Panaderia Canadiense

It's equal substitution - but watch your leavening. If you cake calls only for baking powder, you may need to add a pinch of soda to neutralize the cocoa and get it to rise the way you're used to. 1/4 tsp in most recipes is sufficient.

Yeah, and I have today off! This, of course, means I'm going to hijack my mother and we'll go off in search of the perfect bowl of Fanesca. I'm also going to try and make it to the butcher's for some lamb.

The "test dish" varies widely for me and depends heavily on the kind of restaurant I'm considering, the kind of food I want to eat, whether I know the chef or cook, my expectations, and my price range. In comedores (little hole-in-the-wall eateries that are my preferred place to spend dining dollars), it's Seco de Chivo. How a cook treats this simple, traditional goat or lamb stew speaks volumes to their talent and their philosophy of spicing. At the Chifa (the Ecuadorian take on New York style Chinese), it's Chaulafan Mixto, simple mixed fried rice. A dish with wide space for innovation and a thousand ways to go wrong. At a proper Chinese restaurant, one where the menu is mostly if not entirely in Chinese, it's bao zhi or similar dumplings. In seafood places, it's Camarones Encocados. Again, a very simple dish (shrimp in coconut curry) that is very easy to do wrong by over-thinking it. I've had camarones encocados at a shack on the beach, and those are in my top 10 of things I've ever eaten; I've also had them in a fine-dining environment where they rated in my top-10 worst. At a steakhouse, it's in how they handle the concept of a 3/8 finish on a Porterhouse or Cuadril (3/8 is what North Americans would think of as medium rare.) At a chêz-snooté steakhouse, I'll judge them on the tenderness of the filet mignon. At a place that offers roast beef, I'll judge them harshly for the absence of horseradish. At fine dining, there's no accurate test dish. I hope instead to be intrigued by flavour and texture combinations. I consider the experience to be a failure if I haven't been surprised or eaten one dish that was memorable for any reason. If I know the chef at any of these places, I often expect to have been used as a test-bunny before the dishes ever make it to the menu - which is what I thought you were talking about when I opened this thread! I do the same thing with new flavours of dessert - I test them on fellow chefs.

When I finally got home, exhausted, the power was out; it came back briefly enough for me to make dinner, then died again. Dinner, when I'm exhausted, is usually tuna salad on a bagel. In this case, I also had some bacon and sour cream Lay's to go with it. Then I collapsed into an exhausted heap - and here I am at 10 am the next day updating you all!

And now we've reached Baños! Someone a while ago asked about my expat clients; a large percentage of them are here, and most of them are long-term residents. They're also from a huge range of countries, not just North America. My first delivery goes to Danish-Ecuadorian Vibeke at Café Ali Cumba, someone that people who read my first foodblog might remember. She's been here for 17 years and works the café with her Ecuadorian husband. I've been working with Vibeke now for 5 years, and she's upgraded her digs from a small shop on the central square to a beautiful restored historical house near the Cathedral. I would have stayed longer and had a cup of her excellent coffee and probably a sandwich, but she was on her way up to Ambato with her kids to see a movie. She got the boxed cakes and a loaf of bread, and is now set for the holiday weekend crowds. Next up was the hands-down best coffeeshop in Baños, which, in typical Ecuadorian style, is tucked away inside an art-supply shop and bookstore. Things are often hidden this way - I buy yarn at my cheese shop, and oil paints at the café, and it's a perfectly normal to do. Arte-Ilusiones is the brainchild of Danish-Ecuadorian Nynne, who's been here for 12 years and has a lovely Ecuadorian husband who's a silversmith. Not pictured is her impressive cabinet of goodies, about half of which are mine. All of those loose cookies, the single-packed cinnamon buns, the brownies, and a lot of bread for her family besides, are staying here. Nynne also graciously allows me to use her café as a meeting point for other clients in Baños, with the result that Wednesdays are quite busy days for her. Next up was part social call, part business, on my friends Geoffrey and Edith. They're massage therapists. I was in luck, because Geoffrey (US expat, here for nearly 35 years; he's lost count) was out of drinking water and needed to visit the spring that Baños is named for! Most people assume it's the thermal baths, but it's actually the cool, refreshing mineral waters that come from a rock spring at the foot of a waterfall, that gave the town its name; apparently parched and disoriented conquistadores had a vision of the Virgin Mary here that told them to drink the waters and be healed. There's a small shrine around the spring, which is open to the public to fill up their jugs for free (although donations or offerings are welcome.) The Springs of the Virgin are popular with both locals and tourists, and a minor pilgrimage destination for the aged and infirm. Geoffrey had a treat for me - a fruit called Limón del Monte that he'd bought of an old Quichua man from up near the blueberry forest. You suck the pulp off the three big seeds, and try to avoid eating the latex exuded by the yellow shell, which is a bit bitter. The flavour is citric and very refreshing, and it's hard to stop eating the fruits once you've started. Neither Geoffrey nor I know exactly what this fruit is; we assume it to be related to Mangosteen based on how the seeds and pulp are arranged, and on the latex that comes out of the shells. My best guess is Garcinia madruno. After visiting with Geoffrey and Edith, and having my weekly massage (which is vital if you make as much bread by hand as I do) it was time to head for the last delivery of the day, bread for gourmet sandwiches at the Stray Dog Brewpub. Jason, the proprietor, is about my age and brings in the best of Ecuador's microbrews - this is where the ales of Ecuador are hiding out. Selection of beers changes here from day to day, depending on what he's got in kegs. I had the Saison Farmhouse Ale, which was a bitter, lightly sour gold ale; Mom went for Llama's Breath, a mild-tasting Belgian Blonde. And the final stop was at Heladería DaLeo - this is a place known for unusual flavours of artisanal ice-cream. Stalin, the proprietor, has some "normal" flavours in the case this time - you can see coconut, mandarine, and taxi here; but he's also got some unorthodox ones, like pumpkin, cane juice, yellow dragonfruit, and my personal favourite, beet (which I got and promptly forgot to photograph in my enthusiasm!) The second case also has Yuca (tapioca), Chontaduro (palm peach), and Hierba Luisa (lemongrass). Flavours at DaLeo change daily and depend heavily on what's in season right now - I was hoping to find my absolute favourite, Motilón (Peruvian elderberry) but was sadly out of luck this time.

It's part of the country's dedication to low-waste and low-impact environmental solutions. Those bags are not petro-polymers; they're fully biodegradable plantain plastic. Also, it's compact and easy to eat out of, and on a chilly day like yesterday it warms up your hands for you - no downside at all!

Baños, properly called Nuestra Señora del Virgen de los Baños de Agua Santa, is a hot-springs town about an hour's bus-ride from Ambato. What the map can't show you is that in that hour, you lose half the altitude. Baños is nestled on the toes of Volcán Tungurahua, at the edge of lava cliffs, just below the headwaters of the Pastaza River, a major Amazon tributary. To get there, one passes through a lot of Ecuador's most fertile farmland and the towns of Salasaka (Google has it spelled wrong!) and Pelileo. I have no pictures of Salasaka, because we passed it at high speeds. Pelileo, the second largest town in the province, is still so well-attached to its agricultural roots that people have small farms within city limits. It's about the last really flat arable land as you head towards the jungle, and even it is terraced broadly on the hillsides. This is two blocks from Pelileo's City Hall, if you can believe it! Llamas and Alpacas are raised both for their wool and their meat. As you keep heading downwards it just gets steeper - Ecuadorians, and particularly Tungurahuans, consider any land that isn't quite vertical as plantable. In some places, like Guadalupe, you can see where the town has scraped itself a flat space, and across the river where farmers are growing mandarines and limes on 60 degree inclined slopes. Above that cloud line are corn and bean fields. Guadalupe is home to one of the country's large poultry operations; the birds are pen-ranged on non-rainy days in the fields below the barns. The entire sector between Pelileo and Baños, although it contains a lot of small towns of other names, is usually referred to as Valle Hermoso (Beautiful Valley) - of course, today it was raining so I can't show you how it got that name! In the sunshine the views from any part of the valley are heart-stoppingly gorgeous, particularly when Volcán Tungurahua is erupting. Valle Hermoso is a stretch of about 50km of the most fertile soils in the country, thanks to the volcano's liberal gifts of ash. Everything is grown here, from mote corn and squashes to tomate de árbol (tree tomatoes) and babaco, and the area is overrun with fruit orchards producing the country's best avocados, mandarines, limes, pears, peaches, and other stonefruits. Along the roadside as you approach the floodplains of the Rio Patate there are all manner of small nurseries that provide seedlings for the annual and biennial crops grown in the region. This one also has ornamentals, but its main focus is seedlings of tomate de árbol and tree tobacco. Despite landslides, farmers replant and carry on - new orchards appear in place of the old ones. Baños is nestled on these cliffs, a bit further to the left of this view.

Sorry about the lack of posts yesterday evening, folks - a combination of coming home late and a power outage meant I had a snack and fell into bed. Here, now, is the experience of travelling to Baños de Agua Santa. Let's start with breakfast. The bus we were trying to catch was late, so breakfast came from the lone kiosk in the station parking lot. It doesn't look like much, but it turns out excellent fast food, Ecuadorian-style - Daniela primarily serves bus drivers and swampers. On the left, Salchipapas; on the right, Papipollo. The first is small beef sausages fried with the fresh chips, and all hidden here under a mound of onion, tomato, and lettuce salad, and the kiosk's home-made mayo and ketchup. The second is a quarter chicken with fries, also obscured under its sauces. Salchipapas and Papipollo are the kind of portmanteaux common in Ecuadorian Spanish - the first is properly Salchis y Papas (little sausages and potatoes), and the second Papas y Pollo (Potatoes and Chicken) On the menu, you can also see that Papicarne (Papas y carne, which is potatoes with a bun-less hamburger on top) is available.

Everything! The difference between black cocoa and Dutched cocoa is that one is naturally acidic and fat-soluble, and the other alkalinized and water-soluble. Black cocoa is a bit richer-tasting in final goods, more like eating cocoa nibs, and imparts a far more intense colour to the final product. The black-black colour of my mocha leaf cookies, chocolate cakes, and black bread, comes from black cocoa. The only thing it won't do is make a Devil's Food Cake come out that rich red-brown - for that, which relies on a reaction with the alkaline, you have to use Dutched.

Just a quick note before I run off to Baños for the day. This was the final tally of yesterday's production; not pictured are three large cakes - Mocha, Carrot, and Chocolate. This is three apple-boxes worth of products, plus a stuffed basket and a cake box on the side. I'll be back this evening with a giant update covering Baños de Agua Santa and what an out-of-town delivery round looks like.

I do this every single week - make my crisp toppings ahead, bag them, toss them in the fridge. And I make a topping that's got substantially more grain in it than you're talking about. No sogginess, perfect results every time, and so much more convenient than having to make it right then. This was made with a topping that had been in the fridge for more than 14 days. It was perfectly crisped and lightly crunchy. And this is over peaches, which are notorious for sogging out the topping. As Chris Hennes points out - even if the flour and grains take up moisture from the butter, at the end of the week you're going to bake it. At that point, ciao extra moisture.

The biggest pig? He weighed in at 15 lbs or some such incredible weight - about the size of an overweight domestic cat or a small poodle. You can see a more normally sized cuy in the cage with him, getting all smooshed.

I've got silverfish in my pan cupboard, but thankfully this house is ant-free - something I could not say of the last one, where I swore and snarled and nuked the Crazy Ants in the walls what felt like every single day. The biggest nuisance in the house is standard black houseflies, and I have a good swatter and a plastic-strip door cover, so I don't have to use it very often. I can buy KD in Ambato; it's a slightly different formula (more actual cheese in the sauce, less "processed cheese food substance"), but it's also $4 a box. Instead, I buy the 79 cent SuperMaxi brand Mac and Cheese - hence, in the pursuit of accuracy, I'm not calling it KD. Because of Ecuadorian food labelling laws, anything calling itself Mac and Cheese has to have at least 75% real cheese, freeze-dried and powdered, in the sauce pack. Resultantly, and I'm going to commit a bit of sacrilege here that I think I can get away with because I'm also Ecuadorian, I like the SuperMaxi brand stuff better. Technically it's Royal and not Jello, but that amounts to the same thing under a different brand name. Cherry-pineapple isn't actually a flavour you can buy ready-mixed - I have two of the big family-size bags open right now and I blend it myself. Mom likes 1 TBSP pineapple to 1/2 TBSP cherry; I like it reversed. When the blog is finished? I fall down into an exhausted heap every single night! I'm just sharing the madness right now is all.

These ones? They're Zambos, Cucurbita ficifolia, aka Cidra, or Blackseed Figleaf gourds. Squashy-melony things is actually a very accurate description - when they're underripe, like the ones here, they're sort of stringy squashy tasting and excellent for soups. When they're ripe they're melony-sweet and make lovely jam, and the seeds at any stage of ripeness are delicious when toasted - kind of like stronger-tasting pumpkin seeds.

There are cuy farms, especially in neighbouring Cevallos canton where there's a county fair each year to choose the best of them. They're generally free-ranged in the day and have hutches, kind of like bunnies do, for the nighttime. A small percentage of the herd is lost to hawks. Pelts aren't used - cuy skin is prized for its taste and crunch, so they're treated like hogs, and shaved, scalded, and singed instead. Live cuy come to market in crates; best-in-show cuy live pampered lives in cages and are generally breeding stock. Ginger-coat and pale cuy are the most prized. Paradoxically, even though they're known to be a food animal first, many people keep cuy as pets as well. Best in Show, Cevallos 2015 Biggest Pig, Cevallos 2015

The Breadlympics progressed last night…. This is my alternative flours cupboard. From left to right and back to front: gold pea, blue corn, whole wheat, baking soda; black cocoa, quick oats, quinua, amaranth. Before I could go further, though, I needed to visit my local Tienda, just around the corner from me. Carmita has had this place for 45 years and is a fixture of the community - it's where we all go to gossip and joke and just generally shoot the breeze. She's like the barrio police; it's likely, if you grew up in the barrio, that she knows your mother or your grandmother, and she'll tell them that you're being a malcreado…. The tienda, a fixture of every Ecuadorian barrio, stocks all the necessities - from napkins to noodles and tinned tuna fish. I'm here to buy flats of eggs (there are 30 eggs to a flat) and bags of milk. Carmita, shown here trying really hard not to laugh, says "hi" to all of you! You can also see her daughters and granddaughters. Luz, laughing in the background, will take over the tienda from Carmita when she retires. Breadlympics progresses - the four bowls of challah-type bread have butter worked into them, and you can see why I needed to buy a few flats of eggs. On the far right, that super-full bowl (my largest one) is herb focaccia dough. It's the reason I have a docking wheel. This is such a popular bread in Baños that I produce somewhere between 1 and 3 batches of it a week; some of it is baked into large loaves for sandwich bread, but I've got a few diehards who prefer the more traditional flatbread style. The docking wheel is an invaluable tool and saves me a lot of time and effort. While all of this was going on, I also proved how Canadian I still am at heart. Dinner was real honest-to-goodness orange, gooey Mac and Cheese from a box, with some tomato sauce and ground chicken thrown on top. Some finished items in the Breadlympics event: cinnamon buns Bagels and injerto buns At the end of the night I'm achy and exhausted. This means only one thing - it's time for Jello! But maybe not the way you'd think…. My great-grandmother swore by a cup of hot gelatine at night when she felt creaky - she swore it was good for her arthritis. She was right! A mug of hot Jello, in this case pineapple-cherry flavoured, is a fantastic sedative and when you wake up your joints have ceased to hurt. Mom and I both partook.

Cuy is extremely popular here; in Ambato alone there are probably 20-30 places devoted to roasting and serving cuyes and rabbits. You can also buy cuy, pre-peeled, whole or in parts, from the same butchers who specialize in rabbit in a couple of the mercados if you want to cook your own. EDIT: I actually wrote extensively about the hunt for a good cuy in my first foodblog here, five whole years ago - Coca leaves…. Perfectly legal to grow, chew, and offer to Pachamama; perfectly illegal to refine. Highland Ecuadorians go more for coca tea than they do for direct chewing of the leaves; you get the same altitude-resistance effect, but your face doesn't go numb the same way, and it's less habit-forming. Our highlands are actually a bit higher than Peru's, and for the residents of the highest paramos, coca tea is what keeps them alive. I live at 3,000 meters above sea level; not the highest altitude available even in my own city, but not the lowest either. I buy coca tea in convenient teabags at the supermarket, and I can buy coca-leaf lozenges at the health food store. I use both when I want to do something really physically taxing, like set up for a tradeshow or hike up to the big flag across the valley from me, which is in the closest provincial park and marks a 4,000 m vista point. And yes, chicken does taste very, very different in Ecuador than it does in either North America or Europe. I think this comes down largely to the way it's raised and the way it's fed, although breed might play a part - North American chicken tends to be Cornish Rock if you don't raise your own; Ecuador at least is a majority farmer of Naked Neck (sometimes called Churkeys for their size) instead, because it's got better heat resistance than other breeds, but gets big just as fast. I recall being extremely disappointed in chicken last time I was in Canada; it was bland and even the texture seemed off. The soup war between Ecuador and Peru is ongoing. I've lived, and eaten copiously, in both countries; I think Ecuador is the winner on sheer variety as well as on flavour - Peru relies too heavily on adding heat rather than paying attention to balanced flavours or nuance.

If you're curious to know what I've been doing all day, the answer is The Breadlympics. Tomorrow's Baños trip is based on orders there, and that in turn means 5 different types of yeast bread, and an additional two soda bread types besides. Overall, it will be 480 oz, give or take, of yeasted breads and another 160 oz or so of soda breads. Breadlympics is an endurance marathon sort of event.

Oh no, we derailed! Anyone with questions about non-food related aspects of living here should send me a PM - here is not the place for digressions into economic questions. To re-rail us, here was lunch. Borscht re-heats, but with real sour cream this time (instead of sour yoghurt), and black bread bagels with cream-cheese. Yes, that's the chocolate sub-zero porter I'm drinking as an accompaniment. It's lovely.

I have, and I knew what it was before I tried it. The flavour of the broth is quite nice, the meat somewhat rubbery - it's not left whole, but sliced into chunks. It's not something I'll go out of my way to eat, but if it was the only thing on the menu I wouldn't have a problem eating it. The remainder of the goodies from today will sell tomorrow in Baños at a slightly reduced price; I'm not worried. If the bus is not too full, I can usually sell quite a bit to my fellow passengers by standing up once we're underway, telling some jokes, and then offering a taste of Canada. You're more on-point than you might think. Caldo de Tronco is very popular amongst young men.... The huevos del toro are a different preparation, usually fried.

I'm not sure it's visible in the photos, @blue_dolphin, but the totes are bungee'd on to a pair of small hand-carts, the right size to fit easily and comfortably into a standard yellow taxi. Stepdad accompanies me on delivery rounds, and he drags the carts. Market trips involve similar hand-carts with cloth bags that strap onto them; the flour is bought at the last stop - I actually leave it in Klever's charge if I have things to buy further down the market, then return for it. The truck-taxi (this is a formal taxi service, registered just like yellows, for small cargo - they're half-ton pickups in white with a green stripe, so they're very obvious and easy to spot) is found within the Mayorista and hired to move all the goodies. Nothing like Uber here, unless you have a lot of friends with cars and free time on their hands. Truck-taxis can be hired to move everything from your groceries to your house to that cow you just bought at auction. I am actually selling items and making change for most of the delivery rounds; some clients run a tab which they settle up after payday.

Also on today's rounds, a real food court. If you ask an Ambateño where the patio de comidas is, you won't ever get directions to the mall. They'll send you to the top story of one of the downtown markets. I was here to drop off a bucket of soup for my friend Carmita, who sells pernil. She didn't want her photo taken, but her neighbours, Michele and Matty, did! That's a whole leg of pernil on Matty's counter. This food court, at the Mercado Central, has a bit of everything and even though it's just the beginning of the lunch rush it's fairly busy (much busier than the mall, yesterday!) It's the only one amongst the mercados that has big, well-patronized seafood places. Brisa Marina is actually an established restaurant elsewhere in the city; this is its market outlet. A main feature of the patio de comidas are the juice bars. Anything you want, juiced fresh to order, with or without added fresh yogurt. Calditos de 31 are beef tripe soups - the 31 refers to the number of different textures you can experience while eating it. This place also specializes in Caldo de Tronco, which is not what it sounds like (spoiler alert: it's bull penis soup). This is really hearty, really popular fare typical of the central highlands. You can also buy tripes by the pound from them, and make your own 31. And no mercado in Ambato could have a food court without Llapingachos! Doña Olympia, in the blue smock, has occupied this stall in the market along with her mother (who didn't come in today) for more than 50 years. I also discovered that you can't wander around the patio de comidas taking photos without strangers wanting to be immortalized for this very foodblog. These gentlemen were finishing up their lunch of Encebollado (a strong red onion and tomato soup with tuna belly) and Mote con Chicharrones (exploded corn with the Ecuadorian equivalent of salty, spicy, sweet bacon bits.) As you can see by their table, it's possible to order juice by the pony jug to share; they're drinking Batido de Mora (blackberry and yoghurt shake). Honestly, I was really here to drop off the soup and for chicken, which comes from a shop just across from the mercado. I didn't have time to go in to the butcher's today, so that will have to wait for Thursday.

Well, you learn something new every year…. This year, I learned that more than 3/4 of my clients take this entire week off without telling anyone (except, I hope, their employers….) It's all good, though, because if I hadn't gone out to deliver, I never would have gotten my favourite breakfast ever: Empanadas de Morocho! They're normally 25 cents each, but Don Hernan gave me an extra for yapa. Empanadas de Morocho are smallish pockets of flint-corn dough wrapped around a filling of shredded chicken, cabbage, and peppers, and then fried until they're nice and crispy. I habitually eat them for breakfast on delivery days, because my route takes me right past here. Don Hernan, the friendly proprietor and cook, also makes fried maduros, fritada, chulpi (a crunchy toasted corn, onion, and bacon-bit snack mix), and sometimes also Empanada Chileña (which he didn't have today). Las Fritadas de la Hada is one of Ambato's best-kept secrets.

We apprenticed ourselves to master pastry chefs and toiled in hot kitchens for poor pay but good coffee…. (At least, that's how I did it. If I never have to make and fill another paté-choux, I will be a happy girl.)

There are a number of shops that carry the kind of packaging I use, all of which is oxy-biodegradable plastic based on either corn or plantain polymers. The bags add about 1/4 cent to the cost of the item; the hard-shell boxes I use for cake are $0.13 each, and the aluminum cups I use for crisps and custards are about $0.05 each. Styrofoam is frowned upon heavily here - foam plates show up at some events, but the bags, which are cheaper and far more environmentally friendly, are much more the norm. Foam cups aren't even all that common - for hot drinks on the go you'll either be handed waxed cardboard with a little sleeve or a doubled-up plastic cup wrapped in a napkin. Ecuador is tremendously eco-conscious.