Galanga

Occasion: Dinner with Jana
Location: Galanga on W 4th between 6th and MacDougal
Edibles: I had the tofu vegetable soup and the crispy duck salad; Jana had a spicy noodle soup

Musing: A decent Thai restaurant with a very convenient location (just around the corner from the W 4th subway stop). We ended up there after fleeing the crazy weekend mob at Wilfie and Nell (slider-blocked!) and a quick pit stop at Vol de Nuit across the street for some beer and fries.

My dinner tonight: great salad, mediocre soup. The really amazing salad had crisp shards of duck (fried until they're almost like crackling), green apple, pineapple, cashews and shallots with a tart and spicy lime vinaigrette. I had to pour off some of the veritable lake of dressing but the flavors were strong and bold, just like I like it. The soup was meh, but filled the gaps.

JoJo

Occasion: Brunch with Sylvia
Location: JoJo on 64th between 3rd and Lex (jean-georges.com)
Edibles: 3-course prix fixe - butternut squash soup with trumpet mushrooms and chives, salmon with truffled mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts, and molten chocolate cake for me; Sylvia had the same, except tuna tartare for her first course

Musings: The hidden gem of Jean-Georges' empire. (I find the food at Jean-Georges' eponymous restaurant, the one just off Columbus Circle, to be too gimicky and fussy.) JoJo has a nice cozy space, elegant food, very reasonable prices, and you can always get a reservation.

I usually get the crab for my first course, but this cold winter afternoon I just couldn't pass up the butternut squash soup. It was perfect - piping hot, velvety and rich (though I barely tasted any cream), with a bit of texture from the mushroom. For the second course, I find their chicken to be a bit olive-heavy; the salmon is my go-to. They source some nice fish so you can get it cooked rare.

I believe the pure bliss of an expertly crafted molten chocolate cake needs no further elaboration.

[Note: I had gone to Carnegie Hall with Amy the night before to see him, and was stunned when Yo-Yo Ma turned up at the restaurant and sat down at the table behind us. He was very nice and gracious when I stopped him on his way out, even though he was obviously in a hurry and loath to attract attention. Luckily, I still had the playbill in my purse - which he autographed!]

Tia Pol

Occasion: Girls' night with Abby, Elizabeth, Rachel W, Mamie, Bess and Jill
Location: Tia Pol on 10th between 22nd and 23rd (tiapol.com)
Edibles: suckling pig; wine-marinated Cornish game hen; patatas bravas; lamb skewers; ham croquettes; a cheese plate; chorizo with sherry; head-on shrimp; brandade (salt cod with mashed potatoes); white asparagus with caviar; tortilla española

Musings: The one tricky thing about Tia Pol is getting in. It's tiny, and they don't take reservations except for large parties (and even then only a week in advance). Luckily, we were a large party and trooped past the crush in the front to our nicely secluded booth in the back.

It's hard to play favorites with a menu as solid acros the board as this one but, if pressed, I'd say the lamb skewers. (Tip: If you get it, be sure to grab a chunk of the bread, soaked with all the delicious meat juices.) For PA, it's the patatas bravas - the best I've had in the city. I remember one dinner, upon arriving slightly late, PA was horrified to discover that we only had one measly order on the table. She immediately demanded that we get two more.

The head-on shrimp are delicious enough to frequently tempt our vegetarian, Karen, off the wagon. Her rationale: if they weren't meant to be eaten, they wouldn't be so delicious. (HA! That's what I think of pretty much all food.) [Postscript: Sadly, these are no longer on the menu. Try the garlic shrimp instead.]

Their specials are pricier, but also stunning. They didn't have it today, but one awesome dish that appears regularly is whole brook trout, stuffed with watercress and wrapped in prosciutto. Yum. There's also a wine-stewed date dessert that's a must-have whenever it's available. Today, our suckling pig and game hen were quickly reduced to a few smears of grease. Enough said.

Tia Pol is one my true loves in the city. I could find a man as consistently wonderful as this place, I'd marry him in a red hot minute.

Cookshop

Occasion: Brunch with Amy
Location: Cookshop on 10th Ave at 20th (cookshopny.com)
Edibles: 3-egg scramble with bacon, caramelized onions, chives and crème fraîche, with a side of white cheddar grits; Amy had the chicken salad

Musings: A charming place to have brunch - if only it weren't so difficult to get to from where I live! Seriously, the trip on public buses took an hour and fifteen minutes. Major bonus points to the restaurant for still having a table for us when I finally charged in, wild-eyed.

The food arrived quickly and tasted great, just the thing to jolly me out of my transit grumpiness (and hopefully, Amy as well, with my lateness). As I've said before, I just have to order eggs at brunch and Cookshop's scramble is built to please, generously studded with fabulous, flavorful (if fattening) tidbits. It came with a side of flaky, buttery biscuits. Divine.

After all that, my only wish was that I'd had the room to finish the large bowl of grits, which were creamy and cheesy - the sort of stick-to-your-ribs hearty grub to really fuel your furnace for a cold winter's day.

[Note: Thanks to Amy for the treat - and for sharing some of her fruit of the month!]

Babbo

Occasion: Pasta-palooza with Kathy, Yining, Ben and Rebecca
Location: Babbo on Waverly at MacDougal (babbonyc.com)
Edibles: described in detail below

Musings: Babbo does a good selection of proteins, but I think their "secondi" menu pales in comparison to their superlative handmade pastas. For my money, it's got to be the pasta tasting.

I always think of Babbo as a "fancy fancy" restaurant in the ranks of Jean-Georges, Le Bernardin and Daniel, but it's really not as expensive as that. The pasta tasting is an eminently reasonable $69 for five courses of pasta, plus an amuse bouche, enough desserts to make you groan, and a plate of exquisite little petit fours after that, in case you're still conscious.

My one quibble with the format is that it's so inflexible. Why does the tasting have to be for the whole table, period, full stop? Rebecca keeps a pretty laid-back version of kosher - basically, no shellfish, no pork. I would have thought they'd be able to work around that with a minimum of fuss. Not so.

I thought I was being pretty reasonable - I understood their rules, and simply asked that they do their best in terms of substitutions and whatnot. But no, they had to beat it to death that the chef cooks what he cooks and the tasting has to be for the whole table, no exceptions. I had pretty much the same pointless conversation with the reservationist, the maître d', our waiter and the restaurant manager about how to address Rebecca's restrictions - the latter three instigated by them, in quick succession.

We managed pretty well, with Rebecca having to skip only the first pasta, but why did it have to be so laborious? I think it makes more sense to make it for a minimum of two or three, and then anyone not up for an entire tasting marathon (like Kathy's husband, who surrendered before a shot was fired) or with special dietary needs can order à la carte.

But whatever. As long as their reservation book is full to bursting, I guess we diners just have to lump it.

On to the glorious food.

Amuse bouche: Bruschetta with marinated garbanzo beans. This is where a rookie makes the first mistake. You can't dick around with this menu or it will own your ass. If you want to make it through dessert, you can't eat the amuse, and you definitely can't eat the bread. (My additional preparations included just having a cup of tea for breakfast, chewing a stick of gum in lieu of lunch, and wearing a roomy jersey dress to accomodate the inevitable expansion.)

First course: Squid-ink tagliatelle with parsnips and pancetta. A double-whammy of pork and shellfish, so Rebecca had to pass. It was delicious enough that I threw caution to the wind and had a few forkfuls off her plate.

Second course: Beet ravioli with poppy seeds. Light and yummy. The pasta is thin and silky and delicate. When cut open, the ravioli filling is a cheerful but slightly disconcerting vivid fuchsia.

Third course: Garganelli with mushrooms. The yummy continues...

Fourth course: Goose liver ravioli with balsamic reduction. (We subbed out the pappardelle bolognese, which has ground pork in the sauce.) This dish is, in my opinion, the absolute pinnacle of Babbo's pastas. You'd think the strong flavors would clash but they're perfection together. The syrupy balsamic brings out the sweetness in the goose liver, while at the same time cutting through the richness. It's inspired. The acid also reacts with the pasta to bring it back to al dente - a chewier texture than what the same dough produces in the second course.

Swoon! In my happy place, I'm eating this pasta.

Fifth course: Pyramids stuffed with shredded beef (cheek, I think). I was losing steam fast, but still had enough appetite to savor the robust and incredibly tender shreds of beef in the filling. Sigh.

Dessert: It started out with a round of spicy chocolate ganache "al diavolo" and a sliver of castagnaccio, a chestnut tart. Then, instead of bringing everyone the carrot poppyseed cake on the printed menu, they brought one slice of that cake, and four OTHER desserts. They were: chestnut cake; an ice-cream, chocolate and pistachio concoction we dubbed "The Penguin"; mascarpone cheesecake; and a cranberry tartlet. We were, of course, obliged to taste all of them in rotation.

The petit fours were the final blow. I could only manage one mini biscotti, but had them pack up the rest.

What can I say? That meal was pure joy. Kudos to my fellow diners for crossing the finish line!

Iron Chef Super Chef Battle

Original Air Date: January 3, 2010

1) Interesting contrast of styles: Créole-Italian (Lagasse/Batali) versus Tex-Mex Philippino (Flay/Comerford)
2) Love the Batali tomatillo-block in the garden! HA!! I'm always saying Bobby Flay is a hack who can't cook anything without using the following three ingredients: cornmeal, chipotle chilies, tomatillos. He, of course, uses all three in his menu for this challenge - a Flay hat-trick, if you will.
3) A scandale erupted afterwards, when it turned out the chefs hadn't used actual White House produce to make the meals. (You can totally tell by the sweet potatoes - the ones they use are much heftier than the little skinny ones they dug from the garden.) But why not? They seem to have harvested enough. Maybe they had to do a second taping?
4) I don't like the style of camerawork in Kitchen Stadium - the quick, out-of-focus zooms made me dizzy, and sometimes they zoomed in so close you couldn't even tell what food you were looking at. I also didn't like all the repetitive recapping and previewing they did. The show could easily have fit into an hour, hour and a half max.
5) Emeril's turkey roulade looked gross (especially after he bungled the deep-fry) but Batali's two dishes of sweet potato and egg yolk raviolo, and quail and lardo with pear caponata, made both me and my brother have to wipe a little drool off our chins. Batali rules!
6) Iron Chef allocates 10 points for taste; 5 for plating and 5 for originality, for a total of 20 points. So are they saying that if a dish is gorgeous and super original, that's the same as if it tastes fantastic? Not equally important in my mind at all! I think it should be more like 14 for taste, 3 for plating and 3 for originality.

Brick Lane

Occasion: Dinner with Ben
Location: Brick Lane on E 6th between 1st and 2nd Ave (bricklanecurryhouse.com)
Edibles: aloo gobi (a potato and cauliflower dish); chicken tikka masala; tandoori prawns

Musings: I used to come here all the time with Karen, Indian being a cuisine that's both easy to share and accomodating to vegetarians. I like the atmosphere of Brick Lane - warmly lit, with a muted gaudiness. It's location on Curry Row means it's literally surrounded by direct competitors, but it always does brisk business.

Our food was yummy, as always. A smidge spicier than I usually like, but all the more excuse for a second Kingfisher. I took the few spoonfuls of leftovers home, and the curry developed even more muscle overnight (as it tends to do). Those pungent, savory spoonfuls, plus a generous bowl of rice, stretched far enough for another meal.

In an unexpected and wonderful surprise, I was also presented with a bottle of cassis-flavored apple cider vinegar - all the way from France! Thanks, Ben!

[Note: Brick Lane is also home to famous Phaal Challenge. It involves the (supposedly) spiciest curry in NYC. Follow the link to see a picture of the chef wearing a gas mask while cooking it, no joke. If you finish it, you get a certificate of achievement, your picture on the restaurant's website (the "P'hall of Fame" - hee!) and a free beer to douse the flames.]

Le Creuset

As an avid soup-maker, I LOVE my three Le Creuset Dutch ovens. I believe they're popular with the pros too - every chef on Food Network seems to have a few. Some thoughts below, if you happen to have some spare shelf space in your kitchen.

Pro: They're durable and well-made enough that you can probably leave them to your kids.

Con: They're not cheap.

Pro: They're enameled cast iron: the heavy cast iron regulates the heat, and the enamel makes its interior cooking surface non-reactive. These pots are very versatile - you can boil, stew, roast, deep-fry, and even bake in them. I mostly use them for soup, but my littlest one also came in handy during my holiday dulce de leche spree.

Con: They're really heavy, even when empty. It's a bit of a wrestle to wash them, and you have to be careful not to chip the enamel.

Pro: The bright colors just make me happy. (I have a large blue one, a medium green one, and a little yellow one.)

Mmmm... beef and vegetable soup with lentils

A good casual recipe for when you feel like flinging some things in a pot and letting them simmer away while you read a good book on the couch. As long as you have the three ingredients in the title in reasonable proportions, it's hard to go wrong.

Beef and Vegetable Soup with Lentils
(based on Giada's recipe)

1 lb of stewing beef (don't bother using expensive cuts of meat - as with any wet cooking method, even economical cuts will come out very tender)
1 large onion, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
3 ribs of celery, chopped
a 32 oz. carton of beef stock (nobody makes their own, not even Ina)
water
2 tomatoes, chopped (or 1 can of chopped tomatoes, with juice)
1/2 cup dried lentils, rinsed, with stones and other debris picked out
salt and pepper

Optional seasonings: oregano; rosemary; bay; garlic; fresh parsley; Worcestershire sauce; soy sauce; tomato paste; a glug of red wine or Guinness (I wouldn't use all of them at the same time, but play with it until it tastes good to you.)

Brown the beef in some oil. Remove the beef to a dish and throw the onion, carrots and celery into the pot; sauté the vegetables a bit. Return the beef to the pot, along with any meat juices that have collected in the dish. Plonk in the tomatoes and pour in the beef stock. Top up with enough water to make it look like a soup (enough to cover the vegetables and beef by an inch or two, at least).

When it comes to a boil, taste before you start seasoning, as different brands of beef stock contain wildly different levels of salt. Start playing with the herbs and whatnot until you're satisfied. Err on the side of caution - the flavors do deepen as it cooks. Reduce to a simmer and let it be, for 30 min to 1 hour.

Some 20 min before you intend to eat, put in the lentils. If you stir through and can barely see the lentils, check the impulse to add a lot more. Don't worry - they expand.  The soup is done when the lentils are tender. I check the seasoning one last time before serving.

Variations: You can sub out the lentils for cannellini beans, pastina, etc.

Mmmm... apple crisp

My birthday present for Amy.

This is a pretty forgiving recipe - you can tinker with it quite a lot and still have a delicious product! It will also fill your home with marvelous smells. It looks complicated written out, but it really didn't take me very long to throw together.

Apple Crisp

(based on Ina's recipe; her product on the right)

Filling:

4 lbs of apples, approx. 7-10 (Ina suggests McIntosh or Macoun but I use Granny Smith)
zest of 1 orange
zest of 1 lemon
2 tbsp orange juice
2 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp flour
½ cup granulated sugar
1 tsp cinnamon (I consider this optional, since I hate cinnamon.)
1 tsp ground nutmeg (I grated from a whole nutmeg - much more flavor. Whole nutmegs last forever so they're a good pantry item.)

Topping:
1 cup flour
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup light brown sugar, packed
½ tsp kosher salt
1 cup oatmeal (the old-fashioned kind, NOT the quick cook)
1 stick of butter, cold, diced

Preheat the oven to 350°.

Peel, core, and cut the apples into large chunks. Combine the apples with the rest of the filling ingredients - the zests, juices, (3 tbsp) flour, sugar and spices. Pour into a large baking dish. If the apples come close to the top of the dish, bake with the dish on a cookie sheet so you don't have to clean your oven of any juices that bubble out!

Topping: Combine the (1 cup) flour, sugars, salt and oatmeal. Either 1) cut in the cold butter with a pastry cutter if you have it, or a knife and fork if you don't or 2) mix on low speed in an electric mixer with the paddle attachment. The butter should be the size of peas. Scatter evenly over the apples.

Bake for 1 hour until the top is brown and the juices are bubbling around the edges. Serve warm. (I like room temp leftovers straight out of the baking dish too.) Good with ice-cream.

Variations: I made myself a tag-along one with some frozen peaches and leftover cranberries from Thanksgiving (resilient little suckers!) mixed in with the apples. Would also be good with half apples / half pears, with raspberries, blueberries, etc.

Salt

by Mark Kurlansky

My review: 3/5 stars

Finally finished! The main problem I had with this book was that it was at the same time too interesting to do a speed skim, yet too slow and meandering for me to want to pick it up for fun reading.

There are lots of great novelty recipes, some hundreds of years old, for things like making salt beef or pickles by the barrel. I wasn't as interested in economic, legal, anthropological or engineering tidbits. Kurlansky obviously did a lot of research - the bibliography is 13 pages long - but did all of it need to go in the book? The sheer breadth of time and subject matter covered, plus the lack organizing principles or a central thesis, made this a hard book to stay focused on.

Thanks to Yining for the (very extended) loan!

"I bought the rock in Spanish Catalonia, in the rundown hillside mining town of Cardona. An irregular pink trapezoid with elongated, curved indentations etched on its surface by raindrops, it had an odd translucence and appeared to be a cross beween rose quartz and soap. The resemblance to soap came from the fact that it dissolved in water and its edges were worn smooth liked a used soap bar.

I paid too much for it - nearly fifteen dollars. But it was, after all, despite a rosy blush of magnesium, almost pure salt, a piece of the famous salt mountain of Cardona. The various families that had occupied the castle atop the next mountain had garnered centures of wealth from such rock.

I took it home and kept it on a windowsill. One day it got rained on, and white salt crystals started appearing on the pink. My rock was starting to look like salt, which would ruin its mystique. So I rinsed off the crystals with water. Then I spent fifteen minutes carefully patting the rock dry. By the next day it was sitting in a puddle of brine that had leached out of the rock. The sun hit the puddle of clear water. After a few hours, square white crystals began to appear in the puddle. Solar evaporation was turning brine into salt crystals.

For a while it seemed I had a magical stone that would perpetually produce brine puddles. Yet the rock never seemed to get smaller. Sometimes in dry weather it would appear to completely dry out, but on a humid day, a puddle would again appear under it. I decided I could dry out the rock by baking it in a small toaster oven. Within a half hour white stalactities were drooping from the toaster grill. I left the rock on a steel radiator cover, but the brine threatened to corrode the metal. So I transferred it to a small copper tray. A green crust formed on the bottom, and when I rubbed off the discoloration, I found the copper had been polished.

My rock lived by its own rules. When friends stopped by, I told them the rock was salt, and they would delicately lick a corner and verify that it tasted just like salt.

Those who think a fascination with salt is a bizarre obsession have simply never owned a rock like this."

A New Year

It's a whole new year, y'all.

Along with my wishes for your general health and happiness, I hope 2010 is full of all the delights the culinary world has to offer. Full fat milk. Real butter. Bacon, on or in pretty much anything. Potatoes cooked in duck fat. Caviar. Lobster. Steak. Fruit at the peak of its ripeness. Parmigiano-Reggiano. Chocolate chip cookies. Fresh, crisp vegetables in every color of the rainbow. New restaurants. New world cuisines. New recipes. Old favorites. Food cooked with enthusiasm, imagination and love.

And if you're going to sin... sin magnificently!

Han Ju

Occasion: Impromptu high school reunion (Fran and Dean, Elgent and Amy, Tony, Warren, Tania, Jason, Alfred, Bib, Marianne, and non-high school friends Sahoko and Doug and their little girl, Hiona)
Location: Han Ju Tofu Hot Pot on Capstan Way in Richmond
Edibles: Korean bbq beef on rice, with various sides piled on top

Musings: Not much to say about the food. It's cheap and decent enough. Note that it looks pretty substantial in the picture but the dish isn't very deep; more than one guy ordered a second dinner after mowing through his first.

The company was the main attraction. Most of these people I only get to see once every couple of years, if that. After dinner, we went to a Tim Horton's and spent hours reminiscing and poring over old yearbooks. As the sunscreen speech goes, "Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young."

Le Crocodile

Occasion: Celebratory dinner with the family, for my upcoming birthday and my brother's stellar LSAT score (congrats, kid!)
Location: Le Crocodile on Burrard at Smithe (lecrocodilerestaurant.com)
Edibles: I had three apps for my meal - foie gras terrine with toast points, a crabcake, and salmon three ways ("west coast" style, smoked, tartare), with tiramisu and a latte to finish; my sister had the halibut with beurre blanc sauce and linguine (no app); my brother started with the steak tartare and had the same halibut main; my mom started with the salmon trio, followed by escargots, followed by a prawn and scallop dish with angelhair pasta; my dad had half a dozen raw Kusshi oysters and a duck main course

Musings: The best French restaurant I know in Vancouver. The interior is small and intimate, with rich but understated colors. The waitstaff tends to be comprised of the career type; they are uniformly calm and capable. The food is high quality and incredibly consistent. And yet... it's rare that I have a completely satisfying experience here (which I demand at this price point).

For example, my dad still hasn't forgiven them the time they charged him twice the corkage fee quoted over the phone. That night, he gritted his teeth and shelled out $80 for the two bottles we brought, prevented from arguing with the manager by the presence of guests. I think my dad needs to get over it, but I also think that if a restaurant employee tell a customer something by mistake over the phone, the restaurant should honor the original statement, if only as a one-time exception.

For tonight, I e-mailed for a reservation at 7:00. They returned with a confirmation for 6:30. When we walked into the restaurant, it was more than half empty. If so, why not just give people the reservation they want? Le Crocodile does good business, but I doubt they turn every single table on a weeknight.

I ordered a cocktail, and my martini filled half the glass, no exaggeration. For looks alone, either mix a more generous drink or use a smaller glass. It also tasted terrible.

My mood definitely improved when the food started arriving. The foie terrine and crabcake are two old favorites, and they tasted as good as the first time I had them years ago. (The terrine really should be shared; it's a huge slab too rich for one person to finish, even by my greedy standards.) I also enjoyed my salmon trio, though I found the west coast one to be too sweet. I had a nibble of my brother's boldly seasoned tartare and one of my mom's buttery, garlicky escargots - both yummy.

The food at Le Crocodile is plated old-school; it's all very precise, ornate, sauced and garnished up the wazoo. The culmination was my dessert - a tiramisu painstakingly built in a chocolate demitasse cup, complete with tuile spoon.

It's nice for a special occasion but, for me, Le Crocodile just misses the mark for being a true top-flight restaurant.

St. Germain Bakery

Location: Oakridge Shopping Centre in Vancouver, among others

Best loaf of bread in the city.

I remember when there was only one out-of-the-way location (on Cambie, I think) and we would go especially for the bread. The three of us kids would eat half the thing in the car, ripping chunks off the fragrant, freshly-baked, sometimes still hot loaf. My mom would grumble about crumbs, but then even she would succumb and ask for a corner.

You now have to special-order a full loaf of their unsliced white bread, a weighty, ponderous column almost the length of your arm. (You can get smaller portions of pre-sliced bread any time.) It has a silky-fine crumb and is chewy and substantial in the mouth, yet somehow avoids being dense. When sliced thickly, toasted and slathered with butter, it's a superb breakfast. Or afternoon snack. Or a bite for whenever you happen to wander through the kitchen.

(They also do good repertoire of Chinese cakes and pastries.)

Tapastree [closed]

Occasion: Dinner with high school buds Tania, Warren, Bib and Alfred
Location: Tapastree on Robson off Denman (tapastree.ca)
Edibles: buttermilk fried chicken with aioli; flatiron steak with gorgonzola sauce; chicken livers with tomatoes, brandy and black pepper; duck confit with cranberry compote; lamb chops; tomato bocconcini avocado salad; grilled asparagus; ahi tuna with ponzu and Chinese mustard; wild mushrooms with goat cheese on toast; sticky toffee pudding; crème brûlée

Musings: I've been coming here for ages. Ages. So long, in fact, that most of my Vancouver friends refer to it as "my" tapas place. (It was originally Sylvia's, and her ex Ollie's before her, but I've been the most devoted over the years.) Sadly, many of the dishes I loved best are no longer on the menu - I'm still mourning the loss of those amazing fried oysters - but the new offerings are wonderful too.

I think we ordered all of their meat dishes. My favorite was probably the fried chicken, with the steak and lamb running a close race for second.

The veggie dishes aren't slouches, though. The wild mushroom dish is a perennial favorite, and though I was outvoted on the Japanese eggplant this particular dinner, I usually get that as well. The asparagus we did order was decent, but I thought it was a tad overpriced at $9.

A shocking revelation did take place at the end of the meal, when the waitress came to take our dessert orders. It happened almost by accident. In the course of ordering our fancy coffees, we were (or at least I was) aghast to discover that the kitchen does not stock full fat milk!! Just 2%!!

Horrors.

Okay. First, how can you claim to offer a decent after-dinner coffee without full fat milk? Second - and more chilling - how do you make your crème brûlée?!?! (Which, despite its name, contains no cream. The custard is made with milk.) I understand not getting it through your bulk supplier but there's a Safeway just across the street - why not keep a few litres in the walk-in?

I calmed down a little after a generous dose of sticky toffee pudding. A little.

Dairy scandal aside, our varied and delicious meal, bottle of white, dessert, tip and tax came out to $45 a person. Karen and Josie, I'm looking forward to taking you guys here in February! I may bring my own milk.

Adonia

Occasion: Tea with Jess (who I had possibly not seen since we graduated from high school)
Location: Adonia Tea House on W 41st Ave in Vancouver (adoniatea.com)
Edibles: I had the lobster bisque and peach tea; Jess had the carrot soup and English breakfast tea; we split a BLT to fill in the gaps

Musings: Charming, fussy and cosy, like the living room of a storybook English grandmother. I do slightly prefer the yuppie farmhouse vibe of Secret Garden Tea, but when Secret Garden told us it'd be 45 min. for a seat, we scooted around the corner and down the block to Adonia, where we were seated immediately.

My peach tea was thick and pulpy, more like a fruit pureé than a tea, but its sweet summery brightness was more than welcome on that chilly, grey Vancouver afternoon. My mom, knowing about my trials and tribulations with lobster stock, mentioned that Adonia had a good bisque, and that she might be able to get me the recipe if I liked it. (The owner is one of my many unofficial "aunties.") I did like it. It was flavorful and savory but not too boozy, as bisques can often be. I'll have to get my mom on that recipe's trail, pronto.

It was wonderful to catch up, Jess - let's not wait 10 years for the next one, eh?

Sun Sui Wah

Occasion: Dim sum with the family
Location: Sun Sui Wah on No. 3 Road in Richmond (sunsuiwah.com) [Note: another location in Vancouver proper]
Edibles: har gao; shu mai; fish congee; shrimp fun; pan-fried daikon cake; leaf tripe; spring rolls; rice with chicken and Chinese sausage; Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce; tapioca pudding; mango pudding; egg tarts (you eat with my mom, you leave the table groaning in pain)

Musings: My go-to dim sum place in Vancouver. They were one of the last restaurants in Vancouver to still have the little old ladies pushing the carts around; they've recently gone over to the dark side, a.k.a. the order form.

Sun Sui Wah's food is solid across the board, from the gringo favorites like shu mai to more obscure animal extremities and organs, should you feel more adventurous. The chicken rice, in particular, is not to be missed.

Mmmm... Christmas Dinner

Occasion: Christmas Eve dinner at home with my family
Edibles: prosciutto butter roast turkey; gravy; classic mashed potatoes; brussels sprouts with bacon; homemade cranberry sauce; candied yams

My sister campaigned hard this year for turkey at Christmas. She argued - quite persuasively - that Christmas Day just wasn't the same without my mom's leftover turkey mi fun. So we had ham for Thanksgiving and saved this menu until now:

Prosciutto Butter Roast Turkey
(based on Martha's Turkey 101)

We do a dry rub of salt, pepper, and seasoning spice (the scary orangey spice mix they sell at the grocery store) the day before. Day of, I stuff prosciutto butter (my own invention - slices of prosciutto chopped up and mashed into a stick of softened butter) under the skin. The butter keeps the white meat really moist, while the prosciutto flavors the meat and results in a very attractive thin layer of russet under the skin when you slice into it.

Just follow Martha's Turkey 101 for roasting temperatures and timing, the basting liquid, and the cheesecloth trick. [Slight divergences from Martha: My stuffing requires the giblets and my mom likes the neck (which we roast in the pan along with the turkey), so we use commercial chicken stock for the basting liquid. I also shortcut the gravy by making a packet of the powdered stuff and adding some pan drippings.]

When carving, I use Ina's method of removing an entire breast, then slicing it on a cutting board so that each piece gets some of the skin.

I confess, I bungled the turkey this year. Alton convinced me that stuffing is evil, so this year I decided to put some aromatics (a clove of garlic, a quartered onion, wedges of orange) in the cavity and bake the "stuffing" in a dish on the side.

Problem is, when I make actual stuffing, I take the turkey out of the fridge in the morning and it comes to room temperature while I make the stuffing and wait for it to cool. This time, I didn't remember to take the turkey out of the fridge until the late afternoon, and so didn't have time to let the chill dissipate before we had to stick it in the oven. Big mistake. We cooked the turkey the same amount of time we always do, and the dark meat was still half-raw when we carved into it. (I know, I know, I need to get a meat thermometer.)

Luckily, the white meat was fully cooked so we had that for dinner and stuck the rest of the turkey back in the oven. (It took another hour and a half to cook all the way through. What a difference a few degrees make!)

I also forgot to make the stuffing. Sigh. Good thing we didn't have guests.

Mashed Potatoes

Just like my beurre noisette mashed potatoes, except you just use regular butter.

Brussels Sprouts with Bacon

Trim and clean brussels sprouts; halve any large ones. Chop up some bacon. In a pan, cook the bacon until the fat is rendered and the bacon bits are crispy. Remove the bacon but leave the fat. Sauté the brussels sprouts in the bacon fat for a few minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Splash in a little chicken stock. Cover and steam for about 5 min, until the brussels sprouts are cooked through but still have some bite to them. Sprinkle with the bacon bits before serving.

Cranberry Sauce
(based on Ina's recipe)

1 bag of fresh cranberries
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and chopped
1¼ cups sugar
1 lemon, juice and zest
a squirt of honey
a splash of dessert wine or white wine

Wash the cranberries and discard any that feel soft and pulpy. Cook in a saucepan for about 20 min with all the other ingredients. It will look fairly runny in the pan, but the pectin in the apple will help it set up as it cools. If the cranberry skins really bother you, you can strain the sauce through a china cap. (I find that the sauce is too thick to strain well, and you will lose some volume.)

Cranberry sauce is astoundingly easy to make, and tastes leagues better than the stuff from a can. Once you taste this, you'll never go back.

Variations: To jazz it up, you can add a ½ cup of chopped walnuts and/or raisins. To give is some muscle, use grappa instead of wine.

Candied Yams

At our house, we have candied yams for dessert. This dish and my stuffing are based on recipes from my Great-aunt Angela. They're a little white trash sounding, even though my great-aunt is Chinese and firmly white collar. Not really sure of the story behind it.

yams, halved and sliced into ½-inch slices
butter
mini marshmallows

Butter a baking dish and dump the sliced yams in. Dot generously with butter and throw in about a handful of marshmallows per yam. Cover with foil and bake at 375° for 30 to 45 min, until the yams are soft and falling apart. You might give it a bit of a stir in the middle to make sure everything is coated in the syrup.

This recipe will work for any number of yams, depending on how many people you're serving. Just increase the amounts of butter and marshmallows accordingly. Increase cooking time as well if the yams get more than about three layers deep in your baking dish (it's pretty hard to overcook this dish, so I wouldn't stress out about it).

Penelope

Occasion: Combined review - brunch with my Penn girls, Kathy, Yining and Huijin (in town from Hong Kong) on 12/12, and brunch with Sylvia a week later (12/19)
Location: Penelope on Lex at 30th (penelopenyc.com)
Edibles: 12/12 - omelet for me; pumpkin waffles with dried cranberries and pecans for Huijin; egg sandwich with pesto for Kathy; a Benedict-eque egg dish with smoked salmon for Yining; 12/19 - we shared a spinach and cheese omelet and the Nutella French toast

Musings: Penelope is the sort of charming little place you'd find in abundance on the westside. Given that it's located in the dead zone of midtown east, you can imagine the locals are nuts about it. Be prepared to wait an hour for a table at brunch.

The food is worth the wait, though. I'm basically incapable of going to brunch and not ordering eggs. In that sense, Penelope's menu works against me. Their savory brunch options are solid, but it's their sweet dishes that are truly outstanding. The waffles were great on 12/12 and the Nutella French toast was the best dish I tasted, period. They also make good coffee and are diligent about refilling your cup.

If you want to avoid the crowds, Penelope's is also a good place for a regular weekday lunch or dinner.