The Dog's Breakfast

The great thing about ice cream – aside from how happy it universally seems to make people – is how marvelous a canvas it is for culinary creativity. Over the holidays at a friend’s house we found an issue of Fine Cooking we’d somehow missed (June/July 2009) that featured an inspiring spread on flavour combinations for home-made ice cream.

Bourbon and cigar ice cream with figs, black cardamom, vanilla bean and a pinch of cinnamon.

We’d never made ice cream, but are always discussing novel taste combinations and looking for a new kitchen thrill. This first ice cream adventure turned out to be the most fun we’ve had cooking so far this year. We can’t believe how good these flavours are.

Fruity olive oil and toasted pine nut ice cream. Tastes surprisingly like butter pecan.

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Instead of making resolutions for this year, we’ve decided to adopt a theme of restraint. Not with the goal of deprivation – it’s more about working toward simplicity, which they say is a hallmark of perfection. So we’re looking at what we cook and aiming to remove those extraneous ingredients and steps in preparation that unnecessarily complicate a dish. When shopping for groceries, I think of Coco Chanel, and remove the last item I put in my cart.

This Cioppino is an eminently restrained dish that perfectly illustrates what we want to accomplish in the kitchen this year. Rob’s favourite thing to eat is a bouillabaisse that’s one of the most complicated and expensive things we know how to make. It’s an all-day affair, with a metric tonne of ingredients in the stock. It’s absolutely worth the investment, if you’ve got $100 to spend on dinner, and a day to spend splashing Pernod around the kitchen.

We resolved to add a simpler Mediterranean fish stew to our repertoire and found a recipe for this signature dish from San Francisco. » Read the rest of this entry «

This decidedly grown-up version of eggnog is so much better than the store-bought variety, but is guaranteed to bring back childhood memories of sitting by the Christmas tree opening presents with the Charlie Brown Christmas album playing in the background.

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Sunday dinner in my family home was served at about 3 p.m. I used to think that this mid-afternoon suppertime was a novelty invented by my mother, either as a ploy to get us into bed earlier in the evening, or as a cook’s convenience – it made sense to slow-roast a pork loin while we were all in church for a few hours. And it was a wonderful smell to come home to. Attendance at dinner was mandatory, and we were all required to bring clean hands and our best manners to the table. I now recognize this practice of dining in the afternoon as the English tradition of Sunday Lunch, or Sunday Roast, which is of course much older than my mother. I would guess that both of my parents grew up eating roasted meats and vegetables on Sunday afternoons, perhaps their parents, too.

My mother’s original twist on this tradition was popcorn. Once the dishes had all been done, the floors swept, naps taken, and appetites revived, my mother would stand at the stove and shake kernels back and forth in a wire mesh basket. Its long handle didn’t prevent your hands from getting dangerously close to a livid stove element, and it was a long process, making enough for all 9 of us. » Read the rest of this entry «

This recipe is based on Robert del Grande’s filet of beef with a coffee chile sauce, which was adapted by Bon Appétit for short ribs, and then further adapted by us over the past four years. Our only real tweaks are the addition of cocoa, tomato paste, and wine. After mushroom risotto, this is probably our most-made dish to date. » Read the rest of this entry «

Decadent Choclate Chipotle Brownies

These, without the chipotle that we decided to add at the last minute, are apparently Oprah’s favourite brownies. The base recipe is from Baked, New Frontiers in Baking, a book that’s been a major inspiration to Rob. He’s really starting to let his inner pastry chef come out. I’m not much of a desserts person, but the book is full of infectious fun – who doesn’t want to try a cake with root beer icing? You don’t even really taste the chipotle here, but it deepens and heightens the flavour of the chocolate. These roles will be reversed in next week’s feature, w » Read the rest of this entry «

Apple cider-braised pork shoulder

This past November has been unusually warm and bright. Until last week when we finally dug them up, our geraniums were putting out beautiful new red buds. And one of our neighbours has a rosebush that’s still blooming. At the same time, the street at night is half-illuminated by Christmas lights. So days have a strange hybrid feeling about them – there are moments when you want to say ‘Indian summer’, but then the sun goes down, and the low clouds smell like snow.

This is actually my favourite time of year. I think of it as the mirror of early Spring, when the snow has melted and the grass starts turning green. It’s essentially the same landscape: clean, with crisp air and scintillating skylines. And holidays on the horizon. » Read the rest of this entry «

Mario Batali's Veal Involtini stuffed with parsley, pine nuts, and parmigiano-reggiano

We haven’t had a barbecue in 5 years. It’s a real sore spot – we don’t have a back yard, and the rules of our condo association forbid barbecues on the balcony. We were sure we could change or bend this rule by wooing our neighbours with chutneys and wines, but they are unequivocal. I guess they’re afraid we’ll be grilling sardines at 11 a.m. on Saturday mornings, because that sort of thing tends to happen in Portuguese neighbourhoods like ours. In fact I distinctly remember seeing a whole goat on a spit just a few blocks from here, last summer. » Read the rest of this entry «

The first time I tasted oysters Rockefeller was a New Year’s Eve, many years ago. It was at a friend’s house, built in the wilderness some distance outside of Vancouver, reachable only by ferry. We spent the evening sipping champagne in the outdoor hot tub under a gentle mist of rain while a looking up at the stars, pine trees and surrounding mountains. The menu that evening included many delicious things, including oysters Rockefeller.

Over the years, oysters seem to have punctuated many special occasions. Their limited availability – the “er” months of the year – always makes them feel like a rare treat. The most recent such occasion was the a belated birthday celebration dinner for our dear friend Jennifer.

A new discovery this year has been two types of oysters I’ve never tasted before: Raspberry Point oysters from PEI, and Kumamoto oysters, originally from Japan, but now harvested in Washington State. These were especially interesting, very rich and almost nutty. » Read the rest of this entry «

The credit for the crust seen here goes to my sister Lynda - expert baker extraordinaire.

Synaesthesia is a neurological phenomenon in which one kind of sensory input is perceived by more than one sense. Like the sound of clattering dishes, which can sometimes sound like bright blue sparks, or the smell of tonka bean, which feels somewhat like ochre velvet. In true synaesthetes, these associations are involuntary. Certain letters are always associated with certain colours, certain numbers with certain shapes or forms. A kind of voluntary synaesthetic response can be useful in articulating what may otherwise remain an ephemeral taste experience. We capture the even polish of a wine by describing it as round. Chiles are fiery. Cheese can be sharp.

The inspiration for the vibrant spice mix that makes this pie taste “luminous”, as one guest described it, is the variegated foliage of October trees shot through with low, afternoon sun.

There are strong, distinct colours – you’ll taste the ginger, and probably the orange peel – but the overall effect is a bright harmony of dazzling colour. I hope you’ll enjoy its flavour as much as we have. » Read the rest of this entry «