Sorry I’m a little behind on my dinner updates – these 4:30 am wake-up calls (I’m taking over traffic duties on the Eyeopener this week) are seriously interfering with my late-night posting schedule. I might have squeezed this in last night if upon arriving home from one of the most wonderful, sleep-inducing (bread-warm soup-red meat-cheesy potatoes-red wine-bread pudding) meals I’ve had in a long time I did not hop straight into bed with my laptop, but rather went straight out again, to a board meeting at which we reviewed budgets and grant proposals. (How I stayed awake through that I have no idea. Also-the first thing another meeting-goer said to me when I walked in the door was: “it’s a good thing you’re on radio, because you look awful!”) When I got home, my eyes slamming shut, it was all I could do to upload the photos.
But look at them! Look at this soup! This is (was) Thomsons’Hotchkiss Farms smoked heirloom tomato puree with basil foam (a dollop of crème fraîche, I think, with slivered basil). It tasted exactly as it looks. Smoky; an essence of the very best-quality tomatoes and cream.
I love to see corporate entities participating in events like Earth Hour. So if I can show my support by going for a three-course meal made from ingredients sourced within a 150 mile radius, it’s the very least I can do. At Thomsons, they’re celebrating Earth Hour all week long with a special menu featuring ingredients sourced from within 150 miles of the hotel. (These ingredients and others can be found on their menu year-round; they are regular suppliers, all drawn together to create a single meal for this occasion.)
And to be perfectly honest, Thomsons Restaurant, next to Catch in the lobby of the Hyatt downtown, has been off my radar for awhile. I’m not sure why – it’s just one of those restaurants that has been around so long I hardly notice it anymore. I’m so glad we’ve been reunited.
It’s a beautiful old sandstone building – the Thomsons block, constructed in 1893 by brothers Melville and James Thomson, was originally a bookstore and has since housed clothing stores, furniture stores, hardware stores and bakeries. I love the stone parapet- and if you look close, there are wild rose flower details in the sandstone.
And now – a restaurant. Where they bake their own bread! Who knew? Wonderfully chewy with a nice crust, savoury but studded with raisins. Right directly up my alley.
And that was ahead of the meal; at Thomsons, they’re celebrating Earth Hour all week long with a special menu featuring ingredients sourced from within 150 miles of the hotel. It’s a set menu, and the best value I’ve seen in a long time – a three course meal; a full-sized, substantial one, made with lovely organic, local ingredients, for $35. Seriously – if you want to go out for a nice, schwanky (without being stuffy) dinner affordably, you can’t beat this – it’s the best deal I’ve seen in ages. (Normally just an entree like this would go for $35-or more.) The room is beautiful, overlooking Stephen Avenue or set back from it, with old jazz massaging your ears in the background – Sammy Davis Jr. and Ella Fitzgerald – a wonderfully relaxing change from the usual generic dance beat that tends to make me a little squirrely. The service was super – it reminded me what good service is. Our server, Benjamin, described each dish with groovy enthusiasm in a rich, melt-in-his-mouth Jamaican accent-I really need to get myself a recorder and upload some audio and video here one of these days.
And seriously – look at this meal. Mike almost cried:
It’s a short rib from Spring Creek Ranch, braised in Wild Rose Brewery WRed Wheat Ale for six hours. Underneath, Sylvan Star smoked gouda gratin and multi-hued Hotchkiss Farm carrots. Honestly? It was perfection in a bowl. A fantastic balance of beef, jus, cream, cheese, potatoes and carrots. It was like going home and being fed, if your mom was some fantastically talented chef. Had I been born rich (or married into it) I would have gone upstairs, got myself a room and curled up in a nice bed on clean (popcorn fragments and Buzz Lightyear-free) sheets and fell asleep in a state of pure bliss.
Wait! I almost forgot dessert. The photo doesn’t do it justice – it was getting dark, and that little triangle of homemade Chinook buckwheat honey ice cream was MELTING.
You can’t blame it, really – it was set atop warm bread pudding already draped in warm custard sauce, nestled into a warmed cast iron skillet. But let me tell you, that ice cream was bliss. BLISS. As you may know, I am an ice cream fanatic. I can’t keep it in the house – literally I can’t keep it because I eat it all and it has no chance to stick around. I have no idea how they made this stuff so creamy – I mean, it was like the very best ultra-creamy ice cream times a thousand. And with a honey cast to the flavour, rather than the usual vanilla. Bliss. I am as I type plotting ways to get some more. I may go back for another meal just to get dessert. (Not that the route there would be so terrible either.)
So for Earth Hour this weekend, the Hyatt will be shutting down all non-essential power throughout the hotel during those 60 minutes. This includes exterior lighting, sales, catering, marketing and executive offices, the Sandstone Lounge, Thomsons Restaurant and Catch Restaurant & Oyster Bar (all will be illuminated by candles), Stillwater Spa, the Imperial Ballroom, the Regency Club and parts of the lobby; any energy they do use will be Bullfrog Power. Good on you, guys.
Earth Hour Menu – Monday March 22 to Saturday March 27
(On Saturday March 27, it will be served in a truly earth friendly atmosphere as they offer dinner service by candlelight.)
Appetizer
Hotchkiss Farms heirloom tomato and organic greens salad with High Wood Crossing cold pressed canola oil and malt vinegar
OR
Hotchkiss Farms smoked heirloom tomato puree basil foam
Main Course
Wild Rose Brewery WRed Wheat Ale braised Spring Creek short rib, Sylvan Star smoked gouda gratin and Hotchkiss Farm carrots
Dessert
Home made Saskatoon bread pudding with homemade Chinook farms buckwheat honey ice cream
To book a reservation at Thomsons to enjoy the Earth Hour menu, email dining@thomsonsrestaurant.com or call 403-537-4449
I happened upon it at Blush Lane market a couple weekends ago as we killed time waiting for Emily’s soccer scrimmage to be over. I ran into Mando, the owner, (I knew so because she looked exactly like she does on the label) at the checkout, handing out sample cups. I was an easy sell. Normally, I don’t buy soup. I mean, it’s soup. It’s easy to make. But like everything else, there’s a certain deliciousness and mystique to those someone makes for you.
I had forgotten I had it, and it may have possibly saved my life, I think.
Perusing her website now, I see she delivers for free (or next to), depending on where you live in the city. (Presuming you live in Calgary, that is. If you don’t-sorry, don’t mean to tease you. But you could look at the ingredient list and wing it, couldn’t you?)
My Dad came for Sunday dinner (see? I’m totally keeping it up!) tonight, and carrot cake is his favourite. They’re leaving town soon, and then we are, and so we’ll be keeping in touch via Skype for the next few weeks. Baking doesn’t translate so well via Skype.
Dinner itself: meatloaf, made with this recipe in order to use up a large block of ground beef excavated from the deep freeze (I’m still on that mission) and a whizzed-up cheese bun (for breadcrumbs) – I tucked a couple sweet potatoes in the oven alongside the meatloaf as it baked, and mashed them with a bit of orange juice concentrate. My Mom brought mashed potatoes too, and salad.
This is the carrot cake recipe I’ve been making for years. I can hardly believe it hasn’t shown up here yet. The great thing about carrot cakes (besides their deliciousness) is that they can be made with other root vegetables as well as or instead of carrots – grated sweet potatoes or beets, although my Dad can detect the merest iota of beet in anything – like the princess and the pea. So today I stuck with carrots. The glaze: icing sugar and lemon juice, stirred with a fork and drizzled overtop.
Also, I needed an excuse to post this:
Most carrot cakes contain a lot of oil – fortunately canola oil is almost all healthy mono and polyunsaturated fats, the kind we want to include in our diets, as well as omega 3s, which it seems everyone is trying to get more of. You could use a mild (not extra-virgin) olive oil instead, if you like. And keep in mind this does make a pretty large cake. If you like, use more applesauce – 1 1/2 cups – and only 1/2 cup oil… but this is already trimmed from the original, which called for 1 1/2 cups of oil. You could also try pumpkin puree in place of the applesauce, which is far more nutrient dense and goes well with grated carrots, beets and sweet potatoes. This batter could also be baked as cupcakes/muffins (I’d cut back on the sugar a bit – by half, even).
My Dad’s Carrot Cake
3 cups all-purpose flour (you could easily get away with making some of this whole wheat)
2 cups sugar (I usually use half white, half brown)
1 Tbsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
1 cup canola oil
4 large eggs
1 Tbsp. grated fresh or 1 tsp. dried ginger
1 Tbsp. vanilla
2 packed cups coarsely grated carrots, beets, sweet potatoes or a combination (about 3 carrots)
1 cup applesauce (sweetened or unsweetened)
1 cup chopped walnuts, pecans, raisins, or dried cranberries, or a combination of dried fruit and nuts
Preheat the oven to 325°F. Spray a Bundt pan or two 9″ round cake pans with nonstick spray.
In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In a smaller bowl, stir together the oil, eggs, ginger and vanilla. Add the oil mixture, grated carrots and applesauce to the dry ingredients and stir by hand until almost combined. Add the nuts and dried fruit and stir just until the batter is blended.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan(s). Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes for a Bundt cake, or for 40-45 minutes for layer cakes, until the tops are cracked and springy to the touch and the edges are pulling away from the sides of the pan. Cool the cake(s) in the pan for 10-15 minutes, then loosen the edge with a knife, and invert onto a wire rack to cool completely. If you decide to frost the cake, make sure it is completely cool first, or the frosting will melt and slide down the sides. Makes 1 cake, serving 16.
Sorry, I’ll fess up right off the bat that I don’t have an actual recipe for this one. But I’ll tell you where you can pick some up – for $1.90. That’s right. They’re a little smaller than a standard 8″x4″ loaf – about the size of two large muffins. A steal for under two dollars. I imagine the leftovers will make some mighty fine French toast in the morning.
We went park hopping today. I had both boys and sorely needed to be exposed to actual sunlight. What we typically do when packing impromptu picnics is not make sandwiches or coleslaw or potato salad, but walk through the kitchen with our picnic bag (made of a recycled nylon rice bag) and toss whatever we find that’s transportable into it. After I had tucked in apples, cheese buns, water and pink popcorn (made for an upcoming Easter story) I noticed W had been helping, by adding a ziploc baggie of spaghetti. Which is, of course, ideal picnic fare, is it not?
It turned out to be, as both devoured it by hand at the picnic table after an hour or so of running and climbing, downing each piece with their heads tilted back, like baby birds feeding themselves worms.
After three parks and much tree climbing and stick collecting came the sudden realization that we hadn’t in fact packed enough for all of us (and Mike and I weren’t in the mood for pasta) so we detoured to Logos Cakehouse, which is immediately inside the back door of that red brick Asian mall on the corner of Centre St and 16th Avenue in the north. You park in the back (there’s a lot) and walk in, grab a tray and some tongs, and choose from rows of plexiglass display boxes filled with all things doughy – sweets like sugar donuts, jelly rolls and pineapple buns and savouries like green onion buns and buns topped with dried pork; along the side, ovens are stacked with warm savouries like pork buns, curried chicken buns and round, glossy buns with thin hot dogs poking out each end (which the boys adore) to which you help yourself. An ideal destination if you happen to be running a marathon and need to carb load. All but the coconut cake were $1.10.
This box – and it’s a full-sized cake box – came to $8.50.
We bought two of the aforementioned hot dog buns, two pork-filled buns, a garlic, ham & cheese bun (below), raisin twist and coconut cake. We didn’t eat it all.
And then I went to Seedy Saturday and attempted to absorb some of the gardening knowledge in the room through osmosis – I feel more Urban Homesteader-ish by virtue of having spent three hours there, helping to man the Slow Food booth. I came home with seeds and tomato plants and got all jazzed about my garden again, as if I might actually not kill most of it this year. It’s important to have achievable goals.
My cold had me pummelled by the time that was packed up and done, and I spent the rest of the evening in bed (!) playing with W and watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. WHY is it the moms always die in kids’ movies?
I hate to report this, but I’m a little burnt out. Too many projects, too many deadlines, not enough bed time, and time spent in bed does not come with restful sleep these days. It’s all good stuff, of course – exciting projects, new initiatives, new boards to sit on – I’m just not doing a great job of keeping on top of it all, and I’m dropping balls all over the place. People keep saying to me, I don’t know how you do it! My secret: I don’t. My house looks like someone picked it up and shook it. On Wednesday a head cold moved in and set up camp, unpacking its cotton and phlegm into my head, nose and ears just in time for a triple-stint on the radio: I covered traffic for the Homestretch yesterday, and did a split shift with both the Eyeopener (5:30 am start) and Homestretch (6 pm finish) today. Every time I instructed listeners to report a traffic incident by dialing 403-521-1010, it came out “521-Ted Ted“. I’ve gone through enough Kleenex to buff a raw, red patch between my upper lip and nose, much like I had when I was six.
We ate Chinese food at my mom’s earlier in the week, and last night Mike made spaghetti, and tonight my sister made chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Both soup and (more importantly) Shiraz were upended on my lap courtesy of one four year old. It’s a good thing he’s cute.
Would it be tacky to incorporate regifting into Free Stuff Fridays? Because Mike went to great lengths to find Julie Powell’s new book Cleaving for me, it was the only copy the bookstore had, even, and it would be a shame to read it once and shelve it. Perhaps it just seems like a good idea because I’ve been up since 4:30 am?
Warning: her new book is not the same flavour as Julie & Julia, as you may have heard. There’s plenty of butchery, but also other nasty bits. I’ll just leave it at that. But if you’d still like a copy, you know the drill: just let us all know what was for dinner last night. I’ll draw a number on Tuesday.
