banana-wii

i heart my wii, but this cross-marketing is a little weird:


[my chiquitas have a donkey kong sticker on them!]

but i think it kind of worked cause now i want to kidnap princesses named toadstool. (wtf kind of name is toadstool anyways?)

soapstuff so delicious, you can eat it!

(ok, so maybe you can't *really* eat it, but i can tell you it doesn't really taste that good anyways...)

my most awesome friend tara (who is an amazing photographer and craftslady) introduced me to these deliciously-scented inedible soap products made by a swedish company newfoundland and labrador called tvål (i know, i know: swedish + newfoundland is a totally foreign combination but it totally works).


one whiff of these hand-crafted soaps and you'll want to lick them clean, like this blueberry-basil cupcake soap.


[there's a little pumpkin-scented marshmallow-shaped bubble bath thing at the bottom of the photo that i would have eaten...]

in addition to these torturously inedible goods, tvål also produce a line of natural mineral cosmetics and you can sample them all by ordering off their site: www.tvalskincare.com

(for those in the know, there's a retail tvål store in downtown toronto that peddles the st. john's-made wares.)

shortcut caramelised onions

unless you're deathly allergic or get sharp painful pangs in the liver when you consume them, there isn't a person i know who would refuse a dollop of caramelised onions on a burger, on a salad, in quiche or ice cream, even...

often though, one might forego the caramelized onions in favour of less tasty raw onions on a burger, for instance, because cooking onions to the state of caramelisation requires more time, patience and one big beer to drink while you wait for the caramelisation process to complete.

[caramelised onions on sage/onion pork burger with apples and mustard]

but here's a little tip to getting that golden onion tastiness quicker: salt... yes, good ol' NaCL.

toss your bowl of sliced onions with a little bit of salt to help draw the water out and let it sit for about 15 minutes or so (more if you have time). fry them up as per usual over med/med-high in the fat or oil of your choice (about 1 tsp (15 ml) per onion) (and bacon fat tastes best). you'll notice that it takes less time to caramelise than it takes to finish your beer!

you can also deglaze the pan with apple cider or balsamic vinegar or love.

n.b. it's caramelise in canada, not caramelize.

better butter is better

remember that butter-themed tongue-twister rhyme from your childhood that began with "betty botter bought some butter..."?

remember how she said the butter was bitter and that if she incoprorated it in her mysterious batter that it would result in a bitter batter? and that quality butter would be the only resolution for improving the result of the batter?

anyways... here's an example of some sweet sweet butter-based batter (or dough, rather) is the fancy-arse kouign amann (breton for butter cake).and oh what a cake it is! so decadently delicious dat you dare double the dosage and die.


the breton bakery where this one is from (pâtisserie kouign amann) sells them in slices like pizza. i don't think i would have the patience to make one of these things (dough, butter, sugar, roll, wait... dough, butter, sugar, roll, wait... rinse and repeat...), but i can definitely walk or run to the bakery that makes these sweet, flaky cakes of artery-cloggers.

dumprings are dericious

when you're over a 13-hour plane ride from the closest chinese city, and you need a dumpling fix, you can get the real deal at qing hua, right here in downtown montreal. good gao-zhi (餃子) are hard to find in this neck of the woods that aren't made at home by chinese popos (婆婆) or maa-maas (嫲嫲)¹.



freshly made everyday, the good people at qing hua know their dumplings and very likely serve up some of the most authentic ones in the city. an and entire chowhound thread on this place means that it's worth a detour.

after they changed locales last summer from their miniscule st-marc st location to their present-day lincoln st. one, they added service staff (which is a big plus, considering that it takes on average a good 20 minutes to cook your order).


[i was skeptical of these chicken curry dumplings but after one bite, i became an instant fan.]

you can get them steamed (recommended for this type of dumpling), boiled (ok, but inferior to steamed), or fried (for an extra $1.50, i think). highly recommended are the lamb and coriander dumplings as well as the pork and anise ones. prices are very reasonable (ranging from $7.99 to $12.99 for 15 or 18 dumprings).

for the same price as on their menus, you can bring home twice as many frozen versions of the same dumplings so you can burn your mouth at home when you bite into one of these steamed pockets of yum!

¹(actually, chinese families from the south don't often make this style of dumplings so to name cantonese grandmothers is slightly misleading and evil of me. however, it is occasionally permitted to be so).  

oh my darling, clementine cake

anyone who would ever pass up buying one of those little wooden crates of tangerines has to be some sort of citrus masochist (or allergic to citrus, which is not unheard of...). why anyone would pass up the taste of a tangerine-burp is mind-boggling... so refreshing!

i, for one, won't pass up a crate (especially when it's on sale), but there's only so many one can eat. so with the extra ones i didn't consume, i tried cooking them in these sticky tangerine cakes following nigella's recipe for clementine cake.


i wasn't about to spend 2 hours cooking tangerines so i smoldered them in the pressure cooker for less than half the time. they came out just as mushed up as being simmered on the stove for 2 hours. then i just pulsed them using a hand blender. the finished cake(s) came out as delicately sweet and almondy scrumptious as you can imagine they would taste in the photos with just 5 ingredients (almonds, eggs, clementines/tangerines, sugar, and baking powder).

(btw, if you don't have a scale (which you should even if you weren't a drug dealer), try following smittenkitchen's version, which approximates the weighted quantity in volume).

tangerines and clementines are variants of mandarin oranges so you can use them interchangeably (the major difference between them is that tangerines often have many more seeds than tangerines).

according to chinese lore, chinese ladies who were "hip to their time" used to carry mandarins in their hands so that they would smell like the citrus fruit. (i should check the oxford companion to food for the exact reference...)

anyways, good on you, nigella, for finally producing an easy-to-follow recipe that doesn't sound wacky!

DO, however FOLLOW to the recipe when it says to use parchment paper cause these suckers stick to the pan like doody to a chihuahua's butt.

you'll never know a good cannolo until you meet one

one hungry afternoon, i felt an appetite for destruction coming on and so i bought some cannoli from alati-caserta to satiate me. boy, did i destroy those things...shredded them like a ninja turtle on a pizza delivery boy. 


[4 cannoli with ricotta and chocolate bits crema]

alati-caserta are undeniably one of the best cannoli-makers in town¹. crunchy rolls of fried dough stuff with a crema made of sweetened ricotta and magic... oh the delight! (though i have heard that some people have been diluting the crema with miracle whip which sounds terrible in itself! barf!)


[the same box of cannoli 20 minutes after purchase]

my friend benny "the sicilian" says there's only "tree places in this city" that you can get good sicilian cannoli, and that the best ones in the world come from palermo (after all, sicily is the birthplace of the cannoli); obtaining a world-class cannolo from palermo, however, might put a dent in my carbon footprint.

however, next time i get hungry for cannoli again, i'm going to my friend's place (aka mamma luigi's house). stay tuned, cause i need to catch up on my yearly cannoli quota soon before i fall behind...

¹this in reference only to retail outlets. if i counted homemade ones, then mamma luigi's is tops. sometimes i wish she were my adoptive italian mom.