Hungry In Hogtown

SHF #21: El Bulli's watermelon iced lollies and frozen watermelon shots

Watermelon does not generally inspire.  TS Elliot's famous line was not "Do I dare to eat a watermelon?" and the love-sick poet of the Song of Songs did not wish to be comforted by watermelon.  Need I remind you we're talking about a fruit that derives its name from the fact that it's mainly water?  The most exotic watermelon dish I've ever heard of is Nigella Lawson's watermelon, feta, and black olive salad.  Other than that, I see only a melonscape of refreshing blandness.

And yet it's a summer staple for many of us, including me, particularly on wretchedly hot days when sweat clings to skin and an ice-cold slice offers a moment's refuge from the unrelenting heat.  There's something keenly refreshing about watermelons, peaches, and other "chin-dribbling" summer fruits that I find irresistible.

That's why, when I saw the announcement for Sugar High Friday #21, Ice Ice Baby, hosted by The Delicious Life, I immediately thought of two frozen watermelon preparations I saw in my El Bulli cookbooks.  At last, a chance to have some fun with the humble watermelon.

Berried alive: a wild blueberry bonanza

"Do you mind if I go to Sudbury for a week to visit my parents?"

This sentence may be phrased as a question, but it's not; it's actually Rachel's way of telling me she's going up north.  It did provide an opening, however, so I seized the moment.

"No problem," I said, quickly raising my index finger to signal the seriousness of my next statement, "but you have to come back with blueberries."

Wild blueberries, to be precise, which grow in such abundance in Sudbury that the city hosts an annual Blueberry Festival.  It's no surprise, then, that wild blueberry bushes flourish within a pleasant summer's stroll of my in-laws' back door.  The trick, if there is one, is to get to them before the bears, those "godless killing machines without a soul," who happen to love them almost as much as we do.

Alright, perhaps I'm overstating the threat a bit, but the bears are just one of many reasons I'm not cut out for life in northern Ontario.  I'll never forget my first visit to Rachel's parents.  It was Christmas, 1998, and they lived in Timmins.  Timmins makes Sudbury look downright tropical; it's almost as far north of Sudbury as Sudbury is north of Toronto.  What I'm trying to say is that it's cold, really cold, colder than anything you've likely ever experienced: spit-freezing, skin-numbing, testicle-reascending cold.  I'm not sure the temperature ever got warmer than -40C (-40F) on that trip, and, with the windchill, it fell below -60C (-76F) one day.  As if that weren't enough, Timmins averages 3.5 metres of snowfall per year (thats 11.5 feet)!

It is, in short, the Canada many non-Canadians conjure up in their minds when they think of this country.  Not that Sudbury's much different, mind you, what with -20C (-4F) being a respectable winter temperature.

CAMPIONI DEL MONDO! Celebrating with lasagna bolognese

Wooooooooohoooooooo!!!!!!  Champions, baby!

What better way to celebrate than with another tricolour dish?  That's why it's time to unveil Hungry In Hogtown's ultimate lasagna bolognese.  Check it out.  Every last bit of it is homemade -- the spinach pasta, the ragù, you name it.  It's so good, you'd probably headbutt someone in the chest if they ever tried to steal a piece.

There are only a few keys to making a brilliant lasagna, and fresh pasta is the first.  I know, making pasta is something of a pain in the ass, but paper-thin layers of pasta fresca are infinitely better than those clumsy frilled shrouds sold in stores.  It takes mad skills to assemble a ten-layered lasagna (what can I say?  I have the skills to pay the bills), and it just can't be done with store-bought pasta.  Fresh pasta deserves a post of its own, and we will eventually get around to it, but here's Mario Batali's recipe if you're eager to get your hands dirty in the meantime.

Nutella, not just for the bedroom anymore, Part II: Vanilla Nutella ice cream

We're not ones to ever miss something related to ice cream, but we missed the ice cream event.  I can't say I'm surprised.  We used to spend countless hours each week cooking, eating, writing posts, reading other blogs and offering comments.  That's changed lately -- some of you may have noticed that we've been posting and commenting far less than normal.  Now our time is consumed with lawyers, and insurance agents, and bankers.

After eight years in our two-bedroom apartment in downtown Toronto, we wanted more: more space, more (hell, any) yard, and, of course, a kitchen big enough for two people to work in without literally stepping on one another's toes.  Angry spouses and sharp blades are a bad combo, wouldn't you agree?

It all sounded so simple.

So we entered the Toronto real estate market.  Ugly.  House prices have been rising for the better part of a decade now, and the playing field is tilted strongly in the vendor's favour.  Our least favourite selling tactic was the lowball price with a fixed date for offers.  The low price sucks in many, many buyers, who all present offers one after another at a set time.  Such fierce competition forces any interested party to make an unconditional offer that far exceeds the asking price if they hope to have a chance of getting the house.  Picture seven or eight groups of buyers with their agents, pacing in the street outside the house in question as their offers are weighed and the neighbours peek through their windows.

We got burned by this strategy more times than I'd care to remember, and it began to take its toll.  Where once we used to get excited about a property we wanted, after two years and almost a dozen unsuccessful offers, we began to approach houses with a fatalistic, "let's see how we'll lose this house" attitude.

Then one day we finally got the house -- an old Victorian in Little Italy -- and on Tuesday we took possession.  During the mere month in between, our lives were consumed with the seemingly endless number of tasks it takes to turn pages of signatures into a set of keys to our new home.