my desk right now delaying the pleasure of a steak sandwich stashed in the work fridge. It's just the leftovers from our Saturday post-ski Keg dinner (while the Brit eats his whole 16-oz ribeye, I (shame, shame) have to bring the back half of mine home). But between 2 slices of my favourite bread (Premiere Moisson's carré au lait) one caked with pesto and mayo, the other with grainy Dijon, and OH MAN, it's going to be great.

The other day I had leftover beef bourguignon with a slice of sourdough and some baby carrots. Yesterday, some toast, a slab of wonderful pate forestière and an orange. And while I was making today's sandwich, I was already dreaming about tomorrow (there's an avocado on the counter which will be perfect, some 5-yr-old cheddar in the fridge, and a tomato). Lunch! It's the new dinner.

A Good Brunch....?!

2009-01-25T10:09:00.000-08:00

I was reminded this morning of my ongoing inquiry into the shite-ness of brunch. The thing is, it's been a relatively good few months for brunch: good meaning nothing has been so horrendously gross and/or overpriced as to offend me into writing about it. And then today happened. It's mofo cold here (-22 C) but gloriously sunny so we walked to the very good New York-style deli for a bite of food. You know when you're reading a menu and a craving comes over you, no matter what your brain says, you must have that item? That was me with the smoked salmon. My brain kicks into say "it's never good! always fishy and stringy and greasy!" but my voice orders the smoked salmon bagel plate anyways.

And it was amaaazing. Lithe, buttery, fabulous salmon, uber-creamy, luxe cream cheese (no gak emulsifiers here), fat capers, crisp cucumber, very thinly sliced white onion and a perfectly toasted "bagel"*. I pulled off pieces of bagel, slathered them with that wicked cream cheese, capers, onion and topped with the salmon. Oh my. What a brunch! Not an overcooked egg, vile Hollandaise-wannabe, chewy slab of peameal in sight. Even the waiter was cute and efficient. So happy.

*ok, ok, it wasn't a real Jewish, boiled-in-honey, baked over a wood fire bagel. But it wasn't shite either.

Something extraordinary

2009-01-17T19:01:00.000-08:00

It's the oddest thing. I've been cooking at home lately. I made a big, very big pot of sausage-lentil soup. Then a big tofu-egg curry. Last night was black beans and rice. And why? SO I HAVE SOMETHING NICE FOR LUNCH THE NEXT DAY. When I worked in a professional kitchen I never ever brought my lunch in; we either grazed on the crap we were working on or went out to the subsidized cafeteria for an egg salad wrap ($3).

But a few weeks ago one of my new colleagues asked if I felt pressure, as food editor, to bring in a good lunch. And I don't, ...but I do really enjoy a nice hot lunch. Cripes, who doesn't? And though there are lots of cute cafes and luncheries within walking distance of the office, that gets expensive in a hurry. And more often I'd rather take as little time away from my workload as possible. One day I made a cheddar-scallion omelette when I woke up, folded it into quarters, and took it to work where I reheated it and toasted a pita bread. Fantastic. Crazy (for me).

To top off the week, we had a cute little home-cooked Friday night meal of garlicky, buttery kale (above, yum), spicy roasted sweet potatoes and these:

Two of the fattiest, juiciest, nicest pork loin chips I've ever eaten, specially cut by my favourite butcher to have nearly an inch (!!) of fat in tact. This cooking at home thing might catch on.

Loose ends

2009-01-13T06:50:00.000-08:00

New year's eve supper was such a major occasion for this chef-non-chef that I can't let it go without a few words.

It's not every day I get asked to cook a meal around a bottle of wine, but when the Brit brought us a 1997 Chateau d'Yquem, what else could I do? It's not the kind of wine you can just quaff with a bag of chips or some takeaway pizza; it deserves a little more respect. And I have zero experience with d'Yquem (and only a little with Sauternes in general). So I just went ahead and bought a lobe of foie gras. A good starting point if you're ever stumped. We began with:

Seared foie with Madeira-sauteed wild mushrooms over crispy polenta pillows
Seared foie with poached quince and balsamic caramel and some poorly executed challah toasts
Seared foie with spicy red onion marmalade

The wine is amazing, luscious and almost creamy on the palate, sweet but complicated, indulgent but more-ish.

We then broke for a palate-cleansing rack of lamb with roasted potatoes and parsnips (and a bottle of California cab-sauv).

Then some of my summer peaches sprinkled with the d'Yquem and then, the winner of the night, deserving of its own line

ROQUEFORT

After all that food we destroyed a giant wedge of the cheese: the pairing with the d'Yquem is that perfect. It defied description. A few slices of my Christmas cake rounded out the evening. And several whiskeys of course.

We didn't let the bling wine get to our heads though -- corned beef hash was brunch the next morning. High-low. Happy 2009.

What to do when my tight jeans are suddenly way too tight

2009-01-04T08:14:00.001-08:00

It is finally catching up with me, all this reckless eating and drinking. The weeks of celebrating all things -- last day on the old job, the new job, first day on the job, pre-Christmas, last day of work before skiing, Christmas, post-Christmas, arriving home alive after a drive in the freezing rain, New Year's Eve, last day of the ski trip -- has had its effect. I had my "hott" jeans on the other day (nicely snug at the best of times) and they were distinctly uncomfortably tight. Crap.

So I'll try to revert to a more sensible regimen (starting tomorrow of course). Although I hate being on the new-year-must-"diet" bandwagon. I don't believe in diets, party because anyone I see drinking diet coke is pudgy, but mostly because diets make you obsessed about the foods you eat -- what you have eaten, what you are allowed to eat later, how you will get around those nasty cravings. For the most part, eating whatever I want has worked out ok for me ever since I got over the guilt of leaving something on my plate. I leave food on my plate all the time. And I already have a kind of built-in crap rejector which keeps me away from MacDo and Twinkies.

So now my suppers will involve less wine, my lunches will involve fewer cheeseburgers (a sacrifice what with the amazing Craft Burger just 50 steps from my new office), I'll try to walk everywhere and do as much yoga as I can. I threw out the last few Christmas chockies this morning; soon I'll head out to the market for tofu and grapefruits. Grudgingly.

Crimbo

2008-12-27T20:16:00.000-08:00

I never quite got into the Christmas spirit this year. Maybe the change of jobs, maybe the insanely hectic pace right up to the final moments, maybe because there were no Christmas parties this year (damn economy robbing me of my open bar). But I did learn a new term for the holiday, courtesy of my Brit. We were up north on a pre-Dec 25 ski getaway and considering an early-afternoon beer when he said "why not, it's Crimbo, isn't it?".

Early-afternoon drinking included, this Christmas season has followed the suit of my entire year: although one might think a chef and now food editor would have all kinds of delicious roasts and baked goods and hand-made gingerbread ornaments coming out my ears, I just don't. I got the Christmas cakes made by the skin of my teeth (don't even ask about the sticky evening of rolling and wrapping the marzipan), but I never got that fluttery, giggly festive groove on. Only once did I catch myself singing Jingle Bell Rock in the shower.

But that is not to say I didn't eat well, it just wasn't particularly festive. But who can argue with a mini mountain of perfect steak tartare taken at 11:30 pm at my favourite Montréal bistro (and who can argue with getting storm-stayed in Montréal?). And then there was the vat of coq au vin I made in the tiny kitchenette of our ski chalet; it seemed to get tastier day by day. (I do travel with one chef's knife - the only gear I can't cook without). The paté-on-toast breakfasts, the entire box of Ferrero Rochers, the soft-boiled eggs peeled and eaten without napkins in the rental car outside the airport: these were all noble yet decidedly un-Christmassy.

The one hilarious, perfect meal that lingers (and that seals the deal on the Brit) was après-ski one day. Tired, blissed out on snow and sun, deep into the first of many bottles of wine, he covered the table with a packet of sliced ham, soft butter, several hard-boiled eggs, the Dijon, half a loaf of rapidly-staling bread and a bag of Doritos. The sandwiches we cobbled together were just ridiculously horribly good. (The chips go right into the sandwich, like crispy lettuce but better). Perhaps the fact that we watched a good hour of the mediocre choirs-sing-carols channel on tv made this a festive feast. No matter. A new tradition is born.

Labour of Christmas Love

2008-12-11T14:06:00.000-08:00

If you don't like Christmas cake (aka fruit cake) you might not understand the following, so let me frame it in different terms. There is always one dish in every cook's repertoire that requires a stupid amount of expensive ingredients, unlimited amounts of time, patience, research and something close to obsession EVEN THOUGH THE RESULTS ARE NOT APPRECIATED even close to enough to make the preparation of said dish "worthwhile". Perhaps it's hand-rolled pasta, or 23-step stuffed mushrooms which guests pop down like salted nuts. You question yourself.

My own particular Waterloo is Christmas cake. Much maligned by jokesters and children, it is definitely one of those foods that you only come around to liking in adulthood. Donny and I were at a whiskey tutored tasting many years ago when it happened for me: the master blender described the flavour characteristic of whiskey X (I think it was Cragganmore -- anyone?) as "fruitcake". The heavens parted, angels sang the Hallelujah chorus, and I fell in love with fruitcake. And so began the years of recipe research, extended phone calls with Mom and Auntie, poring through old books, purchasing of special pans: the annual labour of Christmas love. [Someone in my family will be upset if I don't point out that they have been making fruitcake for ages, I just didn't like it then. Fine. Take it.]

Well 2007 was a mould-breaker for me: I made the blinking cakes in OCTOBER. Once a week I brought them out of the cellar (read: cold closet where I keep the recycling box), unwrapped the foil and bathed the little darlings in whiskey, brandy or whatever I was drinking that night. They were universally acknowledged as The Best Christmas Cakes Ever. How could I ever meet that standard again? Particularly this Fall, when I've been working 2 jobs, falling for my lovely fellow and still figuring out my new dwelling.

I finally got around to the cakes in ....shame of shames...December. It seems logical that extra booze would solve the lack of proper maturation time so I soaked all $65.94 worth of dried fruit in $15.16 of brandy for 5 days. I nibbled on those tipsy raisins all week and finally came to the baking on Saturday.

The sheer volume of cakes (based on an old heritage recipe) means that the entire kitchen gets involved in the creaming of 2 lbs butter, separating and various treatments of a dozen eggs, zesting of a half-dozen oranges, and combining of all the flour, sugar, spices and other secret ingredients. But with the fruit already occupying every inch of my biggest mixing bowl, I had this funny feeling that when the time came to combine the batter with the fruit I might need to use the sink. Ah, the wisdom of the ages: there's this line in the old recipe that recommends using your best PRESERVING KETTLE for the Big Mix. They don't mention that the bloody batter is so heavy you have to mix it with your hands. Yup, I did the old James Herriot sleeves up-scrubbed hands and plunged my whole arm into the vat of batter. Works marvelously well.

It takes almost as long to bake the cakes as it does to clean up the mess. And so after all this work, expense and time, only the Very Best People who really truly appreciate the glory of Christmas Cake will get to have any.

Gourmet...gourmand...glutton?

2008-12-01T11:55:00.000-08:00

I've said before that my super-hero ability is that I am always hungry. And a few times in my life I've really pushed the envelope in terms of eating to excess. There was the infamous weekend out of town when I reviewed two posh restaurants in one night (2 full-on, 3-course meals between 5:30 and 11pm), the week in Italy when I decided that 2 whipped cream-covered gelati/day were necessary (alongside 3 no-holds-barred meals and plenty of wine); the birthday dinner when we had a cheese course before the blow-out meal as well as after (oh and the main course was braised short ribs on Gorgonzola polenta). But I've never pushed it on consecutive days like I did this past weekend.

The background: job # 1 is over, job #2 doesn't start in earnest til next week. Celebration(s) are de rigueur. Wednesday we were just trying to have a casual drink but the pub was rammed so we snuck over the bistro, once again installing ourselves at the bar for chicken liver paté and --favourite of favourites -- choucroute garnie, that heady mess of pork and sauerkraut. It's rarely on the menu so I feel compelled to order it when I can. Thursday brought a steak dinner - to die for ribeye with garlic mash and a pile of fried onions. By Friday we had to do something to justify the gluttony so we went skiing for the day, well, until we got back to the pub at 3pm for a burger, fries and pints. Of course we fell into a deep post-ski-and-burger coma/nap, and awoke positively begging for....uh, Champagne and oysters.

What could be better than a platter of little oysters from St Simon, New Brunswick, tiny plump Kumamotos, a few big guys from Aspy Bay, Nova Scotia, a bottle of excellent Champagne and the company of someone who is enjoying it all just as must as I was? But wait, Saturday Sean and Jane cooked a prime rib of pork with mushroom barley risotto! By the time Sunday came around a giant bag of popcorn at the movies seemed like a frugal snack. So though I adored every mouthful -- I can barely decide which was my favourite -- I'm afraid the word gluttony isn't too far from the mark.

A new contender for Best Meal Ever

2008-11-25T19:08:00.001-08:00

I'm hours away from the termination of my job, but they are squeezing every last drop out of me, and so I've been on the road for the past 7 days, promoting products made by the company whose employ I have recently quit. I know; it doesn't make much sense to me either.

In any case, I arrived at yet another hotel yesterday afternoon at about 4. It was snowing the wet, unpleasant stuff and nearly dark for the night. I was knackered and achingly hungry, my feet were damp and freezing and I needed a nap, a change of clothes and a stiff whiskey. Nothing for it: I rang Room Service and ordered their all-day breakfast. While they poached my eggs I changed into my jammies and ran my feet under the hot faucet. I then proceeded to devour the feast with a relish I've never had for a platter of mediocre breakfast. Comforting eggs running all over the sausages, ketchup for the hash browns, baked beans and pork cretons piled onto corners of buttered toast, all were gratefully inhaled. Even the little packet of processed peanut butter fell victim to my path of destruction. I threw the tea bag into the thermos of hot water (for post-nap) and crawled under the duvet.

In the past I have bemoaned the utter crumminess of breakfast in general. I never realized that I've been eating it at the wrong time of day.

Adventures in puréeing

2008-11-16T08:19:00.000-08:00

I've finally figured out what cookbook I can write: The Grand Olde Book of Puréed and Other Soft Foods. Think of the readership: people with sore throats, sore teeth, no teeth, people with an aversion to chewing, babies. It's been 4 days since a gum graft has forced me to eat nothing but and I'm just hitting my stride in the innovation department.

Soups are great, sure, but boring after a while. Friday night I scrambled some eggs, mounded them into a bowl of tomato soup and covered the whole affair with aged cheddar. Delicious. Yesterday we came upon a hot cart selling scalloped potatoes. Mmmm. Last night I was testing recipes for MY NEW JOB and I discovered that buttery flakes of black cod slip down quite easily - no chewing required. The gorgeous fish is set over white beans hit with Pastis and hazelnut oil (so weird, so good!) so here I am, mouth shattered from surgery yet eating about the most gourmet meal my little kitchen has yet produced.

Dreamy dreams

2008-11-13T12:27:00.000-08:00

I've been at this racket for about 6 years -- the writing about food racket, that is -- and it all came together for me last week. I got my dream job. Dream of all dreamy dreams dream job. Dreamy. Job. Pour moi. To say "over the moon" or "giddy with delight" says it but "crazy rocking out of my gourd ecstatic" might hit closer to the mark. I'm going to be the food editor at a beautiful national style and home magazine.

Taking a slight bite out of the glee is today's major dental and gum surgery. Hey, this food editor is going to eat room-temperature puréed foods for the next 2 to 3 weeks: how innovative and stylish. We begin with a room temp latte followed by room temp corn grits gooey with grated Cheddar. There's a pot of lentil soup burbling on the stove, and cheese soufflé will no doubt figure into the next 48 hours as well. All laced with regular lashings of Tylenol 3 of course.

But what a meal last night for The Last Supper. We sat at the zinc bar of the city's most perfect French bistro where braised rabbit with prunes and Armagnac (insanely rich, meaty-sweet and tender) became the Last Solid Food I'll eat for a stretch. Why is rabbit so rare on menus? It is patently superior to chicken in every way. I suppose rabbit is another one of those "meats" which verge too close to "pets". My lovely dinnermate feasted on veal kidneys: is that any worse or better? Delicious, fluffy bunny; tender, doe-eyed baby cow. Mmmm.

Comfort Food II

2008-11-08T13:11:00.000-08:00

My stars, what a week. It would appear that I have been the lucky/unlucky recipient of a week-long roller coaster ride. This week has encompassed the single saddest thing that's happened to me this year (saying goodbye to my sister and nephew at the airport) as well as the very happiest (more on this in a few days!!). And all kinds of other crap in between -- a rejection, some sublime truffled cheese, a tear-filled afternoon of frustration at work, a first date. Whew.

My anchor, my consolation, is pasta. I ate pasta every day this week and somedays more than once. Gemelli with plain tomato sauce on Monday, macaroni-cheese lunch on Tuesday, hemp-flour ravioli at a fundraiser on Wednesday, tomato tortellini eaten out of the pan on Thursday, gemelli with sundried tomato pesto on Friday. Am I ashamed to admit that there is now a recently-emptied bowl of ricotta ravioli next to me as I write this? Heavens no. Why would anyone refuse comfort during times of intense emotion?

Last Market Day

2008-10-28T14:27:00.000-07:00

It's so cold now that I wear a toque and mittens most mornings; nevertheless, I headed over to the local farmers' market this afternoon as usual, not even pausing to consider the relation between farming and the seasons. As I approached, my tummy sank: no tents, no bustle. Ah! It's October 28th, and the farmers' market season is frosting over like parsnips.

But a valiant few braved today's wind warning and 4 degrees: the butter tart lady seemed to be wearing 2 coats; the bread teens were jumping in place, the too-friendly coffee dude was scowling. The fresh produce offerings were meagre. And yet, somehow this way is preferable. I often feel both overwhelmed and not up to the task during the real bounty weeks, when everything looks appealing and immediate. Those are the times when I buy too much and struggle to mow through heads of kale, cauli, beets & greens, potatoes, celeriac and green beans in one week. Better this: fewer options, less guilt.

It also doesn't hurt that Fall stimulates the desire to cook. So today, it was 2 adorable little butternut squashes as well as a basketful of sunchokes, a bunch of pea shoots and 4 winter radishes (candy cane striped and delicious raw). The squashes will become soup (and they last forever, so no real rush there), as will the sunchokes. Soup is the default setting for winter vegetables

In typical style, I had no real "plan" for supper tonight, but while on the phone I distractedly cut up a cooked potato and mixed in minced pea shoots, mayo and mustard and ate the whole yummy bowl with a spoon, and then mandolined 2 radishes and a Honeycrisp apple (from a marketing a few weeks back) and tossed with vinaigrette. Not bad, Chef.

Well, Thursday night we're feeding 600 people at the office, so I'm going back into the vortex. Better eat well while I can.

TV food and Steak Meurice

2008-10-14T15:23:00.000-07:00

Although I care for very little of what's on the food television shows these days, I have tremendous respect for the generation that created the genre. Watching episodes of any of the old shows is always inspiring; and they were so much better than the dreck we see now. Julia Child is widely recognized as a pioneer of cooking shows, and her reputation continues to shine. But what about the Galloping Gourmet, Graham Kerr? He of the greatest cooking show of all time. He who made 455 30-minute episodes between 1969 - 1971? 455 EPISODES. (The punters on the Food Network can barely squeeze out 13 episodes a year now.)

The Galloping Gourmet was--simply enough--fun to watch. Kerr himself was a handsome bon vivant who made cooking exciting, enjoyable, and appealing. He gave his audience confidence as cooks and I would argue that he did this not by making 30-minute meals or fast and easy recipes, but because he very clearly expressed the pleasure he himself took from cooking and eating (who can forget his orgasmic expressions as he would taste his dishes, close his eyes and swoon). That he was sexy and awe-some was gravy. He captured then what very few cooking shows have done since. His show was #1 simultaneously in the UK, US, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. No freaking kidding. But after a motor accident in 1971 he changed his foie gras and clarified butter-loving ways, befriended broccoli and pretty much disappeared.

My partner in crime and I are keen to cook through the recipes in Kerr's masterpiece cookbook. Having watched his show as children, we're curious now to taste and see what kind of cook Kerr really was; his persona loomed so greatly. Do the recipes taste as good as he made them look? Do they still work now in 2008? Or have times and tastes have changed?

Last night my squire brought over $4 worth of excellent locally-made morcilla (Argentine blood sausage) (plenty for 2 eaters) which we broiled and ate with a cast iron panful of bacon, onions and savoy cabbage while we hashed out the details of our project. The rules will trickle out as we write about our culinary adventures and discoveries. Steak Meurice, a signature of Kerr's, is first up.

Inspiration and agitation

2008-10-09T21:53:00.000-07:00

I'm eating crow today. Ever since I had a showy but bad meal of molecular gastronomy last year, I've been bashing the movement vociferously. The epitome of this bad bad meal -- which I ate begrudgingly, as it was for a restaurant review and I had to -- was a scallop that had been pureed and extruded into ribbons of fettuccini. Hey chef smartypants (I yammered in my head) what possessed you to fuck with one of the ocean's dreamiest treasures (that needs nothing more than a searing in a mofo hot pan to achieve perfection?!)

So I've had rather a chip on my shoulder about the whole molecular gastronomy thing ever since. Until yesterday. I had the chance to hear and see elBulli chef Ferran Adria, inventor of the new gastronomy. Like elBulli's melon globules which (allegedly) burst on the tongue, his eloquence and philosophy took me by surprise.

The guy's a genius, simply enough. He's an artist and an innovator and whether or not his style of cuisine floats my boat, he has revolutionised my craft. When you hear an artist (a true one, in any field) speak about his passion it's hard not to be persuaded.

I won't even try to explain the cuisine. It is to cuisine what Picasso is to Impressionism: a revolutionary change. As Adria explained, he invented a new alphabet. It's hard to imagine anything new -- truly NEW -- in cuisine, but he did it. And yet, his goal is still what chefs have been attempting this whole time: to be provocative and to cause happiness and even laughter.

His insights included that chefs rarely eat their own food as their customers do -- sitting down, not just tasting it off a spoon standing over the pot. (Guilty as charged); that mine is the best generation of chefs in the history of cuisine because we do it out of passion, not out of necessity; and that it doesn't matter how the food is made -- what matters is how it tastes. Now how can I be pissed off at that?

I celebrated with too much Champagne and so spent tonight at home nursing a headache and a stock pot.

Butter is the new cheese

2008-09-27T17:15:00.000-07:00

I'm working on a trends piece for a magazine so I'm out in the shops a fair amount these days, trying to sort out the crap from the treasures. Man, there is a shitload of garbage in jars and bottles and packets. "Pizza dough mix" in a box...which is flour, dry yeast and salt. Way to go brainiac: you still have to add the water, olive oil and elbow grease. Meanwhile, every imaginable variety of jam/ condiment/ spread/ barbeque rub/ flavoured vinegar/ $25 olive oil continues to fill immeasurable real estate on the shelves of our city's food boutiques. Nothing seems to cost less than $7 and everything contains either lavender, smoked paprika or organic cane juice. I have a funny feeling that were I to purchase one of these pricey jars I would use one tablespoon then relegate the sucker to The Back of The Fridge.

Not to worry, though, there is still much to wonder at and salivate over. These treasures usually appear in the fresh section. Today at a cute catering take-away I found a foil-wrapped parcel of artisanal butter ($8 for 250g); I caught another one later in the day at the city's premier cheese and provisions shop. [A side note: the first recipe in Jen McLagan's new book, Fat, is for homemade butter. Oh you can bet I'll be on that one asap.] It seems that a few enterprising cheeseries are taking the initiative to lure foodies with a new form of hand-hewn fat.

My opinion on this? I left the bread and knife on the board all afternoon, to where I returned at regular intervals to slice, toast and slather. As darling James Beard said, "Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts."

Mm.

Chefstock

2008-09-24T14:18:00.000-07:00

We had our inaugural national chefs' congress this past Sunday-Monday. I continue to bask in the afterglow of the most inspiring, awesome food-related event of my career. I'll try to be brief, but I'm yet barely able to express my inspiration in words. I'll start with the food and see where that goes.

In brief: the engine on this train is Michael Stadtländer, our country's head chef; he's at the forefront of the craft. He initiates trends -- but on principle, not on pretension. He moved to a huge farm 2 hours north of the city and lives and works on a mostly self-sustaining farm. Nightly, he serves 8 people a dinner that comes from his pens, gardens and woods. He's an artist; he's a genius; he's our leader. This whole cabal was his initiative (not that he didn't have a wee army of helpers). He's about 7 feet tall and wears a feather in his cap.

So about 250 chefs (barely any media and absolutely no wannabes or socialites) congregated at Stadtländer's farm midday Sunday. We sang the national anthem. Then 13 chefs from each of the country's provinces cooked a regional speciality in cast iron pans over open fires. This all happened in a huge open field. There was the most buttery gravlax; musky, peppery muskox tartare; whitefish caviar and YES, diced raw whale blubber (exquisite, like lardo) from the North; scallops with oyster nectar, pickled herrings and an unfortunate lobster risotto from the East; Berkshire pork, duck ballotine and braised lamb from the middle; bison pierogies with bison bresaola and berkshire pork in a broth of very gently smoked pike chowder from the West.

But the hands-down scene stealer was the fish and brews from Newfoundland. This dish of cod cheeks and tongues, battered, shallow fried and served over "brews" (kind of a mash made of salt cod and hard bread) topped with addictive pork scruncheons stole the heart of every chef at the show.

We hung out, drank lovely wines and beers and just chatted. There was absolutely not a whiff of competition; I think this was because there were no non-chefs there. Although we had all stuffed ourselves at lunch, by 9pm all were ready for round 2, prepared by the heavy-hitting chefs from The Big City. They showed their muscles with elk rib eyes; 18-month-cured hams; fire-roasted lamb; handmade charcuterie and artisanal cheese; raw oysters, scallops and clams cooked on an open fire. We gorged on those shellfish then pocketed the hot shells (it was freezing by sundown). The epic bonfire was lit.

We returned for another day, another meal (breakfast cooked by culinary students. Lovely pigs). Then sessions where chefs spoke passionately about their crafts. Sustainable aquaculture; living off the land; making cheese. All these conversations were elevated way beyond the usual food pap served up by the non-food media. This is why we guests found the fires beneath our asses lit with a vengeance.

This is by far the last you've heard of this.

A few words upon having found a zucchini in the crisper

2008-09-20T20:43:00.000-07:00

It's been a particularly embarrassing week for me as the home cook (see list of other meals from the week to the right). Suffice to explain that after roasting a chicken last Saturday night I haven't turned on the oven or stove once. Tonight (one of those luxurious Saturday nights at home by myself) I have returned to my old ways and cooked up a plain old pot of pasta for supper. But something wonderful happened: as I was digging through the wilting-to-manky produce in the fridge there appeared a perfectly fine small zucchini.

While penne is boiling, heat some olive oil and a small pat of butter over medium low. Add a coarsely chopped clove of garlic and a small dried hot pepper and get them all fragrant. Increase the heat to medium high and add a chopped zucchini*. Once tender throw in a big handful of chopped parsley, a splash of white wine and a generous dose of Parm. Now I'm all proud and feeling chef-y.

* Jamie Oliver helped my get over my dislike of zucchini, which I'd always found wet and blah. Cut it into long quarters then deftly slice out the seed layer. This removes the spongy layer that never cooks out its moisture, leaving behind a rather tasty remainder.

D.O.P pizza

2008-09-19T12:47:00.000-07:00

One of the easiest things to spot in a restaurant is pretension. There's a forced-ness that anyone who just loves to eat can simply feel. It's the feeling you get walking into a glitzed-up restaurant where the music is so cool you don't recognize it and the hostess (wearing more eyeliner than apparel) lets you see an almost imperceptible sneer as you doff your coat and reveal a less-than-uber cool outfit. The menu reads right -- these days it'll be "sharing plates", lots of pork and a whole lot more words in non-English languages -- but the food doesn't deliver.

By happy contrast, authenticity is also pretty easy to spot. When we stepped into what's billed as our city's only truly Neapolitan pizzeria, my Italian swain exclaimed that this would not be out of place in Naples. Right down to the exposed white cedar bar, the pizzeria's owners are attempting to bring the entire authentic Neapolitan pizza experience to this city.

They even have an ideology page on their website where they quote from the EU and the Vera Pizza Napoletana code. Just to begin, a true pizza must be circularly shaped, 0.3 cm thick at its centre and 1 to 2 cm thick at its crust.

YES, THERE'S AN ASSOCIATION WHICH GOVERNS THE AUTHENTICITY OF PIZZA. (And people wonder why I worship the Italians.)

I would travel days, pay a princess's ransom, abide boring conversation and even sleep in a tent to experience this kind of passionate food-related authenticity. So sitting too far across a long communal table from my beau seems a paltry compromise because the first item on the pizza list stops me cold: Margherita D.O.P.

Denominazione di origine controllata is beautiful Italian for the Protected Designation of Origin laws which guard the names of regional foods. Champagne was one of the first winners (you can't call any old bubbly champers anymore), so are prosciutto and Parmigiano-Reggiano. It's a way of keeping safe the actual words we use to name foods, keeping their original meaning in tact. Kind of like a food dictionary in application, in order to be named Parmigiano-Reggiano, it must be made in a small region of Northen Italy to specific standards inspected by the Parm-Regg cheese consortium. I have a fierce passion for dictionaries, grammar and language, so no surprise that I dig this kind of thing.

As we eat the D.O.P Margherita, we can only smile. It is perfect and simple and delicious, the San Marzano tomato sauce slightly more sweet than acid, the fior di latte mozzarella creamy and pale, the basil wilted, the crust exceptional in its simultaneous crispy-chewiness. We pull on $5 tumblers of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo and bawl at each other over the extraordinary din.

I have long lived by the motto that pizza is like sex: even when it's bad it's still good. Pizza does get slutted around rather a lot (this city also boasts an Afghan pizzeria, a Turkish pizzeria, and many varieties of BBQ chicken pizza), and that's not always a bad thing, particularly at 3am on the way home from the pub. It's just comforting to know that someone cares enough to make this pizza according to these rules. And that deserves respect.

A single girl and a flank steak

2008-09-07T13:38:00.000-07:00

It was either James Beard or Mrs Rombauer who said that eternity is defined as a ham between 2 people. That quotation played in my head this week. I barbequed one of Elvis' lovely flank steaks on Monday night (marinated in a motley combination of soy, hoisin, maple syrup, chili flakes, Dijon and balsamic) and sliced it thinly. My stars, I just finished the last of it on Friday! It lasted me 4 meals. I'll have to revert to tofu and quinoa this week.

I've poached a new element from Carol Blymire's wonderful, inspiring French Laundry at Home blog. She lists "what else I've eaten this week" and it's always fun to read. I'm hoping the contents of my own list won't be too scary to admit.

Preserving madness

2008-09-01T08:36:00.000-07:00

When like-minded people engage in an activity which all are mildly obsessed with, excess is just a stone's-throw away. That's why last night at about 8pm, my canning partners and I decided there was nothing for it: we had to preserve what remained of our bushel of tomatoes.

Ok, let me back up. Last year Sean and Jane and I had 3 magnificent weekends of preserving, ending up with chutney, chili sauce, 2 types of jam and several litres of preserved peaches. We were determined to increase our results this year, but between their new baby and my apartment move, we had so far preserved doodlysquat and the season was waning. I was starting to feel a bit desperate, and that's when the madness set in. We met at the market and goaded each other into not just doubling the quantity of peaches we preserved last year but TRIPLING it. And we knew we needed a triple batch of chili sauce. But that doesn't sound like too much, right? Alas, it was just twenty minutes later while negotiating with a very young farmer's daughter for 36 plum tomatoes that she uttered the fateful phrase, "why don't you just buy a bushel? It's only $12."

Now, gentle reader, how am I, an occasionally insane, type-A, stay-up-all-night personality, to respond to that? Not to mention that at 9am on a Saturday I was besieged by rolling buggies, strollers, Golden Retrievers and oversized backpacks full of corn and cauliflower, and there was neither time nor space to think rationally about this decision. The next thing I knew, we were hauling a BUSHEL of plum tomatoes on top of THREE FLATS of peaches.

Ah, preserving day. When madness takes hold of you lock stock and barrel. And just when you think you have blanched, quartered and skinned as many peaches as possible, there is still another sinkful to conquer. Once appropriately prepped, we shoved the sweet, juicy beauties into jars, topped up with thin sugar syrup, wiped rims, snapped on lids and rings and lovingly simmered them for 20 minutes. There is nothing quite so satisfying as hearing the dull >snap< of the lids sealing.

But there was no rest for us (just a fortifying turkey and cranberry sandwich). After chopping the onions and peppers for chili sauce Sean removed the 36 tomatoes required. He then looked at what remained of the bushel, looked over at me and remarked "you've got to be kidding me". Yeah, those 36 tomatoes made up about a sixth of the bushel. We didn't say much for a long while after that. But then we agreed that it would be criminal to toss the tomatoes -- there was no way we could eat through them in a week. We looked at each other and understood: this was going to be a long evening. We consulted books and the web, then simply blanched, skinned, quartered, packed into jars with water and sealed the jars. Results to follow in another post, no doubt.

Each year we forget how very long it takes to bring a canner to a boil; how long the chili sauce simmers before it's right; how much ice we'll need for the blanching stages; how sticky the kitchen floor gets mid-way through the day. But we don't forget the sublime pleasure of snapping open a litre of the sweetest sunshiney peaches on a snow day in January, or of the perfect flavour match between our chili sauce and a wedge of tourtiere on Christmas Eve.

The List, part 1

2008-08-25T13:16:00.000-07:00

Mondays at the office are like some kind of bad energy tornado, so I try to keep my head down make myself look super annoyed and busy, thank you George Costanza. Best thing to do is read from the proliferation of food-related websites and blogs (it looks vaguely work-related in case anyone catches a glance at my screen). This list came up and I cannot resist. Of course, I have to put my 2 cents in, so the back half of the list will follow in another post.

The Omnivore's 100
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at http://www.verygoodtaste.co.uk/ linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:
1. Venison
But never truly wild venison. Hunters, please contact me. You kill it, I'll cook it.
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos Rancheros
A good option on otherwise lacklustre brunch menus.
4. Steak Tartare
Horse tartare is better
5. Crocodile
6. Black or blood pudding
We grew up on this, but my sly parents called it by its French name, boudin, to trick us into loving it. Worked.
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ganoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
I live in a wonderful city where pho is one of the cheapest eats available.
13. Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich
To truly represent the genre, it must be on uber-processed white bread with uber-processed Kraft peanut butter and grape jelly.
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
One of my favourite eats on a NYC weekend
16. Epoisses de Bourgogne
If it was hygenic or in any way seductive to slather this on myself, I would gladly do so. Nothing so stinky ever tasted so sublime.
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
Sure, but why? Grapes do just fine.
19. Steamed pork buns
Excellent hangover food.
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
Out of the garden, still warm from the sun, dribbling down my face....yes.
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
We nibbled through a tasting menu of foie gras a few years ago (not recommended for those with heart conditions or weak stomachs). My favourites were the simple applications like torchon with rhubarb compote, or seared in a mofo hot pan till it's all yummy crusty on the outside and wobbly melty on the inside. But foie gras cheesecake? No thanks.
24. Rice and beans
YES!!
25. Brawn or head cheese
Veal head cheese from the Testaccio market in Rome, eaten with a plastic fork in the square. Bliss.
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
Raw Caraquets from New Brunswick are my favourites, but battered in panko, deep fried and served with jalapeno mayo at Oyster Boy also floats my boat.
29. Baklava
Used to make this by the 2ft x 4ft slab for a catering company. Bleh.
30. Bagna Cauda
Whenever I make this it splits. Help?
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
Mrs Jackson, my "second mom" (our neighbour and my mom's best friend) came from German stock. Her mom, the formidable Mrs Spindin, made a freezerful of sauerkraut every year.
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
A "Top 10 Meals of My Life" list will come eventually, but a sneak preview: gnocchi with braised oxtail at Sora Marguerite in Rome.
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
Once I unwittingly swallowed half a spider out of my oatmeal (3 of his legs remained in the bowl). And I'm pretty sure I ate a fried cricket from a street stall in Bangkok.
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
One new year's eve I was back in my university town (population 1500 souls) and we gathered at our old pub. For some reason they were selling Johnnie Walker Blue (upwards of $200/ 750 mL) for $5.95 a shot. I am proud to have become intoxicated on such lovely booze.
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin

The List, 51 - 100

2008-08-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

Since I've been writing this on the sly at work I had to parcel it into 2 posts. But I thought about it all night. I love lists!

51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
Surprisingly easy to make at home.
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
...but I believe the last time I had one I was 15.
56. Spaetzle
Here is a word that no waiter seems able to pronounce. Other big offenders: bruschetta and risotto.
57. Dirty gin martini
Sure, but why not have a Gibson instead?
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
The only possible justification for a mess of poutine is intense physical exertion (or heavy drinking -- it makes excellent "soaking up" food). So the ideal situation is to order a giant poutine as lunch in the middle of a day of skiing. Eaten with a 2-pronged wooden fork, of course.
60. Carob chips
I am embarrassed. My mom went through a hippie stage when our "treats" were these and banana chips. Call the psychotherapist.
61. Smores
I have never understood this.
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
I had a clay mask on my face once, does that count?
64. Currywurst
No, but sign me up.
65. Durian
A lasting memory from my childhood in South-East Asia is the iconic signs of crossed-out durian in the vicinity of hotel lobbies and on public buses. They always said "smells like hell, tastes like heaven" but I would locate the flavour closer to creamed onions.
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
And we must add Canadian beaver tails to this list.
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
Nana's secret ingredient: a tin of V8
72. Caviar and blinis
73. Absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
My brother was a cop and tells a great story about coming across an accident scene involving a car + driver (hale and sound) and a deer (now dead). A few discreet phone calls later, a guy showed up with the proper tools and proceeded to divvie up the carcass. Please see item #1.
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-star restaurant
Others involved in this wee project have mentioned 4-star NYC restos as comparable to Michelin 3 stars. For me, the tasting menu at Le Bernardin was as spectacular as dining gets; we wept from sensual pleasure, and that has to count for something.
85. Kobe beef
And some Kobe beef kidneys too.
86. Hare
...and the adorable little bunny in the garden is getting plumper by the day!
87. Goulash
88. Edible flowers
The bunny eschews the flowers so we eat them.
89. Horse
Yes!
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

My new local

2008-08-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

Glorious world! I moved to my new apartment last weekend and my new local pub is everything a girl could ask for. I've been every day since I moved in.

Day 1: Moving Day itself. Overwhelmed by boxes, weary from heavy lifting and swirling emotions, damp from the rainstorm, Mary Elizabeth and I tucked into a snug table, drank pints of Guinness and ate crispy, hot fish & chips (generously hosed with malt vinegar) amidst a buzzing Friday night crowd. The waiter flirted with us, the food was excellent and a cutie on the tv won a gold medal in wrestling. Bliss.

Day 2: Cordless drills and paintbrushes. While my tireless, made-of-gold brother painted and hung shelving and heavy mirrors, his Michele and I purchased and assembled IKEA puzzlers. By 7pm we were ready to demolish a bottle of bubbly; by 8pm we had showered and settled into a table at the local. The daily specials are renowned, so we all ordered horseradish-crusted beef tenderloin with veg and rosti. Salutary; enriching; life-giving. The flirty waiter took one look at me and simply asked, "Guinness?". Bliss.

Day 3: Hitting the unpacking plateau. I can live in the place as it is, without all those last boxes unpacked, so I'm out and about. Matt came by to collect all my now-empty boxes (he's moving next weekend, love the circle of box life). We had a wander then perched on the patio at the local for another set of Guinness. No food; it didn't matter.

Day 4: Monday, getting home late from work...and I still haven't bought groceries. The only solution? A drink and a light supper at the local. Another special du jour: expertly seared trout with an iceberg-watermelon-bocconcini salad swimming in excellent lemon-poppyseed dressing. How perfect? My already-limited home cooking may be about to suffer another blow. How can I cook when there is such good food, drink and company a mere block away?

Food on the move

2008-08-18T08:30:00.000-07:00

Twice a year my day job requires me to travel for several weeks. A colleague and I go across the country and make a presentation all morning followed by a lunch previewing about 20 of the new products our company is working on. We do about 13 shows over the course of 2 to 3 weeks. It's brutal.

Travelling for work sounds oh so glamourous and fun, but consider this schedule: get up at 6am in a less-than-luxurious hotel, try to grab a workout on a crappy hotel treadmill, put on your game face for 5 hours chatting to guests and making a dynamic (ha) presentation that you've already done 12 times, eat the same lunch of the same 20 items (but you have to eat everything so the guests think you like it all), speed to the airport for a 2pm flight, arrive in the next city by 5pm, check into yet another hotel, grab some dinner, drink too much, sleep too little and wake up and do it all over again the next day.

Naturally, for me the worst part is the food. I can't go on stage without breakfast, and when I'm stuck in a hotel my standard -- 1 soft-poached egg, whole wheat toast, tea and OJ -- sets me back about $25. Hotel breakfasts are hit-and-miss; sometimes the poached egg comes set in a cereal bowl with 1/2 cup of warmish water, other times it's perched on a slab of Texas toast soaked in margarine. There are always home fries, even if you don't order them. I often succumb to the temptation of the little packet of Kraft peanut butter.

This is followed by the aforementioned set lunch, of which I ususally eat three bites, then find myself at the airport and starving, truly one of the modern food lover's worst predicaments. I won't even go into the atrocities sold as "food" at airports; you've been there, you've been humiliated by a $10 sandwich filled with 25 g of turkey , a softened piece of iceberg and a triangle of cheese-product. And that's better than the food you can buy on board.

We try to find a half-decent place for a cheap dinner (the company gives us a whopping $50/day for all meals and after that breakfast I'm down to $25). More often we just want a salad and a shitload of booze. Somehow travelling makes you so so tired. But then sleeping in hotel beds is perpetually uneasy-making. Thank heavens the two of us get along like bacon and eggs.

Food for the Sick

2008-08-06T07:07:00.000-07:00

A new development: in the past few weeks my computer desk has become my eating space. I've been writing lots, sure, but I discovered this little thing known as tv on the internet, and now I'm as likely to be writing as watching an episode of Mad Men. Meals just naturally happen here (such as they are... herewith leftover quinoa, yellow beans and tofu with fried onions eaten with a cereal spoon and an Anchor Steam beer). I'll try to keep the crumbs out of the keyboard, but I'm more worried now than ever that I'm becoming a loner geek.

It doesn't help that I spent the entire long weekend quarantined in the apartment with a bout of strep throat. Searing pain on swallowing, throbbing pain in the throat at all times, headaches and a rollercoaster fever meant I had lots of time for tv and movie watching. But not for eating; the worst part is barely being able to swallow. Last time I had strep I survived on Cream of Wheat, applesauce and room temperature licorice tea for 7 days.

So, starving and needing food to help the antibiotics go down, and knowing that swallowing anything chunkier than hand lotion was an impossibility, I busted out my 14-year old and still kicking Braun hand blender and puréed the mason jar of chunky chicken soup Mary-Elizabeth had brought me. (She also brought dvds to put an end to the unfortunate Chuck Norris marathon I had been reduced to watching on tv.) That purée and a few litres of homemade ginger tea kept me alive on Saturday. Lucky me, Sunday brought 2 handsome men, one with more chunky chicken soup and season 2 of Rome and the other with eggs and Marsala for zabaglione. (I still can't decide who I love more.) But may I recommend zabaglione as the ultimate food for the sick. Its sweet, boozy frothiness comforts all wounds and takes the edge off to boot.

By Monday night I was ready for and craving solid food. Kate had brought the perfect thing: 2 of her homemade garlic-herb sausages. Yes, bless her culinarily enterprising soul, she makes her own sausages and they are tremendous (her kitchen adventures put me to shame and I love it). I roasted and sliced them then sautéed lots of garlic in olive oil, added 2 of my freshly crushed Roman chilies, a head of steamed Swiss chard, the sausages and the rest of a bottle of white wine. Served over my new favourite, utterly swallowable ultra-smooth polenta and now I'm back in business.