sybarites

A couple of years ago, I visited the Tuscany of my dreams.

I have a theory; I believe that a destination –city, beach, country – is whatever one makes of it. For example, one will encounter the same number of people who, when visiting Venice, would call it smelly, over-crowded, touristy, expensive and confusing, as people who would remember it as enchanting, quaint, historic and delicious. What makes these two people see the exact same place and time so differently? I think it might be attitude. Where one person looks at the canals and sees the garbage in the water and a construction barge floating next to the ugly scaffolding spread over a bridge which is supporting the weight of a steady stream of sweaty tourists eating bad ice cream, another person might look and notice the surprisingly fluid motions of someone unloading heavy tiles from a precariously balanced barge, the bright flowers in a window box near the bridge, the sun shining brightly off the water, the tourists laughing and the church bells in the background. I know, because I’ve been both people. After the traveling I’ve done, I’ve learned to recognize my dispiritedness and then force myself to mentally stop, find something beautiful and focus on the romanticism that a place has to offer. It is with this conscious romanticism that I visited Tuscany.

Ever since Frances Mayes wrote Under The Tuscan Sun, I’ve been devouring and re-devouring her books. That she is an exceptional writer of prose is clear, but the way she chooses to describe things seems familiar to me; hey, I know that attitude– it’s my romanticism! I suppose one could surmise that it is easy to find things that are beautiful in Italy, with all the art and architecture and food and people, but I think it’s more than that. I think her descriptions, and later, my real-life experiences, were rooted in the idea of mandatory enjoyment.

At any rate, this “mandatory enjoyment” has made for some lovely memories of places I’ve been. Every time I eat white beans, I recall that the word “Tuscan” means bean-eater and then I remember a particularly pretty day I spent in Cortona, Tuscany. I visited Cortona because, of course, that is the town near which Frances Mayes lives and I couldn’t resist trying to sleuth out some of the places she describes in the book. (Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to try to find her house but that will be for another day. I continue to collect clues from her books.) It turned out that it required very little effort on my part to see the beauty in that town. It was hot when I was there; I walked up and down steep streets, into cool, shaded alleys and through parks on the edge of the hill town with breath-taking views of the surrounding countryside. This was the first place I had been where I heard cicadas chirping. The sun baked everything and somehow seemed to make the air thicker so that echoes in the town square didn’t seem sharp but rather muted. I had lunch on a stone balcony at a trattoria overlooking the piazza; light pasta with tomato sauce, sausages and fresh raw vegetables and a jug of red wine. It was all so charming and so much like the Cortona that I had imagined that I stretched that lunch out for hours, lingering over my meal, watching the people move about below, ordering an espresso, breathing and listening and trying to embed a memory for each of my senses. When it was time to go (to drive off to Venice, in fact) I was strolling instead of walking. I could’ve very happily stayed there for weeks and not done much more than I had that afternoon. And then I telephoned Ingrid and woke her up to describe how unimaginably perfect Cortona is.

The point is, I’m so happy to have had the experience of that day and so pleased when something triggers my memory of it. Like the beans in this White Bean, Potato and Arugula Soup (a recipe from Kansas City, Missouri, no less).

The soup was nothing to write home about but it was worth having made it for the delicious little glimpse into my past.

Again, my colleagues were envious of my lunch. Ha ha! It is so sweet to flaunt a really, really, ridiculously good-looking lunch. The flip side of that is when we don’t have leftovers and I am forced to join them in their canned soup sorrow. Those are sad times; what are office trolls to do when they don’t even have a lunch to envy?

Yesterday, it was Pork Stew with Fennel and Butternut Squash. If it isn’t already obvious, we are hooked on the squash. It snowed on the weekend so I think that makes a stew taste even better, let alone this one with the perceived buttery flavour, thanks to the squash. Wow, this was tasty: slowly braised pork pieces, tender-yet-crispy fennel, a sublime reduction of stock with onions, garlic, pancetta and wine all sauced over some egg noodles… those poor trolls didn’t stand a chance! I love the compliments whilst standing in line for the microwave.

I think the only thing that would’ve made this better is if the pork had braised a little slower so as to make it more tender. It was good as-was but could’ve been even better if it had been falling-apart-at-the-touch-of-a-fork tender. Though I wouldn’t sacrifice the toothiness of the veggies because there is nothing sadder than limp and tasteless veg where stew is concerned.

With this, we had a bottle of Folinari Cabernet Sauvignon; we had to open a fresh bottle, you understand, because it was required in the stew. And we had to finish it because it was Sunday and it had snowed and it was just too delicious not to.

I eat this as I write. Once again, we cooked an extra large portion of dinner so as to have leftovers for lunch the next day and right now my co-workers are jealous. Ha! People on the other side of my cubicle (a.k.a. Wrap-around Demoralizer 3000) are asking the air around them “Who brought the yummy food?” And then I brag about the fancy-schmancy Curried Lamb with Potatoes and Mint Yogurt Sauce that I brought. “What did you bring for lunch? Oh, soup? In a can? Gee, yeah, that’s too bad. Mine sure is delicious!”

We’re kind of on an Indian food kick of late. I had a craving in December and haven’t been able to shake it. We even had some tasty Indian comfort food at the Granville Island market and yet my palate remains unsatiated. Thus, we have this curry which doesn’t even have curry in it! I understand that there as many versions of curry out there as there are people who cook Indian food from scratch. We got our version from America’s Test Kitchen and it was quite a decent mélange of cinnamon, cloves, turmeric, cardamom, cumin, coriander, garlic, ginger, etc. but much less spicy than I prefer. Even with the halved jalapeno simmered with the lamb, it still fell short of my expectation of heat. But really, I don’t care so much because it tastes marvelous with its mingling of a thousand flavours. Plus, I love lamb; though Marc had a devil of a time removing all the silverskin.

Surprisingly, this meal would seem incomplete without the sauce. I never would’ve thought that a cool, little dollop of flavoured yogurt could make such a significant difference. Last night, I had initially ladled a very small spoonful onto my serving but had to revisit the yogurt because it was so good. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, because sauce in all other forms plays such an important part in aggrandizing foods (i.e. hollandaise, bordelaise, wasabi) but, I mean, it’s just yogurt. Who knew?

At least a year ago I made this lasagna for a dinner with Marcia & Geoff. Meat was not invited to dinner but we didn’t notice because of this fantastic version of lasagna with butternut squash and mushrooms. I would argue that it is the portobellos which make the meal effectively “meaty” enough to masquerade as hearty. Of course, the generous amount of ricotta involved doesn’t hurt. And fresh Parmesano Reggiano.

Anyway, we come back to it again every few months because it looks and tastes so pretty and lasts for days as leftovers. With a tart salad on the side, it’s one of my favourite weekend lunches. Plus, now that we have a mandolin, it is so much fun to slice up the squash. How did we ever live without one?

Presently, I am 30. My birthday recently passed. Resistance was futile.

Despite my mild dismay at having entered my fourth decade, I had a most excellent celebration. Actually, there were several installments of the birthday celebration but this entry documents only the first: my birthday dinner at Blue Water Café.

After New Year’s Day, we flew to Vancouver to eat. There are other things we did while there – walk around Stanley Park and Canada Place,

… window shop along Robson, coffee at innumerable and ubiquitous Starbucks – but the primary reason for the expedition was to eat good food. Therefore, I can’t not mention at least one other meal we had while there that, though unrelated to things birthday, was excellent.

I tried a few years ago to get into Bin 941, a tapas “parlour” on Davie, but it’s such a wee, little boîte that I was never able to get in the door, much less a table. Of course, that only increases the desire to go: it must be great if it is always so crowded. So this time, our plan to meet Marc’s friend Eva there in the early evening met with success.

We didn’t get a table but at least we got in the door and were able to grab three seats at the bar. Between us, we shared: Cinnamon chili rubbed Texas Flank Steak – maple syrup chipotle glaze, black pepper pommes frites, East West Crab Cakes – burnt orange chipotle sauce, charred baby bok choy, cucumber salsa, tobiko, Hand cut Yukon gold mountain pepper pommes frites and Mussels steamed with Garlic butter – roma tomato, herbs, white wine. Sadly, I can’t recall the wine I had but I think it might have been the Catena Zapata, a Malbec from Argentina. Regardless, it was all divine and well worth sitting at the bar next to the door.

After dinner, Eva drove us to one of her favourite dessert bars, True Confections on West Broadway. For 10 o’clock on the first Tuesday after New Year’s, it was surprisingly busy. Though they are known for their cakes, I couldn’t resist having a piece of what turned out to be a killer Three Berry Pie.

But I digress. The actual birthday was celebrated at Blue Water Café in Yaletown. Marc picked out this place from several places short-listed on a restaurant site on the Interweb. We planned to go early in the evening so as to take advantage of their prix fixe menu, which would’ve been 3 courses for about $35.00. However, after arriving and reviewing the menu and (huge) wine list, everything looked way too good to miss. “Screw it, we’ll order what we want”.

And WHAT A MEAL: we started with a couple of glasses of Champagne accompanied by two sweet Kusshi and two Deep Bay Chef’s Creek fresh raw oysters. Then, for me, an appetizer of Duck Prosciutto on an Organic Beet and frisée salad with truffle-sherry vinaigrette, and for Marc, Baked Galliano Island Swimming Scallops with tomato-lemon fondue, capers and parsley. For an entrée, I had BC Sablefish baked in sake & miso, topped with bonito flakes and served on octopus ravioli with xeres and Okanagan cherry sauce, and Marc had the Seared Ostrich. Between us, we had a bottle of white from Spain and Marc had to test a couple of glasses of red before deciding on a glass to go with his meal. Finally, we shared three cheeses for dessert- chèvre noir, some Clos de St. Ambrose from Québec, and some Fourme D’Ambert, a mild blue from France.

All in all, it was an outstanding meal– exactly the present I wanted. I can’t imagine a better way to have spent my birthday with my favourite partner in gluttony.

Oh, the life of a well-fed, attention-laden, spoiled, little puppy.

Sam was lucky enough to get a taste of Mom’s turkey as it “accidentally” flipped off the cutting board onto the floor. Correction: no piece of turkey actually made it as far as the floor. Even when hindered by the wearing of the loathe-ed Santa hat and Christmas bow, Sam is able to detect and devour any and all turkey-dinner-related items. He would’ve eaten a napkin had it inadvertently fluttered to the floor. As it was, we were lucky that nobody lost any fingers.

Because we are newly enamoured of the macro function on the camera, we have gotten carried away with the close-ups. This would be Mom & Dad’s Xmas dinner table:

There would be more pictures of the food and a populated dinner table but for the gin.

How many people, I wonder, would agree that eating and drinking are the best parts of celebrating the birth of a charismatic and convincing fellow two millennia ago? I, for one, am not above celebrating a Christian holiday if only for the gluttony and sloth associated with it. (Ha! 2 of 7 deadly sins in one holiday!)

For months, I have been looking forward our Xmas Eve dinner. Before my family planned to spend the season in Calgary, we had been planning a decadent and romantic dinner for two in the glow of the tannenbaum lights. Even after learning that everyone would be in town, the idea of this dinner was too appealing to abandon, even for the fun of a family affair.

Sometime in October, I started thinking about ingredients, namely: duck, foie gras and caviar. In fact, when chatting with co-workers about what we wanted for Christmas, they all laughed because they thought I was joking when I said I wanted a great, big, piece of frozen goose-liver fat. I guess not everyone covets foie gras. In the end, it turned out that it would be too expensive and Marc doesn’t really like caviar but we agreed that duck would be divine.

So our menus was thus:

Marinated Shrimp with Champagne Beurre Blanc

Valdobbidene, Mionetto Prosecco

Duck Breast with Crème Fraîche and Roasted Grapes on Arugula

Scalloped Fennel and Potatoes

Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Lemon and Bacon

Château de Chamirey, Mercurey, Burgundy

Molasses Ginger Pudding with Caramel Sauce

And it was everything I dreamed it would be.

Part of the fun of this dinner was that we would be able to spend the day in the kitchen together which is my very favourite place to be, with my very favourite person, along with some good music and a little G&T refreshment. I brought out the good silver, passed down from my grandparents, and we set the table to elegance.

The wine was particularly dreamy and complemented the duck as though we had chosen it to match, instead of having just pulled out one of our best bottles for dinner. It started with a cherry – almost candy – nose and then finished with tobacco; truly marvelous against the bitterness of the sprouts and arugula and yet it held out against the rich duck and creamy potatoes. Utterly and sublimely superb.

Finally, the molasses-ginger pudding is the recipe that we had been trying to perfect over the past year and which Marc ultimately mastered. We didn’t get a picture because by the time we ate dessert, we had retired to the couch to watch Xmas movies and sip Grand Marnier.

If this meal is any indication, we are going to have some fine holiday meals. Lookin’ forward to Valentine’s Day.

I think it’s the little things that are the reason we get along so well together. So often, I have an idea rolling around in my mind that I don’t voice because I still automatically assume that whatever it is is entirely too geeky or corny to be spoken aloud. And then Marc says pretty much exactly what I’m thinking and I am tickled; I love it when he talks nerdy to me. To this point, I was wistfully imagining making some sweet, little gifts from the kitchen this year when Marc suggested that we make some edible presents for our friends. Perfect! Yay!

We combed through the cooking magazines for ideas on what to make and, after sufficiently nerdy research, settled on four targets: port wine jelly, star anise honey, lemon-rose gelées, and chocolate truffles. How very Martha Stewart! However, like anything else remotely Martha-esque that I have ever attempted, it is easier said than done. Thus, as the busy Baby Jesus season descended upon us, we only had time to devote to make three and had to ditch the truffles.

First, we made a special trip to Michael’s to obtain vessels in which to put all our delights. Tiny boxes with crisp ribbon, little jars with corked tops and bits of holly and gold wreaths to decorate, and Christmas-y tissue paper in which to elegantly wrap the treats.

Then began the cooking. I once made jam but neither of us has ever made jelly. This port jelly was a piece of cake to make but the finicky boiling and “putting up” of the jelly was the hard part. And the scrubbing off of dried sticky jelly from the stove top and floor was unenjoyable. In the end, however, we ended up with four cute little jars of very port-y meat accompaniment.

The Honey. Nothing particularly tricky about this and nothing really spectacular tasting. It sure looked pretty, though, in the tiny jars trimmed with red and gold.

The gelées were… involved. They weren’t particularly difficult but had to set overnight and then were painstakingly cut into pieces and dusted with cornstarch. Normally, the work wouldn’t have been an issue but it’s hard to find a spare evening during Crazy Season, let alone two nights in a row. Finally, I had to get up one morning at about 4:00am to finish and wrap them in brown paper packages tied up with string. Not one of my favourite things; if we every decide to make them again, we’ll have to use a lot more lemon because they tasted kind of bland. Again, they sure looked pretty, though.

Ultimately, it was very fun (and ridiculously sappy) to make these gifts as the beginning of our first Christmas together.

Oh, the potlucks. This season precipitates the making and sharing of food like no other. Elsbeth and I were trading stories about food witnessed at these events and her top pick is Mormon Fluff, a.k.a. Ambrosia salad. (Apparently, in Southern Alberta, it is known as the former. Weird.) Green Jello™ mixed with canned fruit cocktail and cool whip; because it’s green, it totally counts as a vegetable. My top pick is a tie between the Mystery Meat Balls that someone always brings in a crock pot swimming in an unidentifiable gravy/BBQ sauce, and Boogers-on-a-Stick, which I have only witnessed once. B.O.A.S. consists of stick pretzels poked into watered-down Cheez Whiz™ made green with food colouring. I tried one on a dare and kind of gagged.

Anyway, Marc and I attended his department’s potluck xmas party last weekend. Everyone was assigned a course and I have to say that the resulting meal was pretty outstanding. There were many cheeses and meats, wine, breads and dips, “junior high” punch, salads, ribs, casseroles, butter chicken (I think), tiramisu, apples with caramel, trifle, cheesecake, cookies and port. And lots of other very good, very insulation-inducing stuff. The award for Out-Fucking-Standing goes to the maker of the slow-cooked spare-ribs whose name I don’t remember but which starts with a ‘V’. Out-fucking-standing, V. People were still eating spare-ribs long after dessert and that is the most telling sign of a potluck winner.

Once the ice was broken, the kids at the party, who were decked out in their xmas finery, all played together amongst the adults (and the not-so-adult). On the way to the party, I’m told that Greta proclaimed that she was very brave and was not shy at all which, it turns out, was a bit of an exaggeration. She was shy but learned to be brave, thanks to Carl and his challenge to a chugging content. Witness: Exhibit A, below.

These two were responsible drinkers because they both sat on their bums to drink, were careful not to spill and didn’t drive home.

I think it must be obvious by now that we are not shy about the meat.

In the course of our culinary adventures, we are, at the very least, dedicated omnivores. However, I took this a step further in my last post in which I made mention of the “responsible meatatarian”. Allow me to elaborate: I consider myself a responsible meatatarian; someone who eats meat but does so in such a way as to limit the negative impacts of doing so as much as possible. I work at making sure I know where my meat comes from, how it lived and ate and who is selling it to me. In other words, I’m pretty particular and am aware that any choice that I make to eat meat has the potential to make a broad eco-socio-economic impact. I don’t want to go off on a rant here but the minimum amount of research that I have done (really, tip-of-the-iceberg stuff) has helped me to make the decision not to capriciously consume food. I appreciate meat and, lucky for me, I also have the luxury of being able to make a choice about what I eat. (And for the record, I really appreciate the vegetable family, too. I respect the people who choose to eat them exclusively and who, in turn, accord me the same respect as an omnivore.)

That being said, I thought it would be interesting to look at irresponsible meatatarianism. (Plus, we didn’t cook last night so I’ve got no pictures and no recipes to blather on about.) Ergo, here is my list of (arguably) The Top 7 Most Irresponsible Meatatarians (That I Was Able To Find In A Couple Hours’ Worth of Google Searching):

Number Seven
Truly remarkable, this is a story about a 115-lb woman from New Jersey who ate 11% of her body’s weight in burger. I actually don’t consider her so much an irresponsible meatatarian as I do the pub and its owner who are responsible for creating this crazy-huge meat sandwich. So I guess it’s a tie: Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub and Katie Stelnick.

Number Six
Interesting that people choose to challenge themselves with the amount of food they can consume in one sitting. I think the description of this affair is what qualified it on my little unofficial list.

Halfway through the burger, I started to slow down. “Sweet Lord,” I complained, “This is like trying to eat a cow hit by a produce truck.””My plate looks like a roach coach exploded in a mustard factory,” Todd observed.

By this point, the burger looked like something out of a John Carpenter film. It was not easy to be eating mutant zombie flesh, even with the cheese.

“I’m having a hard time here,” I said a few minutes later.

“I’m getting the meat sweats,” Todd said, dabbing at his forehead with a filthy napkin.

This was a war. Covered in fluids and flesh, we determined to slog it through. With great difficulty, I finished the rest of the burger, including the quarter-pound of loose condiments that had dripped onto the plate. Scooping that mess into my mouth was the worst part: a greasy casserole of bacon, oily mushrooms, and fried onions.

To his credit, this guy wrote an extremely colourful description of the experience – especially the “greasy casserole” part which, even without the pictures, was enough to trigger a brief wave of nausea. (I can practically hear Chris suppressing the dry heaves as he reads this.)

Number Five
“Badlands” Booker eating a burger that is larger than his head.

Number Four
The Smoke Meat Marathon. While in Montreal, this guy challenged himself to eat as many versions of the smoked meat sandwich as possible. Tasty though these sandwiches can be, I feel pretty bad leaving behind so much food on a plate, let alone meat. I can only assume that he didn’t finish each sandwich he tried which would mean wasted meat which would point to an irresponsible meatarian.

Number Three
I think Hardee’s deserves to be Number Three on this list because not only do they make the largest, most calorie-laden fast food burger on offer today, but they target a most apathetic demographic. People! Fear the burger! Save yourselves!
(BTW, I totally looked up where the closest Hardee’s is. If I drove for, like, 8 straight hours, I could get one of these burgers in Montana.)

Number Two
Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas. I love that the people who enter the competetive eating circuit give themselves nicknames. Witness American greats like Eric “Badlands” Booker (a.k.a. Number Five on this list), Ed “Cookie” Jarvis, “Hungry” Charles Hardy, and Rich “The Locust” LeFevre. She holds a number of world records for eating and, incidentally, her inspiration for becoming a professional competitive eater is Number One.

NUMBER ONE
The Hot Dog King himself, the champion and inspiration of irresponsible meatatarians everywhere, Mr. Takeru Kobayashi. Seriously. 53½ hotdogs. In 12 minutes. Seriously! How is he not dead? Of nitrate poisoning and/or choking and/or heart attack? Scientists should study Takeru and make sure that he isn’t a super villain. I can’t even be reprehensive here as I am overshadowed by sheer amazement. I am agog. And I kind of want a hot dog.

Disclaimer: I admit that I got pretty carried away on the burger theme but there is a mountain of evidence documenting the irresponsible meatarianism out there and the burger just seems to be the vehicle of choice for unadulterated gluttony. When/if I ever decide to make a list like this again, I promise to explore other forms of outrageous meat-eating.