SHUT UP.

A Nutella latte.

deVille on first street.

I went for elevenses today; Pierre, author of the (award winning!) cookbook Kitchen Scraps, made crumpets. I know! For real! Crumpets! Only the very best butter transport system ever created!

Crumpets are made out of a wet, yeasty batter - thicker than pancake batter but thinner than bread dough - cooked in a hot skillet in crumpet rings (or cookie cutters, or cleaned-out tuna tins opened on both ends) until they're set enough to flip and cook until crusty gold on the other side. Why pancakes and waffles are so commonly made on Sunday mornings but crumpets aren't I have no idea. It's totally unfair. Maybe I'll go to the UK and ask them. Over crumpets.

The recipe isn't quite done yet. Pierre deemed the batter too sticky. They were quite fabulous, even … Read More

Honestly, I haven't been this excited about a new restaurant opening in a very long time.

CHARCUT Roast House, which has been in the works for in the neighbourhood of 3 years now, is finally open. Yes, it's a carnivore's Disneyland. But there's a lot on the menu for non-meat-eaters too. I already know what I'm going to have first: Romaine and Crispy Chicken Skin with Buttermilk Dressing. (I got a preview of the menu, which will be altered daily - love the hand-written note: because you can't have any salad without meat.)

There are wonderful people at the helm here - a lot of very big hearts. The menu will change daily as they play in the kitchen. You have the option of your own table, a seat at a long communal table (a thick slab of wood that came all the way … Read More

Last night was our Julie & Julia-themed dinner party, to celebrate the movie's release tomorrow (!) attended by some of my favourite Calgarian writer-eaters: Pierre, Gail, Gwendolyn and Cheryl and their significant others. It was a potluck - which are making a comeback, have you heard? I heartily recommend them - people love to bring food, and if not, they can always buy stuff. It takes the pressure off you, and minimizes dishes.

Everyone was instructed to bring something out of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which is seeing a holiday resurgence in sales thanks to the movie. I made - what else? Boeuf Bourguignon. It needs a good long time to braise - slow cookers work fabulously for this - and in fact is better after a couple days in the fridge … Read More

Dinner tonight was fresh biscuits topped with deconstructed roasted tomato and garlic bruschetta.

See what I did there? Made dinner sound like something you'd pay a fortune for (or I would, anyway) if you ordered it off a restaurant menu? Really what "deconstructed" means is I ate what calorically counted as dinner standing up over the stove, mopping sticky, olive-oily tomato juices and teak-coloured cloves of garlic off the roasting pan with chunks of warm biscuit. It was so good I couldn't even make it to the table. When Mike and W came downstairs, they got leftover warmed soup and eggs on toast, respectively. I realize this sounds like far more of a summer meal than one you'd make while knocking on winter's door. (Hell, who are we … Read More