your either a foodie or a nucklehead

It's seeming to be the case that if your mother ( or father I suppose) doesn't like to cook, neither will you. Even if she does cook but while doing so seems like she is being forced into the kitchen by this nagging necessity of nutrition and the reality that eating out every night is too expensive, you will inevitably grow up with the concept of nourishment as a very low priority.
This is of course just my opinion and I would love to be proven wrong!

We need more food role models!

Of course there are the celebrity chefs. I don't doubt that there are several young ladies and gents who have sparked an interest in the culinary arts after developing sweetheart crushes on Jamie Oliver or even brutish Gordan Ramsay ( totally my type!)
Or even still some individuals encouraged to experiment in the kitchen now that taboos have been broken by dominating, novel and aggressive chefs like Mario Batalli or Anthony Bourdain.

While thinking about food is culturally more accessible here in North America, I worry that we may have lost a valuable sense of necessity when it comes to cooking for ourselves and our families.

Cooking has risen in status. At one time cooking in your home was a skill but not a particularly developed one or one of passion. You cooked your meals paying attention to nutrition and food costs. If you wanted something special you paid for someone else to cook it for you, a kind of artist. Now home cooks that enjoy cooking are rising to the occasion and producing restaurant quality food for dinner parties and holidays thanks to access to recipes and cooking instruction on television and the internet. And those individuals who don't like cooking are either too intimidated to try to cook for the sake of good hospitality or they don't have to because grocery stores now make everything so easy and cheap that 'fresh' and 'homemade' has taken on a new meaning.

Just because you can buy whole hard boiled eggs in a bag, or already mashed potatoes "just like mom's" doesn't mean you should. There are kid's going of to college that have no idea how to crack an egg let alone boil one, they know that they love fettuccine alfredo but have no what a bechamel sauce is ( its the plain white sauce).

In my opinion, it should be every parents goal to pass on at least basic cooking skills to their children. It is no longer deemed a skill necessary for survival... it's an art form that's not worth learning unless someone has a passion and a talent for it. Parent's are comforted when their son's find a nice girl who can cook, or vice versa. That just seems rediculous to me! Teach your kids to cook for themselves, teach them the nutritional value of food. The pleasure of eating, of company and of enjoying somthing that you have made that will KEEP YOU ALIVE is priceless. I'm not saying that you have to love cooking like I do, but at least don't let your ignorance bury you so deep that you are completely dependent on other peoples "talent" or the grocery store being fully stocked with 30second rice packets in order to stay alive.

There is a division in society.... the foodie gobshites as Gordon Ramsay calls them and the total idiots who can't make their own oatmeal for breakfast. I think there are even people that don't know how to make coffee because Starbucks does it for them. It's as though the simplist behaviours are being owned and perfected by a few who in turn serve the masses. There are no well rounded people anymore... just experts in one field and bumbling idiots in any other.

Anyway as to avoid digressing too much I will stop here and leave you to think about whether cooking is an art or a necessity or both.

Good day
x

My attempt at Asian Cuisine

I love dumplings!
I would say that dumplings or gyoza are my favorite thing about Chinese and Japanese food.
So I made my own.
My groceries were purchased from an Asian supermarket located a short Gertrude ride away from where I live. The problem with cycling to the grocery store is the inevitability that I will buy too much and the inevitability that I will embarrass myself trying to cross the road with carrier bags full of raw seafood hanging from both of my handle bars. Regardless, I venture to the food shops at least once every 2 or 3 days sur le Gertrude.
So here's what it looked like:






They were surprisingly simple, and cheap considering that I bought ingredients for under 10$ and made about 60 dumplings with sauce.
I opted for the wheat flour dumpling wrappers since they seemed more manageable for a beginner like myself. I filled them with chopped raw shrimp (the cheapest I could find), fake crab meat, cremini mushrooms, spring onions, an egg, ginger,garlic, soy, pepper and a few breadcrumbs.
No measuring at all... the bulk was mushrooms and onion. I grated the ginger and garlic and then wet half the wrapper with water before folding it over and sealing it together by applying a bit of pressure. It does seem important to squeeze out any air or else they will fall apart when you try to cook them. (same as with ravioli)
I do believe that you are meant to steam them but I haven't reached that level of handywork quite yet. ( though I did buy a little bamboo steamer yesterday)
I just threw them in boiling water in a shallow pan and moved them around so they wouldn't stick.
After about 3 minutes I took them out and fried them in a pan with a bit of oil.
SO GOOOOOOOD!
I was supposed to save some for the boy but I ate 25 by myself and froze the rest.
I dipped them in a mixture of grated ginger and garlic (again), soya sauce and chopped spring onion. Its my easy peazy, use for everything, kinda Asiany flavour mixture.

So try it.
Its delicious.
I will try to get more technical next time... Sushi maybe?
Well with my budget it would be tinned tuna and salmon... can you do that?
Sushi for students. ;)
x

Dinner with the lady

So last week I made dinner for a friend. Let's call her "the lady" because it makes her sound sophisticated and a bit scandalous which is nice.
It was a pretty stupid idea really since it was about 35 degrees out and I decided to make two pies.
I don't have air conditioning and I only have two windows. One at the front of the apartment and one at the back. Needless to say the place was like a Swedish sauna by the time she arrived.
Oops. I can't help it though. I get ideas and then I get so hungry for them that they must be made and devoured as soon as possible!

What I made was a mix of a couple of inspirations. The first was this thing called a "brik" which was featured in a Food and Drink magazine months ago. A "brik" is actually a Tunisian snack that according to F and D is simply a friend pastry stuffed with almost anything but always with an egg broken into the centre. After kind of reading the recipe I decided to make something similar but without the coriander and yogurt so as usual it became very creamy and very french... its becoming my signature. Instead of filo pastry I used puff ( in my eyes it's the only pastry). So the last photo is my first experiment with this concept. ( about a month ago)
It was delicious!

For my dinner with the lady I made a huge pie version of brik only I used some Greek influence by making it slightly resemble a spanikopita. I used lots of dill and feta and even half a brick of frozen spinach. I cracked an egg in each of the four corners of the pan and it turned out excellent. The crust is once again puff pastry and the filling is shredded and sauteed zucchini with onion and garlic. Once the zucchini were starting to loose all their water I added white wine and the herbs, let that reduce and then added cream, ricotta and feta. I put the filling into the base of the puff pastry that was lining the pan. I made four little wells in the filling and cracked an egg in each. After covering the pie with a puff pastry top I cut some slits for the steam to escape and put it in the oven for about 25 minutes at 250 degrees or so. (just keep an eye on it) It puffs up all lovely and brown when its done!
I should probably give a recipe with this but I'm rubbish at writing recipes so if you stumble across this and wanna make it, let me know. It's fantastic and very easy.
For desert I made a blueberry and peach pie. I didn't take pictures of this since I failed to thicken the filling sufficiently so it was as my lady called it " pie soup"
I covered it in cream and it went down just fine!
enjoy
x

The heat is getting to me

So I got out of the city for a couple of days. It was nice, the boy and I puppysitted for my Mum in the suburbs but the air conditioning spoiled us I think. We could hardly leave the house except for the odd bike ride to the liquor store or a smoke out on the patio.
Now that I'm back in our stuffy little apartment, I have assumed my position on the bed, over the sheets like a starfish lapping up the breeze that comes from a very tired but very devoted ceiling fan.

Before I left I made a bit of lunch and it was very tasty so I took some pictures.
It's very similar to what I made the other day for breakfast but I used only basil as apposed to dill and parsley. Instead of an egg I topped the toast with some ricotta. Drizzled the whole mess with some gorgeous olive oil straight from Greece (given as a gift from a friend), and wha pam! LUNCH. It was perfect because I was so tired and hot and lethargic I didn't think I wanted to eat at all. I knew instinctively not to trust such a ridiculous notion and so I made this beauty. It was very refreshing. Use up the tomatoes while they last people!

As a side note. I went to "Metro" the other day in the suburbs and they didn't carry any of the Ontario field tomatoes, or corn, or peaches or blueberries. Nothing! No local produce. That's pathetic! So I suggest Loblaws at the moment... I'm on a bit of a hunt for a decent grocery store. I predict that I will eventually conclude that we should all shop local and drag our arses to St. Lawrence rain or shine but since I have a Loblaws down the street and I am quite addicted to their instance Mac and Cheese ( the white cheddar one) I will remain relatively loyal... for now.
If anyone is listening and can recommend some good fruit and veg, farmers markets, let me know! I live in the East and I travel by bicycle (good ol' Gerdy) so don't send me to Niagara or anything.
Bye for now.
x

I love Ontario

YAY what a bloody fantastic morning.
I actually got up before 11 am, I got on my bike which will now be referred to as 'Gertrude' and rode to the beaches.
What a lovely place to live Ontario is. My breakfast included... tomatoes, basil, parsley, dill, peaches, asparagus, and yogurt all grown and produced locally. Can you ever taste the difference! The tomatoes I ate for two years in England were imported from the Canary Islands and although while in the Canary Islands the produce is scrumptous and rich with taste from being grown in volcanic soil, after a 3 hour plane ride it tastes SHIT!
But enough of that. I'm home and it's summer and the thunder is rolling in, the peaches are stellar and the tomatoes make me feel like an Italian Nona during harvest time.

The photos above are what we ate ( the boy and I) on our newly inherited bistro set in our shared garden space in the middle of the city I love.

Fried rye bread in olive oil topped with fresh tomatoes, dill, parsley and basil. Salt, pepper and olive oil.
Soft Poached egg and briefly sauteed asparagus.
Peaches, raspberries and blueberries ( not wild cuz I'm poor) with organic full fat yogurt.

YUM YUM YUM!
off to work
x

!!

So my last entry I am ashamed to say was in May. It's now August and my only excuse is... fear. I'm not sure what I'm afraid of. No one even knows that this blog exists so I should just write this for me. That is what I am going to do, I'm going to write for me, for practice and most of all for a sense of accomplishment because God knows that I need a sense of something!


Lately ( the last 2 weeks) I have felt very ill.
I have a long history of illness concerning my digestive system. Miraculously I have, throughout my short life developed a love of eating regardless of the fact that doing so often leaves me bedridden or in hospital. There is a theory, I'm not sure who's it is but it says that the human body often craves its own poison. I think that there might be something to this theory, does anyone agree?

My biggest poison, that is, my deepest cravings are for all things thick, rich and made of heavy cream. Top of the list would be yogurt. Anything 4% milk fat or more. I love the texture. I love how it hits my tongue cold and creamy and melts into my mouth and down my throat in an act that can be described as almost sexual.
Next on the list would be custards, warm and comforting with the scent of fresh egg yolks and cream. I think I could eat tripe if it was served to me in a bowl of custard. On second thought that might be a bit of an exaggeration but tripe is a ridiculous impostor of real food anyhow.
Also on my list are soft unripened cheeses, creme fraiche, and anything found in the dairy section.
Basically my point is... I am lactose intolerant and I plan to ignore it forever!

So tonight I am home with a sore belly, a headache and an insatiable hunger for creme brulee.

Time for bed,
goodnight void

x