Edible Tulip

Eating Chicken

After 14 years as a strict vegetarian, bordering on veganism, eating very little dairy and very little fish, I've suddenly embraced the meat lover within. This has not even been a conscious decision. I just CRAVED meat this summer. I was dating someone who loved meat, who talked about meat, and I started to want meat. One evening he arrived at my cabin late at night and cooked himself an omelette with cheese, fried potatoes and ham. I couldn't get enough. He fed me little forkfuls until I was saying: more, more, more. Then I was over to the other side.

I subsequently went to my parent's house for dinner and ate, ahem, lamb burgers! Delicious. Towards the end of the meal the only sound heard was my little voice "er, are you going to eat the rest of that lamb burger on your plate" to my mother, to my brother, to anyone. I wanted more.

Then when my boyfriend came for dinner the other week I made a delicious made-up recipe of stir fried vegetables and chicken strips served atop egg noodes. This is a loose recipe.

Egg noodles or rice

Bean sprouts
Slivered broccoli
Slivered carrots
Slivered red peppers
a bunch of chopped rapini

2 skinless boneless chicken breasts boiled in water for 10 minutes then cooled so they can be shredded easily with fingers and added to the mixture

A marinade of: tamari, sesame oil, chopped garlic, chopped ginger, a tiny bit of honey, vegetable oil, fresh lemon juice, a touch of tahini, salt and pepper and hot chile flakes

I can't stress that you can't make too much marinade. The vegetables can be stir fried in it and then the chicken is added and then as you top the noodles with the bounty add more marinade. Add more salt and pepper and even a bit of a lime pickle relish.

Serve in large Chinese bowls. Drink wine or Tsing Tao beer. Delicious! And heart warming.

Tonight after my first day back at the "office" I clicked in my heels along Bloor Street to the butcher and thought "whoever imagined". I couldn't be happier OR more satiated! (Or sated, I always get confused).

Curried Lentil Salad

I'll be in a state of shock tomorrow because, gasp, I'm returning to a downtown office job on the 60th floor of a skyscraper. I mean, this, after living for 4 1/2 months on a river, is going to be hard. Stifling. Boring. Mind numbing. But it is a job and that, my friends, is what we all need in order to eat, drink and drink some more.

So, I'm busy tonight preparing my meals for lunch over the next two days. I hard boiled some eggs. And I boiled some french lentils and then rinsed them. I chopped up parsley and mint and I quartered a handful of grape tomatoes. I will grate a few carrots and sliver 1/2 a red pepper. I'll toss the ingredients with the curry dressing and then coat with toasted sesame seeds. I'll then wrap a few thin slices of pumperknickel bread and a mutsu apple in a brown paper bag. And then tomorrow, my first day at work, I'll find a nice picnic bench somewhere calm and shady and I'll eat and the rest of the day won't matter a wit.

Raspberry Lattice Top Pie

There still seem to be an abundance of red raspberries at the green grocers in my neighbourhood and they still seem to carry that succulent flavour that borders on the slightly sweet over mellowly tart. That is my favourite essence in a fruit. I've never been fond of the saccharine type of sweet (an overripe pear, banana or mango). I prefer the crisp refreshment of a fruit just embracing maturation (melons, apples, kiwis). I love berries of all kinds because even when they are perfectly ripe they still have a complexity that the taste buds go wild over.

Raspberry pie like rhubarb pie tastes exactly like the fruit that it is made from. Given that fall is here, despite the warm weather, my baking and kitchen nurturing and fattening-up-for-winter instinct is in full swing. Invite a loved one over in the afternoon and lie around eating pie!

Maize: Zea Mays

"Oh, to bite into the steaming ear beside the sea of distant song and deepest waltz." - Pablo Neruda

Pablo has always got it down how sensual the experience of seeing, touching and eating can be. His ability to take an object of food (fruit, vegetable, fish) and illuminate it with a worldly geography as well as a well of feelings is always a treat to read.

The bag of corn up above held 5 dozen cobs of corn. I would husk these cobs every couple of days in August to feed my hungry guests. Now that I'm back in Toronto, I find it a strange sensation that at markets and green grocers, they half husk the corn for you. Obviously I realize it is to decrease the madness of sailing silk and half stripped corn because people inevitably want to see what is inside but husking is part of the fun of working for your food.

Corn on the cob is the best way to bring home the end of summer. Today is the first day of fall with last night being the autumnal equinox and it shimmered in a buttery yellow blaze of a half moon. Given the shock of hot weather we're having, eating corn on the cob still feels appropriate. I spent the past 3 days up around Creemore, cleaning out the summer cabin and handing back the keys, and the magic of driving around and through and past corn fields - those tall pointed skyward arrows all in rows - never ceases. The sweet musty smell of corn and husks blew past me while I drove.

Every time I ate corn this summer, I kept reminding myself to get out into the land and talk to some corn farmers. I'm very curious as to why we've gone completely away from both the traditional yellow corn and the pure white almost tasteless corn that I grew up on towards the butter and sugar corn so popularly known as peaches and cream. It's now quite hard to find anything BUT the peaches and cream varietal. If you've seen an ugly cob of corn (you know: gaps between the kernels, large jagged kernels beside tiny undeveloped ones, knobby dried ends, musty silk) then you can appreciate the BEAUTY of a perfect cob of corn: plump and milky kernels, a full set of teeth all the way to the tiny pointed end, and tightly spaced rows of equal sized kernals lined up like a marching band.

Julie's Cuban

There's nothing like eating a few peppery corn fritters dipped in whipped sour cream on a Saturday night at midnight in September in 25 C degree weather while sitting beside a spiral of tropical flowers. It was Toronto's way of WELCOMING me back. I'm certain.

My life as a river rat is officially over. Last week, I packed up the cabin, traumatized my cats by taking away their daily mole killing spree and re-urbanizing them, and traumatized myself by re-entering a vibrant bright loud big city life.

In a way it feels good to be back - back in my cosy apartment, back in my eclectic Korean/Greek/Eritrean/Serbian neighbourhood, back in the hum of living amongst millions of people. But I'm also still nostalgic for the sweet lulls of summer. I like peace and I like quiet. This summer, apart from cooking for crowds, was full of both. Now I'm having to adjust by falling forward with the seasons and the movement of the city. It might take a little bit of time and I might need to go out and eat A LOT of ethnic food to make the transition easier. Eating soothes the soul and tempers the restless spirit.

Julie's Cuban is nestled in the midst of Victorian row houses on Dovercourt Road (between Queen and Dundas). By day, when it's closed, the little yellow building can easily be overlooked. At night however the small patio is jam packed with tables and umbrellas and mojitos and sangria pitchers and little white flickering strings of lights and table lanterns and Sylvie, the co-proprietor, who can usually be spotted weaving through the oasis of dusk in summer under massive maple trees greeting guests.

Inside it’s all about the pink and blue Caribbean paint vibe, the retro black and white Cuban tourist posters, the shelves of books, memorabilia, propoganda and board games. It's a cross between a late night elegant tacqueria in a colonial town in Mexico and a back alley tapas joint in Spain. It's cosy, full of random people (old, young, couples, singles, groups, families, first dates, loquacious lovers), a great neighbourhood spot to have a drink or a late night snack, and a perfect place to sit in the garden and drink wine and eat on your first weekend back in the city.

World Wide Wine Blogging Wednesday

Welcome to the first edition of World Wide Wine Blogging Wednesday hosted by Lenn of Lenn Devours. The theme was a new world Merlot (excluding the United States) that fell in on the retail radar under $15 US. In typical Edible Tulip blogging fashion, I am a day late. Sigh. I blame this entirely on matters of the heart. Gentle readers, my heart has exploded into a sea of airborne particles that are scattered across the river and floating. I saw a shooting star the other night. That's the only way I can describe my state: my "can't blog" "can't think" "can't put letters together to create words" state of being. But anyway, enough poetics, the good news is I've been drinking A LOT of wine. This bottle I pulled from my recycling bin this morning having come across the Lenn Devours site and remembering this wine blogging event and really wanting to participate but not really wanting to drive to town to drink wine in the afternoon after 4 hours of sleep just to write a good review. I had a small faith that a bottle of new world merlot WOULD be in my recycling bin. Just a thought. And it was indeed.

The LCBO (liquor control board of Ontario) has been promoting new world red wines since last spring so unlike some of you there is no difficulty walking into an average LCBO store and being greeted by at least a dozen new world reds (and many of them falling under the $15 US limit for this event). When buying new world red wines I tend to go for zinfandels and shiraz or cab sauv/shiraz varietals from places like New Zealand and Australia because for the value they are good easy drinking wines. But this bottle from Chile is also a very cheap very presentable alternative. It retails for $8.95 Cdn (roughly $7 US). I bought it in my tiny village LCBO which means it is standard LCBO fare and should be available at any wine store in Ontario. It has a typical merlot embodiment – slightly fruity in a blackberry way, a little herbaceous and taut, slightly meaty and earthy, a classic mid weight Chilean red that is fairly dry and slightly tannic.

This wine won the bronze medal in the category “Red Table Wines under $13” at the 2004 Toronto Wine and Cheese Show.

It is an easy drinking wine although for summer I’d prefer a lighter Beaujolais style of wine. The meatiness of this red deserves something slightly spicy like a baked ham or a flavourful Indian stew.

Summer Squash

August at the farmer's market is all green and yellow beans, beets, tomatoes, peaches and cream corn, new potatoes, fresh berries, Ontario musk melons and these absolutely charming baby squashes. I selected mostly the pattypan and crookneck varieties because they are so perfect. So perfectly formed. Whereas the crookneck has an elongated delicate curvature like a swan in repose the pattypans are utterly whimsical with their regal crown of scalloped gold. I prefer the yellow varieties as opposed to the tarnished green kinds but that is purely an aesthetic choice. These baby summer squash taste divine - sweet, buttery and slightly nutty. A perfect match roasted with ripe August tomatoes, the bite of a grated hard cheese and some olive oil and fresh herbs.