wildly inconsistent

I like to cook for others. I like to explore simple baking, easy dishes that taste good. Cookies recently, but also some dinners I've not bothered to blog, such as tonight's turkey thigh oven-braised with chorizo, then sliced and served on rapini with a reduction of the braising liquid. Nothing too hard, truly, but tasty just the same.

My trouble is that I'm lazy and careless and don't do things with much precision. Tonight's cookies being a case in point. I won't even photograph the peanut crisps that varied so badly from sheet to sheet. I will say that it is the tastiest cookie dough I've eaten in ages - I think I made a second dinner of it tonight. The results, though, don't please me outright, and I'm forced to pick through them to find reasonable-looking ones to take up to the UP this coming weekend.

The other cookie tonight was also a Martha recipe, done for the first time. I just about choked after I made the dough and saw that it makes only 1 dozen cookies - some big cookies, I tell you. The Ne Plus Ultra Cookie, it is called. Or, we could call it one honking big chocolate chip cookie that also includes nuts and raisins.

:-)

Even these were not consistently sized, and again I'm picking out the better ones to go up north.

[sigh]

As for the others, well, doubtless someone at work will eat them!

Custom House dinner

Conrad is away, and for the most part, I'm being reclusive. Time at home, spent quietly alone. It's not a bad thing.

Wednesday night, though, I did get out of the house for a good dinner with a friend from grad school. Deanna was in town, on a work trip that is seeing her through a few major US cities. Conrad and I had shared a meal with her in Paris a few years back, and now that she was on her first time in Chicago, she returned the favour. Over a few hours at Custom House, we caught up. An enjoyable time, most of all for the company. The food, however, did it's part, too.

I'd only been to Custom House once before, not long after it opened (I think) and for brunch. I had been curious about it for dinner, in fact, and with Deanna's hotel within walking distance of the restaurant, it was convenient to meet there.

I don't have full menu descriptions, just a rough idea of what we had.

My dinner: veal cheeks served with a marrow bruschetta. I've long liked marrow, in fact, though I seldom have it. This was deliciously nutty in flavour.

We shared side dishes: a squash puree and a potato and sheep's milk cheese gratin. Behind those two dishes you can see Deanna's dinner of rabbit.

I liked dessert more than dinner, though dinner was fine. Deanna had a gingerbread, which the waiter advised us had some real kick to it. It tasted fine, but it was not so strong as he seemed to think. My dessert was a frozen honey custard (lovely!) with caramelized onion cake. Think zucchini bread, but made with caramelized onions, and light and spongy. I could definitely taste the onion, but it melded well with the custard and sauce. Good stuff.

So add Custom House to the list of places to go back to and try more things. Meaty meals to be had there - no bad thing. In the meantime, Deanna should be winding down her trip in San Francisco before heading back to Paris. I hope she's enjoying the west coast and dining well there!

off to Hawaii again

No, not me. Conrad. He leaves tomorrow (Tuesday) morning and returns a week from Wednesday. Meanwhile, I'll hold down the fort in Chicago, spend a mostly anti-social weekend watching Angel on DVD, and maybe bake some. Fun times.

This will be him (though on Oahu, not Maui, as in these photos from last month).




This will be me (or something like this).

This is what it really should be.

I'll miss him.

AIDS Walk Chicago, 2008

Yes, there is a scantily-clad man in this blog entry. Oh come on, this is a gay man's blog, after all!

Yesterday was a glorious late summer Saturday in Chicago, a perfect morning for the 2008 AIDS Walk. I'm proud to say that my friends supported me in good number and in generous donation: over $1000. Thank you all.

I did the walk as part of the Fester and Jensen team? Why them? Dan is a friend, and in addition, he's my financial advisor. His business is built around financial services to the community, and his interest in the AIDS Walk was sincere for all that it may have been a marketing tool. The scantily clad man drew a number of people to the booth - no harm in that if the money raised is going to the people who need it (Chicago House, in our case).

I have no pictures from the walk - I was too busy chatting with the team mates - just some from before the walk started and afterwards, when a handful of us set off through Grant Park and Millennium Park to get to the parking garage. Blue skies, blue shirts, a tiny set of briefs, and lovely Chicago scenery - that's what you're getting in this entry!

PB cookies

It's really not a secret anymore that as dear as the NBF is to me, I have a horrible, unrequited crush on his BF. Jeph knows it, Conrad knows it, Brett knows it. It's a source of deserved teasing of me - by all three of them, plus a few others. Worse, they sometimes encourage the crush - darn them.

Ah well, may as well enjoy it. So long as Brett is being a sweetheart as well as a cutie, I'll maintain my silly little crush and do things like this: bake cookies for his upcoming birthday.

Jeph told me that PB cookies are Brett's favourites, but of course I can't do just a simple cookie. Oh no. Out came the new Martha Stewart cookbook and two recipes. Shown, then on the tray are an outer ring of peanut butter cookies that include salted peanuts. The inner set are peanut butter, chocolate chip, and oatmeal cookies. If Brett doesn't care for either or both, well, I suspect Jeph may pitch in a munch on one or two...

Happy birthday Brett! Enjoy!

two September dinners

Monday night (last night): cornmeal crusted pan-fried salmon with a warm relish of yellow squash, corn, capers, and chorizo. Not bad. OK. The sauce was milder flavoured than I thought it might be. Still, I'm not displeased. We had some Mark West Pinot Noir with this.

Tuesday night (tonight): Country style pork shoulder ribs braised with dried porcini mushrooms, fava bean puree, beet greens, and a reduction of the braising liquid. You know? I was kind of impressed. The puree was really lovely - sweet bean flavour against the saltier reduction. The pork was tender. I haven't had beet greens in years, but the remain a vegetable I enjoy immensely. We sat on the balcony and downed the rest of the McManis Viognier I used in making the braising liquid. Tasty!

ViJ's Rangoli

We usually try to make it to ViJ's at least once on each Vancouver visit. Far and away our favourite restaurant in the city, we both will tell you. My sister loves it, too - happy for us if ever we want to dine with her. It's like Vancouver's version of Frontera Grill, but with Indian food. Search the blog and you'll find a fraction of the number of times we've enjoyed his food.

We didn't make it to ViJ's this time, alas, but we did enjoy his food twice. Smart man - you can buy his food in boil-in-the-bag pouches. We had a lovely last night with Marie enjoying some of that for dinner, plus our last bottle of Joie Noble Blend. And where did we buy the food? It's available in some stores (including Edible BC, a place we love), but Conrad and I picked it up at ViJ's Rangoli the same place we'd enjoyed lunch a few days earlier.

Rangoli is spare, casual, full of young hipsters (but never mind - they have to eat somewhere, after all), and serving good food. Dine, and then pick up something to keep in the freezer for later in the week. Yum!

Conrad had the pulled pork. Funnily enough, the waitress got to the table and was setting down a plate for Conrad, announcing what it was, and even as the words came out of her mouth, she knew it wasn't right. It went back immediately, and Conrad was treated to some flat bread and chutney. He managed just fine, and no hard feelings. The pulled pork was delicious - I kind of wish I'd ordered it, but he expressed interest in it first.

As for me, I had the goat and jackfruit. I promise, it, too, was delicious. Utterly. The side of cabbage slaw was tinged with coconut but not really sweet. I was very happy with it, and because Conrad was driving us around, I got to indulge in a glass of Monster Riesling.

ViJ's is always worth the sometimes very lengthy wait, but I would not decline a meal at its sister restaurant next door. Another place to add to the Vancouver list...

three times the fun?

I jest - an afternoon in the kitchen, baking cookies, actually isn't fun. I like it, believe me. It's what I do. But by the end of it, over-indulged with cookie dough and back sore from hunching over counters to trim and cut and roll, I'm not having fun. It's something else.

Eh, whatever it is, someone gets a treat out of it.

I spent yesterday afternoon continuing my exploration of the great cookbook Conrad's sister Karen got for me (and she and her family will benefit in a day or two from the cookies, as they will many more times in the future, I think). All told, I think I made in the neighbourhood of 12-15 dozen. Not too shabby.

One of the three recipes I'd made before, the chocolate gingerbread cookies. These turned out to be a bit inconsistent from pan to pan, and I wonder if making a double batch rather than two separate batches is partly to blame. Ah well.

The lime meltaways were fairly easy to make, though a bit messy with coating them in icing sugar. Still, I was pleased by the ease of them, and I will likely come back to them again. I would bet they'd fare nicely with dishes of a citrus sorbet for a summer dessert.

My favourites? The coconut macadamia shortbreads. I made the dough a few days before hand and chilled it until Sunday. No harm done to it for that. I loved the scent, the flavour, and the relative ease of working them. I even felt the triangles were a nice visually-appealing shape. I definitely will bring those back at Christmas, if not before.

insomnia

I hate this. Was it the strong lattes this morning? Is it anxiety over the article draft? Is it simply one of my occasional bouts of insomnia?

In bed at 10:00. A few minutes before, in fact. At 11:41ish (yes, I looked at the clock) I gave up. It's now 3:54. I've gone to the end of the Internet and back (well, no, but I did read a bunch of forum postings on TWOP), and I've finished - totally - a draft of the article.

Now what? Watch 80s videos on YouTube until it's time to get ready to go swimming? Sit and read more of the Emily Carr books I've been working through? Crawl into bed for one hour or so of just lying there?

I hate this.

If I doze off in a meeting or two tomorrow, it won't be too out of the ordinary, but it will be forgivable, I hope.

Ah, to be in the state of rest shown here. NYC in January 2003. I was too deep asleep to realize Conrad was up to mischief with the camera. Hmmm, should I sneak into the bedroom and take a stealth photo of him, swaddled in his many layers?

tough having to come home

A gorgeous, sunny morning in Vancouver, and I can only admire it from the airport lounge where I'm sitting, awaiting a flight to Chicago in an hour. For all that I get razzed at work for my travel, there are things that weigh heavily. I love Chicago, but the pull of my country is stronger with each visit. Will there come a day when I will simply not leave Vancouver?

To look at some shots from part of an afternoon spent relaxing at Stanley Park, I kind of wonder...

it's beginning to look a lot like...

... no, really. Kind of. At least at The Bay they're getting a jump on the season.



It IS only 3.5 months away. And (I almost but not quite) blush to admit, Christmas music has crept into my playlist in recent weeks...

new Vancouver Yoshi's?

Dinner for two of us last night (well, originally dinner with a couple of friends from Terrace who, alas, had to cancel) grew to three with the addition of Marie and then four when we saw Mark at the hospital. No matter, the more the merrier for trying out a place new to us: Aurora Bistro.

You know, Conrad may have nailed it. We should cultivate this place as our Vancouver Yoshi's. We liked it, in other words. It's only about a 20 minute walk from our condo, the service wasn't polished but was friendly (to the point where the hostess - or was she the sommelier? - was offering to open a bottle of wine not normally served by the glass as well as bringing Conrad a pour of a dessert wine she was recommending), the food was very good, the emphasis on local products was appreciated, and the wine list had many tantalizing options. So yes, we liked it.

Plus it was nice to sit down and get to know Mark a little better. The age gap between me and Marie, on the one side, and Mark and his brothers is large enough that we've never really gotten to know them. How pleasant to be able to do so over some good food and wine.

On to the meal...

Conrad's Olive Oil Poached Albacore Tuna on a salad of navy beans, pickled red onions, and smoked tomato vinaigrette.

Mark's soup of the day featuring corn, peaches, and (I think) pine mushroom.

My (poorly photographed) tempura fried morel filled with shrimp mousse.

Marie's Sapo Brovo Heirloom Tomatoes & Fairburn Farms Buffalo Mozzarella with Walla Walla onions, basil, organic olive oil and balsamic vinegar.


With our first course we shared a bottle of a Kettle Valley Semillon Sauvignon Blanc.

Our mains:

Marie's Sablefish in Sakekasu & Maple Marinade with chive and fingerling potato omelette, wakame-truffle broth, and pickled baby shitake mushrooms.

My Roasted Ling Cod with lobster mushroom succotash, sweet corn polenta, and truffle foam.

Conrad and Mark each had the same meal: a shoulder cut of Sloping Hill Pork. I was eying the fennel in Mark's bowl and hoping that he might not care for that vegetable. No such luck.

We chanced a potentially heavy wine with the main course, but, as with most BC reds, it was lighter bodied and not overwhelming for either fish dish. The 2004 Petales d'Osoyoos is a Merlot blend that we all drank down happily.

On to dessert (and yes, that's me, laboriously texting, sending my sister a message to shut off her darn phone during dinner. It kept vibrating in her pocket, and she'd check who it was and then ignore it. Marie, I love you, but you're not so important that on a Friday evening you can't shut off your phone while dining with family.)...

Marie and Mark each opted for the same thing (and I would have ordered it, too, had I ordered dessert): the olive oil almond cake with preserved rhubarb and creme fraiche. They also each had a glass of the suggested wine pairing, the Quails Gate Botrytis Affected Optima.

Conrad and I, meanwhile, shared cheeses. He had a glass of a Quails Gate Cabernet Sauvignon, while I went with the Venturi-Schulze Brandenburg No. 3. It was at this point that Conrad was offered a small pour of an Elephant Island Stellaport, a port-style wine made from cherries. Lovely cheeses, too. Among them (because I can't remember them all but that all of them are BC cheeses) were a gouda from Gort's in Salmon Arm, the Tiger Blue from Poplar Grove in Naramata, and a few others alongside.

Ah, happiness. We'll want to go back and try other things there, fish through the wine list for more interesting pairings. Well done Aurora Bistro - we hope you're what we've been looking for in Vancouver!

simple dinner party fare

Steven and Jenny came over last night - we hadn't seen them in quite some time since our last trip to Vancouver coincided with their summer vacation to Florida. We were glad to have the place tidied some and some proper deck furniture for them to sit on, and all in all, is was a good dinner with them.

We were pretty pressed for time yesterday, what with visiting Dad and some other errands. I felt a little harried through dinner, and so I decided not to subject them to photographs of their food. After they left, I replated some things and snapped away. Marie was home late, and she needed dinner, so the replated food served as her meal.

We snacked on some simple things out on the balcony: caribou pate, fig cake, fig and olive toasts, and a Fraser Valley ash chevrotina we picked up at les amis du FROMAGE; olives, and some nuts I toasted and tossed with some seasonings. Conrad and I shared with them the Hula O Maui sparkling wine we bought a few weeks back, hearkening back to when we went to Steven and Jenny's for dinner and they shared a bottle of Volcano White from the Big Island. You know, it was pineapple wine, but it was light and crisp.

Dinner is slightly misrepresented here. The side greens (arugula with tomatoes, red onion, and pomegranate seeds) are not dressed with the simple vinaigrette I made, nor are there any pieces of the corn on the cob I quickly cooked. The true star - pale as it may be against that bright green arugula - is the meat pie. It's a take-off on an old restaurant stand by, a Cajun meat pie. I winged it some, and it could have been prettier, but the pork filling was very nicely seasoned even if it wasn't all that spicy in the end.

For dessert, I have to thank my old friend/former colleague Gail. She got me the recipe for the Black Magic chocolate cake we used to make at the restaurant, and I knew Conrad would thrill to this dessert. It's one of the best chocolate cake recipes I've ever known. Though I was scrambling to frost it up until the minute the guests walked in the door, I was pleased with the result, and I hope the pieces I sent home with Steven and Jenny will make their kids happy.

And then I went to bed. Feeling very tired, very fat, very heavy. Well fed and exhausted. I was up a little later than usual this morning, and I've not yet bothered with either coffee or breakfast. We definitely will go have a swim today!

Lamb, peaches

So there we were, on our way home from Stanley Park by way of popping in on Dad, and Conrad tells me that he'd kind of like some red meat for dinner. Hmmm. Already almost 5:00. Oh boy, this might be fun.

It wasn't, not totally. But I made it through, and while I'm hardly entirely happy with the dinner I made, I will agree that it was edible. And the parsnips kind of rocked.

It ended up being a slightly late dinner with a few things done with the materials on hand rather than with what I felt I needed. String, for example. Always nice to be able to tie up roasts with string. I remembered for the first minute or so while at Save-On Foods, and then POOF! Gone from my mind.

We had lamb for dinner. I took a butterflied leg and filled it with a mixture of pine nuts, currants, Manchego, shallots, and spinach. Rolled it and roasted it, then served slices atop a bed of a parsnip and leek puree, some lentils alongside. With this we sipped an Oak Bay Vineyard (by St. Hubertus) Pinot Meunier.

Dessert worked out a little better. I had a few BC yellow peaches. A boiling water bath did not loosen the skins as I'd have liked, so I peeled them roughly, then poached them some in a Riesling, honey, and lime syrup. I removed the peaches before they were too soft, then reduced the syrup and let the peach halves sit soaking in it, spooning more syrup on them on occasion. With more time, it may have been a better dessert. Still, I liked that the lime gave the syrup some tang and some bitterness (from the zest), and set against some local blackberries and a scoop of vanilla ice milk, it made for a lighter dessert that we all enjoyed.

And now it's blogging before doing some reading, a bit of a Cedar Creek Platinum Reserve 2005 Pinot Noir sitting by me. Why yes, we do try to drink A LOT of BC wine back home in BC...

Night Market

Return of the egg balls, y'all!

Our condo location close to Chinatown
readily affords us the opportunity to shop, dine, and walk in that neighbourhood. A pity, really, that we don't do that as much as we should. Still, once in a while we make it there, like last night.

After dinner (pork chops coated with coarse mustard and saltine crumbs, served with steamed zucchini ribbons and a topping of leeks and Pink Lady apple - not one of my best efforts ever, but not too bad, and the Cedar Creek Dry Riesling went well enough with it), we got another layer on (it's cooler here than back home) and headed the few blocks into Chinatown to the Night Market.

The sun was low, but the blocked off street was fairly packed. Nice to see. We wandered through, not really intending to buy things, more just to look.
Not to buy? Whoops, I lie. I wanted egg balls again. Happily, we found the same stand as last year and got a nice order made up fresh. We ate them far too quickly - essentially, they are lightly sweet waffles, so they were our dessert. Yum. I have to admit, though, I was totally eying up/lusting for the fish grilling at the stall next to the egg balls stall!


We finished the evening (and a lovely sunset it was) with some goat milk gouda and a bottle of Domaine de Chaberton Gamay Noir, an excellent recommendation by the folks at Taylorwood Wines. Conrad and I sat out on the balcony and could see the Chinatown activity winding down as it got darker.