And a foodie new year

Our annual new year gourmet dinner was held January 2, giving us a day’s break from New Year’s Eve dinner, and the day following (today) to rest up before heading back to work.

First course: Wild mushroom toasts

Originally my idea was to have lobster bisque as the first course, but I changed my mind based on:

  1. Feeling that soup might be too heavy a starter for an also fairly heavy main course.
  2. A sense that I didn’t really want to kill anything to ring in the new year, but that frozen lobster might be sub-par.

So, we went back to a fairly standard item at these dinners, wild mushrooms. But a new recipe, from Fine Cooking magazine.

The one ingredient I wasn’t able to find was crème fraîche. But I did find instructions on how to make your own. Basically, it’s this:

  1. Add 1 Tablespoon buttermilk to 1 cup slightly warm whipping cream.
  2. Let that sit on your kitchen for about a day and half, stirring every once in a while, til it’s thick.
  3. Put it in the fridge.

Isn’t that weird? You’d think leaving dairy products out at room temperature for so long would be a bad thing, but we did eat that yesterday with no ill effects, so I guess not. (I also don’t understand why that’s called crème fraîche, which literally means fresh cream.) It didn’t seem to impart that much taste to the dish, which mostly tasted of mushrooms. I think it was more about adding texture.

Adding crème fraîche to the mushrooms:

Women in black dress top and pants stirring white stuff.

The wine we had with this course was a 2007 California Beringer Pinot Noir. We’d bought it that same day, in the “last chance” bin, just on the thought that Pinot would be good with mushrooms. Turned out to be a very nice wine.

Plate of toasts with mushrooms and possibly cheese on top, bottle of Beringer wine, and wine glass presumably containing this wine.

The soundtrack for this course was my Get Happy! playlist. Looks like it worked:

Woman smiling in front of plate of mushrooms on toast and glass of red wine.

Second course: Seared Scallops with Spiced Mango Coulis

The recipe we used here was from the New England Culinary Institute, and we picked it (the recipe) up while on vacation in Vermont. It was super-easy, though; the most challenging part, which Jean took on, was peeling and slicing the mango. Half a mango decorated the plates, and the rest was blended with ingredients like ginger, white wine, and clove, to make a coulis.

Happily, we were able to find some beautiful, large sea scallops at Sobey’s, and then you don’t have to do much to them. Salt, pepper, sear in a bit of grapeseed oil, then drizzle on a bit of olive oil.

Plate of mango and scallops on mango sauce. Bottle of white Bourgogne wine. Glass of wine and water, and more mango sauce in a fancy cup.

The result was just delicious… My second-favorite dish of the night. (And Jean’s number 1.)

Woman eating scallops and mango, with a calico cat on the seat beside her.

The wine was a French Chardonnay we had on hand, that wasn’t spectacular in itself, but went quite nicely with this food (which you really didn’t want to upstage). Moments after this photo was taken, a bit of an accident occurred. It made us really happy this was a white wine:

Glass of white wine balancing on a bottle of wine, over a white tablecloth table.

I guess the soundtrack for this portion—the Thoughtful playlist—wasn’t quite as effective.

Third course: Venison Osso Bucco with side of Vegetable Barley

This was the one course planned well ahead, when I spotted the venison osso bucco cuts at Brady’s. I then scoured the Internet for recipes, since I’d never made any kind of osso bucco before. I finally settled on a recipe from cdkitchen.com, which involved cooking it with lemons, oranges, carrot juice, red wine, juniper berries (which I couldn’t find, so I substituted gin), chicken broth, and various veggies. It wasn’t too hard at all.

Unfortunately, the results were disappointing. For whatever reason—having to scale down the recipe size, not using the best pots, whatever—the meat just wasn’t tender enough. It was tasty, but lacked that “falling off the bone” quality. If I try it again, I think I’ll go for a slow cooker method.

Bottle of Zinfandel wine, plate of osso bucco with fruit on it and side of barley, glass of wine and water.

The barley side dish, though deliberately unexciting, was quite nice. I started with a recipe from Taste of Home, but made some changes: Cooked it in chicken broth instead of just water, used carrots instead of red peppers, and reduced the amount of green onion.

The California Zinfandel wine we had with this was a Christmas gift this year, and man, that was a lot of wine. Big and fruity. Nice, though.

Soundtrack was an old standby for dining, my Beautiful Ones playlist.

Dessert: Chocolate soufflé

I wanted a light (tasting) dessert to round things off, and what could be lighter than soufflé? I’d never made it before, either, so again I had to search online for recipes. I ended up with a highly recommended one from Epicurious.com, which had the added bonus of being fine with making everything ahead and just baking it right before eating.

The ingredients were really simple: eggs, milk, sugar, and 10.5 ounces of “extra-bittersweet chocolate”. It was easily the most fun dish to prepare, starting with the need to round up six soufflé ramekins when we had no idea what those were. And the word just struck us as really funny, so we were giggling the whole time we gathered a dog’s breakfast of custard dishes, small corningware, and oven-safe storage containers we figured could substitute for ramekins.

Then it was all beating egg whites and melting chocolate and buttering and sugaring the faux ramekins, not to mention really enjoying licking all the bowls and spoons.

After baking, the moment of truth: Would the soufflés rise? But, they did, they did! (The photo is of them inside the oven.)

Chocolate souffles in oven.

While we considered port, we decided to open a Cabernet Franc ice wine from Stratus (a gift we received last Christmas) to serve with the soufflé. It was lovely.

Chocolate souffle and Stratus red ice wine bottle and glass.

What I wasn’t expecting, and loved, was the molten chocolate pool lying under the floating soufflé top:

Inside the souffle, liquid chocolate stuff.

This (unsurprisingly for me) was my favorite dish of the night. (And Jean’s #2.) The soundtrack for this portion of the evening was, of course, “Love, the sweetest thing” (that is, romantic songs).

Happy 2011, all.

My Christmas vacation

In this Christmas of such amazingly bad weather for so many would-be travelers, I guess I will start by saying that our travels couldn’t have been smoother. Crowds not that bad, all flights right on time, drives to and from airports not daunting.

And Timmins itself was really a winter wonderland this year. Not too cold (-8 C was the lowest we experienced), and this freezing “mist” followed by light snow and sun just caused all the trees to be beautifully coated in white.

(This post originally had photos of the winter wonderland, and of the family, but the image links have been broken and aren’t easily restored…)

Of course, the visit was about family, and we certainly got to see many of the local relatives. Christmas Eve we first attended my cousin’s Réveillon (as did my parents and my brother’s family), so I was able to see a number of cousins, aunts, uncles, second cousins, and such that I hadn’t seen in a while.

It was then off to the Lefebvre family Réveillon, which had a good turnout of all of Jean’s siblings and partners, and most of the nieces and nephews and their kids. The gift theme this year was food, and I think this was the funniest item that came out of the wrapped box:

(No idea! Picture is missing.)

Christmas morning was relatively quiet at McNair’s—just Jean and I and my parents doing our exchange, and talking to the Toronto sisters by phone. Though our gifts were not themed, there was still funny food to be had, in the form of chocolates labeled Better Than Sex.

Jean went off for a family skate, then came back in time to see my brother’s kids tear into their stockings and gifts from grandparents and aunts. It was the usual fun chaos and major haul, leaving Neal to mutter something about how we’re definitely “picking names” for the kids next year. We’ll see.

Family visits, at this house, at that house, continued for the rest of our Timmins time. We also got out for some walks, and to see some friends. We did no Boxing Day shopping, except a bit in online form. (Although one bit was rather large, as we’re now booked onto a European River Cruise with my parents. But more on that another time.)

Reno, part 1

The downstairs renovation planned out nearly a year ago finally resulted in one concrete action: the installation of a fireplace. Isn’t it beautiful?

Gas fireplace sticking out of the wall with piping visible behind it and framed in patchy drywall.

The fireplace itself is actually pretty attractive. The surroundings, at this point… Well…

But we are indeed pleased with how quiet the new fireplace is. We rarely used the old one because the fan was too loud. Not an issue here. And now we have proof that the downstairs gets 1 degree C colder than the main floor, so a little extra heat down there is welcome this time of year.

And whatever the funny-looking results, we paid for the installation of this, so the effort on our part was zero. That won’t be true of the next step, which is to put in new flooring. We’ll be picking something like laminate (though not wood-style), which isn’t supposed to be too hard to put down. What does seem nightmarishly hard? Moving everything out of that room. All those books? The treadmill? The TV, PVR, stereo equipment? The computers? Where the heck will it all that go in the meantime?

But that still lies ahead. First, to actually select the flooring…

I’m not a charity case

Unsolicited free items I have received from registered national charities:

  • Christmas cards and envelopes (enough to open my own little Hallmark store)
  • Address labels (enough to last me the rest of my life, I think)
  • Notepads
  • Pens
  • Christmas CD
  • Money (generally in coin form)
  • Reusable shopping bags
  • Calendars (and to think I used to enjoy buying those for myself)
  • Gift bags
  • Wrapping paper and bows
  • Organic fair trade tea
  • Birthday, symphathy, and “any occasion” cards and envelopes (for my expanding Hallmark store, I guess)
  • Scarf
  • T-shirt

And that’s just what I can remember off the top of my head. And in most cases, not even from charities I donate to.

Whatever surprise or delight I might have once felt in getting something for nothing is now lost under the sheer quantity of stuff coming in. It’s tipping toward making me feel punished rather than rewarded for donating regularly.

It must work, or they wouldn’t do it. But damn. How much more good could be done if they didn’t have to bribe people into donating?

And I can’t even blame this one all on Stephen Harper

This kinds of pisses me off:

Federal parties agree to scrap bill correcting voting inequalities

The Harper government and the opposition parties have agreed to quietly sink legislation that would have given Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta more seats in the House of Commons. As a result, urban and visible-minority voters will continue to be discriminated against in Parliament.

Under the legislation, Ontario would have received 18 new seats, British Columbia seven, and Alberta five, bringing all three provinces up to the level of representation in the House warranted by their populations.

Though the above is denied by the government, the bill has been given one day of debate so far, so it’s not exactly speeding on its way to passage. The fear, apparently, is of angering Quebec and Maritime voters.

So fellow Ontarians, BCers, and Albertans, if you really want to have an impact on the next federal election, you’d best move to another province, where your vote will actually have weight.

Because in Canada, everyone is equal. Only, some of us are more equal than others.

TV on DVD

In what’s feeling kind of like a retro activity these days, I’ve been watching some TV shows on DVD these days.

Angel Season 5. Probably haven’t seen it since it went off the year in 2004. I’d forgotten so many details it almost seemed new at times. I remembered that Angel and Spike had an epic fight over who got to shanshu, but forgotten just how awesome that entire episode—Destiny—was.

So good I had to rewatch with commentary. And be still my Spike-loving heart if the commentary didn’t reveal that in the first draft of the script, Angel won the fight. Only, after the scripting out each vampire’s arguments, they came to an inevitable conclusion: Spike was the better man. He was the deserving one.

And he won the fight.

(Vid above is a fan edit, not the original show.)

Then there’s Everwood, Season 1. This I can be forgiven for not remembering, as I’d never seen it before. I’d seen later season, but not the start of it all. As it was somehow in memory as a good but rather sentimental program, I was a bit startled by some of the rawness, as in the epic fight (another fight!) between father and son in the pilot, below.

Another example? Episode 4 dealt with a breakout of gonorrhea among the teens of the town. Gonorrhea of the throat, to be precise. (“But I’m a total virgin!”)

Finally, the much-lamented Freaks and Geeks, which lasted only one season, but launched so many careers:

  • This year’s Oscar host, James Franco.
  • Jason Segal of How I Met Your Mother and Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
  • John Francis Daley—Sweets on Bones
  • Seth Rogen, unlikely movie star and leading man
  • Busy Philips, now Laurie on Cougartown

And of course, that Judd Apatow guy.

The following short (1 minute) scene, in which Lindsay’s parents try to decipher the lyrics of The Who’s “Squeezebox”, is one of the damn funniest things I’ve ever seen.

I’ve got to watch the commentary track of that episode now.

High Tech / Low Tech: A joint project

I have friends who are really interested in photography, and one of the challenges some of them follow is this Sunday Stills idea, a weekly blogged photo challenge. A week or two ago the theme was High Tech / Low Tech, which resulted in two contrasting photos of eReader vs books: Robin’s | January’s (site no longer available!).

That led me to thinking it would be interesting to do that with music: LP > CD > iPod. Main problem was, I’m really not interested in staging or taking photographs. Fortunately, though, I live with someone who is. So the following is a joint effort. I picked out the items. Jean staged them, took several photos from many angles, selected the best ones, edited those to be better, and here we are:

Photo of Beatles LP and CD, Marianne Faithfull LP and CD, Queen LP and CD, Kate Bush LP and CD, The Doors LP and CD, and an iPod in the centre showing the Queen album (Hot Space).

The iPod is just so little, isn’t it? Dwarfed by the five albums it contains, not at all obvious that it contains thousands more.

Yet, the LP lives on as well, and I think this also shows why. So big. So tangible. So warm, as they say. With every new LP you buy today, you also get a code to download a digital copy. The best of both worlds.

Is it just me, or does the redesigned Globe kind of suck?

The Globe and Mail has spent a fortune redesigning itself—again. And certainly, I have no problem with the smaller page size, the increased colour, the glossy pages. But the content…?

The rumor was that, in trying to attract a younger audience (or something), there would be more “fluff”. But really, I find it’s in the “fluff”—the arts, the life stuff—that have been downsized the most.

The 7-day TV listings on Friday I used to program the PVR to? Gone.

Rick Salutin’s always interesting Friday column? Gone.

Tabitha Southby’s often hilarious Saturday column? Gone.

Movie reviews? Greatly reduced. Book reviews? Ditto.

The Style section, which I used to generally love despite its seemingly being aimed primarily at rich Torontonians, is barely worth looking at anymore. Pictures of expensive clothes. Repeats of the Style emails I already get. Russell Smith’s column reduced to a paragraph. Wine reviews now in list format, with rating numbers. So easy to scan—I sometimes miss it completely!

I’m starting to feel like I should be getting a discount, I’m getting so much less that actually seems worth reading. For the first time in many years, I’m actually thinking of cancelling my subscription.

What’s your point?

So I finally got my Scene card replaced.

I lost it quite some time ago, and I always found it irritating that I had to make a phone call—rather than fill in on some kind of online form—to get it replaced. So I didn’t bother. I don’t really go to Cineplex theatres all that often. I don’t like them. They’re tacky and crowded. Most of their movies play either too early, or too late. (6:45 or 10:00? These are my choices?) After charging me too much, they play too many commercials and movies. (The “pre-show”, they call it. Ha!)

But, if you want to see 3D or big-scale epics—and I sometimes do—they’re the only game in town.

And it would niggle at me that I’d have to say “No” to the “Do you have a Scene card?” prompt. So, having formed the plan to see The Social Network this weekend (review soon, but in short, it was good) I made the phone call and a new card is on its way. So someday, I may earn a free movie. At the theatre I hate going to.

Apparently Canadians are world leaders in having and using loyalty cards. Why just shop, when you can shop and earn points?

In fact, points accumulation is our cornerstone of our family budget. We have a joint MBNA TravelRewards card, and we use it as much as possible. Because we have family in Timmins, and it’s far to drive there, but expensive to fly. With this card, a mere 15,000 points gets you there by air, for only the cost of the taxes on the ticket. Yes, it has an $85 annual fee, but trust me, we save quite a bit more than that on each ticket. And yes, the interest rate on it is appalling, so it’s absolutely critical to pay it off in full each month. But so far, that’s not been a problem. And the points have also taken us to Boston and San Francisco.

But why stop there, eh? (That would hardly be Canadian.) So despite the resulting bulging wallet, I also carry:

  • Air Miles card. Though I get the majority of my Air Miles by paying my Primus phone bill, and few more from shopping online through their portal, I still carry the actual card around in case of stops at LCBO. Of course, I don’t use these points to travel—they accumulate far too slowly for that. Mostly, I cash them in for Chapters or iTunes gift cards. Which take three weeks to arrive, and then you have to go through the bother of redeeming before you have any actual free stuff in hand. Kind of an exercise in patience, this card.
  • Shopper’s Optimum card. Because I do go to Shopper’s semi-regularly. I don’t have much strategy here. I usually just wait until it gets to $10 off, then cash that in the next time I spend at least $60 there. I have no idea if that’s a wise approach.
  • Club Sobey’s, because it’s the nearest grocery story to my house, and actually, points accumulate pretty fast on this puppy, at least if you spend as much on food as we seem to. Strategy here is to redeem $15 once it reaches $30 off. (Because it’s faster to get from $15 to $30 off again than to start from $0.)
  • Beat Goes on card. A retro card, matching the retro products they carry (physical CD, LPs, and DVDs): Made of paper, you get a stamp with each purchase; when it’s full, you get a free CD or DVD.

Then there are all those stores who track your points for you, at the store, sans plastic. Meaning that I’m currently also accumulating points at:

Is that a lot? Am I a points queen, completely typical, or just a lightweight?

Apparently, I don’t see much of a downside to these reward programs. I did hear that those who are savvy about using points credit card (meaning they always pay them off, but also accumulate enough points to get rewards) have a slightly inflationary effect for everyone else who doesn’t do that. That is, prices rise slightly for all to help pay for my rewards. Umm, sorry about that, I guess.

And yes, there probably are times I’ve selected a particular product or even store because I get points there. But I don’t think it’s out of control yet.

Then, finally, the whole privacy issue. But really, given how much Google, for example, knows about me, what’s the big deal about Sobeys Inc. knowing that I buy food? Or Air Miles thinking I’m a wino with a modest phone bill and occasional online shopping habit? And Cineplex? They must think I haven’t been to a movie there in three years, when The Social Network caused me to break my fast.

All this for $36

In yet another week where we seem to have something on every night, tonight’s event was a wine-paired dinner at Bloom, the newly named student-run restaurant at Conestoga College. I just couldn’t resist the offer when it showed up in my mailbox.

It was a four-course dinner, with wine, for $36. The featured winery was Fielding Estates. The menu was as follows.

Amuse

Apple turnover, red pepper mousse, and spicy sausage of some type. Seems a weird mix, but every thing was quite nice.

Starter

Lobster Bisque scented with Vanilla and Basil

Wine: 2008 Fielding Chardonnay

I was very impressed with this wine, which turned out to be from a small batch of 200 cases, so I may not get to have it again. The lobster bisque was also nicely done. I wasn’t so sure about vanilla scenting it, but it was a moderate flavoring, just giving the soup a touch of sweetness. The little spoon we were given to eat it with was kind of awkward, but it did look cute with the little bowl.

Second course

Salt Cured Foie Gras accompanied by Mango and Pineapple Salsa served on Toasted Brioche

Wine: 2008 Fielding Gerwurztraminer

They do a nice cold foie gras here. It’s not strongly foie gras flavored, but has a lovely texture. Mango isn’t totally in season and so the texture wasn’t ideal, but that’s a quibble. The taste was still fine. The Gerwurtz, which is available at LCBO, was less impressive than the Chardonnay, but still a very nice wine.

Main course

Navarin of Lamb, Mint and Celeriac Sauce, Sweet Potato Rosti and Harvard Beets

Wine: 2008 Fielding Carbernet-Syrah

A “navarin” turns out to be a stew kind of thing, combined with peas and potatoes along with the celeriac. The whole thing had a slight sweetness that was quite appealing, and excellent texture. The rosti and beets were a little tougher than they should be, but tasted quite good.

The wine was delicious. Not big, but fruity enough and with the acidity necessary to make it food friendly. It’s a mix of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Syrah. Available from the winery.

Dessert

Chocolate and Caramel Baked Alaska

Wine: 2007 Select Late Harvest Gewurtztraminer

The wine was very nice, with an apple sweetness to it. It didn’t quite stand up to the dessert, but that’s OK.

The dessert on its own was quite fine. The caramel was pretty subtle, with the slightly chocolatey meringue and ice cream predominating.

All in all, definitely a deal for $36.

The service had the slight awkwardness one might expect of students learning their craft, though generally lacking in downright funny moments of the now mythical “wine cupboard” night. But it was slightly amusing to be told that they had only one type of tea, “and I’m not sure what it is. It starts with O.”