Tea Break

Since the new year, life/work has been puttering away at a comfy pace.  But as a freelancer sometimes you get slammed and shit gets cray and you begin compartmentalizing as much as possible and list-making gets taken to the next level.  This is where taking a moment to have a breather with the soothing warmth of a cup of tea becomes abso-fucking-lutely-necessary to take those stress levels down and chill for a minute or three.

Ahhh...

Earl Grey my most favourite tea, characterized by its bergamot flavour and a splash of milk transports me to my happy place.  This Kusmi Tea yielded a delicious pot of temporary serenity.
Oh, is it done already?
Back to work!

SF/Bay Area photo diary pt.2

Pretty much the only thing I have to talk about is the weather. It's cliché, I know, but this Montreal winter has been particularly brutal this year.  Engaging in denial, wool, and reminiscing of warmer times may or may not help me get through this North of the Wall winter, but it's worth a try.
Ahhh...I can feel the warmth on my face already...


After the sunset at Freemont Older Open Space Preserve and hanging with some dear friends and toddlers, we headed to some wine tastings in the Healdsburg area (lots of love for J Vineyards) and got some middle-of-the-day booze naps in Novato.
Onwards to San Francisco.

More crab was found at Ocean Beach as we sipped our Trouble Coffee in the sand.  Much architecture was admired. No, wait, much architecture was consistently inciting exclamations of love and real estate envy.  I could barely keep it together.

.

1. #lookup, Outerlands
2. a work by Ted Noten in the Ornamentum booth at the FOG Design+Art fair
3. more java at Blue Bottle Coffee in the Heath Ceramics factory

What, is it the end already? Back to reality

pumpkin soup

It's rainy and cold outside so I'm starting my winter hibernation with a hearty and filling pumpkin soup.  I never used to make soups, but then with all the squashes coming in from our veggie baskets, it was time to put them to work.  Then I discovered that making soups was pretty much a no-brainer.  Roast some veg, make or buy a good stock, season how you like, blend that shit up and voila.  Meals for days.

This particular deliciousness above was a combination of a pumpkin and what looked like a pumpkin on the outside but its innards looked like spaghetti squash.  Whatevs, all squash leads to the same road of goodness.  Here's the "recipe" (aka, throw whatever you have in your fridge), it yields A LOT of soup, watch out!

-roasted pumpkin and squash, probably equivalent to 3-4lbs worth
-two big leeks
-onion
-lots of garlic
-a can of black beans
-3-4 big tomatoes
-4 cups or so of veg stock
-2 cups of water
-a bunch of coriander
-a teaspoon of smoked paprika (maybe more?)
-jalepenos
-cumin
-season at will
-blend it real good

I cozied up to my soup with Hijacking the Runway by the very smart and funny Teri Agins, a writer at the Wall Street Journal.  Agins' "beat" is fashion, but not the trends or who is wearing what, but the stories behind the business, a beat she was onto before Business of Fashion gave a wider audience the bigger picture.  The book is proving to be a fun read with some surprising info, read this great interview with Agins for more tidbits.

Veggies & Compost

I had just finished preparing a quick snack and tossed the discarded bits into a bowl that resulted in this photograph.
I'll take this opportunity to do my yearly acknowledgement to the wonderful bounty that is our veggie baskets from Les Jardins d'Ambroise.  The thyme and eggplant make regular appearances but the lemon is definitely from the grocery store.

After I took this photo I took the bowl and tossed its contents into my Compost Montreal bin, made a mental note of gratitude for this service, as only several boroughs have the door to door pick-up service. I may have to wait until 2016 to get my compost picked up for free, but am very patient especially if it's done the right way.
Otherwise a quick google search for "sites de compostage communautaire montreal" will point you towards the many options where you can bring your compost material for free or low costs.
Small steps.
Or hey, you can build your own composter too!

sweetness

1. I'm a sucker for packaging.  Tasty raspberry lemonade and elderflower bubbly beverages from Belvoir Fruit Farms

2. Picked up popscicles at  Puces Pop from the Secret Society of Sweets, the one in the middle is buttered popcorn.  It's totally cray.

Holidaze

1. major frost nipping at my window

2. holiday "baking" of chocolate almond butter cups

3. lights and decor on Coloniale ave.

happy new year!

Lili Co.

Not too long ago I had the pleasure of eating at the offal-rich Lili Co.  We were a group of six so we maximized our eating capabilities and ordered everything on the menu.  The portions are small and of the sharing nature, so for the brain-squeamish (me!), a little bite instead of a whole portion made things psychologically easier (pun totally intended).  That being said all of the dishes were delicious and we scraped every last morsel off our plates.  My fave was the smoked butternut squash cream, with boudin noir and brussel sprout leaves-just looking at the picture above makes me salivate with the memories.
For actual food reviews check out here and here.
Bon appétit!

Filipino Home Cooking

I'm still thinking about the delicious fundraising dinner event for the Canadian Red Cross for the victims of typhoon Haiyan that I attended this past weekend.  Artist Gene Pendon, brother Dave Pendon and their uncle Ed orchestrated a Filipino menu that tasted almost like my mother made it...almost.  The awesome volunteer kitchen and wait staff at the Sparrow hustled-to say the least-to fulfill the orders of the packed restaurant/bar that has probably never seen so many adorable kids underfoot.  Cue to this sibling pair pictured above, with their t-shirts emblazoned with a classic dish: the chicken adobo.  If you are not vegetarian, please, please, try this dish, so simple, so deeeelish.

You missed out? It's never too late to donate!  Or check out Fantasia Festival's fundraising fun featuring Filipino filmmaker Erik Matti (info here!)  Or enjoy the Franco Proietti Morph-tet's jazz vibes at BBAM! Gallery (event link here!)  With surely more events to come!

Ok, serious stuff:
Climate change is real, freak storms are becoming the norm.  Yeb Sano is still fasting. Food for thought.

Salicornia & Elderberry

In movie making mode at the moment, so throwing down another food post.  Been jonesing to share my deep deep thoughts on Spring Breakers, but that'll have to be for another time.

I first crunched into a salicornia back when Sardine still had its dinner service.**  The sourced ingredients were local and my eyes practically popped out of my head when the salty watery plant (not dissimilar to purslane) hit my palate. Yum!  A recent meal featured this succulent delicacy and sent me on a mission to Jean-Talon market on the hunt to give it a home in my fridge.  Success!

 This little beauties are again courtesy of Les Jardins d'Ambroise.  These itty-bitty elderberries are making their first time appearance in my belly.  Please come again.

**UPDATE 17.09.13: Sardine has reinstated dinner today! With chef Hachiro Fujise of Guu Church at the helm**

Carrots in Love

Year one was awesome.
Year two with Les Jardins d'Ambroisie has been equally fruitful. Pun totally intended.  This week's veggie basket has given us a bunch of insanely delicious carrots (not your blah grocery store kind), in which two have intertwined in a love embrace.  And then they sloshed around together in my belly.

Satay Brothers

I met Mat Winnicki back in the day when I worked in a retail shop and he worked across the street in a busy cafe/restaurant.  Smiles, nods and have a good days were the amount of exchange with had during the bustle of the lunch rushes.  I think the longest conversation we had was when he came into the shop to wish me luck into the world of freelance during my last days in retail.  We shared a bottle of Pop champagne, exchanged email addresses and said stay in touch.

A food tasting back in 2010, (I hoard pictures)

Over the years sporadic emails were bounced back and forth and delicious food adventures were had. One day an invite to a food tasting chez business savy brother Alex, popped up in my inbox.  The menu was to feature Singaporean street food and I said "hell yeah!" This was my kind of market research.  These tastings would become the building blocks to the Satay Brothers' hawker style counter, which has become very much beloved at the Atwater market during the summers.  I finally went to the winter location a few blocks away to enjoy a meal during a packed lunchtime.

Buns! Buns! Buns! To be filled with pork or tofu

Singapore-styles

Bros before hos, with respect to your mom.  Yup, mother Kim inspired the cuisine and can be seen regularly in the kitchen working her skills alongside her sons.  That's love baby!  Speaking of love-if you want to read an actual review/raves, check them out on their slick site and view some tasty pics while you're at it.

Time to Make the Dumplings

Have I ever told you that I LOVE dumplings?!
Like really love them...I can have a frozen bag from the grocery store or freshly made ones from Qing Hua.  Either way I am as happy as a clam.

Then Debbie Wong of Debbie Wong's Wok and Gong proposed we make our own dumplings.  What?!  Sign me up! Not only would I reap the reward of hard work done by eating a bowl full of dumplings, I was also going to take a bunch of the leftovers to keep in my freezer for future dumpling emergencies.

 The set up: premade wrappers from chinatown, a little bowl of water, the stuffing mixture featured pork, tofu, bok choy, shiitake mushrooms and a mixture of dark and light soy sauce.  There in the bottom right corner was my glass of wine.  Let the wrapping begin!

fill a bit in the middle, and wet half of the edge with water, fold over, pinch to close

Dumpling party! Look how much fun we are having!

We have two techniques here, the scalloped empanada style closure and a simple version

YUUUMMM! After steaming, make saucy concoction that can be spicy, soy saucy, tanihi filled.  Whatever tickles your fancy.

Digging into some peashoots!

Simple quick and cheap, cheap, cheap

Like a little birdy

Ode to a Grilled Cheese Sandwich

I vaguely remember the first time I had a grilled cheese sandwich.  I was in high school and being introduced to all sorts of foods not present in my Filipino household.  My mom has THE cooking skillz.  That's right-she deserves the 'z'.  While sinigang and pinakbet were definite staples, she could also throw down a mean bolognese or an inspiring butternut squash soup with ease.  She always collected recipes, eager to try out new dishes, but even so, there were certain foods that never made it to our kitchen.

During high school, it was lunch time and after school hangouts with friends that led to the discovery of new foods.  Chili was one, reminiscent of spaghetti sauce, it was somewhat familiar. Packaged, processed, microwavable frozen foods like chimichangas and burritos were also new to me.  They were found in a friend's basement freezer and bought in bulk from the then named "club price."  But it was the grilled cheese sandwich, in its most humble form of nutritionally void sliced white bread and plastic singles cheese, fried up, and served with a squirt of ketchup, that remains a very fond food memory.

My, my, grilled cheese, how you've come a long way...

This tasty treat came from the recently revamped Arts Café.  Between the crusty bread (from Boulangerie Guillaume!) lived some cheddar, onion chutney and apple.  I ate it all.  My lunch date had the other grilled cheese on the menu, which had smoked cheese, pickled beets, walnut pesto. Yum!
For the lactose intolerant/vegan peeps out there: rice cheese is your friend and drizzle it with that Redstar nutritional yeast for extra goodness.

I leave you with an Instagram shot of a detail of the restaurant's decor.

Toqué!

One of Montreal's most celebrated restaurants Toqué! is marking it's 20th anniversary with it's first book Toqué! Les artisans d'une gastronomie Québecoise/Creators of a new Québec gastronomy (éditions du passage).  The book launch took place at the very cavernous Arsenal art complex, complete with tasty snacks and purveyors of wine. Yum!

 The massive space used to be a shipyard and now houses the works of two galleries (René Blouin, Division Gallery) and a private collection; all while acting as a host to a variety of events.

Some bites were provided by the Grumman '78 and Nouveau Palais food trucks.  Long lineups ensued.

The very lauded Chef Normand Laprise and his associate Christine Lamarche packed the mighty hardcover not only with the restaurant's unique recipes but also with tales of the journeys from the farms and rivers to the kitchen and on your table.

Photographer Dominique Malaterre shot all the accompanying images for the book; from the atmospheric to drool-worthy.
Above left: a river view at Kamouraska and right: an apple and vanilla grass cocktail.

Insta Post

End of summer is nigh!
I share some summer moments from my Instagram, you can click the button on the right if you want to follow the feed!

Delicious yellow watermelon from Les Jardins d'Ambroisie. Public installation at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

An army of Risk.  Skinning/canning tomatoes!

Woodwork and black lines at Hotel Herman.  A swim in the Lachine Canal.