My Goodness! No Guinness!
March 17, 2008
Great Moments in Eating History: Little India in Singapore, August 2006
February 25, 2008
You’ve heard it before, I’m sure: Someone begins a travelogue entry by stating that “stepping off the plane was like stepping into a sauna… I felt I was swimming through the air, not breathing it.” It’s delicious, of course, that first sensory experience in a tropical country, and I enjoyed it again when I flew from cold, rainy Beijing into muggy, humid and wonderfully sweltering Singapore in August 2006.
Paella in Point Form
January 14, 2008
The one thing I immediately thought of buying when I found out my office was sending me to Madrid for a week was a good, old fashioned paellera - a shallow pan specifically made for paella. Although I live in London, in a gardenless flat, far from any wilderness or even open spaces where barbecues are allowed, my imagination still ran wild with thoughts of paella cooked over twilight open fires, with fresh seafood pulled directly from the ocean into my pan and saffron tendrils falling from the sky like a gentle snow. And, well … I bought the paella pan. I am now willing the rest of the vision to appear. Isn’t it just like purchasing a Ferrari at age 57? Don’t the hot chicks just appear? If you build it, they will come….?
There are extensive debates as to how to make a proper paella. What meat? What stock? Saffron or paprika? Add rice, then stock? Stock, then rice? What veggies? Oh lordy, it didn’t promise to be an easy undertaking. Then there was the matter of the paellera itself - did it need to be seasoned, like a wok? Could I use soap when it needed washing, or did it need to be treated like a delicate nonstick fryer - where no metal could ever touch its surface? My saffron-dusted dream was quickly turning into a bitter nightmare fraught with imitation food-colouring.
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A Weekend in Italy
December 23, 2007
So lately I wonder whether this blog even deserves to be associated with food writing: after all, it seems as though all I’m doing lately is running around Europe or North America; taking pictures of things I eat; and then, after finding myself too busy to actually take the time to write about said delicacies, hurriedly posting the photos and moving on to more delights.
The last of Canada: Toronto
November 21, 2007
Question:
What do you do with 26 green heirloom tomatoes harvested early to protect them from frost?
Montreal 3: Sushi at Sho-dan
November 11, 2007
This is my second to last Montreal posting, but probably my favourite in terms of pure photo genius. Little digital camera with no manual settings and Windows Photo Editor, I kneel before thee! Let no one say you need a fancy camera and tripod and magic lighting to take good pictures of food.
Like so many of us, of course, I love Sushi. Being poor and sometimes a bit lazy to do it myself, I don’t eat it that often. Of course, articles like this don’t make me feel any better about that, or that my best efforts in home-made sushi could ever live up to the label ‘good’ or even ‘decent’. No, I will never wake up at 3 a.m. to bribe fishmongers for the perfect piece of tuna - but I will be consistently disappointed by eating mediocre sushi at affordable establishments! Oh yes, I will.
Montreal 2: Pierogies and Dim Sum
November 6, 2007
So after sampling some borscht at St. Viateur on Northern St. Laurent, my appetite had awoken but not bedded down. So I knew there was only one place to go - The Main. This restaurant was my standby during my previous life in Montreal: an old Jewish deli with Quebecois flare, it has an extensive menu of sandwiches - including tongue and smoked meat - as well as poutine, matzo ball soup, vareniki (pierogies), blintzes, cheesecake and full-sour dill pickles. They also have unbelievable hamburgers; throughout university, going to the Main for a mozzaburger, dill pickle and Diet Coke was the perfect hangover remedy.
Montreal post 1: Bagels and Borscht
October 30, 2007
I’m back in Canada again. Don’t ask, it’ll just make you sad. And strangely - instead of being in Toronto with my family, I’m in Montreal (a city I lived in for five years … five years ago) having a mini-vacation. Again, don’t ask - suffice to say, in two days I’m heading to Toronto to take care of some sad family affairs.
But for now, I’m making lemonade with lemons, visiting old friends and old eating favourites, and it’s interesting to hunt down my previous tried and true eating experiences on a cold, 5-year-old trail. This seems to have affected bar selection most, but I had a few nasty surprises when I tried to track down that old hole-in-the-wall eating place only to find it closed. Fortunately, there appear to be some institutions that continue to stand the test of time.
Rootbeer and Rips in the Space/Time Continuum
October 21, 2007
So I’ve been playing with time a little bit in my last few postings - first I was in London, then Canada, then Nantwich, and now we’re returning to Canada for a brief almost-interlude with a beverage I must live without for approximately 11 months of the year: rootbeer.
I thought about adding a new cryptic category to our blog: “Big Yellow Taxi.” Sing a few lines to yourself and perhaps you’ll understand what I mean, but basically I wanted a category for celebrations of things I can’t get wherever I am. It’d be a big category, as both N and I have traveled a lot - and to be honest, no matter how good the food is wherever I am, I’m always missing food I can get somewhere else.
Staffordshire Oatcakes
October 18, 2007
Sometimes I labour under the impression that because I’m living in the UK, I shouldn’t be living my exclusively urban lifestyle - jamming myself into tubes, attending free festivals in parks, exploring art-house theatres and perusing most major gallery exhibitions in the city. No no, I should instead be ruggedly walking through highland fields in wellingtons, with a troupe of dogs following me as I look stunningly rugged in a mackintosh. Actually, I imagine myself not so different from the Queen - in, well, The Queen - when she saw the buck and urged it to run away.
