things I want to eat when it's raining...

For more than a solid month now we've had unprecedented amounts of rain, night after night. Summer is a sham. We're all feeling hopelessly weary and other than cauliflower farmers, the rest of us are quite unhappy with this weather.

Cauliflower, it seems, grows well in moist conditions. Bully for cau
liflower. I want the ice cream man to grow well.
I think back to hot, dry summers of watermelon, Taber corn, walking with my grandparents to Dairy Queen for blizzards and pineapple sundaes (Zaida's favourite).
But this summer it feels like droopy escarole soup and heavy vichyssoise are the soup of the day and there just will not be enough bike rides.
One night and I got out from under the thunderclouds above by wandering in to Irie Foods on Whyte. On the other side of the tracks, this little unsuspecting hole in the wall took our breath away with warmth, hospitality, and good good island cuisine. I'm glad I only ordered one side order of dumplings because we could barely finish the food. J and I are fans of sharing so we started with beef patties - flaky golden pastry and spicy ground meat steaming inside. Then we had the plantains - there may have been a fork battle that arose over the last bite. For our main we ordered the red snapper with beans and rice. It came with soup or salad. Our delightful server (who, by the way, kept the red stripe stubbies coming all night) highly recommended the chicken noodle, and as the rain pounded down the sidewalk outside we heartily agreed.
I've never had a whole fish before. Eyes and all. That took some getting used to. But the fish itself was fantastic, infused with delicate but sumptuous flavour. Working around the bones was part of the fun, as I was better at it than J.
Everything about that place was a marvel. I was so glad we happened upon it that evening. If, on another such stormy night, you and a special someone are hungry and looking to escape the galoshes blues, paddle over to the island for a while, and let Irie Foods take you there.

Irie Foods is located on the north side of Whyte at:
10152 82nd Avenue
Edmonton, AB

Portuguese egg tarts and why I love them

I don't exactly know when I tasted my first pastels de nata. I do know that I have since brought their delightful sweet flakiness to as many people as I can. Coffee dates with friends, potluck contributions to work meetings, most recently one to my grandfather who's still stuck in the hospital. Man oh man, did that make his day... I've never seen anybody eat of of these so fast...

For a long time I only ever had these tarts from Italian bakeries and cafes. Kind of funny, no? Nowhere near Italy and with a completely different food history, Portugal has it's own food thing going on - flame grilled chicken sandwiches, fresh seafood and egg dishes, and Port wine to name a few off the top of my head.

I think it has something to do with Portuguese bread. Ever the Italophile, my dad still swears that bread from the Portuguese bakery is the best. He's done his homework to discover that many of the Italian cafes and trattorias around town source their buns from Portuguese bakeries. In any case, I imagine this is how the Portuguese egg tart made its way into the display cases of Tra Amici Cafe and the Italian Centre Shop. The tarts pictured above, however, come from the Handy Bakery on 118th Ave and 87th Street. The ladies at the counter there are very friendly and the prices are exceedingly reasonable.

The essence of the tart is the creamy, sweet egg custard. Not jiggly or runny, it is a dreamy consistency. It doesn't even really taste like egg. But it's not just pure saccharine either. The tarts were first introduced by nuns at the Monastery of Belem, near Lisbon, in the early 1800's. Egg yolks were used in baking because the egg whites were needed for things like starching nun's habits. (Taken from this article in the Christian Science Monitor, it's fascinating!)

Since then, this delectable confection has become the signature pastry of Portugal. J and I were recently in Montreal visiting family and we stayed in the Little Portugal part of the city. The Plateau is an area full of international flavours - but undoubtedly, the smell of flam grilled chickens from all the sandwich shops is the dominant aroma, at least in my nostrils.

I awoke one morning to find that J had already been up and out, discovering the neighbourhood. He had returned with hot coffee and a little white box that I eagerly opened. Inside were four pasteis de nata, freshly baked. Not only is the custard filling velvety and beautiful yellow, but the pastry exterior is as once flaky and chewy. I don't know how, and frankly it blows my mind every time, as I am terrible at pastry.
You know how I know it will work with J and me? The man knows the way to my heart, obviously...

feels like fall

What an incredible autumn morning. This weather feels like no September that I can recall. Certainly not any September this far north. While I dream of butternut squash soup and cinnamon spiced things, I figure I might as well enjoy these warm, lazy mornings and make something special. So I am slowly baking a chocolate cake and leaving it as a surprise for a friend who put me up for the night. It's a getting random things done sort of day, so I get up early, clean her kitchen (which she will love even more than the cake, I imagine) and then get down to business.
This recipe came to me from a wonderful cookbook called The World Food Cafe, by Chris and Carolyn Caldicot. These two have traveled the world, seeking out authentic, inspired vegetarian dishes from Africa, India, and Asia. They have a restaurant in London that is spoken very highly of in online reviews from veggie sites, and I am eager to try the place myself next time I am in town. The Caldicots round out their beautifully photographed cookbook with a recipe that seems to come somewhat out of the blue. At the very end of the dessert seciond, before the ingredient guide and index there is a recipe for French Chocolate cake, or flourless chocolate cake. This cake, they write, is a staple for dessert in their resto, and so they thoughtfully listed it in their book. And lucky for me they did!
The cake is beautiful to will into its practically perfect existence. Simple, pure ingredients will always improve the quality of the dish being prepared, so I would always recommend substituting organic, locally, and or ethically produced food. Chocolate, butter, sugar, and eggs are just a few things that you are going to have on hand in your kitchen anyway. So why not try to be conscientious about where they come from. The bottom line of this aside is this: every little bit helps and the cake will taste better using better ingredients, not to mention the feeling such efforts instill in you.
Now, returning to the cake. watching the chocolate and butter melt and combine in a double boil gives you the indication that what you are making here is something special. The velvety mixture that results is every bit as decadent as the cake will be. Today I whipped the egg whites by hand, with a little help from my friends when my arms got too tired, which is in itself a magical sight to behold. Watching a substance change its constitution in front of your eyes is like watching a baby take its first steps (I imagine) and even though electric beaters get the job done faster, hand whisking will give you an appreciation for what those egg whites have just been through in order to puff up and remain suspended in stiff peaks. Adding sugar and yolks creates a rich, dense, custardy mixture. Then the chocolate and butter are combined with the egg and sugar. Darkness and light mingle together, swirling and marbling around the bowl as they combine and incorporate, fusing bittersweet chocolate with granulated sugar and eggs and milk. The whole mess goes into a greased spring-form pan and down into the hot oven.
While the cake does its thing I make notes on what's just occurred. I walk in my friend's garden, examining late summer tomatoes and basil. I clean up after myself, taking secret glee in cleaning the dishes in my own special order, knowing that I'm doing something nice for someone and she doesn't even know it. I sit and think and sip tea, watching over my beautiful cake as it does something amazing. With about ten minutes to go, I look inside the oven and see that the cake has been utterly transformed over the last hour of baking. From its humble start as a few simple ingredients, into a rich, liquid, velvety batter, to this puffed up, important, remarkably metamorphosed object in the presence of heat and time - I realize how baking is both science and wonderment all at once - to ultimately form cracks along its puffed up surface. These cracks will later become delicious when I take the cake out of the oven and the chocolate tower descends into dense, sunken secrets. This is not a souffle that wants to stay puffed for presentation's sake. This cake longs to retreat into the depths of the pan, sinking deeper into itself, into the dark chocolate places. This is a cake for an autumnal afternoon.