plum tart

I have her Fat and Bones books as well. Thanks for letting us know about the new one. It should be just as interesting as the first two.

We SO miss the Copenhagen Room. We kept a large jar where we put our change so we could afford a meal there. So many memories of birthdays and anniversaries and just special days. And when the chef opened Tastefully Done on Elm Street we went there until even it closed. We went to Tastefully Done many times until it closed. I do miss it. I have to make my own open face sandwiches now. According to my uncle, the chef had another restaurant after he closed Tastefully Done. I don't remember the name but it served French food. Apparently the food was good but the location was poor. So sad.

The late Richard Sax, author of Classic Home Desserts quite often sourced heirloom recipes for the desserts he included in his cookbook. He includes a recipe for Lemon Pudding Cake provided by Ginger Walsh of Nashville but he also provides a recipe for the same dated 1882-1893 from Mrs.Henry W. Darling of Schenectady, New York. Called a Sponge Pudding I would like to reproduce this charming recipe here so that egulleteers can have a sense of how the dish was made way over 100 years ago. Put in a kettle of water on the stove, or in a rice cooker, 1 pint of milk, add 2 ounces of flour made smooth with cold milk, 2ounces sugar (and) 2ounces butter. Let it cook 5 minutes stirring the while. Take from the stove and let cool. (Add) the yolks of 6 eggs and stir in when partly cold. Lastly add the whites beaten nice, flavor to taste, set in pan of water and bake one hour. Serve with hard or wine sauce. I think it is wonderful that this recipe has survived and flourished and that chefs and cooks continue to transform in as tarts and so forth as described by djee.

Restaurants like La Crepe Bretonne in Montreal where you could get all manner of authentic savory and sweet crepes from noon until late in the evening. Greek restaurants where you could go into the kitchen and point to what you wanted to eat that night. There were a number of these restaurants in Montreal and Toronto but they disappeared for fancier, not necessarily better joints. The Copenhagen Room in Toronto where there was an endless choice of perfect Danish open face sandwiches as well as delicious authentic Danish pastries. I used to go quite often on my own and when my Danish mother came to town we would have a blowout - huge platters of open face sandwiches, acquavit encased in ice, and Tuborg. The Courtyard Cafe at the Windsor Arms in Toronto which served wonderful terrines, and galantines for lunch and wonderful fruit ices for dessert. I was particularly addicted to vacherin glace -homemade vanilla ice cream, raspberry ice with almond and whipped cream on a meringue. I had that dessert once a week for my entire pregnancy. Vintage French wines, burgundies in particular (eg. Clos des Mouches, Clos de Tarte, Chateau Margaux, Ygrec) for between $12 and $35 a bottle. This was obviously before wine became a big deal. I could go on and on.

My father was a hunter when I grew up in the interior of BC and I agree, there is nothing like the taste of fresh game. I was particularly fond of partridge. Pheasant was good too but I still dream about eating wild partridge cooked by my mother in a wine sauce in front of the fireplace. Nothing since then can match that particular meal. When I lived in Montreal, we were able to get a fresh live hare from a market on Rue St. Laurent. It had feasted on juniper berries and all sort of other wild things. I prepared following a haesenpheffer recipe (spelling may not be right) and it was delicious too. Farmed game just doesn't have the flavour that wild game has.

I just made meatloaf and at least twice a year make salisbury steak with mashed potatoes. My diner style grilled cheese is made with processed cheese slices (and served with a slice of dill pickle )as is what I call my greasy spoon omelet which is served with home fries, toast and store bought jam (as opposed to my homemade jam.)

My fave are squab cooked according to the Zuni Cafe Cookbook recipe. I have tried other recipes - Italian, Asian etc but they all overcook them. The Zuni Cafe method is delish!!!

Historically, the "pudding cake" recipes and nomenclature to which I am referring were made by home cooks in the US and Canada long before the invention of the cake mix or jello puddings. They have been around for a long time. I know my mother's recipe dates back to 1912. I have found the recipe and the name in many old cookbooks. I think these would predate those that you are referring to in the photograph.

Today I made cherry cobbler - a comforting dessert for a winter's day. I froze the sour cherries last summer so pitting them was a chilly process. I kept freezing my fingers. I made the cobbler dough from Chez Panisse Desserts. The cobbler is crisp on top and then soft and buttery beneath the crust. Then there are the cherries and lots of juice. Yumm I guess I'm thinking of summer stuck in this cold Ontario winter.

Claudio Aprile (Colborne Lane) is a wonderful chef. I have worshipped his food for years. He opened a second restaurant this spring called Origin which is more a tapas place which is getting a lot of press. He uses molecular gastronomy techniques there as well. So you have two opportunities with Aprile. I wouldn't overlook Lucien however. Scot Woods is an excellent chef who prepares excellent cuisine with well sourced organic produce, fish, poultry and meat. He also employs molecular gastronomy with a lot of his dishes. Lucien has been rated one of the top restaurants in Canada.

It's something I haven't made myself, but bread dumplings came to mind for me too (or bread gnocchi)! Do you have a specific recipe for these you're willing to share? Bread dumplings were a favourite of mine growing up, but they always came from a packet. Other things I like: Queen of Puddings - the nice thing about it is that it changes character depending on the flavour of jam you're using. Bread sauce - classic accompaniment to roast chicken, although I've not made it myself, it really is delicious. French Toast/Pain Perdu - I think it needs stale bread to be its best, and the best thing is you can do it with almost any kind of stale bread - there's even a german version using rye bread. Leftover Pannetone makes a nice holiday version, but my favourite was using italian bread for a savoury french toast sauteed in olive oil and served with roasted tomatoes & wilted spinach. I've always wanted to make Queen of Puddings. Now I have an excuse. I had Pain Perdue with seared foie gras with poached pears and a maple syrup reduction, on Sunday last - it was delicious. I will dig up the bread dumpling recipe. It is from Time Life Foods of the World Austria if I recall. They are especially delicious with roast goose and duck!

Warm goat's milk - straight from the goat. I read about how delicious it was in Heidi as a child and thought it would be wonderful to try. Well I gagged and couldn't drink it. So much for food descriptions in literature. I still can't face but now I avoid the opportunity. Goat cheese is fine. Also, powdered milk, condensed milk, any Kraft ersatz powdered cheese and regretfully UNI. I have tried to be a sophisticated eater but no, my stomach churns at the mere sight of UNI! Also that hair moss that is served for Chinese New Year. It looks like a man's hairpiece on the serving dish and has the texture of a brillo pad. I have also not taken to fresh broad beans in the way Alice Waters would approve. I have grown them myself, and peeled them and eaten them raw and cooked and while they are fine, they don't inspire the ecstasies that I have read in menus and cookbooks. I will eat pretty much everything else.

Melba toast, bread and parsley dumplings, toasted bread crumbs for pasta and gratins, meatloaf, meat balls and bread pudding.

I was heartburn and reflux free until my fifties. The first time I experienced heartburn was after eating some chocolate truffles at Christmas. I have had reflux off and on for about 10 years. I have discussed it with the doctor but don't take prescription medications. I take Pepcid Complete for heartburn and that holds it at bay. I try to avoid chocolate and coffee but love good cooking too much to modify my diet. There are certain foods that trigger reflux - bread, pasta and Indian curries (not Thai!). Overeating will also cause it. It is exacerbated by stress (I hardly ever get it on vacation.) It always happens at night when I am lying down. I get it about 3 or 4 times a month. I try to eat smaller meals and avoid bread or pizza at night (I can eat it without a problem during the day.) I am interested that a gluten free diet could eliminate reflux but I am not yet willing to give up pasta and other baked goods that I enjoy. Maybe someday.

I have Gourmet mags back to the 50s; Food and Wine back to the 80s; Saveur back to when it started and nearly a complete set of Fine Cooking. A few years ago my daughter took all the Gourmets, Food and Wines, and Fine Cooking and stacked them in my downstairs gardening room for disposal. (I won't give up Saveur!) Anyway, they still haven't been disposed of. I just can't do it. I love browsing through them, noting how food tastes and cooking has evolved, reading my favourite food writers etc. And I love the covers - especially the Gourmet covers. Oh nostalgia is so seductive !!! Part of my life is in these magazines, lost between the covers and ready to be rediscovered by ME. I don't like to mutilate a magazine by cutting recipes out of it, so I put aside those issues with recipes I use and put a post it note on the front listing the recipe.) I will have to bite the bullet when I retire and have to move from my house with lots of room to something smaller. I'll have to weed my cookbook collection too!

My recipe is nearly the same as Katie's. Its frome Gourmet and is listed on Epicurious. Before that I made my mother's recipe which was very old and on a recipe card in her tiny handwriting. I wore out the recipe card. In any event a true lemon pudding cake is made from scratch (no cake mixes or premade puddings) and the final result is a two layer dessert with a light moist cake on the top and a (lemony) custard on the bottom. It was my favourite dessert when I was a child and I have made it for years. It is a lovely light dessert.My daughter and her friend went on a pudding cake binge when they were teenagers. They made chocolate pudding cake and butterscotch pudding cake and many others. I still think that lemone pudding cake is best. Here is the recipe from Gourmet/Epicurious. There is a picture of pudding cake on epicurious and it is perfect. It shows the cakey top and the runny bottom custard. Yumm. I am going to have to make it soon. It is delicious hot or cold. Makes 6 servings Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 1 1/2 hr Ingredients2 large lemons 1/4 cup all-purpose flour Rounded 1/4 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar 3 large eggs, separated 1 1/3 cups whole milk print a shopping list for this recipe Preparation Preheat oven to 350°F. Finely grate 1 tablespoon zest from lemons, then squeeze 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons juice. Whisk together flour, salt, and 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar in a large bowl. Whisk together yolks, milk, zest, and juice in a small bowl and add to flour mixture, whisking until just combined. Beat whites in another large bowl with an electric mixer until they hold soft peaks. Beat in remaining 1/4 cup sugar, a little at a time, and continue to beat until whites hold stiff, glossy peaks. Whisk about one fourth of whites into batter to lighten, then fold in remaining whites gently but thoroughly (batter will be thin). Pour into a buttered 1 1/2-quart ceramic gratin or other shallow baking dish and bake in a hot water bath (see Tips, page 156) until puffed and golden, 45 to 50 minutes. Transfer to a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Hereis my list of stop words for recipe names in cookbooks in particular, but also were these words to be used as part of a dish's name on a restaurant menu. These are not in any particlar order, but if I see them, I ignore the cookbook or bypass the restaurant: creamy,(usually means includes mayonnaise or some ersatz cream product but not real cream) gourmet, seasoned, spicy (this is a used as a warning for the spice phobic and usually means a pitiful sprinkling of some inoffensive spice), healthy, fluffy, easy, best, yummy, tasty, tangy, light or lite, wholesome, hearty, all American (you never hear of All French or All Thai or All Indian), cheesy, herbed (usually means treated with an unfortunate combination of dried herbs), yummy, and anything preceded by a personal name such as Mary's pad thai, or Billie's jello surprise, updated (usually applied to a classic recipe which has includes a delicious fat such as spaghetti carbonara. An "updated" version would be fat free and tasteless), slather (a favourite word used by one cookbook writer who somehow felt that using the actual name of the dish would confuse people).

I saw seville oranges in Fortinos in Hamilton this past weekend. There were lots of them and I imagine if we have them here in Hamilton, they will be in the Fortinos in Toronto as well. Cheers

I can easily get fresh galangal and fresh ginger in Hamilton, Ontario and have been able to do so for at least 12 years. The Asian stores all carry galangal fresh and frozen(which is a good idea because the rhizome pieces are generally large and I use only a portion when I make my curry pastes.) I agree with those who say that galangal is piney and medicinal tasting. I love it in curry pastes and lakhsa (sp?), basically any dish that calls for it. I would never substitute ginger instead and vice versa. They each provide a totally different taste experience.

I own that book - it's a wonderful book but I have never cooked from it and doubt if I ever will. Unlike you, Susur has some company in my won't cook list- "Noma" as I said in an earlier thread and Heston Blumenthal's beautiful book.

His blini recipe is easy and good if you can find some caviar And, I have done his skate recipe with a very nice mustard sauce. No special equipment needed.

I second Noma and Morimoto. Beautiful books but have no access to amost of the ingredients used in Noma and I find the recipes in Morimoto too complex. Sigh.

thank you. Is freekeh a "keeper" ingredient for you? Has it replace any other ingredient (eg rice) in some of your recipes?

I looked and liked. That tater tot recipe is amazing.

Interesting - I am playing around with freekeh too. I learned about it a couple of months ago and ordered some. I plan to stuff a roast chicken with it (cooked of course), some ground beef or lamb, pine nuts and a few spices - cinnamon, cumin maybe sprinkle sumac on at the end. There was an egullet thread that talked about it - I can't remember which one.