Shopping Haul and Salad - The Return of La Petite Gourmande

I'm back! It's been far too long since I was last in the kitchen, but the new year (and the return of employment) means that I'm itching to get back to what I love. I'm not much for New Year's resolutions, but I've resolved to follow my dreams and pursue my love of cuisine to its fullest: I hereby resolve to spend the next three years of my PhD schooling myself in the art of cuisine and pastry arts, culminating in my application to culinary school in January 2014. Nothing's ever certain--who knows what the next three years will bring--but I've never been so excited about anything in my whole life.

I've been reading and watching cooking-related things voraciously this week...and finally took myself 'round the corner to Inno Bakery, which is a fantastic place to pick up a lot of the imported goods that make kitchen-time SO much more worth it. Honestly, if you're going to use olive oil, spend the extra money to get a decent bottle: you'll never regret it. So here are a few of the things I picked up (some things specifically for tomorrow's meal, since I have a few dishes in mind)...and the salad I made for dinner!




The salad was a bit of an experiment - I wasn't sure about adding the Roquefort - I was surprised at how sweet the cheese is, especially placed alongside the bitterness of the Brussel sprouts. This was also an exercise in texture: the crunch of the steamed sprouts, the tenderness of the apples, the richness of the back bacon, and the softness of the cheese. I'm absolutely pleased with the way the flavours all complimented each other wonderfully. Yum.

A Christmas For Gastronomes, Part 2: Cookies

It's been months since I last baked cookies, and Christmastime means that the fragrant, spicy scent of gingerbread is sure to grace my kitchen at some point. I also wanted to carry out an experiment in shortbread, which I adore for its simplicity and its ability to carry a wide variety of flavours. So the gingerbread is just, as it says, gingerbread. Icing was piped on with an impromptu icing bag, ergo, a Ziploc bag with a tiny hole snipped off the end. The shortbread pairings are as follows: rosemary with pecans, lemon zest with orange chocolate shavings, and crystallized ginger with fleur de sel (my personal favourite). This was a true experiment, which I'll be repeating on Tuesday when I bake some more for friends: I'll caramelize the pecans and replace the chocolate shavings with toasted coconut. The different flavours are subtle, to be enjoyed and savoured one bite at a time. Without further ado, here are the results of a good night's baking!

A Christmas for Gastronomes, Part 1: Candy

It's been nearly three months since I last updated. It's not to say that I haven't been dallying in the kitchen in that time, but I've created nothing that has been blog-worthy. Until today.

Christmas break is but a few days away for me--depending on how long I take to finish my final term paper--and in order to get into the holiday spirit, I decided to break open my gingerbread house kit and get decorating. I have no shame in being a gingerbread house-kit girl. Having helped a friend make a giant gingerbread castle last weekend (blog post to come), I am more than happy to work on a small, foolproof scale.

In past years, I've tended to go for multicoloured houses or the standard red-white-green Christmas scheme. In the interest of an aesthetic challenge, I decided to go for a winter blue and white palette. Part Channukah, part winter, all candy. I may have been a bit obsessive about it. In fact, I know I was, but that's the joy of creativity, really, getting to be obsessive about something that gives you a great deal of joy.

xoxo
La Petite Gourmande

Week 17 :: The Chef Returns

I've been amiss, which certainly sounds better than "I've been eating things like candy and frozen dinners, and way too much plain rice with vegetables, and so much soymilk I think I'm positively bursting with plant-based estrogens, so, I haven't felt like cooking or blogging or anything."

I've also been eating chicken, which seems to make my post from a few weeks ago a bit hypocritical and silly, and it's not that I'm in some sort of moral dilemma about it all, I just feel silly, that's all.
In any case, it was a nice little phase to re-introduce poultry into my diet, as it's been so infrequent in the past few years that I really rather enjoyed it, and was thankful for it.

As my schoolwork gets more intense, I need to cultivate my cooking practice to balance out the desire to hide in my books. I need to remember why I love being in the kitchen. I need to resist the urge to use my work and my schedule as an excuse to be less than gentle with my body and "forget" to eat when I know I've got to keep up my energy.

Tonight, then, I'm taking a look through my cookbooks and drawing up an inspired menu, something to ease into the transition to fall and all the delights of comfort food.

Week 17 :: Some Things I've Made. Recently. Allegedly.

Week 13 :: (The Rabbit Hole, And Back Out Again)

It's hot outside; inside, too. The summer heat does funny things to the appetite. Inadequately recognized thirst results in reaching for sugary things to boost energy; and other than that, appetite often becomes diminished as the heat saps all the strength from one's body.

I am two days past a medical emergency, too, and so my body is still sloshing with the IV fluids, my brain buzzing with the slow come-down of powerful painkillers and of neurological disturbances. Once the pain of a severely disabling migraine passes, the senses take a while to come back. Speech and words lag a bit; things taste a little funny.

The road to changing my diet resulted in self-neglect; ruling out foods, avoiding others, the alluring cycle of non-consumption. A dangerous road for me.

Later today (it being early Monday morning, now that I think of it) I'll be off to the grocery store to gather some ingredients and spend a happy hour or two making a meal. It's been over a month, I think, since I actually cooked a full meal for myself as I used to, and I'm excited. Comforting foods. Things to soothe a broken heart. Things to quell fear, foods to appreciate after a weekend of nausea.

Week 12 :: (The Simple Things)

The format of this blog has changed, as things tend to do, after a while. Life gets in the way. I get too ambitious; then the guilt of my inability to keep up with myself kicks in, and I find myself meandering through my kitchen, tapping jars of lentils and peering into containers of grains and feeling rather dejected.

The funny thing about cooking--as with life--is that nobody really teaches you the simple things. I can't describe how many times I've articulated frustration that I don't know how to cook different types of rice, because though I've eaten basmati more times than I can count, I still have no idea how to make it properly. There's that embarrassment, too, of not wanting to admit that as much as you consider yourself to be a good cook--that you still don't know how to make something as simple as rice. The self-deprecating thoughts "but-you-should-know-this, it's just RICE, for heaven's sake" soon ensue, and before you know it, your plans to make a delicious biryani, or a mushroom risotto, or even just a midnight snack of plain rice are completely shattered. You end up reaching for a packet of crispbread, rather resentfully.

I feel the same way about my heart sometimes. Nobody teaches you how to manage your emotions, how to calm that fear that bubbles up in the middle of the night, how to preserve the sacredness of your soul. Those are the simple things, the building blocks of our emotional and psychological well-being. I am talented and skilled with words; adept at research; competent at math, gym, and so on. I've been taught well. But I wish that I had learned the simple things. I wish that there had been classes for how to love yourself, how to remember that you are more than grades in a report card, how to look in the mirror and feel content, how to deal with hurtful words, how to contain fear, how to contain happiness, how to just BE in the world.

So, back to the rice. I just attempted to make some basmati. It didn't turn out as I had expected it to, though I followed the directions. But that's life.

I am learning, though. Grains of love and all.