chromedome

That's major. I'm reluctant to even surrender the bones.

I'm at the oven all day, every day. Frequently I don't even notice that I've burned myself until I go to wash my hands. Then the hot water reminds me! I've had a few good ones, over the years. Like the time I pulled the stock pot off to the side of the burner, because it was too hot (boiling, not simmering). Having adjusted the flame, I reached up and pulled the pot back onto the grate...using the handle that'd been over the flame. Matching blisters, finger and thumb. Then there was the heating-my-sugar-to-start-work-on-my-centrepiece incident, which saw a large bubble of lava explode over my right hand. The blisters lasted a few weeks, but (bloody-minded sort that I am) I bandaged and gloved myself and proceeded to pull the damned sugar. In my defence, let me say that I iced my hand every ten minutes for the rest of my lab time that day. And at school, of course, there were always people who were "too busy" to stack things properly on the cart we used for hauling our stuff to the dish pit. So periodically one of us would have to go and organize things. I always seemed to be the one who organized sheets straight from the oven, or saute pans straight from the stove. That loud sizzling sound is classic comedy, every time.

Okay, the food was not even secondary in this instance. The food was somewhere waaaaaayyyy, waaaaayyyy back in the overall scheme of things. There was this girl at the call centre I was working at, you see. She wasn't conventionally beautiful but I found myself rather drawn to her. After she'd been there for nearly a month, she happened to mention that the Canada Day holiday was also her birthday. Now, please understand that by this time I'd reached the point where I was in despair after work on Fridays, because I wouldn't be seeing her again until Monday. So I invited her to join me that night, June 30th, at a bar in Gastown that I frequented in those days. She said she'd come out. I went home, showered, downed a hasty mouthful, and went straight to the bar. Sat there for hours (it couldn't have been any later than 6:00 when I got there, but I wasn't taking the chance that she'd show up when I wasn't there); getting a crick in my neck from watching the entrance so intently. She finally got there at around 11:00, by which time I'd been through several cycles of intense depression ("She's not coming...dammit, dammit, dammit...I should just go home and forget about it...but maybe she's just running late...maybe something came up...maybe she went somewhere else...she's not coming..."). She met my friends. We talked, we laughed, we drank, we talked some more. We closed the place down. We walked to a 24-hour restaurant a few blocks away, and sat and had a big meal of steak and eggs and lots of coffee and talked and talked until sunrise. Then we walked up to her place in Mount Pleasant, where after some more talk we dozed off in each other's arms, in companionable (and non-sexual) coziness. A couple of hours later we were awakened by the arrival of her aunt, from the West End, and her best friend (& friend's husband) who'd driven in from Edmonton as a surprise. Surprise! Ummm.... everybody? This is Fred.... That was seventeen years ago, this past ten days. I woke her up on July 1st with her now-traditional birthday breakfast of eggs Benedict. There's still nobody I'd rather cook for. <'scuse me...gotta go hug somebody now....>

BB's are a tiny sort of shot (like small ball bearings) which are used in air rifles. Their purpose, in this application, is to weigh down the balloon and stabilize it. Anything will do, I guess, as long as it is both dense and small enough to pour through the neck of the balloon.

I like them with rum, myself. Not a standard combination, but it appeals to me. Personally I like them tart, but I'll sweeten them depending what I put them with. I'm not a summer person (I detest hot weather, and I avoid the sun) but to me there's nothing better than the smell of a blackberry patch under a hot August sun (they're an August thing anywhere I've lived. Maybe the very end of July, in a good year).

Throwing my two cents' worth into your new Newfoundland thread reminded me that I'd neglected to mention a few worthy artisan bakers to check out in Halifax. Boulangerie la Vendeene is located in Mahone Bay on the South Shore, but comes to town for the market at the Brewery on Saturdays. Their breads are all organic, and very old-country in style (Marc is an old-country French-trained boulanger). I've had most of their breads, and they're very good. Didier Julien, another French boulanger located on the South Shore, has two permanent outlets in Halifax. One is on Dresden Row, just off Spring Garden; the other is in the Hydrostone Market in the North End (just blocks from my former home, and a stone's throw from the current Keith's brewery). Julien's has decent coffee and Euro-style pastries, as well as the breads. The Ginger Bread Haus, in the South End (a few minutes' walk from Halliburton House or the Granite Brewery) is owned and operated by a former instructor from the Culinary Arts faculty at the NSCC. They specialize in Mittel-European pastries and European-style coffees. It's a good 'un. Oh, and on the subject of coffee I'll mention Java Blend Coffee Roasters, just north and west of the Commons on North St. They were my favourite place to buy coffee when I lived in Halifax. They've been family-owned since 1938, with the third generation currently acting as roastmaster and a fourth generation now in incubation. They roast their coffees in small batches, daily, and offer organic and/or fairly traded coffees which will knock your socks off. This is their website. Their organic dark blend was my standard daily dose, but I've also enjoyed about half of the coffees in their line (they've expanded the line greatly since I moved away). They are Greek, so expect some triumphant Euro 2004 memorabilia. Oh, and while my fogbound brain is free-associating, the Bluenose laundromat is just a couple of blocks from Java Blend. George and Maria (also Greek) are the sweetest people. The Bluenose is a little community, where everybody knows everybody else. If you're going to need your clothes washed, where else would you take them but the city's best laundromat?

Dunno if it's still there (I last set foot on the Rock in 1982) but Ches' Fish & Chips ruled. People used to take big boxes of it on the plane back to the Mainland. I never understood that; no matter how good f & c is before the flight it's crap afterwards. Go figure. I don't remember exactly where on the highway it is, but I loved one place I ate as a kid in the back seat. It was called the Pinchgut Diner (Pinchgut being the name of the town...Newfoundland has some of the most colourful place names anywhere). The food was ordinary, but I loved the name and still remember it. If you spend a night in Corner Brook, the place to do that would be the Glynmill Inn. I've no idea what the food is like, these days, but the hotel is quite beautiful and so is its setting. Although it is unlikely, given the climate of Newfoundland (nasty and brutal), there are actually a few small wineries there. The most interesting, to me, is the Rodrigues winery. They are an exclusively fruit-based winery, with two unusual distinctions. One is that they are kosher-certified. The other is that they have their own in-house distillery, which they use to make (wait for it) slivovitz (???!!!). They are located in Whitbourne, at the narrow neck of the Avalon Peninsula, so they will be an easy visit going either to or from St. John's. They are part of the fruit-wine equivalent of the VQA organization, a standard-setting body. The Weil winery, in Twillingate, and the Flynn winery in Shoal Harbour (near Grand Falls/Windsor), are both viable side trips from the Trans-Canada. September is the best month to visit Newfoundland, as the fall colours come early there. If you find the opportunity, try to visit some bog country...if Cezanne had seen a Newfoundland bog in September, they'd never have gotten him back to France. If you can fit it into your itinerary, on no account should you miss Gros Morne National Park. It is simply one of the most breathtaking spots on the planet. I can't speak for any culinary excellence in the area, but I'd eat dry bread for a day just to be there. It is an easy drive from Corner Brook; the official site is here. I still have friends and family down that way, but most of them are out in the boonies. I'll see who I can track down for some up-to-date recommendations.

My parents made a lemon pound cake with wild blueberries, when they owned their bakery in Nova Scotia (where blueberries are a major industry). Use your favourite lemon pound cake recipe, but stir in a quantity of blueberries at the last minute. Top the still-hot cake with a thick mixture of fresh lemon juice and sugar. Very nice. I'm tired and might have missed it upthread (apologies if so), but you might also cook your cobbler in a pot on the stovetop. Just leave room for the berries to steam and simmer, and cook it in a pot with a tight-fitting lid (rather like the old-fashioned chicken soup & dumplings beloved by North Americans of rustic roots). This dessert has various regional names (grunt, bangbelly, and similar inelegant terms) and is quite delightful, if not especially attractive. Serve with cream or ice cream.

Thanks, all. I will be doing some digging during my (less than copious) free time...I am a freelance researcher, after all...but needed a few quick ideas to get me started. The links above are all that and more, and "strata" (thanks, Andiesenji!) is precisely what I was grasping for as a label to use for menu-writing purposes. I can run with that, now that I know what to call them! I'll improvise variations on those themes, and bake them off on sheet pans or in two-inch hotel pans, and cut 'em in wedges to go with my roasts. Shouldn't be too difficult to co-ordinate pudding w/sauce w/roast. The carving station has been rather fun for me. Making up sauces for the roasts has been an amusing diversion from the pizzas and pastas; makes me feel like I'm getting some practical use out of all that class time. And my "Repertoire", of course, is small enough to fit handily in my locker at work.

Over the next week, at my day job, I'm taking up my new duties as "team leader" in the bakery (essentially manage that department). We've just recently switched to a new bread supplier. These are artisanal breads of excellent quality from one of the leading local purveyors; the price points are higher and part of my job will be selling the new product to our longtime customers. However, because of the higher costs, another part of my job will be ensuring that we get maximum utilization out of the unsold product. For the unflavoured breads, I don't anticipate any difficulty locating recipes for upscale bread puddings (or using them for breadcrumbs or stuffing or what have you); but many of the breads we're buying are savoury...black olives, peppers, onions, cheese, and many other suchlike ingredients. Are there any traditions of savoury bread puddings out there? We do a carved item every day, so I wouldn't lack for meals to pair them with, but I'm unsure about how they'd be received. Bread puddings, for a lot of people, conjure up memories of frugal grandmothers and stale-tasting sodden goo. If there was a traditional style of savoury bread pudding, now, I'm thinking that I could put it across as an ethnic specialty...something that would perhaps garner a more sympathetic ear from my customers. Anyone know of anything? Got any ideas?

I got tired of combing the second-hand stores for one of those waffle irons a couple of years ago, and bought a small two-waffle modern version. Back in February I was in a thrift store here in Edmonton and found an old four-waffle Kenmore with the cloth-covered cord. Works like a charm, and makes better waffles than the new one. Hmmmmm..... Come to think of it, I haven't made waffles for a while. Maybe I'll mix up some batter tonight before bed.

I love my Kitchenaid, and I use it a lot, but it's useless for bread. I made the mistake of buying a model with the 4.6 qt bowl (I was on a budget). It's got the 350 watt motor, so I've got power enough to handle bread dough, but the dough climbs the hook and winds itself around the head unit. I spend more time unsticking the damned dough than it's worth. Usually I start the bread in the KA, let it go to the point that it climbs the hook, and then take it over to the table and knead by hand. It's quicker in the end. As I said I give my machine a lot of use, but bread was one of the primary reasons I bought it. I'm still a little miffed about that.

My mother bought a Proctor & Gamble toaster oven in the mid-70's. She used it for about eight years, then gave it to my sister. My sister used it for another three, and gave it to me after receiving a newer model as a gift. I used it for a further four years, a rather respectable total for an inexpensive model. When it died, I purchased a nearly identical model to replace it, which lasted me for eight years. My current model is at the three-year mark and counting. It is microprocessor controlled, and beeps/shuts off when the toast is done. Doesn't broil nearly as well as the older model, but it makes decent toast. All of these cost less than $35 CDN, which is pretty lowball up here. I used to have a separate toaster, but gave it away because it did nothing but take up space in my cupboard. I doubt I'd ever buy one again, unless it was a wedding gift...

Being a Downeaster, I'm a biscuit man all the way. Having said that, fresh strawberries are of course a perfect accompaniment to any ol' pieces of angel food, white cake, genoise, sponge cake, or similar substance you happen to have lying around. It's just not strawberry shortcake, is all.

Been using mine regularly for a year and a half. In Canada at least, they come with a 90-day warranty. No problems so far <crosses fingers, spits over shoulder, knocks wood>

Teff is the smallest of cultivated grains, being a fraction of millet's size. In fact its name is thought to be derived from a word in a regional dialect which means "lost." Aside from its flavour and nutritive value, its great distinction is that it is the most drought-hardy of grains, surely a recommendation in Ethiopia of all places. Typically, in areas which may-or-may-not get enough water for other grains, maize will be attempted first, with millet and then teff as the fall-back crops. I'm assuming that this would be due to the relative yields of the crops; and the relative difficulty of milling teff given its tininess. I think I have a little bit left in my cupboard as I write this. It's bloody expensive stuff, about $13/lb when I bought it last. Remarkably tasty stuff, though.

My son was watching me do this one day, eyes wide. "How do you do that?" he asked. "Simple," I told him. "See how the side of the pan is shaped? It's a half-pipe for food!"

During our first few months together, my wife-to-be had the dangerous habit of pinching my butt while I was absorbed in cutting and chopping. Fortunately, I broke her of that one quickly enough to retain all of my digits.

Exculpatory moment. I was never one for sharing my space in the kitchen, but of course cooking school takes care of that REALLY fast. And of course, I want to encourage my kids' nascent interest in cooking and baking. So really, it depends where I am and what mood I'm in. At work, people natter at me all of the time. If I'm focussed on what I'm doing and especially if they're talking to my (less functional) left ear, it's no problem...I just don't hear them. Well, actually that is a problem sometimes. At home, I have different moods and moments. If the scenario is "I've just got home from work and want to get supper on the table so I can sit down and relax," then you'd best be staying out of my way. Wife and kids know that. If I am locked in the throes of mortal combat with my recalcitrant muse, then I am not fit company for any human. Wife and kids know that, too. Otherwise, I'm okay with chat for the most part, less so with physical presence (small kitchen). My end of the conversation will tend to be random and abstracted, of course.

This is actually wife of Chromedome, reading this thread while CD and young'uns are eating lunch. Chromedome likes no interference with his rhythm in the kitchen, though he has learned to give said young'uns a little space in there so as to encourage their own budding love of cooking. But CD himself is a little deaf, and is tuned in to what he's doing. He can handle one person coming in and asking about what he is doing, but not much more than that when we have a house full of people. On our daughter's birthday, he shared HIS kitchen with my Dad's wife beautifully. There were only a few misshaps regaurding Mummy's clothes and CD's food, but they had alot of fun for such a small kitchen. How have you dealt with sharing your domain? Squirrel

Hee! Reading this thread has been like watching the last two years of my life passing before my eyes. I've always been a very capable home cook, and a very helter-skelter one. I seldom bothered with recipes except as a source of ideas; if I saw something that appealed to me I'd just bang out my own version on a wing and a prayer. The vast majority of the time, the meal would turn out excellent. And the vast majority of the time, it would be 30-60 minutes longer than I'd estimated, and the kitchen would be a shambles when I was done. Then I went to cooking school. Then I went to work at an upscale restaurant. Talk aboutcher "sink or swim" moments? Oy. I'm getting pretty good at accelerating under stress, now. At my day job we feed 700 people in 45 minutes or so during the lunchtime rush. I have two hours to prep and complete my day's production for lunch (and accomodate any catering contracts that have come along); then roughly two hours of lunch (12:00-12:45 is the part that really wails along...); then finish my day on other prep (tomorrow's mise, etc). Since I work directly in view of our clientele, cleaning as I go is pretty mandatory. Unfortunately the dish pit is at the very back of the shop and I'm in the very front, so I have to resort to making "relatively neat" stacks of rinsed dishes during the morning crunch. I'll only have time for two or three trips to the dish area in the run of a morning. And by the same token, I need to get everything I need from there pretty much on the first try. So...as for recipes lying about the prep time? Look at who's writing them. If it's a professional cook, you know that he or she is very, very fast by layman's terms. Even those food writers who spend a high proportion of their time testing recipes will generally have learned to be quick. One important thing that the professional kitchen teaches is to "never prepare at the time of service what you can do ahead." Break down your recipe. What can be done that morning? What can be done a day ahead, or even two or three? For example, will you be using fresh thyme tomorrow? Pluck the leaves from the stems tonight while you're watching TV. Chop, rinse, and dry your parsley. Chop and seed your tomatoes. Carrots can be peeled and held in water; peas or beans can be tipped and "stringed." Many things, far from deteriorating, are improved by advance preparation. The whole notion of "mise en place" is of mixed benefit to the home cook. If your kitchen is small enough that everything is within reach, and if you always know where everything is, there's not much benefit to having all of your "stuff" sitting out. In fact, in some kitchens I've used if you set out all your ingredients you've got no counter space left to work in! In larger kitchens, though, it is well worth organizing yourself first. My general rule is that if I can't reach it in a maximum of two steps, I'll get it out before I start. Not that I've had a lot of larger kitchens to work with, at home... Right now I have a tiny kitchen with mimimal counter space and storage space, so prep room is difficult to come by. I generally use the pull-out cutting board as a work surface, placing one of my eight or ten lightweight cutting boards on top. I have lots, so that I can quickly switch gears between meats and non-meats. My knife drawer is directly beneath the pull-out cutting board, so I need to get my knives organized before I start. Unfortunately, my kids are frequently improvisational when putting away the dishes, so I often find myself delayed as I dig around for a vital utensil that's gone missing. At such moments my generally laid-back parenting style may develop something of an edge! I keep an inexpensive spray bottle on the counter filled with a bleach-and-water solution for sanitizing with. If I want to re-use a given knife I only have to give it a wash and then a quick spritz with the sanitizer. Likewise, when changing cutting boards, I sanitize the underlying work surface to avoid cross-contamination. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am often asked by friends whether professional chefs have a secret to cutting onions without tears. "Why yes," I say. "They delegate the job to someone else!"

Fascinating thread. So many topics touched on, I'm in severe auto-distraction mode just reading it. Personally, I have no real limitations on my eating except the financial. I'd love to play around with a ton of different things that I just can't afford. Oh well, we'll see what a few more months of slaving at two jobs does for the ol' budget. However, having said that... My wife has numerous non-life-threatening-but-damn-they're-irritating health issues. She's relatively healthy since surgery a few years ago, but for a stretch of five or six years my major cooking constraint was meeting her needs for caloric intake. Here's the way the scenario stacked up... Her metabolism (I won't get into the whys and wherefores) was in overdrive. She needed to eat six real meals every day just to maintain a minimal healthy body weight. If she missed even one meal, there was a strong likelihood that she would suddenly turn white as a sheet and need to sit down *NOW!* The obvious solution, feeding her high-fat high-calory foods, was out because her gall bladder would have a fit. She couldn't take supplements, because her gimpy kidneys would have a fit. Cool, huh? Now add in a few spousal food allergies (spinach, for example) and the usual kaleidoscope of kid likes and dislikes, and it's an interesting scenario to work with. Oh, and this took place during the years when our financial situation was going to hell, so I had to do it all on a very minimal budget. It taught me to be very creative.

Hmmmm. Interesting. My father was in the navy, so I fit the pattern in that respect, but I'm a little confused about the connection. My dad is a pretty good cook in a blue-collar style, but I learned mostly on my own. I do get a charge out of the adrenaline when the rush is on. It's kind of like when I was in retail at Christmastime...realizing that closing time was a half an hour ago and you still haven't closed and locked the doors and you haven't even looked at the lunch you were supposed to have eaten six hours ago and OH MY GOD AM I EVER THIRSTY!!!!..... I was never an athlete. I played hockey and soccer as a kid, but was never much good at it... my career totals after eight years of minor hockey were something like three goals and five assists. The only time I've run voluntarily since my teens was when I was chasing a bus or in danger of missing "last call" at the pub. But oh, how I love food and cooking...

That was a real kidney shot for me, too. I wasn't at the Midtown more than once or twice, but knowing it won't be there anymore (even worse, that there will be some ghastly travesty of a "new Midtown" in its place) is a bad jolt. How the hell do you replace the smell of a half-century of stale beer and cabbage? (For the non-cognoscenti, the Midtown is a classic example of a pre-Archie Bunker style corner bar, not nearly classy enough to be called a pub. They pour lots of beer and serve blue-collar food in an unmistakeably "coveralls and workboots" atmosphere.) Reverend, I feel for you. I spent two years in Regina in my late teens. It was the longest decade of my life. Oh, and an important point about fine dining in Halifax, which I'd forgotten to mention earlier. Whether it's our Scottish heritage or just old-fashioned frugality, $30 CDN (about $20 US, depending on the exchange) seems to be the "hard ceiling" for entrees in Halifax. Michael Smith was able to charge more...for a while...as was Bacchus at the Sheraton...for a while...but $30 seems to be the price at which people stop coming. A nice bonus for our south-of-the-border friends. Merlin: I know what you mean about eating well in Nova Scotia in the 70's. I was a kid then (I'm 40 now) and when I was growing up, there were only about five vegetables known to homo NovaScotianus: potatoes, turnips, carrots, cabbage, and onions. There were peas and beans, of course, but peas came in a can and beans were dried. Zucchini and broccoli were strange and exotic things which might perhaps be found in an ethnic store. And yes, I work in the restaurant business here in Edmonton. I worked long part-time/short full-time hours at the Unheardof during my schooling at NAIT; and now that I've graduated I'm dividing my time between full-time hours at the downtown Sunterra Market and part-time evenings and weekends at Unheardof. That amounts to three days off per month, give or take (not allowing for stat holidays) but I'm rather enjoying the notion of having four paydays a month. Helps pay down those student loans, and all. Perhaps on Monday I'll open up a "week in the life" thread; we've had a few of these work blogs lately and I've found them interesting.

It occurs to me that I may have left Halifax hotels under-represented in the late-night ransacking of my memory. The World Trade and Convention Centre, which dominates the downtown (takes up most of the space between City Hall and the Liquordome) boasts chef Cristophe Luzeux, a native of Lille. Cristophe presides over Halifax's highest-volume kitchen, and is a member of Culinary Team Canada (as is Geir Simensen of Scanway Bakery on Quinpool Rd). There are numerous dining establishments within the WTCC, with various themes. Simensen and Luzeux, despite their busy schedules, are "good eggs" who took the time to come out to my school and judge student competitions. A stone's throw away is the Prince George Hotel. Executive chef Ray Bear is one of the Coast's consensus up-and-comers, as is pastry chef Annaleisa Waito. Bear graduated from the Nova Scotia Community College, my old school, and then went on to the CIA. Finally, Halliburton House Inn, just south of the downtown core, is generally considered to be the city's top spot for game dishes. The hotel is made up of three 18th century townhouses, and is within easy distance of the Saturday morning Farmer's Market in the old Alexander Keith brewery (where Da Mauritzio is located). Chef Scott Vail avoids the limelight, but does wonderful work. I pulled a few shadow shifts in his kitchen last spring, before moving to Alberta. My senior instructor at school in Halifax (a man whose job description used to include cooking for the Governor-General and visiting royalty) took his wife there for their anniversary last spring. 'Nuff said. Halliburton's website Come to think of it, you may want to visit the Keith's brewery site just on its own merits. The historic waterfront brewery has been restored to a gleaming tourist-friendly version of its 1820 appearance, and still turns out batches of beer. It is pitched (note the careful wording) as "North America's oldest working brewery site." The Keith's which is sold across Canada is made in the city's North End in a modern brewery, a few blocks from where I lived before moving to Alberta. Keith's turns out four seasonal beers each year, which are of above average quality for a commercial brewery. Well worth sampling. While I'm free-associating I'll mention the Granite Brewery, which operates two brew pubs downtown (just off the Grand Parade, and the original location in the South End near the Halliburton Inn). They brew a number of fine bitters, and also bake their own bread with brewer's yeast and the spent grain from the brewing process. Finally, just off Citadel Hill a block or two from Barrington St is the Propellor Brewing Company. They make a number of fine beers, but their pride and joy is their porter, which has been adjudged one of the world's best in international competition. They also make damn fine root beer and ginger beer, incongruously enough. If you are going to be in Baddeck (I'm assuming you're going to visit the Alexander Graham Bell museum, it's a can't-miss no-brainer); try to ensure that you get to the small nearby town of Iona. I was there three years ago for my cousin's wedding (he married an Iona girl, with flaming red hair and a flaming red temper). While the town has no culinary distinction that I'm aware of, it is the site of the Highland Village "living museum." Nova Scotia has a very vital Scottish heritage (you can take your university courses in Gaelic at some schools) and the Highland Village attempts to bring that heritage to life. They offer a chronological tour from the old-country "black house" (a stone cottage with a thatched roof) through various 18th and 19th century houses moved there from across Cape Breton and restored. Locals in period garb demonstrate various crafts from spinning to blacksmithing (my kids have a handmade nail from the smithy). It's a fun way to spend a few hours. Their official site And with that, I do believe I'm out of ideas again (for now). I'll probably return to this thread again, from time to time.