Ten years smoke-free!

29 January 2012 by pat.

Every year, Betty, Lyne and I get together as close to Jan. 20th as we can to celebrate not smoking. Betty quit 25 years ago; Lyne, 9; I quit 10 years ago. We like to celebrate at Rodney’s Oyster House on King West near Spadina.  We were a week late this year, but we celebrated last night. I was the slowpoke (I think I got there at 6:58 for our 7pm reservation).

First up,  some bread and butter (and a beer, of course).

I love caraway rye bread. Those little bundles of essential oil of caraway exploding in the mouth are heavenly. Goes really well with smoked meat sandwiches (and it’s not so easy in this city to find a smoked meat sandwich on caraway rye).

The bread was followed by a dozen oysters, four each of three different types (Mystics, Sandy Necks, and Cotuits, if I recall correctly). They were tasty, offered different taste profiles, and tasted like having more, so we got another dozen — this time, 3 each of 4 different types. I should have written the names down. I’m pretty sure we had more Cotuits and Mystics.

As we thought back on previous meals at Rodney’s, Cristo came by, we asked for something on the menu that they were out of, and then Betty asked for something that wasn’t on the menu  – smelt. They had some! We got a plate of about 10 of them, and munched them down so quickly that there were only two left by the time I thought to get a photo. They’re small enough that you can crunch them, bones and all (hey, it’s a natural source of calcium). Delicious sweet little fish.

Following that, we decided to try the two different cooked ways they prepare oysters: Rockefeller and pan fried. One of each for each of us.

I haven’t had oysters Rockefeller in a long time. How long? Well, since going to Bumpkins, which means +/- 2 years ~1991. I enjoyed it again, the licorice flavour of the Pernod, the spinach and cheese and warm, spreading oyster taste, and I enjoyed the pan fried oyster, which had the same rich creamy mouth feel and taste that I remember from an oyster po-boy I had in New Orleans at Siggraph ‘96. Delicious. I really could live on seafood!

Following that, Cristos dropped by to help us figure out what to get next. He’s not had a cigarette in 4 days, and the three of us cheered him on, and told him he should make it permanent, offering all our suggestions and hints for how to quit.

It was dessert time. Lyne ordered the cake — a type of spice cake with a layer of sliced flambéed bananas, served with a smear of caramel and whipped mascarpone.

I had a taste, and it was delicious, nicely spiced. But, not being much of a sweets person, for dessert I ordered… two more oysters Rockefeller!

End of the night, we all headed out and caught our streetcars home. Yet another great celebratory meal.

 

 

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Dinner at Tony’s

22 January 2012 by pat.

I was invited to a dinner party at Tony’s, and volunteered to prepare a dish. The theme for the evening was “heavy garlic,” and we talked about what movie to watch… I volunteered to bring my DVD of Ratatouille, and then decided that a garlicky ratatouille would be a good fit for me to bring.

Next, I researched a ratatouille recipe that looks like the one in the movie. The original, as can be seen on some of the DVD extras, is by Thomas Keller. It’s a little involved. I found a simplified version over at Smitten Kitchen’s blog that looked tasty, so my next step was to hit the St. Lawrence Market to buy ingredients. Yes, I know that this is absolutely the wrong time of year to be making ratatouille, that the vegetables all are being flown in from South America. Most of the time I do cook local. Every once in a while, I go exotic.

I wasn’t quite sure of the quantities to get (hadn’t decided what I was going to bake it in!), so I did end up with one yellow squash and one zucchini unused, and I have a bunch of slices of everything in a ziplock bag in my fridge that are going to become more ratatouille today.

Wash, chop the ends, and then run all the veggie tubes through the mandoline. Put each vegetable in a separate bowl, and then make short stacks and arrange them on top of the tomato purée.

Put it in the oven — this was in for about an hour, mostly at 350F.

Delicious dinner with friends. Tony made a Thai peanut chicken and salad (and guacamole, which we had earlier) and Bill and Claire brought a fruit salad and fruit pie.

 

Posted in Food - farmers' market, Food, recipes, Food | 2 Comments »

Campagnolo on Dundas West

15 December 2011 by pat.

Betty, Sandy and I take each other out for dinner for our birthdays. Saturday night was Betty’s turn. As usual with us, she had no idea where she was going — after the spa. Because we spaaaaaahed first and got our Bodies Blitzed. It’s a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I took the waters (repeatedly). Sandy & Betty chose interesting body scrubs, and Betty got a facial as well. We floated like balloons back to Sandy’s, where we shared a bottle of Mumm’s Napa champagne. Nice! Not too dry, not too sweet. We approve. Then we bundled up against the wind, and headed out for a 20 minute walk.

Over near the corner of Palmerston and Dundas West stands a restaurant that En Route Magazine listed as one of the top ten new restaurants in Canada this past year: Campagnolo.

We arrived fairly early for a Saturday night dinner, and the restaurant was about 3/4 full. It’s an open space, with a small bar that people can sit at and eat, and an open kitchen.

Our coats were taken, we were seated, and given three menus.

Immediate triage reaction: what has to be decided first? We chose the cocktail menu, and each had a different cocktail. Very flavourful, all very different. There was a Hendrick’s gin-based cocktail. One that seemed margarita-like. One with a peaty smoky scotch as the base. And we then sat back to figure out what to have for appetizers.

Our first appetizer up was bread: gougeres and herbed butter.

It was quickly followed by warm spiced olives, which we immediately fell in love with and devoured. What a difference in taste from cold or room-temperature olives! Of course, we’ve had hot olives as an ingredient in other dishes (like pasta puttanesca) but this was the first time having them on their own, enjoying the heated flavours, the herbs (rosemary, thyme, chili peppers, preserved/salty orange peel)… yum.

Then came (I think it was next) a gorgeous steak tartare. Sorry, no picture. We fell on it and devoured it. What can I say? We were hungry. Creamy, smooth, proper level of herbing and spicing. It came with a truffle aioli. That’s really sinful. It’s really awesome. It’s better than chocolate, and I can think of naughty ways to serve it. Yes, I’ll eat my red meat raw like this. I’ll even do it every week, if you’ll pay for it!

It was followed by a hot appetizer: sweetbreads and braised artichokes. Darling little artichoke hearts and stems on, and crispy fried pieces of sweetbreads. Sitting on little dollops of a regular aioli. Gorgeous. The flavours — warm creamy slightly liver-like flavour of sweetbreads, inside a crunchy fried casing, and then matched with the almost not quite bitter and mild artichokes. Wonderful pairing, beautiful presentation.

Yah, that’s Sandy doing the peace sign.

Based on the order of my photos, I think this is when our bottle of wine arrived, a Primitivo Manduria from southern Italy. Sandy made a delicious selection.

Presentation for the next appetizer was superb, as well: a lengthwise slice of a marrow beef bone dressed with a plum and oxtail marmelade. Served with some crostinis for us to scoop the bubbling marrow onto.  The marrow was perfect — still quivery, had that totally unctuous texture. The jam contributed sweet and meat to the dish, giving it a contrast that enabled us to fully appreciate the beautifully braised oxtail contrasting with the light-tasting and rich marrow, and the plum providing some acid and sweetness to cut through the other flavours. Can it get any better than this?

Oh yes, for now we’re on to our mains.

I never order lasagne in a good restaurant. Just… I just don’t. But I decided I would. They called it “Nonna’s lasagne.” And I’ve eaten so much pasta with wonderful meats in the last two months… what would they do with lasagne?

 

Many thin layers of homemade pasta. I counted at least ten. It was light, it had a meat and tomato sauce, a little cheese — this wasn’t your standard North American overstuffed heavy lasagne. No bechamel sauce! It was wonderful. It tasted of real tomatoes and meat and pasta. I loved it.

Sandy chose the pappardelle with rabbit and chanterelle mushrooms (of course we all tasted each other’s dishes)! Perfectly braised (by this point, I’ve come to expect that they know how to slow cook meat, country style).

Betty got the lamb shank, which came with perfectly caramelized cubes of potato and pork belly. Oh yes, this was a meat-eater’s dish. And it was perfect. The deep rich flavours of the lamb shank paired with the lighter pork belly (I never thought I’d refer to pork belly as a lighter flavour) and the potato cubes. Awesomeness incarnate.

In case you want to accuse us of not eating our greens, we did order a dish of brussels sprouts with peccorino cheese and pine nuts. Absolutely delicious — a bit of a cream sauce in the dish to give additional moisture. We totally emptied the dish.

Our absolutely delightful server asked us if we’d be staying for dessert. Alas, we were all fed up. He was adorable. I hope you get to sit at one of his tables. I should have written his name down. Sometimes I #fail. He sat beside Sandy so I could take this shot.

Serious line-up at the front when we exited: this place is somewhere people come back to. It’s been open a year and a couple of weeks, and is full.

We walked back toward Sandy’s, where we had left our wet bathing suits and such, and passed by a Portuguese bakery that we had seen going the other way. Aaaaaah! It’s still open!!! It’s reputed to have the best custard tarts in the city! We must stop at Caldense Bakery.

We do. We buy a selection of items, and return to Sandy’s — we can share dessert with Damir, who loves a nice sweet at the end of the night. We have coconut macaroons, pumpkin squash tarts, custard tarts, and some orange cupcake-like things.

Woh. Full-o-meter has pegged. Happy birthday, Betty: really enjoyed celebrating it with you!

 

Posted in City life, Food, dining out, Food | 1 Comment »

First customer at Ascari Enoteca!

26 November 2011 by pat.

Yup, I was the first one in the door last evening when Ascari Enoteca opened, corner of Queen St. East and Caroline Ave.

They don’t have their liquor license yet — they will in time for Tuesday’s Grand Opening — but I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

They’ve done nice things with the space: it’s completely unrecognizable from two incarnations ago when it was Lou’s Variety, and the only thing I recognize from when Ben had his gallery here is the depth of the window ledges. Muted colours and grey tables made me think of menswear fabrics; open steel kitchen, so you can see what’s going on.

First, I had a Chinotto to drink. Sort of like a bitters without the alcohol.

Very pleasant to sip while I read through the menu. Lots of choices. Lots of things I want to try. I have a hard time nailing it down to two dishes. Finally decide on the Crostini alla Toscana and the Cavatelli.

The crostini arrive, and they are gorgeous to behold. They’re also really tasty. A very smooth chicken liver paté — not even a hint of bitterness — served on a crusty toast with some caramelized onions on top, and a fried sage leaf topping it all off, sprinkled with sea salt.  It was really good, one of the better liver patés I’ve had in a restaurant. The presentation was novel, and the flavours worked together perfectly.

That is followed by the cavatelli. They make their pasta in-house, and it’s delicious. There’s a little bit of black truffle in the pasta, which is cooked to the point that it has some resistance against the teeth. The cavatelli comes with confit of duck, brussels sprouts, and chanterelle mushrooms. Freshly ground pepper on top, and that’s it. Simple, beautiful ingredients. It is quite a large serving of pasta. I didn’t have room for dessert.

Crazy, I know, but I decided to have an espresso at the end of dinner (hmm, maybe that’s why I was up so late). Beautiful cup, perfect crema, smooth flavour.

Total bill was about $42.00. I’ll be back.

 

 

 

Posted in City life, Food, dining out | 1 Comment »

F’Amelia Restaurant: I’ll be back

18 November 2011 by pat.

F’Amelia opened almost two months ago on Amelia Street in Old Cabbagetown. Near the corner of Parliament Street, it’s a short trip by TTC from home (would be even shorter by bike, but it was chilly and windy today). I’ve been following the restaurant’s Twitter account since they opened, and they’ve been following mine, and we’ve chatted about food, ingredients, and local birds (they have a collection of bird feeders out back).

I was itching to get out today, and decided it was time for a trip over to Riverdale Zoo Farm, and a good opportunity to go to F’Amelia — their menu certainly appealed to me.

I was an early bird at the restaurant, which opens at 5pm (eek, it’s almost dark out at 5 now). Great people. I regret not writing down the name of the manager, because she is adorable and efficient and knowledgeable. I was greeted, seated, and ordered a Negroni while trying to decide what to eat from the menu. And then Todd Vestby, one of the owners, came out and gave me a warm greeting. It’s always nice to meet the face behind the tweets and find out the story of a restaurant. You can find more info on their website. I was lucky — executive chef Maurizio Verga was working tonight, and I had the opportunity to meet him. Everyone was personable, and I felt they all really cared about the place.

I’m going to have to come back with friends to try the Antipasto Misto. I bet it’s a good plate.

Mains are very hard to choose from. Plus they have a special today of a stuffed pasta that includes lemon and raisins and meat, and a few other ingredients that make it sound like a lemony mincemeat (if you’ve ever had a true mincemeat, not one of the ones made solely of fruit). One thing I love about their menu is that they offer all the mains in two sizes. I can choose the smaller one, and maybe have room for other dishes!

Desserts look good. Will I have room?

While I’m sipping my drink, bread arrives. It’s all made in house, and is delicious. I failed miserably at making focaccia twice this year, and here it was, simple and perfect, with some salt and rosemary. Plus a chunk of a good sturdy bread that was tender and almost like a buttermilk biscuit. A drizzle of good olive oil on the plate to dip the bread.

Because I’m a fan of cold water oily sustainable fish, I wanted to try their warm mackerel salad. I’m glad I did, because it was delicious. The fish was firm and fresh, fried from the skin side, so nice crispy skin on top, with some frizzled lettuce greens. Underneath lay ingredients that complemented the fish beautifully. Grilled radicchio was superb, providing charry bitterness against the fish’s richness, and then potatoes and sunchokes to provide sweetness. Highly recommended!

Next came the surprise course! One perfectly seared sweet scallop surmounting a seafood risotto that included shrimp, clams, and impossibly tender squid. Really. I was wondering if I was mistaken, or if it was something else, like some stem of a mushroom that I wasn’t familiar with. The executive chef, ‘Rizio, came out at that time, and I had the opportunity to ask him about it. He cooks his squid sous vide! It gets added to the risotto at the last moment. Very tasty risotto.

Next came my third polenta dish of the last three weeks. I thought the polenta I had at Rosa’s in San Francisco was tasty. This was better. Creamy perfect polenta, with osso buco and marrow butter. There’s rosemary in the polenta, giving it a rich herby perfume that can stand up to the richness of the veal shank. Sometimes polenta has so much cheese in it that the flavour of the corn is lost. Not the case here.

With the stew on top…the brunoise was perfectly cubed. The meat is so perfectly exquisitely rich, tender, braised long enough to be tender, not overcooked (which makes a meat taste dried-out). This dish deserves a revisit. I had the small one: I can see coming back and having the full size. It turns out that Chef Maurizio is from Bergamo, just north of Milan, in the heart of polenta region. He really cares about his polenta, and it shows.

Alas, no room for dessert. However, I’m honoured that Chef Maurizio brought me a glass of his dessert liqueur — similar to a limoncello, yet his own. It was a great way to finish the dinner.

 I sip my after-dinner liqueur, and watch around me as the restaurant starts to fill up. There are couples, families — opposite me, it looks like the grandparents have taken their two well-behaved little grandchildren out for pizza. Staff and customers recognize each other. It’s definitely full of neighbourhood people, and I think that a lot of them are regulars already.

Given the owners, staff, and the food,  I’d be proud to have a restaurant like F’Amelia in my neighbourhood.

 

 

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Another delicious Matt Kantor Little Kitchen feast!

15 November 2011 by pat.

As you might know, Matt Kantor is doing something a bit different this fall, and preparing a series of dinners for about a dozen people. Last night was the first of three for his Meat and Beer week — there will be two more events at Olliffe Butchers this week. And they’re all sold out!

I got there a bit early last evening. Well, a half-hour early, actually. Everyone was busy elsewhere, so I just looked in the window and shot off a few pictures. I like the front window of Olliffe, and the butcher-stamp look of their logo. Nice job, guys.

Great idea to have a display case of charcuterie right by the front window. Everything looks so delicious. I’m going when I’m back up town next Tuesday. I want to see what their Soppresatta and locally-cured Lardo are like. Hmm, maybe some pancetta, too.

Good artwork for a butcher store. Font geek likes the typeface on the butchery diagram.

Aaah! Here comes Matt!

Oops. Yah, we’re seriously early. Please walk around the block a few times and come back at 8, like it said on the email Sunday (Actually, Matt just said “come back at 8.” I’m the one pointing out that it said “Dinner at 8″ on the email).

So I wandered around for a while, took pictures of store windows, and I’ll get them up online, maybe later today. Some shops have their Christmas decorations up already! And sad to say, I was looking at them. Maybe I’ll actually decorate this year. I should get my winter Icicle lights up today while it’s still above 10C and the plastic wiring is pliant.

The old Summerhill train station still looks lovely as an LCBO. The fountain outside almost made me jump out of my skin on the way home, however. It has one of those deer-scare type setups, where a container fills with water, tips, noise happens, water spills out. Caught me unaware.

Came back just before 8, just had enough time to snap a shot of people outside and cross the road, and Matt opened the door and invited us all in.

Fundamentally rustic table centrepieces: beef rib bones in triads going the length of the table.

Time to peruse the menu. As usual for Matt, lots of variety, interesting combinations, delicious pairings. I can hardly wait to start.

Matt’s introduction to the dinner — alas, he’s on the edge of losing his voice!

First dish up in the sausage ceviche — now, it’s not raw sausage cooked by the acid of a citrus fruit. It’s actually been cooked. It’s served with a lot of the ingredients you’d find in a ceviche. It makes for a tasty appetizer. Matt, feel free to tell me what type of sausage it was!

It was accompanied by the first beer of the night (full flight of beers, different one for each course). This was a pleasant ale, good place to start, accompanied the food without competing with it.

They went well together! Our next beer had a flashy label, a good joke, and nice flavour.

It was mild, a bit of spice, and went really well with the sous-vide pork tenderloin, served with some crunchy chickpeas, dice of quince, schmear of rooibos lemon chiffon pudding, and some tarragon leaves. OK, that caught me by surprise a little. Wasn’t expecting pudding with pork, but it worked really nicely, the same way that a sweet applesauce or jelly goes with pork. The vanilla/lemony notes brought out the subtle flavours of a meat that serves to underpin other tastes. The licorice of the tarragon really came out with the beer.  The pork tenderloin was, like all the meats, incredibly tender. Cooking it sous vide, it had lost none of its juicy nature.

Next up was an Amsterdam Bone Shaker IPA. Like all IPAs, hopsy bitterness remained after sipping.

That bitterness worked well to accompany the richness of the Chantecler Chicken Risotto with butternut squash and pine nuts. This was a really great dish. The chicken is a variety I’ve only had once before, at Brad Long’s Veritas Local Fare on King Street East.  It’s got a wonderful rich chicken taste that you hardly ever find any more. The risotto was creamy, slightly sweet and rich from the squash, and each grain was still al dente at its core. The lightly toasted pine nuts completed the dish beautifully. One person commented “it’s like rice pudding.” Yup, But better. And for dinner.

The next two dishes on the menu were switched, so the chicken risotto was followed by Muscovy duck, then lamb biryani.

The Muscovy duck was accompanied by a strawberry beer, Amsterdam Framboise. A slightly medicinal nose, the flavour of the beer is great, and works really well with duck.

The duck was served two ways: we had a slice of juicy, tender, rare breast, and a crepe (Matt, was there cocoa in that crepe?) with leg meat and mushrooms. Hazelnut streusel was strewn about to add a sweet note to the lamb, and there were a few eye-interesting ingredients, in terms of some Romanesco (fractal food!), some delicious mushrooms, and a dollop of Romanesco purée. There was a round ball — just behind the breast meat — that looks like a truffle. Well, it wasn’t a mushroom truffle, and it wasn’t a chocolate, either. It was a tartuffo! Surprise! And the ice cream was carmelized onion. Absolutely delicious.

This was followed by a Great Lakes Winter Ale (I missed its picture!), which had a lovely light taste of cloves, and accompanied the deconstructed lamb biryani that came next. A couple of pieces of saffron cake, a white mousse, some plump sweet raisins, and some very tasty braised lamb, all done up with Indian spices and herbs. Another case where Matt surprised us by putting sweet and savory together in a delicious plate.

On to the dark beers. To accompany the beef, we had Black Oak Nutcracker Porter. Chocolate, molasses, creamy, coffee notes, this could be dessert.

It was a perfect counterpart to what came next. We’re in a butcher shop that prides itself on its dry aged beef. It’s on display in a cooler, directly behind the table. Big glorious slabs of meat, hanging, tenderizing, drying. We were fortunate to have some 60 day aged beef, prepared two ways: braised shortribs, glazed in honey, almost tasted like candy. Meaty candy. The shortribs were topped with some blue cheese, which I ate with both of the dishes, because blue cheese and well aged beef just belong together. The ribeye was succulent, and the cheese went with it the way it should, bringing out the stronger tastes in the beef, contributing umami. Sunchoke foam was a light palate cleanser, and worked with the potato to prepare the mouth for another round of beefy goodness.

That brought us to our final dish of the evening — and I forgot another beer picture! This one was really a dessert beer: Cannery Brewing Maple Stout. Oh yes, yes, yes. The maple note is strong — not as strong as it is in the maple liqueur one can buy in Quebec, but almost. And the maple works with the pecans, and the foie gras ice cream, caramel sauce, poached apple, and streusel topping.

I’m very glad there were no more courses! It was delicious, each course was different, and I’m still quite full from last night.

Hope you make it out to Matt’s next set of dinners — whatever it happens to be, it will be a pleasure.

Posted in Food, dining out, Food | 1 Comment »

JD’s got himself some sauces

22 October 2011 by pat.

JD’s got a small booth, but don’t overlook it. He’s a chef who has created a couple of sauces that he’s selling at the Delicious Food Show.

Two sauces:

And a bunch of bottles.

He had samples of the sauces, and some salmon in the sweet chili sauce. I didn’t try the salmon, but I did try the chili sauce on its own: it’s got nice slow heat from the combination of peppers he’s used, and it’s got flavour to go with it, so it’s not just heat and sweet. Good going, JD!

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Stopping for food and drink

22 October 2011 by pat.

Sounds silly, in a floor full of food and (some) drink, but I really wanted to sit down and review my photos, think, and figure out what my next steps were. So I went over to the little Centreplate Bistro, the cafe at the edge of the show. I had a delightful server, Vernice. So professional and excellent, I want to tell you to sit in her section if you can. This is Vernice:

I had the cheese plate and red wine. There was lots of cheese.

A pecorino, blue, brie-like, smoked gouda, and an orange washed rind similar to an Oka cheese. Plus grapes, crackers, honey, and a nice compote. Pretty good for $10!

It made for a good break from the show, and was the gap between me photographing and me buying

Here’s the menu.

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Cheese and not-cheese

22 October 2011 by pat.

Compare and contrast.

No, I won’t do that, because that’s comparing apples and …hmm. bread? Two vastly different categories, although both are in similar spaces.

Fifth town, if you read back in my blog, is an organic cheese maker based in Prince Edward County. And they’re here, at the Delicious Food Show. I picked up some of their Quark cheese. I had never tasted quark until this summer, when they drizzled some maple syrup over some and offered tastes. Yes, I’ll take that over dessert any day, thanks. It’s delicious.

The other was a maker, Daiya, that I had heard about, and I saw their products when the Foodist Mart was briefly open in Leslieville. They create a vegan product that tastes like cheese.

They had some slices of pizza out with their mozzarella-like cheese-like product, and I took one and ate it. It did have a cheesy flavour, it melted like mozzarella, and looked like it, too. So for vegans who miss the taste of cheese, there’s a product out for you! They also had some grilled cheese sandwiches with a cheddar-like product, but after wandering all the stalls, I confess, I was sated, and didn’t try it.

Posted in Food of a place, Food - farmers' market, Food, processed, Food, SOLE food | No Comments »

Thermomix: *the* kitchen appliance for a small space?

22 October 2011 by pat.

Something else I saw at the Delicious Food Show today — it’s called the Thermomix by Vorwerk. It’s for sale in Montreal and at the show, and they ship, darling.

It measures by weight. It can do a lot of the work that a blender or food processor does. It’ll knead your bread dough for you. And it will cook your risotto or (absolutely delicious) carrot soup.

If you’ve got a small kitchen, this could replace a number of appliances. It holds 2.5 litres — Mme. Vineberg was generally working with 2L in it.

Here, have some risotto.

As you can see, it’s pretty compact.

Posted in Kitchen and table, Food, processed, Food | No Comments »

St. Phillips deli•bakery•café

22 October 2011 by pat.

I was walking past St. Phillip’s booth, and accosted by a young woman bearing a tray of creampuffs. I was forced to accept (really). (Well, not really. But I really liked it.)

I took a look around the place and spoke with them briefly. They have two locations —  one in Woodbridge, one in Maple, and plans are underfoot to open one in Toronto (alas, nowhere near where I live).

The creampuff was tasty.

The visuals of some of their cakemanship (I’m sure that’s not a word, but I don’t know how to express the one-up quality and detailing of what they do).

This is the side of their booth. That torso in the dress? A cake.

 Clown? A cake. The chocolate brown thing to the right is the closest one comes to seeing a cake-cake.

But I have to call out the luggage.

 Woh.

Awesome.

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And now for something completely different at the Delicious Food Show

22 October 2011 by pat.

No, it’s not Monty Python

But it almost feels like it could be a sketch. Goodness knows what they would have done with the concept back in the ’70’s when they were doing the show.

What does this mean? Look at that wink the woman in the poster is giving! Are handsome scantily-clad men involved (what else deserves a salacious wink)?

Well, I took a look, and I saw women getting their hands massaged, and martini glasses filled with what looked like chocolate with big sticks in them. Looked to me like they were going to get a chocolate hand treatment.

What do you think? If you have partaken in a chocolate spa experience I want to hear about it.

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Selsi spices at the Delicious Food Show

22 October 2011 by pat.

I had to highlight them. They’re another place I usually go to at the Saint Lawrence Market — I’ve got green peppercorns I bought fresh from them on the stem. Hmm, I should check on those: they’ve been in brandy for about a year now.

Selsi combines spices with the lovely containers I’m used to seeing at Lee Valley Tools, and put them together as spice kits that are visually appealing, and I’m sure would help get a novice using spices. They have two sizes:

And a smaller sampler:

Support your local purveyors!

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I love Kozlik’s.

22 October 2011 by pat.

They’re at the Delicious Food Show. I hope more people try Kozlik’s mustards and horseradish. They are my absolute favorite purveyor of those items.

I usually buy their products at the Saint Lawrence Market. I’m a huge fan of their horseradish: it’s got heat and flavour. Totally clears out the sinuses. Has taste and works well in a Bloody Caesar as well as being served alongside a hunk of prime rib, or mixed in with some applesauce to go with pork (think I got that trick from the Joy of Cooking).

One of my favorite mustards is the triple crunch: it’s the caviar of mustards. Three different types of seed — makes a beautiful visual. Has an awesome flavour. Your teeth bear down on a seed that’s been softened and expanded with vinegar, and it explodes in your mouth with pure flavour, the way a fish egg does. It’s awesome. Put some on a slice of aged cheddar and eat it. Your toes will curl with pleasure.

One of the big reasons I love Kozlik’s is their customer service. My father can’t eat sulphites, and for years, this has meant the only mustard he could eat was the Keen’s powdered mustard, which my mother would add water to and make a paste.

I called to find out if any of their mustards or horseradishes were sulphite-free, and got a phone call back (I think it was Jeremy who called), and had a superb conversation. I couldn’t get my Dad a pure horseradish (it requires sulphites to keep it) but I could get him a horseradish mustard (wow, was it tasty). I was also given the names of two other mustards I could get him that were sulphite-free.

You treat a customer well, it’s remembered forever.

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Major Craig’s Chutneys at the Delicious Food Show

22 October 2011 by pat.

Major Craig should be proud of his great-great-grandson, who is selling his chutneys at the show.

Sir, your great-great-grandson told me that you started as an employee of the East India Company, then became part of the private army, then a Major in Queen Victoria’s army, and continued provisioning. And he’s using your recipes (plus some new ones).

The chutneys are delicious — I bought the Northern India Chutney. Heck, it will work on ice-cream, with cheese, beside a hot curry. It’s a go-to chutney.

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