Meet the supervisors

Big time, pig time

I’ll admit that there are worse tragedies than what I’m about to tell you.

I have too much bacon. So much, in fact, that my entire life revolves around a simple, but pressing question: How can I use it all up before it’s too late?

I took the bag of beautiful, pink streaked stuff out of the freezer on Tuesday. It was heavy, like a sack of apples. Two or three pounds of bacon? Maybe more.

I’ve carved dent in it since I embarked on the pork bender. But I need to use it up before it becomes bachelor bacon---the stuff university students find at the back of their fridge, craggy, brown and dry. I swear, some people will shrug, and fry it up in last night's oiled pan, still on the stove from drunken, greasy fried eggs. Have I ever done this? Nooooo. Maybe.

Yesterday, to keep my bacon sanity, I cracked open a brick of a book, Nigel Slater’s Tender. I think the book weighs about the same as the bag of bacon did, when I thawed it out.

So I consulted dear Mister Slater, and he told me (in his chapter on broccoli) that I should make a nice soup, creamy green, rich and meaty, akin to a simple ham and pea soup. Bacon broccoli soup is nothing groundbreaking, but it’s a lifesaver when you need something green to cut the massive amounts of cholesterol chugging through your arteries.

Broccoli and bacon soup

Adapted from a recipe in Nigel Slater's Tender, volume 1

Serves 6

A medium onion, roughly chopped

A good knob of butter

200 grams bacon, cut into 2 cm long pieces

3 potatoes, scrubbed and cubed

1 1/2 litres chicken stock (or ham, for a very pea-soupiness)

A bunch of broccoli, about 300 grams, cut into pieces with stems no thicker than your thumb

150 ml milk

Soften the onion in a large, heavy soup pot in the butter until just translucent, but not browned. Add the half the bacon, and the potatoes. Stir and let the flavours come together, with as little browning as possible. Add the stock, and bring up to a nice boil. Reduce, and simmer for fifteen minutes, or until your potatoes collapse against the slight pressure of a spoon.

Now, add your cut broccoli. The exact shape of your veggies doesn't matter; you'll be pureeing the soup anyway. Let everything gently simmer for ten minutes, until the broccoli is nice and soft, but still brilliant green.

In the meantime, fry up the remaining bacon. Set aside, on a paper towel.

Add the milk to the soup, and heat through back to the simmer. Turn the heat off, and blend to a rough puree (I like to discover tender pieces of vegetable in my pureed soups). Serve in bowls with the crisp bacon pieces on the surface.

From Motors to Maize

You might think I’ve forgotten you. I haven’t.

I haven’t been around La Cuisinette because I've been having a hoot producing radio. Some of you may know that I'm a freelance journalist, doing my best to make a living. I've had a very lucky streak, and have had loads of work over the last few months.

While I might not have been blogging about food lately, I have been thinking about it an awful lot.

Last week, I worked at As It Happens, the CBC's flagship current affairs program. That’s where I make a living, mostly. It's a great place to work, and I'm lucky to be able to pitch stories that I think are important.

Which is where Detroit, Michigan's urban agriculture movement comes in. Over the week, As It Happens told the story of a city in the midst of change. Here is my favourite interview of that series, which I produced.

So that’s what I’m up to, when I’m not blogging. But do stick around. I promise more recipes and more photos…as soon as I find the damn camera charger. In the meantime, hear the sounds of radio.

Back Porch scenes

You may have noticed, I’ve been talking a lot about Manitoba. Now I’m back in Toronto, after a blissfully relaxing two weeks at my parents’ farm in Sainte-Anne, Manitoba.

I played with the border collies, walked on the frozen river with my mum and helped (sometimes) with feeding grain. And because my parents have been locavores since before locavores appeared in the lexicon, and because Manitoba winter’s are, um, harsh, eating locally means eating cheese and meat. Lots of it. Potatoes, onions and beets too. And some sharp, crisp pickles. I return to Toronto well fed and, I think, slightly fat. I feel great.

I also did some eating outside the farm, which brings me to this place.

Back Porch is a café on the outskirts of the small farming community of Linden, 30 or so kilometers south-southeast of Winnipeg. Denise Collins and her family opened the café in October, in a house once owned by her great-grandparents.

It’s a house that’s been in the family, and it feels like it. A narrow staircase leads to a cozy second floor, which has been renovated into an open space that somehow comfortably fits a half dozen tables and a few reading nooks.

Back Porch is open for breakfast and lunch. The kitchen serves coffee and espresso, breads, buns, bagels, cinnamon rolls, soups and sandwiches. On Saturday mornings, Collins offers a robust brunch buffet, complete with bacon, eggs and sausage. Brunch is just under $9, which is especially good when you consider the prairie view from the top floor.

You couldn’t pay for this in T.O.

Willie's Magic Mash

I realize that most people will remember their grandfathers as the sweetest men on earth. But I will go ahead and say it: My grandfather really was the sweetest. Really, he was.

In 2003 , Willie was left nearly speechless by a stroke. Yes, he became more dependent upon family members, but he never failed to find ways to be helpful. At family gatherings, he made sure everyone’s drink was filled. He had an extensive liquor cabinet, and a good memory for cocktails.

He used any occasion as an excuse to find something special at the jewellery store for Marge, my Grandma. He attended our graduations, and hugged his grandkids tightly. Without words, he was able to find ways to tell us that he loved us, was proud of us.

I suspect that making wine was, for Willie, a way to show how much he loved his friends, his family. Long before I could drink the stuff, myself, and long before he lost his speech, he was notoriously generous with his homemade wine. I’m not sure there was ever a visit when my parents didn’t come home with a bottle, or twelve, of the stuff.



Willie died last August, exactly a year and a half after Marge. My dad found this bottle of homemade crab-apple wine in the basement stash. It’s old, from 1995, and amber coloured. You wouldn’t necessarily think that homemade fruit wine ought to last that long, but it did. We opened the bottle yesterday. It was delicious, sweet, and as Grandpa would have it, nice and boozy

January blues

Oh, hi. This is awkward. Here I am, more than a month after those beers, during which time I didn't call, write, or make any attempt to connect. Not so much as a peep.

Well this time it’s different. Really. And there are a few things I need to tell you.

First, you’ll be seeing a lot more of me. On Mondays, specifically. Perhaps not every Monday, but most Mondays. If I’m not mistaken, today is Monday. Hi.

I should also tell you that I’ll be bringing cheese around a lot more. Today, for instance, I brought a feisty little cheese that I want you to meet.




So here it goes. Meet Blue Haze, an Ontarian smoked blue cheese.

Blue Haze is well-travelled, for a cheese. Monks start this semi-firm blue in l’Abbaye de Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, in Québec. The wheels travel to Cayuga, Ontario, where they are smoked of a bed of cherry and hickory chips by an affineur, Provincial Fine Foods.

And in this case of this particular wedge of cheese, photographed by my father, Randy, it also travelled with me to Manitoba, where it was laid to rest. In our stomachs.

While blue cheese and smokiness may be flavourful extremes, the result is mellow and well balanced. Because the cheese is fairly dense, the effects of the smoking process don’t fully penetrate the salty, buttery blues. But the golden, sweet caramel smoke rind creates a surprisingly delicate contrast.

The girl at the cheese shop recommended I have this cheese with fig chutney. I tested her theory, but with ground-cherry jam instead. Beautiful. Then I tested it again. And again. And again. I suspect Blue Haze and I will meet again.

Booze, out of season

This is going to seem all wrong:

It’s early December, the sky is grey, and the air is cold. I should be telling you about a hot, steamy, boozy drink, perfect for evenings spent under a blanket and on the couch, while watching Christmas movies on CBC. Instead, I’m going to share a recipe for a cold beer cocktail best enjoyed outside, in July, under the hot afternoon sun.

I discovered micheladas, or cervezas preparadas ("prepared beers") in Mexico City. To be fair, I arrived in January, and for the first month it did hover around freezing temperature at night. So I did learn to love them while I was wearing a jacket.

This recipe is also going to seem all wrong, simply because it’s a beer cocktail. I suspect some beer fans might consider them a travesty. Why add lime, salt and spice to a perfect good beer?, they might ask. I’ll tell you. Because it’s awesome. Maybe not to everyone, and probably not when it’s cold outside. But I don’t care. This beer is good.

Michelada
(makes one cocktail)

1 cold Mexican beer, preferably Negra Modelo or Indio
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon (or less) Salsa Valentina (available in Latin America grocery stores)
A dash of Salsa Maggi or regular soy sauce
Ice cubes (if desired. Not necessary if you have a chilled beer glass)

for the rim preparation:
3 tablespoons Kosher salt
1 tablespoon crushed/powdered piquín pepper

First, prepare the rim mix. Mix the salt and the piquín pepper in a small bowl, and sprinkle a spoonful onto a plate. Rub lime juice on the rim of a well chilled pint glass, and dip the glass into the salt mix.

For the drink, start with the "condiments". In your rimmed pint glass, add your ice, both salsas and the lime juice. Pour the beer (there might be a little left over in your bottle. Keep it to top off your drink), and gently mix the cocktail with a spoon. Garnish with a lime wedge and serve.