carswell

Good advice so far. Going by Enviro Canada's hardiness zone map, Newmarket appears to be in Zone 5a, though the conditions in your garden can be influenced by any number of factors (exposure to wind, nearby bodies of water, etc.). But taking that 5a as a rule, you can forget about growing lavender as anything other than an annual. Also, your rosemary will probably survive the winter only if you take extraordinary measures (covering it with a styrofoam shell and following the example of one gardener of my acquaintance, who sticks a bird bath heater under the shell on the coldest nights); on the other hand, it makes a great pot plant. Chives are incredibly hardy; they're also notorious self-seeders, so deadhead them if you don't want chive plants popping up everywhere (the petals make a nice garnish for vegetable salads and egg dishes). Sorrel's another toughy, though it probably won't really take off until the following year. I've not had any problems overwintering tarragon in 5a/b, though as Chris notes, it eventually loses vigour; since it doesn't seed, you can propagate it from cuttings or just buy a new plant. (Make sure you're getting French tarragon, not the inferior Russian.) A couple of herbs I'd recco that no one's mentioned so far are savoury and lemon verbena. The former comes in two forms, winter and summer, and is especially tasty with legumes (green beans, wax beans, lentils, etc.). The latter, which you'll have to treat as an annual, is a great flavouring for desserts (egg custards, crème brûlées, etc.), can be wonderful with fish and shellfish and makes a delicious tisane (brew the fresh leaves alone or in combination with mint).

Ludja, now you've got me wondering whether the cherries in Pam Pam's ludlab were in fact brandied. Too bad I can't toddle downtown and check it out. Thanks for the full name. As promised, I googled ludlab but didn't turn up much besides a few Hungarian sites. No recipes. Unfortunately, ludlabtorte gives zero Google hits and ludlab torte/torta only a few. The Kaffehaus version sounds delicious. Oddly, I don't remember Pam Pam's as being layered. As I recall, it was simply a dense, almost fudge-like chocolate mousse studded with cherries. Another Montreal eGulleter was waxing poetic about it a while back; will see if I can find who that was and pump him/her for details. Am not sure I've yet gotten over my one encounter with a dobos torte, despite its having occured a good decade ago. Talk about rich! Thanks for the link.

Usually not worth the trouble. For a quality setup, you're talking $150-200 for the basic hydroponic equipment for 4-6 plants. And most hydroponic gardens are grown under artificial lights, so add another $100 or so for grow lamps. And be prepared to tolerate an unearthly glow dominating whatever room you set it up in for 16-18 hours a day and the sound of a circulating pump chugging away around the clock. And don't forget the electricity bill. And pray it doesn't spring a leak. Also, you're forced to start the plants from seed and, in most setups, have to replace the root-holding medium each time around (with potted plants, you can recycle the earth). In other words, in apartment settings it's really worth the expense and bother only for "herbs" with a very high retail price.

Stir-fried rice, usually in it's purest form: rice, egg and green onion. Insalata di tonno e fagioli: 1 can white kidney beans, drained; 1 can tuna packed in olive oil, drained; 1/2 bermuda onion sliced thin; extra virgin olive oil; red wine vinegar; freshly ground pepper. Sub home-cooked beans and/or leftover grilled tuna if you've got any; soak the onion in several changes of water if you've got time. Salade canaille: salad made with whatever's in the fridge (lettuce, crudités, olives, cooked potatoes, leftover meat/fish, cheese, etc.). Arugula salad dressed with EVOO and lemon juice, topped with black olives, parmesan shavings and crispy broiled pancetta. Salad of baby spinach, green peas and goat milk feta dressed with EVOO and lemon juice. Any number of pasta dishes, though most take 12-15 minutes...

To some extent, your success is going to be determined by the growing conditions you can provide. The most important is light. A minimum of four-to-six hours of direct (as in beating down) sunlight is obligatory for good results and more is better. Also, the further you can move the pots outside in warm weather (into the space between your window and storm window; into window boxes; onto a fire escape, balcony, rooftop) the better. Filtered sunlight outdoors is usually far brighter than a bright window indoors. And indoors, brightness declines preciptiously with distance from the window (if you don't believe me, play around with a photometer). That said, some herbs are more adaptable than others. Rosemary is the most forgiving. Chervil and corriander both seem to prefer a bright window to full sun outdoors. Thyme, marjoram, oregano, savoury, lemon verbena, bay and mint will struggle through the winter months and gain force as the days lengthen. My lavender plant goes into suspended animation until I put it out on the terrace in direct sun for about eight hours a day; by summer's end it's thriving and blooming. I've had success with basil, sage, tarragon, dill and chives only outdoors. Another thing to note is that the flavour of windowsill herbs is just not as powerful as outdoor herbs, especially in the winter. Starting out, especially this late in the season, I suggest you buy small starter plants available this time of year at most gardening centres and many farmers markets. I'm going to try growing anise from seed this year (so that I can use the leaves in a Friulian mussel dish) but that's only because I can't find a starter plant. And anyway, seed packets usually give you enough seeds for 20 or more plants, but you only want one, which pretty much eliminates the cost advantage of seeds. Beware the "potted" plants you find at green grocers; many are grown hydroponically and they simply won't take to transplanting. I find most herbs do best in unglazed terra cotta pots. It's harder to overwater them and evaporation through the pots helps keep the roots cool. The downside is that you have to water them more frequently. A few moisture-loving herbs, like mint, I grow in plastic pots. Don't fertilize herbs like you would flowering plants or vegetables; it encourages lush, flavourless growth. I fertilize with fish emulsion at half the recommended strength once a month during growing season. That's it. Also, water your herbs with water that's sat out overnight so that the chorine has evaporated.

So I finally managed to snare a copy of the Sideways DVD at Phos (so popular you have to reserve two days in advance). And dinner was to be Shaking Beef (stir-fried filet chunks sauced with soy, mirin, fish sauce, sugar and pepper and served on a bed of watercress), a natural match for a New World pinot noir. Pleased with the fortuitous alignment of film, food and wine, I bopped over to the neighbourhood SAQ Classique — normally a well-stocked store (if it were any bigger, it'd have to be a Sélection) — to see what they had on offer. California? Nope. Oregon, Washington, B.C., Ontariariario? Fergettaboutit. Australia? Sorry, mate! South America, maybe? No way, Jose. New Zealand? You're dreamin'. I collar a clerk and ask if it's true they have not a single New World pinot noir in stock. He checks the same sections I just did, looks in back, diddles with the computer and drags me over to a display at the front of the store: Pinot Noir 2002, Central Coast, Private Selection, Robert Mondavi at $19.95 a bottle. "That's it?" I ask incredulously. "We sold our last bottles of even the high-end stuff a couple of weeks ago," he answered, "and the manager says he can't order any more. There's none left in the system. Ever since that movie came out. Now, if you'd like a bottle of merlot..."

You want to pick the leaves young, preferably before the plants flower. When the flowers turn to seed, the leaves will be unpalatably bitter. If the leaves are young enough, you don't need to wilt them. I like serving them as a starter, dressed in olive oil and lemon juice and topped with a hunk of smoked fish. Or make a lunch salad with garlic crutons, lardons (parboiled and sautéed bacon chunks) and wedges of hard-cooked egg. Wilted in olive oil with or without garlic and seasoned or not with a splash of vinegar, they make a nice bed on which to lay grilled or roasted salmon.

The most celebrated dessert at the long-gone Pam Pam, a Hungarian restaurant on Montreal's Mountain Street, was ludlab, a crustless dense dark chocolate mousse tart studded with brandied cherries and garnished with a dollop of kirsch-spiked whipped cream. The last time I ate a piece was probably 20-25 years ago, yet I can taste it to this day. Don't have a recipe and won't have time to look for one until this evening; maybe someone else can chime in. Also, I'm not sure about the spelling; I seem to recall a j being in there somewhere.

I've had great success adapting a Macella Hazan recipe (in Marcella's Italian Kitchen if I'm not mistaken). The original recipe calls for lamb shoulder. The portions are for about 4 lbs. of shanks. Trim them of all fat, dredge lightly in flour and brown in a skillet in hot vegetable oil, removing them as they finish. In the dutch oven, heat some olive oil and in it cook a couple of medium onions, sliced thin, until golden; about half way through the cooking, add a teaspoon of dried sage you've crumbled between your fingers or double the amount of chopped fresh sage. When the onion's coloured, add your meat, a generous cup of dry white wine, a cup of light meat broth, some tomato (a couple of teaspoons of paste or 4-5 crushed canned tomatoes; in a pinch, I once subbed chopped sun-dried tomatoes to no ill effect), salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, cover and cook in a medium oven until the meat is tender (1½-2 hours), turning the shanks from time to time. Drain 2 cans of white kidney beans, add them to the dutch oven and cook another 15-20 minutes. Just before serving, stir in a couple of teaspoons of finely chopped garlic and a small handful of chopped Italian parsley. It ain't light but, man, is it good!

Visitors to this thread might also find Michael Pollan's "Power Steer," which originally appeared in the March 31, 2002, issue of the New York Times Magazine, a thought-provoking read. The article can be downloaded from the NYT archive for a fee. It's also been widely reprinted on the Web. For example: http://www.strauscom.com/placements/Newyorktimesbeef.html http://www.mindfully.org/Food/Power-Steer-Pollan31mar02.htm http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~anthro/course...er%20Steer.html http://www.healthcoalition.ca/powersteer.html

After — what is it? — nearly a year, it looks like they're back in business. Anybody been? http://www.lebleuraisin.com/

What if you boiled down the stout to concentrate its flavour before adding it to the ganache?

North African Berbers claim they developed couscous and the art of culinary steaming in the Mediterranean. They steam fish, vegetables, lamb, chicken, rice, barley and semolina couscous. ← You're up and articulate early, Paula. A few factoids gleaned from A Mediterranean Feast: • There is little archeological evidence as to the early use of couscous, largely because it was originally cooked in a basket set atop an earthenware vessel. As the baskets were made from organic material, they did not survive the ravages of time. Vessel shards survive but cannot be dated accurately. • The earliest couscous surviving recipes (16th and 17th century) are identical to the ones in use today. • Couscous is thought by many to be Berber in origin and probably entered Arab consciousness in the 12th century in Tunisia. • Couscous, under different names, is made from barley, rice and millet as well as hard wheat. In 1352, a traveller described dinner in Mali (modern-day Mauritania) as involving "millet, sour milk, chickens, lotus flour, and rice, founi, which resembles mustard grains." In West Africa, sorghum and finger millet are sometimes used. Tunisians distinguish between couscous made from different varieties of hard wheat.

Sounds like an interesting store. Can you tell us more about it? Was going to ask for details when you mentioned it a day or two ago, but then saw it was located in what amounts to Siberia for the carless. Any idea what the provenance of the snow crab is? In other words, you've been holding out on us. The shame! I've been holed up in my office for the last three weeks with hardly a break to sleep, let alone traipse around the city, so I've not been to the JTM in close to a month. That said, I've never seen a live crab at JTM or a live snow crab period. Kim Phat across from CDN Plaza has had gorgeous fiesty live blue crabs the last couple of times I've dropped by, though.

Piling on, Mabelline... The report that prompted this thread concerns two US animals slaughtered in a upstate New York slaughterhouse; US government documents relating to those animals; and former USDA officials who have decided to sound the alarm. The only direct Canadian connection is the CBC, which broke the story, and me, who happened to hear the report and thought it might be of interest to people south of the border. (My being a US native and having worked many summers in my dad's feed mill — in upstate New York! — and spent lots of time with cattle ranchers in the Southwest only amplified that feeling.) To my surprise, it has proved not to be. United Statesians appear far more interested in gabbing about fluff like the correlation between car makes and drinking habits than in discussing lax meat inspection practices and possible government cover-ups.

Except it used to be that 14.5 to 15% was the upper limit for yeasts. Today's super yeasts have raised that a point or two. "Now 15 is the new 14," say Qupé's Bob Lindquist. How much longer before 16 or 17 is the new 15? Agreed, and Amarone is a good example. But how often do people pop the cork on a full-blown Amarone to serve as a table wine? Don't know about you but on the rare occasions when I do, I carefully choose the dish it will accompany. Do we really want Amarone to shove aside, say, traditional Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rioja, Barolo and Chianti as our models for everyday table wine? And how are New World winemakers* "balancing" the alcohol? By increasing extraction, leaving more residual sugar and upping the oak regime, not to mention increasing their reliance on high-tech wizardy. Many of these wines taste like what they are: concoctions, confections, not refreshments. _________ *Perhaps "new wave winemakers" would be the better term, since a number of Old World winemakers are adopting the style. Le Pin, anyone?

Yeah, except there are hardly any countries left that import U.S. beef in quantity. USDA US beef export figures (millions of pounds caracass weight): Country: 2004 figure (2002 figure) Japan: 12 (771) Mexico 334 (629) South Korea: 1 (597) Canada: 56 (241) And I believe much of the current export volume is meat from young animals in which BSE has not had time to develop.

Only Pacific salmon is canned. Only Atlantic salmon is farmed. Ergo, canned salmon is not farmed. Being wild, Pacific salmon is also "bio" in the fullest sense of the word.

Since I rarely do my shopping before 2 or 3 in the afternoon, I'm probably going to regret sharing this tip. But I've just learned that on Saturday the Îles de la Madeleine fish store in the JTM extension (the name escapes me, but it's the one between Havre aux glaces and Les volailles et gibiers du marché) is going to be selling live — yes, live — snow crabs. Quantities will be limited or so they say. Carpe diem.

Are you referring to the U.S. media, U.S. eGulleters or both? Google News searches on various strings turn up nothing in the U.S. Reuters appears to be the only wire service to have picked up the story. In other words, barely a blip on the mainstream media radar. It certainly gives credence to Canadian beef producers' claim that the U.S. uproar about Canadian beef had more to do with trade protectionism than public health, eh? And I really can't believe the lack of posts from U.S. eGulleters. God knows it's not because the story isn't relevant to them: lax food inspection raising the spectre of contamination of the food supply; possible cover-up by a government agency; double standard for meat inspection as a means of erecting trade barriers; industry-government collusion; not to mention the larger issue of beef farming and slaughtering practices. But, hey, them's small potatoes next to what Charlie Trotter thinks about foie gras. Now there's an issue deserving of attention!

For a detailed discussion of foreign (Muslim, Spanish, Jewish, Norman, etc.) influences on Sicilian cuisine in a broader context that includes Northern Africa, see Wright's monumental A Mediterranean Feast. Cucina Paradiso is more a recipe book with good introductory material; Feast is more a reference book illustrated with recipes. And isn't Root's book The Food of Italy?

And if you're like me, you typically have a small glass or two of that Port. Yet lots of people often drink a half bottle (or more) of wine with dinner — that's three good sized glasses of wine. And, as Asimov points out, when it's a 15% zinfandel instead of a 12% gamay, they're consuming 25% more alcohol, in this case more than enough to make them a little tipsy. The scariest wine tasting I ever attended was devoted to these firebombs. In number and volume, the pours were identical to those at every other table wine tasting. When the tasting ended and everybody left to drive home, the participants' cars were weaving across the traffic lanes. That never happened after a tasting of normal wines. The thing is, California is perfectly capable of making delicious wines with moderate alcohol levels. Some of Ridge's wines from the '70s and '80s clocked in at 12.5-13.5% (e.g. Geyserville: '82@12.6%, '83&'84@13.4%, '85@13.3%, '86@13.2%). And I'm pleased to note that the tasty Ca' del Solo (Bonny Doon) Charbono, which just made its inaugural appearance in Quebec, is a civilized 12.5% alc./vol. Am still looking forward to my first taste of an old-fashioned Beaujolais. In Kermit Lynch's Adventures on the Wine Route, Paris wine merchant Jean-Baptiste Chaudet recalls pre-1945 Beaujolais as being "very light in color, at times really pale, slightly aggressive, even a touch green, and rarely above 11 degrees alcohol. In those days [...] Beaujolais was still very good, which is not the case today [...] above all because of this chaptalization, this addition of sugar to the must which allows them to raise the wine's alcoholic content up to 3 degrees." Lynch then compares Chaudet's description with the adjectives Parker uses to glowingly characterize modern Beaujolais: "soft, lush, silky, full, fleshy, rich." Oy.

ABC/Reuters: USDA Denies Allegations of More Mad Cow Cases A Google News search on BSE and Doi indicates that no U.S. news outlet has picked up the CBC story and only ABC Online has carried the USDA denial. It will be interesting to see what kind of play it gets in tomorrow's papers, just as it's interesting to note that only Canadians have bothered posting to this thread. If you ignore it, it doesn't exist?

I can't link directly to the organic salmon page, so go to the Irish Seafood Producers Group website, click on Product Range and then on Organic Salmon. I'm not as cynical as you about organic farmers' motivations. While I have yet to meet an Irish fish farmer, the Canadian and U.S. organic produce farmers I've spoken with and read about seem on the whole to be a well-intentioned bunch genuinely concerned with the quality of the food they grow and eat and convinced that the long-term viability of their operations is directly related to environmental sustainability. Few of them do more than make a decent living. The exorbitant prices we're charged are mainly due to middle men.

Don't know about Antoine's "bio" farmed salmon, but Nouveau Falero's often (always?) comes from Ireland. Don't recall the price, though I do recall it's up there. While the quality is good, it strikes me as blander in flavour and softer in texture than wild Atlantic salmon. Ultimately, I can't say I find it better than the somewhat less expensive Nova Scotia farmed salmon — probably not organic — sold at Boucherie Atlantique on Queen Mary and Côte-des-Neiges. Of course, I haven't compared their PCB levels.