Happy New Food Year!

I returned to my parents' house last month with the lingering memories of their teeny tiny 1950's kitchen and all the family members we crammed in it while rendering dish after dish of soul-soothing food.

What I found on arrival was a brand new kitchen, replete with six-burner professional grade gas range, granite counter tops, self-closing drawers, and a huge a-symmetrical island with a second prep sink built-in.

I wasn't exactly surprised. In fact, I'd dragged my sorry self out of bed many a Saturday morning to meet with their designer to get my ideas into the mix.

I'm so proud of them for finishing this. Kudos to my mother who, god love her, is the most notorious pack rat that ever was.
It took a lot for her to throw and give away so much of the past. But in the end, everyone will benefit. And what a workspace...

What you see here are the peels of 15 pounds of potatoes. My mom, my sister, and I fried latkahs for two hours one morning while I was back in preparation for the big family Chanukah party.


Normally when my mom makes latkahs, the smell of fried potatoes and onions is detectable at the end of the street and the scent lingers in our hair and on our clothes for a week. But I have to hand it to them, my mom and dad went all in on their renovation and the overhead fan they installed left nary a trace even twenty minutes after we finished frying.

Using a food processor, shred 5 pounds of russet potatoes and a bag of regular yellow onions.

Transfer to a large bowl, add a couple of eggs, about a half a cup of flour and about 2 tablespoons of baking powder. The baking powder helps them crisp.

Form into palm-sized flat cakes, squeezing out all excess liquid. Fry in hot vegetable oil. Use a lot, but don't cover them completely. Remember to tap down the centre of the patty so that the thickness is dispersed and the latkahs cook evenly.

Turn with caution. Use a spatula and a long fork. When cooked to golden brown on both sides, remove from frying pan and transfer to paper towel covered plate.














I returned to Montreal just in time for Christmas. J's family was extremely generous with me as this was our first Christmas together here. We had a wonderful meal with his mom and the whole day was very merry. The gift giving, of course, was just wonderful. I didn't even get to see my nieces and nephew open the gifts we gave them on account of being so busy opening presents of my own. Two of the highlights were the popcorn hot air popper for J's sister Melissa and the bread making machine from J's grandmother, Nanny. I've only ever made bread the old fashioned way. It takes forever, which is why I hardly ever do it. But fresh bread is just about the most enticing smell ever to be emitted from any kitchen, and so I'm so happy to now be able to just toss the ingredients in, push a few buttons, and let it do its thing. Hurray for robot kitchen helpers! J's mom got me my first food processor. I can't wait to make spanikopita with that thing. Stay tuned...

What I love about the end of the year is all the marvelous best-of lists that come out. So you can imagine my glee when I came across "The Best of America's Test Kitchen: Best Recipes and Reviews 2012"

First to be made was their "Ultimate Banana Bread" recipe. So simple. The tricky part was that it calls for a microwaving step. I've never had a microwave in any of my kitchens, so I had to use the stove instead. In the end I don't think it made that much of a difference.

1 3/4 C all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
6 large, over-ripe bananas (I freeze mine when they get to this stage, if you do too, only use 5 from the freezer and use one fresher one)
8 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs
3/4 C packed light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/5 C walnuts, toasted and chopped coarse (I skipped this)
2 tsp granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees with the rack in the middle position. Spray a 8 1/2 inch by 4 1/2 inch loaf pan with vegetable oil spray. Combine first 3 ingredients in a large bowl.
Place 5 peeled bananas in a large bowl and cover with plastic wrap, poking vents in the top for steam. Microwave until bananas are soft with liquid released in the bowl, about 5 minutes. I mashed the bananas and let them simmer on the stove for 5 minutes instead.
Place a fine mesh strainer over a medium size bowl and transfer hot bananas to the strainer to drain out the liquid into the bowl, stirring occasionally. Let it drain for 15 minutes. At the end you should have about 3.4 C of liquid. Transfer banana solids to a bowl.
Pour liquid into a saucepan and cook over medium-high heat for 5 minutes. Liquid should be reduced to 1/4 C at this time. Now pour the reduced liquid back in with the bananas and mash together. I know this sounds silly, but what you've just done is extracted a lot of intense banana flavour, caramelized and intensified the flavour, and returned it to the mix.
Add butter, eggs, sugar, and vanilla to the banana mixture. Stir to combine. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just a little white is visible. Transfer to prepared loaf pan. Top with final banana, making two lines of banana slices, 1/4 inch think, arranged in a shingle pattern, one slice layered slightly on top of the one before.
Make sure to leave the middle clear to allow steam to evaporate as the batter bakes and ensure an even rise. Sprinkle the whole top with granulated sugar.
Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about one hour. Rotate the pan halfway through baking. Cool in pan.

I also plan on using my slow cooker a lot more this winter. The spaghetti and slow cooked meatballs I made recently were so good and the convenience of having food for another two days after is very reassuring as school gets more demanding. And they were so juicy... even David couldn't resist climbing down off the bookshelf to get a closer look.

There are so many things to try. I would really like to expand my repertoire to include some new things on my list of go-to meals. That's what trying new things is all about, after all.

Planting a Vegetable Garden: Seed Starting Explained

Get yourself a greenhouse kit - ours came in a large-ish box and required no screws or tools or anything.

If you are at all like me when it comes to building things, you may want to call in some assistance. J does most of the putting together of things in our house. And then I turn the things into other things... usually dinner.



Make sure you find yourself a relatively bright location, though direct sunlight is not good for new seeds and baby seedlings.


Our dining room window was a perfect location to get our
garden started. The basil plant we picked up at the Farmer's Market a few weeks before was thriving quite well on that window bench.


With the plastic "glass house" cover stretched over the frame it was time to do some seeding.


Choose seeds that match the amount of sunlight to get in your garden. If the yard is shady all through the morning, you may not want to plant beefsteak tomatoes throughout. Some plants, like lettuces, like partial shade. Their delicate leaves get burnt by too much sun.

Also important to keep in mind, would you like to be harvesting throughout the growing season or are you waiting for a large crop right at the end of summer.

If you are like me, life's vicissitudes take you away from projects at times. For example, I got into grad school out east, which is great. Except it means I have to leave my summer garden here in Edmonton to go look for an apartment in Montreal before the beginning of fall term.

Pole beans and sugar snap peas sprout quickly and as long as you water them, will grow like crazy. They are easy to cook and are fun to pick as they grow taller and climb up things.

I like things that keep growing as you pick them.
Swiss chard and spinach are great. Butterleaf and red
leaf lettuces are also wonderful to have freshly picked for
sandwiches and salads.

Working in dirt is obviously rather dirty. Minimize the mess by purchasing handy little seed pods. They are compressed little pucks of dehydrated earth. When you pour hot water over them they expand and the outer netting can be broken away to make little holes for your seeds.

Don't be shy about the seeds. Best to put a few into each pod since not every one will take. You can thin them out as they grow.

Keep the plastic covers over the trays of seed pods
while they germinate. In a week or so you'll start seeing this!

Little Early Riser Beets (quite aptly named!) pushing themselves up out of their earthy beds. I think the beet shoots are the most exciting because of their so easily identifiable red stalks.

It makes me think about the early crop we hope to harvest later this summer before we leave for Montreal.

Keep your seedlings sheltered as they grow inside your greenhouse. It's very clear how delicate they still are and will need to be watched closely for the first little while.

When they get a little bigger and there are some obviously stronger seedlings, and this is one of the saddest parts about gardening, you have to thin them out and give the strong ones room to grow.

If they remain crowded in the little pods, their roots will all grow together and have to split the nutrients three ways. These poor little bok chois will meed a sad fate soon enough...


As it happened, this little seed nursery was started shortly before my 25th birthday.
As a gift, a good friend from work brought me plants that she had started from seeds as well.

Three separate containers of beefsteak tomatoes, each with several little seedlings, and a very special treasure: a container with three zucchini seedlings - all very healthy and strong. Zucchini should always be planted in three's, on a mound of dirt is best. Because you never know if you've got male or female plants, putting three together gives you the best chance at having your flowers pollinated to bring forth actual fruit.

One thing that we do not plan to plant here is lavender. I've seen some amazing lavender fields in my travels, most memorably in France, but I know how many years it takes to grow these sparse little plants into those marvelous domes of purple and green. I think someday when we have a house and a yard of our own we will put some lavender in to watch it grow year by year. But not in this house. Not when we're leaving in just a few months...

When you can be almost certain that any risk of frost has passed, prepare your garden bed.

Rake out any weeds that may have grown in. Remove large rocks and small stones and pieces of bark - anything that might get in the way of delicately growing roots.

Our soil here is a bit dry - with clay, sand, and coal deposits. We picked up some new garden top soil to mix in as well as sheep manure. J says it's better than cow because it doesn't smell as bad. I love that he knows these things...

We'll put everything in by the end of this weekend and see what happens. To be continued...

Sunday Dinner at Lucky 97 Chinese Market

There are all sorts of curious things that can be found in Chinese markets. Sometimes smelly, always colourful, Lucky 97 is one of the cheapest places I know of to get fresh herbs all year round and often sells the same North American supermarket items you would normally pick up elsewhere at reduced prices - milk, red peppers, juice, spices etc.

Today, J and I decided to stock up our pantry at our new little house with some sauces and a big sack of rice. We found a lot more than that, let me tell you...

The fresh fish and seafood all looked wonderful. I took my camera out as soon as we walked in the front doors of the busy shop this afternoon. I just missed capturing the man behind the tanks struggling with a couple of crabs for somebody's dinner. He appeared to go for the feistiest crustaceans in the tank.

There were some lovely looking clams that I might have to try in a linguine alla vongole some time soon...

Right next to this remarkable container of ice and salmon heads were some de-boned fillets of salmon, well priced at around ten dollars and change. We got one for the two of us, thinking we'd either have leftovers for our new roommate, Mel, or save the rest for J to take for lunch Monday morning.

When we got home, after putting away the rest of our fabulous finds, of course, I took the fish out of its wrapping, rinsed it under some cold water, and then put it in a metal dish. I poured milk over the raw fish until it was mostly covered - a little trick I learned from my folks. If you soak the fish in milk first it takes away the fishy taste and smell.

I made a marinade of finely chopped green onions, freshly squeezed lemon juice (watch for seeds!), honey, and hemp seed oil from Mighty Trio Organic Farm. At the final moment I decided to add a little olive oil too for a different flavour, but I think that just made the fish smoke more when I put it on the cast iron grill. Make sure you add a lot of lemon juice. It breaks down the proteins in the fish meat and helps to cook the fish evenly, resulting in flakier flesh and tastier charred enzymes.

For your information, when buying fish, colour is not necessarily a good indicator of quality. Some farmed salmon is fed with industrially manufactured fish feed that has artificial dyes in it to enhance the pink colour of the fish.
The question of whether to buy wild caught salmon or the farmed variety is really dependent on a number of factors:
1) What is the scale of the farming operation? Do the farm owners manage waste responsibly or are there issues with runoff and other forms of pollution.

2) What kinds of chemicals, if any, does the farm use to treat the water that the fish are living in? come from the containment of the fish in enormous tanks.

*photo Sam Beebe / Ecotrust, taken from Dan Imhoff, Civil Eats

3) What tastes better to you? Some people prefer the richer flavour of the farmed fish. These fish are fed synthetic meal and remnants from other industrial farming operations. They get less exercise crammed into those humongous tanks like... hehehe... well, like sardines... hehehe.

Others prefer the leaner wild salmon. Living in the wild, these fish have eaten different foods and their flesh is less rich in yummy fat, having worked hard to survive.

If you would like to watch something very interesting and thought provocking about this issue of farmed versus wild salmon, check this out:

Dan Barber, How I Fell in Love with Fish

I put the salmon skin side down on a hot cast iron grill. One thing I still haven't picked up for my new kitchen... cooing spray. Without it, the skins stuck to the hot grill and the meat came sliding off the skin easily.

After a minute or two on the grill I spooned the marinade over the fish. Once I finished scraping off the rest of the skin from the grill (grrr), the fish was nearly cooked through on the one side. You can see the colour of the fish start to change and that should tell you if it's close. Having never cooked fish this way before I wasn't really sure what to do next. So I flipped each piece to let the rest of it cook and spooned some more marinade over the sizzling hot fish.

Warning, if you are doing this without a fan, be sure to open the window, your grilling salmon will be smoking quite a bit by this stage.















There were other strange things at Lucky 97 that caught my eye. J and I were both very impressed by the 5-layer jelly cups, though we resisted buying one to try for dessert. Instead I picked up a box of chocolate Pocky. Classic.
In the produce department there were all kinds of new and exciting fruits and vegetables. But I thought the baggies of pre-weighed Thai chilies were actually quite striking.

In the end, we did come home with a giant sack of rice and some fresh green beans, which I steamed up to go with everything.

It was a day of adventure. Roving Taster goes rogue. Sort of. I know where I'll be going for fresh herbs from now on. And chili garlic sauce. And rice wraps. Stay tuned for that linguine some time in the not-too-distant future.

looking for a food photographer/partner in crime

Hey there food fanatics, family members, sisters from other misters, and those others who have stumbled upon this blog randomly...

I've been working on expanding my library of food images and increasing the profile of my food photography on this blog. But it's slow going when it's only me.

I don't know the best way to dress up my food and pose it and light it for optimal images. I have difficulty stopping mid-recipe to take process shots and I am not afraid to say that I know there are others out there who take much better photos and know a lot more about food photography.

I want you!

If you live in Edmonton and are reading this and are any good at focusing an SLR, please let me know. If you lie elsewhere, but have tips or recommendations (or could pass this along to someone you may know who lives here and is interested) as usual, I welcome all feedback.

If you would like to try out and collaborate with me, this is what I propose: an afternoon or evening of cooking, picture taking, and merriment. I'll pick the recipe and buy all the ingredients. All you have to do is show up with your gear and a willingness to get your hands a little dirty. I promise it will be fun...

Hopefully yours,

TRD

In the spirit of things

I have been going to the Edmonton Folk Music Festival for many years. We won't say how many, that's not important. I go for the tremendous musical experiences, the long-lost friends and the atmosphere of bumping into people, and of course, the food. Some times food vendors at Folk Fest are just local communities that get together and come up with things to deep fry as a fundraiser or what-have-you. But What I really love is the opportunity to taste things fromlocal restaurants who come with an abridged menu of 4 or 6 items. It's exciting to try new places and to return to old favourites.
Yesterday my sisters and I lined up at Homefire Grill's food tent to be transported once again by their bison stew. The local restaurant specializes in grain-fed Alberta bison and AAA Angus beef. Their menu board broadcasts the claim that they specialize in innovative "Canadian" cuisine. I suppose here in Alberta that means flame grilled meat... which I am a-ok with . Every summer we look forward to the saucy, rich bison stew, served with banock and maple butter. Having just returned from the most "Canadian" of cities, Ottawa, the prospect of a new take on "Canadian" food intruiged me.
When we got to the front of the line, my sisters and I discovered that a decision had been made by the fine chefs at Homefire not to sell the bison stew this year. Shock! Horror! We flirted as best as we were able and asked if they would try making some later in the weekend to sell to festival goers. After a one-year hiatus from the festival, we missed this delictable dish so badly that resorting to shameless begging was not beyond the pail. After holding up the line for a sufficiently irritating amount of time, we four ladies moved aside and let those behind us to order the same thing - the pulled chicken sandwich. Smothered and slow cooked in tasty barbeque sauce and piled high un a biscuit-style bun, the sandwiches hit the spot but did not satisfy our craving for bison. As they passed us our food, one of the chefs smiled and winked at my sister Leah, who had been leading the charge for the stew in the first place, and promised that if she returned with a tupperware the next day, there would be bison stew waiting for us.
Well, in all the rush to leave at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning, Leah forgot a tupperware. My sisters and I take very seriously the lineup to enter the festival grounds, and could not have arrived any later. *Shudder* Luckily for us, the Korean food vendors were there to save the day. Though I've never been fond of kim chi I will forever think of the masters of the bulgogi for their kindness. They gave us a take out container and would not let us pay for it. Leah marched over to the Homefire tent, where the chefs ladled in the piping hot bison stew which they'd been saving for us all day.
I sat down at the family tarp - 12th in the first group, I might add, what luck! - and ejoyed the late-night meal by the light of a folkfest candle. As the siren voice of Neko Case wafted over me I realized, it is not the music or the people or the food that make the festival, it is the way that all are affected by one another, and that in this place, for a short time, we are all family, sitting down to a delicious meal together, with music and candles illuminating the night.

Please visit Homefire Grill in Edmonton's west end. A true Canadian dining experience is only so because of the truly Canadian attitude of sharing what we have to give. Tell them the curly-headed bison stew girls say hello.
Homefire Grill - 18210 100 Ave
Edmonton, Alberta