Hungry In Hogtown

God Save The Brownie Queen!

If ever forced to choose between me and a good brownie, I'm not sure what my wife would do.

Yes, she loves me, but just this evening my self-proclaimed "Brownie Queen" described the love triangle between her, brownies, and me thusly: "I have very, very strong feelings for you," she cooed, "but I also have very, very strong feelings about brownies."

It doesn't help that one of our closest friends, Ryan, harbours similar feelings (for brownies that is).  On a recent visit, he described brownies as perhaps his "favourite food."  The natural outcome of uttering such a statement in the presence of the Brownie Queen is quick and unavoidable.  "We have to make brownies!  Right now!"

And it was so.

IMBB #23: The Crêpe Escape

Waves throw themselves onto the shore under a colourless winter sky, and the cry of gulls pierces the cold air.  If you squint your eyes a little and ignore the condos, it's easy to imagine yourself in Brittany, on the rocky edge of the Atlantic rather than in Toronto on the shores of Lake Ontario.  A February day with a chilling wind demands hearty food, so we turned to homey Breton classics to warm our insides for the latest Is My Blog Burning event, “Vive la France Régionale avec un Verre du Vin."     

"Breton food," writes Waverley Root in his classic tour of French cuisine, The Food of France, "is often spoken of with some disdain."  Part of the reason may be that Brittany is considered a place apart from the rest of France, and to some degree it is.  The Bretons were forced out of England by the Angles, and have struggled to retain their Celtic roots ever since.  The people there even speak their own Celtic-based language, Breton, which is very similar to Welsh.

Breton food isn't very subtle, but there's nothing wrong with a direct approach to deliciousness.  Many of the specialties come from the sea, including the region's rich seafood stew, cotriade, a rustic mix of potatoes, onions, and whatever the day's catch happens to be.

The crowning glory of Breton cuisine -- its gift to the stomachs of the world -- is the crêpe.

Spit or swallow? Dinner at Lai Wah Heen

Spit or swallow?  How about swallow spit?  Because that was the climax (teehee!) to our glorious dinner at Lai Wah Heen.  Don't worry, I'll explain later.

One of the glories of living in Toronto is the availability of a mouthwatering variety of cuisines from around the world.  Of the many ethnic groups that have altered this city's culture and palate, perhaps none has had a stronger influence of late than the Chinese.  With six Chinatowns in the Greater Toronto Area, Toronto offers fantastic access to many kinds of Chinese food.  Probably because it is so easy to duck into small take-out places for noodles or congee, we rarely get a chance to enjoy upscale Chinese food.  That's why it was such a treat to visit Lai Wah Heen with a group of friends. 

Lai Wah Heen means "luxurious meeting place," and our friend and resident Chinese food expert, Cedric, who came to Canada from Hong Kong, made sure the restaurant lived up to its name.  Having left our meal in his hands, we spent the first minutes of our visit gawking at the menu while Cedric chatted in hushed Cantonese to our server, and two other friends from mainland China, Snow and Jimmy, advised Cedric of their personal favourites.

Shock-olate, Part I: Molecular gastronomy at DC Duby

Do you sometimes feel like your husband or boyfriend just isn't listening?  You make salient point after witty remark for several minutes in a brilliant speech, only to discover that he's riveted to the TV watching Olympic luge and -- perhaps even worse -- has completely no idea that you've said anything?

Yeah, that happens to us too.  As you may recall from previous posts, Rob is a man given to impulse food buys, while I tend to be a bit more practical.   I'll even check the fridge and cupboards before heading out to purchase special ingredients for a specific recipe, and he... well, we are now the proud possessors of three tubes of wasabi, four packages of pickled ginger, and tons of nori seaweed for sushi.  (Yesterday's discovery: dried seaweed can indeed go bad!  Who knew?)

Molecular gastronomy has been a hot topic in this household lately, so I probably shouldn't have been surprised when Rob surfed onto the website of DC Duby, the Vancouver-based pastrymakers and chocolatiers who use food science to create unique sweets.  After all, they've been the focus of a recent TV show and a magazine story.  I was in the room with Rob when I saw his eyes glaze over.  He was clicking on all sorts of items and putting them into his virtual shopping cart.  I had to act fast.

"No.  Stop," I said, as he continued clicking.  I leaned in.  "No.  Don't get that yet."  No response.  I put my hand on his.  "No."  He jumped, because he had forgotten I was even there. "But, this is so cool -- I have to buy this!" came the reply.

With a sigh, I informed my sweetheart that I didn't want him to order all these goodies because I had already ordered them for him for Valentine's Day.  A box of Harvest Collection chocolates, the Wild Sweets cookbook, and a "Science Kit" (but more about that in another post) were on their way at that very moment.  I was assured of his attention then.

Schwepped away: homemade lemongrass ginger ale

Every child has a favourite drink, and usually it's sweet.  I'm sure my brother looks back fondly on every glass of Kool-Aid he secretly spiked with extra sugar, despite his doctor's low-sugar restrictions.  One friend lights up at the thought of neon pink Tahiti Treat (which can apparently be replicated at home by combining equal parts cream soda and orange pop).  As for me, it's ginger ale.

I think this may have its roots in ginger ale's special dual role in my childhood home: as something you got when you were sick, and also as a decidedly adult mix for grown-up drinks at parties.  Talk about special powers!  But I always preferred its crispness to other pops (that's soda to you crazy US folks; see The Great Pop vs Soda Controversy, especially the county map and the study's conclusion). 

See my cheese sandwich. Love my cheese sandwich.

For those currently unaware, there's a lot of rage in the food blogging world these days, rage so intense that a certain comment thread had to be shut down because a gentle discussion had devolved into a virtual shouting match.

What has some bloggers so mad?  This article from Food & Wine magazine.  The author, Pete Wells, tries to make the point -- and, as far I'm concerned, it's valid -- that too many food blogs offer precious little in the way of novelty, insight, and originality.  To make his point, however, Wells borrows a derogatory term for such sites, "cheese-sandwich blog," and then proceeds to quote from a few food blogs he deems worthy of the label.

That was a mistake.

Nutella, not just for the bedroom anymore

Ah, Valentine's Day, and who better to spend it with than Nigella Lawson?  Damn!  I mean your loved one, of course.  But what better to serve them than an unctuous, decadent, over the top, Nutella cake (the recipe is here) from her book, How to Be a Domestic Goddess?

What's so good about torta alla gianduia?  Well, it contains a whole jar of Nutella for one.  It's also made with a little Frangelico, a lot of hazelnuts, and a generous amount of melted dark chocolate.  Of course, if you needed any more reason to like it than, "it contains a whole jar of Nutella," then this is probably not the post for you.

I love Nutella.  There, I said it.  Of all the substances on earth, it's difficult to name one that is as delicious as this hazelnut-chocolate ambrosia.  Like most great foods, Nutella has its origins in Italy and, perhaps, its most ardent devotees. 

We saw this firsthand on our honeymoon.  Shortly before our departure, I learned of a café devoted to the product in Bologna, the city in which we happened to be spending the first week of our trip.  I'll admit to being a little disappointed with the Nutelleria.  I suppose I was expecting some sort of Homer Simpson-esque Nutella dream world, with rivers of Nutella and comically oversized jars that I could bring home for all my friends.  What we found, unfortunately, was a shop more McDonald's than Italian café.  You'll no doubt be proud to learn that, despite my disappointment, I somehow managed to eat a really fantastic Nutella crepe.  Ah, Bologna, non basta uno stomaco.

As for the cake, it's damn good too. The crumb is very moist and dense, almost ideal, really. The chocolate ganache icing is smooth, but has a lovely crunch because of the hazelnuts dotting its surface. The only disappointment, for me at least, is that despite an entire jar of the stuff, the cake does not have an overwhelmingly Nutella flavour; instead, the dark chocolate dominates, while the hazelnut elements play a supporting role. This is not to say that the cake is not delicious, it is. As per Nigella's suggestion, we enjoyed a slice with a little Frangelico. Between the alcohol, dessert, and each other's company we were rather content, and isn't that just the way it's supposed to be on Valentine's Day?

The hymen maneuver: observations on two months of blogging

I still remember the first time someone was directed to this blog by a Google search.  I was so excited.  Google!  The search engine had finally led someone to our little corner of the web.  I'd only been posting for a couple of weeks, and traffic was, um, sloooow, so I was thrilled to see this hit.

Then I clicked on the link in my Typepad administrator.  When I saw the search parameters that brought them here, we had a really good laugh.  Three words:

virgin

membrane

jpeg

That's right, someone wanted hymen pictures, and Russian Google directed them here.  Not only that, but Hungry In Hogtown was on the first page of search results.

"How did that happen?" you ask.  Well, one of the first posts I ever wrote was about two truffle feasts: one that included a truffle risotto and a very strong Swiss cheese, Vacherin Mont D'Or, and another, light meal consisting of truffled scrambled eggs and a salad.  Vacherin Mont D'Or is a cheese with a thin, pinkish membrane, and the salad was dressed with extra virgin olive oil.  There were, of course, jpeg images of both meals.  Combine with a blog so young Google hadn't yet figured out what it really covered, and you apparently get Russians looking for pictures of hymens.

Google's figured some things out over the past two months, so Hungry In Hogtown is no longer one of the top ten sites on the web for hymen imagery, though I fear this post is once again going to launch us back up that dubious ranking.  No, now people are regularly coming here to read about food, and that makes us very, very happy.

SHF #16: White chocolate and caviar

Want to see our full collection of molecular gastronomy posts?  Click here.

No, that's not a misprint.  We really did make white chocolate and sturgeon caviar, and, yes, it was delicious.

I suppose I need to begin with a little confession: I am completely fascinated by cutting edge gastronomy.  By "cutting edge," I'm referring to innovators like Ferran Adria at El Bulli, Heston Blumenthal at The Fat Duck, Grant Achatz at Alinea, and other chefs who are pushing the culinary envelope using new ingredients, new technologies, and a lot of imagination.  I'm so fascinated by what these people are doing that I've often thought of buying one of Ferran Adria's cookbooks, and then blogging my way through every recipe in it (not an original idea, I know, but it sure sounds like fun).

This cutting edge cuisine is known to some as "molecular gastronomy," a term coined by a French scientist, Hervé This, and an Oxford physicist, Nicholas Kurti, and discussed in greater detail in This' eponymous book.  Think of it as chemistry and physics applied to the pleasures of the palate.

Of course, this Sugar High Friday is supposed to be about romance, not physics) though I suppose that means a little chemistry might be appropriate).  When I saw Heston Blumenthal's recipe for this dish, I was immediately struck by just how appropriate it is: the aphrodisiacal properties of chocolate require no elaboration, nor does the link between caviar and romance.  Beyond this, I was struck by the simplicity of the recipe -- by having just two ingredients -- and how that mirrors one of the most obvious qualities of human romance.  Finally, there are few more powerful symbols of fertility and sex than the egg, especially when we're talking eggs in the quantities you find in a tin of caviar.

Sweet, merciful Chac, that's good hot chocolate

Who doesn't love chocolate?  Not me.  I bet not you, either.  And certainly not the Mayan god of agriculture, fertility, rain, and lightning, Chac (that guy sounds busy).

On a cold, Toronto winter's day, what better way to warm yourself than the best hot chocolate you'll ever taste?  I'm speaking, of course, of Soma's Mayan hot chocolate.

Now we've all enjoyed some dynamite hot chocolate in our days.  I can fondly recall the mug of hot chocolate teeming with marshmallows my grandmother would make for me and my two cousins every Saturday night after Hockey Night In Canada.  We'd all sit around the dining room table in our pyjamas, nursing our drinks before bed.  Sure, it was powder and water, but it was also love and a soothing balm for my battered, Leaf-loving soul after yet another loss (we're talking the 1980s here, folks).