luck let a gentleman see (just how nice a dame you can be).

Luck Be a Lady Tonight

Although I've been a little down on my luck the past few weeks, be it with my job or the gentlemen in my life, I was a very lucky lady to be treated to dinner at Oddfellow's the other night. I'd been looking forward to dinner there for months, read review after review (and eschewed the bad ones from my memory), and looked in with jealousy every time I passed the corner of Queen & Shaw on my way to some other Toronto institution.

As Now & Eye Weekly have both reported, the food wasn't perfect. My photog friend & I had been looking forward to the lamb-stew-for-two all week and it didn't exactly live up to my expectations. The ambience, however, was a perfect 10. The bring-your-own-bottle policy allowed me to pick up a nice Chianti Ruffino at the local liquor shoppe, and lucky for me, he picked up the check for everything else. 

Although our quasi-pseudo-non-relationship-friendship status to me is sometimes more controversial than Frank Sinatra's switch from the Democratic to the Republican party, I had the most fun I'd had in, well, days, but the company was just lovely. And, having dinner out instead of in my apartment as usual gave me an excuse to wear my new (amazing! life-changing! head-turning!) black vintage dress, and make whiskey sours (my new specialty) for my old friend. 

One day, we may reunite as lovers-or-whatever; a revival more epic than that of Sinatra, Davis & Martin's in '87 (You know, the 'Together Again' tour?), but for now I am oh-so-happy that I have such a good friend in the city. A man who doesn't mind when I eye-ball other men down Oddfellows' famed communal table, or drool over my dream woman, Pamelia Kurstin, on YouTube because, to be honest, most of the time he's right there droolin' over her next to me. 

It's his MacBook Pro we're watching all those YouTube videos on.

a moment on the lips, forever on the hips (is okay by me).

In case you were wondering (and apparently I need to start a food blog & also buy a Digital SLR)...



The menu for last night's dinner party entailed:
-Filet Mignon wrapped in bacon, topped with a Dulchetta Gorgonzola shallot-cream sauce
-Buttermilk fried onion straws
-My secret recipe for garlic smashed potatoes (I stand by firmly that nobody makes better mashed/smashed potatoes than I do)
-Balsamic grilled baby asparagus

Total caloric intake? 1,467,634.



The entire cost of a dinner for six was roughly $100- not including wine. Considering the six of us finished off half a box, three magnums, and a regular 750mL bottle of red in just under 4 hours... the wine probably cost more than the dinner (And not only in price; I may or may not have thrown up my meal.) $100 for an absolutely wonderful dinner for six just blows my mind, and the fact that two first-year (first month, really) culinary students could pull off such a fabulous (and well-timed!) meal makes me the happiest girl in the city. A dinner party like it's 1929 all over again.

The filet itself we bought at St. Lawrence market. The cost of seven pre-bacon-wrapped-filets? $33. We grilled them off & then roasted them in a hot cast iron skillet.. in hot duck fat. Not only did we get the beautiful grill marks of a BBQ on my Breville panini grill, but roasting steaks after a quick sear always gives you the perfect pink centre; something my dad would tell me after his prerequisite post-BBQ margerita(s).

As for the sides, we made up the gorgonzola sauce. Obviously blue cheese is delicious in absolutely any form, but you can't really go wrong when combining it with about eighty thousand other forms of fat. Two shallots, a ton of butter to sweat them in, 35% heavy cream, and one $10 block of gorg resulted in fucking H-E-A-V-E-N. The asparagus we blanched, marinated in balsamic vinegar, and then grilled last-minute while the steaks were roasting off.

For the onion straws, I adapted this recipe from memory. I also took a little from the onion ring recipe I used for this epic dinner that I took from Anthony Sedlak's The Main. They turned out so well that I was surprised when I went to clean the kitchen this morning that my overnight guest didn't grab the rest to take on the streetcar to work, he loved them so much.

I'd give you my secret recipe for the best roasted garlic mashed potatoes in the world, but I'm afraid I've simply got to go eat the leftovers.

writing you a letter, looking for my heart pt II.

Who doesn't love getting mail?

Returning from a (successful) job interview and a leisurely coffee with my Toronto hairdresser-slash-confidante, I checked my mail for the first time in about a week. If I look past my overdue credit card bill, a form from the Canada Revenue Agency reporting how much was taken out of my RESP, and several bills from Bell, it was really good today. Not only did my new Toronto Life and Fashion (hey, the subscription was free!) magazines come, but so did my tickets for the now-sold-out Neko Case show in April. I'm always convinced that when I order tickets on the internet they'll never make their way to my door but of course I was wrong again.

Last night I hosted my first dinner party after moving to Toronto and it was a grand success. Starting with an extremely decadent (buttery...rich...) dinner and ending with a lovely (drunken... slurring...) sing-a-long with a friend & frequent dinner guest in my bed, I woke up feeling pretty satisfied in more ways than one.

It's been a good day.

soul clappin' (slap choppin')

I make melt-in-your-mouth buttermilk biscuits.



I also, apparently, am so distracted by my new love for the internet that I burned not only my dinner, but also the buttermilk biscuits I was planning to leave outside Loverboy's door. I can't justify the walk in the apocalyptic cold just to leave a polaroid tacked to the door.

However, in hindsight, that may have been cuter.

Damn.

i want to take you higher.

As of recently, I'm basically out of work and thus can no longer afford groceries. Fortunately, my cupboard is stocked with all sorts of goodies so I am making a fairly epic "pantry dinner". For most, this might mean KD or Beef-a-roni or whatever that tinned shit's called..

I'm having a quick & easy multigrain linguini with pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, grilled artichokes & goat cheese.

Just sayin'.

i was made to love magic.

Today I read an interesting article on Bitten, David Bittman's New York Times blog on food, in which the author posed the following question of his readers:

"I’d like to help readers who are trying to think of the perfect meal for a girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife on Valentine’s Day, but tastes are far from universal, so it’s a challenge. So here’s my question: What would you like a loved one to cook for you this February 14?"

See above, a couple very much so in love.


This is a question that I have been pondering for years. Last year, I made my then-sweetheart homemade Thai food. He took me for thai, a then first for me, on our first date the previous October; a night we both originally thought was simply to justify the night before (& a very public makeout session at a Brother Ali show). Sure enough, four months later there we were: Green Curry with chicken & vegetables, pad thai with tofu, and thai-style rice made for a lovely dinner, and since he was an hour late, it didn't involve too much cooking after he already arrived. I feel like this is an important Valentine's Day move. You know, so you have your hands free to drink red wine and make out (and exchange heartfelt, thoughtful gifts if you're into that sort of thing). I started dinner off with a plate of grilled pita & assorted crackers, roasted garlic, and brie. Certainly not Thai, but delicious nonetheless. No one says no to brie, and I always say yes to anything with roasted garlic.


Needless to say, this article piqued my interest. With my then-sweetheart behind me (don't fret, we're still good friends!), and a new one on the table, I know that the pressure's on. I now go to culinary school at George Brown, home of one of the best schools for my program in the country, and I can no longer make a shitty dish & simply shrug it off. Even if I'm only a month into the two year program.

I hadn't a fleeting thought about Valentine's Day until just now, and now for the past hour it's but all I can think about. Do I go the traditional route (think: filet mignon, blue cheese, red wine, anything caramelized..), or eclectic? I'm allergic to oysters and don't know his thoughts on figs, so aphrodisiacs are probably not the way to go. Indian food, too. We went for Indian food on our first real dinner & a movie "date". Considering that's the only time I've ever had Indian food, I hardly think this is one of those times that the "road less travelled" philosophy is the.. way to travel? I think even Robert Frost himself would agree.



Fortunately for me, he's a boy, and he's not picky, so as long as it's home-cooked I'm sure we'll both be happy. As I pleasantly discovered this past weekend, he likes to cook too, and gets really enthusiastic after three or four beers. I chose to find it endearing and rather cute when my buttermilk onion rings turned into buttermilk onion ring cake after he got a little tong-happy to one-too-many rap songs (and maybe one too many beers as well!). For all I know, I could be getting a little trigger-happy myself as we haven't even discussed the V word yet.

Part of the author's question, not quoted above, was also asking for savory breakfast ideas (presumedly for the morning after). The guy who suggested you serve your significant other cold pizza for Valentine's Day breakfast makes me feel physically ill. Sure, chivalry's dead and all, but can't you at least poach your girlfriend an egg?

I can only hope my Loverboy is reading this.

the chicken dance.

Tonight for dinner I am making thyme-buttermilk fried chicken on a bed of sweet potato puree with crispy pan-fried shallots, homemade buttermilk onion rings & a celeraic and cabbage apple cider vinegar slaw.



The fried chicken is done in peanut oil, the only way to do fried chicken other than your own lard from scratch. The oil will be infused with fresh herbs (sage, thyme, rosemary) as well as a head of garlic, bay leaves, and my own touch: a bruleed sweet vidalia onion. Recipe courtesy of Tyler Florence of "Tyler's Ultimate".



The sweet potato puree recipe is my own, and easy peasy. The onion rings will be sweet vidalias as well, coated and "marinated" in buttermilk, fresh thyme & marjoram, and good ol' s+p, then also deep fried. The celeraic-cabbage apple cider slaw looks delicious in the cookbook and uses apple cider vineger, good quality grainy mustard, and some of my favourite dried herbs. Recipes courtesy of Anthony Sedlak of "The Main". I just love mixing recipes from my favourite babes of Food Network Canada; or, you know, the only two men under 35 with their own cooking shows.




This is what the end result is supposed to look like. For now, I gotta go spread the legs of my bird & de-bone that baby & brine it all day in sea salt & water & fresh herbs. I'm so excited. Last night I facebook-chatted with a classmate from my program at George Brown for an hour about the pros/cons of deep-frying in lard vs. vegetable oil, duck confit & the differant ways to prepare it, and our favourite reducing, basting, marinating and de-glazing methods. She was almost as excited as I was for me to debone my first (raw) organic, free-run chicken all on my own. Just me & my boning knife.

For all you vegetarians & meat-haters out there, sorry dudes, I just couldn't resist posting pictures. I fucking love this shit.

if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

There are few things I detest more than when a perfectly good food blogg(er) goes to waste, has a baby, and replaces their recipes for galettes, terrines, and their famous featherdrop biscuits with babies, babies, babies. Now, I can perfectly appreciate that you are overjoyed by your little bundle of joy (Hell, I hope to have a couple of them myself one day!) but I wish you'd appreciate that, for now, I don't care to watch videos of your newborn shoveling yoghurt down it's throat when all I'm looking for is a good recipe for homemade hot & sour soup. Food blogs, fashion blogs, Lindsay Lohan's Myspace blog... A quick google let me be aware that there are, yes, over five MILLION blogs for proud mamas such as yourself.

If Cory can have both a food blog & a politics blog, then you can two too. And somehow, the genuis behind The Garden Apartment finds a way to involve children into her blog without bothering me, or my gag reflex.

For a girl that's more about Top Chef than Top Model, I understand that not everyone gets as excited about a good meal as I do. I've had a couple great ones since I moved here; the lamb stew at Oddfellow's, the yukon gold frites with lemon mayonnaise at Jamie Kennedy's Wine Bar, and the thin crust at Terroni... A good meal, or even one good dish, really fills my (artichoke) heart. Thanks to my all-of-a-sudden-unavailability to work as much as I'd like to at my friendly chi-chi neighborhood kitchenware shoppe, I have been forced to cook more out of my own home & I couldn't be more happy about it. As well as being good practice for my up and coming culinary career (in one way or another), I'm sure my friends couldn't be more happy about it either. Last week, I made an assortment of panini for dinner with a friend. French brie & bartlett pear on a buttery baguette for him, balsamic marinated & roasted plum tomatoes and red peppers with pesto & herbed goat cheese on Italian sourdough for me. I served them with oven fries I made; yukon golds I tossed & baked with garlic, cayenne, grated parmesan and sunflower oil and served them with $16 Roasted Garlic Aoili from Williams-Sonoma (minus my discount).

It was delicious.

This weekend, I'm making a thyme & buttermilk brined fried chicken dinner and I couldn't be more excited, and not only because I don't have to supply the wine.

In a big city with a little kitchen, it turns my stomach to see such a good food blog go to waste. Almost as much as it turned my stomach to see your youngest with creamy white yoghurt dripping all over it's chin.