Category Archives: Food

09.24.02
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*yawn*

As part of my wind down from Vegas I’ve already put together the video presentation of the few shots I took while I was there. Check it out if you’re interested by visiting the Gallery. Some info you may not get out of just watching it:

  • Yes, that’s a meat locker Steve is pointing to.
  • The outdoor concert was being given by George Thorogood.
  • The restaurant after the Starbucks is Emeril’s New Orleans Fish House.
  • Yes, those lions were right above my head.

I think that sums it up. :)

So now, today, I try my hand at true professional cooking for the first time! Jeff has invited me up to try my hand at two lunches at The Angry Tomato, learn the ropes a bit, and see how it goes. This mixed in with my next eight weeks of cooking school should go a long way towards putting me where I want to be as a chef.

Cheers!

08.31.02
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Manual Labour Day

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about working for yourself, it’s that holidays mean nothing. I remember looking forward to long weekends so much, and doing absolutely nothing when they got here. Now here it is, almost a full year and I haven’t enjoyed a long weekend yet. It’s just work, work, work. I look forward to the day when I can look forward to a Monday off again.

In the meantime, I took advantage of a night alone to get crazy in the kitchen again. It started when Mar alerted me that my Tomatillos were ready to be pulled, and indeed they were bursting out of their husks. I can’t believe I managed to grow them here in Canada. My cayenne chili peppers were ready to go as well so I plucked one cayenne and three tomatillos. I marinated some steak in lime juice, habanero sauce, chili powder, and coriander for a few hours, then grilled it and sliced it in strips. I served’em with chopped endive, sliced tomatillo, and crumbled blue cheese in warmed flour tortillas. I also made the famous Mexican “green sauce”, which is basically garlic, chili peppers, tomatillo, and onion roasted in olive oil, then blended with cilantro into a sauce. It all turned out really good – and in less than two weeks I’ll be trying this stuff in a classroom for four hours a night.. wow.

So I guess since I’ve been lazy with blogging lately, I’ll finish this extra long addition off with the Friday Five I missed yesterday. Questions courtesy of Julie:

1. What’s your favourite piece of clothing that you currently own?
Well, I can’t indicate one particular piece – but I have four XFL jerseys that I can’t stop wearing. They’re so awesome for wearing around the house because of the material – they always stay cool. Plus, I usually get weird looks from people outside the house when I wear the XFL one. :)

2. What piece of clothing do you most want to acquire?
Hrm.. does this count as clothing? Because I would SO love one of them. But it’s got to say WWF, not WWE.

3. What piece of clothing can you not bring yourself to get rid of?
I have a series of hockey jerseys that no longer fit me from when I was a kid, but I’d never get rid of them. Team Canada, the Sharks, the Lightning, two Blackhawks, and a Sabres.

4. What piece of clothing do you look your best in?
Well, if you ask my wife, anything with a shirt and tie. Basically, anything blue tends to get the most reaction because my eyes are so bright blue.

5. What has been your biggest fashion accident?
Depends on who you ask, I guess. I’m not a fashion king – if I like how it looks, and it fits well, I’ll wear it. Right now I have a bright blue button-up with a white floral pattern across the chest and a black shirt with flames on it that tend to illicit varying reactions. :)

Cheers!

08.21.02
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Paella Espanol! Ole!

Regardless of what Kip may think, the webcam does actually appear to be broken. Unfortunately when it tries to upload the capture it gives me an unreadable error. If I sit down with it for a few minutes I could probably fix it but things have been so hectic I just let it go. No worries, I’ll get to it eventually and y’all can get back to staring at my ugly fat mug. ;)

Mar just called in from Ottawa where she’s on a business trip. She relayed to me a story of how she got to go out with the folks she was training for dinner to some cool Mexican restaurant with what she was told were great Margaritas (she doesn’t like tequila.. bah..) and I’m stuck here. It reminds me that I do need to get a laptop at some point so I can tag along on these business trips and work out of the hotel. So I looked up a few deals and noticed that it’s substantially cheaper to get the exact same system with a Celeron than comparable MHz Intel. So I ask – is there THAT much difference? $500 worth of difference?

With Mar gone I got southwestern creative again. I did what I would call a spice-candied pork chop first, which is basically a pork chop seared and crusted with brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, coriander, cilantro, cayenne, paprika, and ancho, then finished in the oven. I’ve done things like that before and they always end up good – ALWAYS sear your pork chops in a hot pan before you oven-bake them – trust me on this. But where I got creative was a spanish style rice. I sweated out a vidalia onion in butter, then tossed in a bit of saffron, which turned the onions bright yellow. Then it was coriander, cilantro, cayenne, and paprika – then chopped garlic. Let that cook, then threw in dry long-grain rice. Toasted that for a minute, then added a couple cups of chicken stock. Let that cook through until it was dry, threw in two bay leaves, covered it and let it simmer for 10 minutes. It turned out REALLY well, which further proves that I do my best creative cooking when there’s nobody else around to prove it to.

Only three more weeks until cooking class! :)

Cheers!

08.13.02
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Axe FL

Looks like I missed the midnight cutoff to have made this the Monday blog it should have been. But whatcha gonna do? After my recent string of culinary successes I put myself to the test with making a soup from scratch without a complete recipe to follow. I had peered through a few different recipes for guidelines but basically did it myself. It was a roasted corn soup based out of a chicken broth with red peppers, ancho chile, and some shallots. The corn was roasted straight on the cob so that made it better. In the end, it turned out really good, so I can add another notch in the future menu of my as-of-yet unnamed future restaurant.

So before I run along to watch the late reply of Opening Soon, I’m not sure if anyone caught this on the webcam the other day. Of course, the webcam did. When I peered through the saved images I found the following. Sometimes I forget the webcam is on – this being one of those times – as I wailed away with full distortion on the old Washburn MG-34 Mercury Series electric guitar. This is actual playing, folks – think I’ve got a future? :)

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Cheers!

08.09.02
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Oy! Friday! Woooo!!

I’m about to call it a night, rest downstairs in front of the Jays game with the cactus margarita I never made and a pizza I’m about to make myself. BBQ chicken, balsamic onions, cilantro, and blue cheese. I have also confirmed up some R&R at my friend Craig’s cottage from this Thursday until Sunday, which will rock. Four days without net access – can’t wait. I’m going to take my chair in a bag and a fishing license and waste away the entire weekend. ;)

So without further adieu, I bid you all a fair weekend, although chances are I’ll still be around posting tomorrow and Sunday. Are all you bloggers ready for Blog Meetup in 11 days?

Ooh.. gotta go.. need to have my pizza done and my drink ready before Casino Diaries starts..

Cheers!