Thanksgiving Sunday

Tags

Charlottetown, Food, Harness races, Holidays, PEI, Turkey

Well yesterday we went to the races at the Charlottetown Drive Park where since 1888 you can see daily harness racing. The race track is only about 5 minutes from our house and PEI is known for its horses and racing. The CDP claims to be the Kentucky of Canada, I suppose that makes us all Colonel’s of the Island Regiment. The food is quite good and so are the desserts. The dining room faces the track so you can have your lunch and a drink and place your bets all at the same time. Each table has a small flat screen TV so you can watch the finish line replay if there is a dispute. It was great fun.

So today is Thanksgiving and we had a very nice turkey lunch with appropriate vegetables of mash potatoes, steamed carrots in dressing, broiled Brussels Sprouts, no dressing. Will made his famous pumpkin soup to start and a beautiful apple pie for dessert. We had nice wines and champagne to top it all off. He also made corn bread perfectly shaped like a corn on the cob.

Will and I have had these dinners and luncheons with our friends at our home for 40 years. You have to give it to Will he always comes up with new recipes and new ways of presenting things. There was a time he would go into very elaborate dishes and it took days to prepare one meal. Gourmet Magazine was then the guide he followed, then he switched to Cook’s Illustrated. Helen Corbitt the Chef at Nieman Marcus Zodiac room was also a favourite. Now he finds recipes on the Internet and tries them. My job has always been setting the table, polishing the silverware and ironing the table cloth, getting flowers and doing all the food shopping. I use to dread doing food shopping because some recipes called for ingredients found only in great metropolitan centres and not in the town where we lived, in some foreign Capitals we often had to invent on the spur of the moment. Will has cooked for Birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas day, New Year’s Eve, Easter Sunday Lunch and all manner of other occasions like afternoon teas when he would prepare the perfect finger sandwiches in a wide variety that would make your Aunt Hecuba jealous.

We do have our favourite dishes, broiled Brussels Sprouts, Caramelized carrots, Roast Goose. Then the standards like Pumpkin soup or some kind of Summer soups for warm weather. We always invite friends who are alone for any Holiday. Now Will says he would like to try his hand at making Moonshine, which is a great favourite here in the Maritime Provinces. Will asked our guests today if they knew the difference between Whiskey and Moonshine. Whiskey is aged and Moonshine is not.

We are now turning our attention to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day lunch menu.

Here is Will putting the finishing touch to the mash potatoes which he did in the slow cooker over 4 hours, they were very good and creamy. Our friend and expert turkey carver M.G. helped.

Thanksgiving Sun Flowers in our Breakfast room.

The Crows at the Art Gallery by Gerald Beaulieu (no relations) entirely made of tires. They are quite big about 10 feet long by 4 feet wide

Of course Crows are ubiquitous with Charlottetown, they are everywhere and quite aggressive and territorial.

This is the view from our friends home in Lower Montague on Cardigan Bay, PEI. In the far distance is the deserted Boughton Island and Nova Scotia.

 

 

 

 

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September 1

Tags

climate change, elections, Food, harvest, tourism, USA, Weather

This is the long Labour Day Weekend, the tourism season is drawing to a close, though the cruise ships are still coming until end October and more tourist restaurants are staying open until either Thanksgiving weekend on 8 October some until mid-December.

We certainly did not have the crowds of last year for the 150th Anniversary of Confederation and I was happy that the numbers were more manageable. Charlottetown is a small capital of 36,000. people and when a cruise ship disgorges 1000+ passengers you really feel it. The weather also was far more humid and well above normal range for the Summer at 35C usually the temperatures are more around 25C in the day time and around 18C at night. So this Summer climate change was very apparent and many felt it was a bit weird, get use to it people this is the future. Some days in fact it was too hot to go to the beach and even the sea water bath water warmish.

There are 65 days left before the Municipal election and I can’t wait for the campaigning to end. At the moment things remain very fluid, tonight one candidate withdrew and another one came into the race. Just in my Ward 1 we are 4 candidates for Councillor. In the other 9 Wards there is either the incumbent or one challenger or no one. Ward 1 attracts a lot of attention because it is the original footprint of the City, the old downtown with all the attractions and activity. It is also a very mix neighbourhood in terms of population. Lots of businesses, government offices, historical sites and the harbour.

We have been promised or I should say the predictions are for a warm Winter, last year we got a lot of rain instead of snow and it made for a miserable gray Winter, more like Northern Europe.

What is nice about this time of the year is the harvest of vegetables and potatoes, prices tend to be good.

Now this coming week we will find out about the results of the NAFTA negotiations with Washington DC. Now that Trump has said he is not negotiating in good faith and does not care if Canada does not accept his terms, many Canadians are starting to think that maybe we should pull out of NAFTA. There was life before this trade agreement and as our Prime Minister said ”better to say no to a bad deal than having to live with it”.

I am afraid that after all the insults of the past year from Trump many Canadians including myself will never be able to see the USA in a favourable light again. It appears that Trump believes that the USA can live without Canada, well let him believe that, eventually he will find out it’s not that simple.

 

St-Viateur Bagels, Montreal

Tags

cuisine, Food, Jews, life, Montreal, Outremont

Montreal a metropolis of 4 million people, the second largest French speaking city in the World after Paris, has a Jewish population that has been part of the fabric of the city for over 200 years. Almost every neighbourhood of the city has a Jewish population with its businesses, schools, synagogue, restaurants, delis, institutions and the Jewish general hospital. As a child I lived in Snowdon where there was a large Jewish population, other neighbourhoods like Hamstead, Côte Saint-Luc, Westmount, NDG and Outremont all have their Jewish enclave and because the population has been there for such a long time, it has developed its own character and ways of doing things. Jewish owned businesses in Montreal, you always have service in French, English and Yiddish.

Montreal is known for the quality of its Smoke Meat and its bagels. I could not leave Montreal without a dozen bagels. So I went to the St-Viateur street in Outremont, the area has, for as long as I can remember, a large Orthodox Jewish population dressed in the famous black garb and fur hats. Outremont is a wealthy French speaking neighbourhood and the Orthodox Jews are simply part of the fabric.

Bagel St-Viateur  (since 1957)

263 Rue Saint Viateur Ouest, Montréal, QC, Canada

Ouvert 24h/24, 7 jours sur 7

(514) 276-8044

It is an institution in Montreal and a remarkable one at that, the bagels as you can see in this photo above are hot, fresh, just out of the oven. Even when they but them in a bag, you feel the heat and that wonderful aroma of just baked. A Polish Jew, Myer Lewkowicz who immigrated to Canada in 1946 learned the trade of making bagels from Hyman Seligman who was already in the business. Mr Lewkowicz explained that when he arrived in Canada, he knew nothing of bagel making, it became his lifelong trade.

The Montreal Bagel is different from the New York one, first it’s smaller, sweeter and the  hole is bigger. Quality ingredients go into making them, the pastry is hand rolled, they are boiled in water with honey, they are cooked on a wood tray in a wood oven, they are turned over once and taken out at just the right moment when crunchy. They make 3 dozen bagels per hour in the oven. A perfect bagel takes 20 minutes to cook, a slow process but what quality! Same family, same recipe and the original shop on St-Viateur.

St-Viateur Bagel is world famous and today in Montreal there is 2 bakeries and 5 coffee shops where sandwiches and salads are served just like in 1957 when they first opened.  WEBSITE http://www.stviateurbagel.com

 

 

 

Setting Day

Tags

Charlottetown, Food, PEI, Seafood, Summer, tourists

Today 30 April is the last day to do your income tax report in Canada and pay whatever you may owe, it is also Setting Day in PEI. This is the opening of the Lobster Spring harvest Season. At dawn from all the ports around the Island, lobster boats went off to set the traps, they will do this every day until 30 June. Setting means laying down the traps to catch Lobsters. It will be interesting to see what prices will be set for 1 lbs. In the supermarket today a pound lobster was selling at $14.99 I do not know if this price will fall or rise. Of course you can go down to the dock and buy your lobster directly from any fisherman and it is likely you will pay a lot less probably around $5 to $7 dollars a pound. Will see…

Many people come out to see them go, it is quite the sight. This also means that the Summer tourist season is about to open, in 48 hours the first cruise ship will arrive in Port at Charlottetown. I believe the first is a Holland American ship. Tomorrow morning the restaurants catering to the tourist crowds open at 11:30am for lunch.

 

 

My recent trip

Tags

art., cuisine, Food, French, life, Travel

I travelled to Montreal my hometown for a week’s vacation away from PEI. Islanders will tell you that you need to get off the island especially between November and end April for mental health reasons. I did not listen to them and I should have, everyone I know goes away for a minimum of 2 full weeks in that time period.

I was born in Montreal and lived part of my childhood there from 1956 to 1960 and 1965 to 1974, only returning occasionally afterwards for family matters or to see friends.

I witnessed great changes in Montreal during the period of Mayor Jean Drapeau who had a grand vision for the Paris of the New World, Montreal is the second largest French speaking city in the World after Paris. It also was the metropolis of Canada until 1977 a title she lost to Toronto but regained as the other Metropolis after 2008.

The Metro system was opened in 1966, then we had the World Exposition in 1967, then the Olympics games in 1976. Montreal is also the seat of IATA and several international organizations, fine museums, art centres, great dining, etc.

It had been 4 years since my last visit when my father died and that visit was all about death and cleaning out my parents home, so not exactly a fun time.

I flew from Charlottetown on a regional jet (small plane) that is all that flies here to the island, the flight is 75 minutes so fairly quick. Montreal is a city of 4 million people and growing, construction everywhere, including the road system and a new bridge across the Saint-Lawrence river. People everywhere, traffic, very cosmopolitan and French.

I was staying with an old friend in the Côte des Neiges neighbourhood, near the Jewish General Hospital and the Université de Montréal. Montreal has 4 universities. The neighbourhood is multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, though everyone speaks French and all signs are in French, you will hear a multitude of languages from around the world.

On Monday we went to a German grocery store which sells all manner of product from Germany and Austria but also has a great lunch counter with specialties as you would find them in Europe. It seems that many customers spoke German with the staff and French with everyone else. The food was very good, this business has been on the same corner of Queen Mary and Côte des Neiges for 60 years.

Then I went downtown, to look around and was very surprised at how much familiar streets where my parents lived and worked had completely changed to the point I could not remember what was previously there. The area around the old Windsor Station which is now a complex of tall stylish condo buildings, there is about 9 new towers. The Queen Elizabeth Hotel, my Mom’s favourite in Montreal has been completely redecorated for its 60th anniversary and it is very nicely done. The old Birks & Sons Jewellery store on Phillips Square is being remodelled into a luxury hotel but is keeping the famous jeweller on the ground floor.

Birks and Sons Jeweller on Sainte-Catherine street at Phillips Square under renovations.

A new Four Seasons Hotel is being built next to Ogilvy’s department store which is now amalgamated with Holt Renfrew. I thought of Dad when I saw this project, he knew all about it, it has been in the works for 10 years and is now coming to completion. My father opened the first Four Seasons Hotel in Montreal back in the 70’s, how he would have love to see this one, a tall tower of black glass.

I also walked by the former Mount Stephens Club which was the home of Sir George Stephens the builder with Sir William Cornelius Van Horne of the transcontinental railway in Canada in 1888.  Today the mansion has been restored preserving the rare and exotic wood panelling and original decor and is used as meeting rooms and bar, dining rooms  and joined at the back to a new hotel tower part of the Leading Hotels of the world collection.

Detail of the interior of the house, top is the former reception room panelled in Lemonwood or Degame, beautiful soft yellow colour. The other bottom photo shows the top of the staircase all in mahogany, the windows have Tiffany glass, it is very dark despite the very large windows, giving the house a very formal atmosphere.

Then on Sherbrooke Street I went to the Musée des Beaux Arts also known as the museum of Fine Arts to see what was on show. The museum has 2 new wings, one called Le Pavillon pour la Paix, a gift of Michal and Renata Hornstein and the other is the Pavillon Claire et Marc Bourgie, a gift of the Bourgie family, the premier undertakers for funerals of distinction in Quebec. The Museum was founded about 120 years ago by art lovers in Montreal on the same location it is now but with the years it has grown into a 7 building complex. What is interesting about its expansion is how organically it grew, incorporating other landmarks around it like the Erskine & American United Church with its 17 famous Tiffany Stain glass windows of 1897. I love this museum, the collections are superb and if you go to Montreal you really should make an effort to visit, even if just for one hour. The restaurant of the museum is also wonderful, I had lunch there and the food is very good as is the wine selection, I had a grilled octopus salad accompanied by a Pouilly Fuissé Chardonnay and then a Magret de Canard, very good indeed.

I return by Métro to my friend’s home, tired but very happy for this first day.

 

 

PEI Christmas recipes

Tags

Canada., cooking, cuisine, Food, PEI

The Guardian in Charlottetown is the newspaper of PEI and it published the following recipes from Chefs, some of whom I know in Charlottetown. I thought I would reproduce the article here to give you ideas.

These recipes are typical of PEI and the Maritime provinces.

Chef Duncan Smith- Broadway 45, Kensington, PEI

Ma Pa’s Creamed Lobster On Toast

Our lobster season starts in late November, or early December, so lobster was always on our Christmas Eve menu, before we went out visiting family, which was an onslaught of bite sized apps, cheeses, crackers and dips of all types. But here is my father’s recipe for our Christmas Eve meal, creamed lobster on toast!

Ingredients:

2 tbsp. butter, yes BUTTER

2 lobsters shelled and cut into bite sized pieces

2 tbsp. minced onion, optional

2 tsp. white vinegar

2 pieces of toast, buttered

1 can 250 ml. cream

Directions:

-Melt butter and sauté the onions. When soft and sweet, add the lobster and sauté for another couple of minutes

-Add enough cream to cover the lobster, and heat through

-Add vinegar and keep stirring

-When heated through, serve over the buttered toast

Some people would add some ketchup to it at the end for a more pinky colour, but the vinegar does that as well as help thicken the sauce. A more traditionalist would use evaporated milk instead of cream, so either way works. We usually did 1 lobster per person, so this recipe is easy to alter.

 

EZ Maple Pecan Cheesecake

Crust:

1 cup diced bacon, sauté and strain most of the fat out

2 cups pecan pieces, toasted in the oven

-Combine these and make crust.

Cheesecake:

1 pkg. cream cheese (room temp)

1 can sweet condensed milk

1/4 cup maple syrup, the real stuff

1 tsp. vanilla

1 lemon, zest and juice

-Whip all of these ingredients together, until smooth and pour into cake pan.

Now here, we could make individual cakes, using cool martini or wine glasses as the mold. Put the pecan crust on bottom, then the cream cheese mixture, you could even layer it like a parfait, because everyone likes parfait! You could also garnish with some of the remaining pecan/bacon mixture, and a little sea salt just for another flavour.

The Guardian reached out to several local chefs for the “A Culinary Chrsitmas” series, which features the chefs’ favourite Christmas recipes.

See the other recipes:

Chef BobbiJo Maclean’s easiest gingerbread cake ever

Chef Cobey Adams’ apple crumble

Chef Ilona Daniel’s kifli cookies

Chef Stephen Wilson’s cinnamon roll bread pudding

Chef Megan Beairsto’s oyster dressing, eggnog bread pudding and stout toffee

Little ideas for Christmas

Tags

Canada., Christmas, Delia, feast, Food, home, traditions, XMAS

Many years ago, well about 40 years ago, I remember a conversation about Christmas and meals, it had to do with what people did, one person mentioned that in her family it was always the same thing, turkey, mash potatoes and green peas, gravy and stuffing.

I thought how absolutely boring and awful, the same old thing every year, pleeeease!!!

My father always liked different things for Christmas and because he was an hotel manager, would ask the Chef to prepare something different, out of the ordinary.  One year I still remember, I must have been 15 years old then, we had Scallops in Moutarde de Meaux and cream sauce as a main dish on Christmas Eve.

One Christmas followed another and were always different and unusual. Even the tree was out of the ordinary. With my Dad it had to be, he wanted innovative, something not done by anyone.

We also had Christmas around the world, only to discover that this Holiday is very much a North American thing, in many countries were I served, Christmas was not really a holiday at all but a Western World import. The most beautiful Christmas trees and lavish food for the holiday Season was in Poland. In Italy there was no tree per se, because it is a Northern European tradition, but lots of other dishes connected to a time when Noël was a secondary holiday to Easter in the Christian calendar. In China it was largely a big consumer thing around Santa Claus, the Chinese under Communist rule had no idea what it was and pushed instead shopping as a Xmas concept, very sterile. In Mexico we had great traditions mixed with old native beliefs and will never forget that Christmas night we were in the Zocalo after midnight at the Cathedral built on top of the former great pyramid of the Aztec gods. We were able to hear the choir and see the giant choir books from the time of Hernan Cortes.

In Egypt and Jordan being Muslim countries the holiday was celebrated in a muted way though Muslims recognize Jesus as a Prophet of God and Mary has one chosen by God (Allah) with special reverence. In Jordan King Hussein Bin Talal, a great man if there ever was one, he would visit the Christians churches in Amman and bring gifts and greetings to his Christian subjects. King Hussein was a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed. His son King Abdallah II continues this tradition.

We do keep one tradition at Christmas and that is to have a home made Plum Pudding and to rotate dishes each year, from crown of lamb to prime rib roast beef to roasted goose. But other dishes are also important to have.

Looking at recipes here are some favourites from Dame Delia, CBE and Companion of Honour ;

Potted Pork with Juniper and Thyme, with a Marmalade of Apples, Raisins and Shallots

Prawn Cocktail

Coarse Country Pate

Chestnut Soup with Bacon and Thyme Croutons

Duck Liver Pâté with Armagnac

Rillettes of Duck with Confit of Cranberries

Pheasant Terrine

Something truly different and fun for your holiday menu. I somewhat favour patés and terrines which are good for lunch and breakfast too.

 

Summer food

Tags

Canada., cuisine, Food, PEI, Potato, salad, Summer

This being the first long weekend of Summer in Canada, here is a recipe that goes well with your official Bar-B-Q inauguration.

Curried Red Potato Salad

Ingredients:

15-20 mini red potatoes, skin on, washed well, cut into quarters
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
4 eggs, boiled, peeled and cut into small pieces or slices
2 green onions, thinly sliced

Dressing
1/3 cup mayo
1/4 cup sour cream or plain Greek yogurt
1 tsp of currie
Dash of hot sauce or Tabasco
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
2-3 sprigs fresh tarragon for garnish (optional)

 

Instructions: 

Wash potatoes and cut into quarters. Place in a large sauce pan of salted water, set over high heat and bring to a boil. Partially cover and simmer until potatoes are just tender, 8-10 minutes. Drain well and set aside.
Prepare boiled eggs and place on top of cooled potatoes.
For the dressing, whisk mayo, sour cream or yogurt, Curry and Cream sauce and hot pepper sauce or Tabasco in a bowl. Stir in the green onion, salt and pepper. Fold the dressing, potatoes and eggs together. Cover and place in refrigerator for 2 hours or overnight.
Garnish with fresh tarragon.

We go from one to the other

Tags

allergies, bullies, dysfunctional, education, fashion, Food, kids, life, North America, parents

Back in the 1960’s at the time when Dr. Benjamin Spock was all the rage with parents and childrearing, a new term started to appear in school. Parents, I should say mothers, would say that little Johnny was sensitive and this is why he was not doing so well in class. The fact that little Johnny was indulge and a lazy bastard was not really considered, he was sensitive and schools started to pander to that affliction amongst school boys. That went on during the 1970’s and by the early 1980’s the fashion had turned to letting children choose what they wanted to learn. If in the elementary levels 1 to 6 parents demanded loudly a return to basics, writing, reading, math, in high school it was all about self-discovery and choice. Why would a 13 year old know what they wanted to do and what they should study or what was important to learn at an age when puberty reeks havoc and you have mood swings and changing taste from  one day to the next, is beyond me. I remember then that one popular conversation amongst my school chums was how all you really needed was a grade 9 education to make your way in life.

Then with the rise of the talk shows and all the TV experts, were they really experts? I somehow doubt it, we had a succession of maladies, first abuse in childhood, then dysfunctional families, then allergies like peanuts and all manner of other food allergies like newly discovered glutens, then bipolar disorders, currently transgender children, school bullying is also popular and equity in schools for girls, we are not talking about equality which is a 1970’s topic. What I find interesting about all these different social topics is that everyone is affected, everyone is bipolar and everyone has allergies or comes from dysfunctional families etc.. the list goes on. Remember Oprah came from a dysfunctional family, she had an episode of her show on the topic and the ratings went up.

Per example here in Canada now the whole transgender question is top of radio discussions or at least on CBC. We are told parents should look for signs in young children from birth. A parade of experts and activists give us their views, like it or not.

Having lived in many countries in various cultures, I am comparing and note that all these preoccupations are very North American, we say First World but no it is typically from our culture. Many activists see this as a way of advancing individualism to the extreme, then translate this into a Human Rights issue, the group, society, no longer matters, only the single individual and we must all conform or be denounced.

Peanut allergies do not exist or if it does it is not a fixation as it has become here. The concept of dysfunctional families does not exist as such, maybe because other societies are more conventional or deal differently with their societal problems. Same with all other questions. You certainly do not see the level of hysteria we encounter here. It has come to a point where you cannot have a mature discussion, everyone is riding their high horse and being sanctimonious.

I wonder where we are going as a society, if the so called youth is our future then I am very worried, the little darlings are not prepared for real life and its challenges.

Lobster Season

Tags

cuisine, Fish season, Food, lobster, Lobster thermidor, PEI

Yes the lobster Season is OPEN, the boats left the harbours around the Island. Here is a beautiful picture of the boats as they go out. Probably around Rustico which is 30 minutes from my place. Really nice to see.

My favourite lobster recipe is Lobster Thermidor

Lobster Thermidor is a French dish consisting of a creamy mixture of cooked lobster meat, egg yolks, and brandy (often cognac), stuffed into a lobster shell. It can also be served with an oven-browned cheese crust, typically Gruyère. The sauce must contain mustard (typically powdered mustard).

This version, by 1940s Gourmet chef Louis P. De Gouy

INGREDIENTS

2 (1 1/2-lb) live lobsters
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
1/4 lb mushrooms, trimmed and thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons medium-dry Sherry
1 cup heavy cream, scalded
2 large egg yolks

PREPARATION

Plunge lobsters headfirst into an 8-quart pot of boiling salted water*. Loosely cover pot and cook lobsters over moderately high heat 9 minutes from time they enter water, then transfer with tongs to sink to cool.
When lobsters are cool enough to handle, twist off claws and crack them, then remove meat. Halve lobsters lengthwise with kitchen shears, beginning from tail end, then remove tail meat, reserving shells. Cut all lobster meat into 1/4-inch pieces. Discard any remaining lobster innards, then rinse and dry shells.
Heat butter in a 2-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat until foam subsides, then cook mushrooms, stirring, until liquid that mushrooms give off is evaporated and they begin to brown, about 5 minutes. Add lobster meat, paprika, salt, and pepper and reduce heat to low. Cook, shaking pan gently, 1 minute. Add 1 tablespoon Sherry and 1/2 cup hot cream and simmer 5 minutes.
Whisk together yolks and remaining tablespoon Sherry in a small bowl. Slowly pour remaining 1/2 cup hot cream into yolks, whisking constantly, and transfer to a small heavy saucepan. Cook custard over very low heat, whisking constantly, until it is slightly thickened and registers 160°F on an instant-read thermometer. Add custard to lobster mixture, stirring gently.
Preheat broiler.
Arrange lobster shells, cut sides up, in a shallow baking pan and spoon lobster with some of sauce into shells. Broil lobsters 6 inches from heat until golden brown, 4 to 5 minutes. Serve remaining sauce on the side.
When salting water for cooking, use 1 tablespoon salt for every 4 quarts water.