The Dog's Breakfast

Anyone who loves to cook knows what a pleasure it is to have good kitchen company. Much has been written on how important and meaningful it is to gather around the table and share meals, but I think there’s an even deeper satisfaction and nourishment that comes from sharing the kitchen. The chopping, stirring, washing, tasting – when shared, the small gestures that sustain the creative order of the kitchen also sustain some of our best friendships.

Crostinis waiting for a lashing of your best olive oil, and perhaps some pepper.

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Here is a delicious spring dessert that comes together quickly in a few simple steps. Frangipane, an almond-flavoured paste, adds rich fragrance to the tart and subtle richness to the fruit filling. In fact this is one of the best-smelling desserts we’ve ever baked. You might expect the rustic-looking pastry to be rustically tough, but it’s exquisitely light and crisp. » Read the rest of this entry «

Here in Québec, we’re known for our love of doing things a little differently. In the rest of Canada, we enjoy a long weekend in late May, in commemoration of Queen Victoria’s birthday, which was on May 25th.

The liquid yolk from the poached egg adds a rich creaminess to the vinaigrette.

Feelings toward the monarchy are not quite as warm in Québec, and the holiday was given a new name in 2002: la Fête des Patriotes. The holiday is emblematic of the independence movement in Québec, and like Memorial Day in the US (which generally falls a week later), it’s the unofficial first weekend of summer. » Read the rest of this entry «

Simple does not always mean easy, or fast. We’re learning that in the kitchen, actually, simple sometimes means slow, and somewhat laborious. We had in mind for this week’s entry a spring vegetable soup, with all of the tiny, tender green things that are finally starting to appear at the Jean-Talon market. Simple enough. After making it for what seemed like two days, however, it nearly got named “All Day Soup”. But we didn’t want to discourage you from trying it. It does take a lot of love, but you can really taste it in the end. There’s going to be no recipe for this one, because it’s really just a technique that you need to adapt to the things you find:

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Gin is in. After losing its place on the top shelf to a rainbow of flavoured vodkas, along came Mad Men, and now suddenly we all want to wear hats, and sheaths, and drink gin martinis. Saveur magazine’s April issue gives an interesting overview of the juniper-based spirit – what we all think of as gin is really just the dominant London Dry style, but new styles are emerging, and old ones are being resurrected as our craze for cocktails turns glamorously nostalgic.

Cucumber melon civiche with grapefruit and gin.

Our summer drink of choice has long been a gin and tonic made with Bombay Sapphire – what we call ‘the queen’s gin,’ because of the portrait of Queen Victoria on the bottle. But apparently this was just a marketing ploy, according to Merlin Grifftihs, who’s the global brand ambassador for Bombay Sapphire. He was promoting the drink in Montreal last week, alongside chef Martin Gosselin, who grilled delicious food pairings for gin cocktails. » Read the rest of this entry «

People are sometimes surprised to find out we’re not big restaurant-goers. You MUST try such-and-such a place, people say all the time, but we’d generally rather spend the money on ingredients to cook at home, and a nice bottle of wine. It’s so disappointing to go out, like we did last Friday, to a ‘famous’ place where you’re served more attitude than anything else. That’s not what we like to eat.

So we’re fans of the underdogs in the city that you don’t hear much about, like the little Italian place we went to last Tuesday. The walls are painted a lurid magenta, and the dog-eared menu is little more than a list of pastas and  sauces. » Read the rest of this entry «

There are few professions more truly glamorous than spice hunting. When you remember that the pursuit of exotic flavours has shaped the history of the world, and that pepper was once more valuable than gold, you might expect spice hunters Ethné and Philippe de Vienne to cultivate a certain professional mystique. Like Richard Branson. You’d think it would be good for – you know, their brand.

What we discovered, as we talked with them over lunch last week, was the surprising opposite: an entirely approachable pair of down-to-earth, lick-your-plate food lovers, driven by an inspiring philosophy of empowerment. They’re eager to make you feel at home, to give you a taste of what’s cooking, to open the vaults and show you the goods, to sit you down and tell you the secret of their success. They don’t want to be glamorous tastemakers, or build an illustrious empire. They want to give you the confidence to trust your own taste-buds, and connect you to the innate sense of wonder that will lead you to exciting discoveries of your own. » Read the rest of this entry «

I was lucky to be raised in a home that resisted the margarine revolution. My maternal grandmother was a nurse who trusted her instincts, and they just didn’t trust margarine. Despite the wave of bad press that saturated fats started getting in the 1950s, when scientists (wrongly) connected the increase in heart disease to increased animal fat consumption, my grandmother felt that butter, being a natural product, must somehow be good for you.

She would be happy to see the trans-fat backlash that’s going on. And probably point out that even though we eat a fraction of the amount of butter that people consumed when she was a girl, somehow everyone is fatter. » Read the rest of this entry «

We’re hugely inspired at the moment by the writings of Ethné and Philippe de Vienne, a pair of spice hunters whose two boutiques at the Jean-Talon market are so full of thrilling ingredients that we are faced with the choice of having to stop shopping there, or moving into a larger house.

The pizza we made this weekend as the opener at a collaborative dinner party doesn’t actually use any of their incredible ingredients, but our current zest for novelty, and this new recipe in particular, are guided by the sense of adventure that the de Vienne’s boutiques and writings inspire. » Read the rest of this entry «

A delicious testament to the value of trial and error. This is something we tasted in a restaurant around the corner about a year ago, and tried to re-create a good half dozen times at home. It’s never easy to guess what’s gone into a dish you’re served in a restaurant, and in trying, we got things quite wrong several times.

Minced beef tenderloin and fresh red bird's eye chilies.

The idea is simple enough – a kind of Southwestern beef tartare. Slow burn, fresh green, and a smoky sweetness that brings it all together. » Read the rest of this entry «