Cheers.

Posted on by zollipop
7

A funny thing happened in Paris:  I went there in August, shortly after my last post, looking for food.  I was down in the dumps and I figured some solid French meals would cheer me up.

Then, walking down a cobblestone side street in the Jewish Pletzl, I lost my appetite.  I don’t just mean for the imminent meal (falafel, what else?) – but I lost my craving for the ‘next great meal’ in general.  I considered the possibility that I was depressed.  But I don’t think that’s it, exactly.

Rewind fifteen years: I’m sitting on a hand-me-down couch from my grandparent’s basement, in a city far away from home.  I don’t own a cookbook, but I do own a TV.  The TV is sitting on a cardboard box, draped in a scrap of cloth from the bargain bin.  The cloth is brown with lighter brown stars. I have just been dumped by my boyfriend and it’s Friday night, so I am watching TV by myself.

But I have just made a bowl of the proverbial homemade chicken noodle soup, and each slurp calms my frazzled soul.  So much so that when the budget allows it, I buy a set of good quality pots before a new couch or a TV stand.

And then came the cookbooks, dozens of them, hundreds of them.  Phenomenal meals (if I do say so myself) came out of my kitchen.  Men arrived. Men left, or more often were asked to leave, but the meals kept coming. Eventually one man, a truly wonderful man, arrived and stayed.  He too likes my cooking.

I started writing about food, researching things like perogies and bacon with librarian-like meticulousness. For a time, I was obsessed with pearl barley.

Through phyllo dough and cheese fondue and roasted eggplants I set things right in my world – I added and subtracted and tinkered and stirred, and always came out with something tasty in the end.

But in August, something went really wrong, something too big to contain in a pot on my stove. And my need to tinker and stir, well, that evaporated, right along with my desire to write about it.

It really happened in an instant, right on that side street in Paris.  Poof! I plunked down on a stoop, cried a bit as passersby averted their eyes, then I went and ambivalently ate a falafel.

In the four months since then, I have thought a lot about my relationship with food, and I have come up with some ideas. Ideas which, in my mind, are too private and precious to write about in bite-sized snippets on a blog.

So I thank you, sincerely, for joining me for appetizers over the past two years. And for your tremendous and unexpected support. I’m done here for now, but I do hope you’ll join me for the main course, which should be ready to eat in a couple of years.

Cheers.

Or, Put Your Money Where Someone Else’s Mouth Is…

Posted on by zollipop
2

The first time we went to Vegas, I decided to splurge, and we spent an absurd amount of money on a meal that made me nauseous by its excess.  When I got home, I did a little research, and found out that a family in Africa could eat for four months on the amount I had spent on one meal.  Then I got even more nauseous, and a family in Africa got four months worth of food.

My last post discussed 529 Wellington, where the higher prices are justified by higher quality as compared to other restaurants around.  But when considered on a global/ethical scale, is this sort of expense ever really justifiable? Does anyone need to eat prime beef when there are children clamouring to eat corn?  Looking at the map above, it’s hard to answer ‘yes’ to that question with a clear conscience.

According to the World Food Programme, there are nearly a billion people in the world who go to bed hungry every night, whereas I often go to bed in a anabolic state which is only adding to my waistline. Some of those hungry live in Canada; according to Winnipeg Harvest almost 900 000 Canadians were forced to rely on food banks last year.

That $300 dinner from 529 Wellington?  I could have fed dinner to 2000 refugees through the World Food Programme instead.

Ideally, we would all give up any money that we don’t need to maintain a comfortable life to those less fortunate than ourselves. But the scope of global poverty would indicate that that is not likely to happen … some Winnipeggers subsist on canned food from Giant Tiger, there’s famine in Somalia right now, and precedent would indicate that richer people will continue to spend lavishly on gourmet food.

Am I an asshole? Two thousand hungry refugees say ‘yes’. Is this an indelible stain on my karma? Quite possibly.  Am I alone? No.  Can I still feed dinner to two thousand hungry refugees?  Why, yes, actually, I can.

Next time you decide treat yourself to some luxury, put some money where someone else’s mouth is too.  Say grace around your posh table and give thanks for all that you have.  Then follow it up by giving to one of these tremendous organizations:

Winnipeg Harvest

Main Street Project

World Food Programme

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is…

Posted on by zollipop
Reply

Here’s my two cents on 529 Wellington:

Without a doubt,  it is the toniest steakhouse in Winnipeg.  An steak will set you back around $40, and since all the sides are à la carte, you’re looking at around $140 per head for a full steak dinner (including appetizer, entree, dessert, wine, tax, tip), or, fourteen thousand cents.

But I don’t think they’re trying to rip anyone off, as evidenced by their very reasonable lunch prices.  The French Onion soup is a complete meal for $9.00; for that you get a swirl of slow-cooked onions hiding under a thick raft of cheese and croutons, topped table side with port.  Or, you can get a Cajun Chicken Caesar for $15.00, which is only three dollars more than what you would pay at Applebees, but easily three times the quality.  The lunch sandwiches and burgers are uncomplicated, tasty, and appropriately priced.

529 Wellington

So what are you paying for when you drop $300 on a dinner for two at 529 Wellington?  Well, prime beef for one – the higher price is reflected in the aging and the marbling.  You’re also paying for an on-site wine expert, meticulously sourced ingredients, the attention of knowledgeable waitstaff, and the pleasure of sitting in a lavishly restored 1912 mansion. You don’t have to raise your voice to have a conversation with your fellow diners, which in my aging mind is always worth a few bucks.

Apart from bovine indulgences, 529 Wellington offers a top-notch seafood selection.  You can say ‘hi’ to your lobster before it hits the pot.  The shrimp cocktail is on steroids, and the same shrimp sauteed in garlic parsley butter is swoon-worthy. I was underwhelmed on one visit by my Ahi Tuna – when you’re serving only a naked, seared chunk of tuna on a plate, the seasoning has to be right.  On a recent visit to the mercifully relaxing lounge we indulged in a farm-fresh tomato mozzarella salad, along with poutine with foie gras. I paid doubly for that meal – once with my Visa, and again when I looked at my ass in the mirror the next morning.

Are these restaurants for everyone, every time? No, definitely not.  I usually feel a little nauseous when the bill comes. And I must mention that there are Winnipeg restaurants like Segovia and Deseo where you will get an equally excellent meal in a refined environment, but for half the price.

So is it reasonable for any restaurant to charge $300 for dinner?  Maybe, if the price is justified by the quality. Like with anything else, if you’re going to ask a diner to put their money where there mouth is, you better do so too.

529 Wellington on Urbanspoon

Gettin’ Cheggy Wit’ It

Posted on by zollipop
9

Put the 'Ch' in 'Cheggy'

Imagine you are sitting in an orchard in the Garden of Eden, nibbling on plump mahogany cherries which for some reason have been beamed up from British Columbia.  Suddenly, a chasm opens at your feet and starts venting sulfurous gas.

Are you enjoying the cherries still?  I thought not. Did the combination of stone fruit and egg aromas prompt you to create a new word? Yes? Then you, my friend, have just got cheggy wit’ it.

Na na na na nana na.

Such was my experience with cherry clafoutis.

Inspired by summer, I bought way more produce than we could reasonably eat, and soon after I was confronted by a pound of BC cherries on the verge of wastage.  What better way to use them than in a clafoutis, I thought.  Since none of my cookbooks contained a recipe, I printed one off of Epicurious and got out the flour.

When I was pouring the batter over the pitted cherries, a little cherub on my shoulder said, “Gee, this looks awfully thin.”. But I ignored her.  The consequence:

Cheggy Clafoutis

The Larousse Gastronomique describes clafoutis as, “A dessert from the Limousin region of France, consisting of black cherries arranged in a buttered dish and covered with a fairly thick batter.”  I see.  My clafoutis had the taste and texture of cherry scrambled eggs.  Refusing to admit the defeat, we picked cherries off the top for a few minutes, but eventually we just started laughing and invented a new word.

On further review, it seems that the recipe called for more eggs and way less flour than in the textbook version of the dessert.

The take home message?  Never, ever, trust your summer fruit to Google search. Na na na na nana na.

Mmmmmmangoes at The Forks! For Real!

Posted on by zollipop
3

In my last post on the produce stand at The Forks, I mentioned that I didn’t think they should be displaying mushy mangoes, shrunken kiwis, and/or Kraft Dinner above local tomatoes.  Then I received a bunch of comments, some of which were too zesty to publish, calling me all sorts of things that kinda hurt my feelings.

I spent I while working on writing stinging rebuffs, but the process was damaging to my karma. Eventually, I decided to just publish these photos, say “Thank You”, take a small amount of credit even if I don’t deserve it, and move on.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Pardon the blurry/overexposed photos, I was on the move.

You see, it appears someone is not only listening, but open to change.  I revisited Casa Bella yesterday, fearful that I would be recognized and pelted with a dessicated tropical fruit, but it would appear that the problems I highlighted last week were, ahem, solved. In fact, all that produce was looking at least as pert as at the grocery store, and there were some great looking local lima beans.  Nary an overripe mango, kiwi, or banana in sight.

And when the produce I see gets me thinking ‘dinner’, I start appreciating all the other vendors at The Forks even more. Suddenly the cinnamon buns from Tall Grass Prairie Bakery smell irresistible, and the local pickles from Grass Roots Prairie Kitchen bring back fond memories of my grandmother’s pantry.  I am torn on a snack: a dosa from A Taste of Sri Lanka, a roti from Bindy’s, a hot dog from Skinner’s, or perogies from Yudyta’s?

Or should I just grab some sparkling wine from Fenton’s, go home and sit in the gazebo with my wonderful husband, and raise a toast to that lowly rutabaga who started it all?

(Confused by this post?  Click here and then here and then here and then here)