lexy

Leftover half of a birthday cake (pour moi!) from last night:

Wow, I think I need to move to New York. These look fantastic. How sweet are most of Pegu's cocktails? While I don't expect my cocktails to taste like pure alcohol or anything, I'm not really a fan of the kind of cocktail that's basically spiked sugary juice.

Rose Levy Berenbaum's cranberry galette, but rather heavily modified. Regular pie dough rather than her cream cheese one, no walnuts (housemate is allergic to nuts), and in a tin rather than free-form. Pretty good, but not amazing (I think the walnuts would have been an improvement), and cutting a bag full of cranberries in half was pretty tedious.

Oats for me too - jumbo oats mixed with some of a multigrain mix and a pinch of salt. Along with a massive mug of tea, this is what I have almost every morning.

Christmas dinner: steamed brussel sprouts (I love these, the rest of the family is a bit indifferent, so I get lots), parsnips, stuffing, lots of homemade cranberry sauce. The highlight for me though is really mince pies, christmas cake, and christmas pudding (especially the hard sauce for the pudding - I will eat this straight out of its bowl given a chance). I love chriastmas cake (ie fruitcake) especially. Yum.

Actually, Canada did have prohibition (sort of) From Wikipedia: For reasons I don't quite understand, liquor was fairly strictly regulated even after prohibition was lifted. In Ontario you can only buy alcohol from the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) or from The Beer Store (which represents Ontario breweries, and mostly only sells Canadian beers). At least now you can walk into an LCBO and browse the shelves. Back in the 70s (or maybe 60s), apparently the system was that you walked into an LCBO, went up to a wicket and wrote down what you wanted to buy, and handed the slip to a worker who fetched your order. And nakji: as far as I know, the system you describe is still the same in NS. I was there in August, and as far as I could tell it was pretty well the same system as in Ontario.

What recipe do you use for your biscuits? Much as I adore Mcvities, I've been wanting to try my hand at a homemade version for a while.

As a Canadian overseas, the closest I came to THanksgiving dinner was talking to my mum about what she was planning on making I did have pumpkin pie, maple cookies, and wine at the university Canadian Society though

That strikes as the more interesting option, flavour-wise. What about the flavour profile of a beer like Hoegaarden? Or what about (alcoholic) cider - I guess that's not really beer per se, but it could be interesting …

Its the first time I've carved anything like that - it was very fun - velveeta is a surprisingly good sculpture media. It took me about 3 hours. I want to carve a hole in the top of his head and put chips in it. ← DO IT!!! ← Best. Idea. Ever. Are people going to eat the head - i.e. go up and carve off an ear or something? Seriously though, eG ought to have Medals of Culinary Devotion for efforts like that

Any thoughts on a vegetarian version? Possible, or culinary abomination?

I think you're right - they're not in Britain, but are refrigerated in Canada.

What about starting with the idea of mincemeat, but then sort of extrapolating the flavours? Cured bison with a nut, apples, dried fruit, and spice compote?

Very true. I'm a Canadian living in England who's been to New York all of twice, probably for a total of four days. I read the NYT dining reviews occasionally just to see what's trendy and new in the restaurant scene.

Oooh, don't you just love fall in Ontario? I never thought I'd miss Canadian weather when I moved to England, but now (somehow) I'm even missing the winters. Is that a sort of extra-padded tea cosy?

Oh me too! Forget this pie vs. cake business - I'd sell my soul for a big dish of good crumble

Wild blueberry crumble

Wow that looks fantastic! As a vegetarian who's eaten in a lot of middling Indian restaurants (either vegetables and rice, or rice and vegetables), I'd love to be treated to a meal like that. You didn't manage to pry any recipes out of the chef did you?

I seem to remember people in the crepes cook-off threaf having some success with freezing crepes and then reheating them when needed. Doing this would probably make hosting a crepe party much much less stressful.

White Point near Liverpool? I stayed there at the beginning of August - everything on their lunch menu comes in big portions. Curry Village? What sort of things do you make out of it? I mostly like leafing through it for the entertainment value of recipes for making alcohol out of pine sap and the little anecdotes.

I just remembered one from years ago (I don't think I've posted it here before): I was making brown rice from the instructions on the bag, which included the directive "Soak in cold water for 1/2 hour". My brain firmly in "off" mode, I ran a sink full of cold water and put the unopened bag of rice in to soak … I can't even fathom what I thought this was going to acomplish. Ten or fifteen minutes later I came back and realized that soaking the outside of the plastic bag wasn't going to be very useful. The sad thing was I'd made rice planty of times before - I can't even plead inexperience on that one.

Lemon meringue pie

Not things that aren't available in the rest of Canada, but things I think are particularly good in Nova Scotia: wild blueberries, and maple products (especially maple butter). And of course seafood. At some point someone in my family bought a Nova Scotia cookbook called Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens. I've never actually cooked anything out of there but it's a pretty interesting look at pioneer cooking, and at the mix of different immigrant groups that ended up in Nova Scotia.

Very interesting article. I've never eaten at Canoe but I'd very much like to try it now (I suppose that was why Canoe agreed to be profiled … ?)

This is a good point - even getting from the airport to downtown is a long drive, and it's made easier if you have your own car. Also, the actual downtown isn't very big and you'll need transport to explore the rest of Halifax and Dartmouth. For example, if you're staying downtown and want to visit Point Pleasant Park, it would be either a half-hour walk or you'd need to hop on a bus or hire a cab. I'm not sure how child-friendly this place is, but my cousin worked as a dishwasher at Bish and he said the food was very good.