It’s actually pretty tasty if you enjoy this sort of thing.
So the fellow who introduced me to oysters also had me try mussels at some point later in our culinary excursions.
I don’t enjoy them as much as I do oysters. Well, I shouldn’t say that, a pot of moules frites is a delight, but not for the reasons you might think.
This is a traditional pot of mussels, complete with an incredible collection of green things – in this case, green onions, leeks, celery… Probably some shallots and some onions.
And then the whole thing is cooked in butter, garlic and white wine.
Throw in some mussels, steam to perfection and hey-presto, lunch.
But for me the best part isn’t the mussels. They’re great and everything, but the best part is scooping heaps of the greens on a piece of grilled sourdough. Which I did with abandon. I don’t think anyone noticed how enamored I was with the part of my lunch that wasn’t the main attraction. Well, if they did they didn’t make any mention of it, which is just as well.
Without a doubt the tastiest and best part of the meal. I wonder what would happen if I ordered a pot of mussels, and asked them to hold the mussels.
Despite a nutritional value in the negative digits (or perhaps because of it), pancakes hold a position of great regard in our home.
I have probably made them a couple hundred times over the last few years. My technique is constantly evolving, as it is for everything I make, but I have this recipe down pretty much flat. Pancakes are one meal that everyone happily eats. We do have fundamental differences over syrup – my self and my younger daughter enjoy pure maple syrup; my wife and older daughter, in what can only be viewed as a purely passive-aggressive stance, enjoy cane syrup. We are using up the last of a bottle of Aunt Jemima syrup which only adds to their transgressions.
Yes, white flour. Yes, sugar. Yes, devoid of any real nutrition, and then you slather on some butter and douse them in syrup.
…but you can put raspberries on top. Or strawberries. Or some huckleberries. It probably doesn’t really do much for the overall nutritional value but it doesn’t hurt.
Having teenagers as I do is a full-throttle journey into the world of carbohydrates. These pancakes tick every box on Planet Starch and as a consequence are met with adulation. I would love to get more protein and fat in the meal – yes, I know that is what bacon is for, but hopefully something a little less processed. At least there is some fat in the butter.
The plate of flapjacks sits out on the stove after breakfast is over. Yesterday there were 6 extra pancakes. This morning there was an empty plate.
As much as I know they’re really not that good for anyone on any level, making a meal for my family that is met with cheers is as much about me feeling good as a provider as it is about me feeding the family.
I just sometimes wish they would show as much enthusiasm for a salad.
Right, the recipe.
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
3 tsp baking powder
2 Tbsp sugar
2 eggs separated
2 cups milk.
Mix dry ingredients. Whip egg whites in small bowl. Mix egg yolks and milk in another small bowl. Combine milk mixture into the dry ingredients until just combined. Fold in egg whites. Cook in oiled pan until cooked through.
https://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.png00Alastairhttps://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.pngAlastair2020-06-29 13:17:492020-06-29 13:20:50Keep this up and you’ll kill the family.
Bananas, Cuba. Where everything is a proxy for something else.
I was chatting with an old friend over a beer last night. He works with the Government of Canada in the Foreign Service office. Well, everyone was repatriated so he’s now home. Living with his folks, because his house is rented out to a very nice family who expected he wouldn’t be needing it for another couple of years. His wife and daughter are also with his folks. Good thing it’s a big house. It’s my understanding that as wonderful as that situation might be in an abstract form, it sets up many opportunities for interpersonal friction.
Our conversation was wide-ranging, as they always seem to be, but he did comment on something that has me thinking: He brought up the notion of food being a proxy, as he had been spending a fair amount of time in the kitchen, cooking for his own family and his parents.
A proxy is, according to dictionary.com:
proxy [prok-see]
noun,pluralprox·ies.
the agency, function, or power of a person authorized to act as the deputy or substitute for another.
the person so authorized; substitute; agent.
a written authorization empowering another person to vote or act for the signer, as at a meeting of stockholders.
an ally or confederate who can be relied upon to speak or act in one’s behalf.
I saw these definitions and I thought, “Oh boy, where to start?”
Thankfully, it was a lighthearted conversation we were having, but his thesis was that in cooking for his family (and especially his parents) and in making food that they were obliged to eat, it set up a power dynamic that caught him off guard.
On the one hand, it’s dinner. We all have to eat.
On the other hand if you’re cooking for another, what is the message that the food is replacing?
Man, now I’m in way over my head. There are two issues here. One is what is the food acting as a proxy for in terms of inter-personal relationships? The other issue is what the food is saying? Or what the creation of the food is saying.
I’m staying with the first one for this post.
Thinking about myself, because that’s what I do so well… There are a few people in my life where food has played a major part. And in every one it has been (as far as I can tell) positive. No one used food as a weapon. No one used it as an improper tool to control a young, foolish boy. (Well, except when it was something like profiteroles or a nice piece of perfectly cooked salmon and then it was decidedly Pavlovian, but let’s agree that was done in the name of science and just move on.)
For me, food really isn’t used as a proxy, as far as I can think. It is used to communicate. I’ll deal with that in a later post.
But as a proxy? I don’t think so. But I can see how you could use it as such – there was an anecdote I read about years ago: A young woman was returning from her studies in Canada to her European home at Christmastime – I can’t remember specifically where it was. As she stepped out of the taxi in front of her childhood home, both of her parents greeted her with their own, individual, versions of the same dish. Jetlagged and exhausted, not to mention freezing, they insisted she try both versions then and there on the front porch… …and then decide which of the two was better. Can you imagine being welcomed home by that?
The food was acting as a proxy in that story, for sure. But I shudder to imagine what role it was actually playing. I prefer my food to be a proxy for just how much I enjoy my family and how much I appreciate them. There is no better way to show how you feel about someone than by cooking them a meal they will love.
https://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.png00Alastairhttps://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.pngAlastair2020-06-26 17:36:552020-06-26 17:36:56Food as a proxy.
We have this unwritten rule in our house – if it’s in the garden, you can eat it.
Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that. If you tear out half of the pea plants getting a pod of peas, you’re going to have to answer to someone. And if you dig up an entire head of lettuce to munch on, one of the adults in the house might have something to say about it.
But that’s really about it. We don’t really have too much in our garden that you can eat this year. We didn’t do sugar snap peas; instead we have sweet peas because the flowers are just so pretty. We have some lettuce in the ground but it’s taking its own sweet time getting going.
There are tomatoes, as well. And, of course, my cucumbers.
These raspberries are from my mother-in-law’s garden, where she grows them, literally, by the bucketful. The kids have always been allowed to go and eat as many as they want. Help yourself.
It isn’t really junk food in the traditional sense. Yes, they probably don’t have much in the way of nutritional value, and yes, they have a bunch of sugar in them… But there is also some fibre in there, somewhere.
But that’s not the point. As far as I’m concerned eating out of a garden is one of life’s most underrated pleasures. The produce always (and I mean ALWAYS) tastes miles better than what you can buy. Aside from water and seeds, it’s free.
And the berries are always so succulent. Sinful, even.
Now, there are a couple of caveats:
Better wear some shoes because it really hurts if you step on a hornet that is grazing on a cherry from the tree. Personal experience in this case.
Better wear some shoes because sometimes bears come through the property and, well, they don’t really spend too much time considering where they might relieve themselves.
Further to this point above, take a good, hard look around when you go to the garden at dawn or dusk, because the only thing worse than getting too close to a bear is getting too close to a surprised bear.
If anyone ruins their dinner because they stuffed themselves with cherries, raspberries and various other garden produce we will let it pass with no small amount of parental pride.
https://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.png00Alastairhttps://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.pngAlastair2020-06-25 14:01:402020-06-25 14:02:51If it’s in the garden, it’s allowed
What do you do if you’re out of ideas? When your kids eat an endless supply of junk food that appears, seemingly, out of nowhere? When you just don’t have the ability or the energy to do something about it?
Or when you’re out of ideas for helping kids with anxiety, or with migraine headaches. Or both. Or Math homework. Because the parent in you wants to tell them to just get a good night’s sleep and eat some healthy food. Hey, it might not solve everything but it’s a start. Generally comments like that are not welcome in conversations with teenagers. Who knew?
Breakfast used to be pretty good. We had a system down. Mondays were this, Tuesdays, that. Wednesdays were these great egg sandwiches I would do with English muffins. But then my wife started fasting in the mornings, and the kids can barely get themselves out of bed on time, and it has descended into something really not worth doing. And a certain someone (not me, my goodness, no) was grazing on the English muffins so when I reached for them they were unavailable. It’s hard to cook when you don’t have all the ingredients.
One kid leaves the house, always late, always hungry. The other leaves the house on time but with not nearly enough food to keep her going through the day. And now that no one is going anywhere in a hurry due to COVID, it’s even more chaotic.
Then they come home and have a huge snack, or eat when they arise – some time in the mid-afternoon – and they aren’t hungry for dinner.
They’re getting to the age where they can’t be punished. Heck, they’re well past that age. I’m totally out of ideas. I want to say, “here, eat! It’ll cure what ails you.”
But to no avail. Oh well. What is it they say about ‘fighting the good fight?’ Is that a timely thing to say or think? I hope so. Gotta be something in that box that Pandora opened.
https://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.png00Alastairhttps://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.pngAlastair2020-06-24 11:51:002020-06-24 11:51:01Of all the best laid plans…
A few years ago a friend of mine sent me a stock photo request for a cortado coffee. I had no idea what one was. As it turns out, it’s a Spanish coffee, where the milk ‘cuts’ the espresso. So a 50-50 mix of coffee and espresso. I had never heard of one before. Apparently they’re consumed in glasses, rather than cups, and apparently they have steamed milk but not froth or foam.
I didn’t make the sale on the stock request, even though I shot what I thought were some rather nice photos. I even used some film.
But I ended up making and consuming a fair number of these drinks. I have never really seen one except in photos in a search engine. Still don’t know if what I’m doing is right. I’m sure there are a bunch of baristas out there who roll their eyes at such abominations as this.
But it’s my narrative now, and this is my cortado. It’s more like a 2:1 mix of milk and espresso, and I do a bit of latte art on the top, such as it is. The Rorschach test on the top of this drink is either a puppy or a tornado. It’s hard to tell.
I’m rather partial to them now. My afternoon go-to coffee drink, especially in the summer.
Not as strong as a macchiato and with more substance so you can enjoy it longer. That’s the only problem with straight espresso. It’s over before it starts.
I love fresh oysters and I have no idea why. The thought of them really isn’t particularly exciting, really. And yet, somehow, they are amazing.
My oyster journey started more than 20 years ago, when I was having a bite to eat with a friend of mine. He is older than I, and I trust his food suggestions without question.
A tray of fresh oysters went by and I grimaced. He looked at me and asked, “You don’t like oysters?”. I replied I had never had one, but the idea was somewhat challenging. He responded by ordering a dozen malpeques. I figured that if John said they were good, I wasn’t going to die.
And here’s what happened. I had one – with a touch of a vinegar mignonette. I was totally unprepared for how much I enjoyed it. I remember thinking quite a few things, most notably, “huh, I have been missing out.”
This order of Kusshi Oysters that I had with my dinner last week was delightful, but my wife still won’t try one, no matter how much I try to encourage her to give it a shot.
The oyster lesson has stuck with me – my mom always wanted us to at least try dishes that were presented to us as children. She made some pretty strange (to a kid) dishes. Some were great, others less so. This is something I do with my children. I always ask them to at least try it. Sometimes they’re right and they hate it. Sometimes the plate is clean before I can get another word in. Things haven’t changed much since I was a kid.
So far, no one in my family has taken me up on my conviction about how great oysters are. Even my brother and sister aren’t interested. Time will tell, but I expect that at some time in the near future someone in the family will admit that I was right, and they are really good.
While I’m at it, I would also like a pony, now that we’re wishing for crazy things.
It was a while ago. And even then it really wasn’t that good.
I was asked by one of the utilities here in British Columbia to take a few photos of some of their properties. I made a fairly large loop (about 600km) and ended up driving down the Fraser Canyon on my homeward leg.
My grandparents lived in Salmon Arm, BC and we would regularly drive the 7 hours and visit them. Before 1986 when they built a new highway, the only reasonable way up was the road beside the Fraser River. Several times a year we would all pile into our car (1977 Chevrolet Impala – quite the machine) and we would make the trek. Once, and only once as I recall, we stopped here for breakfast, as my dad always wanted to get on the road early. It was a Smitty’s Pancake House in Yale, BC.
In the first decade of my life I probably traveled this road 30 times. In the following three decades I have been up it three times, as I recall. Wait. Maybe four times. Regardless, it has been a while.
Things have changed, obviously. This location has, sadly, closed and the town which always felt somewhat bustling is now very quiet. The food here was really not very good, and I expect that there were a number of factors that involved the closing, but ‘great food, I’ll miss it’ was probably not something that people said much of.
That said, though, I remember being here once, probably when I was about 8 years old. And I remember it like it was yesterday, almost 40 years later. Even bad meals can do that to you.
https://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.png00Alastairhttps://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.pngAlastair2020-06-19 13:13:132020-06-19 13:13:15That was a while ago.
I’ll bite: How is it that water tastes better in a restaurant?
I went for lunch with an old friend today. We went to Chambar, a downtown restaurant. It was a little strange, with everyone in masks but the food was pretty darn good (more on that later).
To start the meal, our server asked if I wanted some water – still or sparkling. I asked for still and a bottle of this showed up. Check out that label! I’m assuming that in the cooler they have a multitude of bottles – some still, some sparkling and the labels are to tell the two apart when servers are grabbing them in a hurry.
Regardless, I think they’re snazzy.
And I think the water tastes better out of a bottle like this. Strange, but true. I had several glasses. They just kept on bringing more bottles of this wondrous stuff.
https://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.png00Alastairhttps://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.pngAlastair2020-06-17 17:27:502020-06-17 17:27:52Special still water
A neighbour of ours, before he started a micro-brewery, farmed a piece of land near Vancouver. His sister, as I recall, was in charge of the garlic, and one day he dropped a bag of scapes off for me. It was rather kind – he also dropped off a piece of horseradish root a while later – that was tasty, too, but the subject of another post. The scape is the flower of the garlic plant and it comes up all of a sudden in late June. Apparently the idea is that you cut the scapes off so as to give more energy to the garlic bulb. cut off the scapes and you get bigger garlic.
Some people just compost theirs, but Steve even gave me a recipe: Ready for it? Chop up the scapes, put them in a food processor with a handful of walnuts, big pinch of salt… run the processor and drizzle in oil until it turns into a paste. Toss with freshly-cooked pasta.
Brilliant. I remember being totally blown away. Three (well, four and five if you count the Parmesan cheese on top) ingredients, plus some pasta.
So supremely easy and so tasty. Every time I see scapes I get hungry – even photos of them from a year ago.
