Pans not shaken

I’ve whined before about not being able to hold multiple careers simultaneously, but indulge me – I’m in my twenties, after all. At dinner the other night at a restaurant with an open kitchen, my eyes were continuously drawn to the line of knife blades flashing, pans being jostled, and flames licking the ceiling (actually, the fire department came; the flashing red lights lent a certain excitement to the meal). Eric caught me staring and put his hand over his heart. “Your idealized dream!”

And here’s the thing – I would hate working in a restaurant. Intellectually, I know that. I don’t like being rushed, I don’t like working at night, I don’t like fire or being too busy to go to the bathroom and I cannot abide cranky customers (as a barista, I would give mean people decaf).

But despite that, there’s this part of me that desperately wants to be a chef, in addition to all the other things I currently do or want to do (a diplochefsmithcher?). I love cooking, and I enjoy making things with my hands, and maybe I would get used to the late nights and enjoy an easy camaraderie with my fellow cooks and I could totally get neck tattoos and nobody would care, although it might get in the way of my cookware line (would I be too edgy to have my picture on the box?!).

alliums

Probably not, though. I love cooking in my little kitchen. I like the mindful spacing out I can do over the chopping block and a big pile of garlic cloves – dice dice dice, smash dice dice dice, scrape dice dice dice, repeat. I like having three burners on and something in the oven, checking, tasting, spilling, swearing; I mostly like pulling up to the dining room table and nodding yup, I did this.

It’s the missing piece from my otherwise much-beloved job; the production of a concrete useful thing. Like most office jobs, although I am involved in useful work, and occasionally am even lucky enough to see a direct impact, I leave empty-handed each day, laden down with only an empty travel mug.

I’ll stick with my current gig for the time being. I still mess up some pretty basic things (including the weird scones I just took out of the oven, which decided to eject their butter all over the pan instead of absorbing it) and the late shift doesn’t really appeal to me. But they do say that people have multiple careers these days, so who knows?

Quarter Century Recap

In anticipation of my birthday, I’m reviewing my list from last year. I did much better this year – I hit 17 out of 25 things. A few were things I opted out of – the Ottawa City Chase turned out to be a totally different event than I thought, and I wasn’t interested in it; a long board was impractical considering I had just bought a bike.

My sleeve is sooooo close to being finished, so that stings a little. And my french is slipping despite my best efforts, just because I don’t get to use it very often.

I’ve also discovered that there’s a limit to how many different kinds of exercise I can do – I’ve been really proud of my running and biking this year, but adding yoga classes to that when I’m still also trying to get to the gym every once in a while is just ridiculous. I do pull out my mat for stretching at home, but I’ll leave yoga for when we’re living in a country where I can’t run as easily – hopefully there’ll be yoga on the expat scene.

As I mentioned here, I definitely cooked way more than 10 new things, and particularly in the past few months have really started to stretch out of my comfort zone… and learned that the food blogging life is not for me! Sometimes as I’m eating I’ll briefly entertain the notion of stopping and taking some photos, but…. oh well. It’s an over-saturated market, let’s be honest.

It’s really fun to have this list throughout the year, to consider when I’m trying to figure out something to do and remind myself to not waste so much time on reddit. Although I may have to come up with a new format soon – the older I get, the longer the list becomes!

Next year’s coming up soon.

Mile-high lemon meringue pie

For some reason, I don’t subscribe to Cook’s Illustrated. Eric teases me that I must not realize that we have money, because I’m constantly depriving myself of relatively inexpensive things that would bring me countless hours of pleasure.

The sole issue I own is the holiday 2011 edition, and it’s filled with flour, doughy thumbprints, and water-logged pages. It’s also my go-to curl-up-on-the-couch-and-flip-through thing. Obviously, I’ve gotten my $8 worth out of it.

This pie was something I bookmarked early on, but only had the chance to make last weekend. I consider pie a special-occasion dessert. It’s far too big for two people, but doesn’t travel or keep as well as a cake, so we absolutely have to have guests (or be attending a potluck) for me to make one. Which is sad, because I love pie, but it’s for the best, because I love pie (and otherwise would eat an entire pie – see what I did there?).

You guys, it. was. amazing.

This single tipsy photo is the only evidence I have, because it was gone in a flash. Unfortunately, my pie plate is a deep dish variety, so you can’t see that the meringue was almost four inches thick and perfectly, beautifully cooked. The secret? Italian meringue! You cook it before it goes on the pie, so all you do is brown it in the oven. The curd was amazing – super tangy, velvety smooth, and just the right sweetness. My only issue was that the crust shrank when I pre-baked it (despite weights), but I’m pretty sure that the fault was mine – I didn’t let it rest long enough because I was in a hurry (the pie was the first of about 89 things I cooked that morning).

Anyways, I’m issuing a standing offer for people to come over to my house for pie, because that meets my “guests only” requirement for pie, while providing me with an excuse to bake one more often.

Sesame Otsu Soba Noodles

Eric’s sister got me Super Natural Every Day for christmas, and it’s become one of my most-referenced cookbooks. I’d been meaning to try this recipe for soba noodles for a while, but kept forgetting to look for them in the store. Last week I found a package and decided to give it a try.

It was delicious, but I was a bit confused – in Heidi’s photos, the noodles look, well, noodly – long, slurpy, round. The noodles I bought were flat, and although I only cooked them for 4 minutes like the package stated, they seemed to explode into little short noodles – sort of like you’d expect to find in crappy chicken noodle soup. They still tasted good, but did I overcook them?

The only way to find out is to eat more noodles.

Cutting back meat consumption

I thought this article on reducing meat consumption in order to meet global food demand and reduce the carbon footprint of our diets was interesting, particularly because it wasn’t necessarily pushing a shift to vegetarianism/veganism. Instead it focused on reducing average global meat consumption, which I think is a way more realistic goal.

I’ve struggled with meat consumption for many years. I definitely see the benefits – environmental, ethical, financial – of eating a vegetarian diet, but I also think that the health “risks” of eating meat are overstated (particularly at the extremely low quantities we eat). I also just really like it, once in a while, and I love cooking. Ultimately, I’ve come up with a set of rules that makes me feel okay about my meat consumption – I eat it once a week-ish, only from free-range or organic local farms, and in small portions. Sure, it’s not as good for the environment or as ethical as being a vegetarian, but it’s a lot better than the average North American.

If it weren’t for Eric good-naturedly bemoaning the infrequency of meat, I’d probably eat it even less. I love cooking vegetarian meals, and I definitely eat enough yogurt, eggs, beans, etc to get my protein in. But none of this will ever change the fact that roast chicken is my favourite thing in the world.

Battenburg Cake, take one

For a long time, battenburg cake has been nothing but a fond memory, something I associate with overseas travel and squished Marks and Spencer packages secreted in returning suitcases. Regardless of what it says about our predilections for haute cuisine, the marzipan-wrapped checkerboard has always been considered the height of tea-time snack for my family. In university, my cousin brought me one that was so squashed I had to eat the entire thing by balling up the crumbs with my fingers, which is exactly what I did.

There is research that points to the tendency of immigrants to cling ferociously to homeland trends and cultural practices, even when they are no longer practiced in the native country. Four generations and counting after my ancestors set forth from Great Britain (all corners of it), the idea of afternoon tea and cake is our idea of a rocking good time. I couldn’t tell you if anyone in the UK still actually eats this stuff, or if it’s on the same level as jello salad.

I have no idea why it took me 25.5 years to make battenburg cake, or why nobody else in my family ever attempted it. The idea of making my own, not from England and at least a week old, was so foreign that it only dawned on me last year.

After my initial revelation, hesitancy set in. What if it wasn’t as good? I couldn’t find a recipe with US measurements and I don’t have a kitchen scale. Should the cake be almond flavoured, or plain? Would I have to waste lots of cake while shaping it?

These fears were groundless. The internet took care of conversions, it was easy to put together (and now I have a bunch of frozen cake bits with which to make cake pops), and it’s delicious. Okay, not groundbreaking – I’m going to try again with a fancier sponge cake recipe – but damn good. Just like I remembered. I ate it one square at a time, and am already being cajoled by my family to make some for them. For tea.

Thigh food

A friend of mine once had a friend call thai food “thigh food” – she didn’t realise the H was silent. Now we always call it that as a joke.

a montage of our food-filled vacation

The food in Thailand was amazing. I mean, we all know that thai food is delicious, but it was delicious EVERYWHERE – from a fancy restaurant, from a cart on the street, at the bus station, in the mall. Actually, the only place that it was less than stellar was at the beach, but that’s a universal truth – the food is always worse at the beach.

getting ingredients ready at Silom Thai Cooking School

My first day in Bangkok, I took a cooking class at Silom Thai Cooking School. I really enjoyed it – the instructor was funny, the set-up was easy, and the dishes were awesome.

tom yum goong

We made tom yum goong, green curry, pad thai, chicken salad, and a crazy dessert that consisted of tapioca-jellied turnip dyed with fanta and served in sweetened condensed coconut milk – it was interesting, at least.

enjoying our pad thai

Once Eric met up with me the next day, we continued to eat well. We enjoyed delicious thai iced coffee and pad thai at Chatachuk Market – if you’ve never had it, it’s similar to Vietnamese iced coffee – espresso and milk served over ice with sweetened condensed milk.

getting my daily coffee fix, thai-style

From there, we used on a few rules of thumb for eating at street carts, and they served us well – it had to be busy with thai people, and they had to be cooking the food (or cutting it, in the case of fruit) right then – that way we weren’t eating anything that had been sitting out in the heat.

fresh fruit for sale, Silom soi 11

Pad see uw, fried morning glory (a leafy green similar to chard), khao soi, mango with sticky rice… the variety of ways that the same dish could be served from cart to cart (or city to city) was surprising, but they were all good. The best pad thai I found was outside the bus station in Kanchanaburi, cooked by a woman in a wok that she could have easily fit into. Green curry varied from a soupy broth served with rice to a thick paste served over noodles – both were delicious!

While Thailand wasn’t my favourite trip ever (too hot!), it was definitely the place where I ate the best. If I ever go back (and I’d like to, so that I can go north and see the mountains) I’ll be sure to take another cooking class – it was a great way to get an overview of some popular dishes and pick up some new techniques. I even got a recipe book, and luckily I’m not sick of thai food – I can’t wait to try some of them!

The year I skipped winter

I’m back! Ottawa was cold Saturday, but the forecast for the next two weeks is over 10C every day – I’ve missed winter! (knock wood). Despite my general sleepiness, I managed to upload my photos, so here’s a bunch! I promise not to drag out blogging about my trip much longer, I just want to go into a bit more detail about the food, and then it’s back to my regular… oh wait. I don’t blog about anything regular. Burn!

the harbour light show in Hong Kong

When I arrived in Hong Kong, I lucked out and got a room with a great view at the YMCA (no, seriously – it was the nicest hotel during my trip). Although I was only there for about 18 hours, I felt good enough the next morning to go explore the neighbourhood, so I went up Tsim Sha Tsui to Kowloon Park.

The park was beautiful – it had all these different sections to it, from a pagoda in a lake to a bird sanctuary. And even though it was a weekday morning, there were a ton of people using it!

Once I got to Manila, I didn’t take as many photos as I would have if I was on vacation, because I was working. The first weekend there, I did get out on Sunday with some other staff to go explore Intramuros, the old walled city.

We rode in a jeepney, the iconic Manila transportation.

IIt was really fun to get out of Makati and see the “real” Manila, which was much less sanitized and anonymous.

Manila Bay at sunset

I was also able to go pearl shopping (with a local who knows her pearls – very important!). The variety was stunning, and it was so fascinating to watch the vendors make the jewelry, rapidly threading tiny pearls and expertly knotting the thread in between each pearl.

During my weekend in Bohol, I toured around with a really nice Philippino family, who by the end of the day had “adopted” me. I thought it was so interesting that despite our reputation as Canadians for being friendly, if my family had been on a tour and a solo traveller joined, we would probably have exchanged pleasantries and then left them alone the rest of the day. So many people seemed perplexed that I was travelling alone that weekend.

Tarsier, the world's smallest primate

We saw Tarsiers, which were really cute (and asleep – they’re nocturnal). I was actually kind of uncomfortable with it though, because despite the fact that the tour brochure said that it went to the official Tarsier Sanctuary, it didn’t. The place wasn’t terrible, and they seemed to be taking efforts to protect the animals, but after all my reading about how delicate they are, it seemed a bit off. I said something at the hotel when we got back, so hopefully they take steps to make sure the tours are actually going to legitimate stops. That’s actually the main reason I don’t like tours – you don’t have any control about where you’re going and how your money is being spent.

Chocolate hills, Bohol

Once I arrived in Bangkok, I had a day before Eric got in, and I took a cooking class at Silom Cooking School. It was awesome! The instructor was hilarious, and the food was amazing… I was so full.

Tom Yum Goong, delicious!

Eric’s first day was a Sunday, so I dragged him to Chatachuk Market. It was a blast to wander through all the maze-like stalls, but the highlight was definitely our first Thai-style coffee – an iced latte sweetened with sweet condensed milk. The coffee shop I worked at in grad school was owned by a Vietnamese couple who had a drink just like that on the menu, and it was just the thing to cool off.

Koh Samet

After that we headed to Koh Samet, where we basically lay in the shade all day long for a few days. Although I get why other people like beaches, we’ve both definitely determined that we aren’t beach people. Too much sand, mediocre food, and burnt people. Also, mosquitoes.

Erawan falls

Then we headed to Kanchanaburi, where we sweated on the banks of the river Kwai and I ate the best pad thai of my life at a street cart by the bus station (Eric didn’t have any because he was sick).  We took a day trip to the Erawan falls, where we hiked up 5 of the 7 waterfalls past more sunburnt overweight Europeans in thongs than I ever thought I’d see. This peaceful pool was where we called it quits, after I stuck my feet in to get nibbled on by those little fish.

Our last few days were spent in Bangkok, where we finally relented to the pace that 45-degree heat requires – slow and filled with plenty of air conditioned malls. We bought bespoke suits (best decision ever – the sleeves are long enough! the shoulders are broad enough!) and hung out and ate more street food.

Honestly, I didn’t love anywhere the way I loved Ecuador this summer (other than the food). It was mostly the heat, and then the fact that because of the heat, we couldn’t be as active as we normally are. I didn’t like having to shower 2-3 times a day and still feeling gross. I would love to go back and see the north – Chiang Mai is supposed to be gorgeous, and it would be cool to hike into Laos. But beaches and sultry Bangkok nights just aren’t my thing, really.

Creamy Hummus

When it comes to purchasing food, I tend to stick to extremes. I don’t mind spending a premium for good ingredients, because I know they taste better; I’d rather only buy local free-range meat and just eat meat less often (although there are lots of other reasons to do so besides cost!), and I will definitely shell out for real vanilla extract as opposed to vanillin.

On the other extreme, though, I hate spending money on prepared foods, because the mark-up is so high, and I can often do better myself. Why spend $8 on a fancy jar of tomato sauce when I can just buy some cheap tomatoes at the market and make a better one myself? Sure, there’s the cost of my labour, but when it’s something I enjoy, I don’t mind the time.

The one prepared food that I do sometimes splurge on, however guiltily, is hummus. I know – it’s dead easy, takes no time (if you buy canned beans, like a sucker, that is), and the ingredients are always on hand (if you keep industrial-sized jars of tahini on hand like we do, at least). But store-bought hummus is soooo smooth – mine always turned out a bit grainy, which was always a bit disappointing.

No more, my friends. I found this recipe over at Natural Noshing, and it easily matches store hummus in smoothness, without any of those weird unpronounceable binder ingredients (how the hell do you say xanthan, anyways?).

The one thing I changed (and obnoxiously commented on, because I’m incapable of keeping my business to myself) is that you shouldn’t soak or cook any pulses in baking soda, because it destroys the thiamin (aka vitamin B) present in them, and you don’t want beriberi, do you?

Creamy Hummus

• 2 cups cooked chickpeas, drained (I always cook mine from dried because I’m cheap frugal, but feel free to use canned if you’re short on time)
• 1/3 cup tahini
• juice of 2 lemons
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp cumin
• ground pepper to taste
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 cup water or more

Blend.

Food Heritage

We just finished dinner – I made a roast chicken with pan gravy, potatoes from our CSA roasted in chicken fat, and CSA carrots glazed with orange juice.  Roast chicken is easily my favourite comfort food meal.  Even though the first time I had it was when we made it ourselves in university, it makes me feel so cosy and at-home; it’s almost as though I’ve made up phantom memories of a grandmother’s roast chicken that sustained me in my childhood.  In reality, though, my grandmother is from the frozen-vegetables and chicken nuggets camp.

It’s the same with most “home cooked” kinds of foods – roasts, stews, jams, baked goods – my grandmother rarely if ever made any of these things, and if she did they weren’t exactly phenomenal.  As a single, working parent of three kids in the 60s, she didn’t have time to cook, and it was a chore for her whereas for me it’s a joy.  There’s nothing wrong with that – she chose to use convenience foods to make her life easier, and I’m glad that she was able to do that.  But it’s strange that in addition to some of the more exotic things I like to experiment with in the kitchen (which we definitely never had growing up!), I feel a strong pull towards Canadian farmhouse cooking.  It’s food that has heritage, and even though I don’t have a personal history with it, I know that at some point down the line, someone in my family ate these things.

Eric teases me because he says I’m practicing for when I’m a grandmother, and maybe that’s true.  Certainly I hope that my kids can derive multiple kinds of nourishment from the food I cook, and maybe it will become a new family tradition.  People far and wide in the future will hear about how good Grandma Meaghan’s Sunday Roast Chicken was…. I’d like that.