the new vanilla and chocolate

Saturday I twisted Matt's rubber arm to go to Casa Gelato.

I had already decided on the theme for my next double scoop the last time we were there. That time I went for gourmet sophistication and got a scoop of Cantaloupe on top of a scoop of Wild Fennel. It was very refined and refreshing.

That day I sampled the Marscapone, which was so creamy and rich, but delicate. I decided that it could only be paired with a bold, contrasting flavour. So this time I proceeded to try all the chocolate heavy-hitters in the shop. In the end I settled on "Chocolate Super Montego." This really is the best chocolate ice cream I have ever tasted. You won't believe all the flavour contained in just a scoop.

(contented sigh)

Again, I've already decided what I'm going to get next time. The Nut Kulfi is calling to me, and I think it might go well with something like Fig & Lemon Zest, or Ginger.

Just thinking about it has my mouth watering for Indian Sweets!

I scream

I must apologize for not posting in a while.

I have been busy deconstruction and reformulating my entire world view.

I must say that right now I don't really feel like talking about my life, or social justice or pop culture or philosophy.

Instead, for the next while I will be writing exclusively about ice cream. It is sweet, inoffensive, and I can still muster up a certain amount of passion for it.

My favorite place for ice cream is La Casa Gelato. I think it's about time for another visit.

I would love to hear about other great ice cream spots, and the best/craziest flavours you've ever had.

gourmet guilt

I got to go shopping at the Asian market recently, so for the past week we have been eating Japanese food every night. We've had yudofu, tonjiru, stir-fired lotus root with steamed edamame, pan-seared tuna with noodles, gomoku takikomi gohan, and even omurice!

I really enjoyed every meal, but each night as I prepared the rice, I couldn't help but think of the rice shortage going on all over the world.

Rice is the foundation of so many different cultures' diets. How will they do without? We can't just say "Let them eat cake."

I have four different kinds of rice in my cupboard.

I like rice, but I would stop eating it if I thought it would fix the problem.

Some scientists are starting to talk about algae and jellyfish becoming the most plentiful food sources in the world. Once we eat all of that, what's next?

Soylent Green, anyone?

a pinch of this and a dash of that

Yesterday I was cleaning out cupboards to get ready to paint my kitchen.

It was then that I discovered I own 3 grocery bags full of spices.

That's in addition to all the vinegars, sauces, spreads, dips, mustards, chutneys and pickles that fill the rest of my kitchen to the point of bulging.

I may have gone too far.

I love my veggies

I bought a beautiful kabocha squash and some lotus root (rinkon) in Calgary last week. We feasted on them all weekend, culminating in a tempura marathon on Sunday night. We cooked for an hour and a half, but the crispy goodness was worth it!

We sat down to salted edamame pods with beer, and a heaping plate of squash and rinkon tempura with Japanese candies for dessert. We even watched anime.

I was really impressed at the results of our first tempura effort. It can't compare, though, to what we had in Tokyo.

Life is short

Last night we had apple pie and ice cream for supper.

And then popcorn for dessert.

It's good to do that once in a while.

Gather

Harvest season is like a time-machine to me.

As I gather in the fruit, vegetables and herbs that spring up around my home, with or without my help, I feel like I'm moving in step with generations upon generations of women who have gone through the same motions each year.

It feels mystical and significant.

It also makes me think about community.

There is always more than I can use myself, and so the obvious thing to do is share.

Yesterday one of Matt's coworkers sent out an open invitation to pick sour cherries from the trees in his back yard. As we picked we chatted with his wife, sharing recipe ideas. The evening was a blessing to all of us in many ways. Now I'll share my pies and jams, sauces and breads with others through the fall and winter.

Harvest is not just about food.

Imagine if we shared our surplus of other things.

tasty surprise

I have three words for you:

pineapple

grilled

cheese.

In the Company's Coming Kids' Snack cookbook there is a recipe for such a thing. Feeling adventurous, I substituted real cheddar for the processed stuff, multi-grain bread for the fluffy white crap, and fresh chopped pineapple instead of canned.

Wow. Crazy and gourmet.

You just spoon 2 Tbsp. of crushed pineapple onto the first layer of cheese, then top with another layer. Then finish the sandwich in the usual grilled way.

It's my new favorite.

great pretender

Funny anecdote from the weekend:

My sister has two vegetarian roommates. One had a BBQ for her birthday on Saturday. She bought special mushroom and cheese veggie patties that she knew roommate #2 likes, and tossed them on the grill.

We all had one, and I couldn't believe how veggie burger technology had advanced. This was the most realistic veggie burger I had ever had. We all exclaimed about how strangely juicy and delicious they were.

Then roommate #2 became suspicious.

"Where did you get these, again?"

"At Superstore. They're the portabello and cheese ones, like you always get."

"OK, I trust you, but I just want to have a look at the box."

It turns out that Superstore has two kinds of portabello and cheese patties. Roommate #1 had accidentally bought the kind with meat in them.

Roommate #2 had already eaten 2 burgers. Thank goodness she didn't get sick.

I'm glad you can still tell the difference between the two. As a vegetarian-friendly omnivore, I like my veggies to taste like veggies, and my meat to taste like meat.

lazy bread

The whole world needs to know about this recipe! Well, maybe just the people who don't have bread machines.

I heard about this no-knead bread recipe from Julie Van Rosendaal on CBC's 'The Eye Opener', who got it from the New York Times, who got it from Jim Lahey, of the Sullivan Street Bakery.

I am intimidated by traditional bread making, so up until now I have stuck with quick breads and steered clear of yeast in general.

I didn't get the consistency quite right the first time, but it still turned out delicious. Matt raved about it until he got annoying.

Watching the video on the NY Times site helped to clarify a few things.

I tried it with 2 cups unbleached white, and 1 cup barley flour. I used the liner from my crock pot to bake it in. Apparently you can use 1 cup whole wheat or rye with good success. I intend to try many other combinations.

Stinky Revenge

We spent the Easter weekend in Prince George, BC, with Matt's parents.

The weather was pleasant, we ate a lot, and saw some old friends. It was a nice getaway.


Then, on the morning of our departure, the cat peed on my laptop bag. Nothing was damaged, thank goodness.

I think he was mad because I wouldn't let him outside. I was sitting at the table, looked over and saw him crouching akwardly on top of it. He was staring right at me. Then we all realized what he was doing and jumped up, shouting at him.

I could still smell it in the airport.

p.s. - I recommend the White Goose Bistro to anyone wishing to spend a lot of money on very tasty continental food while in Prince George.

Some observations on Ottawa

Matt was going to Ottawa for some training, so I joined him for a long weekend to celebrate our 8th anniversary.

Here are my thoughts on the place:

lots of beautiful stone architecture

not very cheery or warm at this time of year

real bagels

impatient pedestrians lunging into traffic

parliament was much more impressive than I had imagined

they have a thing for baked beans

vibrant city core

a strangely large number of "Irish" pubs

big, fat-bottomed black squirrels everywhere


We ate at several restaurants, cafes & delis:

The Cornerstone Bar & Grill - not bad, good meatloaf, and most importantly, deep-fried snickers!

Nate's Deli, 316 Rideau St., 789-9191 - good value, terrific smoked meat on rye, lots of old people & lots of grease.


The Whalesbone Oyster House - pricey but fabulous. Sit at the bar and chat up the staff. Great atmosphere, big flavour, tiny portions. Don't go famished.

Continental Bagel in the Byward Market has real, soft, chewy bagels. The veggie sandwich with marinated eggplant was heavenly and very messy.

Chez Lucien is a fashionable pub with good burgers and tasty Quebec beers like Unibroue's Blanche de Chambly on tap.

One last note, directed toward hotels:

I give my hearty recommendation to the Residence Inn by Marriott. It's not the spiffiest hotel, but it is neat and clean and very generous with amenities, including a decent complimentary breakfast buffet. The price was great for what we got.

Novotel, by comparison, was incredibly stingy with an overpriced restaurant.

Land of Plastic Sushi

Kappabashi-dori is the main street of the restaurant supply district in Tokyo. For anyone who enjoys cooking, this is window shopping at it's best.
And with some shops we definitely stuck to the windows, as it would have been very dangerous to enter the narrow isles stacked with multiple Jenga games of pottery. Our backpacks would have set off a nasty chain reaction for sure.

I bought a pair of the largest cooking chopsticks I have ever seen. They are like cheerleading batons.

Our favourite shops were the plastic food stores.

Japanese restaurants often have displace cases out front, filled with plastic versions of their dishes rather than menus. You can get anything from ice cream cones and chocolates to watermelons, to frothy beer and 3-foot long fish. I thought the forks twirling pasta, suspended above their plates were pretty amusing.

We brought home some delicious looking plastic sushi to put on our fridge as magnets.Japan is filled with unusual art in places you would never think to look. I'm not sure what this giant beetle was all about, but it sure caught my eye sitting on the front of this apartment building.

Tokyo Hospitality

At this point in my travel journal some pages have fallen out and shortly thereafter I gave up writing at all. Here is my last entry, and then I'll try to jog my memory with a few photos of my last week in Japan.

We were again searching for a restaurant down a dark street armed with 'directions', but no address or map. This one was supposed to be an 'all tuna' restaurant, and examples of menu items had really excited my tastebuds. If we had the name in kanji, it would have been easier. Everything looked so non-descript and similar on the outside. We had a strong suspicion that it was a small place we found just around the corner on a side street, but peeking inside, and making note of people's attire as they came out, we felt most definitely under-dressed.

And rumpled.

And sweaty.

And grumpy and tired from walking all day.

We gave up and decided to head back to the train station for fast food, walking on the other side of the wide street in case we found the real restaurant on the way.

We passed a yakitori stand I decided to ask the salary men sitting at the make-shift counter if I could take their picture. They thought this was hilarious and posed several times for me (unfortunately, my simple digital camera and shaky hands are not a good mix at night).

They invited us to join them and asked us all kinds of questions about how we liked Japan - in English, of course. The cook was a high spirited guy and enjoyed showing off for us. He teased us and embarrassed his daughter.

An older couple making the rounds joined us. They gave us sabisu (complimentary refreshments). We sat there and made as much conversation as possible. They all acted politely amazed whenever I used a japanese word. We ate our chicken skewers, drank sake and ate tiny bowls of macaroni salad (?).

The older gentleman kepts putting his hand on my shoulder, which I guess is getting quite fresh in Japan. The others kept scolding him and his wife cuffed him.

A Vancouverite who lived in the building above came by and promised to keep him in line. I guess this guy had a reputation!

It feels so good when the local people invite you into their world. This is the only way to travel.

introduction to Tokyo

October 28 cont.

We didn't have a hotel booked ahead of time, so we took what we could get at the tourist office. The New Izu Hotel turned out to be a simple (probably more on the spiffy side at one time) hotel with a free massage chair in the lobby, english-speaking staff (phew!) and a very uncomfortable bed.

It was great to stay in the Ueno district. We were a short walk from a major train station/mall, a fun shopping district, and some other tourist sights.

Ueno station made me think of the Jetsons with its multiple levels of concrete walkways.

There was an Andersen bakery at the station. It fed my pastry habit nicely (almost every day for breakfast). I tried to have juice or yogurt or something else 'healthy' to ease my guilt. These were the best pastries I have ever eaten in my life. Withdrawl was ugly when I got home.

October 29th

We took the train down to Shinjuku, the bustling business core of Tokyo and home to the Metropolitan Government buildings. We craned our necks to look up, way up at the two towers.

On the way around to find the doors, we came upon a crazy man with a cat. He was shouting at the top of his lungs, so we gave him a wide berth.

My feet were so sore from blisters by this point, I was really tired and it was very humid. It wasn't even lunchtime yet and I was wondering how I was going to make it through the day.

We took an elevator up to the observation deck on the 45th floor (not even the top of the building). This seemed to be a popular place, filled with Japanese tourists milling around in a huge central gift shop.Walking around the windows, the view was amazing despite the heavy smog that day. They say on a clear day you can see Fuji San. I saw a couple of window washers and got nasty vertigo for a minute. We could not see the borders of the city. It was like looking out into the ocean.

The gift shop was almost as fun as the view. We found all kinds of Astro Boy stuff, cool science toys, and merchandise from quite a few popular cartoons. Do you remember Monchichis? I hadn't seen these things in 20 years. What strange little thumb-sucking monkeys, all decked out in little japanese costumes.

We set out in search of a highly recommended tempura restaurant for lunch. It's very difficult to find addresses in Japan, even with directions and a well-drawn map. Tsunahachi was not a departure from this. When we finally found it, there was a long line-up of well-dressed people outside, which we took as a good sign. It was so worth the extra effort! We sat at the counter and watched the other diners to figure out proper tempura etiquette. The flavour & texture were Amazing! Now I'm ruined for the North American version.

Onion & Chick Pea Hot Dip

I found this recipe scribbled on the inside back cover of a cookbook my friend Phil gave me. It's simple, quite tasty, and filled with fabulous flavinoids.

Try it!

2-3 large red onions (chopped)
1/2 19 oz. can of chick peas (strained)*
1/4 c. red wine
1 1/2 Tbsp. white vinegar (I actually used basil white wine)
parsley

*I think I'll use the whole can next time I make it

1. saute onions 3 min.

2. add chick peas, saute 2 more min., covered.

3. add wine, cook 5 min.

4. add vinegar and blend until hummous consistency.

5. sprinkle parsley on top and serve hot or chilled with veggie sticks or "imagine" (this is the exact wording).

lunch at 250 km an hour

October 28, 2006

Even on the bullet train, it took more than 5 hours to get from Hiroshima to Tokyo. Japan is longer than it looks!

The view along the coast was not that interesting: houses, fields, industrial buildings, train station, repeat.

The highlight of the trip was actually the Ekiben, the boxed lunch we ate on the train. The japanese eat cold cooked food more than I expected. Certainly more than we do in the west.

Tasty. Except for the pickles.

There were no pickles that I liked in this meal. The bright pink pickled plum sitting on top of my rice was particularly unpalatable to me. I tried not to speculate about what foul chemicals it had been soaked in. At this point I was starting to get discouraged about the number of japanese foods I didn't like so far.

laundry

October 27, Hiroshima cont.

Funny how even doing your laundry can become an adventure in a foreign country.

The instructional pictograms on the washing machines in Japan were a little cryptic, but our clothes came out ok. Matt found some house-wife manga (kind-of their version of Good Housekeeping). There was a lot of sex but most of it was everyday husband wife sex.

I find cartoon sex to be very odd.

My culture shock still hadn't quite worn off, so we had lunch at Subway. I find the subtle differences with chain restaurants interesting. They had guacamole and shrimp toppings, and sweet potato fries with basil powder. It felt strange when we ordered, as the staff person spoke perfect english with a North American accent. We had been rehersing our order in Japanese but were so stunned that we couldn't manage to order properly in Japanese or English!

There's a lot of rain in Japan, so there are a lot of umbrellas. Shops have rows of tiny compact ones with handles shaped like penguins, monkeys and Barbapapas (do you remember them?), and cute jinglish phrases printed on them. I chose a little pink one with a cartoon pig head handle.

By supper time, I was finally feeling brave enough to venture as far as gyoza with asian food. We found a little shop, Gyoza-honpo Tachimachi, near the neighbourhood where we were staying. Suzuki-san fed us a variety of tasty fish and braised veggies and taught Matt a bit about good sake. In fact, Matt had quite a bit of good sake and went off later, giddy, to find a bottle of the local product to take home. We found out later that the place is even organic.

drooling

Isn't it funny that women are more visually stimulated by food than by sex?

I spent the last 3 days doing nothing but reading cookbooks.

like a Magritte painting

October 26 cont. again

In Tsuwano we bought some bananas and an apple the size of my head at a corner store. This turned out to be the cheapest fruit we found in Japan, probably because we're close to the orchards. Most fruit and vegetables there seem to be uniformly gigantic and perfect. And expensive.



We rented bicycles and rode around the quiet little town. The absense of crowds and chimes and flashing lights felt good. It was so clean, with tidy little cobblestone streets filled with very expensive shops.

In the oldest part of town, the impressive old walls and gates make me feel like I was in a samurai movie and a feudal lord was going to step around the corner any minute.



The ditches along the road are filled with brightly coloured koi. Even the river was flecked with the orange and gold of carp as we rode across the bridge.

We wanted to take the lift up the side of the mountain to see the castle ruins and panoramic view, but were told that the last loop had already started. Instead, we wandered over to the Taikodani-Inari Jinja (shrine). It had vending machines lining the outside wall and 1000 red torii (gates) on the foot path up the hill. I saw several fox statues and figures in the complex.

Back in town we didn't have time for a full supper, so we stopped into a small restaurant with long benches and huge wooden beams. They had a sign out front with a picture of ice cream sundaes. It had vanilla soft serve, corn flakes, some kind of berry jam and these little, round, chewy, green rice cakes here and there. Quite tasty if a little strange in texture.

Then it was back on the train. The ride home was less interesting in the dark, but at least we caught the faster trains and napped on the way.