Canadian Food Two Ways
At the risk of turning this into a foodie blog...
I like to cook. A lot. I find the whole process relaxing, from the planning to the shopping to the preparing to the cleaning up. Those who know me well can attest to the fact that I pretty much ALWAYS have food on my mind, so I suppose it's a natural extension. Which is how I ended up cooking in two different kitchens in the past two days.
Cooking in your own home is one thing. Cooking in someone else's home is an entirely different proposition. Especially when you're trying really hard to impress someone. Without burning the house down.
'Canadian Food' take one: Hamburgers and sweet potato fries, with a side of pear salad.
Rationale: Everyone likes hamburgers. Hamburgers are easy to make. All of the ingredients are readily available and reasonably cheap. Watching people attempt to shove an overloaded bun into their mouth inevitably makes people smile.
Process:
Shopping: Go with Mabel to the local 'supermarket' - a two-storey warehouse with dim lights that resembles a farmer's market back home but without the health code keeping things tidy. Choose a slab of (unrefrigerated) beef hanging from the ceiling on a rusty metal hook, dripping blood all over the counter (upon which said slab is henceforth thrown). Have butcher run slab through meat grinder. Pay, and walk happily away with bloody sack. Haggle over the price of onions, mushrooms, sweet potatoes, walnuts, and pears, eventually making some vendors happy and upsetting others. Dig through a pile of medicinal dried stuff (herbs? fungi? roots? bark?) looking (successfully) for cinnamon. Choose appropriate honey from a row of gleaming, stainless steel vats (whose labels I can't read). Buy a bag of crusty muslim round bread to stand in as buns.
Preparing: Carry the groceries up 4 flights of stairs. Dust off coffee table in living room and counter in kitchen to spread food on. Take ALL plates and bowls out of the cupboard, and double up ingredients since there are still not enough places to put them all. Scrub potatoes in sink, then use bent coat hanger to unclog drain so downstairs neighbours aren't flooded out (again). Peel and slice pears with miniscule swiss army knife. Chop everything else with massive meat cleaver roughly as sharp as a plastic spoon.
Cooking: Light gas range and step back far enough that the enormous flames don't singe your eyebrows off. Put gigantic cast-iron wok on left burner, put tiny frying pan on right burner. Fill both with (peanut) oil. Juggle the cooking of ALL ingredients in the same 2 pots, flames leaping and smoke further blackening the soot black tiles. Serve in plastic face-washing basin, in lieu of adequate plates, long after everyone is half starved from the wait.
Eating: Crusty muslim bread is not a good substitute for buns. It's like trying to eat 3 hamburgers simultaneously rather than just one. The bread doesn't squash down at all, making everyone's jaws pop (not just mine), and since it's heavier than the meat everyone feels like they're eating the entire cow. The sweet potatoes are mushy, not crispy, for reasons unknown (though they taste good). The pears are divine, but we eat so much other food that shovelling them in makes us all half sick. Mmm, mmm, good.
'Canadian food' take two: Rotini with meat sauce, side of pears (the pears were really stellar the night before...).
Rationale: 6-year old Paula specially requested 'Canadian Noodles' for dinner. Paula's mother Lily specifically asked for 'NOT noodles'.
Process:
Shopping: Take a bus to the gleaming French chain 'Carrefour World Store'. Pick up a can of tomato paste and some whole wheat rotini in the imported food section. Buy pre-ground beef, inspected and dated, from the refrigerated meat section. Fill an enormous bag with tomatoes and pay by weight. Pick up real French baguette. Throw in some impulse buys to round out the sauce, and just for fun (Chinese medicine flavoured Crest - yummy!).
Preparing: Dig around in Lily's well-appointed cupboards like I own the place, use everything I can find.
Cooking: Simmer the tomatoes with 'Italian Blend Herbs' (thank you imported food aisle!), meat, garlic, onions, trying all the while to remember if it's tomatoes or beets that you can peel just by throwing hot water at. Relish the scent of really good homemade sauce filling up the house hours before it's needed. Reheat sauce just before serving, toss with freshly boiled pasta.
Eating: Dish up steaming mounds of pasta loaded with sauce, hand out crusty, garlic coated baguette wedges. Watch Paula do a little dance of joy as she dives in with both spoon and chopsticks simultaneously. Laugh as she says first in Chinese then in English (repeat ad infinitum) how much she LOVES 'Canadian Noodles'. Eat, eat, eat. Put leftovers in refrigerator and prepare to eat again for breakfast.
I like to cook. A lot. I find the whole process relaxing, from the planning to the shopping to the preparing to the cleaning up. Those who know me well can attest to the fact that I pretty much ALWAYS have food on my mind, so I suppose it's a natural extension. Which is how I ended up cooking in two different kitchens in the past two days.
Cooking in your own home is one thing. Cooking in someone else's home is an entirely different proposition. Especially when you're trying really hard to impress someone. Without burning the house down.
'Canadian Food' take one: Hamburgers and sweet potato fries, with a side of pear salad.
Rationale: Everyone likes hamburgers. Hamburgers are easy to make. All of the ingredients are readily available and reasonably cheap. Watching people attempt to shove an overloaded bun into their mouth inevitably makes people smile.
Process:
Shopping: Go with Mabel to the local 'supermarket' - a two-storey warehouse with dim lights that resembles a farmer's market back home but without the health code keeping things tidy. Choose a slab of (unrefrigerated) beef hanging from the ceiling on a rusty metal hook, dripping blood all over the counter (upon which said slab is henceforth thrown). Have butcher run slab through meat grinder. Pay, and walk happily away with bloody sack. Haggle over the price of onions, mushrooms, sweet potatoes, walnuts, and pears, eventually making some vendors happy and upsetting others. Dig through a pile of medicinal dried stuff (herbs? fungi? roots? bark?) looking (successfully) for cinnamon. Choose appropriate honey from a row of gleaming, stainless steel vats (whose labels I can't read). Buy a bag of crusty muslim round bread to stand in as buns.
Preparing: Carry the groceries up 4 flights of stairs. Dust off coffee table in living room and counter in kitchen to spread food on. Take ALL plates and bowls out of the cupboard, and double up ingredients since there are still not enough places to put them all. Scrub potatoes in sink, then use bent coat hanger to unclog drain so downstairs neighbours aren't flooded out (again). Peel and slice pears with miniscule swiss army knife. Chop everything else with massive meat cleaver roughly as sharp as a plastic spoon.
Cooking: Light gas range and step back far enough that the enormous flames don't singe your eyebrows off. Put gigantic cast-iron wok on left burner, put tiny frying pan on right burner. Fill both with (peanut) oil. Juggle the cooking of ALL ingredients in the same 2 pots, flames leaping and smoke further blackening the soot black tiles. Serve in plastic face-washing basin, in lieu of adequate plates, long after everyone is half starved from the wait.
Eating: Crusty muslim bread is not a good substitute for buns. It's like trying to eat 3 hamburgers simultaneously rather than just one. The bread doesn't squash down at all, making everyone's jaws pop (not just mine), and since it's heavier than the meat everyone feels like they're eating the entire cow. The sweet potatoes are mushy, not crispy, for reasons unknown (though they taste good). The pears are divine, but we eat so much other food that shovelling them in makes us all half sick. Mmm, mmm, good.
'Canadian food' take two: Rotini with meat sauce, side of pears (the pears were really stellar the night before...).
Rationale: 6-year old Paula specially requested 'Canadian Noodles' for dinner. Paula's mother Lily specifically asked for 'NOT noodles'.
Process:
Shopping: Take a bus to the gleaming French chain 'Carrefour World Store'. Pick up a can of tomato paste and some whole wheat rotini in the imported food section. Buy pre-ground beef, inspected and dated, from the refrigerated meat section. Fill an enormous bag with tomatoes and pay by weight. Pick up real French baguette. Throw in some impulse buys to round out the sauce, and just for fun (Chinese medicine flavoured Crest - yummy!).
Preparing: Dig around in Lily's well-appointed cupboards like I own the place, use everything I can find.
Cooking: Simmer the tomatoes with 'Italian Blend Herbs' (thank you imported food aisle!), meat, garlic, onions, trying all the while to remember if it's tomatoes or beets that you can peel just by throwing hot water at. Relish the scent of really good homemade sauce filling up the house hours before it's needed. Reheat sauce just before serving, toss with freshly boiled pasta.
Eating: Dish up steaming mounds of pasta loaded with sauce, hand out crusty, garlic coated baguette wedges. Watch Paula do a little dance of joy as she dives in with both spoon and chopsticks simultaneously. Laugh as she says first in Chinese then in English (repeat ad infinitum) how much she LOVES 'Canadian Noodles'. Eat, eat, eat. Put leftovers in refrigerator and prepare to eat again for breakfast.
posted by Roberta | 11:27 PM
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