Still eating. Cooking, not so much.

Look, I know it seems like forever since I last wrote, but it’s not because I haven’t been eating or thinking about food every single moment of the day.

It’s just that it’s still been too hot to cook.

Sigh.  I have had some wonderful meals in restaurants in the meantime: Portuguese on College, a venison burger in Summerhill (pictured above), memorable Indian on King and again on the Danforth, Greek with an long-time friend, Korean with a newer friend, introducing my Mom to North Vietnamese cooking (she loved it!), pizza and wine with a woman I knew 10 years ago and am so glad to be reunited with.

That’s not all, of course, but you get the idea.

I’ve shifted much of my writing now over to food and now that the evenings are getting cooler, I’m starting to prepare menus and defrost things.

Get ready.

I’m back.

If you’re looking for me, I’ll be at the stove.

Scrabble night – part 3

I had to throw most of the chicken out.

We tried to whittle down the mountain of poultry that had taken over the fridge, but it was a feat way beyond us. We needed my old gang of cadets – teenage boys that could drink 3 bags of milk and consume dinner plus 2 sandwiches for “dessert” in a single sitting.

I used to feel so guilty about having to throw out food. After all, not only had I carefully shopped (read: put a lot of time into it), I had lovingly spent umpteen hours prepping and chopping, sauteeing and broiling. But I have come to realize that in today’s crazybusy world, you can’t plan the way you used to. Some nights I am certain (and in the mood) I’ll cook and instead I have to do a restaurant review or a meeting runs late and I grab something where I am. And some nights things go awry, a phone call goes well into the night or a neighbour drops by and we open a bottle of wine and, well, dinner gets waylaid.

Since then, because of the heat,  we’ve had a lot of simple foods:

- corn on the cob

- salads topped with organic sprouts and sunflower seeds

- stir frys, pasta, sandwiches. – anything that doesn’t require the stove to be on too long

The most complex dishes I’ve made lately are veal scallopini and stuffed pork chops.

Most disappointing.

Especially since I’ve had the food book clubs and been dying to get to the stove to make some of the dishes we’ve been reading about.

It is 19 degrees tonight. Cold enough for 3/4 sleeves and a jacket.

Cold enough to cook.

Scrabble night – part 2

The following night, I put everything out on our kitchen table and awaited our hungry guests.

Paul came half an hour early (he’s always early) and was starving – could we start eating? Uh, I guess so (At least he was hungry).

We started in and waited for our other neighbour, John. He came about 45 minutes later, after polishing off a hearty Greek dinner, complete with stomach-bloating beers, with his out-of-town guest. Neither he nor his guest (an awesome singer songwriter, who had just performed with Jim Cuddy and Kathleen Edwards the night before) wanted anything to do with food. Damn you, Astoria! Why do you have to serve such hearty food in servings that topple you as you leave the restaurant?

We played girls against boys with Colleen going out first and John winning (he told us he would).

It was midnight by the time we finished and I had all that food to package up.

Would Scott and I have to have chicken for dinner for the 10 nights? Could we do it without dying from boredom or SCF – severe chicken fatigue?

Down in the treme

I don’t know why I didn’t take something out for dinner in the morning.

Maybe my hearty dinner at Caplansky’s for our book club meeting the night before made me want to put off choosing some meat.  After all, I had the Cabbage Borscht to start, following by the biggest knish I’ve ever seen, complete with smoked meat sauce and then their big salad to finish.

I had brought home a Caplansky burger for my fella – 20 % smoked meat, 80% ground beef – but told myself that one person can only have so much smoked meat in a day, so I didn’t even have a bite.  Maybe secretly I want as many excuses to go back there as possible!

So I winged it up until the last minute last night. Not my usual style, but planning too much can be a bad thing, so I thought, “Okay Dickison, what are you going to come up with? Is it going to be your usual boring standards of roast chicken, meatloaf or pork tenderloin?”

I left it up to:

- what I found at the grocery store and

- what I could remember I had on hand at home.

Here’s what I turned out:

Baked Tilapia with Southern Crust (breadcrumbs seasoned with Cajun All-Purpose Seasoning, brought back from Louisiana by our good friends Jill & Rob)

Coconut Ginger Rice

Fresh Farmer’s Peas topped with Horseradish Butter

Chickpea Salad with Roasted Red Peppers, Black Olives and Fresh Basil Leaves in an Olive Oil Vinaigrette

Broccoli Coleslaw with Onion Dressing

Not one of those things are a part of my repertoire, so I think I did okay. Plus my fella made “mmm” sounds all throughout dinner.  Our amazing neighbour John came in the door fresh off his tour with the popular band Holy F***,  and ate a heaping plateful and gave it a 9 out of 10 (Because giving it a 10 would seem insincere, he said. I told you he is amazing).

Because I am so easily influenced (see my previous post I Totally Fell For It), I was trying to think of where I got my idea for all of it.

I’d like to think it is because I love the Treme (HBO) character Kim Dickens is playing – she’s this amazing chef just trying to make exquisite New Orleans food after Katrina and she’s having a helluva time staying afloat.

Of course it could simply be that the tilapia was cheap and cheerful and everything else was just what I bought and had in the pantry.

But there’s no romance in that version. I think I’ll stick withthis, my simple ode to the Bayou.

Nudging inspiration along

I met with my good friend and co-editor Chris this weekend for breakfast, where we, of course, talked food for much of the meal.

Chris has food ennui and well, it happens to all of us.  I get it from time to time, especially in winter where I tend to make a lot of roast chicken, beef stew, chili and meatloaf.

I have found that it helps me tremendously to constantly be looking through cookbooks, cooking blogs and sites and magazines for new recipes to try.  I also try to change up where I shop so that I’m not tempted to buy the same things over and over (this takes a little more effort, but oh-so worth it!).  Just this week, I took my Mom to an area she doesn’t get to often and we food shopped like crazy.  We bought a ton of healthy ingredients that were somehow affordable, and have been inspired ever since.

I was trying to suggest similar things to Chris.  I thought that we could each make something new once a week and then write about it to one another.  I’m going to write about my new dishes here.  Oh, this oughtta be good!

When you cook often, it is hard to keep the inspiration going, but it’s there.  You just have to look around a little bit and you’ll find it.

I’ve already found something I’m going to make this week.  That wasn’t so hard.

Actually, I can’t wait!

Do you go through these kinds of things?  What tough spots have you hit?