1) The Dotytron LOVES Pac Mall (Pacific Mall for the uninitiated) more than anything ever. We got roped into going with my mum to some Stem Cell fair her non-profit organization was running (the aim is to sign up more Chinese people to the stem cell database to increase the pool of potential matches) and the carrot was that we would pick up Beard Papa cream puffs on the way home. As we were wandering around Pac Mall waiting for the Beard Papa stand to open, the Dotytron sighed wistfully and said, "I wish there was a mall like this closer to where we live - I would be here ALL THE TIME." This is pretty significant considering the Dotytron hates malls, shopping, and once had a near-breakdown buying a pair of Birkenstocks in Florence with me and Dr. Rei in an episode that was immediately infamous. However, as the Dotytron noted, Pac Mall is filled with stores selling only what he likes: electronics, DVDs, ridiculous FOB apparel, bubble tea, Chinese food, weird herbal/medicinal ingredients.
2) The movie Babe 2: Pig in the City features a distinguished orangutan, who speaks in mellifluous, sonorous tones, who ALSO goes by the name Thelonius (pictured below.) LOL! It's spelled differently, we added the extra "o" to make it more in line with how the great Monk spelled it. We also found out recently that Thelonious Monk had a nephew named Theo Lonious, due to a birth certificate error.
3) Uncle Rico is apparently the biggest Price is Right fan of all time. Bruce Wayne downloaded Family Feud and Price is Right onto this iPad and it resulted in endless hours of entertainment over the weekend, replete with Uncle Rico exhibiting a startling knowledge of Price is Right tips, tricks, and lore.
4) Phoenix Restaurant, when they talk about their "house special" dessert, the "big toast" is NOT KIDDING about a) how big or b) how toast it is. Take a look at this thing!
It's basically a GIANT cube of the softest, sweetest, squishiest bread, completely devoid of nutritional or colonic value (no fibre here!), lightly toasted, scored on the inside and swabbed with salted, melted butter and then topped with ice cream (in the flavour of your choosing), whipped cream, strawberries and banana. This dessert has Dr. Rei written all over it. This dessert has anyone with tastebuds written all over it. I love Phoenix. Only there, can a table of 8 order at least one dish apiece, AND desserts AND drinks and have the bill come to just a hair (literally, like 38 cents) over $100, INCLUDING tip.
5) Paul Haggis is the WORST screenwriter/director of all time and the awarding of Crash the Best Picture Oscar of 2006 will go down in history as one of the biggest, bleeding-heart-iest mistakes in a long line of Academy liberalism. That is to say, that we rented The Next Three Days:
and it was terrible. It was pretty ridiculous, which should have been evident in the casting-against-type of the more comedically inclined Elizabeth Banks as an accused murderer (!) who has three days for her husband (Crowe) to break her out of county jail (!) before going away to a penitentiary for life. It was CRAZY STUPID. Gaping plot holes, hackneyed, whatever cleverness there was in the plot completely foiled by the implausibility and false urgency of the genius Pittsburgh police detectives cracking a case in 2 seconds. It was really really bad. Entertainingly so for my family, but allow me to save you two hours of your life. Instead of yelling at the TV, I'm sure you could find better ways to occupy yourself.
Friday night's pre-dodgeball dinner was a making-use-of-leftovers goodie. Pan-fried corned beef slices, pan-fried chestnut-herb stuffing cakes, fried egg. Nom nom nom!
Tonight we had a cobb salad (iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, turkey, avocadoes, hardboiled egg, crisped bacon, bleu d'Auvergne cheese, chives, dijon vinaigrette. So tasty! Loves me a protein-rich salad.
Here are two bonus pics of the Big Yam. One where he looks like a hipster farmer growing organic food in Portland, Oregon and the other where he looks like the little Star Eyes he is:
my wii age is 46 (i had the heroin hands when i was doing the calibration and my centre of gravity was all kinds of messed up.) the good news is, that according to the genetic juju people at mount sinai, my eggs and fallopian tubes have a reproductive age equivalent to a 15 year old. i'm still kind of thinking they might have gotten the results of the first trimester screen mixed up - but i think i'm just too superstitious.
this weekend was super-busy but super-fun. on saturday we saw another documentary, "cooking up dreams" which is about the unifying cultural significance of food in peru. it uses food as the basic unifying thread tying together the disparate cultures of peru (japanese, african, indigenous, spanish, mestizo) and champions the unique ingredients of the amazon. both high-end chefs and the cooking of the jungle are given equal attention...i thought it was great - it elicited a few reactions: intense hunger, desire to try peruvian food, desire to travel to peru. here's the trailer:
the director was there and he was so cute! such a smiley, good natured dude who you could tell was so happy to be there. i'm definitely putting toronto peruvian restos on my "to eat" list. it doesn't look like there's that many - the two main ones are el fogon and el plebeyo.
saturday night i got to scratch my hong kong style cafe itch (cha chaan teng) so we went to phoenix - the location on woodbine. i ordered a million dishes. usually at these places, you can get a "set meal" which includes a soup, some kind of bun, and a hot beverage - they're known for serving stuff like ovaltine and horlick's (the brit influence in hong kong) as well as a hot, very milky tea.
i upgraded ONE of my entrees to the set meal. the soups are generally something creamy and a borscht. i got the "seafood bisque":
this was a sweet-ish, thick, tomato-y bisque with bits of shredded crab. i drank this so quickly that the dotytron didn't get more than a couple of bites.
i also ordered a baked porkchop rice in cream sauce on rice (which has bits of scrambled egg mixed in.) this wasn't the best iteration of this dish that i've had - sometimes they mix in frozen veggies which breaks up the cream sauce but it was still really good. tender, fatty pork chop cutlets and a sauce reminiscent of the goop served on the classic yin-yang rice dish.
this was my ox tongue spaghetti (my SECOND entree) which again, while satisfying, was n't the best rendition of this dish that i've ever had. more veggies would have been nice and the sauce was really just canned tomato soup or something - it's always kind of tomato soup-y, but they usually add a little something something to gussy it up a bit. anyway, imagine super-tender pieces of ox tongue on a bed of spaghetti with ketchup/tomato soup sauce. i know it SOUNDS gross (and the dotytron certainly thought it WAS gross) but i like it.
dotytron got his beef flank malaysian curry with rice. so good.
then we met up with my little bros and we saw "kick-ass"
can i first say that we're finally feeling the results of the hollywood writer's strike? the summer movie previews have been A** ON A STICK. how many times do i have to see the trailer for "the expendables"? or "macgruber?" so brutal! there's nothing coming out this summer that i super-duper want to see. i mean, obviously "iron man 2" and maybe "salt" and definitely "eclipse" for kicks - but there aren't enough summer blockbuster tent poles. laaame!
anyway, "kick-ass" was okay. not really memorable...people were laughing in the theatre but i think it trades a lot on your ability to find an 11 year old saying the word "c**t" - i find those kinds of cheap laughs not really my style. i get it: it's shocking! the violence was pretty stylized and graphic - but i was kind of meh about the whole thing - it was empty spectacle and not particularly all that clever or winning (unlike say, rdj as tony stark in "iron man") it wasn't that it wasn't entertaining, it was just kind of forgettable overall.
the next morning we got up at SIX THIRTY AM to be keeners and to plant all the stuff we bought on saturday in the garden. the neighs were losing their minds. lol! this is what it looks like now that we mulched it tonight:
we put in a hydrangea and a wackload of perennials - some bee balm, some echinacea, some shasta daisies, and some creeping ground cover to hold in the edges of the garden, which are elevated. we also bought some blue fescue, which i like because it looks like a cute little sea urchin. i'm not doing food growing - there isn't room for that in the front and i didn't know how to elegantly divide the garden between food and flowers...we went the easy all perennial route. we also chunked up stuff from momma d's garden that she generously donated and planted that.
we mulched it tonight because we wanted to get a good rain in before we locked that moisture in - it's been so dry this april! the stepping stones we bought at this place called milliken farms, across from pac mall - we were going to do flagstones but the concrete circles were $3/piece! can't beat that. i think i'm going to lay out planter boxes along the lip of the enclosed porch and do herbs in there. it's looking pretty good! we'll shore up with a tonne more bulbs in the fall and see how things settle into place - we didn't pay much attention to when things bloomed, so we might have a spectacular late-summer show but nothing in early summer. it's a work in progress, right?
anyway, the neighbs are losing their minds about it. ha! the lady attached to us just had someone come in and give her a quote on designing their frontage - which i think is kind of ridiculous for such a tiny patch of ground, but whatevs.
after our morning being insane-o early riser gardeners (in our defense, we find it really relaxing working in the garden), we headed out to meet buns & xtina at stockyards for breakkie. now, we've been there before for dinnie and had a fairly negative experience, but the brunch card was too irresistible for a southron hound like myself. we WOULD have been on time (seriously, getting up at 6:30am on a sunday for a 9am brunch date? how could we be foiled?!?) except the dotytron refuses to ever check traffic and weather on the 1s (on am 640) and thus always gets PWNED driving - so we got owned by a stupid sporting life marathon down yonge street, which we HAD to cross to get to the west side of toronto. so aggravating!
xtina had the biscuits and sausage gravy which was a GIANT portion of creamy, crumbled sausage milk gravy on a split biscuit (biscuit was a leetle tough, but very tasty) served with soft-scrambled eggs. it was definitely the biggest portion of the day. she also got a side of the pit beans.
the dotytron and i went halfsies. he got the smoked meat hash which comes with two deep fried poach eggs (poached eggs that are lightly dredged in a sesaoned flour and fried) and a chive sour cream. this was REALLY good as well - the hash was basically almost mashed up potatoes mixed with smoked meat - so it didn't have any distinct potato-yness left to it - but it was hella tasty.
me and buns both ordered the "eggs tommy" which is a split biscuit, topped with andouille sausage, deep fried poach egg, cajun shrimp and a lemony hollandaise. it was also delightful. my only quibble is that the twice-cooking of the egg requires you to poach the egg way under so that it emerges from the fryer with a runny yolk intact. one of the eggs i received wasn't runny anymore, which is TOTALLY the point of an eggs benny, right? the andouille was fan-freaking-tastic in there. so good!
because i'm a giant hog, i also got a side of their house sausage - which consists of very thin patties of seasoned pork - the main seasoning i could taste was salt, so they could up the spice blend a bit more (sage, thyme, etc.)
it was really quiet in there - i was expecting a madhouse because toronto is SO brunch crazy and they've been written up recently in the free weeklies. i don't know if it was the rain, or the early brunching time, or where it's located, but it was very quiet - even when we left around 11ish it wasn't that busy - which is pretty darned ideal if you ask me. i hate lining up for brunch.
we spent the afternoon watering our garden and doing small house-y finishing things - hanging pictures, etc. and then we had dr. rei and hanbo over for dinner.
i made ginger-pear jam glazed ham, roasted asparagus, a mint and pea puree and scalloped potatoes and fennel with cheddar cheese. the scalloped potatoes were exceptionally good. i also made that orange cake again, this time upping the zest amount to 2 oranges' worth as well as increasing the sour cream by 1/4 c. i baked it in a 9" pan (i'm not sure how you'd fit it in an 8" pan) and frosted it with chocolate buttercream. it was a big hit. i could eat that thing all day. the recipe is at the end of the post.
today i spent a good chunk of my lunch hour on the horn with daycares putting spumante on the waiting list as well as calling contractors. it was negative fun.
for dinner i made us a spring pasta of spaghetti with the last of my chunk of guanciale, sliced artichoke hearts (so much prep!) and grated parm. we also had olive garden salad because i love it so.
1/2 c. unsalted butter, softened 3/4 cup sugar zest from 2 medium sized oranges 2 large eggs 3/4 cup sour cream 1/4 cup fresh orange juice 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- preheat oven to 350°F. grease a 9-inch round baking pan and line bottom with parchment, and then grease parchment. - beat together butter, sugar, and zest in a large bowl with an electric mixer until creamy, about 2 minutes. add eggs 1 at a time, beating until incorporated and scraping down bowl. - stir in sour cream and orange juice, then add remaining ingredients stirring until just combined. - transfer batter to baking pan and bake in middle of oven until golden and a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, about 30 to 40 minutes. - cool cake in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then turn out onto rack. discard paper and cool. - frost as desired.
notes: this would be equally tasty for an afternoon snack with just a dusting of confectioner's sugar, but could be gussied up with cream cheese frosting, an orange syrup (orange juice, sugar, maybe some orange liquer, heated together - poke holes in top of cake with skewer and pour syrup on top), chocolate ganache, or my favorite, with chocolate buttercream.
peep our food at phoenix. it was so good! we went buck and ordered a tonne of food. first up is my hainan chicken rice. soooo silky! they serve it with a mashed ginger dipping sauce and this sweet-sour thai style sauce. and a little cup of the broth for dipping:
dotytron got the beef tendon malaysian curry which is fragrant with coconut milk and slightly fishy-tasting (i mean that in a good, south asian kind of way) and has chunks of tender potato. served with rice:
then we split an order of deep fried fish and squid balls with spicy salt:
and we each got a red bean shake with vanilla ice cream. it's basically red bean on the bottom, shaved ice, vanilla ice cream and evaporated milk. i LOVE evaporated milk. my peeps generally do. one of my favorite dim sum dishes was almond milk jello with evaporated milk poured on top. or chilled mango pudding with evaporated milk. basically, evaporated milk makes gelatinized sweet dishes better:
in the interests of clarity and for your own personal edification, i've included pictures of the two kinds of rice. the top photo is the hainan chicken rice and the bottom is the steamed rice that came with the curry. you can see that the hainan rice is a slightly different colour and has a slight, oily sheen:
the funeral on saturday morning was really, really sad. it made me sad that my deadbeat dad didn't care enough to foster a better relationship between his kids and his family. uncle bruce was a really sweet, gentle, laid back guy - as my mum said, he would never get riled or get angsty over anything - just take it as it comes. his daughter's eulogy was so moving and i was so glad that the three of us kids and my mum went to show our support for the family. it was an emotionally draining morning. the chinese tradition is that after a funeral you have to go someplace to eat immediately after. so the four of us went to tim horton's and reminisced and talk smack about my deadbeat dad - it was very cathartic. then we had to go home and shower (another chinese tradition - so you're not carrying the funeral around with you?)
for lunch we went to takebashi, this japanese noodle place in markham. i had the shrimp and veggie udon ramen and we split a couple of caterpila (their spelling) rolls:
i somehow convinced the dotytron that we should do our grocery shopping on saturday, to get it out of the way. saturday, if you recall, was the wettest, coldest, most miserable day in recent memory. it was just unpleasant all around. the dotytron put up a good fight but eventually acquiesced. so we went out with our shopping bags and braved the stores on saturday afternoon, sheltered under the giant canopy of my bacardi golf umbrella. when we got to sun valley, i stood deliberating in front of the deli counter, thinking about what kind of olives to get. out of the corner of my eye, i see the tip of the golf umbrella (wielded by the dotytron) appear and rap imperiously on the glass of the display case: tap, tap, tap, on the glass of the display case, right where the pimento stuffed green olives are. i look up and the dotytron says, "get the pimento stuffed ones" [note: the dotytron in particular and the dotytron family in general has a peculiar yen for pimento stuffed green olives]. "i dunno," i said, "i want it for the olive garden salad, i think black olives would be better," instead of a reply, he gives me his ipso facto look and the stupid golf umbrella emerges and raps the glass again, TAP TAP TAP. lol! i dunno why, but the memory of the dotytron tapping on the glass of the deli case with that "you're an idiot, just listen to me" look on his face makes me howl every time i think about it.
on saturday night we went to our friend S and P's gorgeous, huge apartment in seaton village for dinner. it was such a feast! we had chai, this amazing butter chicken, a sag paneer, and a cauliflower and potato dish. there was also a chunky raita and a chickpea-parsley salad. steamed rice and naan. i stuffed myself silly. they totally set the bar HIGH for the next round of dinners with this crew. and for dessert we had P's patented "poopsicles" which are chocolate covered frozen bananas that he serves out of this poopsicle stand - it's kind of hard to explain but i guess for a while there in his early 20s he went around the country dragging this poopsicle stand in a trailer and selling poopsicles out of it. the stand is a big wooden contraption on 3 wheels. it was pretty hilarious.
sunday breakkie was a bacon, onion, thyme and goat's cheese frittata with whole wheat toast:
then i spent the day working on sashing my quilt top, went to a yoga class and at night had pizza and salad at the roomie's apartment - she consented to babysit me while the dotytron went and did boy stuff with his thornhill crew up in king city or some shiz.
so that's the boring rundown of a fairly uneventful weekend.
tonight for dinner i made us clam pizza with kale chips and steamed aritchokes with lemon-garlic butter. i LOVE new haven style clam pizza. LOVE LOVE LOVE it. basically what i do is start with a prepared pizza dough crust and roll it out thin. then i sauté some diced onion and garlic in a bit of butter, add whole manila clams in the shell and white wine and steam them until the clams are open. i take the meat out of the clams, discard the shells and take any clam liquid and put it back in the pan. i reduce the pan liquid until it's only about a few tablespoons. i brush the pizza crust with roasted garlic olive oil (or regular olive oil) scatter with the clam meat, drizzle with the reserved reduced juices with the onions and garlic, top with grated parm and some finely chopped parsley and cook as i would any pizza - on my pizza stone in a smoking hot oven.
kale chips are easy too - it was my first time making them. i tore up the big leaves of kale (i discard the stems) and rinsed them and dried them in my salad spinner. i tossed the dry leaves with some olive oil and kosher salt and put them on sheet pans in a hot oven until they got browned and crispy.
the artichokes i prepped so that they were basically just the hearts and cooked them in about 1" of acidulated water. sprinkled with salt and sauced with a couple of tablespoons of melted butter with minced garlic and lemon zest.
i have some film and book reviews for you tomorrow.
my name is karl lagerfeld. i'm a lucky button, buckshot shorty, and an industrious pig. i write about food, popular culture, film, books, politics, theory, and the ephemera of my life. a can of chinotto once ruined my night. the rest, as they say, is history.
