Category Archives: Food

07.21.10
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Eastern Road Trip 2010: Day Three

Day three would be our second day of largely just driving. Things got off to a rough start with a late sleep-in, tough when you have a schedule to keep to. Portland has been named the “Foodiest Small Town in America” by Bon Appetit, and at the same time a specific breakfast item – corned beef hash – at Hot Suppa! had been selected as the best breakfast item in town. So we headed off to try it out. It’s a tiny place and the corned beef hash was one of the best things I’ve ever had for breakfast. Unfortunately the food they surrounded it in was fairly pedestrian and unremarkable, but perhaps we simply arrived on an off day. We finished up, set the car up and headed off a few minutes to Freeport.

Freeport is best known as the home of LL Bean, and they have four variations of the store in their little town. On the way in is a 25-foot statue of an indian, and Mary seemed anxious to get her picture taken with it, as did I. Very touristy but it breaks up the road trips. :) In Freeport we found a fair bit of outlet-style shopping to check out, and ended up losing another hour and a half or so roaming the streets. By the time we hit the road it became clear we weren’t going to be hitting Moncton in time to meet Brent, nor were we likely to make it to Charlottetown for the night.

From here the goal was get to Moncton ASAP, and we decided to skip both the I95 and Highway 1 options to cut through the centre of Maine on Highway 9. It’s a relatively underused road that appeared to be popular with locals, and we tracked a New Brunswick car the entire time. Crossed at a new border crossing with just about nobody at it, so new it wasn’t even on the GPS. Got across with no problems to find 110kph speed limits that assisted us in ripping through Eastern Canada as well. We began calling 1-800 numbers for hotels to try and secure something in Moncton with no luck. The final decision was to just show up somewhere, and we randomly selected the Crowne Plaza in downtown Moncton. They had eight rooms left and reduced their price from $209 to $129, more than we’d hoped to pay but worth it being that Mary was anxious to sleep and not drive anymore. Once settling in with our stuff we hit St. James’ Gate to find they weren’t serving dinner any longer, thus relegating ourselves to a slice of local pizza back in the room. Oh well!

07.18.10
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Eastern Road Trip 2010: Day One

Greetings! Fitting that I’ve gone from one trip to the next without any other posts at all, but alas, such is life. Yesterday we packed up the car and began the 5,000 road trip that will see us cross four states and five provinces en route to the end goal of Justin’s wedding. As usual, plans don’t always come together.

The goal was to make it from Toronto to Syracuse for lunch at Dinosaur BBQ, as featured on “The Best Thing I Ever Ate”, before getting to Boston in time to catch a concert by my favourite band, Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers. Alas, the unexpected world of border crossings. We stood idly by for over an hour at the Queenston-Lewiston crossing, thereby ending any chances of arriving in Boston early enough for the show.

The first stop happened as planned, albeit a bit later than usual lunch. Dinosaur BBQ came recommended by Adam Gertler on said Food Network show for their BBQ chicken. Mary did a chicken and rib combo with mashed potatoes and tomato and cucumber salad, I did the pulled pork and brisket combo with beans and chili. All of it was excellent. This is a huge place in the middle of an older, slightly industrial area of town that was absolutely packed even after 2pm in the afternoon. Food was served quickly and tasted great, highly recommended. I even managed a flight of odd beers: Middle Ages Ape Hangar Ale, Ithaca Cascazilla, Lake Placid Ubu Ale, and Middle Ages Wailing Wench. Ape Hangar was crap, the others were great.

After that it’s a long haul of boredom to the Boston area, trust me. Oddly I’m starting to recognize things after my many trips this way, and we pulled in near 8:30pm. We hit dinner at a place called nourish in Lexington, meant to be a restaurant of ethically sourced food that’s relatively natural, organic, etc.. Small issue that the service was horrible and the food was average, regardless of the restaurant being almost empty. I did enjoy a Peak Organic IPA before we hit the Fireside Bed & Breakfast in Lexington for the night. A very nice B&B with wireless internet (w00t!), air conditioned rooms, and a really friendly and helpful host. We caught a late night swim before retiring out of sheer exhaustion.

So this morning I lay out the goals:

  • My geek cred life goal of having my picture taken outside Kirkland House at Harvard, the dorm where Facebook was invented is primary
  • Securing the Yard Bird (Harvard) foursquare badge is second
  • Lunch at Mr Bartley’s Burger Cottage, which was closed on our first visit in 2006
  • Doughnut at Craigie on Main, as recommended by Food Network magazine
  • Delivering a rather large care package of Ontario beer to Josh Christie

Let’s see how many of these I can cross off today!

01.30.07
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Less Than You Think

So Sunday brought about the early birthday dinner with my family over here after following weekends were proving difficult for the gang to get together. Since it was my choice I decided to introduce the family to West 50, not terribly far from the new office here. Everyone had a good time, the food was quite nice, and people seemed to be enjoying the different beers. Mary and I split the Smoked Paprika Dusted Crispy Calamari and it was excellent, served with a mild lemon yogourt dipping sauce. I’m loving yogourt dipping sauces as they offer health benefits, and I’m really not finding a loss in flavour from sour cream or mayo based sauces and dips. I moved on to the Mexican Enchilada Burger with Chorizo Sausage and their featured soup, a Thai Beef and Vegetable. I believe amongst the rest of the gang there were: Spring Roll Sampler, Spicy Thai Chicken Satay Pizza, Cuban Roasted Pork Sandwich, Grilled Chicken Breast Sandwich, and Olaf’s Schnitzel. No disappointments this time, as expected the kitchen is churning out quality food regularly now. There was too much beer flowing to recall what everyone had, although I do remember I tried the Niagara Eisbock, Warsteiner Premium Dunkel, St Ambroise Pale Ale, Belhaven 70 Shilling, and for dessert, St Ambroise Oatmeal Stout. My thanks to my parents, Kim, and Jeff for covering the night on behalf of my pending 33rd, it was great fun.

Yesterday, however, not great fun. Sunday night I stepped on my guitar case and sliced open the bottom of my foot on the latch, making it hard to walk. Got to my car and found the windshield washer fluid frozen again, regardless of promises of “anti-freeze”. Almost ran out of gas on the way to work after taking a northern trip to Hockley to research a location for a future golf tournament I’ll be organizing. Took over an hour to get back, but happily stopped at Starbucks on the way. Proceeded to spill my first expensive drink since I started here on the floor of my car, and then realized when I arrived I’d left my key card at home and couldn’t get in. Long day.

Perhaps not as long as the drive home Friday night during which, for the second time, my bladder did not outlast my commute. Much like the storied drive to Ottawa many moons ago I was stuck in the nasty traffic on Friday night and realized there was no way, going stop’n’go along the back roads, that I would make it to a bathroom. Thankfully, I had my two 1.5L bottles of water with me, one of which I had emptied already. So, yes, I proceeded to fill it with nary any shame nor discretion. Filled it. 1.5L. Heck, at least it gave me a story.

Time to work..

11.20.02
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A Conundrum, If You Will

So here’s my story for the day, and it requires feedback.

As some/many of you know, I’m a bit of an amateur chef who is slowly becoming less and less amateur all the time. In fact, I can now produce an entire spread from appetizer through sopa/salata and through dinner and people will actually mutter appreciative moans through their bites. Taking an actual class has taught me a lot of the basics required so I can consistently do things the right way, and make them look pretty good while I’m at it.

So yesterday I met my sister at the gym en route to my workout and she quickly put me in contact with the facility manager. They’re looking for someone to teach basic cooking classes to locals and I had been recommended. Before we all jump to conclusions, the courses they’re looking for are snacks, stir-frys, vegetarian cooking, and anything else on a beginner’s level I can come up with. They want me to present a list of “courses” to them, each would run one day a week for a few hours and wouldn’t be too expensive.

So, knowing that nobody reading this has probably tasted my cooking, but going on the previously noted description, do you think it’s something I should consider? I’ve had a few people tell me that I’m probably not ready for it and it’s best to give it more time. However, others (and I should note those that have tasted my cooking, including Steve, who attended the classes with me) have said it’s a beginners class, that my food theory knowledge and abilities are beyond beginners and that it would be a great chance to do something I like while passing some knowledge on. As they noted, it’s not like I’m doing advanced food prep – it’s snacks, sandwiches, cooking veggies, etc..

Post in Comments, and don’t think I’ll be offended. As you can probably tell, I’m a bit apprehensive to do this anyways but I’m always selling myself short and I have no idea what to do with this.

Thanks!

09.26.02
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Preferring It Back Inside

The last week and a half have truly been a whirlwind – the next few days should be a welcome respite from the constant movement. When I had noted in Vegas below that “sleep won’t be an option” I wasn’t lying – as it turned out I didn’t sleep my last two days there. I managed to squeeze a lot of sights and sounds into those two days, though, so I don’t regret it. The plane ride home was murder because everything on me wanted to shut down and crash, but because I had a changeover I couldn’t just lie back for hours and sleep. When I got back it was catching up on my precious Survivor and Big Brother, then up Sunday for a family dinner at my grandparents. Monday was spent catching up on lost work, then Tuesday and Wednesday at The Angry Tomato to learn some on-the-job cooking in a professional kitchen. That was a lot of fun, and I don’t *think* I messed anything up. All’s well that ends well, right? Then today it’s back catching up on work and I have to leave in two hours for cooking class in Toronto. And just when I think I can see the other side, I’ve remembered I’ll be getting three more movies to review tomorrow – and trust me, this is much harder work than I ever thought it was. I still enjoy watching the movies, but the 4-5 hours I need to allocate to each movie for the in-depth reviews is just too much.

That said, I’ve now added a new menu option on your left with links to the last two weeks worth of DVD reviews, in case some of you are interested. Clive suggested I add a rating system, which I have for the past few weeks. Thanks to him for that suggestion. But I haven’t stopped there…

Gaming Jackpots, my gaming site, launched a suite of free casino games in Flash today. They look pretty nice, all the popular games are there, and you get 1000 free credits to start. I can always add more if you bottom out, just e-mail me. I’ve placed a link on your left under Fun Junk in case any of you are bored and want to play a little Blackjack or some Slots. There are other games there too. Hopefully you enjoy them!

And for those that asked what I got to make in the restaurant the last two days – a lot of House, Greek, Caesar, Grilled Chicken Caesar, and Blackened Chicken Ceasar salads; Garlic Bread (with and without cheese); Chicken and Goat Cheese Salad; Blackened Chicken Wrap; Club Wrap; Chicken Wrap; Veal Sandwich; French Fries; Sweet Potato Fries; Blackened Chicken Pasta; Cauliflower Soup; Pasta Pomodoro; Breaded Veal; and Margarita, Ariana, and Louisiana Pizza. You can check out the menus here and here.

Now it’s off to class to make a Lasagna..

Cheers!