Anna N

Yeah. I was trying to imagine 6 cups of our local strawberries each of which is hardly larger than the top joint of my thumb and 6 cups of imported strawberries some of which are the size of a small lime.

Must try that.

This is the question I so wanted answered and yet it felt disrespectful to ask! You surely were missed.

For the first time in a very long time @Kerry Beal and I decided to have ribs today. This was a different restaurant but part of the same chain. It is in Mississauga.WARNING, if you have queasy stomachs stop looking at the end of the food photographs! The table was a little crowded but you can see tea for Kerry and we in the back there is a glass of rose for me. Calamari. Very tender and tasty. Ribs with french fries and coleslaw. We shared everything. That is the end of the legitimate lunch pictures. Before lunch, however, we visited the Korean store which is very close by and discovered things that raised our eyebrows. I am sure we are just culturally challenged. Not so bad. Just amusing. Not likely to appear on either of our menus in the near future or in the distant future for that matter. And then there was this So nice to see such clearly organic products appearing close to the checkout counters.

Not the most attractive chocolate chip cookies that I have ever made. My Thomas Keller alter ego must have been in hiding. I will be sure to let you know how many are rejected and sent home.

How do you say fabulous in Ecuadorean.

Yes. Indeed it did. Towards the end we found ourselves fighting a guilty conscience that we had ordered too much food and were now eating it merely to avoid being accused of gluttony. Like many all-you-can-eat restaurants there is a notation on the menu that if you order too much food you will be charged for any that you do not eat! We both doubted that it was enforced very often but nevertheless it did weigh on our minds— not the additional cost but the guilt.

Lunch out two days in a row? Well we certainly needed yesterday’s lunch. @Kerry Bealand I spent the morning with a service person written into existence by Mary Shelley. I am convinced that each morning somebody opens a small door in the back of his skull and replaces the cassette tape with a new one before shoving him out the door. He brought completely inappropriate equipment into the house and when we tried to convince him that we needed very different equipment, he simply lapsed into a script and talked over the top of our reasoned explanation. Whew. We were both happy to escape without a charge of homicide hanging over our heads. When we arrived at the restaurant, Spoon & Fork, I think out server could detect our lingering irritability and turned up his inherent charm to full volume. He was quite delightful. Ginger tea for Kerry. Warm sake for me. Our food order written on the protective paper over the table cloth. Our lunch order as interpreted by our server. He was amused and at first a little reluctant to allow us to photograph his transcription but eventually relented. This request to see and photograph his order page came about only because I was convinced that he was writing in Chinese characters. Wrong again. Miso soup for Kerry and seaweed salad for me and some surprisingly good (only because it is an all-you-can-eat menu) calamari. Inari with ginger and wasabi paste. Some sort of roll for Kerry. All of their roll contained crab in one way or another hence I declined to partake. Lemon grass rice. Bok choy in garlic sauce. Beef and Chinese broccoli. Red chicken curry. Steamed rice. Singapore noodles.

This would do it for me.

After an appointment this morning, my daughter wanted to have lunch with me and had heard of a new restaurant on Kerr Street in Oakville. Gingerman I had made some serious inroads into my wheat beer before I remembered to take a photograph. My daughter didn’t recognize any of the draught beers on offer but decided to try a pint of the Steam Whistle Pilsner. It really was not to her liking so I ended up drinking about half of it. Lettuce wraps for her. “Cow in a blanket” for me. The menu can be seen in the link I supplied to the restaurant website.

Sebastian’s brownies (made with mostly black cocoa) I’m not sure I would ever attempt these again — at least not without cutting the recipe in half. In consistency the batter stood about halfway between Mississippi mud and magma. Getting it out of the bowl and into the pan took every ounce of strength I had. The instructions said to smooth the top. I was wishing I had access to some earth-moving equipment for this task. But they are chocolate. They are brownies. Everyone will love them.

Apricot seeds recalled due to potential for cyanide poisoning. What were they thinking?Apricot seeds.

Yesterday @Kerry Beal and I decided to go to Stoney Creek to take advantage of a half-price book sale at the Value Village thrift store (we thought this particular branch usually had the best selection of books). I scouted for restaurants on Google and came up with BananaLeaf. What a treasure. We were the only diners even though it was the lunch hour. This can often suggest that one ought to find a different place to eat. But not on this occasion. We were greeted by a delightful man who proved to be the owner/server. Ginger tea for Kerry. Warm sake for me. Golden fried calamari. Never had calamari that was this tender. Hakka chowmein. Diced green bean chicken. Sizzling black bean beef. Small bowl of rice. Everything was freshly prepared. Of course there is far too much food as always but at least this time we didn’t finish it off. I was the lucky one who got to take the leftovers home and when I opened one of the containers I was once again reminded of how much trouble the man had taken with his offerings: As an aside, this calamari reheated beautifully in the Cuisinart Steam Oven on the steam bake function at 325°F for 15 minutes. Almost as good as when it was served fresh.

Butter tart squares. They’re really dark but they’re not burnt at all.

Although I had expressed a wish to try something new for lunch yesterday, I don’t think I was being truthful. For both me and @Kerry Beal, It really seemed a day when familiarity and comfort were in order. Kerry had just flown back from the Workshop in St. Louis and I was dealing with some family issues. So after a brief drive around a small section of Hamilton in search of someplace new, we both agreed that a return to Lemongrass was in order. Ginger tea for Kerry and beer for me. A spicy beef salad. The strange antenna-dish-looking thing is a shrimp chip! Crispy duck. Rice and peanut sauce.

Not very photogenic, but oh so good. Ginger snaps with crystallized ginger. My house will smell so good for days.

Yesterday, @Kerry Beal and I paid a return visit to Cavallonero in Ancaster. (This was after we had entered another restaurant and got rather a bad vibe and decided to follow our instincts and find another place to eat). I enjoyed a glass of an Argentinian Malbec. Kerry had tea with lots and lots of milk (we both remarked on how wasteful it is to use these tiny milk containers). Crispy calamari. It was very tender if somewhat under seasoned but the garlic sauce that accompanied it was so moreish we eventually asked for another serving of the sauce. We each had a bowl of one of the daily soups. This was tomato, rapini and sausage garnished with extra Parmesan and some pepper. And we shared a mushroom pizza. That’s not an entirely a true statement. I was lucky enough to bring most of it home.

Be careful what you wish for. Butterscotch cookies. If all you ask of a cookie is that it be a good hit of sugar these will fill the bill. What they lack in excitement they make up for in ease of execution and very plain ingredients.

Yesterday @Kerry Bealand I returned to Kamoosh in Waterdown. I asked Kerry to take a photograph of their cutlery. It is stamped “Bowering” which used to be a boutique housewares chain but I believe it is long gone out of business. A glass of South African Sauvignon Blanc for me. Tea for Kerry. Then we shared a selection of cicchetti (I had to ask!). Apparently the word means Italian tapas? Polenta chips with lemon ricotta. Duck mousse with preserved pears and grilled baguette. Smoked salmon carpaccio. Lots of lovely grilled baguette. And then we shared the grilled calamari. For once we did not order too much food. The downside of that being there were no leftovers to take home.☹️

Snickerdoodles. Very disappointed that there are no crinkles. I have never figured out the secret to getting crinkly-topped cookies. I suspect, however, not a single complaint will reach me about the missing crinkles.

Yes it was on a daily special menu along with a Wagyu beef dish.

Katherine Hepburn‘s brownies with chocolate chunks.

Thank you for the thought. But I might starve to death in the meantime since she could not leave at lunchtime and was in a completely different building in another part of town except for the very first day, I had a wonderful time, bland sandwiches and all.

I have just finished a delicious lunch but yet I swear I could get my mouth around that sandwich. Him doesn’t know what’s good for him.😂

I looked at the video for the Sharp and it tends to give you the impression that you can cook a chicken in there so you need to watch the video very carefully to realize that the chicken never goes into the oven and never comes out of the oven. It just magically appears on the table. At first glance this doesn’t hold a candle to the CSO. But thanks for pointing it out even so.