Tasso, mezze bar

A few days ago, I was migrating haphazardly down St-Denis from Dix Mille Villages in the general direction of Camellia Sinensis. It was snowing lightly, as it had been all day, on and off. Everything was deserted on the dark cold Sunday night--we were the exceptions to deserted, but not to cold. Window-shopping the empty stores, we passed Tasso--mezze bar. It had a lighted menu outside and looked pleasingly warm and candle-lit. I've passed a lot of restaurants on St-Denis and promised to go to them someday, this one being no exception. Because of the aforementioned circumstances, however, the lure of a light meal was too great, and in me and my party went.

Mezze is, to but it bluntly, a Mediterranean version of Tapas. (Tasso serves Greek food, but mezze itself is not exclusively Agatean.) The two are of course wildly different, because the cuisines are totally unrelated, but the idea of many small plates is the same. Flatbreads and Flavours (by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid) portrays it ideally as a cornucopia of savoury delicacies, meant for a large group, abnudant with flabreads and everything else from olives to kebabs.

This kind of place always looks deceptively cheap, at 7 or 8 dollars a dish (saving the occasional 12-buck exotic seafood dish). But small is not a misnomer, and two or three dishes are required to amount to a normal serving. We were, however, on the lookout for a light meal. As such, we ordered only one plate each. It was less than we'd have liked to eat, so mouth-watering proved the menu, but such is life.

The place was all but empty upon our arrival, but friendly nonetheless. The tables are cork and the ambiance classy. The white-washed walls and idyllic fishing pictures are meant to recreate, to the lowest common denominator, of course, a gleaming Greek fishing village. Cork is a decorative theme. I approve. The service, I will take the time to say, was extremely good: speedy, courteous, informative, enthusiastic. I do not think waiters should make or break a restaurant, although they can earn significant bonus points. The main idea is the food, and here we go.

The meal was started off, for free, with bread and olive oil. It was an extremely promising beginning. The bread was really, really good. I would guess, in my fangirl way, that it is baked in-house, then toasted before being served. The toasting is clearly done on the grill, a significant asset. Nor was the olive oil unworthy of its recipient. We were given the choice of two kinds, even; the waiter gave us the skinny on the "light" and "dark" oils and bid us choose. The description was detailed and accurate: its finish was indeed peppery, its body in effect smooth, its flavour fruity. Olive oil is yet another liquid, if not a beverage, that begs a root to stick -philia onto.

We ordered a selection of dips as our first "course". We ate them with more bread. There were four kinds. The tzatziki, a dip we're all familiar with, was excellent and somehow different from store-bought or even home-made kinds. The chef apparently uses ouzo (an anise-flavoured Greek liqueur) to pull the flavours together. It's something I'll have to try. It gave it an unparalleled roundness, almost sweetness. There were three other dips: a delicious, creamy black olive tapenade, a puree of feta and red peppers called tyrokafteri (good, but my least favourite; it tasted like feta cheese transposed to a smoother texture and slight pinkishness), taramosalata, a real delicacy made of red caviar and various flavourings, superbly light, thoroughly delicious.

We ordered grilled quail, too. Because, I presume, of the rarity of the main ingredient, the serving was really pretty puny. (The presentation was cute, though. The pieces were propped against each other on a mini cast-iron skillet.) Still, the meat was succulent and the skin perfectly crispy.

I loved the fried eggplant and zucchini with garlic sauce. Both vegetables were their respective -ish adjectives, and were sliced very thinly. The fragility of the pieces perfectly matched the airy batter in which they had been deep-fried. The garlic sauce, not dissimilar to the the tzatziki, was exquisitely creamy and flavourful.

We also had vine leaves. They were a little disappointing. The rice didn't seem up to snuff with the ethereal-quality standards of the meal, and the leaves were a little tough. They would be my only complaint about the restaurant, but a minor one. Vine leaves are so ubiquitous that I hardly think they necessarily reflect a Greek restaurant's quality. In this case they didn't.

The plates may have been small, but I was actually quite satisfied, and had a truffle instead of a scone at the teashop afterwards. After all, when you've only got two beautifully browned quail wings left to eat, you find yourself at no small pains to eke out every last morsel of grilled deliciousness from the tiny bones. Eating slowly fills the mind--it's the placebo effect for the stomach. Besides, with enough bread, dips are really very filling.

I will go back here, and as soon as possible. I enjoyed it immensely.

En vedette : le « lemon curd »

Ai-je dit qu’il était l’hiver, le dernier poste? Je le répète, puisque la ville a maintenant le paysage et le service de bus qui siéent vraiment à la saison. Pour l’instant, je trouve encore la neige belle. Et je profite du moment de l’année pour acheter des pommes grenades et des agrumes.

Le « lemon curd », bien que j’en aie entendu parler auparavant, m’a été introduit par Le Chimie du Dessert, une livre que j’adore. Pleine de recettes, d’astuces, de labos et d’explications scientifiques, elle rassasie ma curiosité sur les aspects chimiques de la cuisine. Bien des choses qui m’étaient jadis des mystères (les confitures, les biscuits à l’avoine, la crème pâtissière) me se sont expliquées, le « lemon curd » inclus. Il s’agit de quelque chose qu’on tartine sur n’importe quoi, les rôties, les scones, la crème glacée. Il est délicieux car il contient deux bonnes cuillérées à soupe de zeste et trois quarts d’une tasse de jus de citron et de lime. Ce choix-là de fruits est le plus traditionnel sans être le seul. À date, j’ai fait un « curd » classique et un à l’orange-pamplemousse, mais je tiens à en faire un avec des oranges sanguines ou peut-être des clémentines, puisque nous en achetons tant.

La première étape est de zester et juter vos agrumes. Ça prend du temps, plus même que la préparation actuelle. (Les limes, moi, je trouve ça impossible à zester—la pelure est trop mince et elle déchire plutôt que de rendre la surface du fruit savoureuse et parfumée voulue.) Ensuite, il faut y mélanger des jaunes d’œuf et du sucre et fouetter le tout pour obtenir un mélange lisse.

Pour cuire et épaissir la crème au citron, vous avez le choix entre une casserole sur feu doux ou un bain-marie (c’est la méthode que je préfère). Une fois sur le feu, ajoutez-y le beurre coupé en dés. Il fondra au fur et à mesure que vous remuerez. La cuisson complète prend une dizaine de minutes à peu près. Il faut remuer constamment pour éviter les grumeaux. N’attendez-vous pas à ce que le curd devienne épaisse comme une crème anglaise. Il devrait tout simplement napper l’arrière d’une cuillère en bois. Ce n’est pas en vérité grand-chose, et le mélange, à ce stage, est encore un liquide dans lequel. Votre fouet n’y fera pas de spirales. Si vous avez un thermomètre pour bonbons (ou à lecture instantanée, etc.), vous pouvez l’utiliser; lorsque vous lisez 185°C, la cuisson est finie.

Pour conserver, laisser tiédir le mélange avant de le réfrigérer dans un bocal bien scellé. Il se conserve pour un mois à peu près, et il se congèle bien. C’est après la réfrigération que le curd adoptera une texture de confiture. (Le beurre ajouté se solidifie.)

À quels fins utiliser ce curd? Il sied aussi bien à un muffin anglais le déjeuner qu’à un dessert élégant. Moi, j’adore ça sur la crème glacée et sur les scones, mais sur les meringues, c’est incomparable. L’effet est encore plus joli et savoureux si vous saupoudrez quelques graines de pomme grenade sur le dessus. Amusez-vous : ce délice est aussi versatile que savoureux.

Lu An Gua Pian

It's winter, folks. The season for which we are famous has begun in its usual fashion, if a little late. There is always one early, slushy, rainy snow in mid-fall. (Remember it? It was the one where everyone groaned with cries of "It's not even November yet!" while clambering about the drippy window, being glad they weren't outside.)It snowed in earnest last night, though, with big fat snowflakes ideal for tongue-catching, swirling in the street-light's glow, blanketing the late-night world with quiet, and all that rot--the silver-bells ambiance fading when the snow stopped, just in time to prevent people from actually wearing boots. Today it settled down to a more familiar bleak. Little stingy snowflakes sticking to the sidewalks just enough to make them slippery, cold, grey, dusky, the whole package.

That said, what better time to enjoy, oh, say, a fig-chai oatmeal cookie and a Chinese green?

Camellia Sinensis has changed its menu. None of the pages are falling out anymore; there are no more "épuisé" stickers (although I shouldn't imagine it'll be long). The pictures are different, and the technique this and that photos are in color. (The tea-sorting baby orangutans from Darjeeling or possibly Assam are gone. Pity.) The menu has been switched around quite a lot really. Some teas are the same, but there's a large percentage have been removed and replaced. The pu-er selection is half-again bigger and includes two vintages from '80 and '76. I'm dying to try them although they're splurges at 12$ a pot. The black teas are quite different, and few of the oolongs remain the same. Some Vietnamese greens have set up shop, and the range of Japanese greens is wider.

I'm pleased. A few of my favourites got the ax--Cingshin 1991, for one, but some, like Sencha Ashikubo, were kept. The menu is neater, and has some really great-looking stuff. It's got me flipping through the pages, reading the descriptions over and over, deliberating endlessly, just like I did when I first walked into the store.

The Lu An Gua Pian I had today is new on the menu, of course. Its leaves are lovely. Blue-tinged green with a sheen of silver. Rolled, ridged, smallish leaves, no stem or twig, medium-sized leaf sections. They smell invitingly spicy. Once unrolled, tiny insect bites are visible--a sign of quality, as Teamasters has taught me. They retain their sea-greenitude when wet.

The tea is a nice yellow. Its texture is thinnish but smooth and genteel. The smell of the rising steam carries out the description's promise: sweet, vegetabley. I shied away from a professed "vegetable character" until recently, fearing sharpness or astringency. Not so, at least in most cases. In this case it communicated freshness and soupçons of avocado. ("Avocado" is from the mouth of Cam. Sen. They always seem to be able to pick specific vegetables. I never seem to, but I'm trying.)

The liquor has sweetness and a good kind of sour, not citric but like an underripe plum or something. My main vegetable pick is asparagus (cooked) and raw stringbeans for the aftertaste.

The second and third infusions are similar but bitter. My fault: the tea likes short infusions. 10s and 15s produced better results. The sourness receded and the throat presenced filled out. Some of the sweetness of the smell seeps in while crunchy string-bean character takes precedence.

This was an excellent tea. The leaves really are things of beauty. The tea itself is very tasty and mild with the theanine--a good evening tea.

(It didn't upstage the fig-chai cookie, but then, what could?)

Vous savez que vous êtes montréalais(e) si...

...vous vous demandez si Algorithme Pharma va bien cesser son étude clinique une de ces décennies.

... « BonjourHi », « AlloBonjour » et « Puis-jevousaiderCanIhelpyou » sont pour vous des mots parfaitement propres et nécéssaires dans la vie quotidienne.

...l'obtention d'une siège sur le métro ou sur le bus est un art qui nécessite le plus développé des sixièmes sens.

...vous maintenez une relation amour-haine avec la STM. Même si vous avez parfois l'impression qu'elle forme une cabale contre vous, vous laissant choir quand vous en avez le plus besoin, même si votre carte opus s'est déja cassée trois fois, même si vous haïssez la saleté des cars de métro et les graffitis sur les fenêtres des autobus, même si vous avez marre du « Mouvement collectif », eh bien, ...eh bien, vous avez comme une familiarité avec elle.

...vous parlez souvent à une caissière ou autre personne semblable dans votre langue secondaire, une action de politesse, croyez-vous, (vous aviez été trompé par son « BonjourHi ») et découvrez subséquemment que c'est la langue secondaire de lui ou elle aussi--mais rendu jusque-là, vous vous sentiriez con à changer de langue.

...votre sens de la géographie de la ville a plus à voir avec les quartiers francophones et anglophones que les noms de rues et les points cardinaux.

...vous vous gardez d'utiliser le mot "malade", car vous ne savez pas, même à cette date, si elle est censée être une bonne ou mauvaise chose.

...vous savez distinguer les clientèles distinctes des cafés. Java U, par exemple, se voue aux jeunes branchés qui payent les salades et sandwichs chers et les patates frites délicieuses. Starbucks accueille des types plus variés et plus pressés, même chose pour Second Cup, avec une emphase sur les étudiants. Caffe Italia est rempli d'Italiens, de shoppeurs à Jean-Talon, et d'enthousiastes de café. Café Art Java, lui, sied aux gens de McGill, glissant une pause café-travail dans leurs horaires chargés. Shaïka réunit les jeunes artistes, musiciens, gens cool, et riffraff de la région. Café Crème attire les aisés de Westmount, les propriétaires de chiens, et des amis réunis pour causer. Ainsi de suite.

...vous vous obstinez: Mont-Royal n'est pas une colline, c'est une montagne.

...vous adorez inconditionnellement votre ville.

High tea: part 2

I'm getting a little depressed by the fact that I'm all alone out here in cyberspace. Nobody's going to read me, ever. Ah, well. I can't keep up with all the trendy chemist-photographer tea bloggers out there. It's life.

I'm not actually sure if "high tea" is the correct terminology. There's some sort of complex arrangement with high and low and afternoon and somewhere-in-between tea being different things. I stick with high out of habit, and I never get around to making sure it's correct.

Tea things should be set up around scones. As such, make them well, as you would a central meat or veggie dish. Serve them with good jam and butter. (Smuckers? Not so much.) If there are homemade spreads, so much the better. Try making apple butter (quite simply a cooked-down apple sauce with the texture of butter). Quebec apples, I love you. I wish you never had to go out of season. Lemon curd is a classic. And jam, if you can cope with the whole canning thing.

That said, scones are the middle course. Start with savories. It's a broad term and covers everything from pâté de foie gras to cucumber sandwiches. There are a lot of recipes out there for little onion and beet confits and various arcane things involving asparagus tips. They're fun. But itsy-bitsy sandwiches, well, they just have this glamour, you know? Here are three "recipes".

1. Cucumber. I don't like cucumbers, but I like good cucumber sandwiches. The secret is to slice them über-thin. Use a vegetable peeler. For these, a light buttering is fairly key. The bread, to keep it classic, should probably be white sandwich, although I have resorted to challah and ciabatta in absence of non-Wonderbready type stuff. A light crack of salt and pepper. If flavourings are your dish, pulverize some mint leaves and put them in; they go well.

2. Stilton & pear. These are actually DELICIOUS. Stilton is a creamy-crumbly Brit blue cheese. With a slice of Bartlett, they're a treat. Here, any bread is fine: baguette is always nice, but "normal" white sandwich is fine too. These sandwiches tend to fall apart because the bread won't stick to the pear. For that reason, I'd recommend lightly buttering the top slice.

3. Apple & cheddar. It's a classic combo. Just make is all sandwichy. A thin-ish slice of apple on top of a cheddar slice of the same thickness between grain-product slices and you're golden. The sandwich doesn't hold together too well, but I don't like it buttered so much; I'd rather just have it be a little topply. Any bread is fine here. Something firmer, however, is preferable; baguette, say, or even matzoh, which offsets the textures rather nicely.

I think there will have to be a part three to this post.

High tea: part 1

British tea drinking is sort of odd. I mean, mostly your real intense fanatics have left big pots and flavoured teas waaaay behind them on the road to tea zendom. But it isn't that big-pot, sugar-added brewing is contemptible; far from it. I always feel that, well, Asia is where tea comes from. They know how to handle it best. Regardless, though, and hypocritical as it sounds, the tea I drink most often is Lapsang Souchong; and the pot I use most often is big enough for two and a half large mugs'-worth. Those are my 'daily brewing needs,' as I would say if I was annoying.

So if you, like me, drink in mugs more frequently than tiny cups, only make sure you do it right. Use good looseleaf tea. Try to avoid companies like Mighty Leaf and Twinings. I'm grateful to the former for their drinkable coffee shop teabags, but I don't turn to them for actual tea. They don't REALLY understand it. Go to a teashop. Buy from an online site. Whatever, but bear in mind that supermarkets to not harbor good tea. Otherwise, boil from cold; rinse the pot with almost-boiling water, then put the tea leaves in, then pour over the water (with the exception of flower tea, which should be put in after the pot is full); never ever use an infuser or a cheesecloth sachet; brew it not too dark and not too weak; warm your mugs; and don't forget it on the countertop to cool down and overbrew. I do this once a week. It's very wicked.

If you feel that your peace of mind will be materially disturbed by the non-addition of sugar, well, I suppose it's not for the pedants to decide for you. But, I mean, come on; after that, it tastes only like sugar. You aren't drinking tea gratia tea-is. If, ah, you see what I mean.

The fun part of the 'British tea ceremony' is the food. I think the comment 'Yaaaay scones!' might be appropriate at this point. I'm a scone purist, in practice if not particularly in principle; the thing I disapprove of is dried cranberries. They are so pointless. They're dry, sad, forlorn, tasteless. Anyways. Here are the keys to good scones, in order of importance.

1. Cold butter. Everyone's been told this many times for things from piecrusts to shortbread; it makes a difference. (Always. Use. Butter. 'Nuff said.)
2. Do not knead. Whatever the recipe says, don't knead the dough. Mix it with a wooden spoon until it comes together or just shy of it; quite a number of smidgens of flour can be left, unmoistened, at the bottom of the bowl. And even if the dough comes apart a bit when you're cutting it, it doesn't matter. Just squish them a little bit and place them on the baking sheet intact.
3. You really don't need to cut it the butter that finely. In other words, don't cut the butter up fine--or else. I find that a pastry cutter works wonders. If there are any heterogenous lumps, just break them up à la main.
4. Hot oven, cold dough. It's a pretty good rule of thumb for quick breads.
5. Do it by hand. With practice, there is no time loss, and you have that much more control over the forming of gluten and butter creaminess.
6. Finally, remember that your liquids have the major role in flavouring your scones. I use a beaten egg and skim milk. Cream will be richer. Buttermilk scones have a following. More eggy, less milky, whatever. Experiment a bit.

Next post, I'll explain a bit about my favourite meal to put together, because generally it only involves baking: a complete high tea.

Cingshin 1991

Café, fumée de feu de camp, senteurs d'épices rôtissant sur le feu: ainsi se fait le résumé du Cingshin 1991, un thé qui compte parmi mes préférés.

Comme d'habitude, j'exécute l'infusion avec un ensemble gong fu cha. Le thé s’agit d’un wulong roulé cuit. (Bizarrement, je ne l’ai pas pu trouver sur la boutique en ligne; puisque j’ai oublié de noter les infos sur la carte des thés, c’est tout ce que j’en ai à vous dire.) La petite théière est blanche, ce qui sort un peu de l’ordinaire. Ce choix a bien donné un effet, car les feuilles sont noires. Elles reluisent pratiquement de noirceur. Elles seraient belles ne soit-ce que pour le drame. Heureusement, elles sont attrayantes en forme aussi : serrées en jolies boules, avec quelques brindilles plus dorées ici et là. Plus tard, quand les feuilles se sont déroulées, elles se sont montrées immenses et entières. À date, c’était très bien, les feuilles.

Par contre, il faudra que je décrive leur parfum pour justifier cet énoncé : les feuilles sont l’aspect le plus épatant de ce thé. Ce n’est pas une odeur qui se hume délicatement en petits coups. C’est une de celles qui n’attend pas, mais qui frappe le nez, le dépasse, atteint vite la bouche et remplit tout de suite les poumons. J’ai cité auparavant quelles étaient ces odeurs, mais je les redirai : fumée, tabac, épices, café. À la suite de quelques infusions, le petit pot évoquait presque le brûlé, tellement que ces feuilles n’abandonnent pas. Le cuit est présent, ainsi qu’une petite amertume de rien du tout. Je n’avais pas peur qu’elle se développe en quelque espèce de café instantané.

La soupe? À la première infusion, brun-orange, mais c’était le résultat d’une erreur de ma part. Lors des prochains essais, je l’ai plus « poussée ». (Je me croyais en danger de me retrouver avec quelque chose d’imbuvable.) La « vraie » couleur est un beau rouge-brun foncé.

Les toutes premières impressions de la tasse d’odeurs n’avaient pas grand-chose à dire. Vaguement céréalières, les notes hautes présentent seules de lointaines indices de café et d’épices. Cependant, il n’y avait qu’à attendre. Les arômes de toast deviennent riches, rondes, basses, si bien qu’on se croirait déjà en train de boire.

Pourtant, quand je le bois réellement, c’est un peu décevant. Les fragrances m’avaient trop raconté à propos du spectacle à venir. Non, mais, il faut simplement pousser ce thé pour obtenir un breuvage honnête. À ce moment-là, eh bien, c’est soyeux, c’est énergétique, c’est des rôties et du café pour déjeuneur dans une bouchée—ces saveurs laissant derrière elles des subtilités épicés délicieusement entremêlées au cuir.

Flexible, ce thé! Il supporte bien les temps d’infusions longs. J’ai développé une phobie de trop laisser tremper les thés; tant d’eux se transforment en monstres.

Le qi, bien qu’il ne soit pas l’attrait qui attirera la foule, me réveille mais me relaxe.

En conclusion, il me faut une quantité de ce thé. Je l’ai siroté chez Camellia Sinensis, où j’ai mangé un scone poire-gingembre si fin qu’il faudra peut-être que je parfume mes propres scones de même. (Il a très mal allé avec le thé, mais c’est la vie.) Ce fut un vrai plaisir de rencontrer ce thé qui offre tant sans menaces. Ça me réchauffe déjà de pense à en boire pendant les longues soirées hivernales qui s’en viennent.

Mushroom Risotto

Risotto is very in right now.

No, I'm kidding, actually. It's just that I've only now discovered it. What with the white wine and octopus, I was inspired to make my own.

(Sidenote: most of the ingredients for this were procured on a trip the Little Italy/Jean-Talon area, among others the Milano Fruiterie. This is due for another post because it's too much intenseness to deal with here.)

My first reference for Italian cooking is always Marcella Hazan. She's a bit of a god. The first good and still the best person to write an Italian cookbook in English, she brought real Italian food, and some of its values to America. Thank you. She has lots to say about risotto, including that it's pretty unique. True enough. Every cuisine seems to use rice, from Morocco to Japan. Understandably, since it's one of the great things in life. But Italians have taken rice and made it risotto and made it their own; good thing too.

So. Risotti have a sort of fascinating basic mode d'emploi. First, sauté finely chopped onions and anything else solid that will flavour the risotto in butter (or olive oil--depends). Of course, some delicate things won't stand up to this and must be added at the end. Octopus is an example. In such a case, the brine or juices, etc, would be added at the beginning and the actual flesh a little before the rice finishes cooking.

Anyways. The rice must be short-grain, which is to say it must be cultivar destined for risotto. The popular, all-purpose variety is called Arborio, by far the most renowned. I'd no idea there even were any other suitable kinds of rice until Marcella told me so. (They are Carnaloni and Vialone Nano. Arborio is much easier to find.)Once you have all this rice stuff sorted out, proceed to sauté the rice with the onions and miscellany until the rice is thoroughly coated with delicious butter stuff.

The difficult part about this is the stirring. When they say stirring constantly, folks, they sure aren't kidding. Not only that, but a wooden spoon will not cut it. You need a firm spatula that's powerful, heat-resistant and can get that pan circumference where the rice will stick. You must keep the motion constantly; stirring, scraping, folding, and doing it fast as you can. Marcella says the bottom of the pan must be completely scraped every ten seconds. It is so, so true, but also kind of fun, so don't freak out.

So, after you've made the flavour base and added the rice, the time has come for the liquefaction. Or something. Risotti generally have beef/chicken/veal/whatever stock as their main liquid. Many have wine. Some have seafood juices, etc. The point is to give the rice soup some serious flavour.

Side note about stock: I was very wicked here and used bouillon. It's a total and complete cop-out, and I hang my head in culinary shame. But the risotto came out beautifully, so I think it's reasonable to think of it as means to an end. Next time I really will make stock, though. For anybody else, my experience was that bouillon is an acceptable substitute.

The catch about adding the liquid is that it must be added about a cup at a time, no more (although it's not necessary to measure--just eyeball it). Liquid. Stir madly until the rice has absorbed it all. Liquid. Stir madly until they it desoupifies completely. Liquid. And so on, until the desired texture has been achieved, depending if you want your risotto thick or thin, etc, etc.

A tip to make the stirring easier is to really add the next cup of liquid right after the rice has absorbed. As the dish progresses, stirring the rice without new stock makes it stick to the pan much faster and easier.

Okay, then. Say you've added all the liquid the recipe calls for, more or less, according to taste. You continue to cook the rice (um, I got a little exhausted, but that's the price to pay) for twenty more minutes approximately. Don't let up on the stirring! The same rigidity applies. Everywhere you go, they say the rice should be cooked slightly al dente. Cook it how you want it. The risotto will probably be better if it has a bit of a bite to the grain, preserving more of the dish's unique texture, but if you want it soupier, go ahead. Even more al dente? Fine. It's a matter of preference and various variables.

The final step is called mantecate. It's very simple: you simply take the pan off the heat (I used a dutch oven for its heat-conducting and heavy dutiness) and add some more butter and some grated parmesan. Cool to palatable and enjoy.

Remeber that there are more different risotti than you can possibly imagine. Some sound really weird and un-italian, but here are some ideas, just to give you an idea of the diversity: spinach & curried veal, red wine, lemon and pomegranate (okay, that sounds incredibly bizarre, I'm sorry, I'm sorry; I'm getting these off random sites), mushroom, asparagus, with raisins (?), sausages & leeks, basic tomato... I could go on forever. All of them will probably have their deliciousnesses. Try some out.

My risotto was excellent. I made it with a combination of shiitake and portobello mushrooms (the two together are supposed to resemble the flavour of porcini mushrooms, which I can't find) in the flavour base. Chicken stock, some dry white cooking wine, arborio rice. Yummy. It had a great texture (it might have been a tiny bit gummy, so more liquid next time) and was one of those things that's very very flavourful, although what flavour exactly it's difficult to say. Mushroom flavour, I suppose. Delicious. Try it yourself. Good luck!

St-Denis and awesomeness

I'm not quite sure how to go about this city blogging part. I haven't got a specific place to review, but just some wandering on St-Denis; but I suppose that's Montreal, and that's bloggable.

Of course, the reason I head to this stretch is Camellia Sinensis. So no, I don't mean the Mont-Royal to Sherbrooke station drag. This is the span from Sherbrooke to about Ste-Catherine. Yes, it's short. But it gets really dense in there. You can pack a lot of city into two blocks and then have pointless expanse for miles--elsewhere. Chinatown is proof, although I think it's just a Chinatown thing. Whether Chinatowns/International Districts/whatever are big or small, there's more of it per square foot than there is of the Main (well, in a different way). Maybe it's a cultural thing.

Anyways, back to UQAM area. Don't you just hate the construction around Quartier des Spectacles? The 80 bus has been derouted and it took me forever to find it this one time I was going to a cupcake place on Park. (It was closed. Apparently, it's really good, but I can never catch it at the right times. Cocoa Locale, I will get to you someday. Maybe.)

Anyways. If you go the long underground way out of the Berri Metro, you come out on the stretch I was talking about. There's some attractions around there. Cinémathèque Québecoise, for one thing; and the Cinéma Robothèque. And some normal movie theatre, right across from C. M. The profusion of movie theatres may be why some of the Festival du Films du Monde is there.

When you turn onto St-Denis from St-Catherine, there's a little green space in front of a building--part of the UQAM campus. There's a cool thing going on there right now. The design school is doing something it calls 40 ans, 40 chaises; I assume it's celebrating it's fortieth anniversary. And yes, with chairs. They have perfectly normal metal framework chairs, just without seats (I guess there are forty. I didn't count). But they've woven seats into the chairs, so that they're actually quite comfy. It's done with some kind of red seat-belt material. But it doesn't end there. The chairs are woven in to the place--into the storm drain here, the chairs connected by one woven-round strap. The trees are tied full of them. Some is woven into the upper balcony, some into the ironwork fence. And mixed in, tied in, woven in, are pretty neat, bright red chairs. You should really go check it out.
Right across, there's that neat church building that's attached to a newer bâtiment. Entering through the pretty old front-of-a-church brings you to it.

The next stretch is the nice part. It's a lot of old, colourful, beautiful houses, except filled with stores. That's past and present meshed if I've ever seen it. They remind me of the houses outside of Square St-Louis (the most awesome place ever. If you've never looked at the houses around it, do). The awnings, the terraces, the people, the narrow street, the cars. Somehow it's very, very Montreal. The kind of place you bump into someone and they'll say 'Scusez and you'll say Sorry at the same time and you'll both understand each other. It has the coffee shops and the sketchy shops and the shisha places. This is the Plateau. Je suis bien au Quartier Latin. It's pretty damn difficult to get better than this.

Le Commensal--a famous buffet-style vegetarian restaurant--is here. There are a lot of cool restaurants; this place is mostly restaurant, in fact. Part of what makes it so pretty is the color, and the levels. That's what always strikes me. These shops don't make a row, they make a commotion.

There's a little Tibetan hole-in-the-wall clothes shop north of Emery. It's really small, but it's really nice; I just got a gorgeous headband there for 8$. The prices are all reasonable, and the clothes are all gorgeous, if not all wearable. There's interesting Tibetan traditional stuff, but also bags, wallets, pretty things.

That's really all I have to say. I hope the first Montreal post is all right.

Soufflé au citron

Je me sens tellement Gordon Ramsay en ce moment.

Là, j'exagère. Mais je ne peux m'empêcher de sentir qu'un soufflé réussi constitue un milestone dans mon éducation culinaire. À vrai dire, c'est un tout petit peu triste que je n'en avait fait aucun à date. Aucun réussi, plûtot: même si j'en ai fait quelques-uns au chocolat, ils manquaient le drame essentiel du soufflé, et en plus goûtait l'amidon.

Peu importe. Je préfère toujours le citron au chocolat. C'est plus facile d'arriver à un goût intense. Le chocolat, quand c'est réussi, whoa! c'est réussi--mais si c'est ça moins, alors je resterai agrumoholique. Mais il est vrai qu'avec des quantités généreux de zeste et de jus, vous êtes pratiquement garantis un bon dessert. Souvenez-vous en.

Cette recette n'était pas tout à fait conventionnel. Une autre recette de Cook's Illustrated (elles sont toujours intéressantes à essayer, mais parfois un peu surcompliquées) avait pour but de démystifier et apporter au peuple le soufflé qui éclate de prestige. En faisant, on a totalement éliminé la base de crème pâtissière. Je n'en suis pas trop dévasté. Mes skills ne couvrent pas 20/20 la crème pâtissière parfaite. La raison principale pour ça serait d'éliminer le risque de starchiness et de permettre au saveur citron de briller sans être soumis au lait.

Alors: mélange de jaune d'oeuf et de sucre, ajouté ensuite de zeste, jus, et farine. Rien d'autre, sauf les blancs d'oeufs monté en neige. Petite indice, particulièrement quand les blancs d'oeufs devront être incorporés à quelque chose d'autre. Battez-les à main, avec un batteur d'oeufs, ou à mi-vitesse sur un malaxeur. Comme ça, les bulles d'air seront plus petits et moins facile à éclater: plus stable.

En tout cas. On fait fondre du beurre dans un poêlon de dix pouces. Faut que ce soit ces dimensions exactes pour assurer la cuisson bien arrangée. Une fois fondu et chauffé, le soufflé et cuit sur la poêle à peu près 2min, durant quel temps les cotés prennent et forment un peu des bulles. Ce n'est qu'après ça qu'on glisse notre futur soufflé dans le four.

Si le soufflé n'avait cette hauteur incroyable qui me fait toujours rêver dans les photos des lives de recette, c'est à cause du poêlon. Il forme un dome merveilleusement doré, avec un peu la surface d'un lemon meringue pie, sauf plus jaune. Il s'est bel et bien gonflé. Une cuillèrée confirme que le goût était loin d'un échec lui aussi. La texture va presque sans dire. La seule plainte que j'ai pu avoir, c'est qu'après plusieurs minutes sur mon assiète, la texture s'est comme dégonflé. Pas gommeux, exactement, mais certainement avec une lourdeté dans la bouche. Probablement que tous les soufflés ont ce destin. Vaut la peine d'en faire, par contre. Vous allez vous sentir tellement Gordon Ramsay.

White wine and octopus risotto

I went the Claremont (5032 Sherbrooke) recently. I know it's been a Westmount institution for ages. That means it's good, established, chic, and expensive. I don't mean Toqué or Buona Notte expensive--far from it--but just that you will pay more than fifteen for a main course. This meal was worth it, though; a real treat. You may be wondering about the title of the post. I'll get to it.

The menu is surprisingly short. This place seems to describe itself as an eclectic urban bistro, and while that's a pretty pompous thing to describe yourself as, "eclectic" certainly fits. We have "Claremont Poutine" right next to shrimp cocktail with chili and horseradish sauce. I would say that the majority is probably something like Italian; pizza, pasta, are creative, but not world fusion in any big way. They have different burgers, and various weird and tempting pastas, but I am attracted to Risotto of the day, which has an excitingly mysterious market price. I am actually kind of ravi by risotto as an of-the-day. I'm not above thinking it's downright nifty. Anyways. Today's risotto is the aformentioned white wine and octupus. Well. I could hardly pass that one up, especially on enthusiastic recommendation from the waitress.

I had actually never eaten risotto before. I know what it is, vaguely: a sort of Italian stew made from short-grain arborio rice gone all épaisse and crémeux and gloopy. I sort of had the impression it always involved tomatoes, but apparently this couldn't be farther from the truth. The plate presented me was lovely sort of lilac color. It was smooth with the unique texture of the rice grains in there. I'll have to try making it on my own. It had, as all restaurant dishes should, a sprig of parsley and a lemon wedge. I remember very distinctly that my first bite was phenomenal (don't worry, the subsequent bites were phenomenal, too). I feel like I need a new interjection of deliciousness, but yum. Laced with coriander (I think), interspersed with lots of delicious bits of octopus, sweet and seafoody, but with the delicate astringency of white wine without a trace of its alcoholy tang, and with a melt-in-the-mouth texture, this. dish. was. awesome. The portion wasn't gigantic, but it suited me perfectly. I ate every bite.

So! Go here, I guess, when you want a nice meal out. I'm not a big fan of the music, but then I never am. Other people at my table had a burger, which they enjoyed, and mussels in red thai basil sauce, which I tried (the mussels were excellent and so was the sauce; however, I don't know the briny mussels really needed the curryish sauce, or vice versa). Nice service, nice place, institution. I certainly had an exceptional meal here.

Fig newtons, upgraded.

A while ago, I had this whim that I wanted to try a fig. No, I've never tried one before; I didn't even know if you had to peel it. But I bought one, and it was... really good. As if to follow me up, I got another on my scone plate from Camellia Sinensis (with a good Assam Sree Sibbari--dark red, smooth, spicy, but only served in a teapot, so not worth writing about). On inquiry, however, no one else in my family liked figs. It was going to be hard to integrate them into the old diet.
However, a forgotten family staple was brought up: Fig Newtons, which my family did like. It seemed like a pretty simple combo (fig stuff and sugar-cookie type stuff). There was this cook's illustrated recipe I'd been waiting to try. Sablé cookies are basically sugar cookies, the jewel in the crown of which is their sandy texture. With the peculiar tartness and mushy texture of figs, I thought they'd be in harmonie parfaite. Fig newtons, except with fresh fig and french biscuits.

The most outstanding thing about the Cook's Illustrated recipe was that, in order to maximize sandiness by minimizing moisture, the single egg yolk in the recipe is hard-boiled and pressed through a mesh sieve. C'est assez inouï, at least for me. Except for that time-consuming step, this is a basic recipe: butter & sugar, creamed together with a paddle attachment on an electric mixer, then the flour beaten in till it's something vaguely handleable.
The added difficulty here is lack of moisture. The dough is more reluctant to doughify without at least a liquid egg yolk. My mistake here was not beating the flour enough to make it more cohesive than it was. After making two six-inch logs--with considerable difficulty, since I had to roll it parchment paper to get it to stay together--they were chilled for an hour. In theory, slicing them would result in perfect shaped circular cookies.

FAIL. Attempts to slice the first log resulted in a pathetic, mishmashed crumble of completely un-cookie-suitable texture. This was extremely discouraging. The remedy found was to dump it in a lined loaf pan and squish it to the bottom using another loaf pan. I scored in into squares for post-oven breakage. Espérons meilleure chance au prochain essai...
Que j'ai eu. Fortunatly, the second log sliced beautifully except for the very end. Reason: unknown. I got sixteen v. pretty cookies from this arrangement. Both prototypes were brushed with egg white and sprinkled with demerara (coarse raw sugar) before baking.
Hey, yum! The loaf-pan ones didn't brown very well because of the high sides, but were still delicious. And my improvised fig-coupling went deliciously. Sandy texture delivered the whole extra mile. I was actually ravi by the demerara; crunchy & flavourful. I'm considering replacing half the sugar in the dough with brown for extra sugarness.
Succesful experiment. Will repeat. À la prochaine.

Moment Montréal

Hier, j'ai mangé à un restaurant japonais/chinois (c'est un peu bizarre, mais c'est juste à coté de chez moi, alors je le fréquente quand mes plans pour souper marchent trop pas). La famille à coté parlait Français au serviteur. Lui, son Français n'était pas trop bon: probablement qu'il parlait couramment l'Anglais et le Mandarin ou le Japonais. Là, la famille continua sa conversation--en espagnol, et le serviteur donne leur commande aux cuisines dans une langue asiatique quelconque.

Where else?

Cela dit, je viens d'acheter une nouvelle théière Yixing. Puisqu'il a couté en dessous de vingt piasses, je doute fortement qu'il est en fait fait d'argile Yixing--tant pis. Suivant le conseil du Half-Dipper, je l'ai immergé dans un grand bol de puerh très très fort pour une nuit au complet. Le matin, je l'ai vidé et poli gentiment avec un bout d'éponge non abrasif, et laissé sécher à l'air frais.

Je n'ai jamais eu de petite théière d'argile non varnie avant ça. Ceci sera une expérience. J'ai l'intention de réserver ce pot au thés puerhs, dont j'ai récemment reçu un merveilleux cadeau. Je vais acheter un ensemble wenxiangbei & pinglingbei au Quartier Chinois, et je serai prête à être apprenti maître du gong fu cha. Heu, ouais. Peut-être. En tout cas, je dois garder mes expectations raisonnables (lire: bas) pour ce premier pot. C'est par l'utilisation qu'il s'améliora. Alors, aux maintes infusions que j'y ferai!

Udon Noodle Soup

Weather seems to have a sizeable effect on my cooking choices.

There was a big thunderstorm. This cooled everything right off and made the idea of soup very comforting, not to mention feasible heat-wise.

I loove udon noodle soup. I tend to get it in crummy Asian fast food places, when I have to eat there. (Not all Asian fast food places are really bad. Airport ones are, generally, but otherwise, you've a fair chance of getting good food.) In any case, it's pretty hard to botch, in general. Good sign for tentative ethnic foodie.

J soups have a basic and very all-purpose stock: dashi, made from water, dried giant kelp, and shaved dried fish (bonito flakes). When I say all-purpose, I mean it: this is in miso, won ton, anything. You can, of course, buy it powdered: hon-dashi--but no properly obsessed foodie would do that. My cookbook, this time, didn't lie about the stock being easy to make. It took under ten minutes. Nor do you need a really exceptional ethnic grocery store to get these thing. If it's Japanese, it will absolutely positively have bonito flakes, sometimes called katsuobushi, and kombu. Fear not.

(I got mine at a certain Miyamoto. Small but well-stocked Asian grocery store; it may be the only one in the Westmount area).

So that part succeeded. I was working from a recipe here from a site called Soup Song; I'm kind of in love with it. Have added to link list. The udon noodles are to be cooked by boiling water, adding noodles, then adding cold water to the pot and returning to the rolling boil. It was pretty easy. The most complicated thing was the mushrooms. Using dried Shiitake, you soak in boiling water for an hour. Then you add sugar and soy sauce to the "mushroom tea" formed, and cook it down, the mushrooms absorbing some liquid. Seeing as there were the noodles to cook, the salmon to grill (I was doing grilled salmon as a side), the broth to heat, and the mushrooms to caramelize, and I only had two burners, the result was some sad, confused burner-hopping. On the bright side, the mushroom stuff was dee-lish: the liquid gave a gorgeous flavour to the dashi and the mushrooms were good. Next time, I'll use more.

One thing about the udon was they were very starchy, turning the water white. Asian noodles are rinsed and rubbed together after cooking to remove that starch. I don't think I did this hard enough. They were a little odd, slimy maybe, and colored the dashi. Don't overlook this step.

The salmon was being served separately, although I ended up eating it in the soup: yum. So the only other component was some chives, en défaut de spring onions. Eat up! I was satisfied with this for a first try, but it had flaws, so...

Next time:
1. Mirin! I didn't season the broth with it enough. Bad. Not enough character.
2. More work on the noodle front.
3. More mushrooms; more of that whole affair.
4. More broth; my proportions were kind of messed up, and there were too many noodles.
5. No chives. They were just weird.
6. More... stuff. It was a little too simple for a one-pot meal. On the list: fried egg, à la bibimbop, nori (awesome in soups. Period), and integrate the salmon.

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

These are hot days. You would think, what with the ferocious winters, Montreal would at least boast clement summers. Sadly, this is not the case. Even what has been a singularly cold, rainy and depressing July isn't the norm. The norm is high twenties and extreme humidity. All this to say--what better time to make ice cream?

Mint has taken over our backyard, and I wanted to try something that was not chocolate, vanilla, or fruit sorbet (I love fruit sorbet, but at this time of year I can't bring myself not to eat fruit raw). The obvious is mint chocolate chip. Yum. Refreshing, chocolatey and smooth.

Also, it uses some of the rampaging mint. But here's the catch--none of the recipes I can find use mint, preferring peppermint extract. Peppermint extract? To me, that sounds like making vanilla ice cream without a vanilla bean: a cop-out. Maybe I'm being stuck up, but I wasn't going to buy any of it. So.

Vanilla ice cream scrapes the weird little seedy sticky things from the inside of the pod into the custard (a tell-tale sign of good vanilla is little black specs) then lets the milk stand or simmer or both for something like fifteen minutes with the pod, after which it is discarded. Here, I could use the infusing plan, but bits of crushed mint-leaf didn't sound like such an appealing stir-in. (Also, beware "bits" that are supposed to give the whole a flavor; they don't magically exude taste. They explode in your mouth and overpower everything else. I had a very good brownie once at Au Festin de Babette on St-Denis, warmth and gooiness-wise. But it had bits of crystallized ginger in it, and it was really weird. I ended up just sort of avoiding them.)

Before I give the game plan, I'll go over ice cream technique. Whisk egg yolks with a lot of sugar until thickened and pale yellow. Simmer milk, cream, whatever it is. Whisk hot dairy gradually into eggs, return to saucepan, thicken, stirring constantly, until "the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon." Refrigerate till cold. Freeze. Add stir-ins in last 5min of freezing.

My original plan was to replace the sugar in the recipe with sugar syrup, which would be easy to flavour with mint. It would be like... really really sweet mint tea. Then I would also simmer the milk 5min and let stand 10min with lots of mint sprigs. I used the recipe in the ice cream book for simple syrup: equal parts sugar and water, simmer 2min. But with mint.

First modification: although the syrup was very minty, I chickened out of replacing the sugar with it because of proportion concerns (cup for cup replacement? Yes? No?) and because I didn't think it was thick enough. I ended up replacing 2 tbsp of sugar with it. It did lightly flavour the eggs, but not enough to carry the ice cream.

Second: because of this, I decided to leave the mint sprigs in the mix right up until the custard thickened. I kept adding new leaves en panique. And in the end, I wrapped some mint in cheesecloth and popped it in while the custard refrigerated, removing only before freezing.

For the chocolate chips, I chopped up a whole bunch of chocolate by hand. One or two handfuls; I didn't bother to measure, which may have been a bad idea. And the verdict...

Pretty good! The mint flavour was definitely there. It was very different, and far more sincere, than it would have been with extract.The chocolate tasted great. The ice cream was smooth. But I had a few complaints about the finished product, and these are they:
1. The mint flavour wasn't strong enough. Better, but weaker than if I'd used extract. I'd wanted something that made you go Whoa, mint! Instead of Oh, mint.
2. Too much chocolate. Though it was chopped to the right degree, and added texture to a certain extent, the crunchiness was overpowering and kind of obliterated any other texture.
3. It wasn't frozen enough--but this was solved after freezing it, out of the ice cream maker, in a container in the fridge and eating the next day.
So, for next time:
1.Don't chicken out of the syrup. I'm going adapt a recipe that calls for syrup to get the proportions right, simply adding the mint.
2. Make the milk mint-infusing simpler by making mint teabags with cheesecloth and changing them for fresh ones when the milk is added to the eggs. I doubt infusing while chilling made much difference, so I'll leave that out.
3. Decrease the chocolate by half. My guess is I used something like a cup, so I'll do half next time.
Overall, though, a successful experiment, and pretty delicious. I'll be trying it again. When I do, I'll post the finalized recipe. In the meantime, I'm going to use the mint syrup to make interesting cold drinks. Because, after all, these are hot days.

Ali Shan M. Chen 1991

Bon. J'ai l'intention de compléter ce post en Français, ou Franglais, qui serait vraiment ma langue maternelle en tout cas. Mais Camellia Sinensis (Maison de thé--je l'ai mentionnée avant comme un facteur de ma découverte du thé dit Orientale) est dans le Quartier Latin, quelques 10 mètres de St-Denis sur une quasi-ruelle. Comme son nom l'indique (Moi, en jouant Trivial Pursuit: Quel ville du monde possède un Quartier Latin? Montréal! Ce qui est vrai, mais je parie qu'ils pensaient à Paris) c'est un quartier très francophone, et je voudrais en garder l'esprit.

Pour parler un peu de Camellia Sinensis: le Half-Dipper, Britannique, se plaint qu'il n'y a pas de "tea scene" à Londres. Eh bien! Nous en avons une, et Camellia Sinensis l'est. C'est un endroit très zen, plutot petit, et très populaire, particulièrement d'un Vendredi ou Samedi nuit, lorsque j'ai déja attendu une demi-heure pour avoir une table. On vous présente un beau menu, qui offre thés blancs, verts, noirs, wulongs, et pu er, du Japon, de l'Inde, du Chine, du Taiwan, etc. Ils sont tous servis sur les petits tables de thé avec tout ce qui est nécéssaire: soit en chung, en gong fu cha, en kyüsu, ou pour les moins obsédés, simplement en théière. Le thé sélectionné est excellent, l'ambiance est merveilleux, et en tout, c'est un de mes spots favoris dans la ville entière. (De plus, les scones sont presque égaux aux miens, ce qui en dit beaucoup.)

Mais le thé. S'appelle Ali Shan de M. Chen. (Non, j'ai aucune idée de qui M. Chen s'agit. Ce thé fait partie du sélection printannier de thés, rapporté par l'équipe de thé après leurs voyages en Asie pour choisir les meilleurs thés pour l'année.) Originaire du Montagne Ali à Taiwan, c'est un wulong roulé de haute altitutude. Les feuilles sont présentés ci-haut. Moi, je trouve que les wulongs roulés ont l'allure particulièrement attrayante. Plus tard quand les feuilles s'auront déroulées, elles se revèleront grandes et fortes. Elles dégagent de beaux odeurs peu surprisants: un peu musky, mais beau quand même. L'odeur plein et frais mais pungent des wulongs est en vedette. Il n'y a à peine une indice du gazon qui apparait quant au gout.

La liqueur est jaune-vert--beaucoup plus jaune que vert. La première infusion est assez limpide, et sans couleur intense. Un peu de sédiment. J'ai fait ce thé en gong fu cha. Petite théière blanc porcelaine--je crois sans mémoire, mais je ne saurais vérifier. Se déguste en ensemble tasse odeur + tasse goût.

Alors, le wengxiangbei présente tout de suite ce que j'attendais: odeurs "hautes" de gazon et de bambou, très végétal sans être acide. Et là... grande surprise. Le végétal se désintègre dans la tasse odeur pour donner place à des odeurs dé-li-cieuses de presque-cannelle, d'une croûte de tarte dans le four, un peu de flocons d'avoine, de cône de gaufre tout frais... Ces odeurs sont basses, réconfortantes et pleins de personnalité. Wow.

Malheureusement, le goût ne ressemble en aucun point ces odeurs. Malgré étant énergétique sur les lèvres, la première qualité que je remarque est l'amertume. Très très gazonneux et très très amer. En dessous de ces saveurs, rien. Le liqueur n'a zéro présence dans la bouche, ni dans la gorge.

Mais... attends. Après dix minutes, je commence à "ressentir les effets". Et ces effets sont puissants. Ça commence gentiment, je suis plus réveillé, plus concentré, plus alerte. Là, je commence à être jittery. Mes membres vibrent presque. Wow encore.

En temps, je m'en viens à pardonner le gout un peu. Par la quatrième infusion, le thé a une présence en bouche mielleux, et très agréable. La couleur du thé se rajoute de beauté. Des traces de sucré se mèlent au saveurs en bouche. Plus de grain se présente en-dessous du bambou/pois. Mais l'amertume est loin d'être disparu.

En tout, j'ai été surpris et ravi par ce thé--exceptant son goût! Ce qui me montre simultanément que le goût n'est pas le tout d'un thé, et qu'il en fait une bonne partie. Malgré les plaisirs, ce thé est trop aggressif pour ressayer. Mais merci à Camellia Sinensis pour un session agréable et intéressante.

The First Post

Hello, cyberspace. This is Montreal Foodie. Pleased to meet you.

I'm new to the blogosphere--the active part of it, anyway. But I have read too many genius Half-Dipper and Tea Masters posts, and was too fangirl-ized by Julie and Julia, not to want to give it a shot.

So, food and tea and Montreal. Montreal is the coolest city ever. Its bilingualness is cool. Its marchés publics are cool. Its ethnic diversity is cool. Hell, even Alstom Télécité (those screens on the Metro) is cool. J'adore tout ce qui fait Montreal--pour une ville aussi cool que ça, c'est foule beaucoup. I'm thinking this blog will be bilingue in a minor way. I'm anglo bilingual, so English is my préférence. But if this blog is to be partly about this city, what good is it if it doesn't communicate a tiny part of the thrill of living in one of the only truly bilingual cities anywhere?

Thoughts on food: life is too short to eat bad food. Really. (It's also too short to use teabags and not explore your city.) I love experimenting with food, especially ethnic, via restaurants and ethnic grocery stores (ethnic grocery stores are wonderful things) and home cooking and exciting cookbooks. I can cook, or so I've been told; my skills are not in an exceptional way of things, but I'm getting better and having fun doing so, which is the point. I want to post about new stuff that I try--restaurants, recipes, spices, Chinatown markets, whatever.

And finally, tea. I've been drinking tea (technically, anyways) I suppose for five years now. I grew up with it, but a very Western brewing style. Never, ever, teabags, which I'm grateful for; we drank it from a big teapot, Twinings looseleaf, in mugs, with sugar, and pretty much Lapsang Souchong all the time. But I've grown out of that. I still do it (although, of course, without the sugar) but I'm a whole lot more savvy to Eastern brewing styles, thanks to excellent tea bloggers, to my Chinese friends, and to my favourite tea place, Camellia Sinensis. I buy tea and teapots on a semi-compulsive level. My favourite instrument is my cheap little gaiwan. I take tasting notes and make little tea setups. So, as the Half-dipper says, I am a little bit sad.

In any case, no one is going to be reading this, so I guess I will persevere writing to you, cyberspace, until I get some actual readers. I feel a bit like a maniacal monologuer, but I suppose that's the whole point. Till next post, when we will see how the actual blogging goes.