Panaderia Canadiense

Linda, under the right circumstances roaches and a good many other bugs are a tasty snack; I don't have the "ick" factor that most North Americans do when it comes to that kind of thing. However, if it's not stated right up front that insects are on the menu and I find one in my meal, I'll usually just stand up. If there are other customers, I'll make a bit of noise as well.

I do, Mjx. I don't use chestnut/rice, but with quinua/gold pea it takes a whole extra egg white to bind them properly. I'd expect to see the same thing with other non-gluten flour combos.

Probably most memorable for me is going into a little comedor and asking what was for lunch; the hostess said "chicken" so I figured I was OK. She neglected to mention which parts of the chicken were on the menu. The first course, giblet soup, is very common (and usually very tasty) in small restaurants of this type, but this was the first time I had ever encountered a cold version with a pair of chicken heads floating in it. The main plate, far from being a chunk of chicken in gravy, was something I later learned is called guatita - chicken tripes in curry. This is also not normally a bad dish, but it came out so cold that the sauce had congealed into gelatinous lumps. There was a small cockroach under the rice. At that point, I stood up and left.

Broasted Chicken (done in actual Broaster cookers) is extremely popular in Ecuador. Consequently, I eat it fairly frequently. The defining feature is crispiness in the skin coupled with a roasted flavour in the meat, and as rotuts mentions, not all that greasy.

A pair of Lazy Bastard dinners from my table - this is what we do around here when we want something gourmetish but don't want to take the extremes of time to prepare it. Both were Firstly, LB "Bolognese" - ground beef fried up with spices and a couple of dollops of leftover tomato sauce. That's Andina on top, a local ripe cheese similar in character to Asiago. And finally, LB "Beef Bourginon" - chunks of beef in quick gravy with red wine and mushrooms (and other veg). In a mashed potato moat!

Is it smoked? What you describe does sound a little bit like what is called "Farmer's Ham" in my parts, a.k.a. Bauernschinken - this certainly is bacon-like to me, anyway; and pretty salty at times, depending on the batch and who's making it. Judging by the flavour of what I'm currently eating, it's lightly smoked over something very mild, maybe peach wood? It's not overly salty either - just enough to bring out the bacon-ish flavour. The texture is closer to roast pork hock than it is to most commercial style hams, and there's a definite and pronounced marble and grain in the meat. And as with most artisan style cured meats in this country, every single producer has a slightly different spice mixture and curing trick, so no two pernil are ever quite alike. I've eaten bauernshinken; pernil is similar in texture but the spices take it in different direction entirely. The next town down the road from me, Riobamba, is justifiably famous for its bone-in pernil - next time I'm there, I'll try to find out a bit more about the process and spices involved...

Cream cheese, sanduche cheese, pernil, and fresh garden tomato on amaranth-herb bagels. It was the yum. Note to the curious: if you look up "pernil" in general you'll find lots of things about ham. Ecuadorian pernil is a different creature - it's certainly a pork product, but I wouldn't class it as a ham in the sense you're all used to. The spices and curing process used mean it's more like huge slices of well-seasoned bacon with less of the fat and more of the porky goodness. Pernil in other countries bears exactly zero resemblance to pernil in Ecuador.....

That's the case here, as well. In the rare event that we have leftover pizza, it gets zip bagged and tossed in the fridge, and promptly disposed of in my tum the next morning for brekkie.

You know I have never seen these hereabouts, there does seem to be quite specific local baked delicacies up here and they don't travel well! Our area is more butteries and some very weird looking things made mostly with marshmallow and icing - not for the squeemish! I will ask my Baker chum about the buns. Right - Gran did mention the extreme local nature of baked goods once. I have, therefore, no explanation as to how she knew about Ecclefechan tarts (the butteriest of the butteries) without ever having visited the area! I'll be making Hogamany bun this year, currants or note - I'll post back with pictures. You know Walkers now make Ecclefechan tarts and Oh Boy are they sweet, I wouldn't say they were anything like a Buttery though, the ones I had were very short pastry tart cases filled with a very rich mince meat (our mince meat i.e. dried fruit, suet or butter and lots of sugar) and, I think, some kind of condensed milk glaze, tooth falling out stuff!!! The ones Gran called Ecclefechan tarts are treacle based mincemeat, heavy on the raisins, with butter and pecans. Interesting to think that even within something so specific there are variations!

Kerry, you got it. I don't know why that's cheating, but perhaps you'll enlighten me. I'll try to see if I can make it work. It's cheating because "Cream Maker" is written quite clearly in raised letters on the handle of the thing! To wit "BEL cream maker - made in England" I'll second the request to see it in action, if you can get it to work!

You know I have never seen these hereabouts, there does seem to be quite specific local baked delicacies up here and they don't travel well! Our area is more butteries and some very weird looking things made mostly with marshmallow and icing - not for the squeemish! I will ask my Baker chum about the buns. Right - Gran did mention the extreme local nature of baked goods once. I have, therefore, no explanation as to how she knew about Ecclefechan tarts (the butteriest of the butteries) without ever having visited the area! I'll be making Hogamany bun this year, currants or note - I'll post back with pictures.

Bojana, that looks delicious! Are those enoki mushrooms in your consommé?

Lindsey - are you making Hogamany buns this year too? Those are one of my all-time faves, but there are no currants here (sadness!) so they're just not the same.

I should add that I'd never shop for glasswares or crystal on the internet! There is entirely too much to go wrong between purchase and delivery, and I like to hold glasses in my hands before purchase.....

JoNorvelle, are you familiar with the chime test for true crystal? Basically, if you tap or flick the glass and it rings like a chime or a bell, you've got crystal. Glass has no sustain and is not nearly as musical. This is the fastest and easiest way to determine between the two; unscrupulous dealers sometimes sell cat for rabbit, and it's a good idea to be able to tell. I am very fond of Cristar glasswares (which are glass, but in my butterfingered family that's better than crystal), but I'm also located in Latin America, so it's nearly impossible to encounter Baccarat or other "luxury" brands without paying triple the NYC prices....

Yes, and what was in that plastic basket, that looked kind of like bunnies on the hoof?

Simple down-home lunches here - soups and grilled cheese, and table games.

I like Shelby's approach: dessert first! Three flavours of cheesecake: clockwise from top they're Maracuyá-Mango, 7 Chocolates, and Mortiño (Andean blueberry) Roasted lamb - out butcher kindly gave us a front quarter; the bits are from the shoulder Meatloaf and cheesy scalloped potatoes And because those were such rich meals, a tuna salad with my own pickles.

I have larger bowls in that series that don't appear on the website. The 24 cm comes in at just a hair shy of 2L, and it is the bowl I refer to; I've also got a 30 cm, a 35 cm and a pair of giant 45 cms (which hold just shy of 5L), all in that lovely flat-bottomed design.

I'd never heard of nor had tortiere until we moved to Toronto but my son's friends kept talking about how good they were. Found a recipe and made one and thought this meat pie one of the best (and richest!) things I'd ever eaten. But definitely a cold weather, need lotsa calories to stay alive, dish. Sorry your experience was different! It has to do with a family joke, but yes, Gran's tortiéres were truly awful things - Mom's family is from up near the Québec border, on the Ontario side. I make much better pies, but they're still called "tortures" in my family because of Gran.

Elizabeth, file gumbo is to exclude okra, since the file powder makes it's own viscosity, and okra, with its slimy texture would be superfluous. OK, then my family has been making it wrong for at least 2 generations! Shame. We make an okra-free gumbo to start (thickening with the filé) and just toss in slices or small whole pods right at the very end, so that they poach lightly in the broth but don't slime out too badly. Be careful picking large pods. As we have discussed before, they can be stringy to the point that they are inedible. Depends on where you live. Here at the equator I can get quite nice large pods with no stringiness - I keep forgetting that northerners with their different growing seasons don't necessarily see the same veggie behaviours and I do. So, I bow to the superior knowledge of the northerners with regards to okra pod sizes!

I'd say using it in dishes where it isn't the main component (filé gumbo, for instance) is a good way to start liking okra. On its own it does tend towards the mucosal.... I for one like okra but can't stand it on its own unless it's fried - if you can get large enough pods, it's possible to shallow-fry slices of seeded pod, dusted in spiced cornmeal, like you would a fried green tomato, and that's quite yummy.

I've got no clue - they're sold as simply "bowl hermetico delujo, inoxidable" down here, not as part of any line. What I like about them particularly is that they're hugely flat-bottomed, which makes them extremely stable on the counter and picnic table (no need for no-slip treads), and they're a heavy enough gauge that I can bake cakes in them should the need arise (my 2L bowl, the first in my collection, I bought in order to bake and store a custom-sized fruitcake....) I checked out the iMusa USA website, and they're not even shown there (boo-urns!), which makes me suspect that they're a Latin American market thing only. And that's pretty dang silly IMHO, because they're easily the best s/s bowls I've ever used. When my internets speed up some, I'll check their Colombian site and see if they're there - that way I can give you a look at 'em - mine are all out on loan at the moment! ETA - my nets sped up! Yay! The bowls I use are indeed on the Colombian website (link - in Spanish) - click on "Recipientes de Acero - Frascos" and they're the first item on the menu. I have the two largest sizes at the moment, which are both about the size you're looking for. You could, if you can't find what you're looking for locally, probably have them shipped to you from Bogotá....

If it's not too late and they're available in the US, I'd like to put in a really good word for the iMusa s/s bowls in 2 and 5 L sizes...

Based on what you see in the market baskets, which part of Latin America? North or south of the equator? For the onions to be gold rather than red and that fresh, north of the equator.