Archive for the 'leftovers' Category
I didn’t cook today. And that’s what we had for lunch.
We spent a long, fantastic day on board the Rocky Mountaineer from Calgary to Kamloops, and tomorrow to Vancouver. Although we’ve made this drive through the mountains a few times yearly for almost as long as we can remember, it’s great to get a new perspective of the Rockies, away from the highway, without the distractions of driving. It’s also pretty rad to be able to drive directly through a mountain, in a tunnel just slightly larger than the train itself, out on the vestibule (everybody said that word a lot today) – the little platform you can go stand on between cars.
We hopped on board in Calgary at the base of the tower – early – check in time was 5:30-6. By 7:30 we were in the dining car, eating warm croissants, fruit plates and eggs Benedict with Montreal smoked meat and tarragon Hollandaise.
The dining car was exactly what I expected it to be – quaint booths with pressed white tablecloths and napkins and silverware. We should all have been in black and white, impeccably dressed, with fancy hats with hat pins and white gloves.
I had expected to ride in a regular sort of train car, but we were up top, under wraparound windows that encased us all as if we were in a greenhouse. They were tinted on top to prevent glare, but the view was spectacular, with barely a cloud in the sky.
It was a relaxed ride to Banff, where we picked up another 400 passengers and had a toast – with orange juice and sparkling peach juice – en masse to cheers the beginning of our trip.
Adam, our handlebarmoustached tour guide of sorts (who was so knowledgable about everything from trains to glacial ice that I started calling him Google) gave play by plays of the interesting peaks we passed, and about rivers and wildlife and answered technical questions from train buffs, and passengers were encouraged to call out if they witnessed wildlife out the window.
We wandered through the spiral tunnels into Yoho (translation: “awesome”) and Kicking Horse Canyon – spectacular from outside and in our seets. (Outside, between the cars, was a great vantage point for the spiral tunnels.) It’s a sightseeing train, not a high-speed train, so we went 30-80 k – for much of the way – it seemed you could jump off and run alongside, almost. (Well not me, personally.)
We passed the old original wood train station in Lake Louise! Where they filmed part of Dr. Zhivago!
I was always under the impression you slept on the train, but when you think about it, you’d miss so much of the scenery if it got dark and you had to sleep. Besides, after almost 14 hours on board (even though there was plenty of leg and stretching room), it was nice to get off at around 7 pm and find our luggage waiting for us in a hotel room in Kamloops. (Interesting fact: the luggage doesn’t go on the train, but is sent ahead on a truck, so arrives far ahead of us.) They instructed us to leave our luggage in our rooms tomorrow morning, and they would be picked up and magically reappear at our hotel in Vancouver.
Hopping on board now. Will report back again soon!
May 12 2011 | leftovers | 25 Comments »
First off: I may have been a little cranky when I wrote my last post. Sorry. If driving under the influence of sleep deprivation is akin to being intoxicated, blogging under the influence must apply, too. I hope I didn’t make Mike sound like a bad person, which I hope you know he’s not, just because I had to get up early on Mothers’ Day. I was just feeling a little humphy about it all.
I have some cool stuff for you, but I’m scrambling today to get some photos done and uploaded and stories in to my bosses at Parents Canada, who are laying out the summer issue to go to print imminently and waiting on me to get my stuff in. And we leave early tomorrow (as in, 5:30 am) to take our trip on the Rocky Mountaineer! Which I’m very excited about. I’d be more excited if the first proofs of the bean book hadn’t just arrived, and wasn’t due to be edited and returned by Friday. Guess what I’ll be doing on the train?
And so when the folks at Gourmet Live (yes, that Gourmet – I miss it so – only live) offered up a guest post, I figured all the cool kids are doing it. Besides, the links are from Gourmet’s special edition Italian Kitchen, which coincidentally I bought to bring to Tofino in March, and mostly read in the tub.
So this is by Maddie Donnelly of Gourmet Live. The photos are by Chris Gentile. It’s pizza and kids – right up my alley. And the pizza looks pretty fab for grown-ups, too.
For parents who end up throwing a frozen pizza in the oven at least one night a week to feed the fam, we have some exciting news.
We put five of the pizza recipes from the new Gourmet Italian Kitchen magazine to the test. But rather than asking food critics or chefs for their ratings, we checked in with the tiny people whose opinions often matter most when it comes to home cooking: Kids. And the results astounded us.
The winning pizza, handily beating out even a classic mozzarella and tomato version–and given loads of “Awesome!” votes for taste—was Gourmet Italian’s Pizza with Fontina, Prosciutto, and Arugula.
The crispy, crunchy crust, soft, gooey fontina cheese, and thinly sliced prosciutto topping won our young audience over. Turns out, if you don’t tell the kids it’s fancy prosciutto, they assume it’s regular old lunch meat and go to town.
We went light on the greens but didn’t hear any complaints there either. As 7-year-old Franklin told us, “It’s awesome! And I didn’t even have to take anything off of it!“
“He’s only in his life ever had plain pizza,” one of the moms said, referring to her 6-year-old son, whom she has dubbed “Picky Eater Iain.” “We had a talk about trying new things last night, but I never thought he would. This is a big breakthrough.”
For a breakthrough of your own, and a nice Friday night activity with the kids, opt for Gourmet’s Italian Kitchen’s fast, healthy, hit pizza recipe. Best of all, it only takes 30 minutes to make from start to finish. That’s even less time than a deliveryman can guarantee.
May 10 2011 | leftovers | 8 Comments »
It’s 4:20 on Sunday morning. As is the case as many nights as not, W’s stirring snapped me awake, and my mind slipped quickly into a frenzy of worry. This time, it was triggered by the realization that it’s May. May!
The birds are starting to sing already, out there in the dark. I realize for most, this is a good thing.
Even as a kid, the arrival of spring triggered a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. As soon as it began to warm up enough that you could roll the windows down in the car, I knew summer was coming, and bringing bathing suits with it. And strappy sandals, and shorts and tank tops I could never wear. The anticipation of summer vacation was trumped by the fear that I couldn’t get away with sweaters and oversized jackets for much longer.
(Sorry, no recipe today. Besides that roasted beet salad, I haven’t managed to make dinner once this week. I did make a banana bread yesterday, but you know that one already.)
This winter has been long, and although we did get tired of the snow and brown and went seeking something green and growing (and the beach, above) in Tofino in March, I have also been secretly relieved by it. The arrival of summer has been like another deadline in my mind, a big one that I haven’t been completely on top of, and unlike the others I can’t expect to scramble and catch up on the night before. I have been going to the gym – yes – but it’s not enough to turn this ship around. (Aside: I feel like one of the hippos from Fantasia doing the Maniac! scene from Flashdance.)
There has been stuff, of course – health stuff and family stuff and scary (especially in the middle of the night) stuff, and to be honest I’ve been a bit down, and not spending enough time with friends, and isn’t it about time for a midlife crisis? And through it all the hungry part of me has had ample opportunity to convince the rest that I shouldn’t worry so much about my weight when so many are going through far worse. That I should just get over myself and be happy with what and who I am.
Except that I’m not, really. I’m tired and awkward and uncomfortable. And there’s always stuff, isn’t there? There will always be stuff, and there will always be food, and it’s called life.
A few weeks ago I met someone who knew me only from here and the radio, and when she asked if I was Julie, and I said yes, she gave me the long slow up and down. And said – “So. That’s you, huh?”
It just made me flush, alone in the dark on my laptop, to type that. Even though I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by it. And I crumbled into this apology for having surely let her down. Yes, this is me. Sorry. I know. I’m working on it.
Gah.
I know some (most?) of you are here for the food. As much as anything, I worry that this place could wind up overrun with rants, diminishing the food and laughs. And it shouldn’t be one or the other, really. I have a solution, I think. I’ll be up front about the food stuff, and if you want to read more about all this, I’ll add it after the jump (below, where it says continue reading. Also, this will act as a bit of a buffer, filtering all this personal stuff only to those who are actually interested. I have been procrastinating putting it out there. No takesies backsies once you hit publish, you know.)
And tomorrow, I’m making dinner.
continue reading »
May 02 2011 | leftovers | 146 Comments »
Today the house was full. A dozen or so kids waited upstairs while we filled the living room with jelly beans and chocolate eggs, then descended the stairs like locusts, cleaning the place out in minutes. Then they played on the back porch and in the basement while the grownups sat in the kitchen, nibbling cinnamon buns and waffles while Mike played barista, making lattes for us all. We need to do this Easter thing more often.
I made another batch of that matzo crack, and some hot crossed buns, because I think I’d miss them if I didn’t. I posted the recipe here a couple years ago, so the refresher is over at the Family Kitchen.
April 23 2011 | leftovers | 6 Comments »
I taught a baking 101 class in Red Deer the night before last, which was awesome fun. We made pastry and butter tarts, browned butter blueberry muffins, two kinds of chocolate chip cookies (the test: softened butter vs melted – the melted came out predictably more dense and chewy), sunken chocolate cake with raspberry fool, bagels, pain au chocolat (almost) and biscuits. Dinner of champions, I say.
The ladies at the bagel table turned out some beautiful bagels and pretzels – chewy from boiling and golden from baking. When they were done, they thought they’d try their hands at biscuits. They used Wade’s recipe.
A biscuit is a pretty standard thing. Flour, baking powder, salt, butter, milk or buttermilk or cream. Sometimes egg. Sometimes a spoonful of sugar to sweeten or help them brown. The key when making a biscuit, as opposed to a yeast bread that must be kneaded in order to develop the gluten and give the bread structure, is to be gentle with it. Once the liquid comes into contact with the flour, gluten comes into play, and so one must be delicate. Ditto pastry and muffins.
We were discussing this very thing when I looked over and wondered what it was the ladies were kneading – leaning into the dough on the countertop, working it into submission the way they had the bagel dough – a yeast dough that went from cellulite-y in texture to smooth and elastic, as soft as a baby’s bottom. Just like it should be.
The same does not apply to biscuit dough. It was fortunate, actually, that they had kneaded the biscuit dough as if it contained yeast – a good experiment to demonstrate the difference between a lightly handled biscuit (pictured above, behind the two puck-like ones) and one that has been overworked to the point where the dough is dense and tough. Here we had the same ingredients, same oven, the only thing different was the handling method. I told them I was going to post a photo of their biscuits under “what not to do” for the benefit of all aspiring biscuit bakers-tread gently on that biscuit dough.
April 14 2011 | leftovers | 9 Comments »
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