Greasy Breakfast-For-Dinner Dinner

On my last day in B.C.—which I spent in Kelowna, by the way—my sister prepared an outrageous ultra-greasy breakfast style dinner to celebrate me meeting her boyfriend, who has a similarly  highly evolved palate (devoted readers will know him better as the person who just can't get enough of my invaluable food advice). Anyway, the point is that she threw together this delicious meal that best represents where our tastes overlap (represented below by a Venn diagram).

This breakfast-for-dinner had everything that I could ever want in a breakfast/breakfast-for-dinner: greasy fried potatoes, properly-cooked high-quality bacon, and little sausages that are so small they could probably be described as nugs. My sister was initially going to serve broccoli as well, but I told her that would be disgusting and misguided and would probably ruin the entire meal. She acquiesced and proposed a plate of sliced pears instead—which I approved—but none arrived. I guess one complaint I have about this meal is that no coffee was served. I know that it was dinner and everything, but I like to drink coffee at all times, and it would have gone really well with this meal.

I know what you're all probably thinking: how could anything possibly have gone wrong? But it did. Just when I thought that I had finally made contact with the one person in this world capable of understanding me and my diet, Ben ruined everything by stuffing all of his bacon into a makeshift sandwich  and it was disgusting. It wasn't even the most disgusting sandwich I could imagine, but I really couldn't understand the motivation behind this decision. Bacon is so good on its own. Why would you want to take away its charm by smothering it in bread? Don't get me wrong, I like bread, but there honestly are not that very many situations in which bread actually improves a food. So, for instance, I love eating borscht with bread. In that case, the bread doesn't take anything away from the borscht—it just improves the bread. But when you actually envelope bacon inside of a baguette, you're drastically altering how you experience that bacon, and I can only imagine that it's for the worst.

The moral of this story is to never trust anyone because they will always find a way to disappoint you.

And finally, to round this post out, here's a picture of me and my dad. I'm making a really weird and unfortunate face.

Phoenix Mountain Pizza Bun

I don’t know exactly how many of my readers are familiar with Phoenix Ski Hill Pizza Buns (probably all of them because I am fairly certain that I am my only reader), but they are the best thing. They are also somewhat of a scientific anomaly because they cannot be reproduced outside of the Phoenix kitchen. I’m not exactly sure what that means for science, but I do know what that means for me, and that is that approximately once a year I get to feast on one of the most delicious foods ever concocted.

Here's the pizza bun that I made for myself on January 4, 2015. It was delicious. The only way it could have been
improved is if it had been prepared on double bun bottoms, instead of a top and a bottom. Every pizza bun
aficionado knows that the best pizza buns come on a double bottom.

Pizza buns are literally just buns with pizza sauce and melted cheddar cheese on top. Back when I first started eating pizza buns, the cheese was just plain orange cheddar, but now it's Tex-Mex shredded cheese, which has really served to improve their quality and appearance. They are typically served with two round pickles, but I learned early on to order mine without, and when I was old enough to work in the Phoenix kitchen and make my own pizza buns, I obviously omitted them.

I also made, what I believe to be, a few crucial improvements to the traditional pizza bun when making one for myself. First, and most importantly, I usually try to make them on two bottom bun halves, rather than a top half and a bottom half. I find that the toppings-to-bun ratio is slightly off with the top half, and that the bottom half is always much more satisfying. Secondly, although not evident in the above photograph, I try to leave them in the toaster oven slightly longer than usual because I like to get a nice browning effect on the top.

Here's the more traditional pizza bun with the pickles. Unfortunately it is
accompanied by a disgusting dish of loaded nachos with pizza sauce
ON THE NACHOS. I made those too.

I don't know a single person who has skied Phoenix since they were little who did not consistently order a pizza bun for lunch. I didn't even know there was anything else on the menu until much later. I've worked in the Phoenix kitchen for the past 11 years—at least one or two days a year—and the most striking change is the sharp decline in pizza bun orders. Presumably there is no correlation between my time working there and their unpopularity, but what are these kids thinking? There is nothing on the menu (anywhere, not just Phoenix) that is better and more satisfying than a pizza bun.

Pro Tip: Try to order them later in the day when the toaster oven is so full of grease that grease actually gets baked into the bun. Delicious.

Kids these days don't know what they've shunned:

There's nothing better than a Phoenix pizza bun.

Just a bun and some sauce and some melted cheese—

The Phoenix pizza bun will never displease.

The Burger

It’s January, 2009. I’ve arrived in Nashville after eating my entire box of Purdy’s hedgehog chocolates and half of the box intended for my sister (and then demanding that she share the remaining chocolates with me). Days later we were on our way to Atlanta, and during the drive I was haunted by a single thought: that I really, really wanted to eat a burger. Before this time, I don’t think I had ever actually eaten a proper burger. I had definitely just had a plain beef patty, possibly with melted cheese, but I don’t think I had ever had it inside of a bun. And so we did it. We found a burger place in the Little Five Points neighbourhood, and to this day, it remains the best burger I have ever tasted.

Here it is: the infamous Atlanta burger. The fries weren't much to look at, but goddamn was that ever a good burger.

After that first Atlanta burger, I was hooked. Six years later, I just can’t stop eating burgers. I eat them every chance I get and I eat them everywhere. I’ve eaten them all across Canada. I’ve eaten them in Spokane and, more importantly Colville.* I’ve eaten them throughout Europe (usually a pretty disappointing experience) and in various airports. I just got home from eating a burger for dinner, and all I could think about afterwards is when and where I would eat my next burger. In short, burgers are always my number one go-to choice in any restaurant. It should go without saying that I always get my burgers without any dressing: just a plain patty with cheddar cheese and the bun. Sometimes I wonder if the chef gets annoyed with my order. They probably do, but I always hope that they don't because I am never asking for weird additional items, just that most of the ingredients be left off the burger. At the end of the day I guess I don't care all that much about how the cook feels because going out to eat is all about being selfish and treating yourself, and not caring about the people who are catering to your whims.

I've been eating at Hero Burger a lot this year, mostly because it's so convenient, but also because it's
decent enough. My only complaint with Hero Burger, and the other burger chains like it (of which 5 Guys is
hands-down the best option) is that they're way too expensive for what you actually get. For the same price, you
can almost always find a much better burger, with the added bonus of better seating and service.

I was recently asked why it is I’m okay with eating burgers, but not sandwiches. After all, aren’t they the same thing? Doesn’t a burger meet the most basic requirements of being a sandwich? I guess they do, if your definition of “sandwich” is as basic and simplistic as just an item placed between two bread-objects. In that sense, sure, a burger is just a sandwich. But in that case, should it follow that just because I love spaghetti bolognese I should like fettuccine alfredo? They are both, when it comes down to it, just pasta and sauce. Does it make sense that because I like apple pie, I should necessarily also eat some gross meat pie? Don’t they meet the same basic requirements? I mean, they’re both pies. They’re both composed of some filling inside of a closed pastry.

Maybe these seem like unfair comparisons. “Pasta and sauce” isn’t really a category of food in the same way that sandwiches are, and there’s of course a marked difference between a sweet dessert pie and a disgusting savoury pie (although I would also like to note that I don’t really like very many other sweet pies, with the exception of strawberry-rhubarb, and even then, I would always go with an apple pie if the option is available to me). Another issue is that I have already voiced a strong opposition to sandwiches, but given my love for and devotion to burgers, maybe I ought to reconsider this. But should I? No. That would be ridiculous. You would have to be a mad man to consider a burger a sandwich just because its mode of delivery is a bread product.

This year in Toronto has been an especially good burger year for me, but I have yet to find a burger in this city that even comes close to that original Atlanta burger. The second best burger I've ever had was in Montreal, at Burger Ville (actually Burger de Ville), which is a weird chain restaurant in Quebec that serves truly delicious and truly affordable burgers. The only downside is that the interior is not very nice, and it's not a place where you would like to sit and truly savour your burger. There are other places in Montreal that are great, but their burgers aren't quite as good. I especially like Patati Patata, which serves mini burgers (I always get two and a basket of fries). In a lot of ways the burgers aren't actually that good. They're thin and kind of dry and there's too much of a bun-to-burger ratio (to be fair, this might be fixed with more fixings), but overall it's a great little restaurant with adequate burgers.

Here's me eating the first of two baby burgers at Patati
Patata in Montreal. This picture was taken during
my sister's visit. For some reason this was a
really ugly time for me. Not, like, emotionally trying. I
just looked really ugly that week for some reason.

There's honestly not a whole lot I have to say about burgers. In a lot of ways, they're the perfect food: they're fast, they're portable, they're delicious, and they're filling. But it should be mentioned that burger quality is never assured. I have eaten some terrible burgers in my life. As a general rule, I hate seeing anything in the burger other than plain ground beef (such as chopped onions or seasoning), even if I like additional flavours (such as chopped onions or seasoning). I don't like to see any red meat. One time I ate a treacherously undercooked burger and it was traumatizing. But when they're good, they're great.

Here are some different burgers I have eaten.

Here are more burgers that I have eaten.

*Important because as everyone should know, even though Rancho Chico’s is also in Spokane, it is generally considered by all to be the only place to eat in Colville, whereas Spokane also has The Onion, which has pretty decent burgers. So imagine my surprise when Rancho Chico’s in Colville was actually closed on Independence Day and we were forced to go to that weird … what is it? Ronnie D’s? Sandy’s? That weird drive-in fast-food place in Colville. It was great! It was so American!

A burg is enough when my hunger needs sating

And my tum has no voice but the voice of complaining
So many tastes for my tongue to discover
Ground beef, melted cheese--marinating thereunder 
Some burgers I've tasted, some still a wonder
Some were delicious, others better pass'd over
Yet my hands shall not tremble, my bite shall not falter,
My hunger shall not weary, my tastes shall not alter
Those buns and these lips of the loved and the lover.

Food Thoughtz Restaurant Review: Playa Cabana - Hacienda (4)

M just whipped up these crepes/palacsinta to satisfy my hunger and my rage. But I will not be silenced and I will not be placated.

"Dear Food Thoughtz": Failure to Thrive

Failing to thrive is a frequent experience for me. This edition of Dear Food Thoughtz will explore whether or not food is a useful tool to dig yourself out of a pit of misery.

Dear Food Thoughtz:

I have lost the will to live, do you have any food recommendations this?

Yours respectfully,
Failing-To-Thrive

p.s. I have a potato, will that help?

Okay, well first of all, “a” potato is not helpful to anyone. One must have at least (at least) four potatoes on hand in order to be of any help. Like, even if it is an enormous potato, one is never enough. Don’t be ridiculous.

A basic flowchart will help us narrow down the scope of this question.



So it looks like we’re going to forge forth with “too lazy or apathetic to thrive.” Here are a list of food experiences I’ve had in the past relevant to your needs:

• One time, after wrapping up a long semester, I bought myself a large pizza and went home with it. I tried to watch a movie, but was so exhausted that I fell asleep with the pizza in bed with me. When I woke up the next morning, I rolled over and stuffed some of that cold pizza in my mouth. I felt like I never needed to leave the bed again. I did, but only to get another pizza.

• Sometimes, when I expect I won’t make it through the week, I buy a bag of frozen fries and eat nearly all of them in one go. After eating that many fries, I then feel like I physically cannot go on. Usually I do not. I pass out in a food-coma.

• When I lived in Montreal for the first time, I barely ate anything at all. This was mostly a result of laziness and extreme frugality.  But every once in a while I would feel like I was on the verge of passing out. Instead of making myself something to eat, I would just go to the corner store and buy a box of Oreos or a big bag of Miss Vickie's jalapeno chips and eat the entire thing at once.

I will say, however, that if you want to turn your life around and start to thrive, one of the best things you can do is actually make something worth eating that won’t make you feel like you’re slowly (or rapidly) transforming into the garbage you’re eating. I mean, who knows! Sometimes all you want is to feel like garbage! In which case you should refer back to this beginning of this discussion. But if you want to turn yourself around, you should go out and get yourself some fruits or vegetables and then prepare them in some mildly time-consuming way that will not be too overwhelming but will make you feel like you’re actually doing something. It's important to note that you can do this in a bathrobe, or whatever your preferred uniform of failure may be. Buying some broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots, cooking them, and grating a bit of cheese on them makes me feel like I am really doing something with my life—even if it takes more or less the same time as ordering a pizza or buying and baking a bag of frozen fries. I guarantee you that even if you take the five minutes required to make a serving of apple sauce, it will make you feel like like you are poised to take over the world (when you realize that you are not in fact poised to take over the world, you will falter, flounder, and sink back into a bag of frozen french fries. The beautiful cycle of life continues!)

Eating poorly generally makes you feel pretty terrible, and it makes it more and more difficult to pull yourself out of a failure-riddled slump. But sometimes that feeling of total failure and no longer caring about what your body looks or feels like is kind of satisfying. So if this is the stage that you're at right now, I would recommend stocking up on crappy frozen foods or several pizzas and curling up on the couch and watching so much tv that you feel like you're either merging with the couch itself or that your eyes are about to burn out of your skull. Ideally both. (Pro Tip: there are usually a lot of good Criminal Minds marathons on, especially during Christmas. They typically last for days.)

A Bucket Full of Raw Animal Organs (Pre-Sausage Version)

Pig slaughter season continues in Hungary, and things are only going down hill following the previous post on the pig head in a bucket of its own waste. Note on the pig head: the Hungarians involved have provided some additional information about its preparation: "they smoke the head and eat the flesh from it and they also put head-flesh into kocsonya which is a very disgusting thing. Sally, trust me, you dont want us to go into details!" Kocsonya, which it turns out I really didn't want to know more about, is apparently some sort of disgusting jellied dish made from preparing a soup with a strong cartilage base so that it will jelly when cooled. It is also worth noting that the brain evidently is not eaten raw, as I initially assumed, but is fried and served on toast with onions and, although not explicitly mentioned, probably paprika because they are Hungarians. 

But what appears below can only be described as a horrific massacre. After chopping off the pig head, smoking it, and then tearing the cooked flesh off with your teeth (unconfirmed), the most disgusting organs are harvested and thrown into a large plastic tub. These include kidneys, liver, and lungs (lungs!). These organs are then ground up, stuffed into sausage casings (which for all we know are pig intestines, but might be synthetic, but let's face it, probably aren't), and then people willingly put them in their mouth even though they already saw the raw organs sitting in a heap in the tub. 

I'm sorry that I am making you all look at this in such a large format, but it really haunted
me when I had to see it for the first time, and there's really no reason why I should
have to suffer alone. At first I thought it was a bucket full of slightly unhealthy lobsters.

I'm sorry, but I just could not do this. I couldn't be involved with this. I don't know if this means that I shouldn't be eating meat in the first place, but this bucket of organs is not for me. I can't imagine being involved in this process start to finish. I have no idea how to pull organs out of an animal carcass. Do you wear gloves? Aren't they slippery? Are they surprisingly heavy? Do you drop them in the bucket with a thud, or lay them gently because bruising is a concern? Do you have to cut them into smaller pieces to stuff into the meat grinder? Do you hose them down first? I was told that these organs were being made into hurka sausage. Is it called hurka because you kind of naturally make that sound when you vomit? I don't know if I even want to know the answer to most of these questions. I feel like I already know far too much.

This post about raw organs

Took a lot longer to write because—

Oh wait, hold on, I have to go puke again.

Apple Sauce

Everyone: fall has arrived. The reason I know is because I just made my first batch of apple sauce from discount apples—and it was a roaring success!

Apple sauce is one of those foods that I really love, but that I don’t eat nearly often enough. For some reason I always think that I am going to have to devote an entire week to making a few jars of apple sauce that I will likely just gobble up in a matter of hours. But this is never the case! Nothing could be easier than making apple sauce! It takes only as much time as it takes to cut up however many apples (usually five apples for me, because that’s the maximum number that can fit in my pot), and then you just put those apple cubes in the pot with a bit of water, and just go away and do something else. Usually I add cinnamon during the cooking process, and sometimes I also add a bit of brown sugar as well, but the sugar is rarely necessary.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am currently enrolled in a Master of Information program at the University of Toronto. But when I was first applying to schools, I also applied to McGill as a safety-school and got in because I am a rising star. To celebrate my success, a West Coast celebrity gifted me a jar of apple sauce that was made in a crockpot. And it was delicious. Until I found out that what made it so delicious was the addition of cloves. I associate cloves so strongly with hams that the apple sauce kind of lost some of its magic. But it was still really good apple sauce. I just wish I didn’t know about those cloves.

My mum used to always make and preserve apple sauce. It was usually that puréed apple sauce, which is good, but I think isn’t as good as the chunky apple sauce. She also used to whip up a dish of chunky apple sauce for breakfast sometimes, which was great because it tastes like apple pie without the cumbersome pastry. Recently she has started to bake the apple chunks, which is also really delicious, but then she made me two jars while she was visiting and put way too much butter in the baking dish so that when the apples were transferred to jars and then to the fridge, the butter re-solidified, and looked really gross and it was difficult to want to actually eat it.

One thing I am realizing as I desperately try to think of a single interesting thing to say about apple sauce and my experience with apple sauce is that it can be difficult to speak and think about certain foods in a  way that could be considered even remotely engaging. Usually it’s foods that I really like, but don’t necessarily love—a food that that is, and always have been, a part of my life, and which I expect to always enjoy and consume. I mean, what can I say about apple sauce? It’s really good. I like eating it. I like eating it cold and I like eating it hot. I like eating it plain and I like eating it with vanilla ice cream. I like the feeling of accomplishment that I get after making a batch of apple sauce. I like getting good deals on apples that are perhaps too bruised or soft to eat naturally. I like apple sauce.

The way that I mark the arrival of fall
Is with a discount-rotten-apple-haul.
Boil it, add cinnamon, and store it in a jar:
You’re all set for a fall-fruit consumption bazaar. 

Armadillo Potatoes

This afternoon I read an article that someone posted on facebook about how you're eating food wrong. There was a picture of this delicious potato that looked like an armadillo. I was intrigued and needed to try it. I went out and bought potatoes. I tried it. And you know what? I'm not doing it wrong. I have been eating potatoes correctly my entire life. These armadillo potatoes weren't that great.

They ended up looking pretty good though, right?

Basically I just sliced them up as best I could while ensuring that each slice was still connected to the body of the potato at the bottom. Then I brushed them with olive oil because I got a free pastry brush on the street about a month ago. Then I sprinkled kosher salt on them (admittedly too much). And then I popped them into the oven for what felt like eternity, but was realistically more like an hour and a half, which is still way too much time to spend preparing a potato.

I think one of the reasons I didn't really like these potatoes (but don't get me wrong, I obviously still did really like them; they just weren't as good as pan-fried potatoes) is because I'm not all that crazy about olive oil. These potatoes might have been much better if I painted them with butter instead. I don't know. In the end they kind of just tasted like exactly what they are: potatoes painted with olive oil.

They also seriously took way too long.

Tonight I fashioned my potatoes like armadillos

Nothing relevant rhymes with "armadillos."

NB: I have labeled these potatoes as "Food I Have Tried But Would Not Try Again." Obviously I have so many more potatoes ahead of me in this life time. They just probably won't be these armadillo potatoes.

"Dear Food Thoughtz:" Melona Madness

Dear Food Thoughtz,

Have you ever tried these delicious ice cream pops called Melona bars? They come in Melon, Mango, Banana, and Strawberry flavours. They can be found in most grocery stores, but I buy mine in a discount store called No Frills, and can sometimes get them for as cheap as $3.50 a box (they are about twice as much in other grocery stores). This is where my problem comes in. Because there are 8 bars in a pack, I see it as such an extremely good deal, and I feel like such a clever shopper I end up buying multiple boxes at a time, thinking that I will share them with my roommate and my bf, and that I will eat them casually over the course of the summer. This never seems to happen since I end up stuffing my face with them because I find them so absolutely pleasing.

I want to know if you have tried this treat in any of the different flavours, or if you will consider trying them?

If you are not into them, please tell me why so that I can hopefully learn how to see things your way and stop. I also really want to know what advice you could give to someone who just cannot behave around their favorite food....It is so very shame-making.

Thank-you very much,

Yours gratefully,

Melona Maniac

 

Please note: In the picture the box is quite torn. That is because I could not control myself from tearing it open in anticipation. You can see the problem is quite serious.

 Dear Melona Maniac,

Thank you for such an interesting query. I apologize for the lateness of my reply, but I have a good excuse: yesterday after work I went out to Dufferin Mall where I know there to be a No Frills grocery story. There is also a Gap Factory Outlet Store, but there were no good deals there yesterday. I searched high and low for these Melona ice cream pops in both No Frills and then in WalMart, but to no avail. The packaging does not look familiar to me at all, so I suspect that, like most good things, they are not available in Ontario. I was hoping to try several boxes myself to write a more informed response to your question, but unfortunately I will just have to make a bunch of unfounded assumptions. 

To quickly answer your questions (which should have already been answered by that introductory paragraph): no I have not tried them, but yes I would consider trying them—although not the banana or melon flavours because I think that’s disgusting. I like bananas, but I hate when anything is flavoured like a banana because … obviously. It’s a terrible artificial flavour. And, honestly, the natural flavour of a banana isn’t actually good enough to try and replicate artificially. I would never try the melon flavour because I hate melons and think they’re repulsive. Although I must say that I find it surprising that the Melona melon flavour, based on your attached photo, appears to be honeydew, which is strange because I always assume a company would go for watermelon flavour if they’re going to feature any melon flavour at all. Or a melon blend. The honeydew flavour doesn’t appeal to me any more than a watermelon—quite a bit less, actually—but still, just an interesting detail to note. I would like to try the strawberry and mango flavours, but again, to be honest, these aren’t really my favourite flavours for an ice treat. If anything is going to be berry-flavoured, I typically prefer for it to be a berry-burstmashup featuring the four most prominent berries (strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, and blackberry, obviously). As I mentioned in my first-ever Food Thoughtz post, while I don’t like mangoes as fruits, I really do like mango flavouring, which in and of itself is enough to justify the existence of mangoes.

I’m not sure I will be able to offer you any practical advice on how to stop gorging yourself on Melonas, although from the sounds of it you have taken matters into your own hands and tried to substitute them with a ridiculous apple cream pie or something. Without the cream part, this would be a great solution. Apple pies are delicious. Anyway. Whenever I have faced a similar problem and just can’t stop eating something—even after I promise myself that I will ration it like a reasonable human being—it usually just goes away after a fairly short period of time. Earlier this year I went through a phase where I couldn’t stop eating Lucky Charms cereal. I had just discovered that they’re even better with milk, and I was going through a box every day or two. It was horrific. And then I just stopped. And now I don’t let myself buy Lucky Charms anymore. 

I know this isn’t helpful advice, but I think you’ve already taken a very important firs t step by writing in: admitting you have a problem is the best thing you can do. You have also already admitted to yourself that you don’t buy these ice cream pops in bulk with the actual intention of sharing them with friends or ingesting them slowly over the summer, which is something you need to keep in mind the next time you’re tempted to buy these. It seems to me you have three options: you could go the AA route and try to cut this cancer out of your life all together; you could go the Dutch route and try to re-program yourself to consume responsibly; or you could do what I would do, which is to stop buying them regularly, but allow yourself one day a month when you can buy a box and eat them in one sitting. Eight popsicles per months is probably fairly normal, and I can see no reason why you shouldn’t eat all eight of them in the space of 20minutes rather than dragging it out over the course of an entire month.

I’ll be honest: it’s not going to be easy. But if you are serious about getting a grip and taking control of your life, then you don’t have much of a choice. Or you could just move to Ontario where there are exactly zero good things to tempt you because this province is the absolute worst.

An Ode to Berries

Summer is upon us and berry season is right around the corner. I started writing this poem two years ago and have only just finished it.

The sun was shining on the shrub
To everyone’s delight:

He did his very best to make

The berries plump and ripe--
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

The freezer was acting sulkily
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business ripening
What she had frozen by the tonne--
“It’s very rude of him,” she said,
“When berry season’s done!”

The strawberries were red as red could be,
The blueberries, blue as blue.
The blackberries were overgrown
And cast a purple hue
Raspberries were protected by their thorns:
Only the bravest could get through

The Sista and the Sista
Were empty and with ache
They wept like anything to see
Such a bland pancake
“If it were only filled with berries
Our hunger we could shake!”

“If seven maids with seven mouths

Picked for half a year.
Do you suppose,” said Sista One
“They could get the bramble clear?”
“I doubt it,” said Sista Two
“And shed a happy tear”

“O Berries, come and walk with us!”
A Sista did beseech.
“A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Let’s spend the day in speech!

Come and fill our pails,
There’s room enough for each.”

The eldest berry looked at them
But never a word he said:
The eldest berry winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head--
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the berry-bed.

The strawberries were the first to come,
Their seeds pressed flush to flesh,
Green caps secured upon their tops
Ensured the fruit was fresh.
They eagerly awaited an afternoon
Free from any stress.

The blueberries from their small bush home
Were next to get in line
The raspberries came afterward,
All red and plump and fine.
Eventually the blackberries
Sauntered over in due time.

Together they strolled until
They found a clearing, nice and neat.
A blanket was lay upon the ground
On which to rest their aching feet.
And all the little berries
Jostled for a seat.

“The time has come,” one Sista said
“To talk of many things:
Of daughters and of nieces
And of sistas traveling.
Of adventures of the past
And of what the future brings.”

“But wait a bit,” the Berries cried,
“—Although it’s just a hunch—
We believe it’s half-passed noon
And yet we haven’t had our lunch!”
They turned their heads and all implored:
“Mightn't we have a bite to munch?”

“A bowl of cream,” one Sista said,
“Is what we chiefly need:
And some sugar and some chocolate
Would be very fine indeed—
Now if you’re ready, Berries dear,
We can begin to feed.”

“But not on us!” the Berries cried,
Releasing beads of sweat.
“A day of friendship you said:
A promise made is a promise kept.”
“The day is long,” said a Sista
“And the sun has not yet set.”

“We are so glad we’ve met you!
We hold you in high esteem!”
One Sista lowered her eyes and said:
“We’re running out of cream.”
Another bowl was brought
And her eyes were all agleam.

“It seems a shame,” a Sista said
“To play them for a fool,
After we took them from their homes
Where it was nice and cool.”
But from the other Sista’s mouth
Issued only a stream of drool.

“I apologize,” one Sista claimed,
“For acting such a brute.
It really tears me up inside
And your services I salute.”
With sobs and tears she sorted out
The very plumpest of the fruit.

“O Berries,” said a Sista,
“We’ve had such a pleasant break!
Shall we get you home again?”
But none of the berries spake—
And this was scarcely odd, because
They were all in a pancake.

Kürtőskalács

I got a lot of heat for my last post on Hungarian food, but I’m hoping that this time around there won’t be so many hurt feelings because I have nothing but good things to say about kürtőskalács. Kürtőskalács is the sweetbread of my dreams. Strips of bread are wrapped around a cylinder, painted with butter (the best kind of paint), rolled in sugar, and then roasted over coals. The sugar caramelizes into a kind of crust, and then some sort of topping is added to it, like crushed walnuts (gross) or cinnamon (delish) or coconut (grossest).

It is actually a dream of mine that one day I will be cast on some sort of game show in which you have to eat
your way out of something, and that this will be the something that I have to eat my way out of.

 This is such a Fall Fair food, and I really wish that it had accompanied the 100,000 Hungarians that rolled into Canada following 1956. (Speaking of Hungarian-Canadians: did you know that Alanis Morissette, William Shatner, and Elvis Stojko are all Hungarian-Canadians?) Can't you just picture yourself strolling the fair grounds at Rock Creek eating one of these things? It would be a way better addition to the fair-fare than Rotary's kettle corn, which is awful and I hate it. Right? There's something about these tubes of sweetened bread--they were made to be put in those cellphane bags and to be sold at an inflated price!

According to Wikipedia—and by the way, you have to read the entry because whoever wrote it really, really cares about this tube-cake—kürtőskalács was popular among the Hungarian nobility, which is really strange because its design demands a kind of playful consumption that totally negates any sort of refinement of the aristocracy. Like putting your arm through it. Or holding one end in your mouth and then unraveling it and trying to stuff the entire strand into your mouth. Or crumpling one end of the cylinder and then putting it in your mouth so it looks like a horn. It's also hard for me to believe that these were ever the food of the aristocracy because now I can't think about them without thinking about Rock Creek.

These are the only Hungarian aristocrats I am aware of. Rakoczi is obviously everyone's fav, but between Baroness
Orczy (perhaps better known to you as Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála "Emmuska" Orczy de Orczi),
author of "The Scarlet Pimpernel," and Erzsébet Báthory, mass murderer and blood enthusiast, I'm not sure which
one is worse. One thing is for sure: they all enjoyed kürtőskalács (except Báthory, who dined solely
on the blood of virgins).

It's worth pointing out that these chimney cakes are not exclusive to Hungary, but appear to be a popular treat in many places throughout Central and and Eastern Europe. I wonder what that means. I wonder what the hollowness symbolizes. Do you think that they have a gaping void where everyone else has a soul? Do you think that the hollow kürtőskalács is an emptiness that echoes back our own sadness? Do you think that if you long long enough into an abyss, the abyss looks back at you? Do you think the breaded coils signify that we are trapped in a meaningless and empty world, doomed to repeat itself over and over again, just as the sweetened dough wraps around the ever turning spindle? Do the coals signify the ever-burning fires of hell? Does the sugar coating represent the way that we deceive ourselves from recognizing the emptiness that resides inside us all? Do you think that the reason Alanis Morissette's mouth is so big is in order to fit around the circumference of a kürtőskalács? Do you think she will use it as a horn from which issues forth the eternal note of sadness?

It's weird that I am so into these chimney cakes because I've actually only ever had one. I bought it on a whim during a pub crawl of the seedy bars in all three of the Hungarian train stations. A man was walking up and down wearing a sandwich board advertising kürtőskalács, and although his sign put the idea in my head, these things look so good that they pretty much sell themselves.

I won't forgive Hungary for its cold-fruit-soup

But their losses they have managed to recoup

For make no mistake:

This Hungarian chimney takes the cake.

No longer reserved for the aristocracy—
From their gnarled, inbred grasp we snatch
The highly-coveted and deliciously-tubular kürtőskalács—
And now Hungary is a true democracy.

Potato Update (4)

These ovenroasted squashed nugget potatoes have helped make this year's reading break the best reading break ever! So far I've eaten them three times in as many days.

These are all leftovers from a dinner party!

It's hard to even articulate what potatoes like these mean to me. Everything about them is absolutely perfect and has everything I'm looking for in a good potato meal: they're nugget potatoes, which are always the best kind of potato; they're oven-roasted, which is one of the most consistently delicious methods of preparing potatoes; and there's a perfect balance between grease, crispiness, and seasoning.

And here's about one-third of the leftovers. Perfect lunch.

If nothing else, these potatoes have made the long trip home for reading break worth it.

Valentine's Candy Roundup

If grocery store aisles are any indication (they are), Valentine’s Day has been upon us for quite some time.  But now it’s really upon us, so I thought I would do a Valentine’s Day candy/treats roundup.  I had to take all of these pictures when I was in Loblaws and it was really embarrassing.  It’s probably too late this year, but hopefully this guide will give you a good idea of what to give me next year.  If you can’t be bothered to get through the entire post, the short answer is sugar cookies.

Hershey's chocolate is actually pretty terrible, but I have always loved Hershey's Kisses.  I used to always love their advertisements, probably because almost all of them featured an animated Kiss and I always thought that was cute (and maybe kind of rare?  I can't really think of any other candy advertisements like that).  But they were also a lot of fun to unwrap because you typically only had to pull the paper string to pull the foil off.  They were also the perfect size to pop in your mouth and let melt.  The pointed tip was a fun feature because you could feel it become more and more dull in your mouth until it disappeared all together.


I have never had a chocolate rose, but I love this idea.  The ones in the middle look slightly better than the Toblerones, but probably aren't because they're a cheap unbranded chocolate.  I think Lindt make chocolate roses that more closely resemble the ones in the middle. I just feel like the Toberlone roses really suffer from the cardboard packaging.  I don't know if they're shaped like a rose inside (probably not), but if you're going to market your chocolate this way, it really should look like a rose.

I love Cinnamon Hearts.  They have always been my favourite Valentine's Day candy.  I love stuffing a handful in my mouth at once, sucking on them for a while, and then starting to chew, but because there's so many of them, they form one giant ball and then you just suck the sugar out by filtering your saliva through the candy.  It's amazing.  I also suspect that all of my dental problems can probably be traced back to the first time I was introduced to these candies, but I have no regrets.

By no means do I hate these cheap, generic chocolates that always seem to come in this plastic netting, but it seems like everyone gets this chocolate at every holiday, and it's always the chocolate you put aside and forget about because there's way better candy to eat.  And then a while later you discover it again and resign yourself to eating it because you've already gone through everything else.  And you know what?  It's actually kind of good.

Ferrero Rocher wins every time. Goddamn, these are so good. SO GOOD.  I tend to prefer packaging that you unwrap rather than tear open, and these are perfect because every chocolate is like a little present (and a gift from God).  I also love how easy it is to cut them in half with your teeth, and then to keep one half in your mouth and examine the cross-section of the other half.

I typically like every Lindt product, so I guess these chocolates are fine.  I mean, the chocolates themselves are really good, but one of the best things about Lindt as a company is that they're pretty inventive with their holiday chocolates.  They put out those chocolate bunnies wrapped in gold and those adorable chocolate carrots wrapped in orange, so I always got the impression that this was just left-over chocolate that they didn't know what to do with.

This is a terrible picture, but someone was standing right next to me and I was too embarrassed to reposition the Smarties to get a proper picture.  Anyway, they're just regular Smarties, but they're only red and pink (or would be if Smarties hadn't gotten rid of their artificial colours).  Like the Lindt chocolates above, I've always found this kind of holiday candy to be pretty lazy.  Smarties does a much better job with their heart-shaped boxes, shown below.

Way better, right? There's probably less Smarties in here and it probably costs more, but I like that Nestle made the effort to come out with a Valentine's Day product.  Even though it seems pretty uninspired, I actually really like it because a heart-shaped box full of chocolates is such a traditional Valentine's Day gift.  I also like that they include the e To and From options.  Unfortunately the product itself is no longer edible, so don't get me this please.

Did anyone know that these were called Golden Buds?  I always assumed they were just Rosettes.  Weird.  Anyway, I never really liked these chocolates.  They remind me of the kind of chocolate you might find at Fields.  Probably because the only time I've ever had these, I bought them at Fields.  I've never liked Nielson as a company, and I don't care who knows it.

Okay, so here Lindt is getting a bit more interesting with the small bear and the 4 hearts.  But this, first of all, is tiny, and second of all, really pales in comparison to what they offer at Easter (the chocolate for which, by the way, is also available in stores now).  I wouldn't like to get this for Valentine's Day because it would make me think that whoever gave it to me was not ready to fully commit to our relationship.  Obviously I would still eat it, but I would question their devotion to me.

Okay, here's Lindt upping their game once again.  The one on the left looks pretty interesting, but unfortunately I didn't examine it closer when I was in the store, so who knows what's inside.  It looks like the white box just contains those round balls, which are delicious, so that's great.  But jeeze louise, $10.99?  Here's a hot tip: those Lindt balls are always really cheap at the Dollarama, and they often go on sale at Shopper's Drug Mart.

Nice try, Loblaws, but these President's Choice Mini Chocolate Cupcakes are not even Valentine's Day-specific.  I would guess that they're having a hard time selling these things because they look so disgusting, so they slipped them in here hoping that some fool would buy them.  Ugh.  Who would buy these?  Why wouldn't you get the 2-bite brownies? They're probably so much better than these.  Sometimes PC really drops the ball.

Okay, I know I said that I like Hershey's Kisses, but I would hate it if anyone got this for me.  I think I already mentioned that Hershey's chocolate is pretty bad, but look at this pathetic packaging.  It looks like this was produced by a generic no-name company that decided to try their hand at chocolate and have no idea what their doing or by a company that is losing its edge and is in rapid decline.  I mean, it looks like it could be either, but the truth is that it's the latter.  Tacky, tacky, tacky.

I don't like Reese anything, but I appreciate the effort here.  I can see how someone who really likes Reese would be happy with this.  I guess my only complaint is that unlike the Smarties box, this one is too... I don't know, obviously just a chocolate bar re-purposed for Valentine's Day.  Does that many any sense?  The Smarties box was at least a heart-shaped box, with a lid that you lift off, but this is just, what?  A heart-shaped something-or-other inside of a box?  I don't like the packaging here.

Kinder Surprise is doing a better job with packaging here than Reese, but still a pretty pathetic offering.  I really think that companies should re-imagine their products for holidays, not just put two Kinder Surprise eggs inside of a cardboard heart.  I would hope that at the very least the toys would be Valentine's related, but I bet they're not.  It just shows a lack of dedication.

At first I thought these were those awful chalky hearts in a cardboard box, but they're actually some sort of chocolate.  I say "some sort" because I doubt they're actually chocolate.  They probably are very similar in quality to those fifteen discount advent calendars that I got from my sister for Christmas. The only other thing I have to say about these is that I really hate it when emoticons are used in unnecessary ways.  And "happy v-day"? I hate it. I hate everything about it.

Loblaws didn't actually carry these, and good for them because I hate these chalk-hearts and always have.  I was also always really frustrated by the pathetic messages on them.  "Love You" is fine, but sometimes the messages are so fine.  I think that these days they actually say things like "Text Me."  Text you what?  Text you and tell you that a disgusting chalk-heart told me so but that I was too afraid to eat it because they all look so dirty and old even when their messages are as contemporary as "Text Me"? 


All I want to say as a closing note is that Valentine's is a big chocolate holiday, so I really can't stand it when companies are lazy with their products--mostly because I know that the idiots who buy those products are also lazy with their significant others.  Look, we can't all bake our loved ones a cake and send it to them in the mail, but we can make an effort to buy the most relevant-themed chocolate that is available and to hold these companies to higher standards.