A couple of friends returned from a trip to Tokyo with treasures! Edamame crackers, wasabi biscuits, strawberry milk-chocolate cornflake balls, "tree ring" swiss roll-like cookies, yuzu prawn crackers, tiramisu cookies shaped like mushrooms....and the most bizarre item? Ramune flavored Kit Kat. The chocolate coating is light blue and it smells really strongly of bubble gum. It tastes mildly like 7-up. Not unpleasant, just odd.
I spent several weeks in Toronto (and Montreal, briefly) in September and am now just going through my photos and food memories.
Quick catch up after spending weeks in a culinary wasteland...I made a proscuitto, mushroom and chives tart using organic frozen puff pastry. 
Feeling deprived of fresh greens, I also had an enormous craving for caesar salad.
And a quick snack..."japanese" meatballs.
Basically pan-fried Ikea frozen meatballs (not bad for frozen meat) with ottogi (pork cutlet sauce), Kewpie mayo, toasted sesame seeds and dried nori strips.
The weather's suddenly beautiful, spring is arriving, and hopefully I'll be hitting some markets soon. It's good to be back.
Schweppe's Bitter Lemon - Sweet fancy moses, I've finally found the soda for me! Not sugary, but fresh and lemony with a slightly quinine taste. Individual cans are sold at Famous Foods on Kingsway, though I've yet to see them available by the case or in bottles.
Pastes in tubes - Tomato, anchovy, wasabi, harissa. Tubes are the way to go.
Porcelain grater - Made for grating ginger, this is also fantastic for garlic. I've never liked using a garlic press and this grater makes short work of a couple of cloves. It's also much easier to clean and can be had for $2 in Chinatown. It made the list of 15 Useful Kitchen Items over at The Kitchn
Non-stick cheese grater - I hate washing those big metal box graters, when the cheese bits and residue stick around the sharp edges. Years ago I found one at HomeSense, with a black non-stick coating, and it takes all of three seconds to clean.
Best new bread bakery - Mediterranean Bakery. Select Safeways carried them for a time and they have a location at Park Royal in West Vancouver, but I trek to Meinhardt's to pick them up. I prefer their Italian loaves over others' because they're consistent and reliably good, as well as being 95% certified organic.
Favorite Breads - Swiss Bakery's Country Rye and Onion Walnut. The latter is fantastic for a roast beef sandwich, or with turkey and cranberry chutney. Mediterranean Bakery's Parmesan Bread toasted with heapings of extra cheese and eaten with tomato soup. Terra Bread's Fig and Anise, my favorite bread to snack on.
Still thinking about... - The warm madelines from DB Bistro. Like eating baked, little, fluffy clouds. The gyu tataki and buttery rich Monkfish liver at Nanchu. The Opera a la Noisette from Ganache, the best treat I had this Halloween.
All I want for Christmas - Was for Congee Noodle House (on Main off Broadway) to reopen. It's been under renovations since early November, and I just can't get my congee fix anywhere else.
In Memoriam - Farewell, Think! cafe (W. 10th at Sasamat). Goodbye, Pho Bich Nga (this legendarily-named Vietnamese restaurant was at Victoria & Kingsway). See ya, Caffe de Medici.
My list of Hots and Nots in the sidebar probably bear some explanation. You probably have your own or think I'm nuts, so feel free to argue your case or share your thoughts in the comments.
1. Butter vs. Margarine - Come on. They're both evil (margarine = hydrogenated vegetable and/or soybean oil = trans fat), so why would you want to skimp on the taste? The only reasonably non-vomitous facsimile that I've found is Earth Balance. Expeller-pressed, non-GMO, 100% vegan--it must be the least evil condiment in existence. They probably even donate a percentage of their profits to help save baby seals from being clubbed to death or something.
2. Kleen Kanteen vs. Nalgene - You know this one already. I'm actually not too concerned with the plastic stuff as long as you're not storing months-old liquid in it to feed your newborn, but that Nalgene crap is ugly and heavy anyways. Aluminum bottles are much lighter, particularly when you're lugging around a litre or two of water. I prefer Kleen Kanteen over those Sigg bottles simply because they don't have that narrow neck which forces you to buy their over-priced cleaning brush just to keep that jug of yours germ-free.
3. Epicurean Cutting Boards vs. Magnetic Knife Racks - Ok, it's not really a good comparison, but Epicurean cutting boards rock my world. Made from sustainable pressed wood, they're light, they're NSF-approved (resists bacteria), won't dull your knives, heat-resistant and dishwasher safe. Magnetic knife racks...ok, I know many of my friends have them and my last place had one too. And it was a pain in the ass. I didn't find it a very secure way to store my knives, the look of a wall full of exposed blades never sat right with me, and it was a little awkward to use, the way I'd have to maneuver the knife off the wall. I prefer storing knives in a drawer--I think it feels more natural bringing the knife out of a sliding drawer already in position to use on the cutting board.
4. Chopsticks vs. Sporks - Another easy one. Having been raised in an Asian family, I firmly believe that chopsticks are the ultimate utensil. Those will real skill can eat nearly any meal without needing any other tool. Sporks are just retarded. They neither spoon nor fork well. Actually, chopsticks probably trump both table knives and forks too.
5. Prep bowls vs. Pinch bowls - I've never found those teeny tiny bowls to be good for anything other than to look cute in a Martha Stewart magazine. Then again, I never cook by measuring out every ingredient beforehand, so whatever. If a spice calls for a "pinch" or "dash", I just "pinch" and "dash" it in when the time comes.
6. Garburators vs. Magnetic Spice Jars - Well, garburators just rock. I miss having one. Magnetic spice jars look nifty, but they're a bit of a pain to use (you need to make sure the lids are really secure, since they're stored vertically). People also tend to stick them near or on their stove tops to save space, and I always think that the heat from your elements will shorten your spices' shelf life.
7. Matcha Tea vs. Mate Tea - Simple: one tastes awesome, the other tastes gross. I like drinking a sweetened, cold matcha with milk drink in the summer, and hot matcha with some red bean sweets in the winter. Mate tea is just nasty.
Stay tuned for Part II!
Ok, what is the deal? I had a whole mussels meal planned for Canada Day dinner and I went all over town (well, to all the big grocery stores anyways) and was thwarted at every turn. I saw plenty in tanks just the day before (and had been planning the meal every since) but what the feck happened today? Did I get there too late? Or is Vancouver just out of mussels? Plenty of clams, lobster and fish, but where are my fresh mussels?!?
Wow, it's been a while since I last checked in here! Not having eaten in nearly eleven months, I am sooo hungry. But at least I look fantastic, right?
Kidding aside, I've had a series of rather calamitous events--one of which resulted in the loss of all my photos and data on my hard drive. In the meanwhile, I've had an interesting food year, starting with meeting various people and sampling various things at Eat!Vancouver, as the food fair's name so admonishes. If I could eat Vancouver, I reckon the city would taste like wet pavement, with the texture of fresh salmon smoked with some car exhaust. I also had some rather unsuccessful attempts at making latte art, ate rare bison for the first time, cheered when Hung won Top Chef, mourned the loss of Eco Il Pane, resolved to buy only free-range eggs, and made a decent Christmas dinner for eight.
The latter task involved brining a 15-pound turkey for one and a half days (though next time we are aiming for 2 days' time), served with roasted chestnut stuffing, real gravy (made from the turkey giblets), an orange and cranberry sauce, ratatouille* (Thomas Keller's recipe from the Pixar movie), beef bourguignon, and a potato and onion dish. Quick cheese twists made with store-bought puff pastry and the simple desert of wine-poached pears start and finished the meal. Unfortunately this was all undocumented, so you'll have to take my word that the dishes were mostly colorful and the turkey juicy with frequent basting.
Well, I've got a bunch of other things I've been waiting a while to say here so I hope to be back and posting regularly again.
*Our first attempt at the ratatouille dish yielded a surfeit of vegetables--we could have easily filled two large casserole dishes--and we found better results when eschewing a mandoline during prepping.
