Zucchini Mama
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Posts posted by Zucchini Mama
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Lorna's food is on several government High Cholesteral Watch Lists. Occasionally the US sends the CIA to check out her kitchen, too...
Shucks Ling, I would have taken you for a pain au chocolat bread pudding kind of gal!
(I have a recipe for that somewhere in my stack of food mags.) -
^Well Ling, that photo gets my mojo going! I love warm ginger cake with creme anglaise. I often up the amount of fresh ginger in recipes too. I'll have to look into getting a copy of that cookbook!
Zuke
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Miz Ducky, what a nice surprise! Moving's such an exciting adventure. Thanks for bringing us along and just think, since you'll be only five minutes away from the Camel's Breath Inn, when the wind is going the right way, you should be able to catch a whiff of the camel breath. (Did it escape from the San Diego Zoo?) This is a great month to do budget food, after holiday blow-outs.
Bloggin', bloggin', bloggin', keep those duckies bloggin'....
Zuke
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I first learned to cook back in the day with one of the Urban Peasant cookbooks. What is Mr. Barber up to these days? I used to watch his t.v. show with my late grandma, who was going blind and could not see the t.v. screen but used to love to listen to his voice and the sounds of the sizzling foods.
Then I bought the Lumiere cookbook (the first one) and learned how to REALLY cook. Based on my skills at the time, however, it was like giving the Tantric Sex book to a cheese-eating high school kid going on his first date. I didn't know what the hell I was doing with ingredients that I had never eaten let alone cooked with but it opened up new worlds.
One of my favourite local books is Simply Bishops. Great recipes emphasizing fresh local ingredients and most of them are not too complex. I have cooked most of the recipes in that book over the last couple of years. I love the goat cheese salad (pictured on the cover), the dungeoness crab soup with lemongrass and coconut milk, and the duck breast with apple puree.
Did you know Barber has a column in Vancouver mag?
I love your comparision of Lumiere's cookbook and the Tantric Sex book.
I often see people in books stores thinking, "Hmmm should I buy the Kama Sutra or the Lumiere cookbook?" Around Valentine's they should have a two for one sale at Book Warehouse.My mother in law also loves Simply Bishops.
I know I'm not local
but I picked up the rebar cookbook myself. I was staying down the street from the restaurant and family took me their for brunch. I'm afraid I haven't tried any of the recipes yet, but all of your comments tell me I have to find it and take another look-see. I remember I enjoyed reading it!Pam, you're local. Big country, small forum!
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I don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet, but sadly, the Wing Wah on E Broadway ist kaput. It has a new name and some of the former staff, but my partner says the food is not up to scratch.
Also, I'm wondering if anyone knows about rumours that we're getting an organic food store where the McD's used to be at Main and around 28th?
Zuke
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Wow! You all are so inspiring! I'm glad others like the rebar cookbook, and I wanted to mention that their recipe for chocolate zucchini cupcakes is pretty much perfect.
So I glazed the lime sugar cookies I mentioned at the top of the thread and both my partner and my son liked them way better without the icing. I just ate two and like them better with the glaze. I also put some extra whole toasted pumpkin seeds on top. Good with a glass of cold kukicha tea.
I got a copy of the Vancouver CBC Listener's Cookbook for Christmas from a friend who has a recipe published in it. I'm excited to try her recipe when figs are in season again.
Keep on Cookin'!
Zuke
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Happy birthday John!
I am assigning your blog as required reading for my husband as he has just asked me how I would like him to expand his cooking reperatoire. He loves cooking food layer by layer, so this recipe is PERFECT for him. I get to sit back and coach him with a glass of wine in my hand. Meanwhile, I'd better start training for the half marathon in anticipation of all those luscious calories!
We celebrated with a six year old boy who shares your birthday, but alas no cassoulet for the parents or kiddies--delivery pizza only.
I hope you have a year of outstanding vintage.
Zuke
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Stephen, that laksa looks so freakin' good. If you get a chance to go to the pub at the Brentwood Bay Lodge on the Island, I think you'd find it to be a successful riff on the gastro pub. At least it was the summer before last when we ate there. I haven't been lately.
Zuke
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Happiness is a machaca Mexican sub from the Cambodian/Mexican Duffin's Donuts on Main.
Thick, spicy stew and hot sauce ladled onto avocado, banana peppers, raw onions and cold lettuce served on a fresh French sub. Add a bottle of water and it's still less than five dollars.
I ask myself: Why don't they do churros? Maybe if enough of us ask, we'll create a tipping point?
they are now serving Phnom Penh coffee. Churros plus Vietnamese coffee =
.The Main does good slow-cooked lamb for dinner and also good eggs bennies on brunch days.
The Locus puts me somewhere in the dark side of the Narnia Chronicles, where people eat animals who talk. I think it's in The Silver Chair that the stag says something to the effect of "Please don't eat me, I woudn't be very tender."
Zuke
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I've made a commitment to cook my way through the rebar modern food cookbook, and it occurred to me that we should start a thread on dishes you have made from local cookbooks. Which books by local chefs do you just look at and drool, dreaming of the next day you'll be able to go to the restaurant? Which ones do you cook from regularly? Let's record our failures along with our successes and learn from each other.
This week I made the lemon pudding cake, substituting key limes for the lemon. I also subbed evaporated skim milk for the milk to give it a richer flavor. I halved the recipe for the three of us and used three of the tiny limes for one lemon. It's more of a baked custard pudding than a cake pudding. My family loved it-comfort food deluxe. A friend of mine makes the whole recipe for potlucks.
Tonight I made the lime sugar cookies, which are cakey in texture and have crunchy bits of pepitas in them. I made them smaller than the recipe suggests, with a tablespoon of dough each, resulting in 21 cookies. My son likes them, and as the recipe suggests, they would be good with a tangy sorbet. I think I would be tempted to fool around with the recipe a bit-put the seeds on top instead of in the batter and dip them in a lime glaze for added zip. It occurred to me they would be good with a sprinkling of C's Citrus Salt on top.
Zuke
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Inspired by requests for nonalcoholic pairings upthread, I have started a thread in the eGullet General Topics forum for anyone who wants to contribute some ideas.
Zuke
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Speaking of caneton, you may like the book Feeding Frenzy: Across Europe in Search of a Perfect Meal by Stuart Stevens. The author visits Tour D'Argent for the pressed duck. It's a fun read, and I don't think you can get it for one pence, but Amazon lists it for as low as one dollar.
Lovely pictures of Martyn's. My dad ran a general store on the Canadian prairies that was a more rustic version of what you show there, but in some ways very similar.
Zuke
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I'm just fascinated with this thread. I guess what the definition of the word gets us to do is to look at the whole picture. Is this food good for me (soul, psyche and soma)? Is it good for my family? Is it good for my neighborhood, my province, my planet? Mennonites tend to think of the bigger picture, and publish cookbooks full of suitably wholesome food.
I believe butter is more wholesome than margarine, but some butters are more wholesome than others, ie fresh organic artisanal butter, as opposed to those made by dairy conglomerates that sits in storage.
I have a few pairs of socks that are holesome.
Zuke
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I haven't eaten out for quite a while, but managed to go three places in as many weeks. My son's taking a class on South Dunbar, so all three are from that area.
1) Kokopelli Café: They've got good sandwiches served on funky square plates with salad and giant olives. This is a godsend for moms with small children because there's a play area and also great baking made freshly every day. I had a mocha creme caramel there that was dark, rich, and creamy. I've only seen them there that one time. One of my guilty pleasures is their chocolate "fairy" or "wizard" cupcakes with cold buttercream icing. It's that birthday cupcake hit.
2) Lucky Star Sechuan Cuisine: This place has been open for four months. My heart sank when I saw it had the regular Canadian Chinese items on about half the menu, but I had an okay kung pow chicken. It was a lunch special under $6. The decor is simple, cream and black, but the CD they were playing was quite bizarre: loud crickets interspersed with Chinese music, then the sound of fire or water, then back to the music. It was a bit surreal, but hey I like surreal.
3) Masala Greek and Indian Fusion: Normally I would run screaming from fusion like this, but it was cold and rainy and I was up for an adventure. I ordered lamb curry, since lamb is central to both cuisines. The lamb was very tasty and tender, served in a thick tomato-based sauce in a balti dish. The fusion part was that it was served on the same kind of rice you'd see on a plate in a Greek Taverna (with frozen peas, corn and carrots added). The waitress and the owner/chef (who is Punjabi, by the way) are both colorful and chatty, and I spent an entertaining few minutes talking to the owner about his chai. Olga the waitress says a woman comes every morning to get a thermos full of his masal chai made extra strong. "Next time you come, you tell me you like it extra strong," she says.
Today I also loaded up on blood oranges and organic pomegranates at Stong's and bought fish for supper at the new Longhouse fish store, which so far I've been very impressed with.
Zuke
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Just asking questions aloud here...
- Something is 'wholesome' when it is meant to be 'good for you' due to a (perceived) lack of excess fat, lack of excess sugar, heck simply a lack of excess anything?
- On top of that, it has to be within the (perceived) traditions of your culture?
Taking the Cornish pasty example, the pastry is not really going to be all that healthy when taking the amount of fat required to make it into consideration, but then it's baked, so the fat is less obviously present - is it this that makes it 'wholesome'?
Compare samosas: pastry outside, vegetable filling, so far it is surely as 'wholesome' as a Cornish pasty. But somehow the prep. method of deep frying them moves them out of the category considered 'wholesome'?
Not sure - if fried properly - that they would actually contain any more fat than a Cornish pasty.
(Having made 'fake' samosas the other day using shortcrust pastry using half ghee and half butter, and baking them in the oven, I'm actually wondering whether regular fried samosas might actually contain less fat).
Re the lack of excess in general:
let's say oatmeal is 'wholesome'. Does it stay 'wholesome' if you eat several large bowlfuls of it filled to the brim and are only with great difficulty able to waddle away from the breakfast table having completed your enormous meal? (a foodwise fairly traumatic stay at a friend's place during childhood comes to mind here).
Re it being within your 'cultural traditions':
is pho, for example, or bebimbap, or Chinese rice porridge categorized as 'wholesome'? If not, why on earth not?
Yes, I am asking myself the same questions. There is a health food cafe in Vancouver that sells baked samosas filled with tofu, veggies and rice. When it comes right down to it, I bet there is just as much oil in them as in the traditional ones sold in the local Punjabi market. (Especially as the tofu itself is fried.)
As for cultural, even genetic differences, I know a woman of Japanese Canadian Heritage who went to school at a time when the Canadian government gave each school child a glass of cow's milk at lunch time. Every time she drank it, she threw up because she was lactose intolerant. The teachers would get angry with her and make her drink the same thing again the next day. So much for wholesome. That's why each part of the food industry tends to hire dieticians that promote its ingredients as healthy: i.e. eggs, dairy, beef, etc. I think instead of coming up with one diet plan that fits all, we need to be aware of the way food fits into people's history, lifestyle and culture. My mother had the Canada Food Guide taped to the fridge, but I always was suspicious of what it told me I was "supposed" to eat.
As a mother, it's very hard to discern what is and isn't wholesome some times. The grocery store can be like a mine field these days. One always has to read the fine print. Also, these days foods with less ingredients seem to cost a lot more money.
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Mr. Whiting,
I love your essay on authenticity! I particularly like this quote of yours: "Even a genuinely authentic recipe is only a freeze-frame, a snapshot taken at an arbitrarily chosen moment in a spatial/temporal continuum." You nailed it.
The idea of people losing the ability or the will to cook in the same way people no longer make their own clothes intrigues and frightens me. Will cooking at home be a lost art some day? Or will ingredients be so expensive that it will no longer be economical for people to make their own meals from scratch?
I liked all your references to the art world as analogous to cuisine. You've given me a lot to think about.
Zuke
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Well, if you want to be academic:
There's wholesome pasties
and then there's unwholesome(?) pasties
Come up and see my pasties sometime!
Edited to add this quote from the cornwall-online website:
"Tradition has it that the original pasties contained meat and vegetables in one end and jam or fruit in the other end, in order to give the hard-working men 'two courses'. Cornish housewives also marked their husband's initials on the left-hand side of the pastry casing, in order to avoid confusion at lunchtime. This was particularly useful when a miner wished to save a 'corner' of his pasty until later, or if he wanted to leave a corner for one of the 'Knockers'. The Knockers were the mischievous 'little people' of the mines, who were believed by the miners to cause all manner of misfortune, unless they were placated with a small amount of food, after which they could prove to be a source of good luck."
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^ Yes, that's the Wooden Shoe on Cambie. The owner has some polaroids of his customers taped up all over the place and now I remember I did see a photo of Vij's family there.
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This is a good question, since I imagine people's connotative associations of the word "wholesome" will differ considerably based on age and culture. The denotative meaning seems to me to be food that is home made, created from fresh unprocessed ingredients and good for you in a "stick to the ribs" kind of way. The word has become overused in the advertising industry to describe food (often over-processed breakfast cereal) that you should feel obliged to buy for your family.
In my imagination I immediately associate the word wholesome with a tanned healthy farm wife serving a big family dinner. I think of those idealist paintings of socialist workers in Germany. I think of the foods and the cooks that make you feel deeply satisfied and taken care of. Fresh air, grain dust, harvest sunsets, and food that is well-earned after a hard day's work. There is an element of nostalgia associated with this word, as if it's something we packed in a suitcase that got lost along the way and every now and then we yearn for.
What's the stuff Orphan Annie used to drink? Ovaltine. A nice wholesome bedtime treat made with whole milk.
Okay, that was my reverie for the afternoon, now I'd better get back to the mines.
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A bit of pasty trivia: The miners used to grab the pasties by the thick crimped edge and eat it with their hands, then throw the dusty part away. I can't remember where I read that, but it makes sense. In England they really make that crimped edge thick and heavy so I was a bit relieved I didn't have to eat it!
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Well, you know I'm a bit embarassed to admit I've never had a cassoulet, so I'll be very content to gaze deeply into the heart of the matter for an entire week.
Thanks!
Zuke
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Thanks for the info everyone. Well, maybe I'll have to bake some cat's tongues for my mother in law for her birthday.
What's the name of that Japanese tea shop right near Granville Island? I thought they might have something like this.
Zuke
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So I stayed up until midnight to watch you guys, then I couldn't sleep because it made me so friggin hungry!
I liked the cutaway shot of the kolachy and the pan of freshly roasted chicken breasts. When are you guys going to open up a shop on Mid Main so we don't have to trek downtown for them?
Also, you should open one up at the airport. They're so good to take on the airplane.
Zuke
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After our meal, the chef came by our table and we talked about food for over half an hour. He clearly loves what he's doing, and kept us laughing with a bunch of stories about escaping wild boars, a suckling pig that incinerated in an oven in only a few minutes, Portuguese pastries (I told him I love to bake), and his own difficulties with his oven right now. (The oven is to be repaired by Tuesday, and then he's going to do another suckling pig!)
I'll definitely go back. I'm eager to try the more traditional dishes on the menu, like the pork and clams!
My question is how do you know when he's going to do the suckling pig? Does he shine a light up in the sky like the Batman Signal?
Zuke
Main Street
in Western Canada: Dining
Posted
Solly's off Main now has Hot Doggels--an all beef giant hot dog baked in challah-type bread. Laced with their hot mustard--this is the best dawg I've had since a pool hall puppy in Montréal. They even have a bottle of sri r. rooster sauce if you like it.
Cheap eats, bone appetits!
Zuke