Time for our 3rd annual winter party. I was hoping to make it an annual event back when I did my first one, and I’m really pleased to be at the third already! I’m going to try a couple recipes from my charcuterie idol, Michael Ruhlman. Oh. I diverge. I emailed the guy, I think I mentioned this. Well he … Read More
Chinese Food?
We had the worst chinese food of our lives last night in chinatown. It was a horrible restaurant experience of epic proportions. We have a ‘usual’ place we enjoy for good chinese, to which I can compare the place we visited last night. The difference? Prawns the size of your thumb vs the size of a peanut. Fresh baby bok … Read More
If they sell toilet paper, do not buy their cheese.
First off, I can’t believe I’ve never written about cheese before. Great cheese is a perfect example of why I can’t, and will likely never be okay with the ‘I can’t cook’ approach to eating. With the quality and diversity of food available, if you can’t serve nice food most of your problem is you just don’t know how to … Read More
Indian food
It is rare that a restaurant really impresses me, especially when I have pretty high expectations. Our first visit was prior to my wife’s pregnancy-related aversion to indian food. So I waited for months to go back. Months of anticipation, expecting great food. And it did not disappoint. If you’re into Indian, this place is wicked and is a buffet … Read More
Don’t Make This Mistake
I made an error today in the kitchen. A very simple but serious error. I removed an elk eye of round from the fridge, rolled it in crushed aniseed and szechuan peppercorn, then rubbed on Pam’s grandma’s mustard prior to browning it in a hot pan. My previous mustard crust was one of my best culinary accomplishments of the recent … Read More
Pho: Part II
I ate my vietnamese soup for breakfast, lunch, and supper today. No pictures, sorry. Good thing I made it, as I woke up with a sore throat and headache. Hence my lack of awesome story about my soup eating binge. Dang.
Pho: Part I
I have great respect for Vietnamese cuisine. For some reason, among the asian cuisines I’ve been exposed to, I’m drawn to it the most. Maybe I’m more ethnocentric than I think and it’s only because they were once colonized by the French, my European cuisine favorite. Or not. I’m a big fan of the clean, fresh, savoury, transparent, and crisp … Read More
Hit it with a car = regional.
Today I read an add in the paper from Normand’s – a respectable local restaurant – advertising: “Fine Regional Cuisine, Featuring Wild Regional Game: ELK, CARIBOU, and MUSKOX…”. Now for those of you who do not spend much time outdoors, you will not find, no matter how hard you search, a wild caribou or muscox within many, many, many hours … Read More
Crips, Bloods, and Guilt
I’m reading yet another book by Anthony Bourdain [my 5th]. In it, he discusses a Canadian author who categorizes chefs into two camps: Crips and Bloods. Crips being the fusion-loving multicultural innovators, and Bloods being the terroir driven, regional-and-in-season-only kind of folks. I like to at least think of my self as a ‘Blood’. I spend a lot of time … Read More
‘Steak au Poivre’ with Cambozola Cream Sauce
Haven’t passed on any recipes lately, so I’m excited to share one of my successful creations of the fall season. Plus, I’m always really proud when I figure out a way to serve game meats in a fashion that would please even non-game-eaters. The concept is far more important than the recipe here. The fundamental is a ‘steak au poivre’ … Read More