reverendtmac

Old Dutch X-Treme Buffalo Wing potato chips, a case of the thin bottle 500ml Aquafinas, and whatever candy bars catch my eye. Oh, and coffee, of course. Serves me well on my annual 1500km trek from Regina, SK to Pullman, Washington...

From one of my personal favorites, Grosse Pointe Blank: Waitress: What do you want in your omelette, sir? Marty: Nothing in the omelette, nothing at all. Waitress: Well...that's not technically an omelette. Marty: ...look, I don't want to get into a semantic argument, I just want the protein. Mr. Grocer: Easy there, chief - I don't see Hollowpoint Wound Care on the menu. And as for the fella who mentioned The Boondock Saints: Rocco: They can suck my pathetic little dick, and I'll dip my nuts in marinara sauce just so those fat bastards can get a taste of home while they're at it. The quote you were looking for: Greenly: These guys are miles away by now, but if you want to beat your head against the wall, then here's what you're looking for; they're scared like two little bunny rabbits. Anything in a uniform or flashing blue lights is gonna spook em'. Ok? All we can do is put a potato on a string and drag it through south Boston; thanks - for comin' - out. Paul Smecker: Why don't you get me a cup of coffee? Detective Greenly: Who the hell is this...? Paul Smecker: Cafe latte. Detective Greenly: What the fuck...? Paul Smecker: Twist of lemon. Detective Greenly: Chief, what the fuck is this? Paul Smecker: Sweet 'N' Low. (and my absolute personal favorite:) Murphy: We're sorta like 7-11; we're not always doin' business, but we're always open. Connor: That was nicely put. (edit: oh, oh, one more. From The Way of the Gun - ) Longbaugh: There's always free cheese in a mousetrap.

Oh my sufferin' Christ. I'm finally moving back home in September, and this is the reception I get? Two and a half years in Regina dreamin' about gettin' a jig's dinner there, and...and... ...well, as long as O'Leary's is still goin' in Saint John and they don't close Tom's on Spring Garden, I'll survive, but...that is really, really sad news

I love having people hanging around when I cook, but I'm a multitasker by nature. My golf buddies think it's hilarious that I can be holding a conversation while hitting a shot - there's only a second-and-a-half pause for when I'm actually swinging, but I'm babbling or listening the rest of the time. Same deal in the kitchen - and I'm probably keeping an eye on the Euro 2004 game at the same time... That said, asking if there's 'anything I can do' always gets one answer: "Yeah, definitely. See this glass?" (I raise my scotch or bourbon glass) "If this gets anywhere near empty, you slap three fingers worth in there." I am cooking for my guests - which means that their job is to entertain me and enjoy themselves.

Tequila. Even good stuff. Especially good stuff. That said, any kind of liquor that's been adulterated to taste like candy. Hooch should taste like hooch - end of conversation. Except for tequila, as mentioned above. Want a mixed drink? Have a Manhattan. Cream and sugar in coffee. Clams. I don't understand it - I don't pretend to understand it, as I love every other known form of shellfish, cooked or not. Peanut sauces - but raw or roasted peanuts in a dish are great. Bad memories of a wonton dish that was coated in this stuff (cold dumplings coated in a thick, nasty variation on a thai sauce), which I consumed shortly before a two day bout with the flu. Oddly enough, stomach acid didn't really alter the taste all that much...

Unpopped popcorn kernels, the end pieces from dry-rubbed roasts, and any scotch I have on the golf course out of my flask. That first hit, and the way it's subtly changed by the previous inhabitants of the flask...although I had to give it a good washing out after that disasterous experiment (Talisker, after it had held some Southern Comfort )

Oooh, oooh, my turn! I thought of this while reading Nose to Tail Eating - what's "double cream", translated to North American?

First, take a glass of cold water out to the grill to dip your finger in before you poke the meat. I do this because I am a wuss. Best way I ever heard this described was the 'face' method. Dip your finger into the water, then poke the steak. If it feels like the middle of your cheek, it's rare. If it feels like your chin (soft but with some bounce-back), it's medium. If it feels like the tip of your nose, it's well-done.

If you're downtown (do you know where you're staying? Delta, Radisson?), you're within spitting distance of a few different good spots - Neo Japonica - Japanese done damn well; especially for a place that's what, 2000km from the nearest ocean. Super friendly staff, good chefs, and always has some neat stuff on the menu (ostrich, last time I was in there). I usually order the sashimi plate and tell the chef to go nuts - and I'm never disappointed. The Creek in Cathedral Bistro - 3414 13th ave, about 10 blocks from the Radisson. Best spinach salad I've had in my life...food's always decently creative and done very well. Desserts are killer, too. I just ran down the hall and got a list of other good funky spots from the crowd in my office... Danbry's is right downtown, and has very recently (as in the last week) switched head chefs, so nobody has eaten there yet with the new staff. The new chef is very respected, however, and everyone's got high hopes. La Bodega is a bistro on Albert St; good food, nice wine list. The Mediterranian Bistro is on Quance St in the east end of the city - my parents rave about it, but then again, my parents rave about East Side Marios, so take that as you will. Anyway, other picks: the Fireside Bistro, the Copper Kettle/O'Hanlon's (awesome pizza / real Greek food at the Kettle, and wonderful pub food / Irish Stew / pints of the Genius on the other side). Too bad you're gonna be here at the end of the month...I'm gonna be in the Maritimes. Would have loved to meet an EG'er for a pint/dinner somewhere...

Neat brown liquor and Marlboro Reds...and I strongly suspect that I won't require that study to tell me about myself That said, crunchy peanut butter on rye bread is a favorite, too.

Purity Peppermint Knobs are better than bricks of solid gold when you need a favor from a Newf. At my old job in New Brunswick, I needed a huge favor from one of our programmers...it was like three hours of hard coding. I gave her a bag as a thank-you, and I thought she was going to cry, she was so happy.

If my path takes me near the GTA, I'd be more than happy to...but I'm probably gonna try to skip the southern penninsula all together. I won't have much time to get going out there so I kinda need to make the drive in four days...which means the Sault - North Bay - Ottawa route, I think. That said - I've got a layover at Pearson on March 24 on my way out to Halifax, and I'm only planning on bringing one bag...you want me to chuck a case on the plane for you?

I grew up all over Canada - 10 years in Calgary, 14 in New Brunswick (Saint John and Fredericton), I've been here in Regina for 2 years - and in September I'm moving to PEI...and I'm basically trying to figure out how I can make room for a case of Old Dutch Rip-L chips in a VW Golf that will contain me, two complete sets of golf clubs, clothes, cookbooks, other books and CD's. The upshot, however: REAL KEITH'S, not Oland Export with a Keith's label

I will never cut hot peppers - even ones that I don't even consider hot peppers, or glove worthy - without gloves. I will never ever be without a tube of facial cleanser in the house that says "dissolves oils" on the label. And, most importantly: I will never, ever, for the rest of my frigging life, forget to use the can BEFORE I begin making salsa.

Very little actual food writing in my bedside table, I'm embarrassed to admit - unless Henry Hill's "Wiseguy's Cookbook" counts. That's more of a re-read, though, after watching Casino last weekend. Otherwise - "The Life and Times of Michael K" and "Elizabeth Costello" by J.M. Coetzee, a book of Peter Carey short stories; non-fiction's been based towards ramping up for golf season - David Leadbetter's "Faults and Fixes", Dave Pelz's "Short Game Bible", Tom Doak's "The Anatomy of a Golf Course", Donald Ross's "Golf Has Never Failed Me".

The last time I broke up with a girl that was worth feeling crappy over, I lived on Marly Reds and Talisker for about a day and a half, took a couple days off of work and hit range balls until my hands bled. Mindless physical activity combined with the two things she wasn't crazy about me having = some sense of equalibrium...and this solution beat the crap out of what I would do when I was younger. After the (epic) hangover, I still wasn't hungry...so I forced myself to have eggs and toast, eggs and toast, eggs and toast. Powerbars when I was on the course; habit's a good thing when you're feeling like this. Oh, and Campbells Bean w/ Bacon soup (thank God I'm not the only one!) Either way: don't let the world grind you down, eat something, and feel better.

Oh, god. I require two of these (one for the kitchen proper, one for the downstairs bar). I also want a container in the fridge that has a never ending supply of the tuna salad they make at my golf course. And I love the idea of the 'other' taps; ranch dressing, Batch 81 Three Chili Sauce, Guinness and Talisker should hold me over. And a little never-empty bowl of my friend Rebecca's homemade bits and bites mix. And a pro griddle.

I come from the school of P.J. O'Rourke when it comes to getting inebriated - it's all about levels. There's small-d drunk; good buzz, slurred speech, bit of a headache in the morning. Then there's getting steamin' loaded drunk, or, as the boys back home used to say, "gettin' right outa 'er." Mysterious injuries, the contents of your digestive tract imitating some very textural modern art masterpiece, and the inevitable loss of clothing. Well, I don't remember the first time I was small-d drunk, but for some reason lost to the ages of time and the capriciousness of memory, I remember every agonizing moment of the first time I got right outa 'er. My younger brother had just moved in to an apartment in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he and his two best friends were attending Dalhousie University. Well, the parents, siblings and so forth all cruised on down and helped them set up house, move furniture, and so on, on a Saturday morning. Then all the parents left town, leaving Justin, Mike, Floyd and myself to our own devices. It was hotter than hell and unusually humid, the kind of day where you just wanted to be bareassed in front of an air conditioner cranked to 'punish me, I've been a bad, bad boy'...but since we didn't have one of those and we weren't comfortable enough to do the other part, we resolved to get drunk immediately. Skip ahead to dusk; I've got a sixpack of Beck's and half a pint of Jack Daniels down my gullet, where it's getting to know a grilled pita sandwich (contents: meat of dubious quality, small hit of dijon, green peppers, and banana peppers. LOTS of banana peppers. With some jalapenos on top.) The boys are just as destroyed as I am, near as I could tell...and just as we're considering going out for a walk, Legere and Quinner show up with The Glow. The Glow. The name alone strikes fear in many a Nova Scotian of my generation. To call it cider is to insult the true practicioners of the form; to call it wine is to insult God, the Devil and any other diety you call yours. Rumored to have hallucinogenic properties, exactly as Cisco Red is in the States. All I can tell you about it is that it tasted a little like apples and a lot like grain alcohol, that it's made in Truro, Nova Scotia, that it's about 19% booze, and that you get a fifth of it for about seven bucks. I don't expect to see it on the wine list at the Laundry any time soon. "Have yerself a shot of this, my son," Quinner said in that toffee-thick Newf accent of his, glowing a little himself as he pushed the abnormally large green bottle towards me. So I did...and the unthinkable happened. It was actually drinkable. (For the record: this says more about my state of inebriation than my palate.) I put down 3/4 of that fifth, half-passed out on the couch watching a tape of Royce Gracie destroying people in the first or second Ultimate Fighting Championship...and then, with a chewable burp that would have killed a biker - it began. The next three hours were spent attending The Church of the Porcelain God. Note to those of you who haven't attended a service - I'm assuming that they're some offshoot of the Roman Catholics, and, lucky me, I hit 'em on Good Friday. It was sit, kneel, fall over, and repeat. The peppers came back from both ends, leaving me alternating trains of thought: thinking about how you treat third degree burns in the throat, when I wasn't too busy wondering who maced me in the arsehole. But, as merciless as the Porcelain God is, eventually even He relents; and I fell into a fetal position by the toilet, and I lost conciousness. Now, I hate alarm clocks when I haven't spent the night trying to attempt some variety of socially acceptable suicide...but I *really* hate 'em when the voice is female and it starts with "Todd, where are your clothes?" Meredith was absolutely and utterly cooler than I had any right to expect; she bundled me into my sleeping bag, left me a bucket for...well, it'd be nothing but stomach acid at that point...and I slept until noon, thereabouts. The hangover lasted for 24 hours, and I still gag when I catch a whiff of hard cider... Todd, who'd love to lie and say that he's "never been that drunk again, though" :)

Play a lot of golf. You'll develop strength in your wrists and forearms as you play, and as far as I can tell, those are the muscles you use to open up a lid...

Made to Order's the name, and I really like it. The interaction between Guy and Michael reminds me of how my brother and I act in the kitchen (or anywhere, for that matter)...same disgusted looks, rolled eyes, subtle barbed comments. I also like the wine and bar-related stuff... (and check out their recipes on foodtv.ca. Dear GOD. I think I'll stick to gumbo.)

I take a butter knife (or pen or whatever) and tap the bottom of the jar twenty or thirty times with the butt end. I can't remember where I learned that trick, but it's always worked...

Just got a phone call from a good friend of mine in Minneapolis who's about five months along. "Todd, when are you coming down next?" "Soon as I can, darlin'...why?" "I have *GOT* to go to Famous Dave's..." If she goes for the usual, that means she needs their spinach dip and a half-rack of ribs...

What was your family food culture when you were growing up? ...middle class Canadian with the occasional holiday-centered dip into old-school Ukranian. My dad's Scottish and my mom's Ukranian...and since Mom did 99.5% of the cooking, that means a meal ain't a meal without a starch of some variety and plenty of meat. Mom needed to have someone else make something and taste it before she ever felt comfortable enough making it herself...still does, come to think of it. Sunday dinner was as event-based as it got with any regularity...Mom'd cook a roast, mashed potatoes, gravy, something along those lines. Eating out meant McDonalds and its ilk, by and large...neither of my parents feel comfortable in a real high-end place, especially my mom. Holidays were completely different - we'd all go to my mom's mom place, and Grandma would do a totally amazing Ukranian dinner. Christmas Eve involved perogies (her family's ultra-simple recipe: dry-curd cottage cheese, potatoes, little bit of onion. Boil, serve with melted butter and onions and sour cream), cabbage rolls, halibut. They're old-school Roman Catholic, so it also involved Midnight Mass...then Christmas Day was turkey, potatoes, the left over perogies (pan fried in more melted butter and onions, served with the butter and sour cream), Grandpa's homemade kielbasa, holopchi (head cheese), and a couple loaves of the most amazing homemade bread...god. Great, now my mouth's watering. Was meal time important? Not really. Dad was out of town a lot, so 3-4 times a week it was just my mom, my brother and I...and both my bro and I were the kinds of kids that came home after school and talked with Mom for a while. I was *extremely* lucky to have a mom that was home when we were, although, of course, I didn't know it at the time. When Dad was home, we'd usually eat dinner together. Was cooking important? Again, not really. Me ma, bless her, based her cooking more on ease of execution than anything else. My brother and I have reacted to this by making a real effort to learn to cook 'properly'...Justin's gone towards old-school Italian and buying every strange thing he can find at the asian market here in town, while I've learned the pleasures of Creole and Cajun cuisine. My mom still marvels at a) how well we've learned to cook, and b) that we're willing to use an afternoon making a proper pot of gumbo, making stock, whatever... What were the penalties for putting elbows on the table? You mean for looking like my father? Pops works in the building supply industry, always has...so he eats like his customers, by and large. Something else my brother and I picked up along the line were proper table manners for high-class joints (mostly from his college roommate's dad, actually. Floyd's dad is an ad exec in Boston, and one night he took Floyd, Floyd's brother Max, my bro and I to a really nice place in Halifax for dinner - and basically proceeded to teach us a course on table manners and resto behaviour. I owe that man a debt I can't repay.) Who cooked in the family? That would be me ma, by and large. Dad barbequed on occasion (until I got better than him at it). And if we were at Grandma's house, Grandma cooked. She was incredible (and still is). My grandfather cooks, too...he makes amazing chicken and leek soup and the best breakfasts EVER. I'm positive I got my love for bacon and eggs from that man. Were restaurant meals common, or for special occassions? Again, if we're talking fast-food, probably once a week. Otherwise...they'd be business related for Dad, so it'd just be my mother and him. Maybe that's why I took an interest into more high-end dining...until I was payin' the check, I really don't remember being in one. Did children have a "kiddy table" when guests were over? Not so much in our own house...on the rare occasions my parents entertained, it was usually just another couple over - so getting 6 of us around the table wasn't all that hard. Now, at Grandma's over a holiday, you'd have the whole family - Mom's bro and sister and their husbands and kids, my family, my grandparents, in a small bungalow in Calgary. All the cousins (six of us) would sit at the kiddie table out of necessity, since they were managing to get 8 adults around a very small main table! What's crazy about it, though, is that...well, let's see - the youngest of the cousins is 18, and the oldest are my cousin Terri and myself at 26 - and we still fight over who gets to sit at the kiddie table. It's still just more fun. When did you get that first sip of wine? My parents were not drinkers by any stretch of the imagination...or, more accurately, meals at home didn't involve alcohol. Dad's not the kind of guy that came home and had a beer or a rum and coke, and Mom isn't either. My grandparents always had a bottle of wine at a family dinner, though, so I'm sure I had one there. Grandpa started sneaking me a really weak screwdriver when I was like 7 or 8, though. Again, this is another thing that makes me wonder what I'm compensating for...I adore wine now! And scotch, which Dad couldn't drink (some crazy night with Walker Red and homemade polish sausage at a customer's house when I was about three :) Was there a pre-meal prayer? Nope - not even at my grandmother's, which was really strange because she was hardcore Roman Catholic. Was there a rotating menu (e.g., meatloaf every Thursday)? Nothing I'd call a rotation, although Mom seemed to make the same ten or twelve dishes over and over. Probably why my brother and I go looking for the strongest, strangest tastes we can find. How much of your family culture is being replicated in your present-day family life? I'm single and 26...so not very much at all. I eat a lot better when I'm away from the family, that's for sure...or I should say 'with a much greater variety'. Mom's stuff always tasted good - it just wasn't always the best thing for you. I got a cholesterol scare when I was 23 that I don't care to replicate, and adamantly refuse to pass along to my (as of yet unborn) kids...

Wow...we get Food Network Canada up here, so instead of that fake food hoochie and endless Emeril, we get some home-grown stuff that I really enjoy (the Thirsty Traveller, New Classics with Rob Feenie, Chef at Large, the Food Hunter...and the occasional rerun of Stadtlander's Adventures in Dining, which my brother and I watch specifically for him to talk about 'shucklink pigs') Unfortunately, we're also starting to see some creep in from FTV's American programming (Date Plate, Unwrapped, and the un-fucking-forgiveable Top 5).

Gorgeous, I'm gonna start at the start - maybe it'll help you remember me... You remember that far back? I mean, we're talking...god, years, now. Amazing how these days, days, days run away like horses over the hills...it was simpler, back then. You, unadorned, just speared on a plate; whatever I brought to drink to go with, and, being young and dumb at that point, I don't want to remember what I exposed you to. Probably straight bourbon. I was on the stuff pretty hard back then, but you were strong enough to stand up to it...yeah, baby, what you did was wake up something inside me. One taste and I knew that maybe food wasn't just fuel, wasn't something hogged down between a server install and a blistering hangover...and that it could really be that simple, pure...that it didn't need a prom dress of a sauce, that it could stand on its own. But, even after all of that...well, it's been what, four years? Five? I know I'm the last person you expected to hear from, especially after the move, the changes...the carpaccio incident. I just thought you deserved to hear the truth. It wasn't your...habits? I don't know what to call them, and you know my luck with habits - ask the Talisker distillery. But it wasn't the things you do to yourself. I mean, I was worried, baby - the sitting in the smoky cave for hours...the way you cut yourself afterwards, that strung-out look on the plate. Yeah, I didn't show it like I should have - like a coward, I didn't say anything. Mama always taught me not to talk with my mouth full. And then, even worse...I left. I couldn't handle it, sweetheart...watching how you'd arrive some nights reeking of maple chips, of honey. Of fuckin' honey. Honey, you don't need that crap - you've *never* needed that crap...but I was never much good at tellin' you that, was I? If anything, it's always been you that's been there, that's been available. And I've been weak, sweetheart...flirtin' with sashimi, that unfortunate weekend with the beef, the lemon, the capers...god, that was a bad scene...goin' for the adulterated, I guess. Like I said: weak... ...and then I saw you again, in the last place I expected to...and at the time I needed to the worst. I was at my lowest, darlin'...spent the mornin' eatin' a half-cooked chicken fried steak to try to control the Guinness and Bushmills in my gut...and it was terrible. God, it was terrible. 'Bout what I deserved, orderin' one in Oregon, for chrissakes. I mean, for the quality of food, for the way it'd been...well, 'prepared' seems like a compliment it didn't earn...for the way it was shackin' up with that when-white-met-trash gravy. And I got to Bandon, the resort on the ocean...the air, it smelled different there, full of salt, the sea...it reminded me of you, darlin'...and when I sat down before the round, my hands shakin', my knees weak, and I saw you on the menu, I knew. I just knew. God, you were beautiful. Complete; full, strong fillets, richly colored. The greens you were sitting on, they knew it - they knew they were second fiddle. You'd gotten over the cutting business. It was like you were comfortable outside your own skin again, sweetheart, like you were ready to be seen without lookin' like a 94 pound supermodel...and you'd gotten over the smoking, too, stayin' in just long enough to have it compliment you instead of smellin' like you slept there for a week...I could tell you'd found a man that was takin' care of you properly. I met him later that weekend, and I...I couldn't have been happier. I could never take care of you like that; that's something we both know...and something else we both know is that you deserve it. You deserve to be treated right by a good man like that. You're part of his work, the thing that keeps him going...and that's why you're staying with him. Where I am, you can't follow...you'd always be half of what you could be and nothing close to what you deserve, do you understand that? Cattle country is no place for something as refined, as nurtured, as cultured as yourself...and I'm not saying that to make you stay, I'm sayin' it 'cause it's true. Smoked salmon, I'm no good at bein' noble, but the palate of one little Reverend doesn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy, mixed up world. Someday you'll understand that. Here's lookin' at you, kid.