Gingerbread Latte

Toronto is a city of coffee shops...there is one on almost every corner. Craig was saying yesterday how it amazes him, Toronto is one of the more expensive cities to live in yet everyone has money for coffee in coffee shops. In Montreal (where we come from) most people drink it at home. After almost 15 years, I have adopted the culture here. I recently discovered gingerbread latte at Second Cup and love it SO much I will spend $7 something for two small cups! I must have lost my mind!!! Fortunately, the season will be over soon and the gingerbread latte will disappear before I am bankrupt!!

Persimmon

A fully ripe persimmon peeled, dusted lightly with cinnamon, quartered and sliced, served for desert with a spoonful of home made jam makes a tasty desert. Craig brought this over. He shops at T&T, an Asian grocery store, where the fruit, he says, is top quality and best price.

Vichyssoise and Seafood Lasagne

Easy and elegant. Best part of this meal was the "easy!" Craig sent over a container of Vichyssoise he had made. I was out for a walk yesterday and stopped by Loblaws before going home, where I found their President's Choice Seafood Lasagne on sale and my dinner was made! The vichyssoise was excellent but the lasagne didn't measure up to the promise. I did find a few shrimp but there was no recognizable scallops or pieces of lobster. The cheese and mushroom sauce was pretty good. Even on sale ($2 off the regular price) it was too expensive for what was in the package.

Opa!!

Hungry for Greek food on Sunday I drove over to The Danforth, an area in Toronto sometimes called "Greek Town." After the usual search for a parking spot, I found one reasonably close to the restaurant area and then found a restaurant that served Greek Lemon Rice Soup, well it is actually chicken and rice soup flavoured with a good squeeze of lemon. Wonderful comfort food on a cold day. We ordered Saganaki, fried flaming cheese served with flamboyant panache! Opa! I enjoyed the saganaki with a few crusty slices of bread and mopped up every bit of juice on the tray with my last crust. I am providing a recipe below from Cooks.com

SAGANAKI (FLAMING CHEESE OPA)

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1 lb. soft Kasseri or Kofalotiri cheese
3 tbsp. butter
1/2 lemon (juice)
2 tbsp. brandy

Cut cheese into slices 1/4 inch thick. Place on broiler pan and brush with melted butter. Broil on high 4 to 6 inches from heat until cheese bubbles. Remove from heat. Pour brandy over cheese and ignite immediately.

Sprinkle with lemon juice and serve with bread. Opa!

Stewed Quince

Craig is on a fruit binge, going to the Asian fruit store every few days and selecting all kinds of strange things I never see in the regular grocery store. The latest thing he brought home were a few fresh quinces. Neither of us knew what to do with them so he googled and found that they are best stewed or made into jam. As he peeled and cored the quince we tasted it and found it very dry but pleasantly tangy sweet. The dryness made us understand why you must cook it. The rest of this story you can see in the slide show but . . .sorry, you won't be able to catch the amazing fragrance! The finished dish was simply amazing! So good I had difficulty to stop eating them. Pleasant texture, fragrant, almost perfumed, complex taste. I am looking forward to a dish of stewed quince with vanilla yogurt for breakfast this morning. Will definitely do this one again.I kept some of the seeds...I wonder if they will grow?

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig . . .

Home again, home again, dancing a jig. (or, jiggity jig) ~Mother Goose

Markets charm me, they are exciting places. I love the crowds, the bustle, the sights, the smells. The fruits and vegetables are fresher, the meat better in quality, the coffee more fragrant and there is more variety in everything.

Last Saturday I went to market, St Lawrence Market, downtown Toronto. The north building, a farmer's market, is open Saturdays only, in summer full of local produce but this time of year there are fewer stalls and the produce is imported. The south building, what you see below, is home to hundreds of permanent shops and it is open every day. I made the trip to pick up some Montreal bagels, Kozlik's mustard and a nice thick slice of Cantenar cheese.

It was almost lunchtime when I arrived, the bread bakery shelves were emptying quickly. They would be empty by 1:30 PM.

I walked by the Italian sandwich stand and considered stopping for a bite to eat...no. I knew what I really wanted...bagels.

Eve's Temptations, guess what they sell here? Still not what I wanted though.

I stopped to enjoy some flower and tropical fruit displays. Spring flowers make me feel hopeful!

Next stop, Kozlik's Canadian Mustard, more than 35 varieties. Anton Kozlik was frying and chopping Canadian bacon as fast as he could, people were spearing it with toothpicks and dipping in his wonderful mustards. It was so hard to choose just one, it was hard to choose only four! I bought 4 for $20, settled on the one I made the trip for Niagara Classic (it has ouzo in it), Fig and Date Mustard, Bordeau mustard and Amazing Maple Mustard. All are hot, even the sweet ones, they travel to your nose with a slight burn as soon as they enter your mouth. They loose some of their heat when you store them in the fridge.

Next stop was St Urbain Bagel. They sell the only authentic Montreal bagels in Toronto, from a few locations. They line up (at all locations) for these bagels, and yes they're worth lining up for. Boiled in honey water, then baked in an open wood-fired brick oven, at this location right before your eyes! These bagels are small, dense, slightly sweet and very chewy. I like them best toasted with butter. They are also great cold with lox and cream cheese. I am originally from Montreal and when I moved to Toronto could not find a good bagel for a long time.

Next I moved over to Alex Farm Products, a cheese shop, one of the very best I have come across in this city. I always look forward to a few samples when I come here...I pretend I don't know what I want and they offer me all kinds of things! Finally, I select Cantenar cheese, the one I came for. (naughty hmm?)

We were getting tired, I had what I came for and we pushed on through the people, down the worn stone stairs, but stopping to admire the fish monger's display and the butcher's beautiful standing rib roast...I thought the prices were pretty good on the roast.

Bouilliabaisse anyone?

That was my visit short version. If you would like to see more photos, click on any one of the photos here and you will land at my Webshots album where the rest of them are.

Earth Hour 2009

Another notice about the upcoming Earth Hour came to me today. We are supposed to tell ten of our friends to to to the site and sign up...it doesn't cost anything, well just a little commitment. You can sign up here if you haven't already. http://www.earthhour.org/signup/ March 28 we will all sit in the dark for an hour...I sure hope the weather is nice that evening so I can go for a walk--an hour passes slowly when you are sitting in the dark. I hope everyone is going to participate, turn the lights out and sit in the dark with me!

Flowers and Hockey

I received this lovely bouquet of flowers last Friday at the office from my boss who was away at our National Sales Meeting in Mexico. It was a thank you for work I did on the meeting...a kind gesture but gee...next time it would be even nicer if he would bring me along to the meeting! Since it was Friday afternoon I brought them home to enjoy over the weekend.

I spent the week catching up on everything I had thrown aside to work on the meeting. Oh yes, I also came in late a couple of mornings and took one long lunch.

Mid week I attended a hockey game at our executive suite at the Air Canada Centre. Is that ever a nice way to watch the game! Catering supplied pizza for the kids, steak sandwiches, caesar salad, sushi, beer and wine for the adults. Huge warm from the oven chocolate chip cookies came later along with popsicles (for the children) and Haagen Dazs ice cream for everyone.

Mmmm, what a treat!

And this was a treat too!

The food was better than the game. Leafs and Rangers were tied 1:1 at the end of the third period--very little scoring = very little excitement. We didn't want to stay later just to see them blow it (as they usually do, they are the worst team in the NHL) and it was a long walk to the car so we left. I learned next day that the Leafs won! C'est la vie!

This young fellow in our suite certainly enjoyed the game!

The light show on the ice was pretty.

Above and below, singing of the national anthems.

The Leafs are a terrible team but fans keep coming out to see them anyway. The Air Canada Center was full! They have won a few games since last week but that is not a good thing; it is just enough to move them up a wee bit in the standings so they will loose first draft choice and boy do they need that!

Home again

I had a wonderful Valentine's Day, dinner at a nice restaurant and then saw The Colour Purple. I loved the show, although my companion did not. There were a few times my eyes welled up with tears, it was wonderful! I didn't take my camera out during dinner but did manage to catch a shot of desert...the lighting was poor in this restaurant. I used a 3200 ISO setting and brightened it with Picassa...still struggling with Photoshop and probably always will. That little flat spoon is a sweet crisp cookie! The sorbet was intense and refreshing...mango, raspberry and something I didn't recognize.

I drove to Montreal next day, saw my mom again, took her out for lunch, we had my favourite Montreal smoked meat sandwiches at my favourite deli. She told me next time she would prefer clam chowder and good bread like we had last time in that lovely restaurant with the view of the pool. I will be happy to oblige...next time. Her mind is clear sometimes and other times she is in a heavy fog and quite confused. This visit, she was pretty good.

Valentine's Day

I am going out for dinner tonight and then to see The Colour Purple. It is a musical but I am not familiar with the music however, looking forward to it all.

We have reservations at a Portuguese restaurant. A private alcove table and one of my favourite dishes is on the menu--all very special. I love their Grilled Squid, they char it nicely but it leave it tender and add a squeeze of lemon or maybe lime.

Sunday I am going to Montreal and I'll drive home Monday afternoon. The weather promises to stay clear so that is a relief for the long drive. Monday is a holiday here in Ontario, Family Day. It is nice to have the holiday to break up the month of February but I think and extra holiday in June or July would be nicer!

Craig's Birthday

Yesterday was my oldest son Craig's birthday. I can't believe I have a 32 year old son! His younger brother and fiancee came for dinner. Craig is usually uncooperative about having his picture taken but I got a few shots. I served roast beef done to a perfect pink, with lemon horseradish roast potatoes and broccoli. I made peppercorn gravy with a good splash of cabernet saugivnon added. Craig is vegetarian so I made a pan of rolled crepes stuffed with ricotta, mushrooms and spinach, covered with alfredo sauce, for his main dish and we each had a little of that too. As a shortcut I used 6 inch whole wheat tortillas and they stood up under all that sauce very well. Mmm, delicious, I will make it again. Craig made off with all the leftovers.

I had 3 avocados that became ripe all at once so used them in a starter with warm roasted tomatoes, bacon, goat cheese fresh basil and capers. We drizzled a basil parmesan vinagrette over this salad.

Instead of a birthday card I gave him a 6/49 ticket, the draw was for 43 Million last night, hope he remembers to be good to his mom if he wins!