Panaderia Canadiense

OMG, the little plastic bear! I haven't seen those in ages. For my part, I buy honey directly from the apiculturists and generally I ask what their bees have been eating lately. One produces a very lovely, delicate honey as a result of her bees being the pollinators for citrus and plum orchards; another has her bees in a Eucalyptus forest, another in Acacia scrub, and yet another relies on tropical wildflowers. The honies have very distinct characteristics, both in terms of colour/flavour and crystalization.

Sure! This is my hands-down favourite drink when I'm chilled or when I feel a sore throat coming on. It normally knocks me flat on my tush if I drink 2-3 of them (and they're tasty so it's not hard to do!) but I wake up feeling very healthy the next day. Ginger Posset 1/2 oz ginger syrup (I use the panela syrup in which I have candied ginger) 1 oz eucalyptus honey (or similar strong-flavoured honey - delicate honies get lost in the ginger) the juice of one lime (and if you're feeling like a fancy-pants, a twist) 2 oz brandy hot water to the top of the mug pinch of cinnamon as a garnish As a side note, I always add the spirits last to hot drinks, and then stir to combine, so that they don't lose their kick as quickly. Pouring hot or boiling water over the spirits seems to diminish them (likely because the alcohol is being evaporated off by the initial contact with hot water). A twist on the ginger posset, using 1/2 oz honey and 1/2 oz blackstrap molasses, and substituting the darkest rum you can find (Jamaican style rum is perfect) for the brandy, turns the drink from a Posset into a Grog. I generally use a cinnamon stick for Grogs, though, since the rum seems to call for a more sustained cinnamon note. There's also the Canelazo, which is an Ecuadorian hot honey punch. 2 oz cinnamon syrup (or, in a pinch, three big cinnamon sticks, which are boiled in the juice to extract the flavour. The syrup is more convenient.) 2 oz honey (delicate honies work best here, since the spirits are quite neutral) 4 oz hot peach juice (or hot maracuyá juice, as a variation), and at the end pour in 4 oz puntas / white rum / aguardiente reposado / rhum agricole / cachaça (varies according to personal taste) and stir to combine. This is two people's worth of drinks - Canelazo is mixed in a thermal pitcher and poured as hot shots. It goes to the head extremely quickly, although it doesn't taste all that alcoholic. Peach and maracuyá are the traditional juices used, but I've also had oustanding strawberry Canelazo. Edited for clarity and grammar. I should really preread these things more closely....

Would you include the hot, honey-flavoured drinks like toddies, possets, hot punches, etc. in this group, or would you class them separately? For example, a traditional ginger posset (honey, ginger syrup, lime juice, brandy, hot water, pinch of ground cinnamon) makes sterling use of honey, particularly if you've got a fairly strong-flavoured type like Eucalyptus or Acacia to work with.....

Then there are the patés (salmon, tuna, chicken liver, liverwurst, foie gras where permitted), which can be piped onto slices of vegetables and put out. For example, I'm very fond of tuna paté on slices of cucumber, and liverwurst on radish rounds.

I'd be wiping the whole shebang with StarSan or similar. Better safe than sorry.

We celebrate the solstice down here as Inti Raymi - the festival of the sun. Traditional edibles/imbibables include: gold corn tamales, roast cuy, locro de papas, chicha azul, chicha de jora (the chichas are mildly alcoholic corn-based beers), tzawar mishki (Ecuador's answer to tequila - blue agave syrup fermented until very strong with lime and cinnamon), and a tremendous punch called Cañonazo made with puntas (pure cane spirits), pineapple juice, and spices. Traditional honey and walnut torrones show up, as do a few kinds of special empanadas. Whole suckling pigs are normally also roasted in wood ovens (as at any celebration). Inti Raymi lasts two weeks with the solstice (and, coincidentally, my birthday!) at the center of it. Today marks the start of the serious festivities, which will run for 5 days.

Et Alors - the composition of the first shot is lovely, but the second (for me at least) is suffering because there's too much white ground competing vs. the food itself. Here's what I'd do (apart from white balancing etc) - pull the focus inwards to really feature the food. I get the sense that you were conflicted between showing the entire plate (it is a nice piece of tableware) and the food itself; in those cases I always go for the food, since it's generally the point of the photo. So this: Becomes this:

In a family of bakers? It's always been considered bad luck in my family - it means you're so far from your relatives that there's nobody who cares to bake for you.

Yoghurt-Chocolate Chip Cake with Mocha Buttercream fill/frost. I'm actually not responsible for the baking itself (it's bad luck to bake your own birthday cake) but I was certainly responsible for cutting it and sharing it, and for gobbling down my own nice large chunk. This is probably my favourite cake ever. Yoghurt-Chocolate Chip Cake. It's what's for breakfast!

I've eaten a great deal of pastelón while on vacation on the Caribbean coast of Colombia - so it's entirely possible it's an island dish, but I will always associate it with Colombia. If you're preparing it in muffin tins, slice your plantains more thinly than she's suggesting - otherwise there will be no room for the picadillo!

Mmm, I love Colombian cooking! I'll have to go out to the tienda and get me some maduros now.... Dangit, Jason!

They're actually common across Latin America as a cake decoration - I'm surprised they're not in other parts of the world! I use the largest ones available because I like the look - there are also smaller, crunchy ones that are about the size of large-grain sand which are formed around quinua.

It's thin enough to pour over the cake, but I apply in three successive layers so it ends up around 1 cm thick. However, once it's cooled to room temperature it's more like a deluxe frosting that can be either spread or piped (and that's how I use it on other cakes - for this one in particular I'm very fond of the velvet finish that it acheives when poured). Refrigerated, it's solid enough to form centers for chocolates, and behaves like a truffle. (Those little balls around the edge are called Grageas; they're black sesame seeds covered in bittersweet chocolate.)

So, here's the chori. Lots of lovely cooking pictures, and then (covered in chori grease) we stuffed them in buns and ate them with loud and lusty snarfling noises. This was 2 lbs; next time I shall have to buy at least double.

Best of luck! In case you're wondering, that recipe comes out looking like this (this cake was made tonight for delivery tomorrow).

That sounds more like the speed of my choris, Chris. Thanks for the tip!

Ambato Chorizo has more in common with that sausage than the chori you're thinking of, I'd bet. It's a soft, large-bore sausage for me. I'll take plenty of pics - it's my birthday dinner!

I buy my invert sugar as liquid invert glucose from a local chemical supply company.... My ganache recipe is thusly (adjust for your own chocolate accordingly; I blend). 250 mL heavy cream (mine is not marked as to fat content, but the heaviest I find is roughly equivalent to 35%) 5 oz mother of chocolate (99% cacao) 5 oz superior chocolate (75% cacao) 5 mL invert sugar 1/2 oz butter 45 mL brandy Scald the cream, add the chocolate, and whisk gently until completely dissolved. Add the butter and invert sugar and stir until just combined, then add the brandy and stir until just combined. Comes out beautifully glossy and smooth every single time.

How do you get the sausage to stay coiled on the grill, if I may ask? I've got about 4' of prime chorizo I'd like to grill tonight, and I'd like to not cut it if possible.

Annoula, if you're working with very dark chocolate for your ganache, the invert sugar becomes more important. In my experience, a dark chocolate ganache (say, 75% cocoa solids in your base chocolate) can easily go grainy if you're using rich cream, but about 5 mL of invert sugar for every 250 mL of cream / 10 oz of chocolate seems to smooth it out and also provides a bit of a gelling effect, so that the ganache sets up without cracking, dulling overmuch, or going bitty. And a little bit of butter goes a really long way! I primarily use ganache as a cake coating, and my recipe calls for a scant 1/2 oz of butter; I'd never omit it, since it imparts a nice shine and excellent mouthfeel to the final product - the flavour skews a bit towards fudge, but in a really good way: since I generally use Jeréz brandy as my main flavour for the dark ganache, a richer feel is almost called for.

I've found that it varies greatly depending on the berry and also on where you live. Guidelines for Canada or other temperate to arctic countries absolutely do not hold true for Ecuador, for example. In Canada, serviceberries and saskatoons seemed to improve with chilling, so I kept those in the fridge, but for strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, jostas, currants, and gooseberries, the flavour suffered from refrigeration. Those I kept in pint baskets in a cool area of the pantry, but never in the fridge. In Ecuador, however, strawberries in the pantry will go fuzzy if you so much as look at them funny. Hence I keep them in supperware containers in the fridge to delay their inevitable deterioration. For the less "fleshy" berries, like mora, mortiño, joyapa, and sachauva, these can be kept in the cool of the pantry but because (in my area at least) it's so dry they'll tend to end up dessicated before I get to the bottom of the bakset. I have yet to find a suitable solution to this, because the fridge really does change their flavours (joyapa, for example, become almost inedible when cold).

I give them a light misting of 5% hydrogen peroxide solution. Kills 99.9% of all bad bugs, and a little peroxide for your digestive system is healthy for you.

Charcuterer, I'm burning with curiousity! How did Ecuadorian night go over at your Sunday table?

1. Try infusing whole spices into your tomato paste when you heat/fry it (I'd heat it, myself, with a hint of vinegar to round out the flavours). Then remove the whole spices before you use the paste. 2. Absolutely no reason not to make caramel, but why not investigate burnt brown sugar as well? You'd get a hint of smokey flavour that way. 3. A pinch of wasabi goes a really long way....

Jenni - absolutely. The only veggie dish I've ever had that was better on the reheat was a braised eggplant thing, and it wasn't too spectacular in the first place.... (edit - good splellar!)