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We're 50 something Aussies who enjoy travelling, eating, cooking, markets, kitchen shops, cooking utensils, animals & plants (often food related), architecture & photography (both kitchens and food) and exploring different cultures (of which food is a big part). The trip was January 14 - February 6, it was just marvellous. My favourite meal is now masala dosa with sambar, I had many. Here's some highlights of the food. A late afternoon snack of Sichuan pepper squid was washed down with a beer at the Ajantha Seaview Hotel on the promenade in Pondicherry. It's a colonial building with a first floor terrace overlooking the colourful display of women in their finest, and the Bay of Bengal. We're here on a Monday public holiday for the Pongal festival, a four day celebration of the harvest, with many different ceremonies and traditions. A visual bonus, cows (and sometimes goats) get their horns painted and wear flower garlands or other decorations.

Hello Everyone! Happy to join eGullet in hopes to share my passion for culinary and kitchen with others. I have an Instagram account, but I don't think that is enough as I want to learn more, expand, and share my love for food with individuals who share the same passion. Here is a brief bio about myself: Born and raised in Los Angeles, CA by my Filipino parents. Having no brothers and sisters, I am very independent and surprisingly social with others but also love spending time on my own and with my boyfriend Louis, who is my kitchen partner in crime (this is how we actually met, working BOH at a local Vietnamese restaurant in LA). Having attended college majoring in accounting as an undergrad and grad, I orignally wanted to become a licensed accountant for finance and real estate, but it was not fulfilling and the content honestly bored me to death! I also desired to leave the corporate business world and join the professional kitchen. So I took the leap, graduated culinary school, quit my desk job, and worked in the professional kitchen. Then my health and finances took over, and I had surgery and I needed more money to survive in a city of ridiculous rent prices. I had to leave the kitchen and go back into accounting. Fast forward to 2017, I am currently unemployed having been laid off two days before Christmas the prior year! Using this as a sign and as an opportunity for self growth and realization, I am once again on the culinary path. Not necessarily to work on the line, but to learn more, cook and bake more at home, and expose myself out there to all things food and kitchen. Not also forgetting to mention I am always surrounded by food: Louis is also still in the professional kitchen, and we WILL have that restaurant one day (dreams DO come true, I just know it!). Anyhow, I am super excited to be posting here and exchanging ideas! See you out there! Margie

My "first taste" of Iceland and now I want more. Watch in full screen.

With thanks to Keats' Ode to Autumn for inspiration: Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness... Our first stop was in Barrie for a brief visit to one of Kerry's customers, The Georgian Chocolate Company. This is housed in the smallest, cleanest, most organized chocolate making space I have ever seen. It is one very small room in a gluten-free bakery. Beautiful packaging too! The bakery offerings look very appetizing for something that was gluten-free. We then drove around the corner for breakfast at Deb's Place: Kerry's tea with almost enough milk. Kerry's breakfast - no homefries and (shudder) brown toast. My breakfast with homefries and sensible white toast that arrived after we took the photograph. You all recognize this bridge. And because we have our priorities straight these are the additions and replenishments for the bar.

Good morning! I decided to add a little more crazy to this week and do a blog. As you guys know (or some of you know), we have a friend that comes at least once a year and stays with us. He's a very good guest--along with hunting he usually helps Ronnie with some of the more major difficult chores around here. Last year he even hung storm windows on every window in the house. Not a small task. Anyway, he arrives this morning and will be here until Sunday afternoon. I'm going to send a camera along with them with strict instructions to snap photos of their adventures going after birds. It's dove and teal (duck) season now. And, there might be some river fishing thrown in, too. There will be a lot of cooking going on. So, since I'm alone in the kitchen putzing around, I figure I'll take you guys along with me . PS: Our guest will be returning the first week of December for deer season (and goose etc.) so maybe we will lock this blog until then and open it back up. I've promised for years to post pictures of cutting up deer. Maybe this will be the year I get it done lol.

We are at the airport waiting to board our flight. As we seem to have interested folks from different parts of the world who may not know too much about our province, I thought I would start this blog by giving you an overview of Newfoundland and Labrador (NL). Before Newfoundland became part of Canada in 1949, it was a British Colony. Cupids, a town on Conception Bay, was settled 406 years ago, and is the oldest continuously settled official British community in Canada. Most of the early permanent settlers came from southwest England and southeast Ireland although the French also settled here and in the 17th century Newfoundland was more French than English. French is still spoken in Port au Port Penninsula, on the western side of the island, with English spoken everywhere else. Just off the coast of south west Newfoundland, St. Pierre et Miquelon are islands that are still a colony of France. There is a regular ferry service between Fortune, NL and St. Pierre et Miquelon. Geographically, the capital of St. John's is on the same latitude as Paris, France and Seattle, Washington. In size, Newfoundland and Labrador is a little smaller than California, slightly bigger than Japan and twice the size of the United Kingdon. NL covers 405,212 sq. kilometers (156,453 sq. miles) with over 29,000 kilometers (18,000 miles) of coastline. By itself, the island of Newfoundland covers 111,390 square kilometers (43,008 sq. miles). The population of NL is 510,000, of whom 181,000 live in St. John's. While there are some larger towns, vast areas are sparsely populated. In Newfoundland there are no snakes, skunks, racoons, poisonous insects or arachnids. There is also no ragweed - allergy sufferers rejoice! There are over 120,000 moose and it is home to one of the world's biggest caribou herds. They also have some of the continent's biggest black bears. Note: This information was taken from the official Newfoundland and Labrador web site.

Introduction I spent the weekend in western Hunan reuniting with 36 people I worked with for two years starting 20 years ago. All but one, 龙丽花 lóng lì huā, I hadn’t seen for 17 years. I last saw her ten years ago. One other, 舒晶 shū jīng, with whom I have kept constant contact but not actually seen, helped me organise the visit in secret. No one else knew I was coming. In fact, I had told Long Lihua that I couldn’t come. Most didn’t even know I am still in China. I arrived at my local station around 00:20 in order to catch the 1:00 train northwards travelling overnight to Hunan, with an advertised arrival time of 9:15 am. Shu Jing was to meet me. When I arrived at the station, armed with my sleeper ticket, I found that the train was running 5 hours late! Station staff advised that I change my ticket for a different train, which I did. The problem was that there were no sleeper tickets available on the new train. All I could get was a seat. I had no choice, really. They refunded the difference and gave me my new ticket. The second train was only 1½ hours late, then I had a miserable night, unable to sleep and very uncomfortable. Somehow the train managed to make up for the late start and we arrived on time. I was met as planned and we hopped into a taxi to the hotel where I was to stay and where the reunion was to take place. They had set up a reception desk in the hotel lobby and around half of the people I had come to see were there. When I walked in there was this moment of confusion, stunned silence, then the friend I had lied to about not coming ran towards me and threw herself into my arms with tears running down her face and across her smile. It was the best welcome I’ve ever had. Then the others also welcomed me less physically, but no less warmly. They were around 20 years old when I met them; now they are verging on, or already are, 40, though few of them look it. Long Lihua is the one on the far right. Throughout the morning people arrived in trickles as their trains or buses got in from all over China. One woman had come all the way from the USA. We sat around chatting, reminiscing and eating water melon until finally it was time for lunch. Lunch we had in the hotel dining room. By that time, the group had swelled to enough to require three banqueting tables. Western Hunan, known as 湘西 xiāng xī, where I was and where I lived for two years - twenty years ago, is a wild mountainous area full of rivers. It was one of the last areas “liberated” by Mao’s communists and was largely lawless until relatively recently. It has spectacular scenery. Hunan is known for its spicy food, but Xiangxi is the hottest. I always know when I am back in Hunan. I just look out the train window and see every flat surface covered in chilis drying in the sun. Station platforms, school playgrounds, the main road from the village to the nearest town are all strewn with chillis. The people there consider Sichuan to be full of chilli wimps. I love it. When I left Hunan I missed the food so much. So I was looking forward to this. It did not disappoint. So Saturday lunch in next post.

We were going to call it "Manitoulin Unrivalled" but after Kerry's adventures over the week or so unravelled seemed more fitting. Those who follow us faithfully know the routine: Technical difficulties..... Stay tuned...

Off we go on another adventure! I'm still here in NYC, about to get in a taxi to take us to the airport. Unlike the past few trips, we are not flying EVA connecting through Taipei, but flying Air Canada, connecting through Toronto. I don't know what to expect, since this is the first time we've flown to Asia during the day, rather than leaving around midnight or 1AM - but the benefit is that rather than taking about 20 hours to get to the final destination, it's a short flight from NYC to Toronto, then a 13 hour flight to Beijing... the downside is that since we're leaving in the late morning, there's no chance of sleeping on this flight - maybe we'll catch a few hours before landing in Beijing, since we will be landing at 4AM NY time (4PM Beijing time) but I'm not counting on taking a sedative and sleeping for 6-8 hours mid-flight. I don't know how much I'm going to post while I'm there, but I'll try to put some teasers up if I see something incredibly interesting. Also, I don't think we'll be straying too far from the tourist trail this time - even recommendations from my wife's friends living in Beijing were similar to what I've read all around. But, we'll be getting together with 3 of them on 3 separate nights, which should be a lot of fun.

In December, I spent 3 glorious weeks eating my way through Japan; Tokyo, Kanazawa, Kyoto, Sapporo, Hakodate and back to Tokyo. It was my 11th (!) trip to Japan but my mother had never been, so I thought I'd take the old girl over for a good time. We did not kill each other, surprisingly. I'll come back and caption these a little more informatively over coming weeks, but as you can see, we ate rather a lot. Midori Sushi, Mark City, Shibuya (always my first stop when I arrive in Tokyo, as my preferred hotel is directly above it) Toro tuna belly, Midori Sushi, Mark City, Shibuya Squid gristle for snack time (as you do) Uni tempura, Tsunahachi, Shinjuku Uni tempura, Tsunahachi, Shinjuku Eel, fish and scallop tempura, Tsunahachi, Shinjuku Clam meat, chopped, stuffed back in clam shell and tempura'd, Tsunahachi, Shinjuku Crab leg tempura, Tsunahachi, Shinjuku Maitake mushroom (a cluster of them) tempura, Tsunahachi, Shinjuku Squid, prawn which had been alive right up until this point, lotus root tempura, dipping sauce, radish and green tea salt, Tsunahachi, Shinjuku Prawn head tempura, Tsunahachi, Shinjuku Evening hotel room snack - an AUD$15 tray of uni from Isetan depachika (food basement), Shinjku Amaebi (sweet raw prawn) gunkan sushi from Umegaoka Sushi No Midori Sohonten, Shibuya ' Engawa (flounder fin), lightly grilled, Umegaoka Sushi No Midori Sohonten, Shibuya Otoro, chutoro and akami tuna, Umegaoka Sushi No Midori Sohonten, Shibuya Marinated raw baby squid sushi, Umegaoka Sushi No Midori Sohonten, Shibuya Otoro fatty tuna belly and minced daikon (takuan), Umegaoka Sushi No Midori Sohonten, Shibuya Fried oysters, Umegaoka Sushi No Midori Sohonten, Shibuya Negitoro - fatty minced tuna belly and green onion, Umegaoka Sushi No Midori Sohonten, Shibuya Salmon, flounder fin and tuna belly aburi (lightly grilled), Umegaoka Sushi No Midori Sohonten, Shibuya

My son married a lovely young lady from Yakeshi, Inner Mongolia, China. Mongolian: ᠶᠠᠠᠠᠰᠢ ᠬᠣᠲᠠ (Ягши хот); Chinese: 牙克石; pinyin: Yákèshí We had a wedding in the US but her family also wanted to have a traditional wedding in China. DH and I have never being to China so this was an exciting opportunity for us! We spent a few days in Beijing doing touristy stuff and then flew to Hailar. There is only one flight a day on Air China that we took at 6 in the morning. Yakeshi is about an hour drive from Hailar on a beautiful toll road with no cars on it. I wish we took pictures of free roaming sheep and cows along the way. The original free range meat. The family met us at the airport. We were greeted with a shot of a traditional Chinese spirit from a traditional leather vessel. Nothing says welcome like a stiff drink at 9 AM. We were supposed to have a three shots (may be they were joking) but family took pity on us and limited it to one only.

Wow, this is my third foodblog for the eGullet…. Welcome! I'll be with you from Palm Sunday through Holy Sunday to give you all a taste of the veritable food festival that is Easter in Ecuador. As usual, I intend to eat on the streets, visit a plethora of small shops and vendors, and talk about (and eat copious amounts of ) the specialty dishes of the holiday. A bit of background on me and where I am. I'm Elizabeth; I'm 33 years old and since the last foodblog I've ceased to be a Canadian expat in Ecuador, and become a full-fledged Ecuadorian citizen. I run a catering bakery out of Ambato, and I deliver to clients on the entire mainland. I've got a large customer base in nearby Baños de Agua Santa, a hot-springs town about an hour downslope of me to the east; I'll be visiting it on Wednesday with close to 100 kg of baked goods for delivery. Ambato, the capital of Tungurahua province, is located almost exactly in the geographic centre of Ecuador. It's at an average elevation of 2,850 meters above sea level (slightly higher than Quito, the capital) - but this is measured in the downtown central park, which is significantly lower than most of the rest of the city, which extends up the sides of the river valley and onto the high plain above. We've got what amounts to eternal late springtime weather, with two well-marked rainy seasons. Ambato has about 300,000 people in its metro area; it's the fourth largest city in the country. But maybe the most important thing about Ambato, especially to foodies, is that it's a transport hub for the country. Anything travelling just about anywhere has to pass through Ambato on the way; it gives us the largest, best-stocked food market in South America. I have simply staggering variety at my fingertips. This view, which was a teaser for the blog, was taken from my rooftop terrazzo. It is a fraction of the panorama of the river valley that I see every morning, and since Easter is traditionally somewhat miserable weather-wise, the clouds stick to the hilltops. The barrio you can see in the middle distance is Ficoa, one of the most luxury districts in the city. Ambato is notable amongst Ecuadorian cities for having small fruit farms (300-500 m2) still operating within city limits and even within its most established barrios - it's from this that the Ambato gets one of its two sobriquets: The City of Fruits and Flowers. The tendency for even the poorest barrios to take tremendous pride in their greenspaces gives the other: The Garden City. My barrio, Miraflores Alto, is a working-class mixture of professors and labourers, and my neighbours keep a mixture of chickens, turkeys, and ducks in their yards; someone down the hill has a cow that I frequently hear but have never seen. Consequently, if the season is right I can buy duck eggs from my neighbours (and if the season is wrong, entire Muscovy ducks for roasting.) Today, I'll be doing my largest fresh-food shopping at the Mercado Mayorista, the largest market of its kind in South America - this place covers nearly 30 square blocks, and it exists to both buy and sell produce from across the country. Sundays and Mondays it also opens up to a huge, raucous farmer's market where smaller quantities are available for purchase. Sunday is the day of the freshest food and the largest number of vendors. And I'm going to cross more than half the city to get there - I've moved since the last blog, and my new house, on the slopes of the river valley is further away than the old one on the high plain. I promise to take many pictures of this - particularly close to the High Holy days, the Mayorista is alive with vendors and there will be special sections cordoned off for sales of bacalao, truly enormous squashes, and if it follows the previous years' trends, a festival of Hornado (about which more later). Apart from mangoes, which are just finishing up their season, it is harvest time across the country, and the Mayorista will be well stocked with all manner of fruits and vegetables. To start us off, I'll demystify one of my teasers a bit. The Minion head that peeks out of my cupboard every day belongs to my jar of ChocoListo, the Ecuadorian equivalent of chocolate Ovaltine. Since I gave up coffee for Lent, it's my go-to morning beverage. ChocoListo normally comes in the plain white jar with orange lid that you see in front of the Minion; that's now my hot chocolate jar because I just couldn't resist when the company came out with the specialty jars. I firmly believe that one is never too old to have whimsical things!

Happy New Year! I'm sitting at the gate waiting for my flight from Saigon to NYC connecting through Taipei so I figured this would be a good opportunity to get started... But this is just the intro- the rest will gave to wait until I land about 22 hours from now, sleep for about 12 hours, then get my photos in order! We had a great week enjoying beautiful weather, taking in the frenetic yet relaxed street life and eating some amazing local food... Our flight here was on EVA Airline and was very pleasant and uneventful. Our flight from Nyc to Taipei left around 12:20 AM on the 24th. I love those night flights since it makes it very easy to get a decent amount of sleep, even in coach. EVAs food is quite good eith both Chinese and western choices for dinner and breakfast, and they came through several times with snacks such as a fried chicken sandwich with some kind of mustard. I think I had 4 of them! Once I get home, I'll continue posting with pics from our feast in the Taipei airport.... Spoiler: those who have read my Singapore foodblog from July may see a slight trend...

It's been unseasonably warm here in Southern Ontario - until Thursday morning when we woke to a significant chill in the air. Yesterday was downright cold! So that means it's time to head north again for my usual couple of weeks of work in Little Current. The car is packed (actually overpacked) - though I'm sure I will forget a thing or two - there is a cooler full of odds and ends, a nice chunk of brisket I picked up at Wegmans on Monday, a honking big duck breast, the colcannon I made yesterday that I'm sure hubby won't eat while I'm away, lots of cheese (some smoked), some tomato chutney, red pepper jelly... Cocktail books include my handwritten favourites and a copy of Death and Company that everyone seems to be making recipes from lately. I'm taking a couple of new bottles I picked up - some mescal, a bottle of Carpano Classico and some Suze for one the cocktails mentioned from Death and Co that I want to try. I don't think I've packed any regular cookbooks now that I think about it - I may regret that when I arrive. I may be asking for recipes from people as I go along. I'm taking along the rice wine under construction - inside of the house here is going to smell better, the condo perhaps not so - and a few odds and ends I've been fermenting lately. There's some grape juice fermenting downstairs - but that will be left behind - perhaps it will have finished itself by the time I return. The fridge and freezer are filled with meals for hubby and rug rat - I'm sure they won't starve while I'm gone. Not sure if I'll be able to post from the phone as I drive up today - but I shall try. I'll certainly catch you up when I arrive on the island and get settled in.

Good morning, everyone and happy Monday! It's me again....that girl from Kansas. This is VERY spur-of-the-moment. I was sitting here yesterday thinking of all of the canning etc. that I needed to do this week and I thought, well, why not ask you guys if you want to spend the week with me while I do it? I got the ok from Smithy so away we go! This will not be nearly as organized as my first blog was. But, really, when does a sequel ever measure up to the first? Most of you know all about me--if you missed my first blog you can read it here. Nothing much has changed around here. Same furry babies, same house, same husband . Right now we have field corn planted all around the house. In the outer fields we have soybeans that were planted after the wheat was harvested. Sorry for the blur....it was so humid the camera kept fogging up. I just came in from the garden. I snapped a few pictures....for more (and prettier) pictures you can look in the gardening thread. I always start out saying that I will not let a weed grow in there. By August I'm like..."Oh what's a few weeds" lol. Here's a total list of what I planted this year: 7 cucumbers 8 basil 23 okra 4 rows assorted lettuce 20 peppers-thai, jalapeño, bell, banana 4 rows peas 5 cilantro 1 tarragon 2 dill many many red and white onions 7 eggplant 3 rows spinach 57 tomatoes 5 cherry tomatoes 7 rows silver queen sweet corn 11 squash 4 watermelon 2 cantaloupe 6 pumpkin I killed the cantaloupes...and I tried damn hard to kill the squash lol.....sigh...squash bugs came early this year and we sprayed with some kind of stuff. WOW the plants did not like it, but they've come back and are producing. I just love okra flowers Found some more smut

OK - so I think it's very fitting for my 1000th post that I start this food blog... I love eGullet, and have been a member for several years, but I don't post that often, and have never done anything like this, so please bear with me!!! My wife and I left NYC for Singapore on July 1st, at 1:25AM on an EVA flight connecting through Taipei, Taiwan. There used to be a direct NY to Singapore flight on Singapore Airlines, but SA discontinued it a few years ago. I like the long overnight flight to Asia because, on a 14 hour flight, it gives you plenty of time to eat (they feed you very well on those flights), medicate yourself and sleep for 6-8 hours, then wake up and watch a few movies before landing at about 6AM. Plus, since the flight leaves so late, it makes it much easier to sleep on the flight (especially after working a full day beforehand). The EVA flight is quite comfortable, even in coach. When I say they feed you well, I mean it - dinner was a stir fried chicken with steamed bok choy and rice, with many sides. Throughout the flight they came through the cabin with mustard coated fried chicken sandwiches as snacks, then breakfast of pork congee with many sides (including a package of fish floss). Sorry, I didn't take photos of the above - I was exhausted! We had about a 2 hour layover in the airport in Taiwan, so what does that mean? Time for dim sum and beef noodle soup!!! This was our breakfast destination Left to right, Xie Long Bao (Shanghainese pork soup dumplings), char siu bao (fluffy buns filled with BBQ pork - although this Taiwanese version was not nearly as sweet as the typical Hong Kong version), Taiwanese beef noodle soup, and a loose leaf oolong tea. With the waters, cost about US$20!!! It was quite the feast, especially after the constant EVA flight 'buffet', and the fact that they were going to feed us again on our next flight to Singapore!

Start spreading the news. We are on our way north. Just stopped in Barrie for breakfast at a place called Cottage Canoe. Will post more shortly.

The Manitoulin test kitchen topic has been so popular, it has reached the 20-page mark (the point beyond which the servers are begin bing less efficient at processing) in under a month! We've split this discussion; the preceding section is here: Manitoulin test kitchen (Part 1). So there wasn't much to choose between them taste wise or texture wise. The Ruhlman wet/dry is faster and easier. Most of the prep now done for another dinner of laarb this time using Kerry's recipe. Might have cooked more this afternoon but had a nice nap instead after all this is supposed to be holiday too.

So Kerry Beal and I headed north today to spend five weeks on Manitoulin Island. As usual we want to share our adventures with you. We left the Burlington/Oakville area about 8:30 this morning, drove north through Barrie and Sudbury and arrived in Little Current on the Island around 3:30 this afternoon. You get an idea here of how packed car was. There was barely room for Kira. The egg cartons which Kerry and I had saved since last fall took up a great deal of space. We discovered in a text message from the Island that our egg lady is no longer in business. We can't imagine not having dozens and dozens of freshly laid eggs. We will be trying to source from a new supplier. You can also just get a glimpse of the mint that will be appearing in our cocktails. Breakfast was a quick swing through McDonald's drive-through. I had a sausage McMuffin with egg and Kerry had a bacon and egg McMuffin. We both had hashbrowns. No photo but then you all know what these look like. Lunch was not a great improvement. From Jeremy's truck stop in Nairn Centre a toasted club for Kerry A toasted BLT for me. Kerry had a side of their famous potato pancakes with sour cream And I had a bag of potato chips We just wanted to keep driving and get to Little Current as soon as possible. We promise the food will improve from here on! Edited to change minutes to mint.

Good morning and hello from sunny South Florida! Later this morning, I'm going to pick up my weekly CSA box, and then we'll know what I'm going to be eating this week. Until then... This is a Cara Cara orange, a navel orange with red flesh. It has very low acid and is sweeter than most oranges. I bought some this morning from Whole Foods; they were grown in Winter Garden, FL. A little juice for breakfast: See you after I'm back from the farm!

Here I am back again for my third food blog. I hope everybody will enjoy this one even though it going to be somewhat narcissistic. Please bear with me; I'll try not to be too boring. This blog is going to give my food/cooking history over the years. Because I'm older than dirt that makes for a lot of history. Monday will have me born & my food history up to 1980. Then a decade a day up to Friday and a close off on Saturday. As this is my personal food history elements of my life outside food will have to be included. I'll keep these to a minimum, but they will be necessary to provide context to the food history. What I'll do in answer to questions or comment is the following: (pretty standard, but I like things to be clear.) - I'll answer if I can. - If the subject is too personal or somewhat off topic I'll answer, but either deflect or steer back on topic in my answer. - If really out of line I'll just ignore the question/comment. Equally, I'll do my best to stay on topic. I really don't think that PM's are appropriate when discussing a food blog so I'd like everything to be out in the open. If you have questions that are off topic in regard to food or my food history, but pertinent to France, living or visiting here then by all means PM me. Enough about that. In this blog I'm going to not only take you on a culinary journey, but a physical one as well. The USA to Spain then Spain back to the USA then the USA to Belgium then Belgium to England then England to the USA then back to England then back to the USA and finally to France. There's Japan and Asia squeezed in somewhere as well. I've travelled a bit. At a class reunion a few years ago somebody asked me why I'd travelled so much? My answer then and now is: "I needed to keep one step ahead of the sheriff" Until tomorrow. I'm going to have fun with this. My autofoodography? My cusineography? You name it. PS: Having looked at what I've written I've decided that its too literary. Thus I'm going to post topical ( i.e. what's happening this week) inputs which will be far more pictorial. PPS: Yes, I do have a mystery object. Wait for it.

At the end of our last stay on Manitoulin, Tri2cook mentioned how much he had enjoyed the latest instalment of 'Kerry and Anna's Excellent Adventures' so it seemed an appropriate title for this trip. We travelled in a car rather than a phone booth to get here. I picked up Anna a few minutes after 7 yesterday morning - we enjoyed our breakfast en route. Our "carcuterie" plate. We stopped in Owen Sound at the farmer's market and grabbed a few things - but also at a surplus store where I managed to obtain a bunch of great little bottles - the better to bottle bitters to share. We made it in time for our ferry reservation - given the very small numbers on the ferry this time if year - it wasn't really necessary to have a reservation. For lunch - because the ferry doesn't serve calamari - we both had the chicken wings. Can't beat wings with a view. It was a bit rough initially on the crossing - Anna looked a touch green for a few minutes. We had plans for a particular cocktail last night - however the booze is still packed away in the cupboard so we had to make do with the ingredients we had brought to replenish our stock - we had Dillon's white rye - which tastes like a spicy version of genever, aperol and candy cap mushroom bitters. We adapted the intro to aperol recipe using these - first sip was intensely raisiny - but it smoothed out to quite a nice little drink. We had to shake it in the first capped container we could find in the cupboard - thank god there was ice in the freezer. Which reminds me - I'd better get some more cubes going. Think we'll call it the Mother Hubbard or the Mother of Invention. Dinner was cooked on the gas BBQ (or at least started on the gas BBQ and moved to the broiler because the wind was interfering) - some lovely little asparagus spears and a rather thin rib eye. The view from my plate - Ended up with this picture because I'd accidentally switched off the noise that my phone makes when snapping a picture - by the time I figured out what I'd done I had quite a number of picture of my feet and fingers.

I'm up working in Little Current again for the next 5 weeks. Thought I'd take the opportunity to share what I'm making with you while I'm here. I had asked them to put a couple of things in the fridge for me before I arrived as I'd have the rug rat with me and she's not very portable. I wanted to be sure I'd be able to feed her a little something after we got off the ferry. A couple of nice fresh eggs fried up with some old cheddar and a bit of kimchi (brought that along with me). She managed to hang on to a bottle while I made her dinner for her. Took Andie's advice and found a Senseo coffee maker at a thrift store for a couple of dollars. With the addition of a Coffee Duck to hold the grounds it was the perfect way to make a quick cup. I was on call the day after I got here - so needed to bake a little something to take. Discovered that I had no flour in the cupboard (5 bins of stuff in the cupboard - no all purpose), but I did have some whole wheat atta flour (semolina flour) that I had brought along - so used that. So butterscotch squares with atta flour - quite satisfactory! So Saturday I finally got a chance to head out and procure some necessities. I hit the farmer's market in town where I got rye flour, red fife flour, rolled oats and whole spelt as well as some garlic scapes. A trip out to Max Burt's farm yielded a nice little strip loin and a couple of packages of pork chops. I also grabbed some maple syrup from him. At the market the vendor who grows strawberries had run out - so I went out to their farm later in the day and picked up a basket. Some pumpkin seeds for bread and picked up the thyme that one of the nurses had brought from her garden for me to add to mine. I brought a few things like thai basil and mojito mint that I knew I'd have trouble finding here - got them all planted up. Realize that I need to get someone to bring me some parsley as well! Looks like all the herbs worth buying have been bought up already. Gotta love wild iris. Anyway - off to take a fish hook out of someones finger - when I return I'll put up the pictures of the strawberry balsamic breakfast cake from Food 52.

Now that the cat's out of the bag, you might say I've been looking forward to this Foodblog for a long time. The focus of this Foodblog is a little different from all the other ones. Back in 2012, I decided that I wanted to change the way I ate, cooked and shopped, from buying specific things for a specific recipe, to buying what looked good at the market, then making something using what I came home with. In doing so, I wanted to see if I could cook, shop and eat seasonally for an entire year. My cooking had become stale; I was limited to the same handful of concepts. I sought to break out of the box I had become entrapped within. By limiting myself to a specific set of ingredients for days or weeks at a time, I was forced to experiment and broaden my horizons. That experiment, which I called The Year of Cooking Seasonally, was so successful that I've decided that's what I'll be doing for the rest of my life. When you are faced with weeks of POTATOES or CARROTS or ZUCCHINI or CORN, cooking in this way makes me want to dig deep within myself and really get into what it means to make something that's mundane seem interesting, exciting, delicious and enticing. It's not for everyone, but it works for me. This Foodblog is also different from the others I've had the honor of participating in, because I wanted readers to be able to partly influence the ingredients for this week's menu and in the process challenge myself. I'm always looking to improve, to learn, to discover, to explore, to teach and be taught, and to share with others. In addition, most recipes will be sized for one or two people, and are mostly meatless. These days, I consider myself a 'flexitarian' -- that is, someone who eats less meat than he used to. I would say I am 60% lacto-ovo vegetarian/20% vegan/20% meat. My hobby is cooking. My life revolves around food. Amongst my friends, I am known for cooking multi-course meals from scratch when I come home from work, at least three or four days a week. Perhaps this is a luxury to some, but THIS is how I relax. When Im in the kitchen, I am able to indulge my creativity in ways that prove to be nearly as satisfying as sex. This Foodblog is dedicated to anyone who's marveled at the beauty of life, as reflected in the passage of time and in the procession of the seasons, and in the love we share with each other in community and at the table.

Hi there, fellow eGulleteers, and welcome to my second foodblog! As Kerry says, we're on the road this time, which means I get to show you some of the best food Ecuador has to offer. Why, you ask? Well, because we're going on a road trip to the beaches of the coastal province of Manabí, which is recognized across the country as well as in South America for its seafood dishes. We'll be based out of the little fishing village of Puerto López, about two hours south of the province's capital, Manta. Fishing in this area is all done by men in small, oar-propelled boats with handlines and small cast nets - I'll try to get up super early one morning to find out what the catch of the day is (and possibly buy something for breakfast, if they've got Pargo Lunar in the catch....) The area is also known for its Langostinos and Langostos (giant estuarial crawdads and spiny blue lobsters, respectively) and those are often sold by their fishermen from buckets. What Heidi had to say about "buy something fresh from a guy walking down the beach with a bucket" is very true of most beaches in Manabí. At the tail end of the road trip, I'll be visiting the world's largest indigenous food and craft market and will be eating a tilapia caught from a glacially-fed crater lake - round trip in fish! I will be attempting to not eat anything twice in order to show you the immense variety available on the coast. (Meaning, if I have the encebollado you won't see me eat it again on this trip). First off, though, a bit about the teasers. The first one was indeed Roselle / Sorrel / Flor de Jamaica, the bracts of Hibiscus sabdariffia - something that I have only recently started drinking but of which I am completely enamored. A friend in the Amazon has a plantation and sends me fresh bracts (which is what's shown). I base most of my summertime iced teas and whatnot on Jamaica. Peter the Eater was quite right - it's two happy guys and a perciform fish, with a large body of water and some volcanic rocks. This photo was taken on the beach at Canoa in Manabí, and was a location teaser. Those two happy guys? They're casting simple baited handlines into the Pacific off the rocks, looking for their lunch. They called the fish they caught a "bonito" but I'm pretty sure they weren't referring to the type, but merely that it's big and beautiful (a Bonito down here is a type of mackerel and resembles a small tuna). The waters down here have an amazing variety of fish, and I'm willing to bet that what's on the line is actually a Bocachico (smallmouth striper). They were holding out for another, and didn't share, so I can't confirm that. For the curious, the volcanic rocks are a 500+ year old remnant of the last eruption of Volcan Cotopaxi, which is more than 250 km away in the Sierra - the lava hit the ocean here and gave Canoa its signature black sand beach. This is Encebollado de Mariscos (mixed seafood and onion soup) - and although it's a staple of Manabita cuisine, I ate this one in a restaurant in Ambato! Shown in the bowl are a small Langosto, a larger Cangrejo (crab), and some Concha (inky mangrove clams, something I have only eaten in Ecuador); for the curious, it's popcorn and lime in the background, and those are patacones floating in the bowl with the seafood. Encebollado de Mariscos has a strongly red-onion flavoured broth with hints of red curry and peanut; done well, it's spectacular. These are Limeño bananas that I grew myself, something that was thought to be impossible at my 3,000 meter altitude in the Sierra. And this is the starting veg for any respectable Lazy Bastard Beef Stroganstuff or similar stovetop casserole. I thought it would give me away, since nobody else here has cobalt blue tile countertops! I'll be back in a moment with photos of my current kitchen - I've moved since I last blogged, and I'm making quinua-herb and cheese minibagels in there today.