Food for Thought: My Excellent Mini-Break

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

My Excellent Mini-Break

So, I spend last weekend in the Big Smoke. Highlights included a tour of the Distillery District where I purchased an overly sweet Cafe Canadien. Anything containing maple syrup sucks me in it seems.

Then we saw some great, and I mean great, theatre - the Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, starring Meagan Follows. Here's the link to more information about this stunning production:
http://www.nightwoodtheatre.net/index.php/whats_on/the_penelopiad

All this was preceded by lunch at a little hipster diner on Dupont called Rose and Sons, which got a pretty rave review in the Globe and Mail on Saturday. We only saw the breakfast/lunch menu so I can't comment on the bigger picture food. I had bagel and lox, just the way I like it, (very seedy bagel and very fresh lox). My niece had a fried egg smothered in Hollandaise sauce on top of some really delicious turkey hash that was highly- flavoured with shmaltz. I had the best Bloody Caesar I've had in a long time, although Mr. Hipster-dude Waiter took an awfully long time to get it to me. Great fun though.

Floor-to-ceiling cheese.

We concluded the afternoon with a trip to the Loblaws store now housed within the former hockey shrine, Maple Leaf Gardens. No doubt the hockey gods are reeling, but what a fabulous grocery store. It definitely has a vibe reminiscent of Harrod's great food halls. I was mesmerized by the cheese display cabinets. Oh, and the underground parking lot is connected to the store by escalators, one for you, and a second one for your shopping cart.

Cheese galore

The Hockey Hall of Hams

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'To Cut the Mustard'

Meaning: To succeed; to come up to expectations.

Origin: Why cutting mustard was chosen as an example of high quality is unclear. Some possibilities allude to the literal difficulty of cutting mustard;for example: - Mustard seed, which is hard to cut with a knife on account of being small and shiny. - Mustard plants, which are tough and stringy and grow densely. - Culinary mustard, which is cut (diluted) and made more palatable by the addition of vinegar. - Dried mustard paste, which was reputedly used to coat meat and then dried to form a crust.

The love of olive oil...

I finally figured it out...why I love olive oil so much. It was the television programming I was exposed to as a child. See the following description, from the online Encylclopedia Britanica, of a character I admired. I lusted after the large boxes of chocolates she would consume in one sitting.

Tall, gangly, big-footed Olive Oyl, whose black hair was almost always tied back in a bun, first co-starred with her brother, Castor Oyl, in 1919 in the newspaper comic strip Thimble Theatre. For the strip’s first 10 years, she was the girlfriend of Castor’s layabout pal, Ham Gravy, and her jealousy over his wandering eye fueled many comedic episodes. However, soon after the introduction of Popeye in 1929, Ham was written out of the strip as Olive found true love with the salty sailor. In this coupling, she was the more fickle character, as from time to time she became drawn to suitors with more education and refinement than the scrappy, wisecracking Popeye, though he always won her back. Popeye rescued Olive Oyl hundreds of times from the nefarious bully Bluto.

A Funky Review of a Funky Cookbook by a Funky Girl

“Bite me speaks to more than your stomach,” reads an excerpt on one of the first pages of the newly released cookbook, Bite me, by sassy sisters Julie Albert and Lisa Gnat. From the tongue in cheek, retro photographs that grace many of the pages to the aptly chosen, often perfectly crude quotations; Bite me is a cookbook that also speaks to your sense of humour and playfulness.
The book is decidedly un-pretentious, which is exactly what the sisters had in mind when creating the book, and exactly what appeals to me as a twenty something with not much experience in the kitchen. At the book’s launch on October 6th at an Indigo location in Toronto, Julie was the first to boast that many of the props in the self-published book came from the dollar store. The price- perfect. The look- genius. The props convey just the right amount of kitsch and comedy.
Heather Reisman, CEO of Indigo and famous as Heather of ‘Heather’s Picks’ obviously saw the same genius in these first time authors. The book is now the first cookbook to ever be chosen as a ‘Heather’s Pick’ at Chapters and Indigo stores nationwide.
I personally know Julie Albert, as I tutor her adorable, charming son Benjy, here in Toronto, Ontario. Julie is most often seen looking flawless, but approachable- laid back in jeans or yoga pants, shuffling her kids from one activity to another. She is exactly the involved Mom who wants delicious, easy, home cooking with a twist, to feed to her family. That was the goal for the sisters- no mushroom foam, no truffle scented this or that. Just fun, easy variations on your favourites- using simple ingredients with a dash of wit, and some of Lisa and Julie’s own kitchen secrets. Oh- and a man with his head stuffed down a woman’s shirt. You have to buy the book to take a look at that last one.
I am buying the book for all the cooks in my family this Christmas. Even for a cook with many books, this one is a standout- almost more coffee table material than shelved with other cookery bibles.
If you need a giggle- go buy it. If you need a recipe for pecan crusted lime chicken- buy it. To the self-professedly “not so sweet, tiny-bit salty” sisters- great job. I forkin’ love it.

Jessie Bass-West

Link to Bite me http://www.bitemecookbook.com/

Pages

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

My Excellent Mini-Break

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