prasantrin

Pizza Hut has a new cheese-in-the-crust crust. It's like their old cheese crust (before they came out with that disgusting cheese roll crust meant to be eaten with fake maple syrup), but it's thinner. I like it.

I use a brewing basket (tea filter?)--I have both a metal one and a cotton one. I was told years ago that tea bags don't allow the leaves to expand as much, so the flavour isn't extracted to the fullest extent.

I just returned from a 5-day trip to the Tohoku area of a Japan. It seems not a lot of people travel up that way, especially tourists who usually concentrate on the Kanto and Kansai areas (and some areas in between), so I wanted to share a little of what I experienced in that part of Japan. A little background...I went to Tohoku as one of the chaperones of the roughly 150 11th grade students at my school, so perhaps my experience won't be quite the same as what the average international visitor will experience, though it's pretty close to what most domestic tourists experience (packed itineraries timed to the minute). We really only visited two of the six prefectures--Aomori and Iwate, and we also had brief stops in Miyagi and Yamagata...maybe...definitely Miyagi, and maybe Yamagata. Day 1 We took the Shinkansen up to Morioka City in Iwate via Tokyo. It was a looooooong ride up. We met at Shin Osaka Station at 7:15am (I left my house at 5:20), and didn't arrive in Morioka until about 2:20pm. We got the coolest lunches, though! When I got mine, my co-worker told me I had to pull the string at the front of the box. I did, and then opened the box and took a bunch of pictures of my sukiyakidon. I was about to dig in when my co-worker said, "No! Rona, you have to pull the string!" I replied that I had, and she said, "No! You have to pull the string out!" These were very special donburi, and when you pulled the string out and closed the lid for several minutes, some sort of heating device was activated so you could have a warm lunch! The only problem was that I was starving by this point, and having to wait another 6 minutes for my lunch was torture! Here are the instructions on the box, and a picture of the heating device. Lunch wasn't bad. It was quite sweet, but that it was hot made it a pretty good lunch for an ekiben-type lunch. After leaving Morioka, we got on our tour buses to go to Towada City in Aomori. We made a brief stop to take pictures of Lake Towada. Thankfully, it was a very brief stop because it was frickin' cold up there! Beautiful, though, as the sun was setting and the leaves in the area were changing already. It took us about 3 hours to get to our hotel from Morioka, and we had dinner almost immediately. It was a typical ryokan-type dinner. The students all sat in their classes (not quite 50 students in each of three classes), and the teachers and tour guides sat at the front of the room. My school is very sensitive about maintaining the privacy of students, so this was the best picture I could find where you couldn't see students' faces too clearly. In the top left corner, there was some sort of nabe with a special kind of mochi in the area. Unfortunately, my picture of the contents was too foggy to post, but it sort of looks like chikuwan, but made of rice. It was rather flavourless, I thought. Then there's kushikatsu (chicken in front, onion in the back), a bit of salmon sashimi (I think there was ika, too), cold udon that looks like fettucine the the red covered bowl, chawanmushi in the ceramic bowl in the bottom right corner, sauce for the udon, tsukemono, melon, and braised chicken in the middle. The melon had a cute little wafer cookie-looking thing in it, but it turned out to be part of the melon rind. After dinner, we were treated to a show. The students were taught the traditional dance done during the Nebuta Festival. It was quite fun to watch them, even if they did look a bit goofy. There were also shamisen and taiko performances. After bed checks at 10:30, we were finally allowed to go to bed. I think only the teachers slept, though, and most of the students stayed up till the wee hours of the morning. Oh, to be young again!

Mise on Corydon is now open, according to my source. If you're in the mood for Filipino-style breakfasts, Juvian's opened a new space (in addition to the original) way out in the boonies (somewhere on McPhillips). It may be far, but at least it will get you away from the drunks who hang at the original location, and they still have the best Filipino-style bangus in the city.

Is there any way you can talk to the main chef guy in meat? Pick his brains on why he is where he is--what made him choose that path? How does he feel about being where he is now? Sometimes it's good to hear about other people's experiences first-hand.

Kraft UK owns the Terry's All Gold brand, maybe you can write and ask? I think this is such a great project! I wish I could help more!

My favourite teppanyaki place does oysters with butter and soy sauce. I love them.

I'm on the side of the Europeans regarding Tiramisu and sauce. It's so sweet and rich on its own, sauce is overkill. Maybe you could put the sauce in a little pitcher for the server to offer the guest, and for when the guest accepts, have the server pour it or spoon it in a simple but artful way??? I think jumanggy once used cocoa-stenciled stars to decorate a plate of tiramisu. That's a nice idea, too. I'm in the process of making Nigella Lawson's danishes. I don't think they'll turn out quite right (I used the wrong kind of flour, and lessened the yeast thinking it would be too much), but I'll still eat them!

Well, Kurashiki was a bit of a bust in terms of food. We ate at Ivy Square, and the food really sucked. I had beef curry rice. It was a little more intersting than your usual curry rice, because it was served with steak. The curry, itself, wasn't bad, but the rice was sweet! It would have been much better with plain rice. On the way back to the bus, I convinced my co-workers to go to a cute little coffee shop. We were glad we did, because Coffee Kan has the best coffee I've ever had, and I don't even care for coffee that much! I'm thinking of going back to Kurashiki just so I can have more of their coffee. Actually, Kurashiki is a cute little town. I'd love to go back and take my time to wander around a bit (they also have an excellent art museum there). If anyone is ever in Okayama (or even in the Hiroshima area), I would highly recommend a side trip there. (But stay away from Ivy Square!)

Sydney's at the Forks is a restaurant that wasn't really on my list. I had heard of it, but was never impressed with the things I had heard. But when my cousin invited my mother and me to dinner, he wanted to try it, so off we went. At dinner, there is only a prix fixe menu at a very reasonable price of $51. With that, you choose from several options for each course--starter, appetizer, main, and dessert. Right away, my pretension radar started to beep--seriously, what's the difference between a starter and an appetizer? If the starter is supposed to be the amuse bouche, then what they serve at Sydney's is larger than your average amuse, but smaller than your average appetizer portion. And why are they giving you a choice for your amuse bouche? Isn't an amuse a sort of "gift" from the chef and not considered a course? But I guess counting an amuse as a course gives people the sense that they're getting an excellent value--4 courses for $51! After visiting the website again, I see that they include the palate cleanser as a course, so they say you're getting 5 courses for $51. What's up with that? Since when is a palate cleanser a course? It's a little itty bitty serving of sorbet, for god's sake! (radar going beep...beep...) Anyway...my starter was some kind of cold soup with goat cheese foam. It may have been called a gazpacho, but it wasn't (as far as I could tell) made with tomotoes (it was green). The goat cheese foam was served separately for the diner to add as desired. It was refreshing, but I didn't think the goat cheese foam added anything to the soup other than, well, pretension. While it didn't make the soup bad, it didn't make it better, either. My appetizer was pork belly with three sauces, and it was supposed to be Thai-inspired. The pork was very nicely cooked--it was tender enough to cut without a knife, and it was nicely flavoured. The sauces were a bit more problematic. One was coconut milk-based. It was excellent on its own, but did nothing for the pork belly. The other two sauces were less successful, even on their own. And none of the sauces or the pork belly had any inkling of inspiration from Thailand, although one did have coconut milk (but the flavours of even that one weren't Thai at all). One of the sauces was curry-based, but it was more Indian curry than Thai. I did try a bit of each sauce, but I ate most of the pork belly (which wasn't a very large portion) on its own. It was much better that way. My main was striploin. I ordered it medium rare. What arrived was pretty close to well-done. I didn't complain, but chalked it up to the server mis-hearing my order (maybe she thought I said "medium well"??). It was dry and chewy, as one would expect from an almost well-done striploin, and the vegetables served along with it were terribly salty. I ate very little of my main, but had it packed up (my mother ended up using my leftovers to make a stirfry). Luckily, my dinner was saved by dessert. It was the definitely the best course, and was a riff on a chocolate bar. It had a cake-like layer on the bottom and a marshmallow layer, covered with chocolate and served with caramel sauce. It didn't compensate for the other misses of the meal, but at least I had one positive experience there. Along with the check we were presented with little sugar cookies. I vaguely remember them being pink and white, with some sort of design (hearts?). They weren't very good. I'm a little surprised they don't count the cookies as a course, making the dinner an even better value. (6 courses for $51! What a deal!) The service was friendly and competent, although had I been the server and someone ordered striploin medium-well, I would have at least mentioned that particular cut of meat would be better if cooked less. I liked the decor--it was somewhat eclectic in a nice way with pieces that seemed to be from all over the world. We discovered after speaking with the manager (?) that the owners buy most of the pieces at Home Sense. I'll have to shop there more often. I can imagine Sydney's being very popular with Winnipegers. It has a slightly upscale feel, and has enough pretension to make people think they're being very sophisticated dining there. That being said, I won't be going back unless I'm dining with someone who insists on going there (who is also paying).

Teaching? Interesting... I now regret not stopping by last summer. I quite liked their meringues (crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside), and I always promised myself that I would try one of their danishes (which looked quite delicious). Oh well...hopefully The French Way will have good meringues, too!

My mother passed by Cafe Kohler on Academy Road--it's closed! There's a new French bakery in its place. Anyone know what happened to the owner of Cafe Kohler? Was the business not doing well, or did he just decide to move on?

Other countries also have guidelines regarding "safe" levels of melamine in food products. From theage.com.au I guess you'll be boycotting products from those countries, as well?

I think you should do it the day of, BUT... Didn't they once complain about beef that wasn't cooked enough? Or was it beef they thought was overcooked? I think you should also have the co-ordinator poll the guests on how they like their beef done. If the majority like it well-done, then you could cook it to medium the day before, slice it, and heat the day-of till it's a nice well-done. If they want their prime rib cooked to well-done, then I think that should be good enough for them. But if the majority actually have some taste buds, as opposed to complaint buds, then cook it the day-of.

Wow! It makes me feel very inadequate having been proud of myself for gutting a few sardines... docsconz--Your reporting on this (and other) event is always excellent, but I feel this year you've reached a higher level because of the help of your son. I think you need to get each of your sons a nice lap desk, so they can cart them around as they work as your transcribers. (Hey, free food, how can they not want that job?)

I've been thinking a lot about making some danishes, and thought it might be a good choice for pastrygirl, too. I think they would appeal to both European and American clients--who doesn't love a good danish? And the fillings could vary--you could use fillings made with local fruits, tropical fruits, etc. for more variation, along with the standard custard cream (nutella would be nice, too!). Nigella Lawson's Food Processor Danish Dough might be a good place to start. It seems easy enough to not add too much to your workload. It does require a few rounds of folding, turning, and rolling, but no additional butter is involved. I'd make them much smaller than a usual (American-sized) Danish, though, since some people might find them a tad rich or sweet.

And inquiring minds want to know... Did anyone actually say, "Thank you!"? I'm glad your TG dinner was a success! And I kind of like crunchy celery in stuffing.

My mother met a guy from Iran, and he told her that there's a Persian restaurant somewhere on Pembina Highway that's "very authentic." She seems to think it's in the Quality Inn near Grant, but a search of their website only shows a Sorrento's in the hotel. She's going to take a look for it.

I don't know if vellum is food safe, but I don't see why it wouldn't be (of course, I don't know much about what constitutes something as food safe, nor do I know much about paper making). There are two types of vellum, though, so be careful of what you buy. True vellum is made of leather and is expensive, but what you would find in a stationery or office supply store is probably made of wood fibre (and is much cheaper). Glassine might be another option. It's usually used to package foods. However, it's most commonly available in the form of bags, so you'd have to cut up a bag to get the sheets of paper you need (a bit of a pain, I think, but not so bad if you have a paper cutter). I also don't know how well one could print on it or how well stickers would adhere. They're pretty cheap, though, so no harm in getting a few to try out! From The Glassine Webshop I wonder if glassine paper is that type of paper you were looking for in the first place!

It depends on who my dining companions are. If they are people I know and often eat with, communal serving dishes are fine. But if I don't know them, and especially if it's a large group, I prefer western-style plating.

Michael Laiskonis gives a small shout out to FlyingRat's report on the afternoon tea (scroll way to the bottom)!

I don't really understand what the final product is supposed to look like (a drawing would help!), what size the squares are, or... but... I'm thinking skip the liner and use card stock, instead. Use lightweight card stock (I think vellum would be nice) that can run through a computer printer. Then scan the logo, print it on the card stock so each logo fits into one square, cut, and place between squares of chocolate. Or if you want to use some kind of waxed parchment paper, then you can put the logo onto stickers like these Avery stickers (you can print a whole sheet of logos), cut them out, and affix them to the parchment paper (the parchment would be the same size as the sticker). Would that help? To figure out how to do the logos on one sheet of stickers, the Avery site has templates you can use to design your seals. Here's a website that has a bunch of different types of tissue paper that might be what you're looking for.

Instead of imprinting the entire paper with his logo, how would he feel about one sticker with his logo? It can go on top where the liner overlaps (assuming the liner I'm thinking of is the same that you are), and if the boxes are wrapped, it can also be used to seal the wrapping paper.

cough <recipe> cough cough.. I need me some of that! What temperature do you cook the caramel to?

Actually, I was thinking about the one that began in mid-December of '08. If I had anything more than rudimentary computer skills, I would provide the link. ← But we haven't even gotten to mid-December '08! Maybe you were dreaming?