Stacey DeWolfe

In Praise of Porridge...

2011-07-29T12:49:00.003-04:00

This might seem an odd topic for a summer post, but since deciding a few weeks ago to reduce my intake of bread and other gluten-heavy substances, I have been starting each day with a bowl of delicious (and gluten-free) porridge--or as we like to call it here, a big bowl of health.

Now, writing about porridge may seem an unnecessary venture as folks like Mark Bittman (for one, with his vegan-until-six strategy for optimal health and greater sustainability), and his faithful followers, have long preached the benefits of eating one's daily gruel, expounding on the plethora of available grains, both glutinous and gluten-free, and the manifold approaches one might take toward their preparation.

Before Bittman, there were mothers and grandmothers who served up oatmeal and Cream of Wheat and Red River with milk and, at least when mom was looking the other way, copious amounts of brown sugar. And later, in university, a host of instant hot cereals that could be easily made with a spoon and a mug of hot water. Though I found these cereals for the most part revolting, they did make excellent companions on hiking and camping trips, and could satisfy the appetite and its cravings when there was little money in the bank and seemingly nothing in the pantry.

For me, however, what has made this last month of porridge consumption feel like something worth writing about is the discovery of what might be called a summer porridge, and the abundant pleasures associated with its preparation. In fact, there is something quite meditative about the process, and this is perhaps one of the things I like most about it. Instead of shoving some toast into my mouth while sitting at the computer or walking to the metro, or not eating anything at all--my heretofore range of possible breakfast activities--I am required to wait patiently near the stove for 10-15 minutes, gently stirring.

Sure, the same kind of attention can be given to the folding of an omelette or the boiling of an egg, but as I prefer to eat this most perfect of foods for lunch or supper, my morning meal has long been of the toast with cheese and jam variety. And because in all aspects of my life I am striving for a greater sense of calm, this two-minute breakfast leaves me feeling both spiritually and physically wanting.

It may sound hokey, but its true.

And so to porridge. When I moved out of the house at 19, I stopped eating porridge altogether, thinking it too old-fashioned and uncool. In fact, for most of my 20s and 30s, I did not eat breakfast at all, save the occasional tub of yoghurt, which a fellow student told me was scientifically-proven to increase memory and therefore aid in the writing of exams. Eating breakfast just made me hungry, and because I was rarely organized enough to make myself lunch and could not be bothered to go out and hunt something down, hunger was something I wanted to avoid. When my husband got wind of this a few years ago--I was often off to work before he rose--he took it upon himself to improve my habits. That this agenda coincided with a shift to working later in the day made it easier for him to put his plan into effect, yet though I have long enjoyed the pleasures of a leisurely weekend brunch, the eating of breakfast remained something of an obligation.

But things have changed.

My favorite breakfast treat, both to eat and prepare, is a bastardized version of a recipe I found in Mangoes and Curry Leaves by Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford.

The pleasures begin at the market, especially now, with the abundance of peaches, plums and fresh berries available (in the winter, mangoes and frozen berries will suffice). In addition to fruit, I also pick up as many different kinds of nuts as I can afford and find that pecans and cashews are especially good.

Duguid and Alford make a semolina porridge, which can be eaten with both sweet and savory accompaniments, but since my goal is to eat less gluten, I have been using a mix of corn meal, sorghum and buckwheat called Mighty Tasty Hot Cereal.

Then you need some plain yoghurt, a sweetener of some kind, a stash of limes, some sesame oil, and a few spices: ground ginger, red chillies and mustard seed.

The preparation is a breeze.

Heat a little sesame or vegetable oil in a pan with a lid. Warm gently and add your three spices--about a 1/2 teaspoon of each if you are making breakfast for two. Let them sizzle a bit and become fragrant and then dump in a cup of water and bring it to a boil. When the water boils, add a pinch of salt and 1/3 cup of the cereal, and stir to break down the lumps.

Put the lid on, lower the heat, and let it simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. If you want to add dried fruit such as raisins or apricots, do so around minute 8. And if it becomes too dry at any point, simply add a little more water and stir it in.

When the porridge is done, ladle into bowls and top with the fresh fruit and nuts that you have chosen to eat. Place a dollop or two of yoghurt on top, drizzle with honey or maple syrup, and if desired and in stock, a little coconut. To finish, squeeze a wedge of lime over top.

Though I have yet to get tired of this, I have also been eating an array of other grains: oatmeal with cardamom, raisins and soy milk; millet cooked in home-made almond milk with nuts and fruit, and just a few hours ago, quinoa with yoghurt, mango-peach salsa, and fresh berries. Even on the hottest day of last week's heat wave, we had porridge. Because what you want more that anything on a day like that is to feel good inside, and I can think of no better food to bring about that goal than summer porridge.

In Praise of Horseradish...

2011-07-19T16:19:00.095-04:00

When I was a kid, I looked forward to many dinners, but roast beef with mashed potatoes, boiled carrots and horseradish was not one of them. In those days, my mom's approach to menu planning meant that the same combinations of side dishes and mains were always employed: fried liver came with creamed corn, mashed potatoes and boiled cabbage, whereas ham came with scalloped potatoes and frozen peas.

With shocking consistency, biscuits accompanied beef stew and clam chowder, while brown bread was the sop up for baked beans. On special nights, like those assigned to the eating of home-made pizza, spaghetti and chop suey, we dined without accompaniments, because the slivers of onion, green pepper and mushroom contained within these exotic delights were felt to meet our dietary needs in terms of vitamins and minerals.

Now, you may be thinking that much of this sounds delicious, and it often was, but because the horseradish was always served with roast beef and mashed potatoes--the former, which for reasons of health and frugality was cooked to well-well-done and sliced paper thin, and the latter, which was mashed with skimmed milk and margarine, and therefore lacking in creamy, buttery goodness--my dislike for those foods had a rather negative effect on my feelings about this most delicious of roots.

Over the years, as my parents (in line with mainstream culture) opened up to new ways of looking at food and diet, and we kids became more outspoken in our desire to have some say in what we ate (and more willing to actually help with the production of this food), our dinners became more and more varied in content. Still, the horseradish sat in the fridge, immune to the ravages of microorganisms and time. Lacking the ability to assert itself, it was forced to wait--for that celebratory holiday meal or the rare family dinner when its presence would be desired and required.

And so it was that until quite recently it had never occurred to me to buy horseradish. For though we are people who enjoy the occasional steak, and have been known to host a summer rib feast, I have never, to my knowledge, cooked up a pot roast. Imagine my shock, then, when a friend arrived at our cottage a few weeks ago with a bottle of said condiment and a plan to produce a delicious potato salad--a plan that was indeed realized. And imagine my delight when this past weekend at the cottage, having volunteered to step in for the ailing chef (aka my mother-in-law) and take over the kitchen duties, I discovered that the very same bottle of this zesty brassica was staring out at me from the refrigerator door.

Known for its curative properties--such as stimulating the immune system and whetting the body's various appetites, and working to counter an array of undesirables like inflammation, anemia and parasites--horseradish, or as it is known to the botany set, Armoracia Rusticana, is a perennial plant from the same family as mustard and broccoli. It is also a vegetable root whose time, if this blog, and the Horseradish Information Council have anything to do with it, has come. For as their website makes clear, though long admired for its "effects" on beef and seafood, this 3,000 year-old "root with roots" is extremely versatile, low in calories, and beloved around the world.

A host of recipes is available on the site, but for me, the most exciting discovery is what it can do for a bowl of slaw.

This weekend, for example, I made two and dressed them both with the same spicy dressing: one part mayonnaise, one part yoghurt, one part olive oil, one part lemon juice and one part horseradish. A little salt and pepper to taste, and a few cups of thinly-sliced vegetables--in one incarnation, red onion, cabbage, and fennel, and in the other, white onion and kohlrabi--and you've got yourself a slaw.

Today, after a much-needed trip to the gym, I had a friend over for lunch, and whipped up a salad of lettuce, toasted almonds, chick peas, tomatoes and red onion dressed with the same dressing (sans mayo).

And tonight? Only a trip to the market will tell, but perhaps a rack of pork ribs with horseradish glaze?

Hawaii. Who Knew...

2011-05-21T22:25:00.034-04:00

For most of my life I have had a completely unwarranted hate-on for Hawaii. My feelings about the island were formed in my Calgary youth, when I associated its tropical climes with the jerks and jocks who returned to school each January with bronzed bods and puka shell necklaces. Instead, I longed for the romance of the great cities, to be a traveler and not a tourist. I wanted to devote my leisure time to the development of my intellect, seeing their seaside antics as a clear indication of their inferior breeding. In retrospect, I was simply jealous: of their wealth, and of the easy confidence that seemed to come with it. Still, as I grew older, my feelings about Hawaii remained. Like a grown woman whose dislike of beets was based on a 35 year-old memory of a nightmarish late-night rejoinder, I held strong to my childhood convictions, never allowing for the possibility that as it was with the beets, I might one day become a fan.

And so it was that for the last few years, my parents' suggestion that we join them in Hawaii was met with a far from enthusiastic shrug. But as parents often do, they persisted, and today, I am the happy beneficiary of their determination. For Hawaii, or Maui, which is the island upon which I am currently stationed, is a remarkably beautiful and relaxing place, replete with an abundance of tropical fruit, an ocean full of exotic fishes and playful sea turtles, and a schedule that puts a fruity drink in your hand at exactly 3:00 in the afternoon. It also has a biodiversity that is truly astounding, allowing you to pass from sun-baked arid plains to fog-engulfed rain forest in less than 30 minutes.

As a lower-case foodie and when-possible locavore, I was excited about digging into the local fare. However, a trip to the nearby farmer's market made clear that eating locally means getting creative with a relatively limited slate. There is coffee in abundance, and plenty of steak-y fish. There are mangoes, bananas, papayas and coconuts, and there is pig - not pork, pig. There is arugula and basil and Lacinato kale. There are super-sweet Maui onions, giant avocados that never seem to be ripe and plenty of chevre. And there is starch: taro and manioc and blue sweet potatoes. If you drive for awhile, you can get your hands on some fresh eggs and milk, but pretty much everything else is shipped in from the mainland. And though I had a hankering for some naturally smoked bacon, when I saw it came from New Jersey, I was too overwhelmed by the wrongness of it all to make the purchase.

We have also been checking out the local delicacies. Today, having checked our trusted guide Road Food for suggestions, and made the less than inspiring journey to a mini-mall near to the airport, we stopped for the plate lunch at Da Kitchen. From what I have been able to surmise, the plate lunch is a Hawaiian staple consisting of two giant scoops of white rice, some "potato mac"--an inspired solution to the eternal dilemma: potato salad versus macaroni--some type of grilled or breaded or deep-friend meat, and a sweet and sour sauce.

But first, we had to try the Musubi.

For reasons still unclear to me, Mauians have a long standing love affair with Spam, that canned luncheon meat that many of us consumed in the dark days of our youth before salsa and Caesar salad and pasta--aside from the Kraft boxed spaghetti dinner--came to be part of the suburban North American diet. In fact, Hawaii is the spam capital of the United States, a title it has maintained since the meat-like product was first introduced to the islands during WWII.

At Da Kitchen, the Spam Musubi is encased in sushi rice and seaweed, then doused in Panko and deep fried. The fist-sized ball of goodness comes unadorned on a plain white plate, and as the server's lack of concern about procuring our cutlery with any speed suggests, is consumed lukewarm.

Surprisingly, what resonates on the tongue after the first mouthful is the taste of seaweed, with the spam offering only a slight meaty aftertaste and a glisten of fat on the lips. What resonates in the stomach long afterward is the starchy excess. Though there is little in Maui to remind one that they are in the US, the portion sizes--both in restaurants, and at the Costco, where things are almost literally twice as big as they are in Montreal--are a clear indication. Luckily, we had read about the size of the plate lunches and so had ordered two to share between four.

Once again, though the pulled kalua pork was as tasty and as tender as promised, it was the literal weight of the lunch that lingered long afterward in our minds. And it was only after our short trek to the lush and verdant Iao valley, and our time spent gazing at the phallic landform that is the Iao needle, that we were able to even contemplate what to procure for our evening meal.

And now, as I sit here on the lanai, with the ever-present birdsong and the crash of waves lapping upon the shore, with the Maui onions grilling on the barbecue and my fruity drink by my side, with the sea turtles and the sky in the distance turning pink and orange over the horizon, I wonder why on earth it took me so long to get here. And like Mark Twain before me, I will pass the coming week with pleasure, knowing that when I do have to finally bid it farewell, I will do so with great, great affection.

Recreating Momofuku's Spicy Noodles...

2011-01-09T21:55:00.004-05:00

I was at the market today, perusing the wares at my new favorite vegetable stand, Chez Nino - the best possible place for seekers of culinary inspiration - when I came across a heap of fresh baby spinach and had a flashback to my amazing lunch at Momofuku Noodle Bar last summer.

The Noodle Bar, for those who have not experienced its gustatory wonders, is just one of the many hip, and as far as I can tell, worthy-of-the-hype New York restaurants run by chef/owner David Chang. To have one of their famed pork buns melting on your tongue is to experience true multisensory bliss, and though some would call even the idea of a vegetarian option blasphemy, the cloud-like texture and gentle sweetness of the bun provides an equally heavenly compliment to the mound of carmelized shiitakes that spill from its herbivore-pleasing folds. The restaurant is also known for their ramen, but though I became giddy at the sight of the perfectly poached egg hovering on the soup's surface, the mountain of pork belly and shredded pork glistening underneath made me realize that I am a one-slice-of-pork-belly-per-day kind of girl.

Seeking something equally noodle-y, I chose instead their spicy noodles - despite the server's assertively-expressed doubt that I probably could not handle the heat - served chilled on a pile of fresh baby spinach with Sichuan pork and candied cashews. And it was this dish that I returned to this afternoon, remembering the appealing contrast of textures and flavours that it contained.

Back home again, with what I knew were the essential ingredients - ground pork, fresh wheat noodles, spinach and cashews - I sought in vain to locate a recipe on the internet, finding only the trace of recent failures to secure this valuable information. And so, armed only with my memory, my willingness to go boldly in the kitchen, and a handful of recipes to cover gaps in knowledge or lapses in instinct, I forged on, arriving at what I must declare was some pretty tasty fare.

Though not a tricky dish, it has many steps and takes a fair bit of time to prepare. That said, everything can be made in advance, so you can work for a few hours, take a break for cocktails and leisure activities, and then return to quickly assemble the meal when you have long forgotten the hours spent in the kitchen.

FOR THE SPINACH:
Wash, dry and put aside one handful of spinach per person.

FOR THE CASHEWS:
I followed this recipe: one half cup of cashews, one quarter cup of sugar and two tablespoons of water. You throw them together in a sauce pan and heat it over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Once that happens, you continue to cook it, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes or until the sugar crystallizes.

What is crazy is that at about minute 14, you will look into the pot and wonder what the hell the recipe was talking about as no crystallization will have occurred. Filled with despair, you will look away for a second, and when you look back, the sugar will have fully crystallized and be in danger of burning. The lesson: be patient, keep stirring and do not turn away once the liquid starts to evaporate.

As a final step, scrape the cashews onto a cookie sheet and roast in a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes, or until they are slightly browned and crisp. Put aside to cool.

FOR THE PORK:
For inspiration, I used a recipe for spicy pork from the Momofuku cookbook that I found on a food blog with a less-than-appetizing image on its header. Because my pantry was absent a few required ingredients, I made a few revisions, but it was delicious and contained many of the same qualities as the version I remembered: sweet, garlicky, spicy and porky.

And speaking of the Momofuku cookbook, a friend of mine received it for Christmas, and in addition to being tremendously excited by the culinary adventures that it portends, has found it be an equally satisfying read on a purely intelletual level. But back to the recipe:

Fry ground pork - as much as you will need for the number of people you are intending to feed, maybe about one third cup per person - until nicely browned and cooked through. Put aside.

Drain excess oil and add sliced shallots (or onions) and cook slowly so that they carmelize. For two people, I used five medium shallots, but you could use more or less depending on your taste. When they are done, add them to the bowl with the pork and mix. Put aside.

In the same frying pan, add some oil and when it gets warm, add some dried red chilies to your taste. I used about one tablespoon, but found the dish a little milder than I would have liked, so will add more next time. Now, the recipe will tell you to let the oil get very very hot before adding the chilies, but I would caution against this, or at least caution you against standing anywhere near the pan when doing this, as I narrowly escaped a painful and possibly catastrophic ocular injury when a chili popped, and in an oil-soaked rage, flew out of the pan and into my left eye. Luckily, my husband was standing by with a glass full of water, which I held to my eye socket until the pain subsided. It was more terrifying than anything else, but I wore my glasses for the remainder of the pork prep, just to be safe.

When you can feel the heat of the chilies in the air, add three cloves of garlic to the pan and continue to saute them until they become fragrant. Then, add a teaspoon or so of the Sichuan peppercorns, a third of a cup or so of water, a tablespoon or so of sugar, and two good sized splashes: one of fish sauce, the other of soy. And when that gets to bubbling up, return the pork and shallots to the pan with a big handful of chopped chives and stir until the flavours have mingled to become one. Put aside.

FOR THE FLAVOURED OIL:
Take about a quarter cup of vegetable or sesame oil and add one tablespoon of dried red chilies, one teaspoon of Sichuan peppercorns and one half teaspoon of ground ginger. You could use fresh ginger as well, and even a little garlic if you liked. Let it sit for a bit. Actually, you could make this at the beginning of the recipe, as the longer it sits, the better. Put aside.

FOR THE TOASTED SHALLOTS:
Thinly slice shallots, toss with oil, and roast in a 400 degree oven, stirring often to avoid burning. They should be crisp, so leave them in there as long as you can.

When you are ready to eat, prepare the noodles as per the instructions. Drain and toss with the oil and a little bit of tamari. Then, into a big bowl drop a handful of spinach leaves, a pile of noodles, a pile of pork, and some candied cashews. As a final touch, sprinkle the top with the crispy shallots. It will be as beautiful to look at as it tastes. I promise. I also think it would be pretty good with twice-fried crumbled tofu.

You fry that tofu twice and you can pretty much make it do anything.

My Year in Food...

2011-01-03T14:07:00.009-05:00

As an arts reporter, it is my job each December to sum up the year's best and worst - a task that I am understandably discomfited by, possessing neither the ego nor the compulsion to make such qualitative pronouncements. Since it is my duty, however, to do just that, my approach is to step back from making any kind of grand statement and focus instead on those shows/artists/artworks that either pleased or displeased me. For what more can I do than express my own subjective response to things that may have garnered entirely different reactions from different viewers at different times?

In discussing the year in food, a grand statement if ever there was one, I must also step back from any kind of assumptive declarations. This is not about the best and worst in food, nor does it aim to make any kind of statement about trends in eating, either globally or locally. Instead, it is a simple recounting of three gastronomically-related things that made me feel excited, healthy, happy and sated in the year that was 2010.

CAVALO NERO

Though my friends at An Endless Banquet were writing about this most delectable of leafy greens as far back as October 2007, it was only a few weeks ago that I discovered its perfection. In Montreal, it is generally known as Lacinato or Tuscan kale, though I have also heard it sold under the moniker Dinosaur kale, a name that is presumably drawn from the lizard-like texture of the vegetable when raw. When cooked, however, it is an entirely different story. In fact, what distinguishes this princely kale from its more proletarian cousins is its texture, which one might compare to a young collard green: toothy yet tender. There is also the taste, though in my efforts to describe it, I find myself groping for adjectives, hoping that earthy and green will suffice.

If this is not enough to send you stampeding to the vegetable stand, kale is also insanely good for you, and incredibly easy to prepare. A few nights ago, for example, we simply sauteed it in a little butter, popped the lid on to create a little steam, and then tossed it with some lemon juice, lemon zest, crushed chilies and a few walnuts. Sitting aside a bowl of lamb-fennel Bolognese, it provided a fresh and crunchy counterpart to the pasta's silky richness. For breakfast, the leftovers made great company for an otherwise guilt-inducing fried egg sandwich.

HAY, HAY OIL and Do-It-Yourself MOLECULAR GASTRONOMY

In order to talk about hay, the least likely of culinary ingredients, I have to first talk about Noma, the Danish restaurant that this year unseated El Bulli as the World's Best. Last summer, I was perusing the interweb when I came across a video of Mark Bittman talking about his trip to the restaurant. In an effort to demystify the complex science that is molecular gastronomy, he was taking the audience through a recipe for one of Noma's signature dishes: potato chips with chocolate and fennel seeds. I was, to say the least, intrigued, and made haste to the Noma website where I put in an order for chef René Redzepi's cookbook.

Jump ahead a few months as, with weighty tome in hand, I sat down to look for something to make for dinner and came across a recipe requiring among many other things, the production of hay oil. Several hours later, having successfully procured a bundle of organic hay from a farmer at the Jean Talon market - an easier task than anticipated, and one that put in me in great favour with the young man who had been packing and unpacking the hay all summer with nary a sale - and having toasted that hay in the oven for over two hours and then macerated it in a layer of sunflower oil, I was one step closer to the completion of my dish: Jerusalem Artichokes and Toasted Hay Oil, Yoghurt and Truffles.

Unsurprisingly, preparing gastronomically molecular dishes at home is no easy feat, even when you have chosen to make the least complicated recipe in the book. First, instead of a team of skilled labourers, you have only you - and if you're lucky, your husband. When you are one (or two) and there are a handful of tasks that need to be completed at the same time, something must fall by the wayside. Here, it was the cutting of the Jerusalem artichoke slices - the peeling and slicing of which in itself took over an hour - into perfect 2cm diameter rounds. Instead, I switched to a more-easily realized hexagonal thematic which cut my prep time to roughly one-third.

Second, unless you are inclined to purchase appliances you will rarely use, you have to make do with more pedestrian items like your regular old oven and blender instead of the intended Pacojet and 180 degree water bath. These appliances work perfectly fine when braising a pot roast or whipping up a smoothie, but fail miserably when the task requires simultaneous blending and freezing (horseradish snow) or 90-degree roasting (pork fat brittle).

Third, you have to venture into heretofore unknown areas of culinary endeavor such as jellies, foams and airs. My proudest moment in this regard was when my 3mm thick organic apple jello discs, made from apple juice that my husband had pressed and strained earlier in the day, actually came out of the pan. Sadly, the satisfaction of that moment was crushed seconds later, when the discs were laid over mounds of steaming braised oxtail and were instantaneously reduced to the juice whence they came. That I did not weep is testament only to my desire to save face in front of my guests.

And finally, when preparing molecular cuisine, you have to come to terms with the fact that after working in the kitchen for 8-10 hours, washing countless dishes, and leaving a huge carbon footprint from having had the oven on for the duration, what you have produced amounts to about four tablespoons of food.

You also have to figure out what to do with the rest of the hay, for hay - as most farmers will tell you - comes only by the bushel. And so, a few months later, my husband prepared what has come to be known in our house as Hay Ham, aka the best ham that anyone who has eaten it has eaten.

Though the recipe can be found online, it is basically a ham that after a day or so of soaking is simmered for three hours in a pot full of water and hay. On a winter day, with the windows sealed tight, the barnyard smell during the first hour of cooking can be a little hard on the nose, but by hour two, the aroma is decidedly more appetizing. And more importantly, the ham itself, when served with a shallot, mustard and tarragon cream sauce and a few raspberries, is truly beyond delicious.

SAME INGREDIENT - DIFFERENT PREPARATIONS

Though this has long been a staple of snazzy restaurants, and is probably, to frequenters of high-end joints, a little bit passé, 2010 was the first year that I embraced the pleasures of cooking and eating a single food prepared multiple ways at the same time. This technique, in addition to making you feel quite snazzy yourself, is also a good way to make a little food go a longer way, which can really come in handy when trying to make a pleasing dinner for 8-10 people without going broke in the process.

For example, though you may feel a little miserly attempting to feed a dozen people with two pork tenderloins, serving small plates with three delicious little bundles - four is too many, two, not enough - is so delightful that it completely overshadows the fact that there is very little food on the plate. That said, since most of us eat significantly more than our bodies actually need, walking away from a dinner party feeling sated instead of sluggish can actually be quite a treat.

This year, for Christmas eve, I prepared a first course of beets three ways. The key to making dishes like this is creating an array of contrasts: red and yellow, raw and cooked, hard and soft, sour and sweet. If I had my druthers, I would have started with different coloured beets, but as I could only lay my hands on some red ones, I had to make do. There were nine of us for dinner and about six medium-sized beets, which was just about perfect.

First, I peeled them all, and then chopped four of them into largish chunks. Half of the chunks I boiled, and the other half, I roasted in olive oil. Again, if it were not for the fact that the oven was already on, this would have been extremely wasteful in terms of energy - something to keep in mind. So while one-third of the beets were boiling and one-third were roasting, I took the remaining raw beets and grated them. Because they were not as sweet as the ones we enjoy during the summer months, I added a drizzle of maple syrup and a splash of balsamic vinegar. I also added a pinch of sea salt and a few minced chives for colour. Then I put them aside.

When the boiled beets were tender, I submerged them in a cup of apple cider and dropped in a star anise - an idea, I must confess, that I got from Redzepi. When the beets were done roasting and it was time to sit down for dinner. I removed the star anise, pureed the beets and apple cider, and strained them to remove the extra liquid. On each plate, I put a sprig of dill for colour, a spoonful of beet puree, a spoonful of grated beet, a teeny morsel of blue cheese, and three roasted beet chunks. Delightful.

Oh, Polenta...

2010-09-23T20:09:00.008-04:00

Recently, the New York Times Magazine published a piece arguing against the tyranny of the mise-en-place: that process by which any (every) chef of note prepares for the cooking of a dish by carefully slicing and dicing the plethora of ingredients required for its success. Of course, in most restaurant scenarios, the mise-en-place is prepared by a team of underlings who crawl into bed each night with carotene-stained fingers and the smell of onions in their nose hairs.

Like many home chefs with obsessive-compulsive disorder and a tendency to romanticize the labour of men and women in perfectly-ironed sparkling white frocks, I have long desired to attain the perfect mise-en-scene. At my parents' house, where there are dozens of small clear glass dishes, but no interest in such nonsense, I created an elaborate mise-en-place for a 12-person Indian dinner, complete with roasted spice mixtures and separate bowls of garlic and ginger. This was Christmas 2008, and though I remember little about the meal itself, I remember the feeling of accomplishment as I stood in front of my little bowls, picturing myself tossing one ingredient after another into the smoking ghee.

At home, though I endeavor to attain such perfect order, I inevitably fail to meet my own standards for excellence. I blame this on my lack of matching bowls, but in truth, I know that it is simply life that is getting in my way. Last March, when underemployed and entertaining my mom for a few weeks, we turned the preparation of the mise-en-place into something magical. First, we would prepare our daily cocktail. Then, we would sit across from each other with our cutting boards and ingredients and spend the next hour or two chopping and chatting to our hearts' content. This is one of the loveliest ways that I have found to pass the hours between cinq and sept, but now that I am back at work, such luxuries are beyond my reach.

Which returns me to the present. Tonight when I arrived home, having spent the previous hour nursing a headache and a bag of ruffles on the never-ending metro ride home from work, I was reminded of my offer to make dinner. I had come across a recipe for grit pudding with succotash in another issue of the Magazine, and had thought it might be the perfect way to use up some of our over-stocked vegetables: cabbage, peppers, eggplant, tomatoes and squash.

Earlier, I had asked my husband to put some dried mushrooms into soak, and as I took care of a few email-related tasks, he chopped up a handful of shallots and put them in the old cast iron with a little olive oil. When I emerged from the internet cloud, they were nicely carmelizing and a small pile of chopped red pepper was sitting on the cutting board. I threw it into the pan with the dried mushrooms, added a little of the soaking stock, and let it simmer up.

Then, with a nod to the recipe, I set a pot to boiling and dropped in a handful of edamame. Meanwhile, I chopped up some eggplant, garlic and parsley, and my fella halved some yellow cherry tomatoes and grated up some cheese: half Parmesan, half old cheddar. When things were starting to look good in the old ragu, I threw in the eggplant, garlic and parsely, added some more mushroom stock, and let the thing alone for a while longer.

I have Mark Bittman to thank for my ongoing love affair with polenta because he pointed out how easy it is to make when you just stick it on the stove and forget about it. Basically, you take a cup of coarse cornmeal and add a cup of water, stirring it until you have a slurry. Then you put the lid on a let it heat up. When things start looking tacky, you add a little water, and keep doing this until it tastes cooked and you have a consistency that you like. When you get to the point where all is right in the world, you add some butter, salt and the cheese and stir it around.

By that time, the vegetable mixture needed only to be loosened a little with a splash of white wine, a pat of butter, and some salt. I tossed it with a little chili for fire, and the fresh tomatoes, and then let it sit for a minute so the flavours could meld. When you are ready to eat, you spoon some of that cheesy polenta into a bowl, pile some vegetables on top and sprinkle the whole thing with a little extra Parmesan. To me, this is really the perfect meal for an early autumn night. That it came together with such ease I attribute to the good vibes and shared labour in the kitchen, proving once again, that sometimes not being prepared is what can also create something amazingly good.

For the Love of Sweetened Condensed Milk...

2010-09-22T18:11:00.014-04:00

A friend once said something very wise about the difference between baking and cooking: cooking is an art; baking is a science. And I ain't no scientist!

I wholeheartedly concur. It's not that I can't bake, in fact, my recent (dare I say) stunning success in recreating Momofuku's insanely rich and delicious Crack Pie shows that when I put my mind to it - and have a talented and extremely patient co-conspirator sharing the helm - I am actually capable of producing some pretty delectable confections.

For the most part, however, I am really quite a terrible baker, because the specifics of baking - the need to measure, and sift, and put in exactly what the recipe tells you to - runs afoul of my whatever goes culinary philosophy. And of course, my laziness. And so it is that desserts at our house consist primarily of pieces of dark chocolate, dates, and the occasional sliver of candied ginger, artfully arranged on a small plate and consumed with whiskey, brandy - or at least, something vaguely resembling brandy.

As another friend recently said, shattering my delusions: real brandy doesn't come in a plastic bottle.

Now, you might be thinking that this all sounds quite lovely, and indeed, a treat plate, when consumed in conjunction with a comedy nightcap, sends one off to bed in an extremely satisfied state. Still, I long for the aroma of something sweet and bubbly (or crumbly or crisp) coming out of the oven.

When I was a kid there was always dessert: apple pie with cheese, date bars, chocolate chip cookies, Brown Betty. Like most kids, we looked forward to dessert from the moment we got home from school and saw it sitting on top of the stove, cooling. In those days, we would lobby hard to gain recognition for the validity of presserts. And when over and over again we were told that this would never happen, I would comfort myself knowing that when I grew up, I would be making and eating desserts whenever I pleased. Then I grew up.

Sometimes, I become obsessed with the idea of dessert, and rifle through the cabinets between episodes looking for something to whip up. This happened a few nights ago between episodes of Party Down, and brought forth a sigh of despair from my husband, who foresaw an hour of chaos (on my part) and waiting (on his), resulting in the production of something that was likely to be, at best, merely palatable. True, we had no eggs, or flour, or cocoa, and the cane sugar cubes - which I had already tried (and failed) to dissolve in a bowl of banana bread batter - were ill-suited to any task.

And then I saw it: a can of sweetened condensed milk, bought months ago for some dinner party or another, long abandoned and forgotten about and sitting dust-covered at the back of the shelf. I quickly googled desserts, condensed milk, and in a second, was whipping up something good.

Turns out, all you need to do with sweetened condensed milk is add a few spoonfuls to a cup of yoghurt and mix it together. Then you stick it in the fridge, and in an hour or so, you have something resembling pudding. Recently, after watching an episode of Master Chef, I realized that what I am really lacking in the kitchen is flair. So to flair it up, I added about a lemon's worth of zest and some coarsely ground black pepper. Later, when I pulled it out of the fridge, I topped it with some frozen blueberries, some more lemon zest, and a couple of halved ground cherries for decoration. It was, in a word, delicious. And simple. And soon, as there is a still a plethora of the stuff in a container in the fridge, I will embark on a vanilla-pistachio version with a little red chili for kicks.

In Praise of the Japanese Rice Pot...

2010-08-29T20:49:00.025-04:00

In the summer, we often spend weekends at the cottage with friends. In the country, the normal rules do not apply, and so there are innumerable cocktails, a plethora of red meats, and what can only be described as a revolting amount of potato chips. Though not officially in competition, I consider myself the reigning champion of deep-friend starch consumption, devouring at least a family-sized bag or two of Miss Vickie's on each weekend jaunt. Now this is nothing to be proud of, but as the experts say, the first step is acknowledging I have a problem. The second step is to stop eating so many frackin' chips.

During the week, common sense attempts to prevail as we try to right the balance by reverting to a diet consisting primarily of grains and plants. We call these omnivorous delights bowls of health, and we eat them with great relish, for though they might not always taste as good as they look, they make us feel fantastic, like we are really taking care of ourselves.

In the mornings, we eat granola with fruits and nuts and yogurt, and at night, a comparable bowl of brown rice and nuts and greens. But there is so much chopping required, and in the summer, when it is hot, or in the fall, when there is too much marking to do, or in the winter, when all you really want to do is make yourself a toddy and crawl into the tub, chopping can make you almost want to stick a Kraft Dinner Cup into the microwave and call it a day.

So imagine my delight when a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a recipe for a Japanese Rice Pot with five vegetables and a mix of 15 grains that demands almost no prep, uses one single pot, and requires almost no clean-up.

Now, despite my passion for the miraculous potato, I have long considered myself a bit of an aficionado when it comes to grains. But I had no idea that there even were 15 possible grains to choose from. The challenge is how to actually get one's hands on them. Apparently, if the New York Times article is to be believed, the 15-grain mix is called jugokokumai, and can be bought on-line, or presumably found at Japanese grocery stores (though I have yet to go looking for it). The reason is this, you can make a wonderfully nutritious and delicious rice pot with regular old short-grained brown rice, or any version of rice and grains that you want to throw together.

As the name of the recipe makes clear, there are only five main ingredients in addition to the rice: carrots, burdock, seaweed, shiitake and edamame. The water is scented with just a hint of soy, a dash of mirin, and a glance in the direction of the sake bottle. I made it once, though sadly without the burdock, and it was delicious. To be honest, I will probably never make the effort to seek out this missing ingredient, as it grew wild and hideous in my front yard for five years, killing off my more delicate and graceful plants and causing me no end of annoyance as its burrs clung to my clothes and gloves when I tried to do battle with it. Basically, I have a grudge against burdock, and it will take more than a suggestion of its calming powers to add it to this, my newly-beloved dish.

The second time I made it, I got a little bit creative, adding some thinly-sliced cabbage and red pepper, but tonight, I really threw caution to the wind and went for it. Now, what is celebrated in this dish is its meditative properties - as opposed to its strong and vibrant flavours - so my decision to add a little garlic and ginger is probably a little counter-productive in that regard. That said, it brought things to a new level taste-wise, and health-wise, well... enough said.

What you do is this:

Put three cups of water in a pot, and then take 1/4 cup out. Fill that 1/4 cup with a mix of soy sauce, mirin, and some kind of booze, and dump it back into the pot.

Add some dried, sliced shiitake and bring the lot to a boil. While the water is heating up, julienne or slice some carrots and some ginger, and do what you like with a clove of garlic: grate it, slice it, mash it up.

Make sure you have some dried seaweed handy and some frozen edamame, and then stand by.

When the water boils, add 1 and a 1/2 cups of rice and/or grains and return to a boil. Then in an orderly fashion, lay the edamame, seawood and vegetables on the surface of the rice in a circle, put the lid on and turn the heat down to simmer.

Check in from time to time, and when the grains are to your liking and the water is absorbed, give it a stir and fill your bowls.

Again, though this is probably a blasphemous suggestion, I added a little sriracha to the dish tonight because I like a little spice. But regardless of your inclination, the fact remains: it's the quintessential bowl of health.

In Praise of Garlic Scapes...

2010-05-28T21:27:00.012-04:00

In the last two months I have been too busy with moving and teaching and writing my other blog to comment on the plethora of things that have moved, angered or delighted me. If memory was a little better able to serve, and time were in long supply, I would recount them for you in full. Instead, I will focus my attention on the one most deserving of illumination: the garlic scape.

For years, I would pick them up at the market, not knowing what they were or what to do with them. I have always been a curious shopper, prone to whimsy and impulse, buying things because they looked cool or interesting or weird. But as it is with much of the natural world, my passion is sensorial, my interest, skin deep. For when it comes to naming or taming or tending to, I am quite happy to leave that to others.

I would bring my garlic scapes home, wash them and put them on the counter. Some time later, I would chop them finely - thinking them akin to garlic in both name and provenance - and then add them in small quantities to a stir-fry or egg scramble. In the first twenty-four hours, we would eat them once, twice, maybe even three times, consuming approximately twenty to thirty percent of their curly green stalks. Some months later, maybe September or October, I would find them at the back of the vegetable crisper, their once juicy stalks withered and brown. I would toss them into the compost, or as it was at the time, the garbage, and think to myself, next year, I will be better.

This year, however, we had friends up to the cottage and realized that between us, we had two big bundles of scapes to contend with. Let's grill them, said the friend, like asparagus. I laughed and pushed the scapes to their rightful place at the back of the fridge, but she was insistent. She had done it before with great success. Tossed with a little olive oil and sea salt, they lay upon the grill until slightly blackened around the edges, then sat upon our plates in little curly bundles looking especially delicious - which they were. Of the many things to recommend the garlic scape - their relative newness to the palette, their mild and pleasing garlic flavour, their satisfying toothiness - my favorite is the fact that they are best eaten with the hands.

From what I have heard, the scape is simply the stalk of the plant. It soars into the sky, identifying the bulb's location in the ground, and must be cut a few weeks before the bulb is ready to harvest so that the plant energies are not compromised or misdirected. You can tell they are ready to go when they start to loop around, but if you wait too long they become tough and woody, like old asparagus. For this reason, you can only buy scapes for a few weeks in late June and early July, which means that you must eat as many as you can so that you can cherish these fond memories when the summer's warmth fades.

A Life Beyond Gravy...

2010-05-06T19:45:00.020-04:00

Whether it was watching my brother slurp back a seemingly endless supply of Chef Boyardee noodle products as a child, or the plethora of dollar slices I consumed in my teens and twenties, in the last few years, I have almost completely lost my taste for tomato sauce. This, despite the two or three years spent feeding my addiction to The Sopranos and listening to character after character ask that most meaningful of questions: good gravy tonight?

Sure, there have been times when I have been comforted by the silky richness of a classic Bolognese, wowed by the simple goodness of a perfectly-composed marinara, or delighted by the weird and wonderful pasta with tuna and tomato that my husband cooks up about once or twice a month. But for every great dish, there have been dozens, if not hundreds, of absolutely dreadful ones.

When I was a kid, I used to be jealous of my brother, because though my parents made me eat whatever they put on the table, he was allowed to eat whatever he wanted - or so it seemed. To give you an idea of what this was like for me: picture him with a bowl of steaming mini-ravioli, and me with a plate of liver, potato and boiled cabbage. Today, of course, I would quite happily choose the latter meal - although I would never submit a cabbage to such cruel and unusual punishment. But at the time, I thought it incredibly unfair.

In truth, however, my parents were not playing favorites, they were simply trying to keep my brother from starving to death, because he was basically incapable of ingesting any type of real food aside from peanut butter, and subsisted on a diet composed of cheese sandwiches, hot dogs and Chunky soup. That he became a vegetarian in his twenties astounded me, for in the entire time we lived together, I don't remember him eating anything that came out of the ground except for potatoes and frozen peas. I should also say that for the most part, my parents - who today are absolutely fantastic cooks - made substantially more tasty meals than the one mentioned above, but it has long stayed in my mind as the blandest (though admittedly cost-effective) meal of my youth.

Though it pains me to remember this and to make it public, there were times when I found myself alone in the house, and seeking to balance the scales, would sneak a can of ravioli from the cupboard. Because I was fearful that my folks would come home and catch me, I would skip the heating it up part, and simply eat it cold from the can while standing guard at the living room window. Later, as an adult, I discovered that a colleague had a few cans stashed in his drawer for those days when he was unable to pack a proper lunch. Knowing that they were there stirred up that old longing in me, and one day I gave in. It was as disgusting and delicious as you might expect.

In my early twenties - as it was for many people in their twenties in the days before celebrity chefs and the internet turned everyone into a foodie - I thought myself quite the cook, though my repertoire was limited to: burritos with refried beans, vegetable curry, lentil soup and spaghetti with copious amounts of dried basil. Having embraced foodism at a relatively young age, I was keen to flex my culinary muscles, but the results were often inedible, and there were often tears. This meant that dinner at my house was often spaghetti. And when I went to dinner parties, there was often spaghetti. And when I went home, my mom would make one of my brother's favorite meals: spaghetti. You get the picture.

Some of us used canned tomatoes, which were less glutinous and salty-sweet than the pre-made sauces, but were also watery and didn't stick to the noodles. Others used tomato paste which to this day is something I have never been able to understand. Many used store-bought sauces - some from Chef Boyardee, no doubt - that did stick to the noodles, but made them feel and taste like plastic. There were also a few fellas over the years whose specialty was taking a pot of spaghetti, which was already only marginally palatable, and adding enough powdered cheese and milk to make it taste exactly like canned spaghetti. For some reason, they thought this was AWESOME, and with their abundant enthusiasm and enough red wine, I was generally able to get it down.

Later, I would go out to Italian restaurants - and tempted by those scenes when Tony would dig into a heaping bowl of noodles and gravy and shove them hungrily into his mouth - would order a simple pasta with tomato sauce, but time and again I have been disappointed.

Sometimes, when I couldn't take it anymore, I would make what I thought was the only option to tomato sauce: Alfredo. But that is all I am prepared to say about that. Who knew that pizza would be my gateway drug to an entirely new way of eating pasta?

In the 80s and 90s, pizza in Calgary was pretty bad, but as the decade progressed and the Californication of all things food started to make its way north, I laid eyes on that most beautiful of food objects: the sauce-less pizza. Hallelujah, I cried. For there before me was nothing more than crust, and pesto, and pears and pine nuts and Gorgonzola - which to this day remains my very favorite pizza-like (for I know there are those for whom calling this pizza is a sacrilege) combination. And I thought to myself, hmmm... who needs tomato sauce? And then I surmised, if one can reject the deeply ingrained notion of tomato sauce on pizza, perhaps there are new entirely unexplored tomato sauce-less avenues to be ventured down...

Which brings me to tonight, and what I dare say was an absolutely delightful sauce-less pasta. I call it Pasta, With Things from the Fridge. And what I did was this:

Boil some pasta.

Get some things from the fridge and saute them in a large pan: onion, zucchini and mushrooms from last night that were grilled and tossed with orange juice and garlic, walnuts, kale that I dipped in the boiling water until it turned bright green, fresh mint and garlic, some Parmesan and some feta, some halved cherry tomatoes.

Stir it all together. A little olive oil and some fleur de sel...

AWESOME.

In Defense of Parsley: A Love Letter...

2010-04-19T20:57:00.002-04:00

When I was a teenager and had a part-time job setting up the salad bar in the Foothills Hospital cafeteria in Calgary, I became very familiar with parsley. Sure, I had seen parsley before, sitting alongside a pile of fish and chips, or nestled between the two triangular halves of a grilled cheese sandwich, but at the hospital, parsley held a place of pride. Don't get me wrong - nobody ate it, at least as far as I'm aware, but it did serve a special function, for when the nooks and crannies that formed around the salad bar's ceramic tubs were too small for us to shove a piece of decorative kale into, we turned to parsley. We were taught to be thrifty at the hospital, and so at the end of the day, when we washed up the plastic tongs and ladles, and put the cherry tomatoes and bacon bits back into the fridge, we would pick through the parsley and kale, wash off the drops of salad dressing, and put it back in the fridge for another day.

Good old parsley. Now, if you haven't been able to get an image fixed in your mind, I'm talking about old-skool parsley here, the bright green curly-leafed variety which is known in the halls outside the science lab as petroselinum crispum. Used primarily as a garnish - though it has been known to perk up a boiled potato or two, and had a bit of a heyday, at least in my grandma's pantry, as a dried herb - it only really made its leap from plate to mouth when its Italian flat-leafed cousin showed up in the mid-eighties. In my house, the eighties were all about romaine lettuce, pasta - as opposed to that boxed Kraft spaghetti that was part of our family's bold venture into international cuisine - and ratatouille, all of which were given a little haute-cuisine kick by the inclusion of fresh parsley. We mixed it with butter and poured it over our escargot, and for awhile, everything made sense. But then cilantro came along and blew our minds.

Shortly thereafter, parsley was shown the door.

So imagine my surprise, and dare I say, horror, when I turned up for dinner at the apartment of the dashing 20-something bachelor who would one day be my husband, and discovered that parsley was not just on the menu, but a key component in his signature dish: pasta with butter and parsley. Luckily, I had already been won over by this handsome fella who had charmed me on our first date with a package of Walkers shortbread, and later with a plate of babaganooj and pita, the latter of which he had lovingly cut into bit-sized triangles. And so I ate the pasta with parsley, and declared it delicious, though I cannot say for sure whether this was in fact true, or if I was merely being kind, so smitten was I with the gesture of a home-cooked meal, not to mention the boy in the apron.

When you think about it, parsley has had a pretty rough ride considering its manifold health benefits. For instance, did you know that parsley is actually a relative of celery? Celery! Known in particular for its so-called "volatile" oils - such as limonene, myristicin, and eugenol - parsley is full of all kinds of things that are super good for you, even if you have never heard of them or have no idea what they actually do. It also has lots of things that you have heard about like vitamin A, which helps keep your eyes focused and clear, and vitamin C, which keeps you from getting scurvy. Laden with anti-oxidants, free radicals run for cover when it hits the stage, fearing the power of its anti-carcinogen force-field. In fact, like its stalkier kin, parsley has so many physiological benefits, it would be a shame not to take advantage of them.

I have also discovered a new triumvirate of herbal goodness that takes parsley to new heights. Basically, you take your old parsley and mince it up. Then, you add a little fresh mint and fresh cilantro, and put it into or onto pretty much anything you want. Last weekend, I stuffed a few sliced lemons, some salt, and a big bundle of this fragrant mix into a fresh Dorade Grise. There was so much of it, that it almost doubled as a side dish, and went perfectly with the fish. The next day, I did the same thing with a pot full of polenta and some parmesan cheese - perfection. So the next time you walk past that parsley, barely giving it a moment of your attention, do yourself a favour, and give old parsley another try. You won't regret it.

Day of Indulgence...

2010-04-06T16:59:00.010-04:00

In order to understand the magnitude of what I am about to tell you, you have to know a little bit about what I consume in a normal day. For breakfast, some tea, maybe some toast and an apple. For lunch, some leftovers, or if I find myself unprepared and at work, a cookie. For dinner, a normal-sized, fairly healthy meal consisting of some protein, some greens, some vegetables, and some grains. A cocktail. And maybe a glass of wine. But this last Sunday, as is so often the case when visiting my in-laws - whom I love dearly despite the fact that I often have food nightmares when spending time with them, so plentiful is their table - I partook in yet another day of extreme holiday indulgence.

And so it was that I was wide awake most of Sunday night, too tired to get up and go for a walk - which would have eventually slowed my racing heart - and too anxiety-ridden (see, racing heart) to be able to fall asleep.

It all started, as it often does, with breakfast. Though it was here that I made my only show of restraint, forgoing a double espresso - knowing that it would only increase said racing heart - and instead, sticking to a relatively easy going cup of Earl Grey tea. In retrospect, breakfast was not particularly excessive, but this was only due to the fact that we had a luncheon scheduled for just after noon. We had toast with cheese and jam, and then spent an hour or so strolling along the Rideau canal - this being Ottawa on a surprisingly warm April day.

I knew I was in for some trouble when our lunch hosts, seniors both, offered to start us off with a stiff Bloody Mary. With the exception of a particularly exuberant night in New Orleans in 2009, I have managed to stay this side of a hang-over for much, if not all, of the last decade. There have been a few times when I have come close to waking up with the tell-tale headache and craving for onion rings, and strangely enough, most of them have occurred after nights of what seemed like fairly innocent imbibing with folks over 60. From what I have observed, most of the baby boomers that I know, retired or otherwise, like to get their party on from time to time, and with their seemingly bottomless liquor cabinets and high-quality quaffs, it is pretty hard not to join in on the fun.

By the time we sat down to lunch, I was warm and relaxed. Lunch was simple, and not meant to be excessive despite its four courses. We started with some classic deviled eggs whose yolks had been mixed with just a little curry powder and mayonnaise. And I have to say, these might be the perfect accompaniment to the Bloody Mary. The cold orange-juice infused borscht was accompanied by white wine, as was the main course of pickled asparagus, smoked salmon, and baked ham with Dijon. Our gracious host made sure to keep our wine glasses full, and by the time we finished our desserts - gingerbread with blackberries and an impeccable home-made lemon sorbet - I had lost track of how many ounces had been consumed. Not surprisingly, the afternoon was spent napping and since it continued to be lovely, a second walk whose latent function was to ready the body for the next meal. For it was Easter, and one can't really celebrate Easter without consuming a leg of lamb.

If my mother-in-law weren't such an amazing cook, it would be easier to resist temptation, but alas, this is not the case. But first, there were cocktails.

When it comes to cocktails, my latest obsession is a martini of sorts made from vodka, fresh ginger, fresh lemon and maple syrup. It's that easy, really. You just squeeze some lemon, grate some ginger, pour in some vodka and a hint of maple syrup, and then strain it into a glass. If you want to get fancy, you add a lemon twist, and it is often nice to soften the blow with an ice cube or two. It might be the perfect drink because in terms of calories, it's not that far from the skinny bitch - vodka and soda - and contains not one but two very healthy ingredients: lemon and ginger.

So cocktails were drunk. And then came the lamb. Though this will come as little surprise to fans of the controversial fish, pretty much everything tastes better with a little anchovy added to the mix. The lamb was simply roasted, but it was rubbed and stuffed with enough garlic, rosemary and anchovy paste to imbue the entire thing with an amazing savoriness. The green beans were fairly benign, but the scalloped potatoes with cheese and cream were both hard to resist and hard to defend - especially the second helping.

Luckily, the meal came to a close with only a few ginger chocolates and some fresh fruit, and though I was trying desperately to talk myself into just saying no, I could not quite bring myself to do so when the single-malt, a much-longed-for but rarely-in-the-budget treat, presented itself at my side. That we only eat and drink like this on those relatively rare occasions when we are all together as a family means that our bodies have plenty of time to recover between visits, which is a good thing - as a gal can only handle so many sleepless nights.

In Defense of Celery...

2010-03-04T17:21:00.014-05:00

There was a time in the not too distant past when I felt quite differently about celery. In fact, my dislike of its flavour and scent - which is virtually impossible to get off of one's hands - was so intense that even its extreme crunch-ability could not win me over. I'm sure that this was due in part to my constant dieting as a teenager.

When I was a kid, I was really into dancing. I took jazz, tap, ballet, and gymnastics, and as a member of the Young Canadians of the Calgary Stampede (a group best understood if one says the name with a Phil Hartman-esque voice) - did stints as a rider of unicycles, a walker on giant balls, and a twirler of guns and flags. And it was while a member of this illustrious troupe of young heavily made-up and sequined entertainers that I heard the words that would have a major impact on the next 20-odd years of my life: lovely dancer, should lose weight. It gets worse.

When they decided that they needed to employ a regimen of sorts to keep us fitting into our green sequined bell-bottoms and bikini tops - a task made more difficult by the fact that I had absolutely no boobs, and could barely keep the bikini facing the right direction and covering what it was supposed to cover - put us all on a diet, with weekly weigh-ins to monitor our progress. I was told to lose 2 pounds.

Even now I cannot fathom the lunacy of telling an eleven year-old girl who has not yet had her growth spurt to lose 2 pounds, but this is what I was told. And so for the next year or so, until someone likely told their parents who talked some sense into the troupe director, my Tuesday diet consisted of grapefruit and celery, and sure enough, by the time I got on that scale at 7:30 at night, those 2 pounds were gone.

But I am getting a bit off track here. For this is to be a post in defense of celery, my most-despised vegetable - until all of a sudden, it wasn't.

It is entirely possible that I did not knowingly consume celery for 20 or more years, but one day, when trying my hand at making the mushroom stew that a friend had brought over for our Umbrian meal, I fell in love with celery. My love is now so deep that I actually enjoy the smell of celery lingering in the air, and its slightly salty watery crunchiness satisfies the most insistent of cravings. But what most endured this humble vegetable to me was my discovery of just how important it is to the complex production of flavour.

First, finely-chopped celery is one of the main components - when sauteed in butter with diced carrots and onions - in Mirepoix, the essential aromatic element in much French cooking, particularly the manifold stews, soups and sauces for which the cuisine is known. Replace the carrots with green pepper and you have the holy trinity in New Orleans cookery. Add a little garlic and parsely to the Mirepoix and you have soffrito, the slow-cooked or sweated vegetables which provide the basis for many Italian and Spanish dishes.

Celery is also extremely good for you. Sure, we have long known that one expends more calories chewing it than actually exist in the food itself, making it the dieter's dream food in terms of being able to continuously shove food into your mouth without gaining weight. But in terms of nutrients, I always thought it a pretty non-essential food. I was wrong. Recently, when assisting a friend in some research on gout and its treatments, I discovered that celery and its juices go a long way to combat the inflammation caused by that condition. It is also full of vitamins, contains many anti-cancer agents, cools the body, aids constipation, and calms the nerves. In fact, there is little that celery cannot do.

Upon making these discoveries, I began to develop my own version of Mirepoix. Here, the onion and celery were guaranteed, and the remaining ingredients were simply those that were hanging around in the fridge. Once the flood gates were opened, all sorts of celery-related ideas began to spring up. There was a stir-fry of celery and carrot with peanuts and Sichuan peppercorns, some braised celery with vegetable stock, olive oil and parmesan, and the sudden realization that celery is the perfect addition to all manner of slaws and raw vegetable concoctions.

Then, a few days ago I heard my husband crunching something in the other room, and knowing that there were no crackers or chips in the house, I ventured over to see what was going on. Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch... and there he sat, happy as a clam with a plate full of celery and peanut butter. Snack perfection.

And now all that remains for the ultimate nostalgia trip is a quick jaunt to the depanneur and the procurement of some Cheez Whiz. Having recently broken my decades-long boycott of processed cheese when faced with a platter of my friend Michael's most awesome Superbowl nachos, this might not be as much of a leap as previously thought.

Affectionate Food-Based Collaboration..

2010-03-02T13:03:00.014-05:00

For people who love people, and also love to cook, there are few greater pleasures than collaborating with friends and family on a meal (or other food-related activity). For example, I recently had the pleasure of attending a co-educational pie-in-a-jar making party which involved the eating of tacos and the production of some pretty fantastic little pies that were prepared and baked into small canning jars. For fans of pie, especially those without multiple mouths to feed, it's a brilliant idea, because one can make the pie, put a lid on it, and put it in the freezer. When the yearning for pastry and fruit becomes too strong to bear, you simply remove the jar from the freezer, place it in a cold oven, and turn it on. Twenty minutes later... you've got yourself a pie.

This past weekend we hosted another non-competitive potluck showdown, or if you will, an affectionate food-based collaboration. But this time, it had a Caribbean theme, and was motivated by the desire to celebrate a couple of friends' birthdays and bid farewell to the year's most dire month: February. Though I had planned to spend the hours leading up to the dinner in the solitary preparation of my contributions, some friends decided to come early, armed with their own raw ingredients. The drinks - an unnamed rum-based concoction with ginger-infused simple syrup, fresh lime and mint - began to flow, and the lively conversation that ensued made the production of multiple patties and roti skins much less tedious.

If your ideal social encounter involves sitting and talking - with a little imbibing thrown in for good measure - then you might think me a bit crazy, but there is something quite wonderful about the conversation that ensues when one is otherwise engaged, especially if that engagement involves some sort of physical activity or labour. When you are busy with an activity, your mind becomes free to wander, the imagination is let loose and all sorts of new revelations can be had.

When I was in my early 20s, I paid for my education by working in the kitchen of a hospital. It was a union job with lots of overtime and shift differentials, so the pay was awesome, but I also grew to love my hours on the conveyor belt, scooping lumps of mashed potatoes onto trays with my left hand, a pitcher of gravy standing ready in my right. Sure, there were the multiple times that the pitcher handle got stuck on the lip of my pocket, causing me to accidentally pour hot gravy all over myself, but for the most part, those hours were spent engaged in that free flow of conversation described above. And since my colleague across the belt was as much as master of soup as I was of starch, we were able to cover many topics of interest while still continuing to get the food into the little plastic bowls. Sometimes I miss that job, because not only did I not bring my work home with me - except for the bits of food that inevitably ended up in my hair - it was also a place where one could go inward, allowing the click click of the conveyor belt and repetitive task to lull one into a meditative state, recharging the brain for later use. But I digress...

The Caribbean feast was a celebration of starchy deliciousness, with the emphasis on starchy. Though I enjoyed each and every mouthful of food for the complexity of flavours it imparted, I was so full that I even passed on breakfast the next morning.

We started with the aforementioned patties, which were actually super easy to make, though the recipe I found on the internet, on a site I can no longer remember, drastically underestimated the amount of flour required to make a workable dough. The recipe was as follows:

- 2 cups of flour
- 1 tablespoon turmeric for colour
- pinch salt
- 1 cup of lard or shortening
- 1 cup of water

The first step was to mix the dry ingredients and add the lard, using your fingers to break it down into small crumbs. I did this, and all was well.

The second step was to add the water and form it into a dough, but the water turned the whole thing into a soupy mess, and I had to add two more cups of flour before I had anything workable in front of me. From there, things get easy. You turn it out onto the counter and knead it a bit, until it becomes elastic and firm. Then you put it aside while you prepare the filling.

Though I mostly made up the filling myself, I found a recipe online that clued me into the key ingredient: wet bread. Yes, you take some white bread, add an equal amount of water, and blend it up. Then you mix it with some sauteed onions and jalapenos, and in this case, some canned peas and carrots - which I procured from the Metro store down the street, after spending a good ten minutes assisting a group of seniors who wanted desperately to cash in on the store's shockingly good price, but could not reach the desired cans as the store's employees had rather thoughtlessly stacked them on the top shelf.

Once the filling is ready to go, you cut the dough into pieces, roll each piece into a little circle, drop on some filling and fold the thing over into little half-moon pies. Brush them with water or milk or cream, and bake them for about 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven. Delightful.

The rest of the meal was perfection embodied in meat and starch: a long-cooked stew of bacon, veal and lamb with dumplings, the easiest jerk pork ever from Mark Bittman - who has regained his status as my favorite online recipe ideas man, hand-rolled roti with roasted potato, squash and chickpea curry, shrimp curry, and coleslaw. There was Red Stripe aplenty and some delicious mixed-fruit cupcakes with burnt sugar icing and ginger ice cream. Yum.

As a footnote: there were many many leftovers. The potato, squash and chickpea curry was turned into an amazingly spicy soup, and the jerk pork made an excellent filling for Mark Bittman's equally easy and fantastic arepas.

Platonic Dating: Practical Solutions... (or How to Make Bread)

2010-03-01T17:26:00.018-05:00

A few weeks ago, I wrote a theoretical proposition on the subject of platonic dating. For the most part, this proposal was well-received, however there were a few dissenting (or at least, confused) voices that made themselves known. And so, before moving onto some practical solutions to the platonic dating conundrum, I should like to clarify a few points.

To start, it is important to emphasize that the key word in my conception of platonic dating is dating - that is to say, the act of going out with someone for the explicit purpose of getting to know them better. It must not be confused with platonic friendship, for the word friendship describes a pre-existing state, a state of being: we are friends.

In contrast, dating can be understood as a process of becoming. My desire or goal on a platonic date is to become friends with someone of the opposite sex, to develop an intimacy or closeness with this person, to become allies or confidantes, to dig beneath the surface. For the sake of clarity, and because I have an easy rapport with many of them, I refer to many of my friends' husbands and partners as friends. But are we really friends? We are friendly, to be sure. But have these relationships really evolved beyond a state of fond acquaintanceship?

Thus the need for one-on-one platonic dating... a time to test the waters, to build a foundation, and create a space where bonding of a more meaningful and intimate nature can begin. But this, as I mentioned before, can be awkward - just think about how awful a non-platonic date can be, sitting across the table from someone you don't know very well and trying to think of something to say. Now, it is entirely likely that what I am actually doing here is exposing my own social phobias about awkward dates, and yet surely, I cannot be alone on this. My solution? To base the platonic date, at least initially, on a specific fixed-duration task or activity that requires your focused attention, but still allows for an easy flow of conversation.

Sociologists differentiate between the manifest (or intentional) and latent (unintentional) functions of activities and endeavors. We go to school to learn, and to get an education, but school is also where we make friends, develop a sense of self, clarify our values, and acquire appropriate behaviours. Here, the manifest function may be to see an art show, teach someone how to knit, or get the garden weeded, while the latent functions are many: companionship, a sense of shared accomplishment, developing a sense of someone's strengths and weaknesses, their talents and insecurities, and creating a bond.

I had what I would define as my first conscious platonic date a few weeks ago, and though many of these latent functions were achieved, our manifest function was to teach me how to bake bread.

As the socially-maladjusted person that I seem to be, I must confess to being a bit nervous about this one-on-one encounter, especially since it was going to take us about six hours to complete the task, three of which would be spent waiting for the dough to rise. Now, I cannot speak for the other participant, but I suspect that he was feeling some of my apprehension, as he called me in advance to confirm some possible viewing options to fill those emptier hours. Though it is only in retrospect that I can see this clearly, I did cram for the date by preparing a mental list of common interests: crime fiction and British comedy, WFMU and its various hosts, cooking and the men who write about it: Bittman, Steingarten, Pollan, et al. And armed with my sponge (see below), my knitting - in case some private time was deemed necessary - and my barrage of possible conversation topics, I set out for our adventure.

The aforementioned sponge - a mixture of yeast, flour and something sweet that you beat together and let sit for an hour or so - is really the key to this incredible bread, which is based on the techniques and philosophies laid out in the The Tassajara Bread Book (1971). Like many hippie cookbooks from that era, the Tassajara philosophy, with its focus on whole grains and sustainable living rings true today. Produced in collaboration with the Zen Centre from which it takes its name, it is also a very nurturing tome, encouraging the reader (and baker) to "make deepest love all the time, concentrating not on the food, but on yourself: making your best effort to allow things to fulfill their functions." Now, you might find this a little too touchy-feely for your tastes, but I gotta tell you, there is something lovely about a cookbook that gives you the freedom to be yourself, and know that there are no mistakes. And if you can have somebody help you the first time around so you don't question yourself so much, you start to understand why some people find baking bread to be a meditative experience.

THE SPONGE

As I stated above, you start with the sponge because it allows the yeast to start growing and means less kneading later on. We went with 4 cups of water - 1 boiling and 3 from the tap so that the resulting water was lukewarm. Then I added one packet of yeast and 1/2 cup of molasses. You stir it up and make sure that it is doing something... bubbling or breaking down or foaming. After a few minutes, you whisk it up and start adding the flour. I added 5 cups of white flour and 1 of whole wheat, knowing that for this first time around, white flour makes for a lighter bread. You end up with a mud-like consistency that you whip for about two minutes (or as the book says, about 100 times) and then cover with saran wrap.

THE DOUGH

After about 60-90 minutes, you start to fold in the other ingredients. Here, the most important thing is to not break the strings that have formed. Instead, you fold in the ingredients, turning the bowl about 90 degrees on each turn, always moving in the same direction. First, we added a big pinch of salt and covered the top of the bowl with a big glug of olive oil - a little more than you might think was appropriate. Then we started to add the flour: some more white, some whole wheat, some spelt, and some whole oats for texture. And for the next chunk of time, until the dough started to naturally form a ball and pull away from the sides of the bowl, we turned and folded, turned and folded. I think we added about 5-6 more cups of flour, but I like the idea that we were not counting. We just watched the dough and waited for it to look like it was ready to stand on its own.

Once you get to this stage, you can turn the dough onto a floured surface and begin to knead it, picking up the back of the dough, pulling it toward you and folding it down, and then pushing it back. Turn it on a 45 degree angle and repeat. Turn and repeat. Or as the book says: turn, fold, push. You want to get a rhythm going so that your movements become zen.

The whole time you are doing this, you are incorporating both the crumbs from the board and your hands, and as much flour as you need, because you want it to stop being sticky. When you are done, and it is smooth and elastic in tone, place it into a well-oiled bowl and then turn it over so that the seam of the ball is down. Cover it with saran wrap and make yourself some lunch.

THE BREAD

After it has been rising for about an hour, and looks about twice as big as it was, punch it down to get all the air out of it. You don't want to literally punch it. Instead, firmly push your fist repeatedly into its surface so that all the air comes out. Then cover it again, and let is sit for about another hour.

When you are ready to finally bake the bread, preheat the oven to about 350 degrees. A handy tip that I learned on my date is to put an empty cast iron frying pan into the oven. Because it holds the heat so well, you can open the door without so much of the heat escaping.

Take your dough and cut it into three pieces. Then, one at a time, engage in a process of kneading and turning so that each piece becomes a nice round ball. Do them one at a time, and then leave them while you move onto the next one. When all three are done, form them into logs and place them with the seam side down on an oiled cookie sheet. Let them rise about 20 more minutes while the oven is heating up.

When they are just about to go into the oven, cut a deep slit into each one so that steam can get out and brush the whole thing with quite a bit of water. Bake for about 50-70 minutes. You will know when they are done if they are nice and brown looking and if they sound hollow when you tap their bottoms. To add to the cooking magic, you can add some water to that heated cast iron pan you've got in there, but be careful when you do it, as you don't want to burn yourself or spill water on the electrical elements.

Another handy trick I learned is that you must resist eating the bread before it is ready. If you can possibly control yourself, do not cut it for AT LEAST an hour, if not longer. Store in a plastic bag or freeze for future use. It thaws easily and makes a lovely toast.

Once again, though I cannot speak for my co-participant, I would have to declare the date a success - and not just because I came home with three loaves of amazing bread. In truth, what one can sometimes discover on a platonic date is that there actually is more in place than just a friendly acquaintanceship, and that all the friendship needs to flourish is a little nurturing.

Le Club Chasse & Pêche...

2010-02-20T10:18:00.021-05:00

For a variety of reasons, this past weekend was one of many indulgences. Years ago, when we lived in Toronto, held higher paying film-industry jobs, and didn't worry about what we put into our bodies, we spent many a night out on the town, eating and drinking to our heart's content. When we moved to Montreal, we embraced the starving artist approach to dining out, which in truth is simply dining in, but at somebody else's house. And all it costs you is a bottle of wine, and a reciprocal dinner some time down the road: a pretty sweet deal. But every once in awhile a miraculous confluence of special events, out-of-town guests, and surprise pay cheques creates an opportunity to go out and dig the culinary scene, which in a city like Montreal is full of some pretty spectacular players.

Things started out on Friday night with a late Valentine's Day dinner at Le Club Chasse & Pêche. According to the website, the restaurant - whose English name translates as The Hunting and Fishing Club - has been around since the 1950's, though it was only a few years ago that it made a resurgence on the culinary scene. It's a funny little hole-in-the-wall on a small side street leading down to the Old Port. The decor is somewhere between Dwell and dungeon-chic, with cheeky faux brick and wood, the kind of glassware that you might have found at a suburban key party in 1976, and some of the worst picture frames I have ever laid eyes on. In the end, however, none of this matters, because in addition to being an extremely comfortable and down-to-earth place to spend a few hours, the food is exceptionally good.

The wait staff was also good enough to treat us like human beings, even when we ordered our wine by the glass and decided to share a main course.

We started with aperitifs - an Evan Williams bourbon for him, a glass of Muscadet, name unknown, for me - and six oysters on the half-shell. They were amazing - especially the one that was covered with a miniature dice of potatoes, leeks, chorizo and aged-cheddar and then broiled before being brought to the table. Incredible. Though I am no oyster expert, they were by far the freshest oysters I have ever eaten. For the main course, we ordered a couple of glasses of something red, and three plates: a vegetable dish, an entree of barbary duck, and a plate of piglet risotto with foie gras and a curlicue of pork rind - yikes.

For a restaurant that specializes in meat and fish, they really know their way around the garden. Like everything we ate, the presentation of the vegetables was very of the moment without being pretentious: there was a sort of scalloped potato cake with potato chips, a creamy green pea mush with lardons, a saute of shiitake and bok-choy, and a green salad with pears, pecans and blue cheese. The barbary duck was - to steal a descriptor from the Mirror's Mark Slutsky - "beyond delicious"... perfectly cooked and served with a chestnut puree, a giant gizard ravioli, and some candied chestnuts for good measure. But the star of the show - my apologies to any vegetarian readers - was the risotto. It's hard not to fall into cliché when describing this dish for it really was slow-cooked to perfection. The risotto was toothy to a T, and the large smattering of fois gras melting over top provided an extremely satisfying resolution.

We finished the evening off with a couple of glasses of Calvados and a roasted medjool date and coconut cake and ice cream concoction that was - need I say it? - delicious. Sated and happy, we strolled up to Cinema du Parc to see Martin Scorese's new film, Shutter Island - which starts as a gorgeous pastiche of film noir and classic Hollywood cinema, and ends as something which is, well... pretty good. Wish I could say more, but: Leo still looks too much like a little boy to be convincing in this type of role; for a member of the "Lost" generation, the film was one twist short of two-thumbs up; and to quote a fella overheard on the escalator afterward, "someone needs to tell Scorsese that his films are all 30 minutes too long."

A Miso Soup Revelation...

2010-01-26T15:27:00.012-05:00

Reminding myself that not all blog posts have to be long-laboured-over 1,000 word essays, I offer this short(er) meditation instead. For as I sit and write, a pot of what will soon become miso soup is simmering on the stove, and I will have to put down the computer so that I may consume it with gusto.

Because this is the second time I am preparing said soup according to this new method, I realize that it is likely to disappoint, as sophomore efforts often do. But last night, in its first incarnation, it was so silky and salty and smooth that only words starting with S could fully do it justice. It soothed. It satisfied. It sated. In fact, it did all the things that a good miso soup - that most healing of foods - should do. They key was the kombu.

Yesterday afternoon, knowing that I was to bring miso soup to a dinner party and not wanting it to be lame, I decided to move beyond my uninspired and unsuccessful method of simply stirring miso into hot water, adding some tofu, and then complaining about how it doesn't taste very good. Turning to the trusty internet, I did a little research and discovered that there was a key ingredient that I was leaving out: the kombu (or Laminaria digitata). According to the website for kombu harvesters Ironbound Island Seaweed, this king of seaweed has a "monumental ability to cling to the rocks [upon which it grows] as the full force of the ocean flows through [its] fingers" and so you can only harvest it when the tides are out, because it puts up a bit of a fight.

But what does this kombu do? Well, in addition to bringing dozens of vitamins and minerals to the table, it imparts the soup (or grains or beans) with umami, or savoriness. The concept of umami is a rather fascinating one, and if you have a hankering to know more about it, might I recommend a fantastic essay on Culinary Propaganda. But back to the kombu...

In addition to the above-described contributions, it also has a lovely toothiness that provides some much-needed structure to what is otherwise a bowl full of soft things (tofu, garlic chives) and broth. Lastly - though there may be qualities I have yet to discover in its briny cells - it provides a solid foundation to the soup, allowing you to simmer the broth until it mellows and deepens before adding the miso, a step that makes it akin to other types of soup, and makes it taste significantly better than my aforementioned miso-flavoured water version.

So here's how it goes (and I must confess, it was old Ironbound Island Seaweed who provided the blueprint):

For 6 people, throw about 4 cups of water into a pot with 2 strips of kombu, and if you have them, some dried shiitake mushrooms. Bring this to a boil and then simmer for about 30-45 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it cool a bit so you can pull out the kombu and mushrooms and cut them into bite-sized pieces. Return them to the pot.

Do this at some point during the day if possible. Let it sit.

Later, when you want to eat, return the pot to the heat and bring to a boil. I added a bit more water because it did not look like enough. Lower the heat to simmer and add things that you like: sliced fresh mushrooms, scallions or garlic chives, thinly sliced carrots, whatever. Simmer until they are ready to eat.

At the last minute, throw some soft tofu into the pot so it has time to heat through. Then, grab a mug and scoop out some stock. Stir one teaspoon of miso per person into the mug until you have a thick paste. Before adding the miso to the pot, turn off the heat - this is a very important step because miso is a living food and must never go near the boiling point or it will die.

Finally, pour the miso back into the pot and stir it around.

To fully take advantage of its healing properties, enjoy in the company of excellent people.

Potluck Showdown...

2010-01-03T17:10:00.005-05:00

When you live in a tiny house and have the compulsion to invite large groups of people over for dinner, what you are going to serve is often the least of your worries. First, you need to decide what to do with the parkas and gigantic boots - this being winter, and this being Montreal. Then, you have to figure out where everyone is going to stand, and eventually sit, and how you are to navigate this crowd as you move from stove to fridge to sink to table.

Not only is our house on the small side, it is also pretty unusual. In fact, we live in that house, as in: I wonder who lives in that house? I had always dreamed of living in a weird house. When I was a kid, there was house a few streets down from ours that looked exactly like a giant golf ball. I thought it was totally awesome and fantasized about the exotic lives of the family who inhabited it. For some reason, I imagined that they all slept on chaise lounges and drank their beverages from martini glasses. Basically, I thought they were the Jetsons, and to paraphrase Liz Lemon, I wanted to go to there.

Though our house is about as far from futuristic as you can get, it remains one of those houses that stands out because it is completely unlike anything else in the neighborhood. First-time visitors often fear they have somehow missed it, because you can't see it unless you are standing directly in front of it. Ours is a typical Montreal street lined with three-story row houses and no front yards to speak of. We live in a two-story farmhouse-ish cottage set back on the lot with an abundance of front yard inhabited by a dozen or so local cats (bullyied into submission by the king of cats, a thuggish stray we christened Tony Soprano). In the summer, it's a veritable jungle. In the winter, a snowy wonderland. As the the locals say, c'est la campagne en plein ville: the country in the city.

The house itself has what our real estate agent described as beaucoup de cachet, which is loosely translatable as old skool style. It has a kitchen Quebecoise, which basically means that the whole main floor (all 500 square feet of it) is kitchen. I fell in love with this house the minute I walked into it, and though most kitchens are warm and welcoming places to congregate, the addition of a gas fireplace gives this one a little something special. The house itself - though rife with the kinds of problems that houses built in the 1890s are likely to have - is also a bit magical, but that is a story for another time. What matters here is that to maintain your sanity while making dinner for a dozen people, all of whom have settled themselves into various groups around said kitchen, you have to be extremely creative and strategic.

Which brings me to the potluck showdown...

A couple of nights ago, for our night before New Year's Eve celebration, we invited a few friends over for a Chinese potluck dinner. Since Chinese food is best eaten at the very moment it is declared done, we tried something new, having our guests approach the stove in pairs, participating in a sort of potluck showdown while the rest of us sipped cocktails and enjoyed the performance.

First up on the left burner was Michelle, pastry-chef extraordinaire and one half of the team behind the fantastic An Endless Banquet (AEB). On the right burner, me. She had prepared a tray of homemade pork dumplings which she dropped into boiling water for exactly 8 minutes and served with a spicy sauce flavoured with black vinegar and soy. They were true perfection. I paid homage to the once-great but now-in-decline Montreal restaurant, Niukee, with a wok full of hot and sour potatoes. They were pretty damn good, though I need to summon more courage when adding the Szechuan (or Sichuan) peppercorns, as there is a direct link between the number of peppercorns added and the degree to which the simple act of eating dinner becomes a transcendent experience.

According to my favorite husband and wife cookbook writing team, the Duguid-Alfords, whose books - Mango and Curry Leaves and Beyond the Great Wall, to name just two - make essential kitchen companions, Szechuan peppercorns are actually the berries of a tree known as the prickly ash. In response to their astonishing tongue-numbing qualities, I have taken to calling these delightful red pods anaesthetic berries, and though an acquired taste, they can be used in all manner of dishes. When Niukee was at its peak, it was one of the giddiest, most mind-blowing dining experiences in town due in large part to the plethora of peppers in most of its dishes. The first night I ate there, I could not stop giggling so surprising was the sensation. When the owner, a famed opera singer, sold the restaurant and returned to China, she took the magic with her.

I am happy to report, however, that a transcendent experience was had again when our second team hit the stove with woks ablazing. Within seconds, we were caught in the throes of a violent mass coughing fit, as an outrageous amount of the aforementioned peppercorns - along with a truly disturbing number of red chilies - were tossed into the sizzling oil. I would have to declare two winners in round two, as the magical heat and caramelized stickiness of the Kung Pao chicken was astutely complimented by the sweet crunch and freshness of the perfectly-cooked Szechuan green beans.

Team three proved they were no slouches, adding delicious sweet soy prawns, which were eaten both peeled and unpeeled, and a mountain of eggplant fritters to our plates. I was a bit worried that another round of hot oil would fill the kitchen, and thus, the entire house, with smoke, but our man at the wok was a total pro. We topped it all off with some amazing Greek Christmas cookies, lovingly prepared by someone's mom, and a fruitcake that made me realize why people actually like the stuff.

Simple. Elegant. Well done.

The hot and sour potatoes are extremely easy to make, but a little time consuming. Buy some of those potatoes with the yellow flesh and the translucent skin. I usually do one per person. Using whatever sharp implement you happen to have handy, slice the potatoes into discs that are about 4-5 mm in thickness. Then, cut each disc into matchsticks and drop the whole lot into a big bowl of cold water. I would do this at least a few hours before you want to cook them.

When it comes time to cook, put your wok over relatively high heat and add some vegetable oil. Throw in as much garlic, fresh and dried chili peppers, and Szechuan peppercorns as you can stand and stir them around as they become fragrant. Then toss in the potatoes.

Stir them around so they become coated in the oil, and then sprinkle them with a good-sized pinch of salt and a few big glugs of vinegar. Place a lid over top and let them steam a bit. Leave the lid on for about 6-8 minutes, but stir them every now and then so they do not stick or burn.

The key to making this dish is tasting it frequently. The potatoes should stay crunchy, but lose their starchiness. They should be sour, so add vinegar to taste, and require quite a bit more salt than you would think. If you feel that they need a little kick, splash on some soy sauce to taste.

Other People's Pork...

2009-12-06T14:40:00.010-05:00

Despite my ongoing desire to write about things other than food, I once again find myself compelled to provide an account of the celebration of pork that was held last night in our small Hochelaga kitchen.

For accuracy's sake, I should clarify that what we were actually gathering to celebrate is the fact that our phenomenally-talented friend, composer Nicole Lizée, has been invited to an artist residency at the prestigious Civitella Ranieri Centre. Located in a magnificent castle in Central Umbria, the envy-inducing fellowship provides an opportunity to spend six-weeks in the Italian countryside, conversing and collaborating with a smattering of musicians, visual artists, writers and filmmakers from around the world.

Last April, while touring in Europe, we discovered that good friends were spending a week in another civitella (or little town) about an hour north of Rome by train. When they invited us to spend the weekend with them, we jumped at the chance, knowing full well that an opportunity like that does not come along every day. Umbria is an incredibly lush and beautiful region with rolling hills covered in grape vines and olive groves. Though it rained most of the time we were there, from our hilltop perch near Civitella Del Lago, we could see the neighboring towns of Orvieto and Montepulciano off in the distance, their spires and clock towers reaching into the clouds. We walked and drove and marvelled at the region's natural, artistic and architectural wonders, but the most important thing we did in Umbria was eat.

From what we saw and tasted, Umbrian food is not fancy food - but it is incredibly fresh and simple and satisfying. For the most part, it seems to be based around a few key ingredients, all of which coincidentally begin with the letter P. And so to celebrate our friend's upcoming sojourn in the region, and to sample some of it's culinary delights, we embarked on a meal of pork, pasta, pecorino cheese and porcini mushrooms.

Though the appetizers were of an unspecified Italian heritage - crostini with roasted peppers, and a second batch with carmelized onions, walnuts and pine nuts - the remainder of the meal stayed true to our intent. My collaborators were responsible for the first course and side dishes, and all were amazing: pappardelle with proscuitto, and another with an incredible mushroom ragout, rapini with lemon and garlic, and a green salad with pecorino and proscuitto. It was my undertaking to prepare the Porchetta.

Back in Umbria... on a day trip to Spoleto, we came across a small lunch truck, with a side window and service counter. Inside, a man with a white apron was standing in front of a whole stuffed pig. To his left, a giant knife. To his right, a basket of buns. Though it was only 10 am, we decided to throw caution to the wind and order a sandwich. He took the giant knife, hacked into the pig's side, and dropped a large hunk of pork onto a bun. It was absolutely delicious, and I said to myself, one day in the near future, a Porchetta I will make. However, though I am very much a meat-eater today, I was once a vegetarian and still become squeamish when faced with whole cooked animals, and so I knew I would be preparing some lesser version of the dish.

A quick search of the web turned up a recipe for Mock Porchetta from famed San Fransisco restaurant, Zuni Cafe. A quick perusal to told me all I needed to know about flavourings and such, but made no mention of brine. Having recently read Brine Swine, Dine Fine on Bartek Komorowksi's fantastic blog Culinary Propaganda, I was hellbent on venturing into the brining fold. And since I am about as far from a culinary purist as you can get, I decided to go for it - regardless of what the Porchetta masters might think.

Brined Porchetta-like Pork

First, buy the pork. Though there are many different types of pork roasts, I was sold on a rib roast which the lovely butcher then prepared to be stuffed. He also gave me some string to tie it up with. He was swell. Though I forgot to ask how big it was - something you should definitely do - the assembled chefs at the dinner figured it was about 2-3 pounds.

Second, prepare the brine. Though there are many different recipes, I used 8 cups of water, 1/4 cup of sea salt, and a 1/4 cup of molasses. From what I read, the most important thing is that the meat must be kept cold, and should be fully submerged in the brine. There are varying reports on how long you should leave it in the brine, but if you are like me, and not inclined to think very far ahead, 7 hours seems to do the trick.

Later in the day, when you are getting read to cook, rinse the meat off and throw the brine away. A double rinse is suggested, because you want to get as much of the salt off as possible. Dry the meat with a paper towel so it is not dripping wet.

Then, open the roast and cover the inside with ground pepper. I also added whole pitted prunes, because I swear the porchetta in Italy had prunes though I could not find a recipe that included them. I also added the zest of two lemons, a teaspoon of capers, 2 teaspoons of minced garlic, about 1/4 cup of minced fresh fennel and chopped fresh sage. Rosemary is apparently a key ingredient, but I did not have any. Press all the ingredients into the pork. Do not salt.

Finally, roll up the pork and tie it tightly with string. Turn the oven to 350 and put a roasting pan in to heat. When it is heated, place the pork roast into the pan. It will sizzle. Put it in the oven.

While it cooks, chop up some onions and fennel into large chunks and toss them with a little olive oil. When the roast has cooked for an hour, take it out and turn it over. This is a good time to throw in the vegetables and stir them around in the fat.

I cooked it for another 90 minutes, until the vegetables were really carmelized, and the pork was brown and crispy on the outside. If I had a meat thermometer, I would have used it. According to the Zuni Cafe cookbook, you want it to reach an internal tempurature of 185 F degrees.

Instead, I just turned off the oven and hoped for the best. We let it sit for about 10 minutes before cutting into it. Amazing.

The Queen of Cans and Jars...

2009-11-08T17:30:00.018-05:00

Though it is not my intention to write solely about food and drink, I am currently obsessed with the bounty of harvest vegetables we recently received from our favorite organic farmers, Potager André Samson. As you can see from their picture, André and Sylviane are incredible lovely people, and work hard all summer to supply Hochelaga's more omnivorous residents - there are probably hundreds of people in our neighborhood whose diet consists exclusively of hot dogs and other meat products, and cigarettes - with a remarkable array of organic vegetables, not to mention eggs and maple syrup. Though we have been receiving baskets of vegetables all summer, this past Thursday was the last of our weekly pick-ups, and brought with it a plethora of earthy delights.

And so we are currently in possession of several dozen pounds of red (and white) beets, onions, garlic, turnips, celery root, cabbage, Jerusalem artichokes and various squashes piled up on surfaces around the kitchen. The goal, to actually eat them all before they rot and turn to mush, or find a way to preserve them so we can enjoy them at a later date.

Making soup is an obvious option, as it can be popped into the freezer and saved for a day in the as yet impossible to imagine future when I will actually want to consume another root vegetable. We chopped up six or seven turnips, threw them in the oven with some onions and garlic and set them to roast at about 375 degrees. Then, because it was actually a beautiful and temperate day in Montreal - in a month where it can rain for days on end, and the only bright note is that the rain might possibly turn to snow - we went for a walk in the Botanical Gardens. Because they are now laying fallow for the winter, the gardens and their environs are free to visitors, and so we roamed about, enjoying the subtle aromas of lingering shrubs like juniper, lavender and sage.

When we got home, we tossed the vegetables in a pot with some sliced apples, water and salt and brought it to a boil. After 30 minutes, the flavours had mingled. A quick spin in the blender and it was ready to go. But what really made the soup something special, was the dollop of yogurt and slices of beet pickles which we laid on top.

Beets are funny vegetables. Though my 9 year-old nephew loves them, when I was a kid, I disliked them without evening trying them. In fact, until quite recently, my response when offered beets was to politely decline. Thanks, but I don't like beets, was my customary response. Then I discovered that beets are awesome. Stick one in a juicer with a carrot, apple or pear, and good-sized chunk of ginger and you've got yourself a glass of health. But be careful. A friend of mine, when on a juice cleanse a few years ago, put herself into some kind of toxic shock after drinking several beets worth of juice a day for a week. What is awesome about the beet pickle option is how delicious they are, how fresh and full of taste, how long they last, and how few of them you need to eat at one time. The recipe is also incredibly easy:

Grama King's Beet Pickles

* boil beets until cooked, about 1 hour
* meanwhile, take some canning jars and turn them upside down in a shallow pot of water
* bring the water to a boil and sterilize the jars, and their lids - this takes about 10 minutes
* when the beets are done, slice them and fill the bottles
* then, in a sauce pan, add 1 cup vinegar and 1 cup of water (for 6-8 beets)
* bring the liquid to a boil and add 2/3 cup of brown sugar, 2 teaspoons salt, some black pepper and 8 cloves
* as a final touch, add a teaspoon of pickling spice if you have it
* pour the hot liquid over the beets and seal them
* I am paranoid about health stuff and so keep ours in the fridge
* they last for awhile, but we usually eat them before it becomes a concern anyway

Cocktail to Cure What Ails You...

2009-11-07T18:49:00.013-05:00

A few days ago, I was trying in vain to clear some detritus from the kitchen cupboards when I unearthed a bottle of absinthe. It had been given to me a few years ago as a birthday present by some beloved friends who had procured it on a trip to France. Though I was delighted upon receipt and relished the boozy adventures that would no doubt ensue, when I accidentally spilled some on the hardwood floor and saw what it did to the varnish, my enthusiasm began to wane. But we were determined, and so a few weeks later, we sat down with our sugar cubes and began the lengthy preparations. Though the aromas were tantalizing and the ritual quite pleasing, the end results were, in a word, undrinkable. It has been in the cupboard ever since.

So I had basically decided to throw the absinthe out when I figured I should make at least one more attempt to find something to do with it. And to my great pleasure, I came across this article about a cocktail that in 2008 was named the official drink of New Orleans. It’s called the Sazerac.

According to the article, the cocktail was created sort of by accident when a pharmacist named Antoine Amédée Peychaud added a few drops of his eponymous bitters into a glass of cognac. A bar down the street called The Sazerac picked up on the tradition, and as they say, the rest is history. But history aside, what drew my attention to the Sazerac is the fact that the recipe calls for adding a measure of absinthe to a glass, swirling it around so that it coats the surface – or for purists, spritzing it onto the glass with an atomizer – and then dumping the remainder. This means that very little absinthe is actually consumed by the drinker, making this the ultimate cocktail solution.

Since we were planning to have some friends over for dinner last night, I decided that what better way to beat the early November blahs than to serve our guests their first Sazarecs. Through a perusal of various cocktail-related sites, I determined that the key ingredients, in addition to the absinthe, were rye whiskey, Peychaud’s bitters, lemon zest and simple syrup. Suspecting that nobody in my working class neighborhood would be selling Peychaud’s bitters, or even the less desirable but-will-do-in-a-pinch Angostura bitters, I decided to make my own.

Though many of the ingredients – quassia chips, powdered cinchona bark and gentian – were unknown to me, I decided to simply create something in the spirit of Peychaud. Since I had no sugar in the house, I decided to give it a decidely French-Canadian twist, with the addition of maple syrup. And, since I did not have 2 cups of vodka and a month to let the mixture sit, I added some fresh clementine juice, and put in the fridge for a half an hour.

What follows are the steps to produce an as yet unnamed cocktail that vaguely resembles New Orleans’ beloved Sazerac and is extremely delicious. The recipe makes six healthy drinks.

To make the bitters-esque accompaniment:

* zest three clementines, and squeeze their juice into a small saucepan
* add a glug of maple syrup
* toss in some caraway seeds and coriander seeds, about one teaspoon of each
* add the seeds of six cardamom pods
* bring to a boil and let simmer for 5-10 minutes
* cool, pour into bottle, seal and put in the fridge until the cocktail hour

To make the cocktail:

* add a glug of absinthe to a glass that feels good in your hand
* swirl the absinthe around so that it coats the sides, repeat with all six glasses
* divide the clementine mixture between the glasses
* fill a cocktail shaker with ice and add a few glugs of maple syrup
* add one and a half ounces of rye for each person to the shaker
* shake, and strain into the glasses
* ice cubes are optional
* garnish with a twist of lemon peel