Food, Je t'Aimée

Be Mine, Valentine

2012-02-17T15:24:00.000-04:00

When I was a kid, I used to throw out all the Valentine's that said "Be Mine, Valentine" because I thought there was a mistake. It didn't make sense! If I didn't throw them out, I'd give them to the kids (boys) I didn't really like. True story. Not understanding the significance of that comma, every year I would get increasingly frustrated, wondering why on earth the publishers wouldn't catch the error and write "Be MY Valentine," instead? I had an 'ah-ha' moment somewhere around the 7th grade - having not seen one of the dreaded Valentines in a few years, and having since learned a little more about the many uses of the common comma - and mourned the many trees I had surely killed in the process of throwing away so many Valentines.

Youths! Scoff, scoff.

So, truth be told, I've been coming home from work every day and face-planting into bed. The new(ish) job has been taking over my life! I'm certainly enjoying all the hard, hands-on work, but work/life balance has been difficult to achieve and plenty of things have been taking a back seat, including this space.

When it came to Valentine's Day, then, I knew I wanted to make a delicious and thoughtful meal for F., but there was no time in the day nor space in my brain for extravagant recipe creation, so I got some ideas from things I'd learned or read in the past few weeks.

I've been working with one chef, Lyle Kennedy, quite a bit lately. Chef Lyle is exactly the kind of chef I was hoping to come across when I first started this job. I wanted a go-to chef, someone who I could really count on and who would go the extra mile, and I've certainly found that with him. A perk of the job is getting to learn a ton from talented professionals, like Lyle, so two of my three dishes actually came from or were inspired by dishes he's made in our classes.

The first was this Peach Mascarpone Tart we had for dessert. Lyle made it with blueberries in our cooking class, but when I made this at home, I used the Preserved Peaches in White Wine Syrup I made last fall.

1/2 a sheet of puff pastry, covered in about 3/4 cup of mascarpone that has been whipped with sugar.

Take the second 1/2 of of the sheet, cover with an egg wash, and then cover the first half,
pinching and sealing the edges. Cut ventilation holes in the top and sprinkle with more sugar.
Bake at 400F for about 20 minutes.

Here you can see that the hearts are slightly mangled and rough around the edges. This was my artistic interpretation and attempt to portray the state that our hearts find themselves in adulthood, after a series of misguided relationships, when we finally meet that person who is able to soften and smooth out those rough edges again...

(... or I'm a just terrible artist and always have been. You choose! A good save, though?)

The next dish was this side of Asparagus Amandine: a recipe I got from Bryan at The Bite House here in Nova Scotia. Bryan, a chef and blogger, wrote a bit of an ode to the side dish last week and presented us with 3 great recipes inspired by The Flavor Bible. I was immediately drawn to this recipe, imagining the buttery, salty, crunchy concoction it would be, and vowed, once more, to get my hands on that book. I'm not sure if my pairing with pork was Biblically sound, but it definitely tasted amazing and looked great together on the plate!

I used Fleur de Sel and slivered almonds, rather than sliced,
simply because it's what I had in my cupboard!

Our main dish was pork tenderloin. When it comes to meat, I'll eat anything, but I tend to shy away from the actual preparation of it. I usually leave meat up to F. and his BBQ skills. I had no idea how easy it was to prepare something like this tenderloin, however, until I saw Chef Lyle whip some up a few weeks ago. I followed his recipe for Maple Glazed Whole Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Sauteed Apples precisely and was rewarded with sweet, juicy, flavourful, meaty perfection.

Taking pictures in a dark kitchen is rough when you *still* haven't
learned enough about aperture, etc.!

I used some of the white wine syrup (that the peaches were preserved in) and mixed it with whipping cream, then splashed it over our tarts. Our hearts were just brimming over! Oh, yes!

Toward the end of the meal, I spiced up my Prosecco with a few cinnamon hearts. F. did not approve of that flavour combination, but that's just how I roll, friends.

What did you eat on Valentine's Day?

Much, much love to you all.

Building Community With Tea & Scones

2012-02-10T00:37:00.001-04:00

I'm just going to say it: I think our Afternoon Tea was an excellent exercise and success in building community in Halifax.

It's funny. After years of studying politics, development, and post-conflict reconstruction, the term community building became a familiar one to me, dropped frequently into treatises on gender, rebuilding war-torn societies, and, later, in my work on volunteerism. Just one year ago, I wouldn't have imagined this new path my life would take, nor would I have guessed I'd be using such a term to describe an Afternoon Tea Party for (primarily) a group of bloggers.

It's true that community, and opportunities for it, exist around every corner. It's not up to other people to build it for you, but it is a joint venture that needs a ton of investment. I don't buy this every wo(man) is an island stuff. We need each other! Let's just admit it?

Based on my own feelings and those expressed of my guests, then, in a few short hours last Sunday afternoon, a pile of beautiful, talented, interesting women met in my kitchen and connected, shared, and learned. As a result, a sense of community was built, or made even stronger where it existed already. It was a chance to finally meet those people we'd been interacting with online, or a fine excuse to reconnect with others who'd we met only once or twice.

Women + Food = Community. Or at least it can, if harnessed for the good. In my time on this planet, I've found that women can either be the most constructive or destructive forces in other women's lives. Which do you choose?

(In some opening comments at the beginning of our tea, I warned everyone I was a huge sap and infinitely cheesy. If you know me even just a little, then, none of these comments should come as a huge surprise!)

Some of the beautiful milk and sugar sets my Auntie Phyllis and my (now late) Auntie Sylvia gave me on my 16th birthday.
They've been sitting in a chest for many years, but finally had a reason to come out and play.

Homemade clotted cream, lemon curd, & apple, pear, plum and ginger jam.

Lemon Curd. My new obsession.

Shelagh's Vegan Chocolate Bundt.

Cranberry Cardamom Bundt

Chara's chocolate-dipped fruit and cinnamon hearts.

Kelly's Banoffee Tarts.

Honey Vanilla Madeleines

Eleanor's Peanut Butter Chip Brownies

Asheley's Chocolate Date Squares.

Kathy's Dark Chocolate Almond Cookies.

Sheena's Almond Cherry Chocolate Biscotti

A tea isn't a tea without some sandwiches!

Just some of my lovely guests!

Needless to say, we had plenty to eat! In trying to host, I didn't have too much time to snap photos (or take 800 of the same dish, as per my usual routine!), so the above are the photos I managed to get in the time I had.

You should check out Shelagh's blog Alice in Paris Loves Art and Tea to see even more photos from our afternoon together. Shelagh is not only a gifted artist, but a talented photographer, too.

Allie (of Allie's Changing Kitchen) has also posted some photos, along with her thoughts on the event, in her post called Foodie Friends + Tea + Choco Mousse.

Finally, Sheena posted her recipe for her fabulous Cherry Almond Chocolate Biscotti on her blog Butter Versus Burpees. I'll definitely be making these in the very near future!

Interested in any of the other treats you see here? Inquire within and I can see about getting my hands on some recipes!

---

A heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who came. I hope to see all of your faces again soon! I honestly think it was courageous of you to show up at a stranger's home, in order to meet an entire group of other strangers. I think many of us left this tea as friends - and 'real life' ones, at that.

Preparing for Tea

2012-02-04T17:24:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post called You Are Invited To Tea: a bit of an ode to building community through our online connections. As a result, about a dozen wonderful and talented women will be gracing my doorstep for Afternoon Tea tomorrow, and I couldn't be more excited!

Bohemian Tea - by Shelagh Duffett

Tea Roll Call

Allison Kincade of Allie's Changing Kitchen / Twitter: @changingkitchen

Asheley Ramey of Asheley Eats / Twitter: AsheleyEats

Chara of Love, Me Boutique / Twitter: @LoveMeBoutique / Facebook Page

Jessi Gillis of Fresh Flavours Made from the Heart / Twitter: @jessigillis / Facebook Page

Kathy Jollimore of Eat Halifax / Twitter: @kathyjollimore / Facebook Page

Kelly Neil of Kellyneil.com / Twitter: @baconandbaileys / Facebook Page (also, the recent founder of the Halifax Baking Club!)

Kim Stacey of Emma's Eatery / Twitter @eatfishcakes / Facebook Page

Nancy Stapleton from Adsum for Women & Children / Twitter: @adsumforwomen / Facebook Page

Renée Lavallée of Feisty Chef / Twitter: @FeistyChef / Faceboook Page

Sheena Clark of Butter Versus Burpees / Twitter: B_versus_B

Shelagh Duffett of Alice in Paris Loves Art and Tea and Duffett Folk Art / Twitter: AliceinParis / Facebook Page

Also, some honourable mentions for those who will be there in spirit. Hope to see you at the next round, ladies!

Heather Nolan of Mmm is for Mommy / Twitter: @MmmisforMommy / Facebook Page

Jenny Osburn of Union Street Cafe & Wick Pub / Blog: Union Street Kitchen Witch / Twitter: @unionstcafe / Facebook Page

Susan Morrison of Chef Sue Morrison / Twitter: @chefsuem

Suzie Ridler of Suzie the Foodie / Twitter: @suzieridler / Facebook Page

At the end of that original 'tea' post, I encouraged people to contact me if they were interested in joining us, so there are also a few women joining us from the community who do not necessarily blog or tweet. I was so pleased to add them our crew of tea-sippers!

I'll post photos of our goodies and tea next week, but for now I would encourage you to visit their blogs and websites, as well as their Twitter and Facebook pages. They are all doing fabulous and creative things in Halifax (and beyond) and are really worth getting to know better - if you don't know them already, that is!

Now, this little blogger has to get baking...

Young&Dublin Supper Club, In Photos

2012-02-01T21:09:00.002-04:00

Curious? Follow @YoungDublin on Twitter.

Junior High & Snail Mail: An Exposé

2012-01-27T09:41:00.001-04:00

Anyone who knew me in Junior High has a decent arsenal of embarrassing and funny stories to tell. (Heck, the same could be said for anyone who has known me from birth to present). It's a well-known fact that Junior High is the absolute most awkward time in any human being's life, and I was certainly no exception to that rule. It's an age that makes most adults cringe, and for whom no amount of money would be worth going back in time for a visit. If you were among the 2% of teens who weren't awkward back then? Well, lucky you. I bet 1% of you are awkward as adults.

Starting in Elementary School, I wrote poems about horses and ballet. Did I ride horses or do ballet? Of course not. From my suburban bedroom, I would lock myself away for hours retracing bridle, tack kits, and ballerinas from books borrowed from the library. I read The Saddle Club like it was my last day on Earth. By the time I got to 7th grade (Junior High, around here), I thought it was a great idea to wear my favourite horse t-shirt (4 of the beauties pictured, galloping through a stream) with my favourite brown jeans, and at least twice a week. While the brown jeans were definitely in style back then, the horse t-shirt, I'm afraid, never was and likely never will be.

After several weeks of examining my peers, it was time for horses and ballerinas to move aside. Boys were now on the radar and the subject of my intrigue! But not any boys at school, who may (or may not) have been attainable. No, no, the boys of my heart were the boys of TV. Forbidden from putting too many holes in my heart-covered, wall-papered bedroom walls, I plastered my closet with pictures of the one and only, the handsome, Jonathan Taylor Thomas. (Collective sigh? Anyone?) That sandy, floppy hair. Those doey brown eyes. Yes, friends, he was the one for me. He just didn't know it yet.

We had the same birthday forgodsakes; same day, same month, same year. Wasn't that at least a basis for friendship? Some common ground? A reason to respond to my fan mail? I had carefully crafted a letter to him, written on some safari stationery I had bought at the Hallmark store with my allowance and savings. I lost track of the letter after a while, but could have sworn I'd sent it. Why did he never reply?

It was years later, when home for a summer in university, that I discovered the envelope, buried under layers of old schoolwork, scrapbooks, and other teenage treasures. I could see that I had carefully torn the side of the envelope open and it was this that jogged the memory: ever the editor, even at that age, I nearly went crazy thinking about the possibility of spelling something wrong in the letter to my beloved "JTT". I had opened it just to be sure, vowing to buy more stationery to replace the torn envelope, but in the classic sea of teenage angst and forgetfulness, I never did get around to sending it. The tragedy! JTT will never, ever know that we share the same birthday and were, at the age of 14, destined to grow old together.

It was this teenage crush that led me to covet those teenie-bopper magazines. You know the ones. I'd beg my mom to get me one at the grocery store, and every once in a while she'd humour me and grab a copy. Maybe some of you late 1970s/early 1980s kids remember this, but there was a section in the back of Tiger Beat (or was it Teen Beat?) where you could submit a write-up about yourself and ask for penpals.

This was nerdiness at its finest, folks! I submitted my horrendous 8th-grade photo, in my big, flowery, Sunday dress and my awkward attempt at bangs (an attempt I've only revisited this year - still awkward), claiming to "...love JTT, Home Improvement and soccer!" Soccer? Really, Aimée? I hadn't played a game of soccer in my life, unless you counted gym class, which was never really my forté. I liked the idea of soccer, however, and I admired my friends who were on the soccer team. I suppose that was my basis for the claim?

Penpals I asked for; penpals I received! Hundreds upon hundreds of envelopes came in over a period of weeks and months. Mom would buy me bankers' boxes just to keep track of them all, and I would make homemade dividers to separate the envelopes by country and mostly, by US State. I'd go home every day at lunch time to check the mail, and I'd get so many that kids in my class would start leaning over my shoulder after lunch to see where my latest bundle of envelopes had come from.

People came out of the woodwork. I had grown men writing me letters from faraway lands, asking me for Toronto Blue Jays paraphernalia, telling me their t-shirt sizes and which size coffee cup they really wanted (though they'd be ok with the smaller one, in a pinch). I had kids much younger than me writing, kids much older than me writing, some practical jokes, and, by and large, I had a ton of kids my own age, from around the world, just as nerdy as me, who wanted to be friends.

Kind of sweet, right? (Aside from the creepy, older men!)

If nothing else, it really egged on my interests in maps and geography. But if only I knew then how much more fun adult penpals would be! And how much more delicious and exciting their snail mail!

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Food & Wine Magazine: January Cover Recipe

2012-01-18T21:00:00.000-04:00

This month's F&W cover recipe test was wildly anticipated in our household. F.'s eyes went wide the instant he saw the cover, then began peppering me with, "You are going to make this one, right?" "When are we making the cover recipe?" "We should really think about making that cover recipe soon." It's safe to say that those comments encapsulate our initial thoughts on the recipe. Never before has F. expressed such an interest in a cover recipe test, so there was no way I could lose track of time this month! This recipe was going to be experimented with, and ASAP.

Moreover, Jasmine and I have been giddily writing back and forth about this cover ever since it landed on our doorsteps last month, so I suspect it was a huge hit at casa CookThatBook, as well. Don't forget to pop by to read her review, too!

Bobby Flay's Nacho Burger

Rating: 5 out of 5. Spicy, packed with flavour, and that crunch! Perfection.

THE TEST

Just like last month's recipe, I had the fun excuse to go out and buy an ingredient new to me. This month, it was chipotle chile in adobo. In this case, adobo means a sauce or marinade that is used in many Mexican and Southwestern US dishes. They were easy enough to find at the grocery store, I had just never noticed them on the shelf before. (And, truth be told, the only time I'd heard the word in the past was with regard to the popular Filipino dish called Adobo, such as this one here on my friend Elizabeth's blog, The Queen's Notebook. I didn't realize the (perhaps obvious) Spanish connection there!) Seeing as I just needed one chile, I emptied the rest of the can into a mason jar so that I could use these fiery, flavourful chiles to jazz up another dish soon.

Chile in Adobo

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Meet the EatWild Explorers!

2012-01-16T19:10:00.000-04:00

It's been a little quiet around Food, Je t'Aimée lately,but not for lack of material! There are actually many fun things happeningin real time - such as the below - I just haven't been able to post about any of them until now!

The EatWild Project

About a month ago, the fantastic duo behind the EatWildProject - Bronwen and Noah - got in touch with me. Bronwen, a Victoria (BC) native, and Noah,a Chef from London (UK), have had their fingers in several interesting pots over the past year: The EatWild Project, namely, but also Guestaurant.com and their pop-up dinner clubs.

It is under the umbrella of the EatWild Project, however, that they are retracing the steps of Samuel de Champlain - starting in Nova Scotia and headinginland to Ontario - in order to uncover the first traces of Canadian food culture andtradition, which will all be captured on videoblog. Naturally, I was completely enthralled with their idea and was excited to help them on their way, in any way I could. The pair arrived in Nova Scotia late last weekand then traveled onward to Port Royal (via Annapolis Royal, NS) to learn moreabout The Order of Good Cheer and stay with localproducers within the Valley, such as Whippletree Farm and Sissiboo Coffee.

Bronwen and Noah trying Lobster Poutine in Halifax - a first!

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You Are Invited To Tea

2012-01-05T12:43:00.002-04:00

A friend of mine once said that Facebook is for people who are friends but don't necessarily like each other, whereas Twitter is for people who aren't necessarily friends but should be. (Mr. Kincade, you are a wise man!) There's a little bit of truth to that, don't you think?

This was before I ever joined Twitter, and to be honest, I had no idea what he was talking about. I always thought Twitter was even more self-indulgent than Facebook, so I really wanted nothing to do with it. Wrong I most certainly was!

Twitter has revolutionized the way I connect with my communities - plural - both at home and around the world*. F. teases me constantly about my troop of online friends who I speak about as if I see them every day. Truth be told, I kind of do! We're a diverse lot of people who share similar passions and it builds an amazing sense of community between and among us, even if that community only exists on the internet. Many of us make a point of connecting - within those 140 characters that Twitter allows - every day. That support network has been absolutely invaluable to me, and it's often what encourages me to keep going in this blogging venture, no matter how busy life gets.

Some of those people live in my very own city, but sometimes it takes a specific event or excuse to bring that online 'friendship' into real time. I've tried my best to reach out and meet many people in real life over the past several months, and when I have, it's always been immensely rewarding (Jenny Osburn, I'm looking at you!). These are people I think I should be friends with, because we get excited and inspired about so many of the same things. Whether or not we feel the same way (ha!), remains to be seen.

So, in the face of many debates over whether or not the internet isolates us and breaks down community, I'm going to say that it has done the opposite for me. It has connected me with wonderful people who I may not have met any other way. I want to use the internet to make more meaningful connections in real life, and I want to do my part to build a strong sense of community among those who are doing creative things in and around Halifax.

How? Well, an idea came to me after bumping into (the wonderful and talented artist) Shelagh Duffett at the grocery store this week. We had the best, most refreshing conversation, and I thought how nice it would be to invite Shelagh over for tea.

So I am going to invite her, but I'm also going to invite several other people to my house for Afternoon Tea. Food Bloggers, Non-profit Heroines, Restauranteurs, Chefs, and enviable DIY Types. Because we are all passionate about the same thing: Creating. We've all had varying degrees of success with our varying levels of creativity, so I think we have a lot to offer each other. Support, fresh ideas, or, at the very least, good conversation. Some of you I've met, many of you I haven't. But if I haven't, I've been really wanting to!

Creative women of Halifax (for now - sorry, boys), you're invited to tea. I'll send out some initial, individual invites over the next couple of days, but if this is something you're interested in, please do drop me a line for more details and join us!**

Earl Grey at Ma Belle's Cafe in Dartmouth.

* Friends in other cities and countries, please know you have an open invitation to tea - anytime - if you are ever in the area!

**Depending on numbers, I may have to put a cap on the event at some point (based on the size of my dining room) but nothing about this tea is meant to be exclusive!

Breakfast Club: The January Detox

2011-12-29T22:32:00.001-04:00

A few months ago I stumbled upon an event called Breakfast Club, which was created by Helen over at Fuss Free Flavours. Being a huge breakfast fan - of every way, shape, and form it comes in - I immediately wrote to her to ask how I could get involved. This happened during my flurry of event sign-ups last fall, so while I managed to score a slot as a host, I wasn't able to participate until now. Coincidentally, this is both my first time participating in and my first time hosting Breakfast Club.

"Breakfast Club: Because breakfast should be more interesting than

tea & toast or coffee & cereal."

It's that time of year, friends. Yep - we all ate too much over the holidays and are now struggling to keep that top button closed, right? Feeling mighty over-indulged? Hmm? Perhaps even guilty? I know I am.

Thus, I present to you this month's theme: The January Detox.

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Eggnog Muffins

2011-12-26T01:00:00.000-04:00

We're almost at the end of the Muffin Monday holiday series, and Anuradha has saved one of the best for Boxing Day. Eggnog: you rich, velvety vixen of a drink! Where don't you belong in Christmasy, baked goods?

If you remember, I tried to incorporate Eggnog into my muffins a few months ago, and while the end result was delicious, the Eggnog flavour was disappointingly absent, the flavour having baked out in the end. It's for this reason that I was admittedly a little skeptical of this recipe.

Since I was leaving town for Christmas and wouldn't have much time in the kitchen while away, I decided to make three batches of these muffins for my new co-workers (which actually resulted in about 45 muffins), on one of my last days of work before the holidays. Wonderfully, from time to time, I'm allowed to use the giant kitchen I work in for such purposes (for baking for colleagues, that is, not necessarily for Muffin Monday. The timing just worked out to combine the two projects!)

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Food & Wine Magazine: December Cover Recipe

2011-12-24T10:00:00.000-04:00

Merry Christmas Eve!

After missing out on November's Food & Wine cover recipe, I'm back to tackle December's Spiced Leg of Lamb with Olives, Apricots and Lemons with Jasmine of Cook That Book. And what a time to be back! I love (adore, crave, lust after) lamb. Truly.

If lamb is on the menu in a restaurant, I almost always order it, because it's a meat I never cook in my own kitchen and therefore seems rather elusive to me. A couple of years ago, while volunteering, I looked on as a fellow volunteer effortless threw together a leg of lamb for dinner guests that evening. She gave it a rub, stuck some garlic and rosemary into cuts in the meat, and slid it in the oven like she was a seasoned pro. I peppered her with questions for days afterward and took notes on her answers, which I'm fairly certain confused her, because there was nothing overly complicated about what she did. But she did it so confidently! I guess I've always been intimidated by cooking such a massive piece of meat, as surely there has to be a science to it. And, of course, there is, but thankfully (at a basic level) it's more about owning a good meat thermometer and having a good recipe.

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Lions Winter Ale & Beer Cheese

2011-12-19T14:18:00.001-04:00

I hate being cold. I actually can't even begin to put into words (though I suppose I'm trying) how much I hate it. Loathe! Despise! It makes me downright hateful! I actually learned a few years ago that I have a physical reaction and sensitivity to the cold - so if you ever hear me complaining, I have grounds ;)

I'm immediately intrigued, then, by any food or drink that conjures up notions of warming up in winter. Mulled wine, wintery spices and yes, even mulled beer. As odd as that may sound (warm beer? Really?). I once sampled several large glasses of the stuff in Poland and let me tell you, it will challenge all previously held grudges you have against warm beer! Delicious and so welcome after spending even 5 minutes in the frigid Polish winter air.

In that light, today I have something extra-special for you!

A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by the lovely people at Jive Communications in Vancouver, asking me if I'd be interested in helping spread the word about a seasonal brew from Granville Island, British Columbia - Lions Winter Ale - that was hitting the shelves in Nova Scotia for the month of December only. Naturally, I said yes! Unfortunately the shipment arrived a little late, but it's still just in time to give you last-minute gift-buyers out there an idea for the beer lover in your life!

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The New Girl

2011-12-13T22:14:00.000-04:00

As I've mentioned a few times now, I've started a new job! It's the kind of place that has restrictions on social media (which I'm hoping will change soon; modern marketing and social media go hand in hand! But I digress.), but if you live in the Atlantic provinces you might be able to guess where it is.

I was hired as the Cooking School Coordinator for a major supermarket chain. It means I get to interact with chefs and help them in the kitchen, plan the classes for customers and general public, work on building the room into a business, and generate private bookings for the room (in general). The job has loads of autonomy and room for growth and creativity, and already I'm completely in love with the process. I'm still getting a handle on certain aspects of the job, as is to be expected with any new learning curve, but I have high hopes for where the Cooking School will go in 2012, when programming is in full swing.

While I was in training, I got to visit several of the other Cooking Schools in the city to learn from other coordinators and see how they run things. On one particular morning, I got to watch (the oh-so charming) Chef Jess Pike in action for a special occasion: CTV Morning Live was there doing a promotional stint for Feed Nova Scotia who had begun their Christmas food drive. Chef Jess was helping promote products for customers to donate, while demonstrating the kinds of meals that can be made with those products. A few of us (who were lurking in the background) got our 2.5 seconds of fame when we were asked to introduce the segments after commercial breaks! Check out Chef Jess's gorgeous and tongue-in-cheek catering business called A Pear of Tarts.

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The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2011

2011-12-12T06:00:00.000-04:00

Who doesn't love receiving good old-fashioned snail mail, especially when that snail mail contains COOKIES? No one, that's who! I was immediately sold when I saw a buzz going around about The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap of 2011, co-hosted by Love & Olive Oil and The Little Kitchen. And great it really was! Initially open to just US and Canadian residents, requests started pouring in from other countries, and if they had enough people to participate, they got to come out and play, too. According to the update we all received today, over 22,000 cookies were sent out as part of this event. Amazing!

Truth be told, while it was one of the things I made most as a child and teenager, I haven't made cookies in ages. I made one batch for F. shortly after we met, but that was the first and last time anything resembling cookies has come out of my oven since. Upon joining the exchange, I immediately researched which cookies would last best in the mail, both in texture and durability. An article surfaced from All Recipes with some great ideas. One of the suggestions was for Mexican Wedding Cakes.

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Buttermilk-Blueberry Breakfast Cake for Nelly's Big Day (#NellysBigDay)

2011-12-09T10:29:00.001-04:00

Saturday, December 10th, 2011 is a BIG day in the food blogging world this year, because Marnely Rodriguez - of Cooking With Books - is getting hitched!

I have mentioned my love for Nelly on more than one occasion, but she is hands-down the most supportive blogger and baker out there, not only to me, but to hundreds of others. If you ever read the comments on my posts, you'll see that Nelly has been a constant source of inspiration and encouragement from the very beginning... and that doesn't include the thousands of e-mails and direct Twitter messages that have been sent back and forth: 'if I add this to the batter, do I subtract more of that?' 'What should I do if this happens, and that blows up?' Yikes.

Nelly's sort of omnipresent - I once called her Blogger Santa (everywhere and anywhere all in one night!) - responding to my desperate questions, always in a matter of seconds. A CIA-trained baker, I really value her advice and opinions.

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Chocolate Brownie Muffins with Cream Cheese Frosting & Pistachios

2011-12-05T01:00:00.000-04:00

Happy Muffin Monday! Today is one of only THREE left before Christmas. Can you believe it? Has anyone seen November? I seem to have misplaced it...

After two weeks of being absent from Muffin Monday (sob!), I've rejoined the group with this most ridiculously luscious muffin. If the Gingerbread Muffins with Brown Butter Frosting of a few weeks ago teetered on the line between muffin and cupcake, then these Chocolate Brownie Muffins breezed right over it.

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Panettone, Revisited

2011-11-27T22:30:00.000-04:00

Life has been a little chaotic as of late, with a job change in the works and several events and fundraisers I've been involved in coming to a head. It's been a lot of fun, but it's been difficult to fit blogging into my new schedule! I'm hoping that'll change very soon, once I settle into the swing of things and find the time and space to make it all work.

Something I've been meaning to share with you for a few weeks now is the play-by-play and the aftermath of my day spent making Panettone. It was quite an event, after all, so I absolutely feel that it deserves two posts!

What do I mean by aftermath? Well, it's not so much that the recipe had a large yield, but Panettone is so dense and filling that a little goes a long way, especially in a household of two. And what else do you do with an abundance of left-over bread before it goes bad? Thanks to our friend Ron who initially gave me the idea, I found a great recipe for Panettone Bread Pudding on Food Network Canada.

From The International Collection, by the Canadian Living Test Kitchen.

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For the Love of Soup!

2011-11-21T16:30:00.000-04:00

Nothing says comfort like soup, and nothing says soup like a burst of cold weather. Don't you think?

I've been sick for over two weeks now, so I've been cooking and baking a little less (hence no Muffin Monday this week), but still indulging in more than my usual share of fall-flavoured soups. A creature of comfort on the best of days, I seek these kinds of foods out all the more often when feeling under the weather.

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Spiced Cranberry & Buttermilk Bundt Cake

2011-11-17T14:49:00.001-04:00

Did you know that Tuesday, Novermber 15th was International Bundt Day? I found out the day of, thanks to Twitter, and was beyond excited.

I love Bundts. I love making Bundts. I love eating Bundts. I love saying the word 'Bundt'. I like trying to get both the 'd' and the 't' in my pronounciation, or, at least, I like knowing they're there; it rolls of the tongue differently, knowing it's a 'dt' and not just a 'd' or a 't'. I even like spelling the word 'Bundt'. How's that for nerdy?

Wonderfully, I was just gifted a pretty, new Bundt pan from my mom (who seems to always be passing along these little gems) and what greater excuse to break it in than on a day celebrating the Bundt itself? This officially brings my Bundt pan collection to three, and I have no intentions on stopping there.

Last - and perhaps best of all - I heard about this food blogger who celebrated International Bundt Day by posting 30 days of Bundt cakes in the lead up to November 15th. That's commitment! The name of her quest? I Like Big Bundts. Genius, right? This word nerd sincerely appreciated her clever play on words. Visit Mary's blog - The Food Librarian - for 30 fabulous Bundt cake recipes.

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Gingerbread Muffins with Brown Butter Frosting

2011-11-14T01:00:00.000-04:00

Christmas may seem a long way off for some of you, but with Baker Street's holiday series in full swing, it certainly smelled like Christmas around my kitchen this weekend!

Anuradha offered us a basic Gingerbread recipe, giving us plenty of room for creativity, so I'm excited to see what the other Muffin Monday bakers have devised this week.

Every week, MM participants tell funny stories about how the people in their households have begun to expect and anticipate the new week's muffin. Well, F. was asking me for Muffin Monday muffins by Wednesday of last week. When I told him I'd need Muffin ESP in order to do that, since we don't get the recipe until later in the week, he was pretty disappointed - in both the outcome and my inability to read An's thoughts. Poor boy had to wait.

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Food, Wine, & Art for a Cause

2011-11-09T12:47:00.002-04:00

I have no recipes or photos for you today. Instead, I'm helping to raise awareness around two very honourable and worthwhile events taking place this month: the first for Adsum House here in Halifax, and the second from Bloggers Unite for Africa, happening online. Both are doing wonderful things to help people in need, and both could use your support!

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Apple Buttermilk Muffins with Coconut Crumble

2011-11-07T01:00:00.000-04:00

This week's Muffin Monday assignment is bursting with all my favourite, seasonal flavours of autumn. Who could turn down a muffin recipe that calls for apple pie apples? Really?

Once again, I was dying to know how these tasted, so I didn't change much. I did add more of the pie spices to the crumble, and I used coconut oil instead of vegetable oil. Also, I wound up with a lot of extra batter, so I filled an extra 6-cup pan with the excess. I knew that little pan would come in handy some day! For those extra 6 muffins, I added a sprinkle of butterscotch chips to the top before adding the crumble, inspired by this recipe I made a few times last month.

I absolutely loved the combination of spiced apples and the crispy coconut on the top. I don't recall ever having this combination before, but it's definitely one I'll try again. The end result was a moist, crumbly muffin that was full of flavour.

Now I have 18 of these apple pie-inspired beauties on my hands. This Muffin Monday business is rough!

One of the nicest crumbles I've ever made! In sight, taste, texture. A great recipe.

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On Panettone, for Paolo

2011-11-04T13:59:00.000-03:00

Chapter 1: A Story

It was early November 2006 and I was just two months into my quarter life crisis. I had finished the course work for my Masters program a few months previous and was half-heartedly working on my thesis, as well as working full-time. I was twenty-five, alive, and itching to skip town. I remember listening to Breakdown by Jack Johnson on repeat in my car, feeling positively stuck on a path I couldn't see a way off of. It wasn't a bad path, but I was feeling antsy, bored, and uninspired.

I hope this old train breaks down
Then I could take a walk around
And see what there is to see...

All the people in the street
That I'll never get to meet
If these tracks don't bend somehow

Belle (yeah, that's right, from Beauty and the Beast) knew where I was coming from when she sang: "I want adventure in the great wide somewhere / I want it more than I can tell." Even as a kid watching Disney movies, words like these resonated and stuck in my bones. My heart and mind were completely elsewhere. I was tired of being a spectator; I wanted to start participating in life.

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Marble Streusel Muffins

2011-10-31T01:00:00.000-03:00

Welcome to the first installment in Baker Street's Muffin Monday holiday series! I suppose this just means the muffins get more and more decadent from this point onward? An excellent start, then, with this Marble Streusel Muffin.

This week's recipe looked perfect just how it was. I didn't want to change anything. A batter made of two parts chocolate, one part cream cheese, all swirled together and then topped with a chocolate chip streusel? This muffin sounded like a treat for the eyes as well as the tastebuds.

I really wanted to know what they tasted like, especially after learning that cream cheese was getting involved. [Heavens part. Enter heavenly choir.]

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Pumpkin Flans with Chèvre & Walnuts

2011-10-29T00:15:00.000-03:00

The internet has been flooded with pumpkin-themed recipes as of late, whether to use up leftover pumpkin from Canadian Thanksgiving, in preparation for American Thanksgiving, to welcome autumn, or in anticipation of Halloween. Whatever the reason, I have welcomed this flood with open arms and an open mind.

I've had an oversized can of pumpkin in my cupboard for weeks. I had intended to use it over Thanksgiving a few weeks back, but when that fine pumpkin pie swung into town courtesy of my mother, my tin of pumpkin got pushed to the back of the pantry.

Hidden it may have been, but certainly not forgotten. I eyed that can, day after day, foraging for lunch to take to work and imagining all it would become. I saved, printed, and scoured recipes every day, wondering what manifestation this can of goodness would take. Not that I couldn't just run out and buy a few more cans and experiment with other recipes - and still could - but this can of pumpkin was meant for greatness.

Or, maybe not. But it sounds nice, right?

A delicious and silky smooth Friday evening dinner.

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Citrus, Coconut & Kahlua Muffins

2011-10-24T01:00:00.000-03:00

Happy Muffin Monday!

When I read the primary ingredients in this week's recipe - lemon zest, orange zest, and coconut - the first thing that came to mind was: "COCKTAIL, please!" So, in a departure from all my talk of autumn these days, here, my friends, is my swan song with summer.

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#Baketogether: Sour Cream & Apple Coffee Cake

2011-10-19T16:46:00.000-03:00

These days, I feel like a decade-younger version of myself, in university, agreeing to join any and every committee, agreeing to go to any and every event, spreading myself much too thin, only to realize I had no time left for - uh - school. But that's how I used to excel, push, and challenge myself. There was no time to waste time, so I had to get it done. Even still, I'm grateful for the many gracious professors who always took my papers in late. I even had one paper in grad school that was an entire semester late! Thankfully that was the only time I ever let it get that bad. I always had good reason - as every student does - and it wasn't for lack of initiative. Quite the opposite, actually. Somehow, by the grace of the post-secondary gods, I still managed good grades and got all that committee work done.

Maybe I'm getting a fresh injection of ambition as I enter my new decade, but the 30-year-old version of me seems to be signing up for every food blogging event I can get my hands on, including trying to plan one of my own in the new year. Stay tuned! The odd thing this time around, remarkably, is that I'm very much on top of things. Who is this new me? I haven't handed a single thing in on time in my entire life. If it weren't for the last minute nothing would get done. I think it speaks volumes about how much I'm enjoying this blogging venture, because I can honestly say I no longer live by those words.

#Baketogether is another lovely event I've recently signed up for - on top of the Muffin Mondays, the Food & Wine covers, the cookbook reviews, the Random Bakes of Kindness, and a several other events in the works - and technically, I still have over a week and a half to submit my post. (Oh, if only those professors could see me now!) What is #Baketogether, then? It's a blogging and baking event run by the venerable Abby Dodge, and in her words, "#baketogether is all about sharing your take on this recipe with us – just as if we were all together in one (big) kitchen swapping ideas, inspirations and forkfuls." For October's #baketogether - or R'ock-tober, as Abby has named it - I have the great pleasure of joining them.

The recipe? A classic, sour cream coffee cake.

My twist? An apple-y one.

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Orange Date Muffins

2011-10-17T01:00:00.000-03:00

I knew I couldn't resist this week's Muffin Monday assignment when I found out what kind of muffin we'd be making, despite it coming in the midst of a very busy couple of days!

Orange zest, dried dates, cinnamon, and walnuts. The flavour! The texture! Swoon-worthy, right?

My dirty little secret with these muffins is that, while at the grocery store attempting to buy Buttermilk (for once, I usually just use yogurt), I spied those beautiful, red cartons. Those gleaming beacons of hope that cozy Christmas is coming soon. Yes! With Halloween not even out of the way, the grocery stores have already started selling Egg Nog.

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Food & Wine Magazine: October Cover Recipe

2011-10-16T00:17:00.000-03:00

It's soup season, friends!

As if I needed another excuse to love and celebrate autumn? I eat and love soup and stew all year round, truth be told, but I love the excuse of colder weather to put soup-making into overdrive.

The theme for October's Food & Wine is New French Classics, and to exemplify it, the cover features a gorgeous White-Bean-and-Ham Stew. I am once again joining Jasmine of CookThatBook to test this recipe out and share my thoughts and impressions with you. Don't forget to stop by her website to see how she fared with this recipe, as well as check out Kendall's latest wine pairing!

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Spiced Cranberry Sauce & Canadian Thanksgiving

2011-10-14T00:02:00.001-03:00

Is there any holiday more quintessentially 'foodie'-oriented than Thanksgiving? A time to celebrate harvest, to give thanks and count our blessings, and to gather with friends and family to enjoy the fruits of several hours of labour, until our top buttons are ready to pop...

I think not!

F. and I spent the holiday weekend in Montreal and Ottawa on yet another one of our whirlwind weekend trips. As such, we had a belated Tuesday-after-Thanksgiving dinner with my parents when we got home. I had gotten pretty used to being away from home for special holidays, but of all the comings and goings over the past few years, the one holiday I've consistently missed is Thanksgiving. It wasn't until my mother reminded me, however, that I realized just how long it had been since I'd been home in October: Four years!

Tell me those legs aren't sexy!

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@BarrocoMontreal, In Photos

2011-10-11T15:10:00.002-03:00

Barocco from the street.

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Treats in Threes

2011-10-07T13:57:00.004-03:00

Before heading off into the beautiful sunset that is a holiday weekend, I wanted to show you three of my favourite treats I've been over-indulging in lately.

The first product is this Duck Rillette made by Frederic Tandy of Charcuterie Ratinaud. This little jar of sumptuous, beautifully prepared meat - similar to a paté - goes a surprisingly long way and is worth every, single penny. It's a perfect addition for an evening with company, on canapés, or just when you feel like indulging in something special. F. and I enjoyed some of it with this spread of cheese, crackers, and a glass of red wine. We had a nice sampling of it, too, and there is still 3/4 of the jar left! You can find Frederic's products at the Halifax Seaport Farmers' Market, Obladee Wine Bar, or by visiting his website: http://www.ratinaud.ca/

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Canning, On a Personal Note

2011-10-05T14:11:00.001-03:00

It was about this time last year that I started having incredible pangs of homesickness.

I have never been the homesick type, to be clear. Not that I don't love my home and family, but the urge to explore and the thirst for adventure has always trumped any feelings of homesickness in the past. I remember being a kid at summer camp and never understanding when, by the middle of the first week, my fellow campers were in tears and lining up at the only payphone on site to make their phone calls home. Weren't we having the time of our lives? Why would they feel sad?

It wasn't so much that I missed a particular place or city last year, it was that I had the overwhelming desire to put down roots. A place where I could create and flourish. I loved living in Korea, but for a variety of personal reasons, I knew it wasn't going to be my 'forever home'. My passion for food and all things home-cooked was getting stronger, and it was becoming increasingly frustrating not knowing how to read food labels or know which farms my food had come from. I had picked up some of the language, but I was nowhere near that level of understanding. There were just so many things I wanted to learn how to do that required the use of an oven, or at least the recipe book residing in my mother's head.

It was this time last year that I sent my mom a message saying, "If I come home, will you teach me how to put things in jars?"

One of the beautiful bowls I bought in Seoul last winter, holding my lemons for preserving this fall.

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Alvaro's Zucchini Muffins

2011-10-02T23:53:00.000-03:00

When I posted my latest Muffin Monday link on Facebook two weeks ago, a friend I met in South Korea left me an intriguing comment:

"do you take requests? cause my momma made some bad ass zucchini muffins when i was a kid, i wanted to see your take on something like that. alas i don't have a recipe to share..."

I immediately wrote to Anuradha to see if we could include it in a Muffin Monday round-up, thinking it would be fun for Alvaro to see 10 or more versions of his childhood Zucchini Muffin, and not just mine. As it happens, An was already planning a Zucchini Muffin in the coming weeks, so she graciously agreed to circulate her recipe to the Muffin Monday crew.

So, Alvaro, these bad ass muffins are for you!

Love the pop of colour from the zucchini!

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Food & Wine Magazine: September Cover Recipe

2011-09-30T11:41:00.000-03:00

Thai Chicken & Watermelon Salad

Rating: 5 out of 5

Despite being out of university and an academic environment for several years now, I still tend to run my life on an academic calendar. September, for me, is the time for turning over new leaves, for taking on extra projects, and for feeling rejuvenated and re-energized to tackle some personal goals. It's when fitness routines and devoting myself to personal betterment take precedence, forsaking more social activities in order to prepare of my all-time favourite winter activity: hibernation! By April, I've given it all up and am ready to embrace summer and all its terrible habits again.

Along these new, September lines, I'm once again teaming up with Jasmine of CookThatBook to create and rate the cover recipes from Food & Wine magazine every month. Jasmine has been doing this all year, but I'm joining in now anyway. Better late than never, right?

For now, here is my experience making the Food & Wine cover recipe for September 2011: Thai Chicken & Watermelon Salad. Make sure you head on over to CookThatBook, as well, to see what Jasmine did with this recipe, as well as some great wine pairing advice from Kendall Harris.

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High Tea, In Photos

2011-09-28T18:04:00.000-03:00

It was a chilly, rainy day last Saturday and my mom was in town helping me with my first batch of canning. It was late afternoon once all the jars were filled and the lids had popped, so we headed over to Dartmouth for High Tea at Ma Belle's Cafe. Interesting mix of French and English, non?

Being so close to Two if by Sea, I couldn't resist popping in there, too, for one of their signature croissants to go. I would have photographed it had it actually survived the car ride home. Provolone and prosciutto? You can't hang on to something that delicious.

An indulgent afternoon!

A sandwich board caught in the downpour.

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Muffin Monday VI: Carrot Spice Muffins

2011-09-25T23:20:00.000-03:00

When Anuradha circulated this 'healthy' muffin recipe last week, I, for once, didn't tremble with fear. I had ducked out of town for the last healthy muffin two weeks ago, and have been hearing rave reviews about it ever since. As a result, I figure An knows what she's doing in the healthy muffin department, and believe it or not, I didn't do anything to make this muffin unhealthy. I didn't even add cream cheese! (Though, trust me, that was a challenge.)

This healthy (or, perhaps, 'healthier') muffin had perfect timing, too, considering I just had one of those weeks where I decided that enough is enough: If I want to cover everything in cream cheese, I need to be hitting the treadmill a few more times a week.

I liked how this recipe left lots of room for interpretation with its variety of choices. (You can see my choices below in the recipe.) If you give this girl the option, however, I will probably choose what I consider to be the tastier (at times unhealthier) ingredient. Admittedly, it also helped me ease into the idea of a muffin that's not ridiculously fattening. Is that so wrong?

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Spilling Beans

2011-09-22T13:07:00.000-03:00

Not to beat a dead birthday horse, but something very fun transpired the day of my birthday that I didn't want to blog about until it was official. I got an email that day from my fellow Muffin Monday blogger Jasmine, at Cook That Book, asking me if I'd be interested in contributing to her website as a cookbook reviewer.

Are you kidding me? Needless to say, I was thrilled.

Life got a little busy around my birthday, for obvious reasons, but it was also partly because I was testing the heck out of Foodista's Best of Food Blogs Cookbook: 100 Great Recipes, Photographs, and Voices, for my first review.

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A Cabin in Photos

2011-09-21T15:21:00.001-03:00

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Muffin Monday & the Hunt for Jam

2011-09-18T23:10:00.000-03:00

Life is finally calming down again after a very busy start to September. I was crushed to have missed last week's Granola Muffin, which got rave reviews from the Muffin Monday bakers, so I'm very happy to be back on the muffin-making horse this week with this simple, Jam-Filled Muffin.

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Classic Blueberry Pie & Kitchen Notes on Feminism

2011-09-15T10:59:00.001-03:00

Don't you love it when a friend goes berry picking and ends up with too many? And then when she invites you over to help her 'get rid' of them?

More importantly, don't you love it when you're supposed to go for a walk with said friend, only to have her invite you over to bake pies, instead?


Well worn and well used: Kate Aitken's Canadian Cook Book - first printed in the 1960s, but this copy was reprinted in 1971.

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My 30th Birthday (Mostly) In Photos

2011-09-13T15:49:00.000-03:00

Ah, birthdays. It's no secret that I love them, but it has to be said that this one was pretty special. I'm going to try and stick to the food elements of my birthday, only a fraction of which I actually documented!

As I mentioned in my post on Cheesecake Muffins, my week of early-birthday celebrations began with breakfast with my big brother. I made my go-to Bacon Cups, which I've posted plenty about before, because I knew he'd love them. I can't quite put into words how pretty I think these little cups of glory are! I used rye bread this time, and they provided a nice, sturdy base and molded together well with the bacon.

Bacon Cups. My absolute favourite breakfast.

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Lemon Bundt Cake & A Late Summer's Eve

2011-09-09T13:07:00.000-03:00

I was feeling inspired after reading this beautifully nostalgic post from Jamie (Life's A Feast) a little while ago, about American versus French barbecues. Knowing I was going to spend a lovely weekend in the Annapolis Valley last week, at two separate barbecues, I really wanted to try making her Glazed Lemon Bundt Cake, which she wrote about in that post.

I wound up making two of these beauties: one for the Saturday barbecue with my family and some friends from Halifax, and one for the Sunday soirée with our Valley-residing friends. For the first barbecue, I stayed true to the recipe, simply topping the cake with the lemon juice and sugar and letting it soak in. Both my mother and I agreed with Jamie's prognosis that this cake is deceptive: while seemingly plain, that sugary, lemony goodness is more than enough to complement the moist, delicate cake. However, having received some requests from both F. and my father for a 'topping' of some sort, I decided to appease the men in my life for round two.

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A Random Bake of Kindness

2011-09-08T00:33:00.000-03:00

A what?

Just yesterday I stumbled upon an event making ripples across the blogosphere, which had been live for a couple of weeks, but under my personal radar. Random Bakes of Kindness, spearheaded by Vanessa Kimbell, is an event whereby you surprise someone in your life with baked goods just to show how much you appreciate them. I have done this sort of thing before, but how fun to intentionally go about making peoples days brighter with a random gift of baked goodness? Who wouldn't want this kind of surprise?

My target? Lifelong friend Angie.

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On Cream Cheese & Birthdays

2011-09-04T23:33:00.000-03:00

At the risk of romanticizing this ever-so-slightly, this week's Muffin Monday assignment was like a date with destiny! It's no secret that for the past two Muffin Mondays, I have either thought about, or have gone ahead and added, cream cheese to my muffins. How happy was I, then, with the discovery that this week's muffins needed no excuse? These Cheesecake Muffins were the perfect way to kick off not only the Labour Day weekend, but a weekend of my early birthday celebrations, too. There's just something about that velvety texture that really knocks my socks off.

On the topic of birthdays, I have always loved them. My love for birthdays has nothing to do with presents or attention, I just have always felt that I've earned my new age, and nine times out of ten, I feel fiercely proud of the things I've seen, done, and accomplished over the previous year. Birthdays are a time for reflection, a time to celebrate a year well spent, and to give an optimistic nod to the future and to all that the upcoming year holds.

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김치 볶음밥 (Kimchi Fried Rice)

2011-08-31T18:15:00.001-03:00

I did it!

Six months have passed since I left the fine Republic of Korea, and last night, for the very first time, I made a homemade Korean dish. As I alluded to in an earlier post, it's something I've been intentionally waiting to do, but ever since I discovered bottled kimchi at my local Asian grocer (Tian Phat), I've been dying to try making Korean food at home.

As it happens, the Korean cookbook I bought right before leaving Seoul doesn't have a recipe for one of my favourite dishes: Kimchi fried rice (otherwise known as kimchi bokkeumbap, or even more so as 김치 볶음밥). I suspect, now that I've made it, that the absence of this recipe can be attributed to the fact that it's so easy to make. Alas, the cookbook will have to wait for another night, and another cooking adventure.

So where does any new dish in the kitchen begin, if not from a cookbook or your imagination? On Google, of course, and subsequently, on Blogger. I found a very straightforward recipe on the blog of cookbook author Bee Yinn Low. The pictures and recipe looked and sounded exactly like the kimchi bokkeumbap I used to eat in Seoul, so I figured it was a good recipe to start with, even if it wasn't directly from a Korean website or source. Given that this recipe only serves one, however, and that I'm a fiend for kimchi, garlic, and sesame oil, I did end up adjusting the recipe to feed two, as well as to suit my individual taste buds.

Kimchi Bokkeumbap

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Muffin Monday III

2011-08-29T00:05:00.001-03:00

Confession: On the topic of raisins, I am fairly uninterested. I don't dislike them, I just don't get excited about them. The idea of a raisin, at least, makes me feel like taking a nap.

The reality is that I do quite like them, I just have this inexplicable, knee-jerk ambivalence whenever they come to mind. But because I have an out-of-control sweet tooth that leaves no stone unturned - thankfully or not? - I always wind up trying them in something anyway, and nine times out of ten, I love them.

When I received this week's assignment for Rum & Raisin Muffins, I went through the usual aforementioned motions and emotions. I shrugged my shoulders and got to baking.

What I was not expecting was to love these muffins. Inside and out. Unconditionally. Wholly. Truly. They are by far my favourites in the three weeks I've been participating in Muffin Monday. I am in mad, muffin love. And once again, these were so simple to make!

Amaretto and Raisin Muffins with Cream Cheese Glaze

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A Saturday in Photos (on Wednesday)

2011-08-24T11:00:00.000-03:00

Last Saturday F. and I had the great pleasure of trying out Chef Martin Ruiz Salvador's 7-course Tasting Menu at the esteemed Fleur De Sel in Lunenburg.

Our 7-courses turned into 10 with all the extras, and along with the wonderful company and atmosphere (the rain, thunder and lightening actually added a nice touch!), it was a satisfying and cozy way to spend a Saturday evening. We stayed (and breakfasted) at the Mariner King Inn again, since we enjoyed it so much during our last visit in May.

Here is our Tasting Menu in photos!

Chanterelle Mushrooms

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Snickers & Peanut Butter Muffins

2011-08-21T23:45:00.004-03:00

It's Muffin Monday, friends!

Last week I was among bloggers baking from Canada, the Dominican Republic, India, Japan, Macedonia, and the United States. What a pleasure it was and is to interact with people around the world and across cultures who share similar passions, but who I might not have encountered any other way! Muffin Monday is now in its tenth week, though only the second I've participated in, and I look forward to seeing what Anuradha has in store for us in the coming weeks and months.

After reading some of the other Muffin Monday posts from last week, as well as a few other unrelated posts (I'm looking at you, Nelly, with your healthy Carrot Cake Muffins!), I was really envious of some people's ability to look at a recipe - that is by all accounts calorie-laden and unhealthy - and give it a healthier twist. I seem incapable of this. This week, for example, I wanted nothing more than to slather vanilla or chocolate icing on these, but I refrained in the interest of keeping with the muffin (and not cupcake) theme. In retrospect, I should have just gone for it! I also thought about adding cream cheese to them, to make them even more rich. What's wrong with me? I see an already unhealthy recipe and think of ways to make it worse. In the end, I simply stuck to the recipe, with only one small deviation that I've detailed below.

(But seriously, what do you think about the addition of cream cheese? And in what amount?)

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How (Not) to Make Spaghetti Carbonara

2011-08-19T18:14:00.001-03:00

It's a good thing I don't have any Italian ancestors, because if I did, they'd be rolling over in their graves at the sight of my homemade pasta!

Given that I'm focused on chronicling my experimentation in the kitchen these days, I'm not afraid of posting about my failures here - for both your horror and amusement - and not just about my successes.

Thus, I present to you, my Homemade Spaghetti Carbonara.

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Breakfast of Champions

2011-08-17T12:02:00.002-03:00

Other titles I considered:

A Sunday in Photos (on Wednesday)

Attempting to Photograph Non-Food Objects

Wasting the Battery While Trying to Learn More About this Camera I'm Using

Making the Locals Uncomfortable with Excessive Photo-Taking

(Whichever you like, really.)

Dudes Food: On the side of the road in Three Fathom Harbour, Nova Scotia, and just minutes down the road from Lawrencetown Beach. A sunny afternoon drive well spent!

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TGIM

2011-08-15T06:46:00.013-03:00

That's right: TGI... Monday! Thanks to this ingenious idea by Anuradha from Baker Street, we now have every reason to celebrate the ever-dreaded Monday. A little over two months ago, Anuradha created Muffin Monday: a weekly event where a group of food bloggers are given the same muffin recipe to adapt however they choose. On Monday, the muffins are revealed, eaten, and thus, our first day back at work becomes much easier to swallow... so to speak.

Given that I still feel like a newbie on the food blogging scene, I was really surprised when Anuradha asked me to join in for this week's Muffin Monday event. Some of my blogger friends have been involved in the past, but they are real, established cooks and bakers! Needless to say, I felt very honoured to be involved in this clever and tasty project.

Our muffin mission this week was to bake Doughnut Muffins. It just so happens that these were some of my favourite treats growing up, and I have vivid, wonderful memories of eating my mom's version of this recipe. Despite her penchant for baking, my mom always tried her best to put healthy food on the table when my brother and I were small, so when the smell of these these classic muffins came wafting through the house, it was always the most pleasant of surprises. Because she and my dad didn't overload us with sugar, we always really appreciated the treats when they came.

My Muffin Monday line-up.

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Summer in a Shot Glass

2011-08-14T17:42:00.011-03:00

Two little tricks up our sleeve at last week's Dinner Club were the melon shooters and the coffee granita: we served these in between courses as a sort of palate cleanser. They certainly were tasty interludes and they bought us the time we needed to plate the next course!

The first was adapted from an idea given to me by Chef Renée Lavallée, otherwise known as Halifax's Feisty Chef. I attended two of her cooking classes recently (great fun!), and in the midst of my chilled soup woes, she gave me some much needed advice and a fun idea. Rather than serving it as a soup, however, we wound up making it into this simple shooter.

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Chilled Tomato Soup with Goat-Milk Yogurt

2011-08-11T11:31:00.003-03:00

The first recipe from Dinner Club I want to share with you is this beautiful, colourful, and savoury chilled soup. I had my doubts about this one, I'll admit, because if I could pick a single vegetable I like the least, it's celery. I was immediately put off of this soup because of its addition, but later coaxed into trying it once I realized it was just the leaves that were needed.

Passing the seeds of 5 pounds of tomoatoes through a sieve was definitely a labour of love, but completely worth it in the end! Because this soup never gets to feel the heat of a pot, the flavours of the herbs were so fragrant and fresh. I would absolutely recommend trying this recipe out before the fall, and if you want to try something that's still savoury but different from the classic gazpacho.

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6 Courses Later

2011-08-10T10:32:00.004-03:00

If we have been talking in person, on Twitter, or if you've read my latest blog posts, you know that I've been planning one, very special dinner party menu for over a month now. A month! That's a long time for this perfectionist's brain to stew over one event.

F. and six of his friends have been taking turns hosting Dinner Club for several years, but this past Saturday was the first opportunity everyone had to get together in quite a long time. It also happened to be F.'s turn to host, which meant that my first time attending dinner club and my first time hosting dinner club were one in the same. Moreover, while I've cooked for many a guest in the past, I had never had the space or resources to feed 8 people, especially not with such an extensive menu. Imagine my tiny apartments in both Bonn and Seoul, with a two-burner stove-top being my only kitchen appliance for years. While undoubtedly limiting, it certainly taught me to be creative!

It was an awesome challenge: one that made me feel equal parts nervous and excited.

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A Change in Focus

2011-08-09T17:39:00.000-03:00

At least, a slight change in focus. I'm not sure this needs a dedicated blog post, but here it is anyway!

After giving this some thought over the past few weeks, I've decided to move away from some aspects of food writing, in order to become more focused on others. I'm not sure, for example, that review-style writing is really a good fit for me. There are many talented writers/refined palates in Halifax doing this, and I'm happy to leave them to their work.

What I really want to do is refine my own writing, cooking, and baking skills. From now on, I'll only be writing about my own journey in the kitchen, as well as sharing recipes and stories from those people whose lives, skills, and food impact me.

I had no idea how rewarding this blog would be when I first started it, nor the level and pace of personal growth I'd undergo in the process. I'm so grateful to everyone who stops by and shares their time and thoughts with me. I hope you continue to find something to feast your eyes on here!

Coming very, very soon: the results of Dinner Club!

Testing, Testing...

2011-08-02T12:29:00.001-03:00

This past weekend was a holiday weekend in Nova Scotia (and much of Canada), so we had a whole, extra, glorious Monday off to do with it what we pleased. And what a productive weekend it was chez nous!

Over the course of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday I ended up testing out several dishes in preparation for a dinner party we're hosting this weekend with several of F.'s closest friends. Some were a big hit, others not, so which ones we use on Saturday remains to be seen. The theme of this dinner party is 'breakfast for dinner.' Or... Brinner?

This is a simple, chilled Avocado Soup. I loved it, but F. hated it. I had a feeling he would, just because it has certain ingredients I know he doesn't like. I did however agree with him on something: rather than calling it Avocado Soup, it should be called English Cucumber Soup, due to the overwhelming flavour of cucumber and complete lack of avocado flavour. I do plan on making this again, but will attempt to do its namesake more justice by adding much more avocado and much less cucumber. In any case, it was frothy, refreshing and lovely on a warm day. Find the recipe I used here.

The next chilled soup I tried was this sweet and savoury Peach Soup. The recipe, from Canadian Living, calls it Spiced Peach Soup, due to the inclusion of ingredients such as cardamom and cloves, but I find it a little misleading when the end result is extremely tart and sweet. This will also be tampered with, maybe by adding some heavy cream or more yogurt, to cut down on the sweetness. The original recipe is here.

Next up is homemade Mac & Cheese. This was F's brainchild, and a brilliant one it was! We adapted this recipe to include Panko and a different variety of cheeses. I also finally got to put my new Dutch Oven to good use, found on mega sale about a month ago at Canadian Tire. The recipe this pot of delicious was based upon comes from an awesome (and funny) food blog called The Pioneer Woman Cooks!

Then - THEN - there were these little beauties. I got the recipe for Honey Vanilla Madeleines from Jamie Schler of Life's a Feast (not to be confused with the earlier Jamie I posted about, from My Baking Addiction). The gorgeous food Jamie Schler produces in her kitchen and oven can only be rivaled by her beautiful writing and storytelling. I'm completely hooked on her blog! If you haven't visited it yet, you should; it will change your foodie life. Her recipe for (mini) madeleines is here.

Last, but certainly not least, I experimented with Coffee Granita from the lovely Nelly Rodriguez's blog, called Cooking with Books. Sadly I don't have a photo of it, but it was such a fun way to get my morning dose of caffeine. It may or may not have been consumed in bed that morning, along with several of the madeleines. (Is that what heaven is like?) I'll definitely be making the granita again this weekend, so I'll post photos of it then. In the meantime, here is a link (to a link) of her recipe - a guest post on another blog.

Nelly - a fabulously talented CIA grad - is a new friend (albeit only through the internet - how deliciously nerdy!) who has been most generous with her time and advice on all things culinary. She is one of a small handful of food bloggers I've been getting to know a little, along with an old friend I've reconnected with, who are daily inspirations to keep trying and writing about new adventures in the kitchen. Here's looking at you Nelly, Jamie S., Alan, and Alessio. I really appreciate you guys!

As a final side note, I was lurking around Twitter in pajamas on Saturday evening, when F. suggested we pull ourselves together and check out the Summerlicious Menu at Onyx. It was an excellent last minute idea, and nothing perks me up or gets me moving like the promise of good food. It's an incredible deal: $25 for a 3 course meal, plus an extra (optional) $20 for wine pairings. We loved it! It was extremely quiet because half the city of Halifax was in Moncton to see U2, but it was just what a dreary, Saturday night should be.

Did you try any new recipes over the weekend? How did they turn out?

On the Company of Friends (& Strawberries)

2011-07-30T12:04:00.003-03:00

The only thing comparable to good food is good company, and on the best and loveliest of days, you are lucky enough to get both. I tend to always include a few details about my dinner mates on here, because who we eat with can be as important as the meal itself.

An amazing meal can still be amazing in poor company, but how much more memorable is it when the conversation and laughter is as delectable as the food and wine? It's this wonderful marriage between food and friendship that makes me particularly fond of food cultures that can be considered communal in any way. Taking several hours to eat, over several courses, with many friends in France, for example. Or ordering dozens of dishes in Korea, all meant to be shared with your dinner mates, while none of which exclusively for you. It's the sharing of stories and lives, those connections across the table, that make what we're eating even more special. Your food becomes an event. A celebration.

Along these lines, last week, I had the vast pleasure of meeting Jenny Osburn: the exceptional woman behind Union Street Café and the Wick Pub in Berwick, Nova Scotia, and otherwise known as the Union Street Kitchen Witch. Jenny's food blog was the very first one I came across when I arrived back in Canada last March. I was in the Annapolis Valley at the time and looking for a place to take my dad for his birthday. That's when I found Union Street's website, and subsequently, Jenny's blog. After that discovery, I went and started this little blog, and Jenny and I began sharing some food commentary back and forth. This is what eventually led up to the lovely, sunny lunch (and dessert - of course) that we shared in person last week.

Rather than it being a first meeting, talking with Jenny was more like catching up with a long lost friend, so to say it was worth the road trip would be saying the very, very least. Within the first 20 minutes of our face-to-face lunch, we were telling heartfelt, personal stories over white wine and Indian-inspired pizza. The food was fantastic (especially that no-bake cheesecake!) but it's the conversation we had that day that will stick with me, and it's what made that glass of wine extra tasty.

If you are in the Valley and in the vicinity of Berwick (and if you're not - make the trip!), you absolutely must swing by and check out Union Street Café. Jenny and her family have been supporting and making truly local food for years, long before it ever became popular; which, as we talked about that day, is hardly a bad thing. Buying, eating, and supporting local produce/producers is a fine example of a trend gone right, and one that's hopefully here to stay.

Yesterday, Jenny and her significant mister happened to be in Halifax, so F. and I met up with them for lunch. Over our too many plates of sushi, I learned that Jenny won the 3rd annual Local Food Hero of the Year award last winter, through Select Nova Scotia, for championing the local food movement over the past 10 years. The third annual! The award was only previously given out to Chives and Fid: landmarks in Halifax for excellence in food. What a wonderful way to recognize her commitment to her community and the food it produces.

Jenny has posted some gorgeous strawberry recipes on her blog over the past few weeks, well-stocked by her local u-picking haunt. Next time I'm in the Valley I might try to snag a few pints before they go out of season (which is soon!), along with more of Jenny's wonderful company.

To commemorate the final days of strawberry season, here is one of my mom's favourite, easy-as-pie ways to stock up on the berries and savour them long after they're gone.

Debbie's Strawberry Freezer Jam

4 cups chopped strawberries

1-1/2 cups of sugar

1 package of Bernardin Freezer Jam Gelling Powder

Place berries in a large bowl. Stir in sugar and let stand 15 minutes. Slowly sprinkle Gelling Powder into the fruit mixture, and keep stirring for 3 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes (don't worry if you go a little longer). Stir again for 1 minute. Pour into sterilized jars.

To sterilize, you can: 1) put the jars on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven; 2) run them through a hot wash in the dishwasher; or 3) put the jars and lids in a pot of boiling water for 15 minutes before filling. Any method works fine as long as the lids are boiled for sealing.

Add the jam to your jars, leaving about 1/2 inch head space. Put the lids and rims on, making sure to tighten them well. Once you hear them popping you'll know you have the seal you need. Put them in the freezer.

Apparently, most freezer jam recipes call for equal part berries and sugar, so, for example, 4 cups of strawberries and 4 cups of sugar. My mother thinks that it's overkill, and I tend to believe her. With her method, I'm ashamed to say that I could eat an entire jar of the freezer jam straight: it's that good and keeps a remarkably fresh taste. I even gave a spoonful to Colleen the other day, when she was sick, joking about its homemade, medicinal properties.

Much to my great horror, I discovered that my mom uses Splenda instead of real sugar (see my post about real vs. fake food!). Given my love for her jam, however, and that white sugar isn't terribly healthy to begin with - ahem - I suppose I can't be too hard on her?

Here's to strawberries, and to those new friends who pop into our lives, seemingly out of nowhere, but who feel like they've been there all along.

(... and to the two glasses of wine I had while writing this post last night, which may or may not have added to its sentimentality!)

Confronting Cheesecake

2011-07-26T14:17:00.006-03:00

One thing I've been talking a bit about lately is my apprehension over baking. This might sound silly to many of you aficionados out there, but given that only one of my many apartments over the past several years abroad had an oven in it (and that was only for a couple of months), baking still makes me feel like I'm in over my head. I've been dabbling with easy desserts here and there since coming home, but nothing terribly impressive or technical. I've been stove-top cooking by the seat of my pants for so long now, that baking - with its very precise instructions and ingredients - tends to make me nervous! You can't taste it and add more salt half way through, if need be, or thin it out if it gets too thick. As a result, I have an ever-growing stack of untested recipes at home, but slowly, I'm getting the courage to tackle some of them.

On Sunday night, I experimented with this Lemon Cheesecake with Fresh Berries recipe from a website called My Baking Addiction. Jamie, the baker and operator of the site, calls this recipe 'the best'. You may be thinking that cheesecake is not a very adventurous step forward for me, but if you take a look at Jamie's website, you'll see that she's a pretty amazing baker, so it is with great trepidation that I try her 'best' recipe for anything.

There were several moments when I thought this cheesecake just wasn't meant to be: Realizing at 11pm that I had 3 eggs and not the 4 the recipe called for, remembering how long cheesecakes need to cool in the oven after baking, and then how much attention they still need after baking and cooling. This led to scrambling for an egg replacement (1 tablespoon of cornstarch + 3 tablespoons of water) and hoping and praying it wouldn't ruin it, a phone call to my mother, setting my alarm several times throughout the night to check in on the cooling process, and then bringing the cheesecake into the bedroom to cool so as to avoid unneeded attention from the cat (who has a penchant for hunting down late-night snacks). I have never been so devoted and attentive to a baked good in my life.

Needless to say, it turned out to be a late night for me that night, but the pains seemed to have been worth my while: what a beauty she was! Smooth, fragrant, and firm. I served the cheesecake last night when F. and I went to a BBQ with some of my oldest friends, and I was inwardly begging the culinary gods that it'd be as nice inside as it was on the outside.

This being my first cheesecake in probably 8 or 9 years, I was pretty pleased with the result. I had forgotten my camera at home, once again, so I had to take these on my phone.

No cracks!

Here is Jamie's recipe, taken directly from her post called The Best Cheesecake. If you follow this link, you'll also see lots of great tips for baking cheesecakes in general, not to mention gain access to the rest of the website and her fabulous collection of recipes.

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Lemon Cheesecake with Fresh Berries
(by Jamie, My Baking Addiction)

Crust

2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 stick unsalted butter; melted

3 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon salt

Cheesecake
4 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each; room temperature
1 ¼ cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs; room temperature
3/4 cup heavy cream
zest of two lemons
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

Topping
2 cups of fresh berries
¼ cup apricot preserves plus 1 tables spoon hot water

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Tightly wrap a 9 inch springform pan in heavy duty foil. This step prevents leaks when using a water bath. I also take the extra step by placing the foil wrapped spring form pan inside an oven bag while baking.
2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into the bottom of your pan and about 1 inch up the sides. Bake for 7 minutes and cool completely on a wire rack.
3. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.
4. In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with your paddle attachment, combine the sugar and lemon zest and mix until the sugar is moistened and fragrant. Add in the cream cheese and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream and vanilla and mix until smooth.
5. Pour batter into prepared crust. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan.
6. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, the edges will appear to be set, but the center will still have some jiggle to it. At this point, close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. After one hour has passed, carefully remove the cheesecake from the water bath and place on a cooling rack to cool completely. Once the cake is completely cooled, place it into the refrigerator for at least 5 hours. Top will fresh berries and serve.

Notes:
1. For glossy berries, simply add 1 tablespoon of hot water to ¼ cup apricot preserves. Blend until combined and thinned out. Place the berries in a bowl and gently brush and toss the berries with the apricot and water mixture.
2. If you are not a fan of lemon, simply omit the zest.

What I loved most about this recipe was its wonderful lemon flavour. It was light and tangy on the tongue and gave it a nice summery twist. Next time, I might even add a little more lemon zest, along with finding a way to secure the berries to the top, so they don't scatter while cutting into the cake. I also added the fresh basil from Angie's herb garden to set off the colours in the cake and give it some additional flavour. The only other thing I did differently from Jamie's recipe was that I didn't submerge this cake in a full bath to avoid cracks: I simply added a shallow pan of water to the bottom rack of the oven. A genuine shortcut or did I just get lucky? Either way, I definitely feel like I'm getting back into the swing of things.

Me and my oven; my oven and me.

Wine Country

2011-07-12T11:16:00.004-03:00

Road trip? He asked.

Bien sûr! I replied. Likely in a terrible accent.

On Canada Day, July 1st, F. and I embarked on a whirlwind road trip that took us from Halifax to Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario and back again within 6 days. Nearly 4000 kilometers driven, with stops in 5 cities, and countless wonderful meals and memories, it’d be hard to detail this trip in one or even ten posts. That being said, here’s an attempt to give an abbreviated and largely photographic account of the highlights of those exhausting, but fabulous, days.

We only drove as far as Fredericton on the first day, not because it was a convenient or well-timed stop by any means, but because I spent five very formative and precious years there while completing my undergrad at St. Thomas University, and F. knew of my giant soft spot for the city. After a short but sweet visit with my cousin, we ventured downtown to fill our hungry, road-tripping bellies. F. wanted to eat somewhere that was representative of my time spent there in university, rather than check out any new places in town, so off we went to the ever-reliable Snooty Fox. Despite being insanely busy due to its proximity to holiday festivities, we were seated quickly, and our meals and micro-brews did not disappoint. I was less than enthused with our server, who flat out refused to give me a recommendation (does anyone else find this strange?), but the displeasure didn’t last long as we were both in vacation mode and not in the mood for moods.

The food highlight of this quick stop in Fredericton was the next morning, however, when I got to show F. the Fredericton Farmers' Market. We feasted on some early-morning samosas from Samosa Delight, freshly squeezed orange juice from Sam the Juice Man, and Victoria’s Secret Blend coffee: my three market staples while in university. The icing on this already happy cake was getting to catch up with an old friend from STU while we stuffed our faces with the legendary samosas.

The rest of Saturday was spent in the car. Entirely. Many a messy timbit and Subway sandwich were had by the time we reached Toronto that night!

Sunday - consistenly the best day of my week, every week - began with another round of dim sum with F.’s family in Toronto, which was even better than the last. We hit the road not long afterward for Niagara-on-the-Lake, where we were treated to wine tastings “downtown” and a fantastic production of My Fair Lady, as part of the Shaw Festival. If you're in the vicinity, I'd highly recommend catching this or any of the Festival's other shows. As an added bonus, if you're under 30, your ticket is heavily discounted. (Sidenote: Amazing! I didn't think I would qualify for discounts again until old age! We happily took advantage of my final 2 months in my 20s. F. was too old for the discount. Cough, cough.)

Waiting for the curtain to raise at My Fair Lady

Once the curtains closed and standing ovations quelled, we found our way down a long country road to our lodgings for the night. The stunning River Bend Inn overlooks the vineyard we were to tour and dine at that night, so after checking in, we put on our Sunday best and walked (walked!) through the fields and up the grand driveway to Peller Estates Winery. While waiting for our tour and tasting to begin, we naturally opted to fill the time with an additional tasting in the Estate's store.

River Bend Inn, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario

The lobby of the River Bend Inn from above.

While we waited: Tasting # 2 at Peller Estates. Private Reserve Riesling (2009),
Private Reserve Pinot Noir (2009), Private Reserve Vidal Late Harvest (2010).

After this, we quite literally wined and dined the night away in the Winery restaurant. We spent the following 4 (or was it 5?) hours being dazzled and intrigued by award-winning Chef Jason Parsons' tasting menu, that eventually sent us home across the vineyard buzzing happily on both food and drink. This was tricky in heels, let me tell you!

Because the tasting was blind ("Put all the decisions in our hands and allow us to awaken your palate with an unscripted and inspired culinary journey..."), I asked our server if she could write down the dishes for me, since there was no way I’d remember all the details after that many glasses of wine. Thankfully, she very sweetly complied and here are some of the highlights of our meal. (Check out my Flickr page if you'd like to see even more!)

Our view while eating. Bliss.

This was not included on the menu, but it was a tasty and pretty spoonful of skate.

Rabbit Boulanger, with mushroom & summer greens and maple foam dressing.
Accompanied by Peller's Riesling "Private Reserve" 2009.

Roasted Red Pepper Gaspacho with cucumber granite.
Accompanied by Peller's Sauvingnon Blanc "Private Reserve" 2009.

Smoked Digby Scallops, with sweet pea purée, pickled white asparagus, and toasted cashews.
Accompanied by Peller's Sauvingnon Blanc "Signature Series" 2009. This was F.'s
favourite dish, and he joked about having to come to Ontario for the best Digby
scallops he's ever tasted.

Ontario Beef Rib Eye, with parsley root purée, herb roasted pearl potatoes
woodland mushroom, and sea asparagus. Accompanied by Peller's Cabernet
Franc "Signature Series" 2008. This was my favourite, by far, and how appropriate
to be eating gorgeous, Ontario beef while in Ontario? With a sumptuous
glass of red, no less?

Strawberry Mousse, with cucumber frappé and cracked black pepper.
Accompanied by Peller's Ice Cuvée Classic "Signature Series." Truthfully, this was

an odd combination for me, as I wouldn't typically think of anything cucumber as dessert.
But awaken my palate it did! The combination was undoubtedly refreshing.

Our late-night departure from Peller Estates.

I've been very lucky to dine in some beautiful restaurants over the past few years, and particularly in the past several months, but dining at Peller Estates Winery Restaurant was truly an event: one I won't soon forget. If you'd like to read more about the impact Chef Jason Parsons and his restaurant are having on the industry, in Niagara-on-the-lake, and beyond, take a look here for what City Line has to say, or on the James Beard Foundation's website.

Last but not least, here is our beautiful breakfast, courtesy of River Bend. They had actually closed the breakfast menu (we didn't know they had one; it's not on their website!) by the time we mozied on downstairs, but the chef ever so kindly agreed to make us a dish of our choosing anyway.

English Breakfast

Banana Pain Perdu

I had been on several vineyard and winery tours in the past, but this visit was special. A new experience with a personal investment. The pinnacle of a wildly successful 6 days in a small car going a great distance.

If you haven't already done so, a sunset dinner on a beautiful vineyard, in excellent company, is something any wine- and life-lover ought to do while still on this planet. By all accounts, it was an experience that employed, excited, and indulged all of my senses.

It was, in a word, perfection.

Peller Estates Winery (3 July 2011)

Sharing Secrets

2011-06-30T20:29:00.001-03:00

As of tomorrow, we're off an an epic road trip to what many consider Canadian wine country: Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. Oooh I can't wait to get my hands on a vineyard! Or something like that. Niagara is the ultimate destination that will then send us backward to cover 5 cities in 6 days. I'm tired just thinking about it... but also very, very excited!

In the meantime, Erin ever so kindly agreed to share her recipe with me for that mouth-watering peanut sauce she used on our salads last Tuesday night, along with her own tips on how she makes it. Lucky you! This sauce will change your life. I highly recommend going out and buying the ingredients for it immediately after reading this.

Really!

Go!

Erin's Quick Peanut Dipping Sauce

(from the BBQ Bible - Sauces, Rubs and Marinades)

1 tomato, diced

2 cloves garlic

2 green onions, chopped

1-3 Thai chilies or jalapenos (leave in seeds if you want it hotter)

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves (I always leave this out as I'm not a huge fan of cilantro)

3/4 cup chunky peanut butter

1/2 cup chicken broth

3 tbsp fish sauce or soy sauce (I use soy sauce)

3 tbsp lime juice

1 tbsp light brown sugar or more to taste

ground pepper

More notes from Erin: "Throw it all in a blender and whir away! I find the 1/2 cup chicken broth makes it pretty runny and just add more peanut butter until I'm happy with the consistency. So good!"

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Happy Canada Day, friends! Check back in a week's time for updates on our food and wine adventure in Ontario.

A Weeknight Affair

2011-06-29T14:40:00.003-03:00

Who says you can't throw a dinner party on a Tuesday night? Hm?

Last night we went over to Erin & Pat's house, who are long-time friends of F.'s. Erin and I bonded over our mutual love of food at their softball BBQ a few weeks ago, and soon afterward, we begun trying to nail down a night to share some appetizers and wine together. That night happened to be last night. Given that we don't live very far from each other, it was the perfect way to spend a quiet, warm summer evening; probably one of the first Halifax has seen this year!

Once their sweet boys were settled in for the night, we began assembling our dishes. Now, I have to admit that I was much less ambitious than Erin in planning what I was going to make last night. I thought: weeknight, working, keep it simple. I whipped up a smoked salmon and cream cheese dip, with garlic and scallions, and a ridiculously easy but effective chocolate and cherry cake. These required no great culinary skill, but they certainly do hit the spot.

Erin - mother of two, also working - completely put me to shame! Her appetizers were beautifully thought out and executed. She started with some jumbo shrimp, sautéed in a creamy garlic sauce, then baked some goat cheese and roasted walnut crostini with honey and rosemary. Our final course was a stunning, Vietnamese noodle salad with peanut sauce and flank steak. By the time my chocolate cake came round, I was already in a food coma and could barely move. I would have been perfectly happy spooning the peanut sauce into my mouth all night, to be honest, but thankfully someone took the spoon back after letting me try it. My dignity remains intact. One more close call.

I suspect I could learn a thing or two from Erin, so I'm hoping to score some of her recipes in the very near future (nudge, nudge)! In the meantime I will A) post photos for you (read: me) to drool over, B) post recipes for the dishes I made, and C) begin researching for our next foodie rendezvous. I need to step it up a notch!

Smoked Salmon Dip

(Adapted from Philly Canada's recipe, found here)

1 large tub (400g) of Philadelphia cream cheese
2/3 cup mayonnaise
2/3 cup sour cream
1 whole package of smoked salmon
1 tsp. of lemon juice
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup of scallions, chopped
Cracked black pepper

Combine everything in a bowl and mix until well blended. I warmed the cream cheese up in the microwave for about 20-30 seconds, to make it a little more pliable. Reserve a sprinkle of the scallions for the top of the dip. I served this with Triscuits.

I used to make a dip similar to this while living in Seoul, but it had more of a yogurt base. While undoubtedly healthier, I have to say I liked this one from Philly Canada better. Thick, hearty, and tangy.

Now onward to the cake. First, let me just say that my mom is not only an excellent cook, she's an excellent baker. But sometimes, even the best need a shortcut and a cheat sheet for happy bellies, and this is one of the best cheaters I've seen and tasted.

Debbie's Cheater Chocolate Bundt Cake

1 box chocolate cake mix

1 can cherry pie filling

3 eggs

1 Tbs. almond flavoring

1 cup chocolate chips

Mix together all ingredients (do not follow the cake mix instructions!). Pour ingredients into a greased tube (or bundt) pan and bake at 350ºF for 50 minutes. Let the cake cool completely before removing it from the pan.

The end product is a fudgey, fruity, dense, and moist chocolate cake that requires no topping. It'll stay moist for several days afterward, too, because of the cherry pie filling.

--

Here are some shots of Erin's divine dishes:

The jumbo shrimp in garlic, cream sauce.

Baked goat cheese and roasted walnut crostini, with honey and rosemary.

Do not adjust your screen! The salad was actually this colourful and vibrant.
Vietnamese noodle salad with peanut sauce and flank steak.

A big thanks to Erin and Pat for having us over and treating our taste buds to such a gorgeous array of food! Next time, Grover had better be careful because I might actually steal him away... sweet thing that he is!

A stowaway!

What are your favourite appetizers? Quick, complicated, or otherwise? I'd love to hear your suggestions!

Food In Flight - Part II

2011-06-25T13:21:00.002-03:00

Day 2 in Toronto started a little too bright and early for our liking, given the late-night dining excursion of the previous evening, but an exciting, family-filled day awaited us. Not a bad deal!

First up was dim sum with F.'s mom and grandmother in Markham. This being the first time I dined with F.'s family, I wasn't about to pull out the camera and ask that everyone wait to eat until I had the pictures I wanted. Maybe next time? Hm.

Dim sum was exciting, of course, because no matter how many interesting or different things there are to try in this world, there is always a new food adventure to be had. And, at times, it's one that involves avoiding eye contact with your food and taking a leap of foodie faith ;) Once F.'s mom learned I was willing to try anything, she quite coyly added a few more dishes to the menu to (I think) test my claim. Truthfully, everything I ate was delicious, including the chicken feet. The only thing I might pass on next time was the carp: not terrible, but just a really bizarre texture that I can't say I loved. I'm always glad I try different things, though, because there's always a good chance I'll get to add a new favourite dish to the repertoire.

That evening, we made our way over to visit my brother and his kiddies. My niece and nephew are the apples of my eye, and I don't get to see them very often, so I was naturally pretty excited about this particular part of the day. Sadly, his lady was out of town due to the passing of her grandmother, so we weren't able to catch up with her. Sunday being Father's Day, however, I was glad I got to spend it with my big brother; this being only his second. His upstairs neighbours were already barbecuing in the back yard when we arrived, so they invited us all to share in the food and frivolity going around on this gorgeous, June evening. Generous! We were treated to some of the fattest, tastiest ribs I've ever had: Charred slightly and crispy on the outside, while juicy and meaty on the inside. This was an occasion that called for the shameless and unabashed licking of fingers. No napkins necessary. Why waste the tastiness?

Swoon!

On day 3, the final day, F. was off for meetings and additional travel, so I was left to my own devices. I had made plans to meet up with a friend of my brother's who had just spent several months travelling (and beautifully photographing) several countries in Asia. Excited to hear his stories, Dave and I scored a quick lunch at his new favourite haunt: Ka-Chi Korean Restaurant on St. Andrew Street in Kensington Market. Germophobes beware: In true Korean fashion, I asked him share everything with me. He graciously agreed!

Our spread! Kimchi pajeon, Gam-ja-tang, and steamed, beef mandu for the main dishes.

A close up for the gam-ja-tang

Dave patiently waiting to dig in!

I have to say that I never really gave gam-ja-tang (pork bone stew) a fair shake when I lived in Korea. It smells really bad while it's cooking, and seeing as there was a gam-ja-tang restaurant in the same building where I worked, the smell usually prevented me from craving it or ordering it. I was definitely wrong not to sample more of this while in Korea, however, because of course the smell is long gone by the time you actually sit down and eat this at a restaurant. For about $6 at Ka-Chi, you get this huge, overflowing bowl of stew with about 5 or 6 chunks of pork inside, still on the bone, and in a spicy, red broth. They could easily be charging more, but I was happy to see this restaurant staying true to good Korean food and value for money.

We also ordered the kimchi pajeon (pancake), which is one of my absolute favourite dishes. I had a regular pajeon hole-in-the-wall I used to go to almost every weekend in Seoul, but I have to say, the pajeon here at Ka-Chi was probably the best I've ever had. The plain, kimchi pancake is not on the menu; rather, it's there as one of several varieties of kimchi and seafood pancake. I asked our server if he could make it without the seafood (which I find can be hit or miss) and he readily agreed. It was thick, brimming with veggies and sweet kimchi (it turns sweeter when it's grilled, fried, or baked in anything), with crispy, perfect edges. Mmm.

The steamed mandu (dumplings) were also great, because I find most of the Korean restaurants over here usually serve the deep fried variety. Steamed being my favourite - piping hot, with minced beef (or pork), onion, and garlic inside - I was blissfully happy and uncomfortably full with Ka-Chi under my belt.

Quite a successful weekend away!

Who's making or selling the best ribs in Nova Scotia? What are your favourite BBQ recipes?

Food in Flight - Part I

2011-06-23T12:04:00.008-03:00

Travelling, in earnest, began for me around the end of 2006 when I first moved across the pond to Germany. It was something I always knew I'd love, I just hadn't had the chance to really get out exploring yet, having spent the previous 6 years of the new millennium in university. It wasn't long after I started booking my weekends away that I noticed a highly discernible trend: food, of course. No matter what my travel itinerary included, what every day boiled down to was where I was going to eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and however many snacks I could justify... in light of getting the "full experience." Ahem.

Eiffel Tower: check. But where can I get lunch afterward? Great Wall of China: finally! But are there food carts along the way? Pergamon Museum: yes, please. First, let's get a brat next door. It's a big tower/wall/museum. One must be properly and deliciously fuelled!

Eloise, the lovely.

These days, travel usually includes a drive down the Nova Scotian coast, or a weekend getaway to another Canadian city. This past weekend I spent three, sunshine-filled days in Toronto, and true to form, every plan revolved around good food, good company, and for the most part, good drink. The sunshine-filled aspect is not to be understated, however: Nova Scotia's weather has left much to be desired this year, with hardly any summery or warm days to speak of! Needless to say, the 25+ degree weather was a welcome treat. I also had the pleasure of having a great neighbour on the plane, who recommended several of her favourite holes-in-the-wall to eat at during my next trip to Toronto.

The weekend kicked off with a quick, catch-up lunch at Bikkuri (King Street East) with my friend Eloise, who has recently undergone so many wonderful and exciting life changes that I had to hear about them in person... and over sushi. Bikkuri had a nice, street-side patio that provided the perfect setting for our sunny lunch and long-overdue life updates.

Fast forward to Saturday evening.

By this time, F. had arrived and we were gearing up for an evening of dining that we had planned for earlier in the week. During my last trip to Toronto in March, my friend Chad (who shared the Bacon Cups recipe with me) had tried to get us a last-minute reservation at Woodlot, but alas, was unable to. Ever since, I've had little fantasies and daydreams about actually going here, having seen some photos and read some reviews. What about "venison pie" (though only on the menu in fall or winter) and a wood-burning oven doesn't inspire fantasy? Sigh.

We started by having drinks at a place Eloise had recommended in Little Italy, called Sidecar. Their Badass Mojito is legendary, according to Eloise, so already being in the neighbourhood for dinner, we stopped in to see what the fuss was about. We sampled four different cocktails on their menu, and I have to say, Eloise was right: that was one dangerous mojito! A few of those bad boys and I might not have made it down the road to dinner. I have to apologize for the quality of the photos from here on: I was feeling a little footloose and fancy-free (and maybe also a little bashful about my compulsive picture-taking), so they're all taken on my Blackberry. Must get over this. Here are three of our four drinks sampled.

Onward to Woodlot. It would be an understatement to say this place is 'hip.' Whether that suits your taste or not, the food is irrefutably tasty and the flavours and pairings endlessly interesting and hearty. The atmosphere is something like a chic log cabin, with an upper floor overlooking the lower, which contains the kitchen and a large, wooden table: meant either for large groups, I suppose, or walk-ins who don't mind sharing their space. In the kitchen was the eye-catching, wood-burning brick oven. I wasn't able to capture it in pictures, so check out this blog for better shots of it. Our table was on the upper floor, directly next to the railing, offering a great view while still being nicely displaced from the bustle. Wooden, crate-like wine racks lining the back wall, the casual dress of the wait-staff, and the soft candlelight certainly made this place feel cozy. So much so, that I'd like to go back sometime in the winter, when I suspect this would be a most welcome escape from chilly, city streets.

It's a little hard to tell, but off to the right is the lovely, wood-burning brick oven.
I'm determined to have one of those in my back yard someday!

Our starter of Torched Hokkaido Scallops, with lentil salad, prosciutto, shaved shitakes, and balsamic.

Chop of Whey-Fed Pork with caramelized apple, black walnuts and sage,
and a side of mashed potatoes with olives.

Red Fife Whole Wheat Pappardelle with braised spring lamb, dandelion greens, and pecorino Romano.
This horrific picture cannot do this dish justice. Oh, the regret!

The illustrious F. hiding behind his wine glass.

Our beverage of choice.

Soma Chocolate and Hazelnut Pot de Crème

Roasted Marshmallow and Wild Blueberry Lemon Tart

Our scallops had a nice smokey flavour from the torch; a great twist that we both enjoyed. My main, the chop of whey-fed pork, was tender and beautifully displayed on a wooden plank, with a side of puréed potatoes with Moroccan olives and parsley. What a combination! F.'s main, which I actually liked better than mine - once again - was a gorgeous whole wheat Papardelle with spring lamb. What wasn't apparent from the description of the dish, however, was that there was mint in it. F. isn't a huge fan of mint, or anything flavoured with it, so I think he preferred my dish over his, too. Fine by me: I love mint, so we spent equal amounts of grazing our own and each other's plates. The picture of the Papardelle really does fill me with regret. It was such a lovely dish! I, for one, would highly recommend it.

Our desserts were a huge hit all round. Though, with our collective sweet tooth, I suppose they always are? The Soma Chocolate pot was downright sumptuous, with rich, creamy textures mixed in with the crunch of hazelnut. F.'s Lemon Tart was as pleasing to the eye as it was to the stomach! A crisp marshmallow topping that, once broken, revealed a flowing, lemony, blueberry center. Big, fat sigh.

This being only the first day in Toronto, I'll end Part I here!

3 Days, 5 Countries

2011-06-12T23:24:00.006-03:00

Friday.

The international foodie weekend begun on Friday morning as I arrived at work. On my desk was a conspicuous looking baggie with a dried, green plant-like substance inside. It isn't what you're thinking! (Naughty!) It was a zip-loc bag of yerba maté tea from Uruguay, brought in by a co-worker who had recently been there for work.

I had tried yerba maté for the first time while living in Seoul. In the foreign district, Itaewon, there was a little Paraguayan empanada shop that had some on their menu. I asked for it because I had never heard of it, and I always have fun ordering something completely mysterious to me on a menu. Truthfully, I thought it tasted terrible, but after hearing several other people RAVE about it (namely, Maria, a wonderful friend in Argentina who I might soon get to visit!), I figured I needed to give it another try. When said co-worker mentioned he had some on Thursday, I nearly fell out of my chair (quite literally), out of interest! Thus, Friday began, sharing some of the potent, grassy tea, out of a bonafide, decorated coconut shell on the edge of Pier 9. It was much better this time around - much more fresh - and I definitely started to see the appeal. An interesting start to the day, for sure!

Yerba maté from a decorative coconut shell

Sidenote: When I got home Friday night, I discovered that F. had made a new investment! They're not the original, German knives. These ones come from China, but are still endorsed by Henckels. An exciting accomplice for future adventures in the kitchen!

After this discovery, F. and I went out for all-you-can eat sushi, to let someone else experiment with sharp knives, I suppose. We went to a great spot in Bayers Lake called Happy Sushi. The interior is really cozy (I'm told it used to be a wine/spirits store) and the sushi was very tasty. F. has been here many times and says it's hit or miss, but on this particular night, it was definitely hit! I've had my fair share of sushi, and I'm told that this is not uncommon, but I had never before had sushi rolls with little bits of tempura batter in the center - at least that's what we surmised it to be! It was a great touch. The texture and the crunch really added something delicious to what were already already delicious, fresh sushi rolls.

BBQ eel, tuna, spicy salmon, and soft-shell crab sushi rolls


Sushi close up!

We had Happy Sushi's strawberry and green tea ice cream for dessert, but since we had already snagged these from Susie's Shortbreads before dinner, we may or may not have indulged in secondsies:

Saturday.

On Saturday night, my friend Carla (the same friend who accompanied me to Morris East in a previous post) came over to make a Peruvian dish with me. It was one of her favourite dishes as a child, so she had been wanting to learn how to make it for a while. Prior to arriving on Saturday, Carla had taken notes from her mother, her grandmother AND her aunt, so I knew I was in for a real treat. Carla did the lion's share of the work, while I occasionally chopped, stirred, or took photos. The recipe was quite time-consuming and definitely needed two sets of hands in the kitchen (unless you're a real pro!). I'm going to blog about it in greater detail later when I have a more complete recipe to go on, because this is comfort food at its finest, friends, and you're going to want to try it! For now, here was our finished product, called Aji de Pollo.


Chicken in a fiery cream sauce, over a bed of rice, and sides of boiled potato and eggs.

Sunday.

Oh, Sunday. Have I ever mentioned how much I love Sundays? I saved my weekend trip to the Halifax Seaport Farmers' Market for Sunday this weekend, because a little birdie (otherwise known as Twitter) told me that someone would be making Cambodian food today.

I had the great pleasure of spending eight days in Cambodia in 2009. Eight days is a heartbreakingly short period of time, but it was all the vacation I had from my teaching job in South Korea. I was there long enough for the country and the wonderful people I met there to leave a big, soft spot in my heart (cheesy, but true), the knowledge that I would definitely go back someday (for longer), and to learn that Cambodian food is... is... just, gorgeous. Overwhelmingly so. After leaving Cambodia, I looked everywhere for Cambodian restaurants, but was sorely disappointed to find out that the country was heavily under-represented in the restaurant scene in any city I've lived in or visited since. You can imagine my excitement, then, when I learned it would be served in Halifax this weekend.

Much of the Cambodian food I tried was delicate and filled with the soothing flavours of coconut and lemongrass. Cambodian curries, for example, are much more savoury than the spicy Thai curries found next-door. Saronn is the lovely lady who completely made my Sunday by serving her lip-smackingly good yellow curry and rice. She and her Happy Kitchen will be at the market every Sunday from now on (get there before noon if you want some!), though she is trying to secure a spot at the Saturday market, too. Keep your fingers crossed for her!

Chicken, carrots, basil, nuts... what's not to love in this spoonful of goodness?

Not my usual Sunday breakfast, to be sure!

On my way out of the market, I scored some fresh, Valley apple cider and strawberries. They made my car smell wonderful on the way home! Another delicious weekend for the books.

The Rich Forest

2011-06-11T10:50:00.004-03:00

Meet Allison: Bride-to-be!

Last Thursday I had a much-anticipated Korean food dinner date with my friend Allison. Allie and I met a few years ago here in Canada, but we have both previously lived in South Korea for a couple of years each, just at different times. She happens to be engaged to one of my old students' union friends, Jon, who she met in Korea, and I'm beyond excited to watch them tie the knot in July. Understandably, Jon and Allie have been pretty busy as of late, in the lead up to their big day, so snagging her for a nostalgic and indulgent evening was definitely a treat! Allie has her own foodie blog (currently on hiatus due to aforementioned wedding prep), which chronicles her experimentation with a dairy, soy, and sugar-free diet. This makes our Korean food outings all the more special, since she's technically not supposed to be eating these kinds of things! Check her out at Allie's Changing Kitchen.

The Rich Forest was everything a typical Korean eatery should be: splashed with fluorescent colours, fast and friendly service, lots of top-ups on water, a bin of extra-tiny napkins on the table, strange-tasting candies in a basket next to the cash, and pictures of all their food over the main counter. It was very reminiscent of places like Food 2900 or Kimbap Heaven that I used to frequent in Seoul. Hearing several conversations going on around us in Korean was nice, too: it made us both a little homesick for the country we not so long ago called home. The food was great, and very much like anything I would have eaten at any fast food (not to be confused with North American fast food) joint while there. So, in a word: authentic.

Now, in saying that, sometimes authentic doesn't always equate delicious. Certainly not all, but many of the meat dishes I tried in Korea were laced with fat, but that was considered a good thing. In Korean barbecue, for example, there are countless kinds and cuts of meat you can try and there is one, very popular style that is made up almost entirely of fat, called samgyupsal. It's basically the fattiest bacon you've ever laid your eyes on, but, importantly, it's considered a real treat.

This was supposed to be one bite!

Allie and I couldn't help but dissolve into laughter when she offered me a taste of her jae-yuk beokkeum (marinated, stir-fried pork), and the one piece I was aiming for was attached to a second piece by a very long and stringy piece of fat. I cut away the fat and the jae-yuk was delicious, but admittedly I do prefer my meat to be more lean. The other dishes we sampled were the mandu (fried dumplings) and yuk-gae jang: a very spicy broth with beef, glass noodles, and veggies. The mandu were crispy, flavourful, and not too greasy. Their kimchi was some of the best I've tasted in Halifax, too. As for the yuk-gae jang, I asked our server to make mine extra spicy, because this was one of my favourite soups to order while in Korea. Rich Forest's version was delicious and stunning to look at. It definitely had kick, too, but I don't think he believed me that I could handle it, so I asked him to make it spicier for me next time. This foodie wants to sweat!

Miso and mandu

Yuk-gae jang

Kimchi craving satisfied!

Jae-yuk bokkeum

All told, The Rich Forest's new location on Quinpool was a great way to kick off a weekend and satisfy cravings for good Korean food. Based on my experience eating at Seoul Restaurant (Duke Street), however, I will say that I liked Seoul a little better. Seoul's cuts of meat were a better quality and less fatty, so I liked the jae-yuk bokkeum better there. They were also slightly less expensive and had an atmosphere more conducive to dining. I suppose, to sum it up, The Rich Forest is a great place for lunch (I love a good shock of fluorescent as much as anyone), whereas Seoul is better for a nicer, more atmospheric meal later in the day.

Has anyone tried any of the other Korean restaurants in town, or the other Rich Forest location? What were your thoughts?

Real Food, Real Talk, Real Change

2011-06-05T17:15:00.006-03:00

Let's talk about food. Real food.

This is something I talk (one could even say rant) about a lot. I'm a huge proponent of eating food the way I think it was meant to be: in its purest form, without being enriched, without having anything much added to it, or - most importantly - without having anything taken away. Yep, that includes fat.

I don't have a degree in nutrition, I have no culinary training, but after doing a bit of reading on my own, eating real food just makes a lot of sense to me and it's a food philosophy that I fully subscribe to. So, wherever and whenever possible (it's difficult to do ALL of the time), I try to eat food that has ingredients I can identify, doesn't have too many ingredients, and isn't overly pre-packaged and preserved. From what I learned over the past few years, in books like In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan, among other books and films, is that many of the foods we find in boxes at our local supermarkets can't even be classified as real food, but as a food product. When you take things out of food and add things back into them (taking out the fat and adding chemical agents to make it taste better, for example) the food becomes a shadow of its former self and not nearly as nutritious. (Or delicious.)

I'm not talking about junk food here. We all know that's bad for us. I mean taking natural fats out of things like milk, butter, and yogurt and replacing them with artificial flavours to try and make them taste better. Not only does this take out the best part of these foods, they also taste awful.

In my opinion, of course. (Let's agree to disagree?)

Ultimately, and in every part of my life, I want to have a really healthy relationships with all things I consider good. I celebrate food and consider it to be one of the best parts of my life, so I don't ever want to feel negatively about it (fad dieting, guilt trips, etc.). The same goes for exercise: If I'm not feeling particularly social and don't want to go to yoga class, I'm not going to beat myself up about it, but I will try to make a point of practising from the comfort of home. That way I don't build up any negative, psychological associations with overwhelmingly positive things. It's extremely counterproductive for me. Anyone else?

This brings me to my next point: In order to fulfill my food philosophy - because no matter what way I look at it, it involves eating extra fat and consuming extra calories - I have to strike a balance and create good fitness habits. I've been pretty good about this in the past, but I'm currently trying to re-establish a regular routine. When I went for my initial consultation at my new gym yesterday and was asked what my number one fitness goal was, I said: Balance. I very much want to be able to eat what I want, guilt-free, and make up for it in exercise.

Again, to be clear, I don't mean sitting in front of the TV and stuffing six bags of chips and a freezer cake in me three nights a week. I mean eating proportionally, but not ever refusing to eat dessert at a beautiful restaurant. I mean not being afraid of cooking with real butter and drinking tasty, fresh, whole milk: All in healthy proportions and all supplemented by physical activity.

End rant.

About a week ago, Colleen's boyfriend's mother, Jennie, generously offered me a big bag of Annapolis Valley rhubarb. Having been away for the past number of years, when my love of cooking really took off (and for most of which I never owned an oven), there are so many common ingredients I've never actually cooked with. Rhubarb is one of them. I was excited by Jennie's gift, but I was unsure of what to do with so much of it. She then sent me a great recipe for Rhubarb Chutney, which I finally got around to making last night. Jennie got this recipe out of a book called New Maritimes Seasonal Cooking, but for my personal records I'm going to go ahead and call it:

Jennie's Rhubarb Chutney
3 cups chopped rhubarb, fresh or frozen
2 large onions, diced
2 cups lightly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper

Into large, heavy saucepan, measure all ingredients. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Reduce heat and boil gently for 1 hour, until mixture is the consistency of marmalade. Store in refrigerator for 1 month; in freezer 1 year.

Piece of cake. I ended up putting a generous teaspoon of cayenne in, because I really like a lot of kick. I also didn't have enough brown sugar, so I topped it up with white (about 3/4 cup). This recipe got me three, neat little jars of delicious chutney and a gorgeous-smelling house. I'm looking forward to trying this the next time lamb, pork, or fish is on the menu!

If you've made it this far: Thank you.

Now I need advice.

On Friday night, I cooked up some scallops and pasta. Something I'm proud of is my ability to combine (sometimes) random things in my fridge, guess at measurements, and produce tasty and nice-looking meals. Something I'm not proud of is my inability to record exact measurements for these inventions. As a result, whenever I try to replicate them, it turns out differently every time. Must work on this.

I started by frying the scallops in some white wine, cream, garlic, pepper, butter, and orange juice. In what measurements? I have no idea. Dashes here, double-dashes there. Dallops elsewhere. I later added some sugar peas and tossed it with spaghettini. But when I make cream-based sauces, sometimes this happens, and sometimes this doesn't, and it's an endless source of frustration and mystery for me:

My cream curdled! I can't seem to work out the right order of things. Sometimes I add the cream at the beginning, as the pan is heating up. Sometimes it curdles then, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes, I wait and add it when the pan is hot. Sometimes it curdles then, and sometimes it doesn't! Does anyone have any advice? What's the magic formula? I stir it constantly, regardless of when I add it, so I'm never sure what goes wrong and when. Either way, this finished product tasted wonderful, and looked ok, but I'd really like to work out how to stop this from happening altogether.

Last but not least, yesterday's indulgent lunch was wholly inspired by this article on the Taste of Nova Scotia website: Gourmandises Decadence at the Halifax Seaport Farmers' Market. My mouth was watering so badly after reading it, that I couldn't get it off my mind while circling the market on Saturday morning with my cousin Melissa. So I went round to some of my favourite stalls and got a bun of brioche from Julien's and some brie from Fox Hill Cheese House. Then, the icing on the cake: I fetched some Cremeux Des Salins (a salted, caramel spread) made by Gourmandises Avenue. Wonderful, sinful stuff.

Glorious.

Today is Sunday and it started out at the gym. I'm writing it here to keep me accountable to my own philosophy. Wish me luck in keeping up this healthy balance: I really need it!

Morris East, Halifax

2011-06-02T13:17:00.013-03:00

Experimentation in the kitchen was not in the cards for me this week, despite my best efforts to start cooking with a weekly mystery item ('mystery' defined as simply an ingredient I've never used before). As a result, I've been eating out more than usual, but I'll just tell you about the highlights so far.

There was a pit-stop at Ray's Haus European Café and Bistro earlier this week, a fairly new joint in Halifax that's over on Fenwick Street. I stopped in out of curiosity, mostly, because I'd been hearing a buzz about them on Twitter and TeamBuy, but also to re-fuel on coffee before a dinner date with my friend Carla. While there, I saw, tasted, and heard enough that I'm looking forward to going back for their dinner fare - soon! Ray makes and bottles a homemade currywurst sauce that is to die for. He offered me a post-coffee, pre-dinner sample after hearing that I'd lived in Germany, so the next time I'm feeling protein-deficient (which is never, so any excuse really!), I'll head over for one of his brats and write about it.

As mentioned, I was meeting Carla that night: a friend I had done my Masters with at Dalhousie, and who returned to Halifax last fall to start her PhD. She and I have been reconnecting over food and committee meetings fairly frequently since I've come back to Halifax myself, so this time we thought we'd try a place in her neighbourhood that we'd both heard so much about. I'd actually first heard about Morris East while abroad, mostly through Facebook updates of friends back home. Everything I'd heard sounded great, so I was looking forward to finally trying this place out.

Morris East is a small, minimalist kind of space that, at the same time, feels inviting, surprisingly roomy, airy, and fresh. The same could be said for the menu, more or less: small but rich with possibilities. I'm certainly not the first to say this, but I like it when restaurants keep it simple and focus their energies on a few, wonderful dishes. Quality over quanity and all that. They had their front windows open to the street, too, so a nice breeze was coming in on an all-too-uncommon warm evening here in Halifax. Everything about this place was perfect for this particular evening.

Carla and I started our meal by sharing an open-faced Ravioli with Duck Confit and greens tossed in a sweet balsamic sauce. I'm not sure the ravioli added anything to the dish, but with the lovely flavours in the duck, I suppose it wasn't really meant to. It offered a base on which I could pile individual mouthfuls of the duck, so it did serve a rather noble purpose. I first became obsessed with duck confit about a year and a half ago, while visiting my friend Eloise in Toronto. We went to a place called Beer Bistro - don't be fooled by the pub-like name! - and I had their duck confit pizza with goat cheese. It's something I really gravitate toward now whenever I see it featured on a menu.

Our starter of open-faced Ravioli with Duck Confit

For mains, Carla had the Pulled Pork Pizza and I had the Pear Pizza with blue cheese and prociutto. Both were extremely pleasing to the eye and I liked the ineteresting combinations of flavours in both pizzas, having been given a slice of Carla's to try. Admittedly - and just a preference - I think I'd rather have pulled pork on a sandwich, and cornbread as a hunk of cornbread on the side, but it was still a nice and tasty way to bring this popular dish into a pizza. My Pear Pizza, on the other hand, knocked me out with its gorgeous flavours: the sweet and the pungent balancing each other out perfectly.

Pear Pizza with red wine poached pear, roasted beet, blue cheese, shallot, prosciutto
and tarragon aioli.

Pulled Pork Pizza with bbq sauce, smoked applewood cheddar, and spicy cornbread.

Having already sent half our pizzas off to get wrapped to go, we claimed we were too full for dessert. But then I made the fatal error of checking the dessert menu out anyway; you know, for future reference. Naturally, after seeing the selection, we both changed our minds. Crippled by decisions, and with help from our extremely helpful and friendly server, I finally opted for the Salted Caramel Tart, while Carla asked for a scoop of their daily ice cream, which was an orange caramel combination. All I can say is: DIVINE. Carla actually exclaimed - loudly - after her first spoonful of the ice cream, while I went into some sort of foodie trance. I'd been having conversations with Freddie about adding salt to things like chocolate, as he'd heard it was good in chocolate milk. Shortly afterward, we had spied a Chocolate with Sea Salt bar by Lindt. It seems to be a flavour combination that's getting a little more spotlight these days, so along with those conversations and the high praise being given to the tart by our server, I was sold on trying it with caramel. There was no missing the saltiness of the tart - it was very pronounced - but it was just the right amount given the sweetness of the caramel. The salt was such a simple, but powerful addition.

Salted Caramel Tart

Orange Caramel ice cream

I'm already looking forward to my next visit to Morris East. I was told that their menu is getting a seasonal shake-up in the next two weeks or so, so I can't wait to see what interesting flavour combinations they'll come up with next!

Tonight I'm meeting my friend Allie for some Korean food at The Rich Forest's new location on Quinpool Road. She and I both lived in the ROK, though at different times, so we both need to indulge the urge for kimchi from time to time. Who doesn't?

Sidenote: Speaking of kimchi, I desperately want to try and make a kimchi hot dog, otherwise known as a Kogi Dog, featured on Food & Wine's website yesterday. (Friends still in Korea: have you found these over there? If so, how are they?)

Anyhow, mine and Allie's last Korean food excursion was to Seoul Restaurant on Duke Street back in April, so I'm excited to see how Rich Forest compares.

Last but not least, today I'm wishing my parents a wonderful 38th wedding anniversary. 38 years! They're a modern-day marvel in the institution of marriage. They make me proud. They also taught me a lot about food and health, for which I'm so grateful. With all the gluttony of late, it's why I just joined Goodlife. Haha.

Balance!

Feats & Feasts

2011-05-30T11:36:00.010-03:00

What a weekend! Tasty as all heck.

What began as a Friday Feast ended up being an entire weekend of dining-in and over-indulging. Fine by me! Isn't that what summer (or the lead into it) is all about?

Friday: Lobster

I left work on Friday armed with research, recipes, and one pre-dinner errand to run. Of all the food experimentation I have done over the past several years, I'm ashamed to say I've had relatively little experience with lobster: in cooking or eating it. So when F. suggested we cook lobster for one of his best friends and her boyfriend, I was excited, but equally intimidated. I wasn't even the one cooking the lobster - F.'s forté - but I was unsure of what to make for sides. Everything I had read online suggested keeping the sides simple, since the lobster really is the main event and requires so much of your attention that sides often go cold. I couldn't sit back and make a small contribution, however, so I opted to start with some baked goat's cheese and olives, with baked asparagus, sautéed sugar peas, and spring potatoes as the side.

The recipe I used called for boiling the potatoes first, before putting them in a pan with butter, green onion, the peas, and chopped, fresh mint. I only used half the mint that was called for, but I was surprised by how much I liked the flavour, and how nicely it set off the seafood and lemon flavours elsewhere in the meal. My timing was a bit off with F.'s lobster-boiling, however, so while the flavours were there, I was a little disappointed with my presentation: The veggies were left in slightly too long, so the greens lost their vibrant colour and looked a bit wilted in the dish. The lobster, however, was tender and cooked to perfection. Freddie wins this round!

Here are some snaps of our spread:

We finished up by cleaning off our buttery plates with some fresh sourdough bread from Julien's Bakery, and then some strawberry shortcake (with a brown sugar twist) for dessert. This meal was accompanied by a variety of Rieslings and Riesling blends. Each step of the way.

Ahem.

Lesson learned, however. Everything I read about keeping the sides simple seems to be true. Next time I'll be a better-prepared sous chef.

Saturday: Crêpes & Steaks

Mozza, tomato, and basil crêpe

I was feeling surprisingly ambitious on Saturday morning, given the previous evening's festivities, so I rolled out of bed and headed to the Halifax Seaport Market for some much needed breakfast and caffeine. One of my favourite stops here is the Crêperie Mobile for their mozza, tomato and basil crêpe. Bursting with fresh flavour, I find them to be the perfect way to wake up. Along with copious amounts of coffee, of course.

Halifax Seaport Farmer's Market

Saturday night ended by throwing a couple of steaks on the grill and eating up leftover veggies from the night before. F. keeps it fresh and simple with steak, and that's exactly how I like it. They're well seasoned and grilled to medium, at most. The outside is slightly charred and spicy, the inside pink and juicy. Glorious!

Sunday Brunch: Bacon Cups

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Chad - a notorious meat lover/promoter - posted a link from the Republic of Bacon's website and a recipe they had for some intriguing-sounding Bacon Cups. I took a quick look, was immediately sold, and vowed to make these bad boys as soon as possible. Life being life, I was only able to get around to making them yesterday, aided and abetted by the gorgeous natural, organic, no additives, hormones, antibiotics (etc., etc.) bacon I had picked up the day before at the market, from Windy View Farm in the Annapolis Valley.

This recipe is a piece of cake and took under 20 minutes to make, including baking time. The Republic of Bacon's recipe is foolproof and ridiculously easy to follow, but I will say that if you don't like your eggs runny, you will need to bake them about 5 minutes longer than the recipe calls for. Also, I substituted the gruyere with sharp, aged cheddar. Mine didn't turn out quite as perfectly as theirs did, but here is a condensed play-by-play of my first go at these breakfast beauties:

Pretty, no? Feeling vindicated for my mediocre sides on Friday, I now have big plans for these Bacon Cups and me this summer. They will definitely be making a re-appearance! All told, a hugely successful and delicious weekend. Now to find more time for the gym...

What's your favourite brunch recipe? I'd love to hear your ideas!

Thanks for the day off, Vix

2011-05-25T10:56:00.016-03:00

So there I was, full of gusto and imagining all the things I would cook and blog about over the Victoria Day long weekend. In actual fact, over the entire three days, I cooked nothing. Nothing! I didn't even really go out to eat. So what did I do? See the aftermath and wreckage that was my culinary weekend off below.

The rice had a bit of an unnatural flavour, but everything else was surprisingly tasty!
I split this up over two days' worth of dinners.

Wild Horse Canyon Shiraz and a Lime Dufflet Tart from Pete's.

Pita chips, Pete's hummus, and spinach dip courtesy of Sobeys.

Pete's build-your-own salad. I combined beans, olives, red onion, green onion, tomatos, feta, and sunflower seeds with a balsamic dressing. Ridiculously filling!

See, here's the thing: I like to cook for me, but I love to cook for me when I have company. So with F. off in Vancouver, and finding myself solo for the weekend, I basically checked out, didn't cook a thing, but still ate well and relatively healthily. This was my relaxing equivalent to ordering pizza in all weekend.

Truthfully, I've been living and eating like I'm still on vacation these past several months (Mom: your delicious baked good are not helping!), so not having any kind of health or fitness routine has really started to bother me. It's something I find really hard to do without a little time on my own to re-prioritize and reflect. As a result, I decided not to make many plans over the weekend, other than attending a yoga class, taking a bath, going for a walk, and watching Restaurant: Impossible marathons on the Food Network. Taxing! I decided to embrace the weekend alone and get some Aimée Time in. Because of the open schedule, however, I was also able to take in a friend's comedy show at the last minute, catch up with an old friend from high school, and spend an entire afternoon of quality time with my cousin, Melissa.

Despite the overrepresentation of pre-packaged food, I still got a nerdy, foodie high off of finding surprisingly delicious treats in the frozen food aisle and then foraging for gold - no difficult task! - with Melissa at Pete's Frootique, which, in my opinion, is the next best thing to homemade. I felt utterly and perfectly indulged and I had the downtime I needed to get out and get my body really moving; a feeling that leaves me in a better state of mind to get back into a more balanced lifestyle in the coming weeks.

How did you spend your long weekend? What did you eat?

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Lemon Cheesecake with Fresh Berries
(by Jamie, My Baking Addiction)