© Newsday

First on my agenda as a food blogger I want to give my take on this ‘Paula Deen’ kerfuffle happening on the Food Network. Yes, Paula Deen is a type 2 Diabetic and some think it happened years ago and some think it happened recently and we all think it is going to be another way to Market herself and Reposition herself in the Food World since the Obama’s are now promoting Healthy Children with good eating habits.

As a diabetic myself, also Type 2, I hope she takes the serious side of Diabetes and is able to educate from her platform,  because when all is said and done it is still a Disease and no matter who comes down with it; it is life threatening if not treated with respect and resolute eating habits.

Some Diabetics say that worse than losing their life are the other serious and more common side effects if your Diabetes is not kept under control-tight control. Of these side effects my fear is Neuropathy – death of nerve endings which result in loss of feeling particularly in feet which could result in infections that one doesn’t realize they have and then loss of limb because of. Gangrene is the more common infections that arise with Diabetics who have the onset or complete Necrosis.

Not to mention the horrible pain for the amount of time it takes for all your nerve endings to die. Pain absolute and horrible.

Your eyesight can be horribly affected as well. Diabetes is one of the worst diseases to develop later in life; but it is not as bad as those with Type 1. Unfortunately most affected with Type 1 are affected as Children and grow into Adulthood with it. I have never had to deal with a child who has Type 1 but I know many a parent who have had to: birthday parties; outings; camp; all the things kids do that revolve around food become a nightmare. So too, is the child who rebels and at some point they all do.

It isn’t enough just to let it go; these rebellions can become life threatening and children just don’t understand. I know Type 1 Diabetics who can have their sugar at normal levels when 1 pm hits and at 1:30 they can literally pass out because their sugars go to 1 or 2 on the meters (Canadians and Americans use different scales to measure their sugars and most glucometers can be adjusted.) I multiply by 18 to get the American numbers which is what I knew before the metric system came and all measurements were changed. I am used to them now.

To keep tight control over your Glucose levels it is imperative and paramount that you test your glucose levels before each meal and their numbers should read in the 90’s on the old system Canada used to use and that still exists in the States, I believe, and 5-7 on the Canadian system. To convert just multiply by 18.

I certainly did not want to take my time and berate her but as a food blogger I do wonder how she can, for all these years, tell us and aide and guide us into her world of food which is considered big on sugar and fat; and not taste-test the recipes herself.  What was she selling us?

If she did not taste test the hundreds of books and recipes she has sold the public, then I say good for her (to consider her disease) and what a terrible thing the Food Network did to all of us by scamming us into thinking she is an icon.

If she did actually eat and taste and lead us to believe this is what her eating habits are like; then I would think not only did she do a disservice to her own health and those around her; but I hope whatever damage done is not irreversible.

To her sons: Diabetes is hereditary.  Comes by way of weight mostly if you are a Type 2.  Beware and take stock of your own health boys.

Whatever happened behind the scenes in the Paula Deen Industry – she has given way, now, to a whole new way to continue to fit into the food world via Diabetes.  She is now a new marketing tool to continue into the age where the push for Healthy Eating is coming quick.

Food is an industry like it or not.  It is business.  The more you are seen and the more you are vocal the more you risk.  The more ‘celebrity’ you are: the more you owe your public and fans that keep you on a pedestal; albeit for Paula in recent days – a shaky pedestal.

What I find hard to comprehend is how these faces who choose to be in the forefront of their professions believe that it is easier or wiser to hide major secrets when there is always such a high risk to the public finding out.  To your fans – to your Editors- who tells you this can remain a secret, or should remain a secret.  The biggest blunders come from secrets and when your domain is so public; these blunders can be very costly ones.

Just a quick story that will back up Michael Moore’s beliefs in the Canadian Medical System: a girlfriend’s niece born a Diabetic had the ability in her 20’s to have a Pancreas Transplant. She did – she was a bad diabetic: the kind that would pass out in a second and be sky high levels 15 minutes earlier…

She was put on a list; notified a Pancreas was available at 2 in the morning; went down to the hospital; the doctors went to retrieve the Pancreas in Quebec City be Air Ambulance; landed back at the hospital; had it placed inside her; stayed her allotted time in the hospital and went home being able for the first time in her life to have a piece of cake without her sugars being affected at all.

Should I tell you what it cost her? Okay I will tell you ….0 dollars. Yes, not one damn cent. This is where Medicare is a lifesaver and a Godsend. These are the life threatening conditions that make Medicare the most miraculous way to live in this world of ours.

Had she been living in the United States, with the best medical insurance (if she could get it) even at 20% would have Bankrupted her; she probably would never have been able to have such a transplant she was told.

Medicare saved her life and millions like her all over Canada so when we get pissed off that the Emergency room is filled and it will take 8 hours to have a broken arm set or stitches had – we should remember that if we needed real medical emergency surgery it is ours for the asking. And doesn’t cost us out of pocket any other sums than we already give.

I would love to know what the cost of a Pancreas Transplant in the United States.

Several years ago, having won the Green Card Lottery we began to make plans to move across the border – with one major problem which dashed all our plans.  I could not get Medical Insurance because I was Diabetic.  Didn’t matter my age; my current health; that I was in top physical shape and weight – nope none of it mattered.  There wasn’t an insurance company who would sell me Medical Insurance because I was Diabetic.

I wanted to talk about Canadian Chocolate Bars native to us and suddenly I lost my appetite for such talk.

Next week I will take it up again and in the interim should Paula Deen need any help from me I would be totally willing to help her.

I am proud to be able to say the following: When I go to a Doctor I HAVE to tell him I am a Diabetic because they cannot see it in my eyes; where it usually shows up in the whites; they cannot see it in my feet; my sugars are so under control that I have a body of a person who is healthy, that is how under control and how seriously I take my Disease.

Not to say I don’t indulge in sugars or bad eating habits and I am not on insulin, although I used to be. Now I take Glucophage and a secret.

A long long time ago I had a Metabolic Doctor who worked out of the Metabolic Day Center at the Royal Victoria Hospital who gave me a life-saving hint which he did to patients he could count on to be wise with it. He told me that it would be okay, very rarely, that if I had digested too much glucose I can take an extra small dose of insulin to soak up the high sugars.

To this day; I do that but not with insulin. In my 30’s I was able to get off insulin and go onto a diet controlled monitoring system which was good until I hit menopause and with the hormones out of whack it meant going onto medication.

I do have one medication that I use in such small doses it wouldn’t even be considered anything more than a pinhead sized piece but it would be enough to make sure my sugars would stabilize quickly.

It is not a secret my current doctor agrees with, but Dr. Waddell (if he is still alive) trusted me and I, him.

It is this trick that has allowed me to be a Diabetic without one single symptom.

My sister, my mother could not say the same and sadly their early deaths were related to their disease: we all shared Diabetes which is hereditary in families.

My other saving grace is that I am so in tune with my body that I can literally feel the very moment my sugar drops, and as many Diabetics do not, I can feel both high and low sugars at the instant they happen.

Sadly this is more uncommon than common and I am grateful for that. Yet I never take my Disease as anything but a Disease that I must keep under control.

So Paula, any information I can give I will gladly. That goes for anyone who reads this.

Good luck and for now I think I close off and submit this to Frank Bruni of the New York Times who has chosen to write an article on this comment on what the NY Times has to say particularly Frank Bruni on my proposed post until next week.

©NYTimes

It was supposed to be on chocolate bars we have in Canada that are not sold across the border to our neighbours.

Tags: choclate, Diabetes, Food Network, Frank Bruni, Paula Deen

© photo courtesy of J Paul Richards

In recent days the food world is abuzz with the Bankruptcy of an institution in the United States famous for its Twinkie cakes. Yes, sadly Hostess Brands has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.

I have never eaten a Twinkie but I do remember Archie Bunker eating them all the time. All this buzz about the loss of an institution is sad because the Americans are losing yet another Company that employs many workers in an already bad economy, but in the process they are also losing Twinkies. A veritable concoction of ingredients I can’t pronounce in addition to flour and sugar and sugar and sugar. Yet, had I grown up on Twinkies, at my age now, the death of a cake I noshed on all during my growing up years would be cause for concern and sadness; on all levels of my emotional being.

“All in the Family: Sammy’s Visit (#2.21)” (1972)

Archie Bunker: [to Edith] Open up a fresh box of Twinkies for Mr. Davis.
Sammy Davis Jr.: Twinkies?
Michael Stivic: Yeah, kind of a WASP soul food.

Archie Bunker: Mr. Davis, do you take cream and sugar in your eye?

It made me think about all the so-called confectionary goods we have, in Canada and Quebec, that are sold in our **Depanneur’s and some still family-owned Candy Stores and of course in the Big Box Groceries.

Yes, Canada is home to a lot of homemade Canadian products not sold in the United States, much to a lot of expat’s chagrin. Not just Foie Gras, Maple Syrup, Poutine, Tourtieres, Soupe a l’oignon gratinee…oops off the track…

I should stipulate that Canada is home to a lot of native made chocolate confections not sold or available across the border. That is my next post…detailing some of the more popular Canadian made candy and candy bars that you just can’t get at the Piggly Wiggly.

 MAY WEST

May West used to be called Mae West before the sex kitten died in 1980, and it is alleged, that in order to avoid a lawsuit by the West estate, May West was trademarked and bought over by the company now producing the sweet snack cake.

It is Canada’s version of the Twinkie.

Mae West, (I CALL IT THE WAY I KNEW IT GROWING – UP WHICH WAS MAE WEST)was named not for the sultry actress as many presumed but for the puffiness of the cake which reminded the baker and developer of the life preservers used during World War II, that had the universal nickname “Mae West”. The inventor, it is said, was a Patissier by the name of Rene Brousseau, a born and bred Quebecer who baked for the popular Vaillancourt Bakery in Quebec City.

In fact, once as a camper, I actually played her in a performance and uttered that bawdy line…“Is that a pickle in your pocket or are you just glad to see me.”  and of course, “Why don’t you come up and see me sometime”.  I got the accent down pat.

This dessert cake/snack, to this day, remains Quebec’s most popular mass market dessert. It is round with a creamy layer of white icing sandwiched between two vanilla shortcakes and completely covered in a chocolate ganache.

(the filling is tinted yellow)

(something about Quebec and the color yellow – used to have a law that margarine had to be colored yellow to differentiate it from butter)

Brousseau died in 2007 at the age of 89 and to that day, he never profited from the popularity of the cake, which took off hot and heavy and remains as vibrant a snack today, as the day the first Mae (May) West came out of the ovens. Jacques Brousseau, son of the late inventor and baker Rene, says that his Dad got a $50.00 bonus when May West’s began selling out and that, although his father lays claim to being the inventor of this delicious after-school treat; there are no legal documents that say otherwise.

I don’t know how I would have gotten through High School without going to the corner store at the bus stop, and sometimes buying two Mae West’s. One was never enough. I will also divulge a secret – on New Year’s Eve 2011 I ate an entire box of 6 mini May West’s. Oh Hell!!! I am going to call it as it was a MAE WEST.

It is still manufactured and still sold in Quebec and remains among the most popular snack foods in the Province of Quebec.

**independently run corner stores in the Province of Quebec.

Tags: chocolate, Mae West, Quebec, Rousseau, Twinkie

 CONGRATULATIONS!!!

We have a winner and it is Joe from Ohio.  You will be receiving the bottles of the Wafu® dressings and enclosed here is a recipe I made this weekend for my son’s Potluck Supper Saturday night.  It is a re-post.

Joe I open my Blog for you, should you decide you would like to show your hidden talents at the dinner table and do a guest post on how you used the Japanese Dressing and the recipe, I invite you.

(pictures pictures pictures) That is a blog’s underwear.  Everything else is just getting dressed.

Again Congratulations to Joe from Ohio

Tags: Japanese, Wafu®

To the lucky winner will go these products from Wafu®.

All you have to do is place a Comment at the end of this post that says
EXACTLY THE FOLLOWING (copy + paste)….

Wafu®.  Dress, dip and marinate.  Japanese-style.

 

 

 

 

 

For added chances at a win… you can copy + paste the above EXACT
PHRASE ….on Twitter or/and on Facebook in the following ways:

On Twitter:
1) You must be following me: @Natalie_sztern

2) Tweet the EXACT PHRASE below with Hashtag (copy and paste):

@Natalie_sztern    #WAFU  Wafu®. Dress, dip and marinate. Japanese-style.

Make sure you have checked the ‘Follow’ icon so that a confirmation comes to me

*open to only Canadian and US residents over 18.  Yes, this time Quebec entries allowed. No friends or family members allowed -

ON FACEBOOK:

1) You must LIKE the post at the top of Wafu® Contest will take you to my Facebook page.

2) Once on my Facebook, place a comment under Wafu® Contest

Contest begins January 02, 2012 @ 12:01 a.m. and ends January 6, 2012 @11.59 p.m.  One winner will be announced through random draw of all correct entries via Facebook, Twitter and Eye’z in a Cookbook.

There will be one (1) winner for all 4 fabulous bottles pictured above.

I will announce the winner on January 9, 2012 IN A POST and I will try my very best to contact the winner,  In case we do not connect please notify me at once. I will need private information so that I can get your winning box to your door so that 2012 begins with a win!

Thanks and Good Luck to all….this is really a special delight to receive !!

wafu® chicken

wafu® green beans

Tags: contest, Japanese dressing, Wafu®

Eye married a Boy named Henry, at 21.  Together we grew closer, not farther apart and for that we are both so grateful as too many of our friends have not.

Henry owns each line of Desiderata, Henry practices it, he is it – so how did Eye know at 16, when I first came across this poem, that I would marry a man who is the epitome of each and ever single line of Desiderata?

On a Hiatus from my blog posting until January 2012.  For January 2012 and for the very first post of Eye’z in a Cookbook, I will be hosting the

Wafu® Contest

Tags: Desiderata

COOKING IS CONSIDERED A DO-IT-YOURSELF PROJECT.

..

You do it yourself, or if you are so inclined to have the kids come and help or even spend an evening with a Date, Love, Partner side by side in the kitchen.

Who does one automatically thing of when doing a DIY project?  The Unsinkable Martha Stewart.

THIS IS THE DO-IT-YOURSELF BACKYARD WATERFALL THAT MARTHA STEWART THINKS IS A GREAT PROJECT FOR EVERYDAY PEOPLE

I am a DIY girl.  I love DIY projects just like my own kitchen table project I did.  Usually a DIY project is sometimes difficult, sometimes pretty easy and should be realistically easy to do.

Summer is coming and if there is anything that symbolizes summer, to me, is water.  In my old house we were surrounded by water in the pool and in the hot tub and I always wanted a fountain but just didn’t have the space for it.

So when I bought my issue of Martha Stewart and came across a DIY waterfall that weird thought came into my head that a project making a waterfall would be so rewarding and soothing at the same time and I could have it all year round if I set it up properly in the bathroom.  I did say weird thought, I should have said idiotic thought.

She directed her readers to her website and then I got angry.  I got so angry I left a comment using my own name.  It wasn’t nice, and it wasn’t positive and when I went to rate it, she had the nerve not to include any box that said anything negative…what kind of rating is that?

Well I have printed her DIY project in its entirety here even though I could have shared it on Facebook.

If you really want to see it up close and personal visit her site at www.marthastewart.com/water
for a more intense view of the parts you will need and a visual of it.

Here goes Martha’s Do It Yourself Bubbling Brook….

Martha Stewart
Bubbling Brook Fountain

From:
Martha Stewart Living
Bubbling Brook Fountain

This pretty fountain is easy to construct, but you should be comfortable using a drill. Assemble the manifold (the mechanism of the fountain) one day, and then build the fountain the next. The ball valves let you control the flow so the fountain can be made to bubble or roil and splash, and every level in between.

You can also try our other fountain how-tos:
Gentle-Splash Fountain
Waterfall Fountain

Tools and Materials

* Hacksaw
* 150-grit sandpaper
* 1 gallon white swimming pool paint (we used Insl-x RP2700; insl-x.com)
* Large paint bucket
* 1 quart paint colorant (such as Tints-All) in color to match trough (we used black)
* Paint stirrer
* 4-inch foam paint roller
* Fiberglass trough (55 by 16 by 16 inches, planterresource.com; find similar styles at garden centers)
* Submersible pump (750 gallons per hour; we used the Mag Drive Ultra Pump, No. 98459; aquascapeinc.com) (G)

(Aquascapeinc.com has a beautiful website with just the sounds I want in my water-fountain)

* Ice pick or awl
* Drill with multipurpose drill bits (1/8 to 1/2 inch) and 1 1/8-inch spade drill bit (not necessary if trough’s drainage hole can accommodate pump plug)
* Putty knife
* Waterproof exterior caulk, such as neoprene flash cement
* Waterproof epoxy putty

The following items can be found in the plumbing-supplies section of large hardware stores. Use schedule 40 pipe and fittings throughout:

* Two 2-foot sections of 3/4-inch unthreaded PVC pipe (B, D)
* Three 3-quarter-inch PVC solvent weld ball valves, unthreaded (A)
* Two 3-quarter-inch, 90-degree PVC elbows, unthreaded (C)
* 3/4-inch PVC unthreaded cross (E)
* 3/4-inch PVC female adapter (F)
* 1 can (4 ounces) plastic pipe cement primer/cleaner for PVC (clear)
* 1 can (4 ounces) PVC cement (clear)

Fountain How-To
Note: All measurements are for the 55-by-16-by-16-inch trough we used. If necessary, adjust to fit the proportions of your vessel.

Assemble fountain manifold (the mechanism of the fountain):
1. Use a pencil to mark two 18-inch pieces (B) and four 2-inch (D) pieces on PVC pipe. Cut on lines with hacksaw. Lightly sand ends to remove burrs.

2. Using above photo as a guide, assemble parts A to F; leave ball valves open. When joining 2 unthreaded ends, prime and glue each with PVC primer and cement, twisting slightly as you join to ensure a good seal. Let all connections dry and set according to cement instructions. You will join the manifold to the pump in step 5.

Paint manifold and interior of trough:
1. Pour a quarter of the swimming pool paint into bucket, and mix in paint colorant, small amounts at a time, until desired shade is achieved.

2. Paint inside of trough and all PVC parts thoroughly so they won’t show in the fountain. Then paint ball valves lightly so the tab won’t stick. Let dry overnight.

3. Connect pump (G) attachments so that pump ends on a male connection. Join manifold to pump at female adapter.

Situate and finish fountain:
1. Place trough in desired location, making sure that the pump plug will safely reach a nearby ground-fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) outlet. If your trough has a drainage hole, feed the cord through it and omit step 7; if not, you will need to drill a hole.

2. Situate hole in the side of trough so the pump’s plug can reach the outlet easily without causing a trip hazard. Mark hole site with pencil, and use ice pick to make a small hole or indentation. Begin drilling with the smallest bit, and continue enlarging the hole with increasingly larger standard bits. Use the spade bit to make the hole large enough to accommodate the 3-prong plug.

3. Place manifold with pump attached in center of trough. Feed cord through hole. Use putty knife to smooth caulk over hole to seal, working around cord. Secure pump to bottom of trough with putty. Let caulk and putty dry before proceeding. You may wish to paint over the caulked spot.

4. Fill trough with water to roughly 2 inches below rim, and plug in pump. Use ball valves to regulate flow and sound level.

First Published: March 2010

Copyright 2010 Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Don’t forget to send in pictures …

Tags: DIY, fountain, Martha Stewart, PVC pipe, summer, water

Too frequently lately I find there is not enough time in my day to go marketing at all my favourite places.  Getting to the Jean Talon Farmers Market once a week is not happening.  Atwater Market, which boasts a lot of Butcher shops and is known to be more upscale in specialty products and prices, has suddenly become really out of the way.

It’s awful: here it is summer in Montreal and whereas I always take time out to shop farm to table, the rainy and scary hot weather is putting a wrench in my normally scheduled plans.

However, there is still time to have my nails ‘done’. And Ella’s.  Ella’s Deli.

On a tiny strip of storefront land in Cote St. Luc, on the side of Westminster above the tunnel sits a Deli called Ella’s Deli.  It is not really a deli in the Jewish sense of deli, in that it is not a shop relegated to smoked meat sandwiches and eggplant salads with booths to sit in.  No, it is more like a local grocery store except it is a European Grocery store that specializes in Russian foods.

Montreal, a city so diverse in its culture and population that opened its arms to immigrants from Vietnam, Korea, Morocco, South America, the Middle East, Europe and Russia; begets us foods as diverse as their immigrants.  Mostly the foods that emanate from these cultures give us introductions to their heritage through their affordable and always homemade food.  Be it in small restaurants that pop up through the city or in the grocery stores that open importing food from the homeland.

Ella’s Deli exists in two locations; the one I favour is the one that is obviously close to my home.  Surrounding Ella’s is a large Russian population proportionately made up of young families with young and school-age children.  I assume most of the families have both parents working, leaving very little time for cooking.

Children need to know the foods their parents and grandparents grew up on.  I did.  That’s why Ella’s is so dear to my heart.  The first time I walked into the store I moseyed over to the deli counter, where sat, what the Italians term Salumi and the French call Charcuterie; but I have no idea what the Russians call it – all I know is that their counter boasts homemade products of the deli variety.

How do I know that?  Because they are called names I have never heard of in my mainstream deli or grocer.  Also, because when you stand in line waiting, all that is heard is Russian and whereas I read the English labels the rest read the Russian labels.  I know it is homemade because there is something about looking at a Russian Salami that tells you outside of Russia you won’t find this anywhere.  And I don’t shy from asking: Women no matter what language is written, all speak the same when it comes to food.  From them I find out what to buy and what is good.

Because there is always a line-up and because I am usually the only Canadian at that time, I have to ask, so who made it?  It can’t be imported: we know the strict regulations on that.

I can spend a half day at their deli counter marveling and tasting.  Each taste is better than the last but without a doubt when the husband says he wants more of those veal sausages he ate last week: I know that Ella’s Deli is a home run.

Ella’s is where I also know familiar foods because my background is that of a Russian Jewish grandmother and many of the homemade products that are sold here are very familiar to me, for instance, the smoked Tongue.  I live to eat Tongue; but normally it is priced so expensively that eating it has become a treat I rarely indulge in.

I think this deli has it right.  Its prices reflect its customers.  The working mom is not going to spend $18/lb for Tongue (yes at Snowdon Deli & Delly Boys it is near that price) – no, she is going to spend the $9 for a pound and come back next week for more.

The prices, the selection, the pastries make this place a true find and I delight every time I go in.  I delight in the Schmaltz Herring that I wrote about a few weeks ago.  Schmaltz Herring is virtually impossible to find any more in Montreal.

Not to mention the smoked fishes I know and the other fishes I have never heard of nor ever tried; but which have me salivating.  Actually I shouldn’t say I never tried because they have a pickled herring in a red sauce that I bought a small container of and it was scoffed down that night at supper.

I don’t look at the open kitchen or the patties that are made daily.  They even have a small butcher shop catering to special cuts of meat specific to the Russian culture.  Of course you can buy the chicken breasts here too and from what I see, again the prices are damn good.

I have also come to realize, that Ethnic people demand good quality and good prices.  The Jews around here demand Kosher and let me tell you the Kosher butchers dance when customers walk in.  Cuts are two to three times the cost of regular; it doesn’t happen at ‘my grocer.’  Of course I don’t buy Kosher and I haven’t bought any meat from here either.  I assure you, if I were to go in and research that out, which I will do next time, the prices would be surprisingly reasonable and I have no doubt the quality superb.

After all with two IGA’s around, huge fruit stores and as I said, many Kosher butchers; the owner would be an idiot if he served anything but the highest quality.  And with the butcher right there cutting the meat; something tells me he will make sure my order is nothing short of perfect.  If he spoke English.

Who cares.  Food is a universal language.

However, what stands out for me the most about Ella’s and besides the Smoked Tongue and sausages that draw me in, is their refrigerator full of homemade pickled products.  I know they are homemade because they sit in buckets in the fridge and as a child shopping with my grandmother, she always bought food in buckets, because she told me, these are made ‘here’.  Meaning on the premises.

My two favourite buckets hold the half sour pickles and the Cole Slaw cabbage which has a crunch to it whether you dig deep inside towards the bottom or you grab with tongs the mound on top.  How do they get such a crunch on their cabbage?  Truly, it never goes soggy.

Lately I haven’t been able to source out the cheese blintzes; but be sure that the other two varieties are made in the kitchen which sits open for viewing. I know those are filled with meat but I can’t remember which meat.  I don’t eat meat patties but I do believe my Polish mother-in-law did.

I don’t usually peruse the shelves because these Russian imported products are not familiar to me; although to be sure Ella’s Deli carries the Heinz and the Green Giant and a lot of mainstream products on its shelves.

It also has a huge case of those frozen cheesecake bars I wrote about too.  I have to be careful when I walk past that freezer because for a buck a bar I can do a lot of damage to my scale and my pants.

Which brings me to the final beauty of Ella’s and I guess the management knows that because this area of the store sits right up front.  We pass it when we walk in and we pass it when we walk out.  My readers know I am diabetic and so sweets don’t usually mean much to me – but the one indulgence that I have done so far (except for tonight’s secret stash), and without  suffering real sugar highs, was the sheet apple cake.   A slice is a taste of glory.  If you can stop at one slice.

I have got to find out what the name of the domed cake is.

It’s the Tongue that just pulls me in.  Or the sausages…or the cheesecake bars…I know it is not the cheeses because that is my next visit.  Something different is my motto every time I walk in to Ella’s Deli…something different to try tonight.

Above is the menu for tonight’s supper: the pickles, the smoked tongue and the veal sausages.  What is not shown is the slice of round chocolate cake I bought to eat as a snack and a secret – hubby doesn’t know – shhhh.

Now wouldn’t you know that the one time I let go my pride and take pictures is the one time the manager comes up to me and tells me to stop…I was so embarrassed; the good news is that he probably recognized me as the woman who called for him to come out of the back, a few weeks ago..

(hence the blackberry photos, the professional photos he offered up and my home photos with my ever so wonderful camera that I need to carry with me more often)

Usually one does that when a complaint has to be made; but I did the complete opposite.

Being so enthralled by the quality and freshness of his food, the food I buy, I felt he deserved to know whoever mans his kitchen is doing a fine job.

Then he emails me to tell me that Ella’s Deli is baking in-house European and Russian breads like Lunenberg Country Bread, Farmervesper and other European breads.  For an area of Montreal like ours: it is very special to have an artisan bread-making oven so nearby.

Tags: charcuterie, cole slaw, deli, Ella's Deli, food, grocer, pickles, Russian, schmaltz herring, tongue

MY CSA BASKET

On staying focused: “The person who pursues two rats will miss both” – Yoruba (Benin, Nigeria and Togo)

Imagine walking into your vegetable garden to find that your lettuces are growing with such abundance that they are beginning to take over the patch as so they should.  It never tires that delight; that little smirk from your lips, the proud and careful step around the patch, to bend down and inspect.

What pride that your lettuce is not only huge and heavy; it is actually ready to be picked and whisked away to your kitchen for tonight’s salad.  For a fleeting minute you think all I would ever eat in life would be lettuce from my garden.

If only.  If only I could sell snow in the winter.  Oh yeah that comes too.  Winter, I mean and its closing in fast.

Yet today, this afternoon, right now: all I can think of is getting this bag of Romaine into the house and into a chilly bath of water so that the wilted leaves can firm up and the ugliness of the land that is dirt be cleaned away.

Yes, cleaning lettuce is a must. How I do it is simple really.  After all I have invested in the Oxo Salad Spinner.  But not just the salad spinner, no, I invested in the

Oxo Good Grips Silicone Sink Strainer with Stopper.

Without this, I could never stand a chance the water in my sink would fill up, that the water would actually be stopped from slipping ever so slowly down the drain.  No, those days of silly drain stoppers that never worked are history – dead to me.

Press that baby down so that the silicone holds a firm grip (have the tap water just slowly spill from the tap so that there is a bit of suction for the silicone to hold).

This is the Silicone Strainer

Carefully lift the lettuce leaves out so that you don’t disturb the water because all the dirt drops to the bottom

Once the stopper is set and tight, place your lettuce in the water and let it sit for a few minutes.  Make sure you cut the stem off the lettuce so the leaves detach themselves and float.  All the dirt and bugs and other nasties will fall to the bottom of the sink.

Carefully and slowly so that you don’t upset the balance of the floating lettuce leaves, take them and place them in your lettuce dryer. The trick here is the slowness because if you just shove your hands in and the water moves then so will the dirt that has fallen and you don’t want that.

MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE LETTUCE DRYER BY OXO

Once you’ve taken your clean lettuce out of the water then flip the strainer to drain and there you have it.

Clean lettuce that YOU planted and nurtured straight from the garden to your table.

And if not the garden; it doesn’t matter that you bought it at the market.

IF YOU ARE NOT USING IT RIGHT AWAY ROLL THE LEAVES IN PAPER TOWELS AND REFRIGERATE

Tags: lettuce, Oxo lettuce dryer, Oxo strainer, romaine

I died and went to Pork Belly Heaven.

I have been following a lot of professional food bloggers for four or five years now and the common thread amongst all of them is Pork.  In every shape and form.   These cooks and writers of everything Pork are very knowledgeable and I revel in the recipes they write about and the methods to cook every cut there is of the pork.  Including, for Chris Cosentino, (who came here to cook at DNA in February for a ‘nose to tail’ dinner which I booked but had to cancel), who actually serves Pork snout in his restaurant.

I always loved Ham and Pork and would indeed eat it, especially Chinese style or Japanese.  However I never really embarked on cooking Pork at home until the food blog internet hit my house.

I did start, slowly.  First with chops, then with sirloin; for sure chopped Pork hamburgers and pot stickers.  This post is the first time I have ever made Braised Pork Belly and now, today, I understand why Pork Belly is so popular.  If I were to get another tattoo and if I were a daredevil in my teens, having cooked this: perhaps it would be a pig.  Perhaps not.  But I understand it…I really do.

(I am trying to understand how and why one cooks an already cooked Ham for Christmas…the one I tried to do was far too salty)

When I first read Ken Oringer’s recipe after watching it on Ming Tsai’s cooking show, it seemed to be easy and it was. Very easy.  However I didn’t do a mise-en-place and when it came to adding the sugar I did a double read.  2 cups of sugar seemed awfully much, considering the Coke had a lot of sugar in it, as well.

I did not stray from the recipe, fortunately.  This is the one time I am glad I did not follow instinct and reduce anything.  The sauce, after I boiled it down to a caramel, was a sweet perfection and that hint of preserved lemon and that taste of caramel was a song and a dance on my tongue.

That preserved lemon was brilliant.  Ken, it was brilliant and for all the recipes I read on the net yours was the only one to have preserved lemon.

First I plated it as a piece of pork belly with that beautiful sauce.  Then, I wanted to try a pulled pork sandwich and plate it and photograph it.  Then I ate it.

Only one thing I need a question for and that is “what do I do with the beautiful soft luscious flat piece of Pork fat that came off the center of my pork belly?”  It seems sacrilegious to toss it.

“Toss it?” was the incredulous response I got from my friend on the other end of Alexander Graham Bell’s invention…”My dear, that is the essence of why one eats Pork Belly; why else would it be called Belly“?

So came the education of what a Pork Belly is.

This is taken from the Ming.com website.

Ken Oringer’s Lacquered Pork Belly With Preserved Lemon, Soy Sake Glaze

Ingredients

1 12-inch x 8-inch piece pork belly
1 cup preserved lemon
1 cup Wanjashan soy sauce
2 cups sake
2 cups Coca Cola
2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons coriander seeds
2 tablespoons fennel seed
Steamed white rice, for serving

Directions

Place all ingredients in large saucepot.  Bring to boil and simmer gently for 3 hours until pork belly is soft when poked with meat fork.  Remove the belly and reduce sauce to a light glaze.  Glaze top of belly.   Serve with steamed white rice.

Tags: Coca Cola, Ken Oringer, lemon confit/preserve, Ming Tsai, pork belly, Sake, soy sauce

Hot Tamale

That is what my husband calls me in the evenings when we Coo and Caa at each other.  One Hot Tamale.

as I begin to unroll my tamale

con-todo-salsa-tomate-crema-todo

It’s just that there is no bloody way I taste as good as the tamales from Latin Market Sabor Latino.  A Latin Supermarket right near the Jean Talon Market in Montreal off of St. Denis and on Belange. I found this place last year when I endeavored to make my Mother-in-law’s Arroz Con Pollo and needed to find Bijol.  My day at the latin grocery store called Sabor Latino.

Dried ancho chiles

Finding the place I hit the mother-lode.  Sure I had Mexican food and Cuban food in my lifetime and I have had the opportunity to eat at  Border Grill, in LA; a Mary Sue Miliken and Susan Feniger production – but to find this kind of supermarket so close to home with such amazing down-to-earth out of my comfort zone kind of food I normally eat, is just such a rewarding and proud experience.

chicken empanada

Walking into this market I am thrown back to South America where not even French is spoken.  Spanish…it is all Spanish spoken from the most friendly of mouths and from people so anxious for you to try their heritage they won’t even let you buy a Pan de Queso if it didn’t just come out of the ovens.

Pan de Queso also made in Rings 'bagel-style'

This is the only way to eat it at the restaurant but when u bring it home it looks like the latter

I try to get here as often as I can and now that it is summer and I spend most Sunday’s at the Jean Talon Market it is a hop, skip and jump to get to Beaubien and to Sabor Latino.

The Latter Platter when you do a take out

I am going to go forward and link to a website where the pictures on this site are much better than the pictures I took myself, that is how similar in nature her Latin Market is to ours.  I’m Only Here For The Food .com, as I was searching and googling, caught my attention because she or I could have interchanged our shopping experiences except she is in Vancouver and I, in Montreal.

Argentinian Chorizo

To the very right of the store sits their fresh meat market with in-house made sausages and meats and cuts of meats native to Latin America.  The grocery itself has the banana leaves and the masa both in powder and ready made stages; all the chiles the Latin World has to offer and in every form from fresh to ground and in-between.  Yet my favorite part is to the far left and it is the restaurant.

Spanish Tongue

For 5 bucks I had a Tamale San Salvador and for .50 more I topped it with Salsa Verde, tomatoes, lettuce, guacamole and pickled red onions.  OMG good doesn’t describe the dance of flavors and the addictive masa.  Depending on which part of the Continent you decide each tamale is stuffed differently.  This is just one part of the glass case.  The other glass cases hold Spanish Tongue and pulled Pork and all kinds of other delicious roasted and barbecued chickens and …and…and…

t-may-not-look-appetizing-but-never-judge-a-book-by-its-cover-cause-it-is-so-opposite-of-what-it-looks-like.

try to plate the garnishes nicely...not easy

Steam the packages for about 20 minutes

like-opening-a-gift-peeling-back-the-layers

add some rice

add some salsa

the masa hides all the good stuff

Bring a Spanish dictionary because this is one of the very few places outside of the Kosher bakeries that speak only the native tongue.  The Kosher bakeries are even speaking French for the influx of our religious young Moroccan community.

“…con todo: salsa, tomate, crema, todo, todo, todo. Muchas gracias!” and close out with heap big smile.

anxiously unraveling my delicious tamale

adiós

Sabor Latino

436 Rue Bélanger E

Montreal, Quebec

Tags: banana leave, bijol, masa, Sabor Latino, salsa, steam, tamale, tomatoes, toppings

CHARCOAL BUDDY

Summer is in the air My Charcoal Buddy

On Saturdays, Montreal’s only English language newspaper puts out its big edition.   We leave Sunday for the New York Times.

Last year at the onset of summer, one particular journalist wrote a fabulous article about the barbecue tools and finds that make his standing by a hot charcoal grill fun.  One of them was uniquely called The Charcoal Buddy and is a chimney which you fill with briquets and light up.  But instead of then dumping out the hot and ashen coals: the chimney also becomes hot and ashen thus becoming part of the process of heating up your briquets faster and does away with the dirt of dumping the chimney and for sure the extreme possibility of getting burned because of it.

AS IT LOOKS WHEN TAKEN OUT OF ITS BOX

Wicked Good Charcoal is another product this journalist loved.  It, too, is not to be located in Montreal.  Wicked Good Charcoal is 100% hardwood lump charcoal that is green for the environment and apparently has wonderful smoking capabilities, is longer lasting and at the end of the day produces far less ash than normal lump charcoal or briquettes.  It is also an easier lighting charcoal with no need to add any accelerant (god forbid you do that).  I know that I use plain newspaper under my metal Chimney and never, never, any fuel.

THE INSTRUCTIONS

INSTRUCTIONS IN CASE THE FIRST IS OUT OF FOCUS

Of course, Charcoal Buddy and Wicked Good Charcoal have partnered together: and, of course, I was sent a Charcoal Buddy full of Wicked Good Coal.

Loving this idea since we are a “charcoal only “family, I went online to sadly discover that Charcoal Buddy has no Canadian distributor and is not sold in any store in Montreal.

…  in conversation with Connie Kerns of Sales and Marketing, she went forward to send me a sample of her Charcoal Buddy.  Unfortunately due to shipping errors and what-not my Buddy arrived the week of October 12th.  Unfortunate because that was the week I closed and locked tight my BBQ and the weather had turned ugly in Montreal with temperatures and winds not conducive to charcoal grilling.  Add to that hubby is taking a much needed break and I am his choice to break with.  He’s mine too.  I love him so.  Not bad after 33 years: especially considering he can’t barbecue for beans.

I did take pictures of the Charcoal Buddy for all to see and I was planning on posting about this; instead I thought it much better to actually use the product so that I could be honest in hyping the product having actually used it.

My plan worked and I now feel responsible enough to post my thoughts on the Charcoal Buddy.

However I feel that there is one very important point to highlight.  I had no idea that each and every Charcoal Buddy made, comes from a not-for profit organization, called the Alpha Group of Delaware.  Each Charcoal Buddy is also made by Adults with developmental disabilities, so that they can have gainful employment thus becoming successful members of society all the while producing a product like the Charcoal Buddy.

Mathematically it probably doesn’t make sense to keep buying the buddy, but for those who believe in giving back to the community, it makes ABSOLUTE SENSE.

I hope someone sees it and orders it to try.  Especially and preferably a reader in the good ol’ U. S. of A. since it seems to be readily available if not in stores, then online.  Clevelanders for sure since this is where it is produced.

I ONLY USE A CHARCOAL BARBECUE GAS IS NOT BBQ

www.charcoalbuddy.com

Connie, having read that tiny piece of paper you sent had more impact on me than the actual Buddy. (above)

It was a success and I enjoyed the ease of use.

In fact I will be making a few emails of my own to try to get Montreal to start buying the Charcoal Buddy.

So, Charcoal, my Buddy, I promised I would see you in the Spring and fire you up and I did that this past weekend.  You were great!

(is it just me or should I be taking radio voice lessons – I knew someone who actually took these lessons so she could run talk radio and it worked for her as she got rid of all her speech affectations and I have got plenty of those.)

Tags: Add new tag, BBQ, Charcoal Buddy, Charcoal Chimney, Wicked Good lump charcoal

* UPDATE BELOW

Eye love to watch cooking demos and most recently on Youtube.  After reading the article in the Montreal Gazette on Noah Bernamoff’s new Mile End Deli and his view on the take that Katz’s Deli’s leans heavily on its reputation for its business; I kind of agreed.  In fact Montreal has lost most of its Delis.  The last of the dying breed of Delis in Montreal was the Brown Derby.  When that died; it seemed that all that was left for us Jews and non-Jews who wanted old-fashioned and great tasting Jewish-style deli foods was the Snowdon Deli.  Problem with them is their focus is mostly Smoked Meat and parking is downright impossible.  Oh boy; I hear the yelling already…Okay the Snowdon Dell carries other delicacies as well like chicken soup with matzoh balls, and cheese bagels and rugelach…ask David Sax. Yes, he is writing on the decline of the Jewish Deli in general – I am writing of its decline here, Montreal, also where David lived.

The Brown Derby had the food our Bubbies cooked: pitchah, kugels, smoked fishes….if it was in a cookbook and it came from Europe and was eaten by our grandparents and parents; it was in the food fridges at the Brown Derby.

I miss that food.  My kids got to enjoy for just a short time in their young lives and then no more.  How can we preserve and make sure our kids and grand kids really know what ‘Jewish Food’ tastes like?

Brooklyn is lucky.  First, it didn’t have the French/English problem where most of their English speaking Jews left the state; as we did in Montreal and in Quebec.  Even Noah Bernamoff; a young Jewish man from Montreal had gone to open a great deli in of all places Brooklyn, New York.  Probably because he did not want his Mile End Deli called Charcuterie Mile End.  Somehow when a Jewish Deli is called Charcuterie; I dunno, for me, it just loses its identity.

Tribeca in New York’s Manhattan is getting what I think is going to be such a smash hit – Kutschers and the infamous Restauranteur Jeffrey Chodorow are opening Kutscher’s.

You are not a Montreal Jew if you don’t know who, what, or where Kutscher’s is what, what for, or when?  Yes, the Catskill Mountains which sits just a few hours away was where most Jewish families went to vacation for various reasons.  First, the food; as much and as plentiful as you wanted.  Good food.  The waiters and waitresses used to spoil their tables of diners by bringing out everything the kitchen had to offer, because after your stay was up: the tips came in.

Jews tipped on how much food they get…so they got a lot.

Next, there were always other kids to meet and hang out with and since each hotel stood among acres of land there was no where to go to get in trouble.  Yes, Dirty Dancing is exactly what the Catskill’s was like and I go no further on that topic…

The rooms were good and decent and the entertainment was wild.  All-inclusive; it was the best place to vacation.  In fact, around the time the Catskill’s was losing its lustre Henry and I took one more trip with friends and sure enough that weekend I conceived my daughter.  I think I could tell you the exact night, too.

Of course each family had their favorite hotel and as you can see my in-laws favored Browns.  You knew because every hotel had a photographer who went around every night taking pictures and selling them as souvenirs in these…talk about nostalgia…

Alas, though, the Concord was one of the few left standing and so shortly after that the Catskill’s and its fame died out.

I tried my best to get a good view of my Mother-in-Law who was just gorgeous

Mr. Chodorow, Mr. Kutscher I don’t think you could be picking a better time in our lives to open a Kuscher’s style restaurant ONLY IF you keep the tradition of what Catskill food was all about.  Taste and Abundance.

I have just one word to say for my reasoning and that word is: ECONOMY

These are tough economic times and if the restaurant can live up to its namesake promise you will come to Montreal, too.

I am envious of Toronto.  I am envious of Brooklyn.  I want the Brown Derby back.

The Brown Derby had no relation to any Brown Derby outside the city; it was its own entity with its own owner and it was the best place to go for Breakfast, Lunch or Supper every day of the week but especially the weekends.  There was always a line-up and it was the meet and greet of the city for all the Jews who didn’t go to synagogue.  You didn’t dare go to the Brown Derby without a face full of makeup or your hair done because you are going to know every single person there; including the waitresses and the behind the counter deli guys.

There are just not enough diners to make it work.  In fact, even, as Lesley Chesterman said in one of her reviews that ‘she is happy that our ‘fine dining restaurants’ opening up, hold small amount of tables and are intimate and friendly and unpretentious.  My response must have been a good one because the Montreal Gazette printed it.

In it I stated… “While that is true and perhaps, at times, better; I wish, for my children’s sake, that we had all those pretentious diners who needed pretentious restaurants to dine out at. It would make for a better economic situation for them, than exists here now; which is probably why so many new restaurants that open are small and intimate and unpretentious…”   …”Sadly she is so very right. All our head offices of our banks reside in Toronto, so do our head offices of our Insurance companies. The head offices of most of our high-end retail stores reside in Toronto; Birks, Reitman’s and even the head offices of our ‘big box’ stores. Loblaw’s, Shoppers Drug Mart and unfortunately I could go on. They all moved when I was in my 30’s and now my kids are close to that age…”

Indeed we are losing our identity.  Not just the Jews (who Parizeau blamed when he lost the Referendum to separate Quebec from Canada) but the English as well.  And while people are secure in the fact that Quebec will never separate (or will we?) we have already done so.  Like a marriage; one doesn’t need a certificate to feel they are married and committed just as Quebec doesn’t need a paper that says it is a separate province and state since it instituted The Charter of the French language otherwise known as Bill 101.

From that point in time the fall of our Delis came about.  So did the fall of our high-end restaurants and a time when opening a new restaurant in Montreal left a Chef/owner feeling exuberant and excited in the investment both financial and professional because to succeed was a real possibility.  I don’t believe any Chef/owner feels that way anymore.  There are more restaurants closing than opening; success is much harder to achieve and wealth is no longer a possibility because there is no longer that population base to feed off of.  Restaurateurs can expect, if they are good and popular, a middle-class income; they cannot possibly expect to become wealthy.  Of course, as always there are exceptions, and those come in the way of Au Pied du Cochon, Toque, and Milos. DNA amongst them and certainly a few more, no doubt.

Walk into them.  They are tiny and intimate.  Lovely and delicious.  Ask the Chef “what is your income like and is it profitable or would you enjoy a larger clientele?”

Back to the Mile End Deli.  Noah, did you name that restaurant after our ‘Mile End?”  Because our Mile End used to be where the first Jewish immigrants wound up living and where the preponderance of our Jewish Delis used to be.

WHAT DOES ALL THIS HAVE TO DO WITH JOINING KOSHER.COM?

I am not Kosher.  However in Goggling Jewish Delis I came across a website called Kosher.com and I marvelled at how they deliver Kosher products to people who, otherwise, would not have easy access to Kosher foods.  Or, women who are busy and cannot shop easily.  Or men who cannot shop as easily and keep Kosher.  I am flabbergasted at how great their prices are especially for their fresh Kosher meat.  Here, in Montreal, Kosher meat is priced as if Donald Trump buys it regularly.

It is not just expensive; it is exorbitantly expensive.

As I was perusing the site I fell upon their cooking videos.  The first video I watched left me feeling, I don’t know…kind of like empty.  I am no maven in cooking and I don’t profess to be.  I love to cook; clearly.  I am always learning, trying, sharing and experiencing but what I experienced when I watched Jamie cooking made me laugh out loud.

And since I am ‘of the tribe’ I really wanted to share my unusual sense of humour with you and no, Jamie, it is not at your expense because you, in all good faith, were playing to your audience and clearly you know your audience….why???

Because, readers, when you click to play and watch as Jamie describes the ingredients two things will jump out at you…

1:  Why and how the hell is she explaining her wine?  I know good Kosher wine is hard to come by; but gosh…I get that you are not a Sommelier but perhaps you could have consulted one on how to explain your wine to your viewers….and the best is last and is

2: Only a Jewish woman under the age of 45  would buy frozen diced onions…..only a Jewish woman…..LOL …

(Hint: when onions are frozen they lose their bite and why the hell would you use an onion if you didn’t want the bite????)  WHO BUYS FROZEN DICED ONIONS?

*UPDATE

The husband suggested I make clear the fact that The Brown Derby Restaurant was more than a Deli and served more than smoked meat sandwhiches.  We still have Schwartz’s and Snowdon Deli and a few other ones around but these are precise in what they serve whereas the Brown Derby was much more a Catskill-style restaurant kosher-style.

Tags: Catskill Mountains, Jeffrey Chodorow, kosher.com, Kutscher's Tribeca

What does a food blogger do when she has lost her appetite for food?

This puts what Grant Achatz went through in a whole new perspective - it is hard to eat when you are not hungry and without a desire to be fed.  Imagine suffering mouth cancer and going through intensive treatments that physically and emotionally weigh you down but still having to work.  And that work is not just your livelihood but other’s as well?

AND IT IS FOOD…..

I cannot look at food; I cannot eat it, and I surely don’t want to cook it.  I am in such a funk I cannot even find the energy to comment on Michael Ruhlman’s blog to which I am addicted.  I can’t find any interest in what he is saying or why.

My clothes are beginning to hang loose; my Barbecue saw me only twice so far this summer – and the guilt is destroying me.  Help!!

Has anyone ever suffered from this phenomenon and if so, what do I do to get out of it.

That’s providing it is the food that is causing it, right?

Two years ago I chose to enter the world of Food blogging. No, I am not schooled in food and no I am not a home cook proficient enough to give classes: I am a home cook who has always loved to read cookbooks instead of Fiction; to cook instead of order out; discuss for hours on end different recipes on the telephone and even more recently since the 80’s scourge the internet until I discovered food blogs were a whole sensation five years before I got there.

When I got there I landed on a site written by a lovely girl who had an amazing sense of humour and a lovely demeanour. I stuck with her writings and practiced her recipes and then found out she was writing a book. I tested some of her recipes and soon she was landing and appearing on her Florida based local television stations for a small cooking segment.

I was in the process of trying to find something to keep my mind alert and my fingers occupied outside of my lips and the practice of ‘fork holding’ while attempting to continuously feed me. In other words; if I didn’t stop eating I was going to have no clothing to put on.

What does one do when they need to stop eating; they fixate on cooking.

If one is going to become a presence in Food Blogging or any blogging, there are some things to know.

First and foremost do not remain anonymous. Your opinions, should you voice them, need to be your opinions and have fact and basis and you need to own them.

I do that. Unfortunately and unknowingly it sometimes has a tendency to bite you in the ass.

Excited about the prospect of entering the Food Blog world I paid money to register my Domain name and began a WordPress account.

There were some rules to learn, for instance,  NEVER STEAL ANOTHER PERSON’S RECIPE WITHOUT LINKING TO IT AND GIVING IT RIGHTFUL OWNERSHIP.

I knew that.

This brings me to my point.   My boiling point.

And what Anthony Bourdain says:“If you’re an angry person with too many cats and a grudge against the New York Times, maybe you shouldn’t be blogging.”

photo courtesy Eater.com

Most Food Bloggers; an apparent phenomenon of the internet, are all vying for a spot at national acclaim.

As they should because we all know blogging ain’t paying even for a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

They are on the heels of Andrew Knowlton, hoping to replace Gail Simmons and get a spot at the judges desk during Iron Chef America (***he’s a cop and they all know where to eat).   They want to be mentioned on Eater.com as badly as the Kardashians want to be on Page Six.  They want to be sitting in the window at Barneys with the title Food Blogger 2011.  It doesn’t matter if they can’t scramble the egg; they can hold the fry pan, is all they need do.

***honest to god I did not know this guy was ever on Iron Chef America; I just googled “ iron chef food blogger” and his site came up…he is a cop who writes about food…case closed. (actually his blog is good)

Expertise was once a phenomenon people needed to excel in before the term Entrepreneurs and Internet came to be.

My blog took a different name and I have not looked back since. I have made somewhat of a mark in ‘my territory.’ Although I am not sure what my territory is.

I have met Food friends who are actual mavens in their field. They teach others. They have intelligent discussions on the interest. Their blogs are informative and intellectual and when prompted they have long and sometimes lengthy discussions with one another on Facebook…and yet not a place will you read of insulting comments or demeaning words. These are intelligent people, and don’t need to put one another down to form a cohesive intelligent discussion on food.

Critics being paid to criticize. How is it Restaurants came to be an industry defined by ‘critics’? Is it because we pay to eat? Well, we pay to do a lot of things…so how did an industry which is so competitive and so demanding physically come to be the kind of industry where the ones who don’t know a damn thing about cooking are the ones who become the Celebrity and where the one whose knowledge outweighs even his/her talent still struggles to make a living?

Then Eater decides to mock all by hiring on staff two kids to become their restaurant critics.  Ouch that slap in the face hurt!  I didn’t feel but I imagine the mockery did not go over the heads of some people who hold respective positions in the world of food.

I took it upon myself to write on behalf of all those who couldn’t afford to write about this insult because Food People have very long memories and can be very nasty and will never mention you again and in this age of ‘the more your name is mentioned the better it is’ one does not engage in warfare or make enemies.

Except Me.

Yes,

“If you’re an angry person with too many cats and a grudge against the New York Times, maybe you shouldn’t be blogging.”

Does networking outweigh experience and fluency?  On the one hand the internet has given at our fingertips the world as our oyster, with encyclopedic information and history at our fingertips, galore in its quantity but sadly not its quality.

The only way to know what is real and what is not is to still have an education outside of the internet.  It is still necessary to read a book: that book is edited; that book needs to have truth in it and be factual.

Wikipedia is not the World Book Encyclopedia.

Unfortunately it has not given its users the ability to weigh out what is truth, what is fictitious, and what is general junk.

There is no one monitoring the internet except the person writing it.

Gael Greene recently wrote at her disappointment that Craig Claiborne was not included in a Food Themed window dressing.  The window dresser claimed ignorance and blamed his advisor.  In ‘my day’ I would have taken it upon myself to make sure I had researched who belonged in that window; especially if I were getting paid to do it.

Now, in her blog the name of the store was not mentioned.  However Eater.com states it was Barneys.  I have not read that anywhere else and Gael never mentioned the name of the high-end store.  So, it is…Barneys will stick with me whether it is right or wrong – because Eater.com wrote Barneys and I know no different.

If it is different, I will never know because within fifteen minutes of that post there have been about twenty others and an eternity has passed…so mistake or not I am living with Barneys as the store in reference to Gael Greene’s post and this not even from her own writings-from someone else who picked up the story.

Imagine, just imagine that now; through a third person who might have been totally wrong and maybe even made a guess as the inconsequential and irrelevent fact that Barneys is the store she meant:  it is now ingrained in my mind as fact.

That is both the danger and the power of Food Blogging and Food Bloggers.

It is tough to make a living out there as a writer today.  It shouldn’t be; but it is.  I wish it weren’t.  Not for me, but for my kids; I wish they will have, in their lifetime, the savants I had in my lifetime which have given me the intelligence I have today.  Or helped with it.  I feel pain when I see a gifted writer try to sell kitchen tools and gadgets off a blog; if just to pay for the cost of writing and keeping that blog because it is all about exposure in today’s market.  Who the hell has the time for Twitter and Facebook; as a Food Writer how do you make a living now?

Today incompetence runs amuck.  The worst thing is that the ‘competition’ don’t think they are incompetent which makes them all the more dangerous.

In an area as diverse as food is; from once-drugged-out-bums who were cooks and are now hosting Travel Channels like Anthony Bourdain to revered cooks like Craig Claiborne left out of Food Themed Window Designs.  I bet the window designer knows who Anthony Bourdain is.  Hell, even he; at my age, laughs his way to the bank, Anthony Bourdain does.

If Anthony Bourdain can make it rich then anyone can?  Is that the attitude?

Tony, by virtue of your age and your history and my history; you know that to be dead wrong.

Except he knows his limits, he can laugh at himself and not take where he is so seriously; because he is grateful.

HE IS GRATEFUL

A BOOK HE WROTE FROM HIS HEART AS HIS TRUTH,

while he still slaved payable hours.

The kids who take their ‘blogs’ and writings so seriously they cannot afford to be embarrassed by their limitations are a detriment to the industry, not a compliment.

Like Mario Batali says, anyone can blog, anyone can write a restaurant review.  That is what our internet has come down to and these people I have encountered in my forays online are just that: anyone and no one special.

Have we taken our young people and put them on so many Cooking Contest Cooking Shows that now Food Bloggers are hosting our Food Network Prime Time Shows.  Food Bloggers who are in their thirties and have no background in Cooking ‘in their thirties’?  If they have no background at Thirty, or worse at Twenty and have reached pinnacled success to where they are now writing for internet magazines and websites and Blogging for food networks; then sadly I will sit back and take the shit and say ‘Thank God I do not have to rely on this generation’; the generation I relied on were like me…Articulate; compassionate; thankful; dutiful; and knew how to ask a question without fear that I might belittle myself for stupidity.

Answer: Yes.

There are bloggers out there who treat me with respect. Whenever I write; whenever I comment; and believe me at times I am quite verbose. As you can see; Verbose is my middle name.

Truly, though, if you blog you should and need to be prepared to print all the comments you get from your post be they good or bad or contradictory.  If you don’t have a tough outer layer like an orange then don’t blog.  People will hurt you by their words and I know first hand because sadly that is exactly what I did to another young blogger about two years ago.  It came on the heels of Ratatouille the movie – to this day I have apologized and am aghast that I could have become so mean and hurtful.  Of course he has not accepted my apology and I don’t blame him.

Is this Arrogance or Ignorance? I ask you.

how the hell do I get my cooking and eating Mojo back?

The second Most Important rule in blogging is always use pictures and never write long-winded posts…

Tags: Anthony Bourdain, bloggers, blogging, food, Grant Achatz, writing

When it comes close to Passover, Montrealers get a flyer mailed to us care of The Suburban Newspaper.   It comes straight off the printing presses at Price Chopper and is directly connected to Montreal as you can see if you click this link.

Why is this flyer is so highly anticipated?

First it becomes an excuse to drive to Plattsburgh, New York,

where, among the runways at the Plattsburgh International Airport (Florida is practically their only destination and at that it is not Miami Beach),

sit the best Target, Walmart and  Bed Bath and Beyond shopping known to Canadian mankind.  As women, we wait like panting dogs for this time of the year.

We leave the men behind and gather in groups of 4 with one driver; slowly slip our asses into the seats (especially the back seats) and then proceed towards Decarie Expressway and the Champlain Bridge.

These days we will wait with bated breath and pray we get off the Champlain Bridge before it caves into the St. Lawrence Seaway.  The only city in infamy with one of two bridges allowing us to escape of the Island and one of those two is literally falling away and our Mayor thinks he can touch it up and fill in the cracks.  Okay that is another piece and I don’t get into politics; at least if it isn’t food politics.

Lovingly known as the Price Chopper Passover Flyer, it is essential reading.  It is read out loud by the front passenger seat-person and then each one of us pipes up with their own quotes of the cost of said item at every single Big Box Grocer including Mega Stores.  Inevitably Price Chopper is always a buck or more cheaper.

This is very important because where a box of Streits Matzoh sells here for close to 5 Bucks; in Plattsburgh it is 99 cents for a box of Egg Matzoh and Empire Kosher Turkey is selling at a Buck Ninety-Nine.  Frozen.

Oh, but there is so much more…more product that in Montreal we just don’t get shipped.  Granny’s Toasted Marshmallows, Goodman’s Onion Soup & Dip Mix, Mishpacha Ketchup plus plus plus.

Then there is of course the cottage cheeses and milk products Kosher For Passover, and the instant mixes, and lots and lots of boxed cake and cookie mixes….lots and lots of mixes.

Let us not forget the wine; alas but we must because within 24 hours we are not allowed to bring back any alcohol and since the borders are kept really tightly controlled (which someone should mention to Obama BEFORE he institutes the three fifty charge per car xing) we are all afraid of losing our cars; which they are allowed to confiscate.

I forgot: that is another rule…Everyone knows there is no smuggling of bras in the purse; or jeans in the so-called Gym Bag in the trunk as if we just came back from working out.  No, absolutely everything is declared.

Ah we don’t care!!! The Canadian Dollar is worth MORE!!!!!  (depending on which day of the week we go).

So, yes; Passover is the start of Spring and it is the first trip after the winter we all make back to the land of Consumer Heaven.  The borders will be full and the waiting times will be long as we migrate back and forth; but one thing is for sure – we have all had a day of shopping therapy and ready to go back home.

Kosher for Pesach, 6 oz.

Lay’s Potato Chips

$1.99

Offer valid 03/27/2011 – 04/30/2011

Recipe: Crispy Chicken with Honey Dipping Sauce

12 oz.

Streit’s Egg Matzos

$2.99

Offer valid 03/27/2011 – 04/30/2011

Recipe: Oven-Crisped Potato Latkes

A real surprise are the fabulous recipes listed on the back of the flyer this year courtesy of Divine Kosher Cuisine Caterers out of the Congregation Agudat Achim in Niskayuna, New York.  They come from the cookbook sold online and at Price Chopper and I have got to tell you that reading these recipes for the first time I find them innovative and a fresh take on some old tiresome dishes.

Available at most Price Choppers with a Passover Center

Not owning the book myself just yet, it also includes gluten free and dairy free as well as traditional and innovative takes on the traditional recipes.  How can Roasted Onions With Balsamic Vinegar taste bad?

If I may; I will take the hits when they come, I need to share two, so pretend we are on the phone and I am reading it out loud to you as you take notes because after all they are on the back of the flyer.

Sweet and Sour Unstuffed Cabbage

1 large cabbage, coarsely chopped

1 1/4 c Kosher For Passover Ketchup

1 1/4 c Kosher For Passover Ginger Ale

1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1/4 cup lemon juice

2 lbs chopped Beef or Turkey

1 large Egg

1/4 cup Matzoh Meal

Salt and Pepper

Combine Cabbage, Ketchup, Ginger Ale in large soup pot.  Boil, reduce heat and simmer until Cabbage is soft.  20 minutes.  Add Brown Sugar and Lemon Juice.  Combine Meat, Egg, Matzoh Meal and add Salt and Pepper.  Form into 2 inch balls and add to Cabbage mixture.

Simmer about 40 minutes.

**note:  Early on and years ago a friend gave me a recipe for Sweet N Sour Meatballs which besides the meatballs uses just two ingredients for the sauce: Ginger Ale and Heinz Chili Sauce.  Equal parts of each mixed together and simmered makes the most delicious easy-peasy Sweet N Sour sauce.  I don’t feel the need to add extra sugar but this is  not my recipe and I suspect the lemon juice cuts the extra sugar taste which is probably needed for the cabbage.  Cabbage does tend to cook on the bitter note.

**a cute memory I have that I want to share with my Jewish and non Jewish readers and it comes into memory every Passover since… one episode of Dinner Impossible had Michael Symon (married to a Jewish girl) making a Seder alongside his mother-in-law for their local community Synogogue.  Chef Symon owns Lola and Lolita in Cleveland Ohio and is a famous ‘Celebrity Chef.’  Anyhoo, Dinner Impossible always has the Chefs running around shopping…(see they get it: run around and shop, so who the f’ck needs the gym?  I can do marathons of this thing called ‘shop’)…  The funniest moment that I, as a Jew, came when Michael went shopping and made absolutely sure that all his products were labelled Kosher with symbols.  What nobody told him is that for Passover the box or item MUST READ KOSHER FOR PASSOVER. I found this hysterically funny because when the word Kosher and Jew are put together; the difficulty is already beginning to show; add to the mix Passover and it is game over.  It took me getting married and preparing my own first Seder to learn that there is such an animal as Kosher For Passover…. Poor Michael he never had a chance…

Tags: Congregation Agudat Achim, Divine Kosher Cuisine Caterers, Empire Kosher, flyer, Kosher for Passover, Niskayuna, NY, Plattsburgh, Price Chopper Kosher Center, Streit Matzoh, The Suburban Newspaper

a plate of Joanne's Matzoh Brittle

Help Me! I am desperately trying to find a ‘cheap’ blog designer who can help me edit and repair some of my major mistakes on my blog.  If you know someone who can aide me in few simple steps of design please email me or give them my blog Url: but the important word here is Cheap.  As we all know we blog for passion cause it pays shit.

Alors, it is soon time for the dreaded Matzoh to take over our kitchens.  Most of us have begun to paper up our ‘everyday’ pantry and pack away or shutter our everyday dishes and their cupboard doors in preparation of Passover.

It is the one time of year I pig out on desserts; it seems to be the only way I can get satisfied and be happy that I celebrate Passover.  Actually I had fabulous news from my Optometrist (who is different than my Opthamologist who is different from my Dispensing Optician)at my 11:00 appointment yesterday.  He had a new machine for retina examinations which take a full digital picture of what is happening behind the eight ball otherwise known as my eyeball.

Being Diabetic, I go once a year and I encourage all Diabetics to do this.  Medicare does not cover eye exams but it is a necessary step in life as one ages.  In order to take the picture he had to dilate my pupils completely and so for the following 5 hours I could bear no sunlight or daylight and I looked like an Alien with glass for eyes.  No wonder I kept getting stares at the Pharmacy.   I even got scared myself when I glanced in the mirror – Wow! I have never seen an eye without dark pupils.

And let’s face it; for those in the know when you smoke the funny stuff they get bigger and not smaller.

Anyhoo this is far too long but the gist is that if I had not told Dr. Rheaume I had Diabetes he would not be able to tell from the picture of the eye he saw on his screen.  It is the eye of a healthy twenty year old., so he said and since there wasn’t a twenty-year old in the room I assumed he meant me.  Nope, not a sign of Diabetes anywhere and usually the Doc  says that in a healthy person there is always some slight bleeding of blood vessels; it is never as clear as mine showed to be.

PREPARED PAN FOR BRITTLE

That is what I have been telling my husband all the time; that he is married to a twenty year old.

Truth be told; I don’t bake.  I am not a baker so when I read blogs about baking and cookie-making it is just something I cannot connect with and this is the precise reason I have healthy eyes and don’t suffer any ill effects of having this disease.

LAY MATZOH TO COVER PAN

The dog needed to pee and get some exercise and in my house that means a trek to the dog run.  In the summer we walk however in the lazy weeks till summer hits us, I drive.  Inevitably the dog park is amok with dogs and their owners and at the onset of every single holiday; be it Jewish, Christian, or Muslim we talk recipes and food.  In that vein and that subject we all have something to say.

Last year though, Joanne brought us all a nosh.  She had made ‘her‘ Matzoh Brittle and rambled the recipe off her tongue, after all, she has been making it since she could remember.

This year is no different and I was lucky to meet up with her and get the recipe just one more time.  That, together with a reminder phone call, came a snack I will be nibbling.

BUTTER, BROWN SUGAR AND PECANS

I looked it up on the net and there are thousands of Matzoh Brittle recipes out there but not one is the same as Joanne’s.  So, in honor of all the dogs… uhhh… I mean people out there who want to surprise their friends, neighbors and family this is the perfect way and I can so see Joanne’s Matzoh Brittle packaged as a gift for the Hostess of this year’s Seder, for the kids to take home and for just a general nosh while watching The Amazing Race.

CARAMEL SOFTENING STAGE

POURED CARAMEL ON MATZOH

SEMI-SWEET CHOCOLATE AND SLIVERED ALMONDS

CHOCOLATE CHIPS SPRINKLED ON

SMEAR AS THE CHOCOLATE SOFTENS FROM THE HEAT OUT OF THE OVEN

ADD SLIVERED ALMONDS AND FREEZE

Thanks Joanne; and for all my readers I give to you the ultimate of Brittle’s…

Joanne’s Matzoh Brittle

1 cup of unsalted Butter
1 cup Brown Sugar

1-1 1/2 cups whole salted Pecans (Joanne says she uses a lot because who doesn’t like Pecans?)-obviously I used Cashews…

sheets of Matzoth to line pan
1/4-1/2 cup sliced Almonds
1/2 cup of Semi-sweet Chocolate chips or broken chocolate bar

Preheat oven to 350.  Line a sheet pan with tin foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray.

Line full sheets of matzoh until the sheet pan is covered and it is okay to break the matzoh to fill in gaps.

Place the butter, brown sugar and pecans in a pot and over medium heat bring to a slight boil/simmer.  It creates a caramel sauce.  Carefully continue to stir this mixture for another 3 minutes until butterscotch in color.

Carefully pour the mixture over the matzoh.  Remember it is hot and can burn.
With a spatula or the back of a spoon spread the caramel mixture over the matzoh.

Place in the oven at 350 for 7 minutes and take out.  Immediately place the semi-sweet chocolate over the hot matzoh and as it begins to melt spread it to cover the entire matzoh tray.  Sprinkle the sliced or chopped Almonds and place in the freezer when at room temperature.  Freeze for 1 hour or longer until it can crack.

Once cooled break it into pieces and serve.

OKAY THIS IS NOT FUNNY I CANNOT STOP EATING THIS BRITTLE: I NEED INTERVENTION ….

Between the first and second picture who can find the missing piece?

(what is it about salt and chocolate that is so addictive?)

Tags: almonds, brown sugar, caramel, Passover, pecans, semi-sweet chocolate

THE APPLE CAKE AND COOKIES FOR A SEDER OF 6 ACCORDING TO ERNIE

This is a day I love having a blog because I have to bitch.  I don’t usually order or cater my Passover seders and if I do, as in the past, I always used Adam the Caterer who had catered my son’s Bar Mitvah too many years ago.

But I opened The Suburban Newspaper last week, and I am not linking to it because this post will be of primary importance to only a select few Montrealers and they all know The Suburban Newspaper.  Ernie Kosher Caterers, like every single year, had their ad for their different Passover Catered Menus and I got sucked into buying Dinner No 3 to serve 6 people.  On the list of items was 17 products and it read like a container of this and a container of that – all sounding just right.

I ordered Dinner #3 and I costed it out with Adam and wouldn’t you know that Adam came out to a hundred dollars more?  Incredible how could that be?  So I ordered with Ernie.

Today I got my basket and I wanted to kill him.  True to form everything was frozen.  Probably made last year.  Even though I asked him purposefully ‘is it going to come fresh or frozen’, he made me sound foolish when he say it’s always fresh…I always serve fresh.

THIS IS THE 'CONTAINER' OF GOULASH - SO ROCK HARD FROZEN IT WILL TAKE A WEEK IN THE FRIDGE TO DEFROST : I WAS TOLD IT WOULD BE FRESH

Yeah, right.

IN CASE YOU NEED TO SEE ANOTHER VIEW OF THE APPLE CAKE AND CONTAINER OF COOKES ERNIE DELIVERED AS PART OF MY 'DINNER # 3 FOR 6 PEOPLE

For all your information I am currently boiling a Calf tongue and tomorrow I will be doing a chicken because there is no way enough food for 3 of us let alone 6.  What I didn’t know is that 1 container really should have read 1/2 container.  A pound of tzimmes is not too much…carrots weigh a lot.

The piece de resistance though was the Apple Cake and Container of Cookies for dessert.  The Apple cake could thinly slice into 3 and there were 5 macaroons.  Yes, 5.

I wouldn’t put that on a plate for one person to serve for coffee; let alone a dinner supposedly for a Seder.

MY CONTAINER OF TZIMMES FROM DINNER NO 3 FOR 6 PEOPLE SEDER NIGHT - NEED I SAY MORE?

SHAME ON YOU ERNIE KOSHER CATERERS – SHAME ON YOU!

(if mistakes appear I am too damn angry to care)

Tags: Ernie & Ellie Kosher Caterer

Quart de Livre Avec Fromage

Or in other cities: A Quarter Pound With Cheese

Yes people, Passover ended but unlike good Jews I couldn’t/didn’t last that long.

I have to confess – I am a bad Jewish Girl.  Some might say a bad Jewish Woman…but I prefer the term ‘girl’.; but, hey, that’s just me.

That Thursday I had to bring the car in for summer tires (Quebec makes winter tire mandatory) and I just couldn’t hold back anymore.  What’s worse you would think I would break my Passover with a decent hamburger at Ville de Burger like Shut Up And Eat (Jason) described in his post.

No, I craved of all things a Quarter Pounder with cheese; something I haven’t eaten since the days when we took the kids there.  Yes, in New York, now-a-day’s, that would make me an unfit mother.

Can you believe this is for real? Is that a pickle in your uhh hamburger

I want to make sure you see the pickle

The best part of this meal was taking the brown paper bag and choking it at the neck.  Blowing air and then hitting it so hard …. remember we always did this with paper bags.  BANG.  It used to scare the shit out of my mother.

get a choke hold on the bag and blow air until it fills

BANG It breaks : now I feel good

I think they may have something on that, the New Yorkers, I mean.

This is what I couldn’t wait to bite into and oh, God forbid I ate it while still hot in the drive-thru…no… I waited to get home, the Closet Eater that I am, so that I could enjoy it cold…like as if hot would make all the difference in its taste.  ‘As if!”

Don’t feel bad for me: I deserved this…if I were a believer I’d say someone was punishing me.  At least blowing the bag and hitting it made me feel a bit better.

Tags: McDonalds Quart de Liver, quarter pounder with cheese

The Seders have Passed Over us today and son Zack introduced me to this video made by a group of Montreal boys who seem to be heralding much fame and fortune. Called Epic Meal Time this is the one I saw and as you can see they have quite the following:

Like a million viewers:

MY BLOG IS FIXED

Eye'z is Fixed!!

EYE’Z in a COOKBOOK

I NO LONGER NEED TO REMEMBER TO PLACE THE FOLLOWING CAVEAT AT THE TOP OF MY BLOG: remember this….

CURRENTLY EXPERIENCING INTERNET EXPLORER PROBLEMS:  VIEW IN OTHER BROWSER IE. FIREFOX

It is banished.

I could go into the story of when I began this blog with WordPress and how I had no idea what HTML meant and how I was so insecure writing directly onto the face of my blog that I used Microsoft Word.  Not only did I use Word but then hubby told me to download a program that ‘translated real words into computer words/HTML’ and so began my blog.

One week, two, three, and before I knew it Internet Explorer wasn’t downloading any of my side pages.  I changed templates. No good.  I wrote to the template designer.  Nope couldn’t help me.

Then I went to WordPress Tutorial Help and had one fine gentleman tell me I hold the world’s record for the most HTML errors he has ever seen on WordPress.  Silly me it never occurred to try for the Guinness Book of World Records and now it is probably too late.

Because, you see, my blog is fixed.  Sarah B out of Montreal at OneThirdLab Designs fixed my Eye’z in a Cookbook blog.  It downloads in seconds, I have categories for my posts, pictures that fit and don’t overlap…it is downright beautiful.

SARAH B OF ONE THIRDLAB DESIGN STATED TO ME THE FOLLOWING:

mOST IMPORTANTLY..it downloads entirely ON INTERnet ExplORER.  PLus I NO LOnger NEED To use a TRANslator cause I am proficient enough and feel so confident in my words and with my words that I now type directly onto the DRaft FOrm of WORdpress.

Thanks Sarah B.  Thanks One Third Lab and while I am on the subject of thanking I want to thank Farah from Raw Paws who introduced me to Sarah.

Now for the wishlist…

Tags: Internet Explorer, One Third Labs, Wordpress

ROOT CANAL = TOOTHACHE = ANTIBIOTIC PENICILLIN =

ABSESS BECAUSE STRENGTH TOO WEAK = NO SLEEP =

EMERGENCY VISIT TO

ENDODONTIST = MORE ANTIBIOTIC + ADDED

METRONIDAZOLE TOGETHER = SWELLING THE SIZE OF A

TENNIS BALL = PERCACET FOR

PAIN = NO APPETITE = NO COOKING = ROTISSERIED

BARBECUED KOSHER CHICKEN FOR HENRY.

TOGETHER MIX IN PISSY MOOD + BAD HAIR DAY = VIDEO ON

THE FRITZ = 2 PERCACET AND TO SLEEP AT 5 P.M.

ONLY THING TO DO IS GO TO SLEEP AND HOPE I FEEL BETTER

TOMORROW….

oh and this week i will  not be posting any food buzz.

Taken from Mrs. Wheelbarrow.com and belongs to her

Mrs. Wheelbarrow of Charcutepalooza fame has just posted the August challenge and it is all about binding and terrines.  I gave up the Charcuterie part of her year long challenge only because my failures were catching up with me and my bank account.  Today though, together with the mood I am in, I wrote her the following comment:

I wish, I just wish you could come to Quebec and take a ride with me down through the small towns we always pass when we decide to go apple picking or even on our way out to the New York State border. It is from these roadside stands that grand-pere ou grand-maman ou tante Lise sell their terrines and their tourtieres all made in their kitchens off the farms. I have lived and loved, was schooled and had children here and never before have I felt such a close bond with Quebec and its history as I have since you began this adventure. For me, it has brought the French-English strife to its very core and why the French are so afraid of losing their identity. It is unfortunate that for the most part, French farmers are not cognizant that the rest of the world in fact has their own history dug deep in their traditions so like those of Quebec.

It’s not new to us who have spent a lifetime living in Montreal to know what a terrine is or how we could not wait for the weekends in Winter for the trek to the ‘mountains’ to ski.  You are not a Quebecer or to put it more precise, a Montrealer, if you never either en route but usually after a day of skiing to make our way to the tiny restaurants off the highway and the 15 to eat at Au Petit Poucet or the hot dog stands where Poutines originated.  Crepe Bretonne, Pecan Pie and tourtieres (merci Chef Bernard) et terrines were all a part of not just Quebec history but the history of all of us born and raised in Montreal and not necessarily of French origin.

Recette Tourtiere

Anyone who know the history of this province and its cities knows that English and French has been a struggle short of a civil war and that in its quest for supremacy the Quebec political parties have ricocheted us back in time to when countries knew not of one another nor of their existence: time before the internet.  I won’t consider going all Political in this post, except to say that in its urgency to get political prowess, Quebec has put themselves in a humorous position with regards to how English is to be used here and how it is to be regulated.

It is these people, of my generation and a decade older, who will not get to read Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s column because they will only read French blogs and those with regards to food are few.  They watch French cooking shows to promote their culture and even other cultures and what they don’t understand, especially if they get to read the above mentioned post, is that Quebec and its culture is not unique to itself.  What we are most proud of is that the rest of the world does cook the way we do: the only difference is that we do it better because we have been doing it since Samuel de Champlain was a child.

However, the young Quebecers; those who will be the next political generation are not afraid of losing their heritage which is an impossibility since Quebec has a definite place in the world with its food and its history and more importantly its Foie Gras and Martin Picard.

Quebec will always be French and has always been French – I only wish the Parti Quebecois could have had intimate discussions with our neighbors, before they mandated any Legislation, to realize that fact.  We don’t need a ruler and a tape measure to know that. (this phrase is very familiar to all of us who live and love and work in Quebec even if it makes no sense to anyone else it apparently made sense to the Parti Quebecois.  Yeah, sue me.  Get in Line first please.)

Terrine of Quebec Foie Gras and Smoked Ham

I encourage all my readers to read the post that describes how to make a Terrine and then they will feel as proud as I do, that I live and love and eat in Quebec.

Cathy, I don’t have the reader numbers that you have but for this post, I hope it gets all the way to Parliament Hill, Quebec City, Quebec so they can know that we all treasure our heritage in all our own ways and that in many ways Quebec Charcuterie definitely has its own identity and one to be proud of.  Thanks for this timely post for the month of August.

Tags: Charcutepalooza, foie gras, Martin Picard, pate, Quebec, terrines, tourtieres

REDUX – It’s vacation time and Montreal’s Old Port is abuzz with Tourists and locals and the scene that looks like this…We have only one and it comes out summertime only in Old Montreal but the cities ‘foodies’ have gotten together to petition for Street Food.

Muvbox is Montreal’s version of Street Food like Toronto’s infamous hot dog stands and New York’s infamous ‘everything’ stands.

It sits at the Old Port and is a treasure beginning last year and then again for year two this summer.

Here is what it is all about and for those lacking what to do go and visit – then be proud of being in Montreal for the long weekend and long weekends to come.

Tags: Muvbox, Old Port of Montreal, petition, street food

One would think that I would watch reality shows of value, if there is such an animal. Dancing With The Stars, America’s Got Talent; but no, I am addicted to Big Brother, Survivor, The Kardashians, Ice T & Coco Reality Show and the Next Food Network Star.  What sticks in my head is always what the judges on Food Network Star say and that is ‘always tell a story with your food’ so it gives the audience a bit of info into who you are…so I have decided to do just that today with this post.

Of course you can look at my Bio and know who I am…but the real me is in my personality and my words.  At times I am quite fun to be with and I am never at a loss for words especially if I can take those words and put them into contexts that my Grandmother would gasp at.  Yes, this is the same Grandmother who told all her grand-daughters when we were dating ‘that it is okay for the men to touch us as much as they want above the waist, but never below.”

Now you get a glimpse into my family and know why she was married twice to men who were madly in love with her and one who I believe owned the town of Scranton Pennsylvania he was so rich.

When my father died and my mother had been alone for a while it was nothing for my sister and I to tell her she needed to get laid…right after she cut the marijuana plants that she had been watering for my brother all summer long and had no idea.

Yes, this is a glimpse into my family.  Who I am.  My mother was supposed to marry a man that Aunt Soph Bronfman and my uncle Irving wanted her to marry.  Instead she fell in love with my father, married him, had three kids (my brother with Tourette’s Syndrome)who all wound up to be University graduates.  It didn’t matter that none of us chose to be schooled or had the freedom to venture into the area of life we loved,  because had we, I am certain my brother would have had many Oscar statues today and I would have gravitated towards Fashion.  My father was a dress designer and all that fashion meant to him was working in a hot factory all day long and there was no way that was going to happen to any of his children and there was no way my brother was going to venture into Acting because he needed to make a living.

Never mind that my brother, Tourette’s and all, studied Fine Arts; Major Acting and that he was granted the lead role on stage, when Sir George Williams University decided to put on the production of Harvey, primarily to accommodate my brother’s talent; and have him play the lead of Elwood P. Dowd, who was the character that James Stewart played, in Harvey.

To rave reviews.

So none of us followed our dreams and instead we followed into paths designed for us by our folks who grew out of the Depression.  It didn’t matter half of my mishpocha made their living bootlegging whiskey or that the other half ran gambling houses a la Funny Girl and Fannie Brice.  Holidays at my house when I was a kid, were just fascinating, as stories never stopped nor did the laughter.

So this is the story that would delight Susie Fogelson and Bob Tuschman when I present to them…

THE ICE BOWL.

No explanation of what this is, is needed.  It is an Ice Bowl which can be used for anything: Sangria; fruit; ice cream…the list can be endless but you must remember to either put it on a towel or another plate as the ice does melt.  You want something that can hold the water that will defrost off the ice bowl.

USE TWO BOWLS THAT WILL FIT INSIDE EACH OTHER WITH SPACE

THESE BOWLS DO NOT LEAVE SUFFICIENT ROOM

THIS IS A BETTER FIT WITH MORE ROOM AT THE EDGES

INSTRUCTIONS

1..You must have two bowls with one bigger than the other so that they can fit inside with a considerable amount of space to allow for water and decorations.  I would say 1/2 – 1 inch would be sufficient.

FILL THE BIGGER BOWL WITH AN INCH OF WATER TO FORM BASE AND FREEZE

PLACE THE LARGER BOWL INTO THE FREEZER TO FREEZE THE I INCH BASE

THIS IS WITH AN INCH OF FROZEN WATER FOR A BASE

SITTING ON THE 1 INCH OF FROZEN BASE

2…DECOR…Gather either fruit, or herbs, or whatever decorations you would want to be shown once the bowl is able to sit on the table.  In this case I used sliced Strawberries and Peaches and Blueberries with Mint leaves

USE WHATEVER YOU FANCY FOR DECORATIONS BUT REMEMBER WHAT YOU CHOOSE IS HOW YOUR BOWL WILL LOOK

3.  Place 1 inch of water into the base of  the larger bowl and then place it in the freezer until it is frozen solid.  This will become the base on which the little bowl will sit.

CAREFULLY PLACE FRUITS AROUND THE OUTSIDE OF THE FIRST BOWL WHICH IS WEIGHTED DOWN WITH WATER

4. Once the base is frozen take the bowl out of the freezer and place the smaller one inside and on top of the frozen ice base.  Carefully pour water around the empty space between the two bowls using either a measuring cup with a spout or any cup with a spout.  Then place the decorations around and even though they will float just simply try to push them down with popsicle sticks or the back of a spoon.  The more decorations you use the better but this can be done without any decorations.

5. A weight must be put into the smaller bowl so it doesn’t move.  I used water and it froze and was a good weight.

THE PLASTIC WRAP IS SO THE BOWLS DON'T MOVE

THIS MAKES CERTAIN THE ICE BOWL WILL BE EVEN ALL AROUND

6.  To make sure that the center bowl does not move and sits inside giving an even space all around…use plastic wrap to cover the top so it holds.

SET INSIDE MY FREEZER

7. Take out the bowls from the freezer and let is sit room temperature approximately  10-15 minutes so that you can easily remove the interior/smaller bowl.

THIS IS WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE ONCE FROZEN

ONCE THE INNER BOWL IS REMOVED THE BEAUTY IS BEGINNING TO SHOW THROUGH

SO BEAUTIFUL

THEN

8.  Turn the ice bowl over on a flat plate and warm a dishtowel in the microwave or under hot water.  Keep rubbing the bottom of the bowl so that it heats up just enough to release the iced interior which will not take long.  Immediately turn it upright and place back in the freezer to firm up.

TURN THE BOWL ONTO A FLAT PLATE AND COVER WITH A WARM TOWEL OR RUB WITH WARM HANDS

9.  Take it out ; fill it with what you have planned (in my case it is fruit which has been macerated in Red Wine) and make sure you place this bowl with a towel underneath to soak up the water that will be melting.

Serve it and listen to the Awes and Oohs and then send them to my post right here….

FILL WITH MACERATED FRUIT OR SANGRIA OR ......

A CLOSE-UP BUT NOT THE MONEY SHOT

Tags: blueberries, freezer, ice bowl, macerated fruit, mint, serving dish, strawberries

Many food bloggers are trying to get Montreal to reconsider its ban on Street Food and if you would take the time to fill out the petition at either of two places, without any needed donations, please do so.  If you are not a Montrealer but intend to ever visit you have an automatic vested interest so please feel free.

Facebook Petition

Montreal City Petition

Tags: Montreal, street food

XXX-RATED song but so funny so if you are an inhibited person or you feel this is inappropriate content for a blog my suggestion to you would be to turn away… but then if you were this kind of reader you wouldn’t be here by now any way and you would already know the term inappropriate is subjective to the writer…..LAUGH ALL YOU WANT….

I am a food blogger who recently has lost her appetite for food.  I am never hungry; the thought of a grocery store nauseates me; I am not pregnant.  If I eat, it is only what I crave which is chocolate, chips, and bagels.  I am often refusing to go out for dinner simply because I cannot eat.

The G.P. says not to worry my appetite will return and it is okay to lose ten pounds so I shouldn’t worry.  My body apparently can withstand feeding on itself I have so much blubber.  I guess that is what he wanted to say but it came out much more professionally not like when I was pregnant and in one month put on 30 lbs. and had Dr. DeLeon call me a ‘fat pig’ who can’t control herself…right before he plunked me into the hospital Woman’s 6th floor without letting me go home to pack.

Yes, that day I made history for Dr. DeLeon who now practices in California or is even probably retired.  Carly, dear, you were 11 lbs at birth and umpteen inches in length.  When I left the hospital with my infant baby she looked like two months and was eating cereal and sleeping through the night at 2 weeks old…you were a dream baby until you got to be 3…then sweetie it was downhill all the way until you turned 21.

But a Blogger is a Blogger is a Blogger is a Writer.  If I go a week without a post I am already lost in a world and a maze of other bloggers so I keep blogging.  The truth is we all feel the same way; My twenty-thirty-something fellow bloggers hope for a career in the industry so they do other things to promote themselves.  I have already had my career and I love food; it was a natural progression for me and at two years I am a newbie in this blogging business.

I would be willing to help any blogger; I am not out for accolades or awards, I am doing this because I love it.  So until my appetite returns this week I have chosen a topic that fits just right:

The Three Benefits of Having a Food Blog for the last two years.

I have been actively reading food blogs on the internet for about 5 years
and decided 2 years ago to begin writing my own. In these 5 years there have
been two outstanding events, attached to my blog, which have stood out for me
and added and enhanced my life.

The first came from a woman renowned in the food world and beyond, as a
food critic and esteemed author. She lives and works in New York City and as I
read some of her past critiques of restaurants and began getting to know her
through her newsletter; I was a little taken aback by one sentence in one of the
pieces she wrote for her old
Newspaper and which her Editor, at the time, missed. It was a sentence that
hit home for me, as my brother has Tourettes Syndrome, and this one line loosely
used this disease as describing someone’s behaviour in a negative reference,
rather than the very serious neurological disease that it is.

When I wrote to this woman, neither of us knew of each other in any
detail, certainly I did not know to the extent she was as famous as she was in
the food world.

That fame didn’t faze her, apparently, because she quickly sent me a copy
of the revised critique that she wrote to replace the one that existed and the
one to which I took exception to. She explained she could not go back to replace
the original but she did her best to correct what she also thought was
unfortunately overlooked by her then, Editor.

That, Ms. Gael Greene, is Class. Not to know me; and yet to take what I
wrote you with such sincere concern, and then go further to actually physically
correct that one sentence, just screamed out to me the very reason why you are
so esteemed.

Lady you have class. The kind of class I look up to.

To me Gael Greene is synonymous with the kind of ethical standards that
should be the yardstick for all of us to attain.

Gael, thank you for befriending me and more, for showing that just
because we are in a virtual world now, that it is no reason for disrespect and
dishonesty.

Another person to whom I owe extreme gratitude came to my blog to answer
a question I have spent the better part of 25 years trying to get answered. I
posted a piece called Eye Need A
Name For This Cookbook It still amazes me that a reader named Berry came to
read my blog (which landed me on a cloud that day) and then to actually know
enough of the contents of that book to be able to tell me the name. My mother
died 23 years ago and I never got to ask her the title of this book. It was a
book that as a little girl, my mother used to have me read the directions out
of, while she performed the actions and is probably the basis for why I love to
read cookbooks.

Berry came to my rescue and let me know it is called Meta Givens Modern
Family Cookbook. How the heck did you know that? Who are you Berry and I wonder
if you ever read my thoughts on how immensely grateful I was and am to this very
day, that you took the time out of your life, to give me such a fantastic
present. Do people like this know they are good and great and are the epitome of
how we should all be towards one another?

There is just one more person who sticks out but it is not a person I
came to know on the internet – it is one who befriended my husband. She is a
lady in England and because of the time difference and my husband’s quirky sleep
habits; they quickly made a friendship and partnership in an online Bridge
Club.

Each morning they gathered for months and through instant messaging
became such good friends that we wound up Skyping one another when Skype was
just a baby. Then my daughter was accepted to study at the Royal Academy of
Dramatic Arts in England and at 17 we sent her off. Of course, prior to that,
discussion took place with Henry’s friend regarding London and the school and
all the information she was able to expand on about the fear we had. She offered
to pick Carly up at the airport and take her to RADA to make sure she got there
and got settled in. She Skyped Henry the morning of the flight and said she
couldn’t make it, but she was sending someone who would take excellent care of
picking Carly up and getting her settled into her new school at RADA.

True enough, Carly called home to tell us that at the airport was a
Chauffeur with a placard of her name, which to her was really fabulous because
she really was nervous. Once she announced herself he took all her bags and led
her, now I quote my daughter “to this really huge car that looked like a
limousine but wasn’t”, as the Chauffeur told her it was a Rolls Royce car.

“Mommy a Rolls Royce came”.

Whilst in the car the phone rang and it was my husband’s Bridge friend on
the other end of the line and she spoke to Carly; gave her a phone number to
call in case of emergency and offered her to be picked up again for dinner
invitation the following weekend. Being fairly shy, Carly did cancel the dinner
reservation and got to speak to this friend once or twice again; but never made
the dinner to meet her. What can I tell you, 17, and I tried so hard to insist
she go, but wound up meeting so many new friends at school, she never had a
weekend alone.

We wanted so badly to send ‘this Bridge friend’ a proper thank you but
she adamantly refused to give us her address. Finally we had no choice but to
give up asking. Henry has his suspicions on who she was; but we let her have her
anonymity and I guess that is a crucial point to the internet.

No one person ever really knows who that virtual friend could be: the
Queen of England, a character out of Criminal Minds..or just one of us, regular
folk.

Tags: Gael Greene Insatiable Critic, Meta Givens Modern Family Cookbook

Is there a soul in Montreal who never heard of Hogg Hardware Store? It has
existed for as long as I could remember and it was always in Westmount. Back
before hardware stores turned into Big Box Stores like Reno Depot and Home
Hardware, we had a large amount of family run and owned smaller Hardware stores
where we would find whatever one finds in a hardware store. Come to think of it
I don’t know where we actually bought Front doors; or inside decorative French
doors? Carpets were at a Carpet stores; paint at a Paint store or Sherwin
Williams on Decarie Blvd.; extension cords at Hardware stores – now it is all one-stop shopping
at what I call Big Box Stores.

Everyone in the West end of Montreal knew, that if something you
needed was more specialized than any regular hardware store would carry, then
for sure Hogg Hardware carried it. If they didn’t have it and they couldn’t
order it for you, then it just didn’t exist.

Obviously it is clear to know that
Hogg didn’t carry JUST hardware – paint was also a specialty. Good quality
paint. Hogg was where I bought the specialized white lacquer paint, that came
imported from France, to paint the kitchen in my new house. It was so special
that I could only get a limited supply and it such an amazing finish as it looked like
mirror when it was on the walls. Nothing stuck to this paint including
fingerprints or dirt which is why it was so bloody expensive and so bloody worth
it.

The name of which was in the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

BARBECUES AND GRILLS

The Spring would come and if a new Barbecue Grill or Charcoal was needed there was
only one place to buy it…Hogg Hardware. First reason was that they delivered, second reason was that they put
it together, and third reason was they carried quality barbecues and all the attachments one could want.

Anywhere else and you had to pay
extra for the construction of the Grill which to my recollection needed a degree
in Engineering to facilitate completion of all of its parts.

Little old Ladies who lived in Westmount their entire lives knew the Hogg’s
by name. I came to know them also for the only place that carried Bartender’s
Friend cleaning supplies which is what Martha Stewart insisted her viewers buy
(that was era before her incarceration).

A few years ago Hogg moved out of its humongous residence and I thought it
had closed. Yesterday, on route to my Doctor and a little early I found parking
a few blocks away. So, on my leisured walk to the appointment I saw a large
store and in its window were all kinds of beautiful tzotchkes. I am a sucker
for knick knacks especially if they are unique and serve as conversation
pieces. That led me into the store and low and behold I came to see its sign
and Hogg Hardware had returned. This time a walk into the store made me think
”Pottery Barn.”

No longer just a hardware store now it is simply Hogg. True to its former
purpose it still had the hardware goods and the paint downstairs but the upper
floor had all kinds of cute kitchen tools, dishes, an abundance of candles in
every color and aroma possible. A section for greeting cards and special
notes.

MS. FOOD FACE

Dishes of the cutest sort like the Food Face dishes where the kids can make faces with their mashed potatoes as beards, or the green beans as smiles – adorable ceramic dinner plates.

MR. FOOD FACE IS THAT A POTATO BEARD?

Bottle cap magnets with saying on them…big and bright.

 MS. FOOD FACE WITH FRUIT HAIR

Of course loving cookbooks I couldn’t help but notice the focus Hogg was now taking with its food and kitchen related products.  Numerous little cookbooks colourful in jackets were front and center and each book took a specialty and had exactly 500 recipes of that specialty.  If it was pies, such was the title.

500 SALAD, 500 TARTS, 500 PIES…

Bottle Cap Magnets with cute sayings on them

 BOTTLE CAP MAGNETS

AND MORE

 A CUP I COULD USE FOR MY MORNING MOJO

A Breakfast sets of plates which are three pieces with the largest coffee mug I have seen to date.

In fact, I even saw a rack of now get this….’edible nail files’! Coated with Rock Candy it can also be a nail file. Don’t bother looking for it on the net cause I couldn’t find it anywhere…if you do find it please leave a comment.

MAKES FILING NAILS FUN WHEN YOU CAN EAT THE ROCK SUGAR

Hogg’s purpose sits in between a Bed, Bath and Beyond and Pottery Barn and Home
Hardware. It hasn’t found its niche which makes it so special. Only the best
and the most unique take up its shelves and so worth a visit but more than that,
it is good to know they are back.

I wasn’t surprised to find a food aisle where they stocked all kinds of
Artisan condiments from all over the world that you would never find elsewhere.
In fact I was quickly pointed to a product that was selling like hotcakes and
was actually a pickle flavoured jam – the use of which could be wild and
imaginative.

THE LAST BOTTLE ON THE SHELF OF PICKLE FLAVORED CONDIMENT

 

 

Also I found a few aisles with pots, pan, electric appliances and baking
tins – but what really hit home were the hard candies I remember my grandmother
having in a bowl sitting in her living room.

MY GRANDMOTHER’S FAVORITE CANDY (don’t forget the tip of a spoon to pry it open)

and the sugar that coated it got everywhere

Then, of course, the liquorice rolls…I mean who past the age of 50 doesn’t
remember those. Liquorice rolled around a soft center but not eaten by the kids
in one bite, of course. We would first unroll the liquorice, scoff down the
filling and then the rest.

 GINGER CHEWS FOR WHATEVER AILS YOU

YES THESE ARE THE LICORICE WAGON WHEELS

Where else would I see a beautiful chandelier made out of plastic but looked
priceless.

Of course the Barbecues were still there front and center.

So were the cleaning supplies.

 MARTHA STEWART WOULD BE PROUD AND HOGG HARDWARE WOULD BE THE STORE SHE SHOPPED AT

Not your regular cleaning supplies; if
your 10,000.00 dollar Dining Room table needed the best and most expensive wax
or dusting polish then there is only one place in the city to go and that is and
was still Hogg. If the Queen or the Prince of Wales didn’t endorse the product, then it
won’t be here. Every kind of silver tarnish remover can be found on Hogg’s
shelves. I could go on and on and so as I walked through the store I clicked a
picture of the objects I found the most unique.

Hogg also sells British tea that no doubt, is not sold anywhere else outside of Great Britain.  I mean, cans of Scottish Haggis…

LOOK CLOSELY AND YOU WILL SEE THE PRINCE OF WALES STAMP OF APPROVAL

You take a look.

Quincaillerie Hogg Inc.

4855 Sherbrooke St W

Westmount, Quebec

H3Z 1G9

514-4644

georgehogg@hogghardware.com

Tags: bartender's friend, Hogg Hardware, paint, tea, Westmount

Frozen Beef/Organs

Eating Head To Tail is very much in Vogue these days and Zoey can be its Mascot leading the way. Head To Tail (including the you-know-what)….

My dog, my pup, has allergies.  At 22 lbs this BUGG is always scratching or knawing at herself.  Part Pug, part Boston Terrier; her breed is called a BUGG but she is nothing but love.

The very first day we got her. Cute Cute Cute

Since she was 4 months old she has been suffering  and if you combine the two breeds which are notorious for skin ailments, it is no wonder the poor thing suffers.  Our Vet has done numerous tests and all we could come up with is that she suffers from ‘environmental’ allergies.  There was nothing to be done but put her either on very expensive medication or on an allergy pill that has a touch of prednisone.

Neither were cures.

All grown up but still the face of a puppy

My most recent order from Raw Paw. The Pink bowl is used only for Zoey’s food.

It is not mixed in with our dishes.

I ran the gamut of trying different foods, toys, any possible product that went into her mouth to alleviate her scratching.  Finally I ended up with the Vet’s recommendation of a new food to the Montreal market that was primarily Kangaroo and vegetables.  Labeled for dogs specifically with Environmental Allergies.

She loved and did well on the food but unfortunately the Canadian Food and Drug Administration found a reason to ban the supply that came into Canada.

Beef Tendons, dried

Zoey hates the winter.  So do I.

Bundling her up to take her for a walk in winter goes like this…On with the booties and on with the winter coat which goes over the heavily knit turtleneck sweater and then over all of that goes her harness.  By the time she is dressed she looks like a little fat piglet in pink.

And I am in a total sweat.

When I am ready to defrost her food it is usually a few smelts which I cut up and then mix it all together.  Each portion is at least 1 piece of fish + meat = 60 grams + veggies/yogurt to equal a total of 95 grams per serving.

If I am in a pissy mood I don’t put the booties on which actually look like balloons not yet blown up.  They are called Pawz and are supposed to be the best…they are not.

Pawz

Beef Neck, Large

Open the door…she smells the cold and very reluctantly steps out behind me.  If it is not so cold I could coax her down the stairs and then….THEN…she sits her fat ass on the ground and doesn’t move.

If it is too cold to place that fat ass on the ground then she takes a stance, and no pulling, conniving or treat bribing, will get her more than a foot from the door, where Ms. Piglet promptly does an about-turn and hi-tails it up the stairs.

**all names used to describe Zoey is with her consent and is in no way meant to be construed as cruel – she understands I love her greatly….**

 

The Elk Bone Large

Beef snouts

Keep in mind dressing this dog is worse than dressing my kids in snowsuits.  Plus, I also must get into battle gear. I know I am going to lose each and every time I do this and yet I continue to try it all winter long.

Bison Tails

Bison Tails come frozen and stay in the freezer for an extra snack and as food

I ask you…who has who trained…I keep doin’ it…

Luckily Zoey is what I term ‘dual-energy’.  She is completely paper trained and she will go outside to make but only if it is above 62 degrees F.  Anything below and she won’t go out.

Dried Chicken feet and pig snout

It makes it great for me but it also makes me lazy; and she gets virtually no exercise.  So I take her once a week to puppy daycare just to keep socializing her and because twice a month I have to cut her nails as she can scratch until welts appear and bleed.

Le Pet Spa recommended me to try  Raw Paw who had begun selling human grade raw food for dogs.  The products come frozen, or dried and every part of the animal is used.  Two weeks on this diet and I was able to reduce her prednisone to a 1/4 pill which was totally great.

Clockwise is frozen Bison, dried Lung and Tripe and frozen Smelts

The cost averages out the same; I add my own veggies and Pumpkin (which is good for constipation) and she loves, loves her food.

Is it a pain to get this product – NO.  Farah delivers the product and the only other thing I have to do is to remember to defrost what the dog needs and to weigh and portion her food for usually 10 days.  Then it goes into the fridge and is ready to eat when she is ready.

In addition I buy snacks like dried pig snout, or lung, or duck/chicken feet.  All dried.  Even and dare I say it…Bull Penis.  Or any kind of Penis…dried of course.  Farah of Raw Paw says it is called  Pizzle – I call it smelly, stinky, gross…and a good thing I already have my children….

(the breeders didn’t splurge on any mohels for this head to tail dining…someone stop me please….this is too much fun….)

 HOWEVER SINCE THE TITLE OF THIS POST IS ALL ABOUT HEAD TO TAIL DINING I HOPE THAT ALL THE PICTURES HAVE GIVEN YOU AN IDEA OF WHAT IT MEANS IN THE ANIMAL WORLD OF PROVIDING FOR THE RAW FOOD DIET.

It is everything I have shown you: the Bison Tails; the Lung; The Elk Bones; the ground up meat with bones, the Beef Bones….food in its purest form that aboriginally dogs used to eat.  In addition to the meat and bones, I add vegetables which include Pure Pumpkin and human grade canned veggies, which I believe should be used only for animals.

Yes, this is Pizzle, Penis or whatever you call it and Pig snout on the far right

More Dried Beef Snouts

The raw food diet is a hard sale here in the area I live; but I can truly say I believe wholeheartedly in it.

It is definitely easier to open a can of kibble or a bag of kibble, surely.  Much more difficult to feed one small dog in this manner; but when one gets a dog or cat and sees how they struggle with skin ailments it becomes crystal clear that the Raw Food Diet is the only way to go.  Unfortunately it took me two years to find it and it was by fluke because it is not a popular method to feed pets here with; and when you can get hold of it, the cost becomes prohibitive.   Which is why most of the pet stores that sell this food are usually in the areas of Montreal where people would be most apt to buy.

Raw Paw delivers.

Raw Paw is not just the food -  it is also the service.  No, it is just the food.  No, it is the service..nope it is THE FOOD

If enough people knew of Raw Paw and how decent its prices are and how they will deliver to your door, more of us Montrealers would use them and our pets would be a lot healthier.  It’s odd that people will pay up to $60.00 to have their dog bathed but then balk at the cost of good, healthy and aboriginal food with which to feed them.

Dried Lung, Tripe and Other Beef Parts

Zoey gets at any given meal: a combo of bison, beef which also includes organs and bones ground, sea smelts, veggies and 100% natural Probiotic Yogurt.

I had to take away the rawhide toys but she gets a bone or a chicken leg once or twice a day for a treat.

Yes, the chicken legs that our Jewish Grandmother’s used to use to make Chicken Soup and which had been banished and disallowed along with the yellow eggs are now served to the Dog, dried and still looking like the chicken legs I will always remember.

Nothing else passes her lips.  She is doing fabulously well; although she still suffers I am able, at least, to lessen the prednisone.

Dried Lung, dried tripe and a mixed bag of dried goodies

I thought this would make a good post on the Raw Food Diet for Dogs and so I have taken pictures of what I buy and feed her and the good news is that cost-wise it is the exact same as when I was buying her specialty food from the vet.

Lucky is the pet owner who has a pet without any health problems.  Lucky is the Vet whose patients have health problems.

I could order any kind of the following food:

Halibut, Cod Green Tripe,Beef Neck Bones, Elk Femur, Elk bones XL as Raw Frozen food and then Dehydrated the list is: Beef Snout, Duck/Chicken feet, Chicken Breast, Beef Lung and Liver, Pizzle ( or Petzel or Schmeckel), a Pig Ear, Trachea 5”/8” and various antlers.

Raw Paw

514-983-3277

farah@rawpaw.ca

* this post was written not as a dedicated and paid advertisement for Raw Paw.  All my posts that are dedicated to a particular product or retailer are done so strictly because I have made use of it, and loved it or hated it.

Tags: allergies, Beef Organs, Bison, BUGG, dried lung, pizzle, Raw Paw, Zoey

When travelling what is the most important thing you cannot do without and if so, can it make a trip horrible?

Be it the hotel and what it lacks…

Be it the city and what it lacks…

Be it the food and what is lacking or not…

Be it the travel itself via airplane, train or boat…

Are the people around you inviting and nice or did they happen to be a lot younger or older than expected and did you fit in….

did this trip take place on a cruise or a bus tour…

how about the food….

I can tell you that for me, COFFEE can make or break my trip. If I don’t get at least one good cup of coffee, preferably in the morning, then I might as well fly home. I know from day 1, if I can’t get that decent cup of coffee even if I have to buy it – all bets are off and I will hate each day until I can take the torture no longer and have a huge fight with the husband who then understands that he either buys a coffee maker or takes me home.

I am not difficult to live with, trust me. It’s the coffee’s fault if I am moody; a coffee lover’s addiction is not an easy one to get over with the snap of a finger.

Luckily I have had few times where a good coffee is not available. Europe is usually a breeze for a good cup of coffee…cruises usually have cappuccinos for added cost but well worth it and they have ports of call where you can always find a good place to sit and people watch and have coffee.

The worst place so far I have experienced and is the reason I will never go back is the Dominican Republic. Went once and that was about 20-odd years ago and will never go back and yes, I know it has improved greatly since then…but I don’t risk vacation time and money on a chance.

This post, I hope, makes for some good comments. Please post them all; tell us the good, the bad, and the ugly.

On that note – I will relate one story that sticks out in my head with regards to this topic…I have other stories too like the time I sat beside Tiger Woods on his 21st birthday at a blackjack table in Vegas, between him and Charles Barkley, who wanted to know if I would come back to his room. Charles Barkley is now referred to in my house as “the Pig”.

Yes, Tiger turned 21 that day and we all sang Happy Birthday as he sat for the first time legally inside a Vegas Casino…if I had known what the future would have in store for him, I would have counselled him to get a new friend.

Tiger, you should’ve known then when I told your friend he was rude and I was married and he didn’t give a damn. (actually neither did my husband who was one table over)

However they are not all bad these sports icons and here is another story of mine that I love to tell and it related directly to my passion: COFFEE

“I am a really early-riser. Before the sun early-riser, and when on a cruise ship, the top deck is just where you want to be when the sun rises, with a big cup of coffee in hand. So when I took a cruise with hubby and woke up one morning to find him outside the galley, already seated and having his coffee, I anxiously tried to get mine. Unfortunately there was only one waiter who looked completely helpless at the coffee machine which pissed me off. He stood by my side as I searched for cups and frankly, I got pissed. Not being able to find a bloody cup, I blurted to the waiter to get me a cup.

He came back with a cup and a saucer and politely placed it in my hands…poured my coffee but couldn’t find the Sweet n Low…in an uncharacteristically and an unusually rough tone, I demanded the waiter find me the Sweet n Low, which after running through entire rows of tables, he managed to find.

But there was no cream.

“Uhhh, waiter go get the cream.”

“Yes ma’am”, and away he went through the double doors into the kitchen and came back with cream. After asking me if there was anything else I needed and could he get me anything at all, I said no and walked up the few stairs to greet hubby at an outside table. Two minutes later up the stairs comes the waiter whereupon my husband says to me “There is Manny Sanguillen.”

“That’s not Manny Sanguillen”, I say. “That’s the waiter. Who’s Manny Sanguillen?”

“Are you nuts? I’m telling you who that is. I know. He’s a baseball player!” (with an expletive I am quite used to)

“Henry”, I insist, cause I always insist I am such a pushy broad, “That is THE WAITER. He just finished getting me coff…”

I didn’t get a chance to finish cause up went my husband to shake the hand of, yes, Manny Sanguillen while I sat, shocked and in shame and absolutely speechless. Here, I, who am always so polite and careful and kind, treated this ‘waiter’ like a servant because I couldn’t down a cup of coffee in my own time. I mean, how do you explain to a man why you thought he was THE waiter? How do you apologize to someone who just finished running through the galley and kitchen of a cruise ship he is a guest on, like you, just to make sure you got a cup AND a saucer full of coffee, Sweet n Low (a harder thing to find than the sugar on tables everywhere) AND cream – milk wasn’t good enough.

After much apologizing; he joined us and spent the better part of the morning having a much better time shmoozing with my husband.

So, when I say coffee is a deal breaker; I mean it.

Tags: coffee, Manny Sanguillen, travel

The Holidays are coming quickly and these are the times I miss my family the most. Especially my parents. We never grow up – we always know that there were there when we needed them and that we always had unconditional love.

Yes, our kids love us…conditionally no matter how close we are to them. We parent them, but these are the times I want to be parented and I want my kids to be with their grandparents who never really got to see them grow up.

Well, back a while ago and then back a few posts ago I had mentioned that my mother had left me an old cookbook which had no name and no cover. The post was called Eye Need A Name For This Cookbook and some wonderful reader wrote in to give me the answer. I still find it awesome.

So I went further and just bought a copy of it intact, albeit not in good condition. However, it is complete and it has a cover and at 4.99 it has its’ price.

Now Mom, if you can see my post…you will see the book we used to read from when you made your wine and nut cake.

Love you and miss you dearly.

Tags: Meta Given

This post is a memory; in these past few days too much food has been flowing and for those who can’t imagine such a thing as too much food…it is not a myth.  It is indeed possible for there to be too much food consumed and cooked and heated and re-heated and boxed and paper-bagged and freezer-bagged so this post is all about

MY TELEVISION SHOW…

It’s true.  About 6 years ago this show was filmed for HGTV and has played continuously on Canadian television many, many times per year.  One might say for a period of time I was the most recognized face in Montreal and perhaps Toronto and certainly the other Provinces.

I have been singled out numerously and queried so many times I have lost count…worse is I never signed up, but for one episode.  Yes, I did not read the small print and so I have learned a lesson.  Always read the small print especially when signing up for a Reality Television Show because they have all the rights in how it gets edited to final copy and then plastered on television.

Never trust a television show that calls itself a Reality Show..because it is not really Reality.  Not when I had to stop the filming 3 times just answering the door.  The first time was really true…the other times not so true.  More scripted. Or when the sun wasn’t quite in the right spot for the camera and so we had to move about to find good light and then re-take and re-take…nope not Reality.  Reality is in the moment…scripted in the second, third and eight moments.

I have been stopped on the street; asked for autograph while shopping in a Mall; even standing in line at the Post Office to mail a letter in the dead of winter with a hat and scarf and heavy coat I was recognized.  Dammit I knew I should have had voice lessons…it’s pitch is so  high, dogs could hear me if we were in the wild.

Then, of course, I had no idea the show and this episode would be so popular that it came up for a Gemini Award in its first year and this particular episode…blow and sweep off the shoulder – I also didn’t know that for weeks on end the promos would be me yelling like a fishwife into the telephone, my husband swearing and throwing the telephone, showing the dog’s cement toilet under the balcony WHICH I clean every two weeks except the weeks we were filming and for sure they caught sight of that….

Rumor has it that the show has been sold to HGTV and LIFE in the United States.  Who knows, more if I don’t get any residual fees who the hell cares.

Well, for those who don’t know me and those who want to know me…expend the 20 minutes and watch me in all my glory as the Reality Televison Star I am not…of course, REMEMBER I have not aged in the seven years this show was first filmed.

CAUTION NEVER SELL A HOUSE IF THE PROSPECTIVE BUYERS HAVE AN 8 HOUR INSPECTION…NEVER.

Much thanks to my daughter Carly for editing this video

Tags: Buy Me, Genie Award, HGTV, Montreal

I have had the best Rosh Hashonah in a very long time simply because both my kids were in town together at the same time and so we spent the night just the four of us like old times, and we talked, sang, laughed but more importantly we shared memories.

The trips, the Grandparents, the Uncles and Aunts no one was excluded from our talk.

I made Sonia’s Arroz Con Pollo dish which was handed down to me as I thought it especially fitting for the Rosh Hashonah New Year to serve their grandmother’s most famous dish and the one with which I fell in love to their father eating.

Then Carly surprised me by sending these photos of her cooking the same dish.

My daughter, for as long as I know, really has very little time in her busy schedule to cook meals and being single and in Theater and constantly working; most of her friends just grab a meal outside.

She came home and then forwarded the following pictures of her making her grandmother’s Arroz Con Pollo.

In all her glory I present Carly Sztern and her own version of Arroz Con Pollo in pictures…

What an excited Mother I was. To see one of my children actually cooking was really quite exciting and left me with pride.

Amongst our animated conversation that evening  was what we term ‘THE INFAMOUS BAR MITZVAH’.

For so many years I have been holding on to the master video, that had never been edited, from Zack’s Bar Mitzvah. Carly was able to spend the better part of Saturday and Sunday on her Mac editing and she finally got the video down to 30 minutes.

Mr. Steve Jobs you did a wonderful thing when you invented the Mac…all the stolen computers; all the stolen Mac computers I should say, finally paid off this weekend.  Thank you and may you rest in peace.  It was iMovie that finally made me a Mac believer and it only took untill 2011.

She did an amazing job at the editing. Then she took the prologue which I absolutely love and put that into a video I am going to post here.

The full 30 minute video will be my next post because the surprise for those who read the piece, will see what full-fledged Montreal Alouettes Football Player(s) looks like when they dance the Hora and attend their first ever Bar Mitzvah.

That day was so full of memories and it was perfect. There is a story to tell but that will be Part 2…here is one day in my life that, outside of their birth, could not have made me happier or prouder parent than that day did. For so many reasons and from people who I thought would never have found it in them for the surprises that just didn’t stop coming, that Bar Mitzvah night, March 29, 1999 culminated in a weekend of the most beautiful Brunch the Montreal Airport Hilton has ever put out and the best Friday night dinner Moishe’s could muster up.

As for Victor of Adam The Kosher Caterer – there existed not one better caterer that day – March 20, 1999. You made me so proud of the food and as that day continuously made history in Montreal; so did your first Kosher Duck ever to hit Montreal and be served in a Synagogue. Good, tasty? No it was perfection. You continue to serve our family with the tastiest of food and spoiled me for the rest of any Jewish Holiday since.

As a foodie back then, you sat with Henry and I and brain-stormed with unique ideas and agreed to every wish I had and then created some I hadn’t thought of. If there could be a highlight that came before the Bar Mitzvah, then it would surely be the surprise of a sample dinner not just for one, you had us call friends because you served a meal for 6 and cleaned and washed every dish…all Henry could say that night was “Wow”.

The Montreal Alouettes made history that day for being the first Professional Montreal Football Team to ever attend a Bar Mitzvah and for us to be considered so important that we were listed on your Calendar for the year of 1999 – as an event…My husband who planned the surprise and then again surprised me with flowers and a speech that overwhelmed me emotionally. To a son who did his mother proud as they all do…for Carly’s Drama teachers who made a special trip to pick her up at the airport when she arrived two days after the class trip left…

Each and every time I watch this prologue a grin appears and as it goes forward the grin gets bigger– Nothing will ever come close to perfection as that day; it will be the only event in your life where the input was totally and solely ours to make.

Tags: Adam the Caterer, Arroz con pollo, Bar Mitzvah

The Montreal Alouetttes just might bring it home for the third year in a row.  Our sports pages have been raving and ranting over the team this year and as Montrealers we are so excited – the CFL wouldn’t be fall without football.

No, most of us don’t tailgate.  I am pretty sure that’s an ‘American’ thing.

What does this have to do with my blog about food.

A lot.

The year before my son turned 13 we began to plan for a Bar Mitzvah. Our first meeting was, naturally, the Party Planner.

Ah yes, the Party Planner to the Stars in Montreal otherwise known as Phil Bloom. He pulls up to the house in a Lamborghini and is received with a warm welcome as we shuffle him into the kitchen.

First question is Budget. Now I was fully committed to not overspending on one night that everybody will forget come the following Monday morning.

So I gave him a number…and then he looked at my husband. Seriously that budget is at the bare minimum is not going to do it, so I was told.  Another number was thrown out and we get his okay thus we began to discuss place, food, rentals, themes…everything that goes into the planning of a Bar Mitzvah.  We shook hands, made an appointment for the following week and he left.

He postponed that appointment…postponed again…and then for the third one, he never showed up.

THE HELL WITH PARTY PLANNERS I AM PLANNING THIS MYSELF.

Until I went to Harvey Levitt.  Harvey is/was considered an excellent Kosher caterer to the Jews of Montreal and because all synagogues have a list of caterers allowed to use their facilities.  It is necessary to interview all of them because affair after affair we come to know the caterers by the food they serve.

In fact, the first question a parent is asked by their friends, is who’s catering?

Harvey didn’t waste time cause his time is too valuable so he cut to the chase on first instance and decidely asked “Can I afford him?” Oh, and he doesn’t do tastings.

I don’t know about other people but when I am going to dish out money for an event usually catered around food I decide who I can afford and I DO tastings.  As a lady I got up from my chair and thanked him – yes I thanked him because one never burns bridges, and left all while silently muttering ‘you fucking piece of shit.’

WHAT!!!

 Out the door I went and then spent the night broadcasting it to everyone I knew. His reputation precedes him and nobody was surprised.

Then another Party Planner, just starting her business, had the chutzpah to call me and asked if she could make an appointment to see what she could do and if she could  be in the running to get the contract. She came with a portfolio and together Henry and I told her the budget and she didn’t flinch. Totally doable she told me.  She impressed me and more, she impressed Henry.

Most of the budget would go for food and open bar; then the rentals etc..etc..

To make a very long story, short enough for this post, by the time March 20,1999 had arrived our budget had tripled and the event became the talk of Montreal.   Even on a weekend when there were also 3 other Bars happening.  If anyone knows of the Jewish Community in Montreal  they know that the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon  is highly applicable and unique to Montreal Jews.

Bunny did not do just a bang-up job – I believe the most seasoned of Party Planners couldn’t have done it to the perfection that Bunny did that night.

So Phil Bloom thank you for never keeping the appointment.  

I must say this, because it was classic.

 

As soon as Henry answered the doorbell and looked behind Phil to the car; he knew then he didn’t want to use Bloom – any man pulling up to a house when he lives off his commission shouldn’t pull up to a prospective client in a Lamborghini.

 

Henry’s first instinct to that, went to the fact that all party planners get their fees from:

A. Earn as contract, a percentage on final total budget for party  (bigger budget bigger commission)

B. Commission for bringing business to the supplier he uses for everything from flowers to themes to centerpieces to rentals….means he takes us to the most expensive of everything.

 

In the end Bunny earned a hefty salary because she planned, in accordance with everything Henry wanted, not a night but a weekend which ended up at the Hilton Hotel so that our guests who were flying out would be able to come and still eat with us.

I did the running around with Bunny and for every place we hit she made sure to double cost it at both the low and the high. Everything had to go by the nod of approval from Henry and in the end it wound up being a budget that Bunny could have bought her own Lamborghini, so the expression “Don’t Judge A Book By It’s Cover” is an absolute truth.

I did find out that Phil had planned two events that night with half the budget we gave Bunny on both events.

Having fundraised in the Jewish Community for many years I did know a lot of the Kosher Caterers, but who catered events the most, especially for Na’amat, where I served on the board and spearheaded many campaigns, was Victor of Adam Catering.  Victor had, years before, taken control of the business and he also donated a lot of food to Auberge Shalom, Montreal’s only Kosher Home and escape for battered women, also my pet project.

We interviewed Victor who brainstormed with us and as I said in the previous post of Part 1 – to this day I can still taste his Duck dish; all his food was perfect – pure perfection in taste, service, quality and without any glitches it was like a dance.  Any way even if there was, Bunny would have fixed it without my knowing.  Only once she came up to me and asked if the Als President, Larry Smith, who happened to be very good friends with my brother, could come in and see his guys.  She was fully prepared to absolutely invite him to join us but she felt that was the one ethical line she wouldn’t arbitrarily cross over.

Not only did he come in but he stayed and was our guest the entire evening.-I was very flattered that he made his way to the party and to have him join us for a drink at the open bar (which also shocked the football players).

If you should be so inclined as to watch the 30 minute tape you will see that not one person was sitting down – we had a young crowd and we danced all night long.  Victor nor Bunny could barely get any guests back into their chairs for dinner.

How many people can say that they had a fantastic time at their event – well count us in, too, because not a minute went by without fun.  Fun.  That’s a really special word. We had fun.

Aside from the Bar Mitzah Boy (Zack)) the Guests of Honor were the Montreal Alouettes and some of the wives who came for the after dinner party.

That portion of the Bar, neither I nor Zack had any inclination about and why would we?  Who in their right mind would even think in those terms…certainly not me and I was pretty sure on how the evening was going to run.

It was a surprise and not the only one that night, from a man who has never ever surprised me with anything.  (Does the male stripper count for my 40th?)

In co-ordination and with spectacular secrecy, Henry, along with Bunny and my Brother (who had the contacts) it became a done deal.

Mandel Entertainment was brought in from Toronto because of their reputation for D.J.’ing was quickly reaching the Montreal party circuits.

He kept everyone on the dance floor all night long.

The next day the Airport Hilton served up brunch, which was like the Bar all over again as everyone was invited, we were handed the Calendar of the Montreal Alouettes for the upcoming season and in big bold letters it read for the date March 20, 1999 – The Sztern Bar Mitzvah.

Now how proud is that?  Bryan Chiu wanted to know if we could throw him a Bar Mitzvah.  Anthony I am sorry you were not an Alouette in ’99 but you are invited to watch the video all you want.  Mr. Cavillo do us proud and make it a 3-peat!!

I am not a recipe developer by trade. I love all foods; particularly Japanese food and not just Sushi or Sashimi. I enjoy true traditional foods, either Japanese in nature or pure product.

I always have loved the umami taste – that 5th taste, so recently discovered and named.    I have always known it existed; here in the Paris of the North, that taste was always described it as  the ‘Je ne said quoi”. We knew it existed but had no name for it.

Umami.

Henry and I were pioneers when it came to Sukiyaki, Shabu Shabu and the traditional Japanese-style dishes.  While dating, in the middle ’70′s as University students), we made Azuma, then near the Lafontaine Park, our go-to date place.   I still remember how it was below street level and in order to enter into the restaurant we had to dip at our knees to avoid the overhanging curtain (noren).

In maintaining my love for Japanese food, it was my own husband who first introduced me to the world of Sushi when it had been introduced to him. We fell in love with Sushi and never looked back. Today I will eat only Sashimi and it must be in the best Sushi Restos in town. When the sliced fish literally melts in your mouth, you know this is the place to eat it, and you know this, also, by the number of people in the restaurant that you can see through its windows.

Anyone who writes a blog has ‘virtual friends’. People with common interests and usually proficient in their field which is why you ‘follow’ them and enjoy what they have to say. If you are like me; you comment all the time. It gives my virtual friends feedback and in the process; albeit slow; one can actually develop friends or contacts.

This is how the next few posts I am writing, came to be.

The Japanese Food Report is run by esteemed author and Chef, Harris Salat, and ne’er a post goes by where I don’t devour it. I love everything Harris cooks and writes about, because his specialty is Japanese.

You can’t love Japanese food without loving Sesame based Salad Dressing. known as Goma-ae.  Most Montrealers will remember the salad dressing of Katsura; it became so popular that they actually sold it by request in two sizes-a lot of years ago. Expensive but so good.

Then, miraculously, and in some stores only, in the 90’s, came a bottled salad dressing which was identical to what Montrealer’s were used to on their Japanese salads. Including (dare I say it)… including the Benihana on Decarie Blvd, where my daughter had a 6th grade birthday party. NOT A GOOD IDEA, because the kid I was least afraid would touch that VERY HOT flat-top, was the kid who did touch it.

Wafu® is Kosher. ..The Heart and Stroke Foundation gives its seal of approval and the Canadian Food and Drug laws very carefully monitor ingredients and the use of symbols in their labels such Health Check and Peanut free and Kosher symbols.  All must be factually verified and inspected especially, but not only, the Kosher Certification.

Wafu® is the Registered name of the Sesame Style Japanese Salad Dressing (goma-ae)I am talking about, that is bottled by Mari’s Foods Inc.  Mari Toyoda was also a pioneer in Montreal’s Sushi scene.  A Chef, herself, by profession in Tokyo, she also is a famed Sushi teacher in Montreal.

Wafu®, once found in specialty food shops, alongside Prime Olive Oils and Balsamic Vinegars; it was costly. I guess Montrealer’s didn’t mind, because soon it became available everywhere. It was and is the ‘Go-To’ Salad Dressing for my family.

Wafu® is used as a marinade, a dip, a dressing…

Wafu Original I use over tossed Salad.

Recipes exist all over the net for Japanese Sesame Salad Dressing and I, myself, have made it numerous times; but the effort, the ingredients and the taste is a difficult balance to achieve. The Sesame seeds and the Sesame oil is a hard dance to master as it can become too sweet too quickly. It is also a hard dressing to fix in taste – remember it is that umami taste one aims for.

As with all Japanese cooking, balance reigns supreme. Wafu® is sold in Japanese food stores – the one I go to, Wafu® is virtually the only one sold as ready-made.  If memory serves me correctly Miyamoto (Montreal’s first ‘really Japanese’ food store in Westmount, sold the dressing.  Miyamoto has a history all its own – not only Montreal’s first specialty food store for Japanese ingredients it is also known for its quality of products sold and its dedication to Japanese Foods only.  It is where, if you can believe it, my husband (the one who cooks spaghetti in cold water before the boil) and I took Sushi lessons – yes I begged and coaxed and finally won for the first and only time ever, when it comes to food.  (This is also the man who almost made a waiter faint when we ate at Commerc 24 in Barcelona)

New flavors of Wafu

Now it comes as Wafu® Ginger Carrot and Wafu® Wasabi Edamame, individual packages for on the go; Wafu® The Original in Lite and it is soon coming out in a ready-made cole slaw to sit alongside Moishe’s. Another Montreal institution who realized the Montreal market had a need.

This I can’t wait for.

Wafu® is superb and over the next few posts I intend to show how it can be used and in recipes so easy to make. Why dedicate posts to Wafu®? I have been fortunate to have been contacted, through Chef Harris’s blog, by Wafu®. It is a product I use, it is a product I love – and it is the product I commented on with regards to the Japanese Food Report.

As far as I can see Wafu® has only room to grow.

In addition please stay tuned to this blog for a give-a-way contest sponsored by Wafu®.  One winner will win all 4 flavors of  Wafu® Japanese Vinaigrette in Lite, Original, Carrot and Ginger, and Wasabe. Canadian residents only postage paid.  Details to follow. Relatives not allowed to participate and you know who you are…so don’t bother.  I love y’all anyway….

x

Tags: Japanese, Kosher, sesame seed dressing, Wafu Original Japanese Vinaigrette

 

Japanese Style Green Beans with Wafu® Ginger Carrot Vinaigrette

 

 

• When boiling Green Beans season water with Kosher salt.
  
• Let water come to a full boil – then lower the heat to a simmer.
• Beans should cook at a simmer from 8-10 minutes or until the beans are just starting to become soft.
• Have ready an ice bath – which is just a bowl with water and ice. This shocks the beans and keeps the color green vibrant.

ice water bath

 

 

• Because I wanted to use the same water for the Bean Sprouts, instead of draining the beans in a colander, I used my Chinese Spider Skimmer to lift the beans and put them into the ice cold water bath.
• Next I put the water back up to a full boil – placed the Bean Sprouts carefully into the water – then counted to 40 and drained them.
• They, too, were quickly dunked into a second ice bath bowl to retain their crunch. The residual heat, without an ice bath, could mean the difference between a crunch or a soft sprout.

 

Toasting cashews

 

• Toast the cashews – for this you absolutely must be beside the stove stirring the nuts because their natural oils can burn in a blink. Once you begin to smell the aroma of the nut take off the heat and continue for another 20 seconds to stir allowing the pan to cool down.

In cooking Residual Heat can make or break a dish which is why one must always take into consideration the fact that food continues to cook. Which is why meat needs to ‘rest’. Microwaving also has residual heat and if you cook a baked potato in a microwave you must count on leaving it alone for another 30-40 seconds to completely cook.

• Combine ingredients,except cashews and the Ginger Carrot Japanese Vinaigrette, which are placed just prior to serving. Actually I refrigerated it for a good hour. You want this to be a cold salad.
• I took the Carrot Ginger Wafu® and tilted the bottle for a taste test so that I could know how much ginger to add….

It is here that I want to lay a complaint to all those bottlers who think that a top like this…

 

is a good top to have placed on your product…ketchup does it, the unmentioned here does it…mustard does it….lemme tell you the way it is: the piece of plastic with the writing that is supposed to be a ‘TAB’ is almost impossible to grab hold of and therefore it is impossible to pull off.  All that happens is the consumer has to take a sharp knife or a kitchen scissor and stab-stab-stab-it to death and hope that there is some way we can grab a little more of the cap which BTW is impossible to tear completely off the rim as the glue is so strong it make a clean opening absolutely IMPOSSIBLE!!!!!

 

Toasting cashews

 

 

• As I said before, I took the Carrot Ginger Wafu® and tilted the bottle for a taste test so that I could know how much ginger to add.

 

 

AMAZING…

 

 

 

 

I couldn’t add anything. The taste was so dead on in flavour, including the tang of lemon; there was no way I could elaborate any more. The balance of flavours were Umami.

Every taste was there, discernable individually, with even a hint of that lemony tart taste. It was a divine Vinaigrette to be used on its own.

Delicious – Delectable –Delightful.

 

 

You know it is cold when the ice floats

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wafu® Japanese Style Green Beans

Print

Recipe type: Side Dish

Author: Natalie Luffer Sztern

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 12 mins

Total time: 17 mins

Serves: 4

Japanese Style Green Beans

Ingredients

• 1 lb fresh green beans, washed
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 c. mung beans/bean sprouts
• 1 c corn niblets, drained
• 1 bunch green shallot/scallions minced with green stems
• 2 bowls of ice water for bathing both green beans and bean sprouts
• 1 bottle of Wafu® Carrot Ginger Japanese Vinaigrette

Instructions

1. Boil green beans in salted water for 8-10 minutes or until beans are slightly soft but still have substance.
2. Once done, with a large slotted spoon, take green beans out of pot and into an ice water bath. This will shock the beans allowing them to keep their gorgeous green color.
3. Immediately bring the green bean water up to a boil and blanche the bean sprouts just a minute. Place them in a cold water bath as well.
4. Let beans and bean sprouts chill in the fridge or come to temperature in their water baths. They should be room temperature and even cool to cold.
5. Place in a bowl the green beans, the bean sprouts, the corn niblets, and the shallots/scallions.
6. Pour over the Wafu Ginger Carrot Japanese Vinaigrette to taste and until the green beans have the shine of the vinaigrette.
7. *Note: If you do a taste test of the Wafu Ginger Carrot Japanese Vinaigrette and you are someone who likes to tweak a recipe by automatically tweaking a dressing to your preferences – you will find, like I did, the the Wafu Ginger Carrot Japanese Vinaigrette has a perfect balance of flavors. Any other addition is not recommended. I, too, am a recipe tweaker and incredibly I discovered that this is a perfect blend of ingredients and includes an added flavor of lemon just enough to cut the sweetness of the sesame seeds and sesame oil.

Google Recipe View Microformatting by Easy Recipe

2.1.7

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*plates courtesy of Ofra-T Handmade Ceramic plates

 

Stay tuned as I will be giving away a set of the four flavors of these dressings and then you can enter the contest being run at Wafu®

Tags: bean sprouts, corn niblets, green beans, mung bean, sesame, Wafu®

 

 

 

 

On a day when the sun is still shining and it is hot and the beach is staring you in the face and when you sweat in the air conditioning there is one food that screams out to be the choice and that is a salad.

 

Salad is not just lettuce, tomatoe, onion and radishes. Salads come in variables that only is limited by the imagination.

 

I love a Japanese salad; wakame; cucumber marinated with mirin and soy sauce; simple green salad with Sesame Wafu® dressing or Goma-ae; and the infamous Naruto roll which is served usually with a vinegar dressing which is composed of Mirin and Seasoned Rice Vinegar.

 

 

 

Naruto refers to a roll (maki) made without rice, that is wrapped in thinly-peeled cucumber instead of seaweed. The roll is named after the city on the southeast coast of Japan where the style originated. The city has a well-known tidal whirlpool (and fishing and the gathering of seaweed are important local industries). “Naruto” means “whirlpool” in Japanese.

 

 

If you have ever sat at a sushi bar watching the Chef cut a cucumber like this, it is an amazing artistry of knife.

 

I was making lunch for ‘the girls’ one day and I decided on a light salad to serve which included using somen noodles. Somen noodles can be bought in most groceries now but can also be substituted for Soba noodles or Ramen noodles or rice noodles. All these noodles are much thinner than their Italian counterparts like linguine. They also come packaged in serving size. Each bundle is enough for one serving.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strain the noodles from their ice bath – then pat dry with a paper towel.  Noodles need to be dried or strained very well if they are to take on a sauce or be used in a dip.

 

Wafu® Wasabi Edamame Japanese Vinaigrette Dipping Sauce

Wafu®

Somen take a literal minute to cook. It is a great dish for a fast meal or a great dish for a cold meal. One can choose any topping from crab meat to mushrooms to lobster and cucumber. You are limited by your creativity and desire.

 

 

 

**Plates courtesy of Ofra-T Ceramics

 

 

 

Stay tuned to the contest…

Cold Somen Salad with Dipping Sauce

Print

Recipe type: Salad

Author: Natalie Luffer Sztern

Prep time: 2 mins

Cook time: 1 min

Total time: 3 mins

Serves: 2 or more

a cold salad of Somen noodles with a dipping sauce

Ingredients

• Somen Noodles (they are already portioned with thin strips of tape)
• Grated Japanese cucumber (seeded)**
• Sliced Scallion with greens
• Wafu® Wasabe Edamame Japanese Vinaigrette
• optional – Wakame or Kombu placed in the boiling water

Instructions

1. Take a pot of Water and place a small sheet of Wakame or Kombu (dried seaweed) into the pot of water with a teaspoon of salt and bring to boil.
2. When boiling add the Somen Noodles taking off the tape.
3. Carefully time the cooking as these noodles take literally a minute to become soft and once soft they are most definitely cooked.
4. If serving cold, place the noodles in an ice bath.
5. Once the noodles are cold or at room temperature place them on a plate and on top place the grated cucumber, and the scallions.
6. In a separate dish place the Wafu dressing to be used as a dipping sauce for your noodles.
7. Chopsticks are a nice touch

Notes

The prep time is minimal and the portion is controlled by how many pre-portioned noodles you decide to use.

**Seeding a cucumber with a teaspoon is easy, just use the spoon to scrape the inside of the cucumber after having cut it in half. Japanese cucumbers have fewer seeds than the regular ones but Kirby cukes can be substitued.

Google Recipe View Microformatting by Easy Recipe

2.1.7

 

Tags: Cucumber, kombu, Somen Noodles, Wafu® Wasabe Edamame Japanese Vinaigrette, wakame

Supreme Court of Canada Judges

This is a quick piece and has no relationship to food. It is my podium to be used, sometimes, as my soapbox.

Page A3 of the Montreal Gazette says that Lawyer Brent Tyler has been disbarred for failing to complete his requisite training program that Lawyers in Quebec must do, a new instituted law by the Barreau du Quebec.

Disbarred is a heinous phrase especially for a Lawyer.

Amazing how a story in the Gazette can be so harmful. I stand firm in the belief that people need to believe 1/2 of what you read and nothing that is said and then you know the truth.

In that vein, I will tell you, that the Brent Tyler I know, is the man my husband describes as being the salt of the earth. Brent Tyler is one of the handful of Lawyers to be granted a hearing in front of Canada’s Supreme Court and win his case.

Who does Brent fight for? Immigrants who do not/cannot educate their children solely in French.

Without Brent Tyler to fight, his clients, who are primarily immigrants to Montreal, would be helpless in educating their children.

For those who do not know, Quebec has a language law Bill 101, that stipulates “if you, or your husband have been educated in Quebec in English for which you have proof then your children may attend English or French-immersion school. If you or your husband don’t have proof then your child must attend French school.”

Which is why Quebec and in particular Montreal suffers from a lack of good and talented professionals in any field, because moving here with children of elementary school age or higher is almost an impossibility due to Bill 101.

Brent fought that bill in front of the Supreme Court of Canada and won.

If these clients of Brent cannot pay; then they don’t. He works tirelessly out of an office most lawyers wouldn’t rent. It is small, doesn’t have fancy gold letters imprinted and is not an address that would feign prestige. Brent is a one-man show and practices bare bones Law. He also once made a run for Political Office.  This man doesn’t need to feign anything because he is the whole package who already has made Canadian Constitutional History that a handful of Lawyers in Canada can attest to or boast about.

But you see, Brent doesn’t boast.

Brent doesn’t need to flaunt or feign prominence. He has a reputation of distinction.

If ever there was a true Rights Activist, it is and will always be Brent Tyler.

So to put this in the newspaper and give it such high profile is just simply what media does. So I, too, am a form of media and this is the story I wanted to print.

His disbarment is not because of anything he did wrong and the term is offensive – Brent simply did not have the time nor could afford the loss of revenue to take these cont-ed courses that became mandatory in Quebec by the Barreau du Quebec.

They are classes…continuing education. Not what you think could or would be cause for disbarment of a Lawyer as prominent as Brent Tyler is. In Quebec, to disbar such a prominent and eminent fighter of our Constitutional Laws because he failed to have these courses completed by a deadline makes one wonder if there are other acts at play.

Disbarment.

Sometimes one has to wonder what gets more play in these situations especially in Quebec which is where Brent won his Supreme Court ruling against the Parti Quebecois.

I also know, first hand from my husband who has a long friendship both personal and in business, that he has the intellectual mind of a Lawyer that few men in the Quebec field of Law have; Mtre. Brent Tyler possesses a unique empathy for his clients that few men have.

It is these qualities – this brilliance in the knowledge of Law – that got Brent Tyler to litigate in front of the Supreme Court of Canada; a one man team in a one man office who got to fight for his clients on the Language Laws of Quebec and won. This one act sits in the annals and changed the Laws within Canada and that can never be erased.

So, to not have the time to go to a continuing education course to catch up on Constitutional Law results in disbarment not for any wrongs but for all the rights: his clients always came before his better interest.

That is what makes Brent Tyler one of the few Lawyers in Montreal who practices Law for the client and not for the invoice – Brent from what I know of you, and how Henry feels about you, I have always known you to be a Man and a Lawyer truly of the People.

When you have that reputation, everything else is meaningless. Especially when it is the way my husband, Henry, describes you.

As you know, it takes a lot to get Henry’s admiration and you always had it. I know that Henry holds a high bar to reach both in business and for personal friends and you are one of the few that always overcame that bar just a tad higher each time.

Tags: Barreau du Quebec, Bill 101, Brent Tyler, Lawyer, Montreal, Quebec, Supreme Court of Canada

 

 

 

A fantastic recipe for Broiled Chicken breasts and legs.  Great on the BBQ or Grill.  Versatile Marinade which produces a caramelized coating, luscious in color and taste.

A few of the ingredients can be found in an Asian Grocer – the most difficult to come by will be the Japanese Vinegar and the Yuzu so feel free to substitute for more of the unseasoned rice vinegar or lemon juice squeezed from a fresh lemon: taste for the tartness.

 

after the first 20 min and time for 1st basting

 

 

The ginger came from my freezer. WHAT…your freezer?

 

 

 

 

Yes, when I get a knob of ginger I like to grate what I need for the recipe and then, for just a few minutes more, I grate the entire knob or hand, as it is called.  Then I wrap it sausage shaped onto a piece of plastic wrap and freeze the balance so that I have fresh ginger when I need it and the rest of the knob doesn’t go to waste.  As anyone knows, grating Ginger is a b_tch, except when you take it from the freezer.

 

 

 

 

DONE!

Grating ginger must have been a punishment invented by the Samurai: before the days of waterboarding.

 

Not only does it take forever –  what you reap from that is almost nothing.  I use a ceramic grater especially for grating ginger.  I also have the microplane grater and either will do.

 

 

 

Chinese Black Vinegar is between the Rice Vinegar and Yuzu Vinegar

 

 

 

 

 

Japanese Marinated Chicken Caramelized Chicken

Print

Recipe type: Main

Author: Natalie Sztern

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 90 mins

Total time: 1 hour 45 mins

Serves: 4

chicken breast on the bone marinated and broiled

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pcs cut up chicken
• 4 oz Honey Garlic sauce
• 2 oz Wafu® Original Sesame Dressing
• 4 oz Wafu® Wasabi Edamame Dressing
• 1 tbsp Rooster Sauce (Sriracha)
• 2 oz Gyoza dipping sauce
• 2 oz Chinese vinegar
• 2 0z unseasoned Rice Vinegar
• 2 oz Yuzu
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 2 tsp garlic, fine chop

Instructions

1. Combine all ingredients in large bowl
2. Reserve 1 cup of marinade and set aside
3. Take chicken, at room temperature, and marinate for at least 2 hours or overnight if you wish
4. Set Oven for 375 F
5. Lay Chicken in one layer on baking sheet and pour over the remaining 1 cup of marinade.
6. After 20 minutes of baking, open oven and baste chicken; continue basting ever 15-20 minutes or until chicken becomes caramelized. If the chicken looks ready but has no color then Broil it for 5 min to caramelize.
7. Take it out and let it sit for 10 minutes and serve.

Notes

Depending on your oven and the size of the chicken if they are deboned or bone-in the amount of cooking time may vary. The idea is to get the chicken a deep golden color on top and this happens the more you baste. The basting is for the color.

Google Recipe View Microformatting by Easy Recipe

2.1.7

 

 

 

STAY TUNED FOR WAFU CONTEST NEXT WEEK: WINNER WILL WIN THIS:

 

 

 

Tags: baste, ceramic grater, chicken, ginger, gyoza, microplane, rice vinegar, Wafu Original Japanese Vinaigrette

For those who live in Montreal and grew up in the ’60′s – we knew Lowney’s the Candy Factory or the Chocolate Factory for the only confectionary we all knew called Bridge Mixture.  It had nothing to do with the card game not that any of us played Bridge back then and I am pretty sure  my parents played Canasta or something similar and boring.

Lowney Bridge Mixture

Later much more lately and almost recently – this ‘By The Way’ is all from memory and not research – Lowney is most notoriously known for their condos recently a part of Montreal that borders on the Lachine Canal and Old Montreal …although I think they are connected to my favorite Bridge Mixture….but how or why I admit I have no idea.

Bridge Mixture is a mixture of all sorts of chocolates that include raisins and peanuts and a kind of covered jelly and some chocolates I don’t even recognize.

Why is it a mixture and is it a specific mixture and if it is, is it specific to Bridge, the Game or Bridge that is now falling into the St. Lawrence Seaway.  Or is the St Laurent Seaway…see how confusing a city Montreal is…Our St. Lawrence Street is now our rue St Laurent where Schwartz’s and Moishe’s sit and our St Lawrence River is where the bridges are all falling int,  in pieces and in mixtures of pieces, so who knows if a savant knew that one day our Bridge would be falling in pieces and create a mixture of concrete and metal and knowing that they decided that Bridge Mixture would be an excellent product to sell to Montrealers back in the 60′s?

One Thing is for Damn Sure….They are definitely my crave du jour and I have scouted them out at one place for .99 a box of 52 grams and I will be damned if I will let u know where to buy them.  Sorry folks, this is one blogger who isn’t giving her secret away…