Travel food: 100% rug!

So this is where I gush about how much I love foreign grocery stores.  On my latest trip to Europe, the type of shop I spent the most time in by far was grocery stores.  In Norway it was out of necessity; $8 for some flatbrød was the best deal we found, and when we got to the camping village where the only restaurant’s cheapest item was $20 soup, it was the flatbrød and cream cheese that we feasted on.

In Britain it was a slightly different story.  I love their shops because there are a few areas in which they are light years ahead of North Americans: chocolate bars, chips (crisps), and above all else, dairy.  They have the best cream there.  The really heavy “pouring” cream that just makes everything spectacular.  And better yoghurt too.  Ah, how I miss it.

Happiness is

A box of teeny-tiny French macarons, expertly prepared by the Duchess Bake Shop.  A perfect quick outing to break up the workday.

Speaking of stuff you shouldn’t eat…

Along with my husband and another couple, we performed a highly scientific taste-test of 3 varieties of Kraft Dinner a couple of weeks ago.  This sprang up from said husband and I coming upon the new cauliflower KD in the grocery store and wanting to find out if there was any difference between that and the regular stuff.  Like most things, we just had to take it that little bit further and involve other fun people who lack sanity in equal amounts.

The method: We cooked all of the macaroni at the same time so that everything would be at a similar temperature when served.  We used butter in all three batches (this was no time for calorie-counting).  We did not salt the water, nor add any external foodstuffs to the cooked pasta.  This was KD in its purest form.  Varieties used were Original, Spirals and KD Smart (with cauliflower: “A ½ serving of vegetables!”)

The madness: The three kinds we tried all tasted surprisingly different!  I’ll admit that going into this, I was convinced that they would all taste extremely similar, if not identical.

On eating stuff that may not count as “food”

I like to eat.  I think this much is obvious.  I suppose I would label myself as a foodie, but not necessarily as a food snob.  Is McDonald’s awful in mind, body and soul?  Yes.  Is it sometimes pleasant to eat a burger that is completely homogenous in texture, from bun to burger and then back to bun?  Also yes…once a year or so.  This lends credence to my overall life philosophy of “If you admit that it’s crap, then it’s ok to consume.”  It works particularly well with music that I am too ashamed to admit that I listen to, even under the cover of anonymous internet darkness.

Alliterative pizza

So I’m back from my overseas trip.  In a word, it was awesome.  So awesome, in fact, that the only thing stopping me from just defecting to Great Britain was the fact that my husband was still in Canada.  Other than that, I was ready to abandon Edmonton and just stay where I was.

At any rate, food of course was one of the highlights of my trip.  Not least of all was a new pizza topping combination I tried in Norway (which by the way is expensive beyond all reason but also beautiful and so worth a visit).  A random pizza place was the only thing my cousin and I could find open on the first night of our trip.  We were in Bergen and very hungry after our climb straight up Ulriken, which I was woefully unprepared for, in terms of both physical fitness and attire.  He chose the “Solemio,” a mix of pepperoni and pineapple.  It was unexpected and strange, but delicious.

This is why I love my husband

My beloved will eat anything I make.  He won’t like everything I produce, but I figure I’m running at around a 90% success rate with him.

He doesn’t cook nearly as much as I do; I like playing with my food and experimenting in the kitchen, so I cook and he does the laundry.  It’s a division-of-labour system that works for us.  This is not to say, however, that he is a bad cook.  Quite the opposite.  He makes a mean key lime pie, and he’s done Martha Stewart’s macaroni and cheese recipe to perfection.

He has now added to his repertoire a recipe for vegetarian lasagne, composed of shallots, noodles and a bechamel sauce.  It is amazing and impressive and he’s wonderful.

I’m writing this now because I’ve been in a different country since last Tuesday and I miss him.  I’m loving my vacation, but I miss that guy.  And his lasagne.

Sukke chole

When I went to Britain in 2007, I picked up a cookbook I’d heard about on a (non-food) podcast I listen to.  It’s called Cooking Like Mummyji and I love it.  The author is a first-generation Brit whose family is Indian.  The book is full of her family’s relatively simple recipes that combine the Asian culture her parents grew up in with typical British ingredients (like baked beans and HP sauce).  It’s by far the best travel souvenir I’ve ever brought home with me.

Sukke chole means “dry chickpeas,” and while the recipe is very good, I always add extra tomatoes because I like a little sauce.  It’s easy to make and great with some plain brown rice; a perfect healthy, hearty weeknight meal.

Of listening and eating

In mid-2006, I bought my first (and only, to date) iPod.  That was quickly followed by my first Macbook.  Now, as amazing as those two products are, my conversion to the cult of Mac is not what this post is about.  Shortly after learning to use the basic functions of iTunes, I discovered the wonder that is the world of podcasts.  I listen to several different ones, and they get me through my commute to and from work, long walks in the ravine area, and perhaps most importantly, long journeys around this country and others.

Mushroom strudel

Feel like you don’t have enough fungus in your diet?  This recipe, from Smitten Kitchen (a blog I recently discovered but love), will cram a whooooooole lot of it into your belly in one shot.  I didn’t really use the exact recipe from the site, although looking back I really wish I would have remembered to add the sherry.  Still, butter and garlic in a pan combined with mushrooms always yields a good result in my opinion.  I used about 7 phyllo pastry sheets and rolled everything up into one big log, baked it for about half an hour in a 350˚F oven, and sliced it into 4 servings when I was done.  I didn’t even use any fancy mushrooms; just your basic brown grocery store variety.  Although I would love to get fancy and use a wild mushroom mix next time I make this.

Even my husband, a long-time mushroom hater, (“It’s a texture thing, sweetie…”) enjoyed this and said he would eat it if I made it again.

Travesty mallow

For our apartment-warming a couple of months back, I decided to make a big batch of marshmallows that I could just set out for people to help themselves to.  It worked out well in the end, because I just made them all the night before and didn’t have to worry about clearing fridge space or anything.  I just sat them out on the table and cut them up before the party.

To make them special, I did three different flavours: chocolate swirl, rhubarb (sooooooooo delicious), and mint, because I have a mint plant in a pot on a shelf.   Fresh mint will be even better than mint extract! I thought to myself. But I have to tell you, internet, it was not better. Not even a little bit.  The stiff block of icky green mallow I flipped out of its container the next day was indeed a travesty upon its kind.  In short: it doesn’t go in your mouth.  My husband was fascinated it by the texture though, and before we threw it out he had to take a big bite out of it.  Why?

“Because when else am I going to be able to take a bite out of a GIANT BLOCK OF MARSHMALLOW?”