*Deborah*

***drooling***

Sticky toffee pudding at Brix is quite nice. I've not had it at Parkside, oddly enough...there's a lot of cream in the sauce? hmmm. I am still searching for the date-free, individual ramekin version I made at Christmas several years ago...I've lost the damn recipe. But it was tastier than most of the ones I've sampled in the England and Scotland.

But the irony in that is that restaurants in Vancouver are still dead-cheap while facing record-high rent prices. ← I'm just saying...While I realize our real estate prices are not particularly high on the whole, compared to other comparable cities, my understanding is that our average salaries are lower than they are in a city like Toronto, e.g. (I'm not talking about the rich real estate developers and software genius-types, or the brokers and whatnot, I'm talking about the rest of us...heaven knows there are plenty of rich people here, I dodge their $100K cars every day, but not everyone is of their number.) The rationalization is that it's the cut we take in order to live in such a spectacular place, and we could earn X percent more to live back east or in the US. Where housing is cheaper (a girlfriend of mine in Philadelphia has a house twice as big as my condo, but it only cost her about 30% the price of my place--and her (tiny) mortgage interest is tax-deductible!). Restaurant prices are higher that's OK, she has disposable income out the wazoo, comparatively. Unless my numbers come up, my tastes will always be far in advance of my income, I fear. The prix-fixe menus have a double advantage for a restaurant: they end up selling the full meal rather than the main and the water, and I think I am not alone in ordering up my wine, if I get a deal on my food. Aren't margins on wine a little wider than they are on food, in general? so theoretically if I spend $10 less on food (except I'll pay the supplement for the foie gras ) but $10 more on wine (or in my case, more like $30 or $50 more on wine ) the restaurant will not lose on it... Plus the all-important perception of providing a good deal or giving a break...even if the customer spends exactly as many dollars, he/she feels as though he's gotten something extra .

Because once we pay $1000/sq ft for our little tiny condos, we can't afford $30 mains?

Um no... I left it with BCinBC to eat during the football game! I did give Chef Tony a slice of the one I made the next day...but I finshed that off last night.

*picturing the gesticulating at the Cedar Creek tasting next week*

I like animal names that evoke exotic places...unfortunately, there seems to be an Elephant already in NYC. I like Tiger, too; and there are tigers in both Thailand and India. To me, it's a fairly sophisticated and elegant sort of animal, Tony the Tiger notwithstanding

Wes, the Strongbow is sold in 4-packs (4 10-oz? bottles), for I think it's $6.95 plus deposit? something like that. I reckon you can probably manage that on your own!

All I know re: South American grilled meat is that Samba on Alberni does Brasilian style rodizio. It's indoors though.

Sigh, is it over already? It's been swell! Thanks! And I think the ferrets make a much cuter accessory than the mink stole they resemble in that pic

I think you two are talking about the same thing, that little orange guy with the papery leaf, served in restaurants with dessert...

Right. And we had the time to do that in class... when? ← Actually, if that happened at home, I'd probably throw a bit of whipped cream and some toasted coconut on top...

Wrap your filet in bacon, sear it, and then top 'er with some beurre maître d'hôtel (butter, lemon juice, chopped parsley, S&P). Super simple, and one of my favourite preparations evar. I think trusting Daniel is a good idea, though, there are legions of us who wish our boyfriends cooked for us the way Daniel does for his lucky woman

Well said, Wes: confidence! invaluable. And I'd say patience. Reduce till it's "sexy", sear till it's properly browned, knead till it's silky, let it rest till it's ready...takes a lot of patience, but the payoff is definitely worth it.

*snort* I'm sure it was with good intentions...but please, Heather, don't take the rest of us amiss! I still haven't gone, much as I want to, since I'm trying really hard not to be part of the stampede.

For me? totally worth it. It has solidified techniques I already had, and explained the reasoning behind things. It has given me lots of new skills and new knowledge (knife skills, in which I was woefully lacking (and can still improve!), how to make a loaf of bread, how to make pasta--which I had done before but not nearly so well, all that esoteric info re: gluten and whatnot, why you heat your pan before you put your food in) and helped me gain confidence in other things I already know how to do or learned at my mother's knee lo, those many (many, many) years ago... I mean, honestly, I would have paid $100 just to learn how to cut the stupid onion! It's not like everything was brand new to me, but the format, with the lecture/demo followed by the hands-on, really helped solidify things for me. I think I had an "Ah!!" moment in each class. Although I can't recall them all for you right this moment

I liked my Pad Thai... that trick with the chicken was GREAT. I have had several different kinds of Pad Thai, I guess, and this one was less sweet than a lot of them...it definitely needed the Sweet Thai Chili Sauce though! I didn't have any trouble with the noodles soaking up all my sauce. Is it because I had enough oil in there to coat them before I put the sauce in? my noodles were pretty nice and loose.

A big-ass Americano/allongé with sugar and milk, and a cocktail bun

I forgot my camera...I borrowed Moosh's to immortalize my salad, it was neat! but as for the rest, it was pretty much like everyone else's. Calamari salad with grapefruit....delicious! So we made that soufflé with coconut milk, a roux, some cornstarch...the coconut milk was just genius, IMO, it added so much without being all in your face. Of course lime and coconut are high on my list of things I love anyway, but I recommend it for you soufflé makers, give it a try! My group finished ours quite quickly, we were pretty good with task division, and I wonder if the fact that they sat out for quite some time before being baked had anything to do with their vertical challenges...that was my first soufflé though, so I'm not sure. The Pad Thai was very tasty, as was our starter salad...and not really hard to make, it's all about the mise and having some of these saucy things in your cupboard. I have to get a few saucy things in the next little while, because I love this food, and my approximations were missing a few key ingredients. Another good class, and we're already quite sad that next week is our last. ETA picture, thanks, Moosh!

Chef Tony quote du jour: Either: a repeat of "Who the hell cares?" in reference to the non-emulsion of a sauce, Or: Why do we like Thai food? "It's exciting in the mouth."

Ohhhh, it was all SO GOOD! I will dream of those tortellini for a while, I think! The squash/mascarpone ones were made with a cake flour pasta, and it was so tender and delicate, but I guess we did something right because they didn't explode at all! and the prawn ones are the least photogenic, I think, but I think they may have taken the cake with the flavour combo...hard to choose a first among equals, though. Thanks for taking such good pics, Moosh!

Oh, those look SO GOOD!

Heh, I felt so Lorna-ish, making two similar things two days in a row so I could compare them well, it wasn't my initial intention, but that's how it ended up. Having the right pear makes a difference...the Bartletts were a little too sweet, but the Bosc I had I guess were a bit too green, as they weren't sweet enough. Sigh. I guess you should poach an extra so you can taste test it, I would have added a smidge more sugar on top of the first one, and increased the nuts-to-sugar in the second one! Anyway, I reckon I'm peared out for a while. Yesterday I also made my Guinness spice cake (well, Epicurious' Gramercy Tavern Guinness cake), for a birthday in the office, that looked quite good, and I expect it to be tasty as usual.

Cheers, Megan. It's one of those things that I thought was hard which isn't really, just a little time-consuming.

OK so yesterday was a bit of a bollocksing of a pear tart: I had intended to make this Pear and Almond Tart, and serve with a thyme-infused sauce anglaise, for a not-too-sweet or rich finale to a homemade pasta extravaganza. I left myself without enough time, though, so I put my poached Boscs on a plus-ou-moins Jacques Pépin's Mémé's Apple Tart crust (plus butter, minus Crisco, plus some slivered almonds in the gaps between the pears). I didn't rescue it quite soon enough from the oven, but it was OK if a bit bland...the pears were not very flavourful, IMO. I liked the custard sauce quite a bit, thyme in the milk and sweetened with honey. Today, I wanted to use the crust I had made yesterday but didn't have time to blind bake etc., so I bought and poached some new pears, Bartletts, I believe, and blind baked and did that whole thing, and then put the almond filling and then my pears. Today's tart is much prettier (although I didn't get the pears to line up quite as perfectly): But I found it really sweet. And wished that I had some of that custard leftover, I think I'll have to make some more, it would have worked even more nicely with this one. Long story long, as usual...