Anna N

We did not tell at the turkey. To be honest this is the first wild turkey I have ever seen and I didn’t want to put any kind of jinx on seeing another one. I doubt that there are any cuisines in London that we cannot find in the Greater Toronto Area. But London is a little more compact so we might not need to travel quite so far. Read on.

I am almost awake now and I remember what Kerry said when we spotted that turkey as we arrived at the hotel, “You know it will be a drinking weekend when the first thing you spot is a Wild Turkey.” It’s cool and rainy out there but I thought I’d share the view from my hotel room anyway. Normally in my home I look at the back end of somebody else’s house and not much else so I’m enjoying this very much. There are small Keurig coffee makers in each room and I thought you might enjoy this little bit of wyzdom: The dining room is quite lovely. This is only a very small part of it. There was quite a spread for breakfast but I only wanted eggs and some toast: Kerry added a few other things to her plate. She had some tea with her breakfast with lots of milk as usual. The staff were very attentive — almost too attentive — but so pleasant and they spoke quietly as if expecting that everyone would arrive for breakfast hungover.

Gotcha. You thought that London. It is this London: Yes, we are in London, Ontario. This weekend Kerry is helping to examine medical students taking their final exams before getting their licence to practice. The venue is London, Ontario. She invited me along so I could have a change of pace. She will spend most of the time living up to the expectations of the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons but we will do our best to keep you amused with whatever food-based adventures we can muster. I will be taking advantage of a quiet hotel room to work on a personal project. This was my first clue that it was going to be an interesting weekend: we saw this handsome chap just as we entered the hotel grounds. That this would be a challenging weekend became apparent when I entered my room: I am 4 feet 9 1/2 inches tall. This bed comes almost to my waist. Verticality is not my only challenge. Getting into this bed would require some ingenuity. Between Kerry and the front desk the problem is more or less solved. By the time we arrived at the hotel and stashed our belongings it was getting towards 8 PM. Neither one of us was seriously hungry and so we opted to just grab something ready-made from one of the local supermarkets. This one was almost as well stocked with beer as our beer store: This is just a small example of the selection available. Kerry had a Guinness with a Cobb salad and some thousand Island dressing. I had a Rickards Red with a chicken Caesar salad. Not the most exciting meals but we will try to do better. I have been tasked with the enormous responsibility of researching the available restaurants. I am open to suggestions. The hotel puts on a buffet breakfast and we will saunter down there somewhere around 7:30 this morning.

It always seems exotic to me even now after more than one visit. I have never seen anything like the food they serve here served anywhere else. The portions are astronomically large and could probably be shared by a whole table but I appreciate the leftovers. They will keep me going for days.

Yesterday, @Kerry Beal and I were joined by @patris. I was so happy to see her I would’ve been content to have cardboard sandwiches for lunch. Fortunately wiser heads prevailed and we went to Maro’s Bistro, an old favourite. Love their menu, both back and front: Water for all. Tea for Kerry and our guest with a choice of saffron or cardamom sugar. Turkish coffee for me. A shared platter of fried cauliflower with hummus. The Morning Light sandwich for our guest . Lebanese Cévapi for Kerry. Memories of Persia for me. We (I) took home more than we ate. As always the service was prompt and friendly.

I believe the author is a friend or an acquaintance of @liuzhou. I seem to recall him recommending this book when it was first released. I am certain he will correct me if I am wrong.

I am happy to wait. Thank you.

Happy to bring back some good memories. These were coated with a mixture of walnuts and almonds. I am not happy with the dough for these and will be looking around for a better recipe. This one is a beast in terms of keeping it together and shaping the cookies to have an indentation.

Apricot and raspberry thumbprints.

You are all such good sports we will have to find something else equally mysterious just to keep you on your toes.

I will invite @Kerry Beal to respond. I am busy banging my head against the wall.

No. We took a photograph of it to amuse/ befuddle all the wonderful people on eG.

Two lunches in a row but only one adventure per week. Today @Kerry Beal and I returned to an old favourite, Hakka Fresh. We shared: The deep fried cauliflower. Chicken Karachi. Deluxe special Chow Mein. And of course some rice. We decided that water was just fine today so no questionable drinks. At least we hope not. It was all good. Kerry put the cauliflower at #1 and the chow mein at #2. I was like Buridan’s ass, unable to choose. But whatever way you slice it, I was the one to take the doggy bag home.

Now even @Kerry Bealand I are arguing about what it actually looked like and functioned like! 😂

Sorry. I knew what it was and so assumed that the photographs made it as clear to you as it did to me. Obviously I was mistaken. I don’t know what it is. What I meant was I know what the pieces are and how they fit together.

Fasten your seat belt. It’s another adventure for @Kerry Beal and me. Today Kerry had some business to conduct in Brampton so last night I researched restaurants in and around Brampton. They largely fall into two categories— Indian and Italian. But here’s the thing – – both of us have a penchant for considering Indian food appropriate only in winter and Italian food only when it’s exceptionally good. As we searched for the address where Kerry was to conduct her business we caught a glimpse of a restaurant called Ann’s Grove. I did a quick Google search and learned that It was a small family-run Caribbean place. It looked far more interesting than any of the places I had unearthed. Ann’s Grove was compact but not crammed. It’s bar however was both compact and crammed, mostly with rums, as Kerry noted. But then what should one expect in a Caribbean restaurant? I tell you this just for a little atmosphere. We had barely sat down when Ann herself came over to welcome us and proudly told us that she was the chef and owner and pretty much general factotum. A slight man, who seemed as if he wished to disappear inside of himself, whom we later learned was Ann’s husband, was bussing and waiting tables. There were no menus but Ann was asking us if we fancied chicken or goat or …. This was a little bit disconcerting. Without a good grasp of what a Caribbean restaurant might offer, we found ourselves hard-pressed to make any decisions. But Kerry could read the offerings on the wall above the counter and we settled on oxtails with rice and peas (I forgot that peas really means beans!) and a chicken roti. We would share both dishes. Another restaurant offering a box of tissues rather than napkins/serviettes. Oxtails with rice and beans. Honesty is the best policy. Peas are green. Chicken roti. Ann also suggested drinks. Kerry ordered a guava soda and I had a mauby soda. I had no idea what mauby was but I was feeling adventuresome. Not until I got home and was able to do some research did I learn that it is made from the bark of the mauby tree. Claimed by some to have diuretic properties and by others to cause diarrhoea the first time one ingests it, I was no longer feeling quite so blasé about my drink choice. So far, so good. Thanks for asking. Towards the end of our meal, the phone in the restaurant rang followed immediately by loud wails of anguish from Ann. When she had more or less regained her composure Ann came over to our table to apologize for the commotion. Between her accent and her obvious distress, piecing the story together proved challenging. Someone had died. We got that part. That the said someone lived in Barbados and had recently been put into a home, we got. Beyond that, it was anybody’s guess. As near as we were able to interpret, Ann’s father-in-law had died. And she was the target of some feuding family because she had opposed putting a 79-year-old Jesuit priest into a home. And now see what had happened. If he hadn’t been put in the home he wouldn’t have died. At least that was the way Ann seemed to see the situation. Do you see our difficulty in untangling this version of the story? Either they do things VERY differently on the Islands or he wasn’t a priest, or he wasn’t a Jesuit, or he wasn’t a father. Or he was a father but the spiritual kind. That explanation could not account for the claim that he was her husband‘s father and her father-in-law. I am quite sure a logical explanation exists that could dispel our confusion. But interrogating one who is grieving and so recently bereaved is not considered polite anywhere. So we offered Ann our sympathy, reassured her once again that we were not in the least upset, and left in possession of a riddle we may never solve and a doggy bag of delicious Caribbean food.

Let us try this again. This contraption consists of four parts. There is a wooden base with a projection. There are three stainless steel “plates”. Each of these three plates has an oval hole cut in it which fits over the projection on the wooden base. The underside of each of the plates is felt-covered.

I have two of my favourite cuts of beef (chuck eyes) in at 54.5°C for 24 hours. These were a gift and I’m looking forward to enjoying some perfectly cooked beef tomorrow evening.

Apparently our photographs are not as good as I had hoped. What you are looking at is a wooden base on which perch three stainless steel oval something or others with the upright piece on the wooden base fitting neatly into the oval hole in the stainless steel pieces.

But if you look very closely you’ll see there are three of these things stacked on a wooden base. They would not be much use as a lid because of the hole in them.

Anyone like to take a stab at this:

Ruby, the pinkopotamus, has been re-homed.

They are basically a dense lemon cake with a lemon glaze. Nothing wrong with them at all. But if you were to eat one I doubt if you would feel the earth move.

Lemonies glazed but not yet cut into bars. Thanks to @Kerry Bealfor the recipe and the revised name. The recipe writer called these “Lemon Brownies”— so wrong. She (Jill) had good intentions. Brownies are easy. So are these. Yet one who plays fast and loose with language must be held at arm’s length as far as trustworthiness goes. The recipe calls for 6 tablespoons of zest and 5 tablespoons of juice. Assuming, as I am wont to do, that any lemon worth its salt will yield 1 tablespoon of zest and at least 2 tablespoons of juice, then according to the recipe, we require 6 lemons. Lemons don’t grow on trees. At least they don’t in Ontario. And you can make an awful lot of whiskey sours with 6 lemons. Two will work just fine with enough juice left over for a couple of stiff drinks. If you are in the least doubt shall we say, of the virility of your lemons, add a couple of drops of lemon oil to the cake and to the glaze. I did. Cheers. P.S. If you expect to get a layer of glaze as thick and luscious as that shown in the photograph, then you will need much more glaze than this recipe supplies. Here Or

You are so sharp one day you will cut yourself.