Hello Spring and Strawberry Short Cake with Angel Food Cake

Hello Spring

Spring has finally sprung in The Big Smoke so I thought I would run some lovely signs of spring first. I’m always surprised at how elated I am when I see the first buds on the trees and then somehow, it seems that from one minute to the next BOOM, we have blooms. It’s like spring explodes into nature; trees go from no leaves to full leaves, bulbs spring up, lilacs bloom and everything is glad to be alive. Finally.

The Azaleas are one of the first to bloom

A visiting Cardinal. He is just too big for our feeder, so he eats the dregs.

Our new Japanese Cherry Tree just loves its new home.

Completely covered in blooms

Even sitting on the back deck is quite pleasant with a little fire and heat.

Our lovely trillium returned in the back 20.

And last but not least, this 7 year old lilac FINALLY bloomed this year. Ironically, this was the year I had planned to replace it with a Rose of Sharon.

A drive through High Park to showcase the beautiful Japanese Cherry trees just prior to their peak.

It’s a lovely fresh aroma

There were tour buses on the weekend

The trees are dispersed throughout the park, but there are also gorgeous clumps of them.

I took these pictures on Saturday; the trees were definitely at their peak.

Such gorgeous delicate blossoms.

I wish they bloomed all year round; that would make me very happy.

We had my family Easter dinner in mid-April because my brother and family always have other plans on Easter Weekend. I don’t mind having these holiday dinners at a different time, things are generally cheaper, it’s fun to have the festivities again (we had an Easter Egg Hunt) and it gives a good excuse to get together regardless of missing the holiday. Win-win.

We made a couple of BBQ’d Herbes of Provence chickens which always turn out exceptionally well, even though we remove every bit of skin it’s super moist and flavourful (I can’t believe I haven’t done a post about this flavourfull chicken, but here is a photo of the bird on the BBQ). And of course, this wonderful dish pairs so well with Susur Lee’s Singapore Slaw (aka 19 Ingredient Slaw) that I made it again. We also had some lovely roasted sweet potatoes.

My first Angel Food Cake from scratch. Who knew it would be so easy?

And of course, the dessert: Strawberry Shortcake made with a lovely Angel Food Cake. My very first scratch Angel Food Cake. I always hesitated to make this cake because my MIL warned me about how difficult and finicky it was. So as she did, I used a mix. Strange but true. I hadn’t thought about an Angel Food Cake in a lot of years (she’s been gone for more than 15 years) but I wanted a light cake with little to no fat and this fit the bill. Now to find a recipe which doesn’t use 14 or 16 egg whites! I found this recipe created by Anna Olson for a light chiffon cake using 8 egg whites. Perfect.

Now you know me by now that I generally don’t have a lot of dessert eaters, so when I chose a dessert (whether it be slightly better for you than ordinary) I always make it smaller. Who needs left overs? So I figured out the volume of the 10″ tube pan Anna used and cut it in half to fit my 8″ spring form pan! Clever? I must warn you, that the tube pan is used to help bake this light, airy meringue-like cake through the centre; my small spring form was just the right size and it baked relatively evenly. I would not recommend going larger as your edges will dry out and your insides will be runny. Anyway, food for thought!

I got a nice crumb on the cake, the bottom of the spring form had a harder time releasing due to the little dimples in it, so next time, I will line it with a piece of ungreased parchment, that should do the trick. Oh, and it’s really important not to jump around the oven like a mad dance, or even open the oven door during the first 20 minutes of baking. Also note that although this pan is smaller, it did take a bit longer to bake through, probably because there wasn’t the chimney effect heating the centre through. And having said that, I’d do it again in an instant, it’s a lovely light-feeling dessert.

A cake slathered in stabilized whipped cream and way too many strawberries.

You’re probably wondering “what the heck is stabilized whipped cream?” Well, maybe only some of you. I was looking for a way to make this cake up a few hours in advance and not have the whipped cream fall flat and runny on me. It’s really rather easy, 1 tsp of gelatin in about 3 tbsp cold water, nuked until gelatin melts complete, cooled down but not set and drizzled into the whipped cream with (1 tbsp icing sugar and 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract) as you’re whipping. So easy and it sets the whipped cream ever so slightly so it won’t go all sloppy and meltie. You can’t taste the difference.

It just looked so yummy, I had to take another photo.

Ingredients:

Serves 4-6 from an 20 cm or 8″ spring form pan

• 1/2 cup cake and pastry flour (less protein than bread flour)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 4 large egg whites, room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup icing sugar, sifted
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 236 mL (1/2 pint) whipping cream, stabilized as above
• Strawberries, to serve

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 163° C or 325° F.
2. Sift the flour and granulated sugar twice and set aside.
3. Whip the egg whites with the cream of tartar and salt until foamy, then gradually add the icing sugar, whipping until the whites hold a medium peak when the beaters are lifted. Stir in the vanilla.
4. Sift in the flour and sugar mixture to the whipped whites in 2 additions and using a whisk to fold in the flour evenly and easily. Scrape the batter into a 8-inch ungreased spring form pan, spread it to level and bake the cake for 40-45 minutes, until it springs back when gently pressed (try not to open the oven before 25 minutes).
5. Cool upside down (this is apparently important so the cake doesn’t deflate and fall). Wait until it is thoroughly cook (I’m not kidding) to remove from pan (you must cut it out with a clean knife). To slice the cake in half, use an unserated blade and cut with short delft strokes until full severed.
6. Serve the cake with whipped cream and berries, if you wish. The cake will keep, well wrapped (not refrigerated – it will dry it out) for up to 3 days.

It’s only about 20 cm or 8″ wide. My 13 year old nephew had half of it.

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The James Bond 60th Anniversary Party

Remember my friends Angela and Gordon? They are the super organized couple who put on incredible theme parties for 8 of their lucky friends (remember Titanic 100th Anniversary and The Truman Capote Black and White Ball?). Well, they did it again and a few weeks ago we were invited to their James Bond 60th Anniversary Party. We had a lot of fun with this theme. First I had to figure out who to be (yes, we were all encouraged to come in full costume!) So I googled it and found this really cool quiz. Now I already had an idea who I wanted to be, but the quiz absolutely nailed it and YES I would be Paris Carver that night! Paris was the wife of the evil Media Mogul in Tomorrow Never Dies. But she had also been Mr. Bond’s lover (but then who hadn’t?). JT decided to be Francisco Scaramanga from the Man with the Golden Gun and he did a great job in fashioning a rather authentic looking golden gun. It was a dinner party hosted by M and Mr. James Bond and thank you Donald “Red” Grant for the fabulous photography and Q for keeping the hors d’œuvres constantly coming. It was a very tasty evening.

The Menu:

Drunken Devils on Horseback (Nigella Lawson)

Minted Zucchini Soup (Jamie Oliver)

Arugula and Watercress Salad (inspired by a Williams Sonoma recipe)

Beefsteak and Mushroom Pie with Smashed Potatoes and Yorkshire Puddings
(stew modified version of a John Cordeaux/Royal York recip /puddings – Good Housekeeping circa 1980s)

Sticky Toffee Pudding (old recipe from a friend)

Libations:

  Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore 2012

  Thwaites Lancaster Bomber Ale (winner of the Best English Ale at the European Beer Star Awards)

  Chateau Timberlay Bordeau Superieur 2010

  Pere et Fils Chardonnay Laurent Miquel 2012

  Assorted Liqueurs/Port/Single Malt Scotch

The Cast:

Our generous hosts M and Mr. James Bond (complete with English accent)

The table was beautifully set and we each had a “Classified Dossier” in front of our seats.

Donald “Red” Grant and Q (who had a few tricks up his sleeve!)

It’s all in the details. Yes, those are bullets in the vase.

Dr. Julius No & Honey Ryder
(they bought their costumes in Hong Kong on a recent trip to celebrate a benchmark birthday).

Ernst Stavro Blofeld & Jinx.
Ernst was sufficiently creepy with his bunny (remember it was originally a creepy cat)

Auric Goldfinger and Pussy Galore

Francisco Scaramanga and Paris Carver
(Apparently Paris always had a champagne glass in hand, which I was perfectly happy to do!)

To give you an example of how much detail my friend M went into this is my Classified Bio, for your eyes only!

PARIS CARVER

Terri Hatcher Eva Taylor

Location: Hamburg, Germany.

Characteristics: Sophisticated, cosmopolitan, unhappy, pining for Bond.

Hobbies/Interests: James Bond. Sipping her husband’s (British media baron Elliot Carver) champagne. Prior to that drank straight shots of tequila. Lying to her husband about her relationship with Bond.

Associations: No known associations.

Scars/Notable Features: Possible scarring on hand from slapping Bond for abandoning her years earlier. Often carrying champagne flute.

Relationship with MI6: Described as “too close for comfort” by Bond. After spending a passionate evening together, Carver led Bond to her husband’s secret lab.

Status: Presumed assassinated by hitman Dr. Kaufman after her husband learned of her betrayal. Most recently spotted sipping champagne in Toronto, New York, Chicago, and Paris.

We were all quite taken back with the amount of detail in each of our dossiers.

There were detailed character descriptions in each folder.

We took a couple of photos at home before we left.

Can you believe it, I picked up my dress from Value Village and made a few alterations. Damn thing left sparkles all over the house!

Thanks again to M and Mr. James Bond for making such a memorable evening.

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Casa Loma, something to do in Toronto

If you’ve been following along, you will know by now that we have very good friends, Paul and T, who live in Illinois with whom we visit, travel, laugh (and laugh and laugh), eat and drink and recently, they kindly paid us a long overdue visit. It’s always a challenge to come up with things to do since we’ve been hanging out with each other for around 20 years — we’ve done most things in the GTA that had to be done. Now, I know it’s not always necessary to plan a weekend with such good friends, but it’s nice to do a little something special, particularly since it’s the only time JT and I get to be tourists in our own city.

We decided to visit Casa Loma, a real castle in the heart of Toronto. Built by Sir Henry Pellatt and Lady Mary Pellatt for $3.5 million dollars around 1911. Now that is a lot of money even now, can you imagine how much that was in 1911? Sadly, the Pellatt’s only lived in the Castle for 10 years, when their financial empire crumbled and they were forced to auction off the castle and belongings. In 1924 they moved to their farm in King township, and shortly after Lady Mary passed away of heart problems (likely caused by anxiety and stress of their financial downfall). The castle was fitted with the most modern conveniences, like indoor toilets, electricity and telephones; when the entire city of Toronto had 3,000 telephones, the Pallett’s castle had 50! Even the servants quarters were grandly equipped (by the standards of the day) with heated rooms, electricity and indoor washrooms (it reminded me of Downton Abbey). It took 300 men three years to build it. Quite the property.

In 1925 they tried to convert it to a luxury hotel, but even that didn’t pan out; the rooms were never completed, only the common areas had been re-purposed where they held many high-end social events and dances. In 1937 the Kiwanis Club of West Toronto took over the building and began the tedious task of renovating and refurnishing the rooms as Sir and Lady Pallett would have had it furnished. Today, only some of the furnishings are from the Pallett’s estate, many of them are just ‘of the time’. You can book your wedding or special event at the castle, but 27 years ago, the waiting list was three years long, so plan ahead!

Casa Loma is situated in Forest Hill, an exclusive neighbourhood in Toronto, even today. The area is also quite lovely to experience and I strongly suggest that you check it out if you are visiting Toronto.

A few practical notes and we’ll get to the good stuff:

• With the self-guided audio tour, it will take you about 2-3 hours to go through the castle, we had a moderate pace and completed the tour, even the garages, stables and potting shed in a little over 2 hours.
• There is an elevator but it must be operated by staff, the stairs are so much more practical, and they will allow your tour to flow better (not having to back-track on yourself to get to the lift).
• It’s not heated well, so you’ll need your jacket in the winter (I wore boots and my toes were chilled). I walked around with my jacket buttoned up (and I usually start sweating as soon as I think about going inside — Eastern European and all!).
• Little one’s are not discouraged, but there is little for them to be amused with. Unless you are going for a specific kids program, they will be bored.
• There is a cafeteria on site, but Yorkville is very close by with so many better options.
• Ladies, take a purse that can be hung on your shoulder, your hands will be occupied with the listening device, the map and perhaps a camera (and for me, a tissue for my sniffling nose, yes, I still have it! Grrr!).
• Not a cheap experience, adult entry is around $20; check on line, you may be able to find discount coupons. If you plan on doing more than one attraction a Toronto Attractions City Pass may be the way to go.

The Good Stuff (you’ll see that I didn’t take many photos (I kept my gloves on) so you’ll have to visit to see it all):

The main entrance. As you can see we have another dreary grey day in Toronto

The Great Hall just after the entrance. The giant organ is that shadow in the photo.

The Great Hall another view; you can see the scale of this room by the chairs. The gorgeous window in the previous photo is just on the right of this photo. This room also had an enormous organ (which sat in the large window in the second photo), the enormous pipes are behind me taking the shot.

Sir Henry’s drawing room

The Drawing Room; the sofa in the foreground is facing the fireplace from the previous photo.

Incredible views from one of the towers. This shot reminds me of Paris from the Arc de Triomphe looking toward La Défence

OK, maybe it’s just La Défence that reminds me of our new condo.

Great view of our city.

The towers are accessed only by metal and wood spiral stairs, which can be a bit confining at times. It’s best to do this in low season as there are only one set of stairs so it would get quite congested in high season.

This is the smoking room, no ladies please

The stables. What’s cool about the stables, garages and potting shed is that they are accessed by a 500 metre tunnel, 5 metres under ground. Sir Henry fought with the city to have a busy road detoured so that his servants didn’t have to cross to access the outer buildings, and was constantly declined, so he built a tunnel. Obviously a different snack bracket than I.

We had very special deviled eggs for our hor d’œuvres that evening.

And that concludes our visit to Casa Loma, I hope you have a chance to see it when you come to Toronto.

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Christmas Baking 2012 Final Entry: Chocolate Peanut Fudge

Clipart from Microsoft Clip Art Gallery

I’ve never made fudge. There. I said it. I love fudge, but have never made it and when I saw Katherine’s (Rufus’ Food and Spirits Guide) recipe for his mother’s back of the bag fudge, I had to try it and with pure luck, I had everything in my pantry! The recipe came together very easily and the taste was wonderful, and great creamy texture (very much like ganache). Our tin of Sweetened Condensed milk was a slightly different weight than what the recipe called for so I had to adjust all the ingredients accordingly, plus I didn’t have butterscotch morsels so I used chocolate chips as the flavour. Kudos Katherine another great recipe to add to my Christmas baking collection!

Chocolate Peanut Fudge

Original recipe by Katherine at Rufus’ Food and Spirits Guide

Melt in your mouth, fudge-o-licious

Makes one 23 cm (9 inch) square pan, about  2 cm (0.8″) thick

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 20 g unsalted butter
• 300 mL Sweetened Condensed Milk
• dash salt
• 300 g chocolate chips
• 155 g marshmallows
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 100 g peanuts (unsalted, skin off)

Directions:

1. Line your square pan with parchment paper (it’ll make it easier to lift it out of the pan to cut it).
2. In a heavy bottomed pot over medium heat, bring sugar, butter, sweetened condensed milk and salt to a boil, stirring constantly. Lower heat if it starts to brown too quickly.
3. Remove from heat and add chocolate, marshmallows and vanilla; stir until smooth and marshmallows have entirely melted. Add peanuts and stir to combine.
4. Pour into prepared pan and let set. Refrigerate once cool. The fudge should take a few hours to set.
5. Cut into smallish square.

Delicious Chocolate Peanut Fudge

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Happy Halloween?

Happy Halloween everyone! Hurricane Sandy is sure putting a damper on things in the eastern seaboard, and even though we’re quite far from the ocean, we are getting deluged with rain and high winds. Not pretty at all. I particularly feel bad for the kiddies tonight who will likely have to brave the elements with winter coats over their carefully considered and crafted costumes. But I heard through my FB friends that Halloween has been postponed to Saturday in some US cities! What do you think about that?

Our building had their annual Halloween hall crawl, but I had to change my plans for the phantom of the opera costume for fear of melting my face off with the mask, so I went as Dracula instead. It turned out the Kim and I were one of the few who dressed up, talk about feeling rare, oh well. Free booze and food helped us get over that pretty quickly!

Kim was a gypsy whore

I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Sandy wreaked havoc in our neighbourhood and toppled a very large evergreen tree knocking out power including our house (although not every house has a blackout!). I just finished filling the freezer with left overs and sale meats, so this turn of events is not appreciated. I am hoping I won’t have to toss the lot. Fortunately when the tree fell over, it fell into the street and nothing was damaged other than the power lines. I already know of two people who’ve had car damage from fallen limbs (tree, not human).

No, it wasn’t the alien arrow that toppled the tree, it was a giant belch from Sandy.

Since JT has to work on Halloween night (he traded with a guy who has two young children) I decided not to doll the house up; instead I was going to go over to Kim’s (boss, neighbour, friend) with a bottle of vino and we’ll hand out candy together and get silly. But instead I’ll be cleaning out the fridge and freezer. And since I love this time of year so much, I thought I’d run around the hood and takes some pics of some of the decorated homes. Hope you enjoy them.

There goes the neighbourhood

I had no idea we had a graveyard for neighbours

John, you’d better avert your eyes, those are big mother spiders!

My friend’s daughter had a Halloween party last Sunday so I baked up a batch of the monster fingers which I found on Angie’s blog last year. This year I was able to fashion them a bit better and I had the great idea of dipping the cut ends into the jam to make them look even grosser! Thanks Angie, these will never get old on this side of the planet!

Would you like some coffee with your decomposing fingers?

Would you care for a finger cookie?

Word

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My first guest post and Hungarian Cherry Squares — Cseresznyés pite

Hungarian Cherry Squares (Cseresznyés pite)

I am rather thrilled and honoured that my good friend Charles of Five Euro Food has kindly asked me to guest post. Charles has been a valued commenter on my blog for over a year now, and as most of you know, he takes his time to formulate interesting and thoughtful remarks; his comments are a joy to read and sometimes even have a bit of a chuckle over. Thank you Charles, your friendship is cherished, I hope to do your guest post right.

In keeping Charles’ tradition of a little peek into living in Paris, I will give you a little peek into living in Toronto and a lovely Hungarian family recipe. I ask that you head on over to Charles’ blog to check out our little adventure, but I will share my recipe here as well. I belabored over which recipe I would share as Charles’ guest post, because he takes so much time to photograph and document his recipes so well; I didn’t want to get ahead of myself and bite off more than I can chew (pardon the pun) so I hope you enjoy it. This recipe is a cherished favourite for my family (my brother always asks for it when I visit and now that my dear Mom is gone, it is up to me to carry on the tradition).

Cherry Squares

By Éva Hársfai-Robinson (1936-2005)

Makes 1 pan 9” x 13” about 20 squares

Cost: ~€0.31 ($0.40) each piece

Preparation time: ~40 minutes

Calories: ~120 calories per piece

Ingredients:

• 1 jar pitted cherries 500 mL to 700 mL, drained but reserve liquid
• 3 eggs separated
• 120 g unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 125 g caster sugar
• 250 g flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• About ½ cup milk – or use reserved cherry liquid (if you use the reserved liquid your squares will be a bit pink)

Directions:

1. Grease and flour 9” x 13” x 2” baking pan (22cm x 33cm x 5cm).
2. Preheat oven to 350° F (175°C)
3. Drain cherries, liquid reserved (you can use this as your liquid or make a delicious sauce or use it in soda as flavouring!)
4. Whip egg whites until a stiff but not dry (should be able to stand in a peak) – no need to wash the beater if you do it in this order, if you cream the yolks first, then you must wash the beater and dry thoroughly).
5. Cream egg yolks with butter and sugar until light and fluffy (should be a lighter shade of yellow).
6. Sift flour, baking powder and salt – dry ingredients.
7. Alternating dry ingredients with the milk (or reserved cherry liquid), fold into egg yolk mixture.
8. Fold beaten egg whites into the mixture.
9. Pour into greased pan. Note the dough should be quite thick, should have to spread it into the cake pan, it should not pour by it self.
10. Dot with cherries throughout (you may want to give each cherry a squeeze as you dot so ensure there are no pits!).
11. Bake in preheated oven for about 20 to 30 minutes (test with toothpick to make sure it’s done).
12. Cool in pan (don’t cut until it is entirely cool otherwise it will become ‘bacony’ or szalonás, as the Hungarians put it).

• Creaming the butter, sugar and eggs together takes patience
• I start out lining up all the cherries, but then I have to fill in the spaces so I can use up the whole jar!
• The cherries behave as they wish, so there is no point in lining them up anyway

They are moist and not overly sweet.

A short note: This was my very first guest post ever, and I am delighted that it was for Charles’ Blog. I have a new found respect for Charles’ blogging, over and above my original respect, which was plenty! The extra effort Charles puts into this blog is unparalleled, the ingredient shot, the video, the working shots etc., make this blog ever so wonderful to follow but impossible to follow in its footsteps!

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Julia Child’s 100th would be birthday, Tuesday August 15!

Wednesday August 15 would have been Julia Child‘s 100th birthday. My friend Betsy over at Bits and Breadcrumbs made a wonderful suggestion and I’m ALL OVER IT! I strongly recommend you pop over to see her and find out how we can all participate and celebrate Julia Child’s birthday.

Looking forward to seeing how you celebrate Julia’s day.

An after thought: please be aware of copyrights on recipes; I’ve noticed that Dorie Greenspan recipes ate not reproduced on line! Just sayin’.

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AGO Special Exhibition: Picasso — Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris

One recent weekend we decided to get a little culture and enjoy the Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris which are on loan for a special exhibition to the AGO. These cultural experiences always seem to surprise me on how expensive they are (we paid $30 each, including the self guided audio tour). I cannot imagine bringing a family of 4 or 5 to see such a thing, it would literally bankrupt most people. It’s actually a quite sad commentary on our society in Canada, where cultural activities are usually only available for the middle and upper classes. Of course, you could visit the AGO on a Wednesday night (general admission is free) for a mere $12.50 each admission to the special exhibitions, but then you are restricted to 6-8:30 pm. JT and I tried this approach several years ago with the ROM, who offer free admission on Friday evenings, but the line up was so long, we speculated we would have a mere 10 minutes to go through the museum once we got in. Sadly, we haven’t tried it since.

Are museums and galleries expensive where you are? And do they offer free time slots?

The Picasso exhibit was very nicely laid out chronologically through his life experiences around women (or so it seems to me that it was). He was a passionate artist and had several girlfriends, wives and lovers who influenced his work. Since he died in 1973, he was able to communicate much of where he was coming from in his art; of course, he left a lot of interpretation to us, just for the fun of it.

I majored in Art History in University, but that was a million, perhaps even a billion years ago, so the AGO was like a second home to me. But in 2008 Frank Gehry (Toronto born) redesigned the building and it’s a far cry from the gallery I recall (sadly, I was unable to find a photo of it). Non-the-less, it is a superbly beautiful building with Gehry’s trademark organic structures that challenge the materials used and is really a joy to walk through; the spaces where the art is showcased will always remain about the art, but the other areas, such as walkways, stairs and common areas are totally about the architecture.

I have to admit that I am not a huge Picasso fan, I find most of his work jarring and disturbing but I can appreciate it for what it is. He was a visionary in two and three dimensional art, looking at his subject as no other. The perspective is quite interesting but for me, finding the beauty of the subject (not necessarily the art) was challenging. By far, my favourite piece had to be Sacre Cœur, one of my favourite views in Paris (and fortunately this fall we will be staying in this lovely neighbourhood!). Because of copyright issues, photography is not permitted in the galleries with installations, but you can google it or click here to see it.. The facets skim the image, giving us just enough information to be able to recognize the building. Perhaps it’s the tones I am drawn to, or that the facets sparkle like the facets of a diamond, I am not sure; I just know it was my favourite of the entire collection.

The exhibit took us about an hour to go through, and we lingered. We could have stayed on to wonder through the permanent collections but we had to do grocery shopping for the week, otherwise we would have no lunches! Perhaps I’ll pop down one Wednesday when it’s free for a few hours and revisit my past. I hope you click on the links to see more of this impressive structure, known as the AGO.

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Iron Chef: Battle Coffee

We interrupt the stream of recipes from our dinner party here to bring you the blog post about my birthday dinner.

All photos were taken with the iPhone 4G.

Sparkling water made directly in the restaurant; no need to pay $8.00 for a bottle of San Pellegrino!

My friend Barb (of Profiteroles and Ponytails) put us onto a restaurant in Toronto called Victor (in the St. Germain Hotel) where Executive Chef David Chrystian offers a prix fix dinner where the guest chose the secret ingredient and the chefs prepare one of each of the five courses using non-other than your secret ingredient. I was intrigued; our very own Iron Chef competition? I just had to try it out, so we decided to make this the celebratory birthday dinner on Saturday (my birthday was on Sunday, but who wants to go out for a fancy dinner on Sunday?). The dinner was a wonderful precursor to the lovely robin’s egg blue box with the traditional white ribbon I was spoiled with on my birthday.

Chef David Chrystian was also one of the first round of participants in Top Chef Canada, season 1, and a very worthy adversary. Unfortunately he was eliminated, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t good; competition is severe and time is short, a bad day can make or break you in this quest. Some go on the show not to win, but to gain publicity in the bigger picture of their career path, not saying this was the case with Chef David. It’s kind of like American Idol, not all the winners are as successful as the one’s who were eliminated. Just saying. Getting on a show like Top Chef is grueling enough (1,000′s apply), making it through several rounds of elimination is success and it’s National TV. We Canadians just gobble that stuff up.

We chose coffee as the secret ingredient. I was intrigued to see how creative the chefs can be and still make it an enjoyable and elegant dinner. We would not be disappointed. Although, I will come right out and say it, the coffee component was weak. Not that the food wasn’t unbelievably delicious, it just didn’t sing coffee. It did not hinder our 2.5 hour dinner, during which we talked about each course and sometimes at length with our server.

A little text about the chef and the secret ingredient

Our places were set with an intro card which talked about the Chef and on the reverse side was the Score Card. Each dish was presented and explained by our server and was scored in four considerations, each one out of five points:

The Score Card. There is a typo on dish 4, taste, they should all be out of 5!

Dish 1: We were presented with Coffee/Carraway Rye with Ctirus Gravlax, Coffee Crème Fraiche. Interesting. We tasted distinct coffee in the crème fraiche and noticed how well it went with the citrus Gravlax, but the Coffee/Carraway Rye was not strong enough to notice. Tasty non-the-less and a very nice portion.

Beautifully presented on a piece of slate

1. How well was the theme ingredient incorporated into the dish? JT 3/5, Me 3/5
2. How original was the dish or how authentic? JT 3/5, Me 4/5
3. Presentation? JT 4/5, Me 4/5
4. Taste? JT 3/5, Me 3.5/5

Total: 27.5

Dish 2: “Breakfast Soup” we had no idea what to expect. We were presented with a very large bowl of Vichyssoise with a poached egg that was breaded and deep fried, drizzled with a balsamic and coffee glaze. It turned out to be my favourite from a taste perspective. The soup was incredibly silky and the egg was perfectly cooked so that when I cut into it, the yolk oozed all over the soup. Sadly the balsamic overtook the coffee and neither of us could taste it. But it was the best “breakfast soup” I’ve ever had. I could eat only half and forgot to ask to bring it home. Oops, forgot to take a photo!

1. How well was the theme ingredient incorporated into the dish? JT 2/5, Me 1/5
2. How original was the dish or how authentic? JT 3/5, Me 4/5
3. Presentation? JT 3/5, Me 4.5/5
4. Taste? JT 4/5, Me 4/5

Total: 25.5

Dish 3: Moroccan Coffee Chicken Tagine; when the server mentioned to the chef that we were just in Morocco last November, he said “oh, crap, I’m in trouble”. Although the dish was incredibly tasty, it was neither Moroccan nor did it have a distinct coffee flavour. It was served over basmati rice, but I wondered why it wouldn’t have been couscous? They served it in a little cast iron pot, and neither JT nor I could finish off the portion but we had the good sense to ask to bring it home! It was incredibly tasty.

Now why wouldn’t you serve couscous with a Moroccan dish?

1. How well was the theme ingredient incorporated into the dish? JT 1/5, Me 1/5
2. How original was the dish or how authentic? JT 3/5, Me 2/5
3. Presentation? JT 4/5, Me 4.5/5
4. Taste? JT 5/5, Me 4.5/5

Total: 25

Mmmmm. This made a very tasty lunch on Monday.

Dish 4: Espresso Glazed Beef Tenderloin with Espresso BBQ Sauce; a beautifully presented course, with about 2 oz of meat, we were getting really full by this time. The BBQ sauce was tasty and although there was a touch of coffee flavour, it wasn’t quite what I had hoped for. On top of it, pairing beef with coffee or espresso is not new and ground breaking creative. Non-the-less it was a very yummy course.

Small pieces of tenderloin served with roasted little baby vegetables

1. How well was the theme ingredient incorporated into the dish? JT 1/5, Me 1.5/5
2. How original was the dish or how authentic? JT 3/5, Me 2/5
3. Presentation? JT 3/5, Me 4.5/5
4. Taste? JT 4/5, Me 4.5/5

Total:  23.5

Dish 5: Dark Chocolate Espresso Tart with Coffee Anglais; a very small tart (which was just perfect because now we were seriously full) that had great chocolate flavour (too bad our ingredient wasn’t chocolate) but little coffee, even the crème Anglais was sweeter than it was coffee. But a beautifully presented course and just the right amount of dessert. Oops, forgot to take this photo too! Oh well, it would have been quite dark, anyway.

1. How well was the theme ingredient incorporated into the dish? JT 3/5, Me 2.5/5
2. How original was the dish or how authentic? JT 4/5, Me 3.5/5
3. Presentation? JT 3/5, Me 4.5/5
4. Taste? JT 4/5, Me 4/5

Total:  28.5

We had distinct winner, the pastry chef with the Dark Chocolate Espresso Tart with Coffee Anglais. This surprised me since I am not much of a sweet eater. The server reported back to the chefs!

I do have a few thoughts that could have made it even better. I would have enjoyed each Chef coming out to present each of their course (obviously, this is not easy on a busy night, but come on, there were two other couples in the whole place!). Chef David was not even at the restaurant on Saturday, apparently he was married earlier in the week and was taking a couple of days off. I was disappointed because my friend Claudia (from Food Network, who knows Chef David) emailed him that a friend of her’s was coming in on Saturday! I was hoping for a photo opportunity! Sigh, bad timing on our part. And last but not least, the final score should have been a bigger deal than it was. The server just asked us to tally it up and she reported back to the kitchen and that was that. Not sure what else could have happened, but it seemed anti-climactic.

And to end on a positive note, I thoroughly enjoyed the evening, the food being the forefront even in discussion and I really liked that. The restaurant was not busy at all (summer time is bad for them) so we had great service and it was quiet. Overall a great evening, that’s for sure. And we’ll likely do it again for another special occasion. If you have a chance to come to Toronto, I urge you to sample this unique experience.

The cost was $80 per person, plus libations, not an inexpensive dinner, but certainly worth it.

We paid for our dinner in full, and the opinions above are exactly that, my opinions.

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An Historical Walk through Toronto’s Cabbagetown North District

Update May 22, 2012

A colleague from my KPMG days and a loyal blog follower mentioned that you can book private tours with the Toronto Preservation Society for a mere $10 per person. And because they are private, you can customize them! Now that’s a deal if I’ve ever heard one!

The month of April kicked off Heritage Toronto‘s wonderful guided walks in the Big Smoke with historical tours to commemorate the Bicentennial Anniversary of the war of 1812 (just HAD to mention that for my American friends!). JT and I have enjoyed their informative tours over the years and this past Saturday we decided to enjoy yet another through Cabbagetown North (according to the New York Times, Cabbagetown has the largest concentration of Victorian homes in North America. See Footnote #1). The weather was a bit crisp with the occasional gust of chilly wind, but the sun was shining (for the most part. Read proper shoes and coat) and dressed appropriately, it was absolutely lovely.

We started out at the corner of Wellesley Street East and Parliament Street at a corner neighbourhood park; over fifty people had the same idea, but they were very well prepared and divided the group into five troupes, each lead by one of their wonderful and informative guides. We choose Christopher, and boy are we glad we did! Christopher lives in the hood in one of the cutest cottages, but I’ll get to that shortly.

The history of Cabbagetown began in the 1800s during the potato famine in Ireland when hundreds of Irish labourers immigrated to Toronto and set up homes in the North East part as it was quite a way outside the city and rather inexpensive. It became known as Cabbagetown because the immigrant Irish discovered that our growing season was much shorter than what they were used to and had to plant vegetables that would store well in the winter; potatoes were planted close to the house, then turnip and finally cabbages were planted directly by the sidewalk/road (their gardens were at the front of their homes, the backs were commerce). As Toronto’s economy grew, a variety of middle to upper middle-class moved into the area making Cabbagetown a wonderful mix of small cottages, Grand Victorian and Edwardian home (and the odd eye sore built in the 1970′s).

In 1851, during the Great Exhibition (Crystal Palace Exhibition) in London (now known as the World’s Fare) Prince Albert (husband of Queen Victoria) who had a keen interest in affordable housing for the poor held a contest for architects to create a particular housing style that was affordable, easy to build with a relatively small footprint that could be used throughout the Commonwealth. William Hooker won the contest with his plan for the Victorian Cottage (apparently seen throughout the Commonwealth, even today!) (Source #2). The cottages were basically four 3m x 3m rooms (10′ x 10′).

After decades of neglect and various degrees of derelict, the neighbourhood started coming alive with young families began buying up the lots and rennovating (some with more taste than others) and so in 1989 the Cabbagetown Preservation Association (CPA) was born to preserve the architectural integrity and historic character of the Cabbagetown neighbourhood in Toronto. To attain a building permit in this historical area, one must not only get the City to approve the plans, but by law, the Cabbagetown Preservation Association must also approve. The CPA takes this very seriously.

A lesson on skirting the law: This hideous house is an example where the owners received approval from the CPA to build their modern home, with the caveat that they were not permitted to remove the Victorian on the property. So they connivingly built around the Victorian on the outside, and then when they were finished they dismantled the Victorian inside the walls as the CPA has no jurisdiction over the inside of the house. Go figure.

So let’s get to the good stuff.

Our first stop was a grand Victorian built by Thomas Harris in the Queen Ann style. Thomas Harris owned a stone cutting firm and decorated his home with the splendor of his business as a kind of billboard. This used to be a rooming house and was recently painstakingly and with considerable expense renovated back to its glory as a single family home.

#314 Wellesley Street East, Home of Thomas Harris, stone cutter. Grand Queen Ann Style. (Source #1)

Even in those days there were builders buying up plots of land and speculating with residential properties. The row houses on Wellesley Cottage Lane are labourers’ cottages “built in 1886-1887 by William Hooker from the plans that won him the architectural award in 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition in London” (Source #1). What’s interesting about this street is that it is a private street (one of three in this area, if memory serves), not owned by the City of Toronto, but by the residents of that street. They are responsible for the maintenance and care from sewage backups to snow shoveling services in the winter (I had no idea we had private streets in Toronto, and I’ve lived here all my life).

The labourers’ cottages are in the middle, flanked by the stand alone supervisor cottages.

The cottages have all been significantly renovated, with enormous additions in the back.

This is Christopher’s house. It is 914 square metres (3,000 square feet). The CPA approved this design because you are unable to see its vastness from the front. It backs onto private lanes and backyards so it doesn’t change the overall look and feel of the neighbourhood.

This home used to be two homes, but the owners recently converted it to a single family home. The bay window is not original but was approved by the CPA because it maintained the look and feel of the hood.

Just another pretty face that was recently sold for over a million dollars. It doesn’t even have parking!

Examples of row housing with Christopher’s new addition at the end.

Examples of cooperation between neighbours to maintain the look and feel of the historical context on the street. There were actually four houses that refaced with cedar shakes (can you agree with four neighbours on your street? What if your house was attached to their’s?)

There’s my artsy fartsy side showing up again. Just look away, if it offends you!

Way cool old MG tucked away in a back alley.

Another example of row housing. Please take note of the fountain at the end of the street.

The neighbours built this fountain as a memorial to one of the past neighbours on the street. The land behind the fountain is a cemetery which is actually three metres (10 feet) above this road. The city rebuilt these retaining wall after Huricane Hazel passed through Toronto in 1954 and littered the bones of the cemetery inhabitants throughout these little roads. Talk about GROSS.

Owl House (because of the Owl motif on the side of the house) is situated behind modern built homes from the 1970′s. The modern builds are not offensive to the neighbourhood mainly because they cannot be seen from the Street. Owl House used to be three stories but fell derelict until the present owners scooped it up and lopped off the third floor (too many unwanted tennants – squirrels and racoons!)

Another example of how the new owners of this typical Victorian Cottage renovated but maintained the exceptional style of the neighbourhood. This home plus the two others that you can’t see belonged to the Lepper family for three generations. All three homes have extensive extensions on the back, that are unseen from the front of the house.They were sold in the 1980′s.

These cottages are interesting because a builder bought the land and was going to level them (this happened before the CPA). The neighbourhood stepped in and through much negotiation the builder agreed to remove the facade and preserve them, then build new homes in behind the facades and replace the facade to maintain the street harmony. Nicely done.

Photo Source: http://www.tobuilt.ca/php/tobuildings_more.php?search_fd3=8059
21 Winchester street (1858) was owned by Archdeacon Boddy of the Anglican parish of St. Peter’s. Archdeacon Boddy is important because he attended a conference in Chicago and discovered that most of their streets were paved and that the congregations didn’t mind going to Church on less pleasant days because their clothes stayed clean (remember, these are the horse and buggy days). So he came home and paved all the streets around his Church. His Church had the largest congregation of that time in Toronto.
I’d go if they served martini’s or white wine instead of grape juice !

I couldn’t end the tour without a picture of this road sign. There was no story behind it, but I’m sure at the time there was lots to be said. Now let’s find a pub and have a pint.

I do hope you enjoyed your tour of North Cabbagetown Toronto. I would encourage you to seek out your own Historical or Heritage Societies within your own cities. Often these tours are free, or simply what you can afford and they are always exceptional (no disgruntled students just hammering out the details in a monotone voice). The guides are often retired school teachers, professors or just people with a real passion for their neighbourhoods.

Now I must ask you, have you ever been on an historical tour of your own city? And if so, what did you enjoy most about it?
Source #1: Heritage Toronto Walks Cabbagetown North pamphlet.
Source #2: Christopher, our Heritage Toronto Walks guide.

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