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.

Week 11 :: Appetizer (Singing the Body Electric)

I have been sadly absent from the kitchen as of late, having been kept busy with the preparations for my sister's wedding. I have been eating out more. Too much sushi. Too many light green tea Frappucinos.

Life keeps piling things up, and the next thing you know, you're eating Double Sour Skittles for breakfast instead of your usual half-cup serving of oatmeal with flax seeds. It's not so much that I feel some sort of moral inferiority for having eaten little pebbles of high-fructose corn syrup instead of long-lasting carbohydrate-flakes, though admittedly, there is something really poetic and Dickensian in the consumption of oatmeal. It is the most literary and humble of foods...not to mention I'm one of those people who actually enjoys the taste and texture of plain oatmeal, which, apparently, makes me an oddity.

Really, though, what I have let go of in the past few weeks - and likely the past month or two - is my strong drive to re-build my body's health and wellbeing. I find that I am exquisitely sensitive to additives and preservatives; I haven't had a diet beverage in a very long time, because one or two sips into it, I find my head pounding and a wave of heat and dizziness rolls through me.

So it's back to the basics, and back to what I know and love. I'm grateful that when I was growing up, my mother taught me what really GOOD food is - rice, whole wheat pasta (and this was in the EARLY days of WWP, before they learned how to make it taste like something other than cardboard), miso soup, oatmeal, fresh vegetables. My mother taught me that lentils are little medallions of ancient wisdom; she taught me that rice can be savoured grain by grain; she taught me that nothing is as wonderful as a rivulet of juice running down your chin after that first bite into a summer-fresh peach.

I had been a vegetarian for many years of my life; in the past two or three years, as I worked to regain health after a spate of illness, I reintroduced meat and fish into my diet - rather sparingly, maybe once or twice a week. I ate more yogurt, more cheese (my bones are more than grateful).

Now, as I venture back through vegetarianism into dietary veganism (and no, I'm not entering into a debate about this term, because I think it's an old debate), I search not for the high moral ground that some of my vegetarian acquaintances attempt to embody (in spite of their use of other toxins, drugs, etc.); I am on the hunt for something more. I want to know food. I want to love it exquisitely, to know it from its very source. I want to take more time to prepare my foods; to tenderly wait for rice grains to blossom. I want to understand how a garbanzo bean knows itself.

This isn't a declaration of some radical change in lifestyle; it's a deepening of a practice of faith; faith in self, above all. It's an experiment in nourishment. I care about the world, and animal cruelty, but my god - how many souls and hearts have been lost in the search for everything else? I can't afford to lose myself in yet another cause at the moment, and since food has been such a long and drawn-out source of difficulty for me, it IS the thing I must devote myself to. I can debate the ethical merits of playing a piano with ivory keys later (not that I have any interest in doing so). And I may, after this month-long experiment in strict vegetarianism, simply return to a lacto-ovo lifestyle, or indulge my sushi-love with pescatarianism.

I digress. What I'm beginning to realize is that I have been poisoning my body: too much Facebook, doing exercise for reasons of self-hatred rather than of self-care, too many negative thoughts. I thought that because I neither drink or consume drugs, that I was doing alright. A body fed by toxins of any kind reflects them deeply.

I want to hear the hum of my cells renewing themselves. Whitman wrote about "singing the body electric" - and maybe that's more erotic a description than the consumption of legumes and grains and vegetables really deserves, but it seems fitting, somehow.

Week 8 :: Appetizer (The Fidelity of the Roll)

I consume Japanese food more frequently than I had ever imagined I would. I never tire of the cornucopia of options available at any given time; the subtle differences in maki rolling techniques; the surprising delicacy of nigiri; the comfort of gyoza; the refreshing tang of sunomono; the soulfully healthy and tantalizing mouthfuls of goma-ae.

At this point, I can't count the number of places I've gone to eat sushi since the year began - there are three wonderful restaurants in downtown Port Coquitlam alone (Koi, Sushi Café, Asahi); Sake Maki and Isshin Sushi on Commercial Drive; L A Sushi and Take Sushi in Burnaby...the list includes more, I'm sure...and I've yet to go to the much-adored Toshi's on Main Street.

What I love the most, however, is going to a sushi restaurant with a new friend in a new part of town. There is a staunch fidelity to one's local, oft-frequented sushi nook that makes even the most novice sushi eater puff up with pride when they bring you into their homebase. I love when they eagerly point out the restaurant's signature rolls, or comment on the buttery smoothness of the sashimi, or rave about the quaint décor, or this, or that.

It's heartwarming to see the prescence of that kind of loyalty in an age where the price of many restaurants excludes the possibility of frequent eatership - and the dull quality of fast-food restaurants does not make one generally proud or excited to be frequenting those sorts of places. And there's a certain sadness, too, when you move away...or when a sushi restaurant closes...there's a sense of grief for the familiarity that you treasured, the sort of lingering sense of comfort that you derived even if you popped in only briefly to pick up some take-out.

But for now, given that I am staying put, I can't wait to re-visit some of my favourite places in the next few weeks, with that sense of homecoming that envelops you after you've been away for a little while.

Arigato!

Week 7 :: Dessert (A Culinary Soundtrack)

It's rare that I cook without listening to music. I admit, rather shamefully, that I had gotten into a bad habit of cooking whilst watching television, something that makes me feel as though I am not being mindful of what it is that I am doing. That aside, music of some sort generally comprises a significant portion of the little ambiance that I try to create in my kitchen each week.

Different tasks require different soundtracks, as is to be expected. You cannot whip your egg whites into submission if a calm Mozart sonata is playing; nor can you coax a hollandaise sauce into its delicate balance if you are aggravating it with some frenzied Rachmaninoff. Sometimes, of course, cooking requires silence, but since I do not feel like engaging in a musical debate about the merits of John Cage's 4'33", let us continue with the aforementioned proposition that food is best cooked with some sort of appropriately matched music.

In my own haphazard logic, I find it more appropriate to match my music to the techniques that I am using the most, rather than to each ingredient. This week, as evidenced by the stuffing, the chicken, and the cake, baking featured rather prominently.

Although baking appears to be one of those cooking techniques that affords you the convenience of "setting it and forgetting it," it really requires, when you are baking multiple things at once in an oven of constant temperature, a keen eye and a subtle intuition into the rising and falling of the dishes in the oven. The foil cover on the stuffing swells to make its own convection cocoon; the cake breathes deeply and puffs out its chocolate bouffant; the chicken hisses and bubbles, shuddering slightly as it nestles itself in a warm foil jacket.

The delicate interplay of intensity and delicacy that is inherent to baking requires music that is similarly structured. As such, I've chosen to match Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A Major (K622 - Adagio) to this meal. The strings and clarinet begin together quietly, as the meal adjusts to the warmth of the oven; then the strings sweep, gaining intensity, revealing the melodious potentiality of the clarinet, who then ventures out on its own in short bursts, constantly supported and reinforced by the lines of the strings. At 1'59," the clarinet triumphs, just like that moment when one finally notices the cake batter rising unexpectedly and grandly, with all the pomp and circumstance of any French emperor.

The strings and clarinet exchange breaths, until 4'59," when the strings swell gloriously, preparing the meal for the final delicate caramelizations and the quiet crispnesses that manifest themselves. At 6'00," the dishes are pulled gently from their warm cavern, and they let out several small, content sighs as they prepare to cool on the counter.

Week 7 :: Main (Christmas in July)

Week 7 :: Interlude

Things are rather hectic over here at the moment, and, unfortunately, I have been rather remiss in getting any sort of cooking done. I have, however, been writing presentations and paper proposals, so my absence in the kitchen has not been in lieu of mere shilly-shallying.

I have, however, in the past week, eaten two delicious brunches in Vancouver, and so will be posting thoughts about those really rather soon. If I can't find the time to cook, well, I'm more than happy to let others do it for me.

The unseasonably chilly weather is inspiring me to plan a "Christmas in July" meal, which I shall be cooking this Tuesday, if all goes well. Trying to add a Southern twist to it; research, research!

much love,
LPG

Week 6 :: Main (O, Pahhhsta)

If you are a student at Simon Fraser University, or simply a resident of North Burnaby, or a pasta-enthusiast, or of Italian descent, or a lover of leftovers, or frugal, then the chances that you've eaten at Anton's Pasta Bar are rather high. This past Thursday, in the regular tradition of my group of rag-tag theatre-school colleagues, I ventured over to Hastings to indulge in what can only be described as a very unique gastronomical experience. Anton's has a definite air of cultural mystique surrounding it; the lines that swell outside the small restaurant from 4 PM onwards draw consistent attention from passersby; the tiny foyer, always crammed with eager patrons, forces alliances between hungry strangers. And then, of course, there's that white styrofoam box.

The white styrofoam box for leftover pasta, always protected from the elements in its rainslicker/clear plastic bag, is perhaps the most enduring legacy of Anton's, whose servings of pasta (while obscene in their carbohydrate content) are awe-inspiring and immense. Years ago, they used to give pens to customers who were able to consume an entire dinner plate of pasta in one sitting; but recessions come and go, and novelty wears off, and yet the urban legend, the enduring heroic drama of eating those last few bites of penne all' arrabiatta or what have you, still draws cheers from one's fellow diners.

Let it be noted, if only to stave off my own paranoia about gluttony, that I have never managed to eat more than an eighth of a dish at Anton's. Granted, I have generally supplemented my consumption of pasta with a side of garlic bread as well as a dessert of some sort, so I have always left the premises feeling adequately stuffed.

I have, however, eaten leftovers for three days following a visit to Anton's, and this week was no different. Is there anything more decadent than heating up a bowl of pasta for breakfast, when the flavours have further married themselves within the dish overnight as the pasta nestled in its small synthetic cocoon? And it's not really just the overabundance of food that's so marvelous, the ease of simply re-heating, re-heating, and re-heating. Leftovers, at least in my experience, always carry with them the joy of the original meal itself; they seem to to preserve, in some mystical reliquary fashion, the laughter and the delight of an evening out with friends. And since dining out is (at least in my opinion) something that ought to be sacred and not done too often lest it lose its glamour, anything that allows those few hours of companionship to be re-visited and enjoyed once more is a blessing.

There was a bit of sadness yesterday afternoon as I defrosted the last of my pasta, looking wistfully into the light of the microwave oven, eagerly waiting for the last remnants of my little suburban pilgrimage. There's no prolonged despair, however; given that Anton's is a mere 25 minute drive from my house.

Anyone want to go for pasta?

Week 6 :: Pre-Main

Off to Anton's Pasta Bar in Burnaby this evening. After several years of eating there, I assume it's time to write a lonnnnnng post about how delicious the food is, but how choked I am that they don't give out pens anymore if you finish an entire dinner plate.

I may, however, just get a salad. God, I'm so predictable.

Week 6 :: Appetizer (The Martyrdom of Pie)

I'm a bit of a sucker for the martyrdom of the D-I-Y movement, especially when it comes to foodstuffs that permit one to be an overzealous braggadocio when dishing out portions: for a meringue, for instance, "I whipped these egg whites by HAND. For hours. That's why one of my biceps is quite obviously larger than the other;" or for pasta, "That's freshly made ravioli; I crimped each piece of pasta INDIVIDUALLY;" or, for pie, "I made that pie crust myself. I worked the cold, cold butter into the dough, coercing it to blend harmoniously with the flour, after which I added ice water and kneaded the whole thing into doughy submission. I rolled out the dough to a perfect thickness, draped it elegantly in the ceramic pie plate, and delicately trimmed and crimped the edges."

I'm not such a food snob, however, that I will blacklist anyone for using a pre-made pie crust (or filling, for that matter). The good folks over at Tenderflake surely do know how to get all that delicious airiness into their crusts, and to be honest, I am often so distracted by the scent of caramelizing apples or bubbling cherries that I scarcely notice the odd perfection of the crust's fluting.

But now I come to my dilemma. This week, as I tried a new pie crust recipe for my quiche, I realized that I was now in possession of the "food processor" that the recipe called for. It's a small processor with a 4-cup capacity, and I wasn't honestly expecting much from it. After dumping in the flour and the cubes of cold butter, I pulsed it as directed, and much to my amazement, the butter distributed itself wonderfully and evenly throughout the flour. I eagerly added a few tablespoons of ice water, pulsed again, and lo and behold, a perfectly textured pie crust dough, ready to be rolled out on the counter with some flour.

I had a moment of looking frantically around the kitchen, thinking to myself with a note of horror, "I didn't...make this...by...hand" (as if this were some sort of really ideologically-laden impasse to get through, of course), and the twinges of guilt that I felt for having saved so much time and energy. Will my pseudo-martyrdom never cease, or is this just what happens when a former Catholic cooks in the kitchen? (5 points for my alliterations right there).

O, heavens! All I want to do this morning is bake a pie with my lovely food processor...oh the temptation of ease and modernity!

Week 5 :: Recipe Links

Oh, deario. This has been the first week that I have used recipes in my cooking, and so I feel that I really ought to post links to the deliciously simple pie crust/quiche and blueberry buckle recipes (tried, tested, and true, folks).

Amusez-vous!

Week 5 :: Main (Un Repas, Non Pour Mon Papa)

Week 5 :: Three Short Pieces

I am rather distressed that I have been unable to write or cook in the past couple of weeks - a three-day bout of severe insomnia rendered me so sluggish and apathetic that it was a feat of strength to even leave the house to buy fresh produce. This past week, my mother has been visiting me as I graduated from my MA program, and so, with all the hoopla, doctor's appointments, and celebratory times with family, I have left the oven off, the spices untouched, the cutting boards and gleaming white dishes to rest in their nooks.

Nevertheless, I'm eager to get back to that which I love, and I'm armed with both delicious eaterly experiences and a lovely gift from a dear and wonderful friend who fully appreciates and understands my culinary philosophy.

1) The Solitude of Baking

First things first. My dear friend M. has been a supporter of my cooking adventures since the beginning, and has often sent me a quick message to inquire whether or not pictures of the day's dishes will be soon forthcoming. M. and I also have a mutual love for sushi and pineapple corers, the latter of which she brought over once on a visit, and seemed absolutely bowled over by my delight and fascination with a gadget that left a perfect pineapple-shell with dozens of perfectly shaped slices of fruit. More than that, however, she understands that I both love and detest being and eating alone, and that if I am to be achieving some level of comfort with my reclusivity, that I ought to at least be able to cook the dishes that are most commonly (although not necessarily) associated with eating with others. MFK Fisher writes in "A to Z: The Perfect Dinner," the last essay in her book An Alphabet For Gourmets, that

"perhaps the most limited, and at the same time most intricate, form of the perfect dinner is the kind eaten by one person."

And indeed, the food that I eat alone often takes strange forms; cooking a quarter-cup of dry macaroni for dinner, using the tiniest ramekins for individual apple crumbles. There are certain dishes, generally desserts, that are rarely made for one, namely pies, cakes, and cupcakes.

Fortunately, M., in her infinite wisdom, recognized my love for baked goods and has given me the wonderful gift of a small springform cake pan, an individual-sized ceramic pie plate, and a miniature cupcake-pan. And really, if, on a lazy Wednesday, I feel like baking a small Sacher torte to celebrate the banal achievement of having gotten out of bed, then should I not indulge myself? Or, perhaps, on a glorious Friday morning, I might be of the mind to make a quiche Lorraine, and wouldn't it be lovely to sit down to one of a perfectly solitary circumference? And on a miserable Monday, when the dreariness of life is almost too much to bear, mightn't it be comforting to make a batch of the tiniest cupcakes and revel in their disarmingly adorable perfection?

2) My Kingdom For A Salad

On Thursday night, a very small group of my family and friends went out to celebrate my having been formally awarded my Master's degree, and I, in my infinite love of Caesar salads, opted to re-visit Cru, a small but wonderfully intimate and ambient restaurant in Vancouver. I can't think of a more beautiful concoction: the salad itself is named the "Cellar Door Caesar," the first two nouns having been deemed (when, and by whom, I am uncertain) the most beautiful combination of words in the English language. The salad itself is an unusual take on one's regular Caesar, which is often a haphazard mess of torn Romaine, covered with bland Asiago (or even more unpalatable Parmesan), stale croutons, and dressing that is more reminiscent of an amateur, store-bought Ranch than anything else.

The Cellar Door Caesar begins with a heart of romaine, lightly grilled; the whole heart is then covered (not smothered) in a piquant dressing with a hearty dose of garlic, and generously topped with a blanket of wholly fragrant shredded Asiago. Placed beside the heart are four cubes of warm sourdough bread croutons, infused with butter and yet more garlic; when these little boxes of bread-heaven are pierced between your teeth, you can feel the warm butter ooze past your tongue and down your throat in what can only be described as one of the most pure articulations of decadence. Though my Epicurean rhetoric was not quite as elegant at the table on Thursday night, I did persuade all four of my dining partners to experience the salad. That's what I love about truly marvelous food; you are often surprised and absolutely captivated by dishes where the presentation and the eating of the food is as filled with drama and marvel as any good stage play. In Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home, Julia Child recalls having seen Caesar Cardini make his legendary salad in person in Tijuana:

"[We] were so excited when big jolly Caesar himself came to the table to make the salad, which had already been written up and talked about everywhere. And it was dramatic: I remember most clearly the eggs going in, and how he tossed the leaves so it looked like a wave turning over." (100)

If you find yourself on West Broadway any time soon--or if you care to make the pilgrimage out there--do go and eat the marvelous salad at Cru. It is rather reasonably priced, and I'm certain you shan't regret it. Do, of course, feel free to invite me along.

3) The Garden of Eating

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a garden party at a dear friend's house. K. is my culinary mother. Having trained at the Cordon Bleu in Paris, her cooking is always simple and exquisite, and I have spent many an evening peering over her shoulder watching her make delicious red wine reductions, stuffed pastas, lovely salads, and so on. More than anything, I love that K's kitchen is triangulated with three entrances: one from the front hallway, one from the dining room, and one from the door that leads down to the garden itself. As such, the kitchen is always abuzz with the motion of comings and goings, and the various configurations of bodies and food that arise from such a marvelously orchestrated space. And so K's house, with its kitchen, garden, and wonderfully-sized dining room table, is a safe haven, a port in the storm.

Yesterday, there were about a dozen of us--perhaps more or less--lounging on chairs in the sunny garden, bedecked in our very best neo-Victorian steampunk couture, drinking wine and other alcoholic beverages, munching on hors d'oeuvres, delicious strawberry tarts, crackers with Brie and Havarti, and feeding each other grapes. I really can't think of anything more marvelous and intimate than sharing food, and there's something so exquisitely sensual about having grapes dangled in front of your mouth, and eating them sans mains.

I am infinitely grateful to be blessed with such a wonderful group of friends, and to have a second home to visit, knowing that I can always stop by to enjoy some wonderful delicacy, or just a perfectly-brewed cuppa.

As I prepare to dive back into cooking this week--today, in fact--I do so with renewed optimism and a cleansed and invigorated palate. If only I could guarantee that I won't muddle the goat cheese cheesecakes I'm supposed to be making today...

Week 4 :: Appetizer (Love/L'Oeuf)

Ever wonder why they call "zero," in the sport of tennis, "love?" Well, zeros tend to look like eggs...and in French, "the egg" translates to "l'oeuf." And then some linguistic magic (mispronunciation) happens, and there you go. The egg becomes love.

But eggs aren't loved in my house. Or mouth.

I really, really, profoundly dislike eggs, and I have since I was a child. A few years ago, it got to a point where I made my mother--who enjoys egg whites with a passion--cook eggs only after I had left the house, because the mere smell of once-potential chicken fetuses sizzling away on a stove made me nauseous. Despite my hatred for them, I think they're fascinating gooey weird things. Baking with eggs is always fun, because you get to perform that slightly daring task of separating eggs, and if you can manage to both crack the egg and separate the whites and yolks singlehandedly, then you're clearly a culinary acrobat and should probably come over to my house to show me how to do that.

What I've realized, though, is that if I am ever to foster love for l'oeuf, I am going to have to be a seriously picky eater. None of this store-bought stuff, no eggs with oddly Technicolor yolks. I know enough about eggs to know that in a really delicious fresh egg, the yolk ought to nearly marigold in colour.

I'm not really brave enough to go to the farmer's market this Wednesday and cook eggs in their myriad forms--hard-boiled, over-easy, scrambled, poached--but I think I actually just may take a look at the Egg chapter in Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home...without gagging.

Week 3 :: Dessert (The Burden of Choice)

One of my most loved tasks is grocery shopping. There's nothing more beautiful than artfully arranged heaps of fresh produce, brightly labelled tins and packages gleaming from their neat rows, and stoic meats and cheeses resting in their refrigerated nests. But I seem to find myself in a state of panicked frenzy whenever I am in a grocery store; faced with the prospect of so many things to eat, I often suddenly feel as though I'd like to rip open packages and just cram my mouth full of chips, candy, grains, meats, cheeses, soups, and so on. That excitement soon turns to panic as I look at nutritional information, agonize over the morality of eating too much saturated fat, and wonder if it's really best for me to blow my food budget on something that I will likely end up throwing away later. Since I live alone, I often have the fleeting thought that perhaps it would simply be easier to subsist on oatmeal, apples, and diet sodas, instead of having to face the burden of choice in the supermarket. It's a slow process to learn to make choices, and to feel confident in having made them. Making the choice to nourish my body as well as I can; that's perhaps the hardest choice that I've had to make thus far. I don't know when I came to the conclusion that it would be better--albeit not easier--for me to make healthy decisions regarding food. Progress, progress...

Week 3 :: Main (Go East, Young Woman)

Week 3 :: Appetizer (Mon Cher Croque-Monsieur)

When I was staying at my uncle's house in Austria nearly seven years ago, one of my favourite things to eat for lunch was "ein Toast," another name for what the French call a "croque-monsieur," a gorgeously simple but beautifully comforting grilled ham-and-cheese sandwich. One of the most delicious croque-monsieurs I ever ate was at an Austrian train station café in 2007: when you're abroad, especially while you are in transit, there's something really quite wonderful about knowing that the ultimate comfort food (and rather nutritionally balanced, given the bread/cheese/meat combination) is readily available to you.

But the croque-monsieur is about much more than grilled cheese. There's something decadent about eating light but flavourful Prosciutto di Parma and sharp and bubbly Gruyère harmoniously grilled between two thick slices of sourdough bread; the elegance of the finely selected ingredients turns a simple sandwich into a gourmet delight.

Ingredients aside--there are days when any sliced bread, ham, and even processed cheddar cheese will do, and indeed, have a sense of simplicity to them--the most heartwarming part of making a grilled cheese sandwich (ham or no ham) is discovering the little bubbles of cheese that have flowed over onto the hot grill or pan and are nearly burnt to a delicate crispness. That's something you can't choreograph--the dollops of cheese must spill over randomly and of their own volition, decorating the border of your sandwich as if it were one Pollock's haphazard canvases.

Week 2 :: Dessert (Swallowing Grief)

The past two and a half weeks, I have been swallowed by grief, and, in turn, swallowing my grief. When I am consumed with anger or anxiety, I lose my appetite, as if my body wants to starve away the very marrow of these emotions so that they lose their vice-like grip.

But for me, grief has been the opening up of a giant gaping void right in the centre of my body. My appetite has increased, and I have been reaching for slices of toast, bowls of ice cream, chocolate, candy. Last weekend's main source of energy consisted of two frozen pizzas, which heated up somewhat sadly in the oven, and which I ate sitting on the kitchen floor, moving my hand to my mouth with a complete lack of enthusiasm for what I was eating.

Today, as I prepared my lunch, I felt sadness that I could not really taste what it was that I was eating, as if all the tears and sleepless nights have rendered my tongue blind.

Tonight I sit here, as the dryer rumbles and the rain pours, sipping a cup of raspberry tea with sugar, just like my aunt used to make me every morning during the summer I was sixteen, as I lay on her couch in Austria, bed-ridden and on intense antibiotic therapy. Each sweet mouthful of tea seems to make me feel safe and hugged from the inside out, as if I were lying on her veranda snuggling with Stewart (her dog, who looks like Rod Stewart) and listening to the church bells ringing in the distance.

These are not halcyon days, but like anything, this grief too shall pass.

Week 2 :: Main (Rustically Content)

Week 2 :: Appetizer (Considering the Tomato)

I woke up this morning to water my plants.

This is the first year that I have really bothered to tend to the planters outside, for the sole reason that this year, unlike any other, I have a gustatory inclination towards them. Growing steadily and slowly outside are: swiss chard, tomatoes, strawberries, borage, mesclun mix, chives, lettuce, carrots, parsley, and basil. I can't say that I've been the most reliable of water-bearers to my wee green things, though I am making a concerted effort to care for them, to cut away the dead leaves, to test the soil to make sure that the water is reaching their roots instead of hovering somewhat uselessly on the top layer of dirt.

There's something clearly very satisfying about tending to plants, and I have never understood why gardening is such a fulfilling pastime. I suppose, in my case, that it's the stubbornness of my constitution that urges me to bloody well get on with things and do them myself. There is, of course, a willfully blind ease that comes along with popping over to the grocery and plucking a plastic clam-shell filled with brilliantly red cherry tomatoes, and feeling so very pleased that they look considerably nicer and healthier than the rather lacklustre Roma tomatoes piled in a sorry heap. But there's also a frustration there, that "if only I'd planted my tomato plants in time," I, too, would feel soulfully organic and revel in the satisfaction that I had been oh so patiently seasonal and consumed that which nature had made me wait for.

But that's not really what I think about when I stop to consider the tomato (which is not to say that I'm not an ethically inclined girl, as I too, have read more Michael Pollan than I can stomach). What strikes me is the joy of seeing this fragrantly sweet plant grow ever so slowly over the course of the summer while I go out into the world and live my life. There's a constancy in doing-it-yourself in the garden, a reassurance that no matter how many hearts get broken or how many sleepless nights I have, one day, the tomatoes will bloom, and then they will be green, and one day--hopefully in the early evening on a day in mid-August--they will be red, and you can pluck them and still taste the warmth of the sunshine in them.

I have become disenchanted, I suppose, with the notion that it would be easier to allow others to do things for me, or hold myself in a sterile environment where I am somehow safe from the world but never really safe from the whims and machinations of my own curious mind. I'm not abstaining from store-bought tomatoes (and lettuce, and basil, and so on) in attempt to deprive myself and make some statement about the strength of my conviction, or call out others as weak for not being able to bloody well stick it out and wait for the goddamn tomato (or the reprieve from depression, or the cessation of anxiety). But for the sake of my own wee green heart, which is yet to become fully ripened with the willingness to take risks and be open to the world, I shall spend my summer sitting patiently with my plants, enjoying the slow and steady pace at which they simply are becoming themselves.

Week 1 :: Dessert (Unexpected Sweetness)

I have been using soft unripened goat cheese and cherry tomatoes relatively frequently these days (as one must always use up what is still in the refrigerator) and decided to put them into what were supposed to be yesterday's rather savoury dishes. The butternut squash and chickpea paste, lacking the cumin with it was supposed to be made, was rendered even more sweet by the addition of a small pat of goat cheese. Luckily, the sharpness of the white cheddar and, somewhat surprisingly, the fresh bitterness of the alfalfa sprouts, mitigated the surprisingly overwhelming brightness of the amuse-bouches. The simple red sauce, much to my chagrin, was almost dessert-like. Usually I add in whatever half-opened bottle of red wine that is lying around, to cut the sweetness with some acidity, and I certainly failed to purchase the requisite garlic that adds bite to any pasta dish.

Then I moved on to the apple crumble.

The tartness of a Granny Smith apples is amplified a hundred-fold when baked, and in my reticence to use too much brown sugar in the streusel topping, I found myself rather shocked at the bitterness of what ought to be generally a rather succulently sweet dish.

The irony of this meal--a sort of saccharine deception--is not an unfamiliar theme in my life as of late. In the past few years, many of my confidantes and allies have betrayed my confidence despite their apparent sweetness and concern. But rather than wallowing in the misery of these moments (which, in spite of their briefness, seem to linger and simmer long after), I'm choosing instead to focus on the incredible kindnesses that have come my way.

In the past five months, I have had unexpected hearts open themselves up to me. I have encountered tenderness and graciousness as I made the difficult transition to a new university, found new friends to call my companions on my path towards health and happiness, and have constantly marveled at how my expectations have been transcended. Have I become an optimist? Not yet, certainly, but I am now more willing to accept and embrace the unexpected sweetness that emulsifies even the most dreary days with joy.

Week 1 :: The Main (Act Two)

Week 1 :: The Main (Act One)

Week 1 :: Appetizer (Assortiments D'Exploits)

Here's a small collection of past adventures in the kitchen. Baking a cherry & whiteflesh nectarine pie, a trio of christmas cookies (oatmeal with coconut, chai shortbread, and jam thumprint trinities); a gingerbread house; birthday cupcakes for a lovely lady; a lunch of goat cheese and tomato sandwiches; and simple little tomato basil towers with balsamic vinegar.

I certainly don't pretend to be a food photographer (look at those horrible shadows in the bottom two photos) but nevertheless, it's one thing to write about cooking, and quite another to actually feast one's eyes upon the meals in question.

And who can resist a cupcake?

The Menu.

During the creation of a meal, it is wise to be adaptable. Nevertheless, as with any recipe or menu, it helps to have a roadmap of sorts, a frame within which culinary artistic license can be allowed to develop organically, as it were.

So too, in the documentation of these food follies, I think it wisest to have a template.

While I am in a frenzy of cooking this week (given that the summer semester has only just begun), I must also be wary of getting absorbed in this new creative project too thoroughly, lest any reduction in the frequency of my cooking be, well, frankly anti-climactic.

To that end, the literary menu for each week:

Appetizer: A brief post of a food-related query related to ingredients, technique, etc.
Main: The creation/documentation/commentary on a 3-course meal.
Dessert: Some sort of pseudo-philosophical musing, or a new delicious and exciting culinary find.

Interesting and possibly tangential "amuse-bouches" may be sprinkled haphazardly throughout, and I make no apologies for overt indulgences in food-related punnery.

The (He)art of Eating.

M.F.K. Fisher (the delightful, quirky, and exquisite gastronomic writer) was once asked the following question: "Why do you write about food, and eating and drinking? Why don't you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way others do?" In response, Fisher writes that "the easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry."

I, too, am hungry.

"I'm hungry" is not a phrase I have used often in the past few years, certainly not with the full measure of gusto and delight with which I think it ought to be used. Like any other relationship that binds up my heart, my relationship with food has been as fraught with sorrow as it has been blessed with pleasure. You see, the anhedonia of depression is particularly cruel in shattering one's gastronomic love: thick stews lodge themselves in your throat; a delicate meringue is tasteless and empty; even water fails to quench your thirst. Add to this depression an onslaught of griefs and traumas, and the need for nourishment (that most basic mode of self-preservation) becomes the most terrifying and impossible task to fulill. But the effects of malnourishment, as I have learned, are never merely cured by the reinstatement of regular and nutritious meals. One can learn to tolerate eating again, and even regain nearly a stone in weight, but still feel as empty and lethargic as on days spent fasting. So to really love that which I once believed was my enemy--food--I must embrace it with the full arsenal of love that I can muster up from within myself.

It should be noted, lest it seem that I am new to the world of gastronomy, that I have always loved cooking. Nothing compares to culinary sensations, the sheer explosion of sensory stimulation that envelops me when I cook: the sharp twinge of burning eyes when confronted with a particularly potent shallot; the satsifying juice-rivulets that escape from a sliced tomato; the joyful hiss of butter hitting a hot cast-iron skillet. Those who know me best know the glint in my eye when I am working pie dough or arranging a salad. That "je ne sais quoi" of cuisine is, really, the Buddhist practice of mindfulness at its very best, and the stomach is satisfied even as it consumes by proxy with eyes, ears, and nose.

And so, I throw myself fully into the world of cuisine, knowing well that the grief of a collapsed soufflé or a small cut of the finger painfully betrayed by the acidity of a lemon is as apt to make me cry as anything else in my life; but for the love of food, and mainly out of a profound desire to learn to love myself, I shall valiantly meet those challenges with an open heart and an empty stomach.