A Little Creativity and Some Lessons Learned.

Beer and cake and notes scrawled on napkins. Who's best ideas HAVEN'T come to them right before last call??! If you recently picked up a copy of Coupe Magazine, you may have noticed a big ol' cake covered with words of wisdom. Well my friends, I'm proud to say that that cake was the product of another super-fun collaboration between myself and the uber-talented Dana Harrison. We decided to take up some ad space in this year's annual and use it as a promo-piece designed to congratulate all of this year's winners.

Here's a little peak into where our inspiration came from and a couple lessons we learned along the way:

After we fuelled up on Sweet Tea and Brisket Sandwiches, we ate A LOT of fortune cookies, all in the name of inspiring our copy of course.

We realized that in order to pipe our copy onto the cake (YES, Dana did that by hand!), we would have to create some kind of template.  Here comes lesson #1 - It's never a good idea to use cinnamon to create a guide for text on a white cake. That results in a whole lot of retouching.

How could this icing colour not inspire something awesome?!

Here comes lesson # 2: No matter how well Dana's dog is behaving while there is food on set, he is always, always waiting for his moment to pounce. We stupidly let our guard down for all of thirty seconds, and very nearly lost hours of work to a sneaky dog. Through some stroke of luck, he was feeling particularly generous and only ate the discard plate I was using to style the cake with. OY! Lesson learned.

As always, Dana and I had a blast. Who knows, maybe someday we'll open an online store where we sell snarky yet inspirational cakes. Someday.....

To The East!

I've got a little gem (ok, it's a massive diamond) of a project in the works that I'm just dying to spill the beans about! Over the last few months I've been working with the most fantastic team, being led by a fearless and sleep deprived Shawn Bailey, and every step forward just fuels my excitement. I can't give away too much, but I will tell you this: It's an iPad app for Massimo Bruno (who you may remember from this post). Essentially, it's a do-it-yourself-supper-club-bonanza packed with full cooking show episodes, recipes and mouthwatering photography (ahem...) for twenty different regions in Italy. Since I can't share the images we shot with you quite yet I'll tell you the story of a fun little day-trip Shawn and I took - pictures included.

Ever since Shawn and I sat down for our first meeting back in September he's been telling me about a handfull of places he likes to go to for props and other awesome junk. They're just outside the city, and I was told that they are the kinds of places where I would "lose my mind."  Since then, of course, I've been desperate to go. When we wrapped our second day of shooting last week Shawn announced that he'd be heading out of town to poke around for some extra props and invited me and the app's graphic designer Dana Harrison, who you may have met here, to tag along.

The morning of our road trip we loaded up on coffee and snacks (of course the snacks were mostly for me since I can't go ten minutes without eating), hopped into Shawn's truck and were on our way. First stop: Cobourg. We hit a place called Legacy which is in an old train station that has been FILLED from top to bottom, inside and out, with stuff. Mind blown. Dana and I were like kids in a candy store. Touching everything and shouting out from across the store to show off the cool things we had just found.

I quickly came to realize that maybe we weren't the best trio to be out on this excursion together since we all loved everything and all agreed that it was a great idea to get whatever it was the others had found.  Next time, perhaps we should bring a neutral party who will weigh the pros and cons of filling our homes with stuff we have no room for and serve no real immediate purpose. On second thought, screw that. Our way is clearly more fun.

Here's some of the awesome stuff we left behind:

From Cobourg we went east and north to Codrington, Morganston, Warkworth, and then stopped for lunch at a great little place in Hastings called Banjo's.

Some days I have moments where I truly understand that my love of food is "special" and different from others. I had a couple of those moments that afternoon. The first was when my drink arrived at the table and Dana lost it. Laughing and insisting that she take a photo before I drink it. What was it? Hot Chocolate with whipped cream... is that so weird? Sometimes a girl just wants a nice hot cup of "ice-rink" hot chocolate, and how could I refuse when the waitress offered me whipped cream on top? As if! The second moment was when I was telling Shawn and Dana about how sad I was to find out that Blondie's greasy diner in Gravenhurst had been turned into a gluten free bakery! I then went on to possibly say something along the lines of "that burger will forever be with me in my memory" to which Dana so kindly pointed out to Shawn that I was not kidding, and we all had a good laugh at my expense. Ah well, at least no client will ever doubt how much I love what I do. I just can't hide it for a second.

After lunch, Shawn stopped to show us his lovely cottage on the Trent River where I stood by the lake dreaming about the old Press camera I had found (and will go back for someday).

The last two stops of the day were in Keene. The first one was a little shop filled with cheap antiques, where I thoroughly made a fool of myself by actually loosing my mind as Shawn had predicted. While on set yesterday, Shawn likened me to the woman from the Ikea commercial who gets such a good deal that she feels like she's stolen something and runs to the car laden down with bags yelling "Start the car! Start the car!" When I told Dana she completely agreed and again had a good laugh at my expense. In my defence though I got all of this stuff for $16!

This I did not buy, but it was awesome none-the-less:

Our second stop was to take a look at Muddy's Pit BBQ:

By the sounds of it, that GIANT smoker they've got out front pumps out some proper Carolina-style BBQ all summer long. They don't open until April 18th, but rest assured, I've already got a group organized and we're planning to be there on opening day.

Simple Can Be Awesome.

Sometimes when I begin a project, my initial reaction is to come up with the most complicated way to accomplish it. I can't help myself. I get excited and then get lost in the endless possibilities of my imagination. What I have learned over the years is that most often, the simplest solution is the best one. It's usually the hardest one to arrive at, but in the end it's usually the best.

In honour of beautifully executed simple ideas, I bring you Otherlands Coffee Bar's "Best Cinnamon Toast in the South." When Zac and I were in Memphis, TN., we stopped here for breakfast. I have a weakness for cinnamon sugar on - well - anything. I couldn't have possibly resisted a breakfast item being touted as "the best in the south," and let me tell you, I'm glad I didn't. Thick slices of buttered white bread covered in an almost equally thick layer of raw sugar and cinnamon cooked under the broiler until crisp. If you had this in Montreal, it would likely be called "Toast Brulee."

Try it at home kids, I doubt you'll be disappointed.

Hunka Hunka Burning Love

I seem to have more images than words floating around in my brain these days, which in the end I suppose is a good thing, since I am a photographer. On the other hand, it's not so fantastic because it's been keeping me from filing the pages of my blog. I've decided that while I work on my voice, I'll share some of the things my eyes have seen.

Here's where I begin to play catch-up....

When Zac and I took our road trip back in November, we drove through Memphis, TN. We're not particularly Elvis fans, but how could we possibly pass through Memphis and pass on Graceland, the home of The King? As we arrived, I immediately put on Paul Simon's Graceland, which I happily played in my mind all day long.

I found myself inexplicably drawn to all the Elvis souvenirs (both in the gift shop and in the displays). I could have spent days looking at all the chatchkas. I was blown away by the kitch factor and the empire that is Elvis.

The house was really something special, and I would highly recommend it to everyone. Elvis fan or not. Graceland is spectacular. It's like walking into a time-warp. A wonderfully gaudy, imaginative, shiny, upholstered time-warp. I wish I could have taken more pictures of the inside of his house, but the tour was crowded and the house is extremely dark. Getting a clear shot with a proper camera was tough. My two favorite rooms were the "Tiki room" complete with indoor waterfall (below left), and the billiards room (below right) where the floor, celling, walls and furniture are all covered in matching fabric. Unreal. I can only imagine that his cleaning lady hated that room.

As the house tour came to an end, a larger than life oil painted Elvis bid us adieu.

A Lovely Day in Louisville

After a long drive the previous day, we decided to stop in Louisville, KY for breakfast before hitting the road again. I had heard good things about Lynn's Paradise Cafe, but nothing could have prepared me for the magic that is Lynn's. Giant sparkly letters beckon you to come in from the road while an Elvis bear greets you at the front door. From the moment I sat down, I was in love. When I first saw Lynn's I felt that spark of creativity and pure childish joy that I often have to search for. There was a little bucket of toy animals on the table that I couldn't resist playing with. For me, the food was almost secondary to the atmosphere. Now, I did say almost... I can often be pretty easily wooed by fancy sounding breakfasts items like extravagant French toast options or the 'house's special hash' but amidst Lynn's spectacularly decadent menu I just kept on going back to two little words: homemade biscuits. I'm a bit of a sucker for great baked goods so I just went with my gut on this one and kept breakfast simple. Two eggs, biscuits and fresh fruit. Let me tell you folks, that's how it's done. To my absolute delight the biscuits were light and crumbly, but dense enough to hold together long enough to butter and get to your mouth. Oh, and did I mention that they were cooked in bacon grease? Cuz they were.

Words or even photographs can't accurately describe Lynn's. Next time you're planning a trip to Disney Land - forget it. Go to Lynn's. It's the happiest place on earth.

Road Trippin'

It's that time of year again! Zac and I are driving to Florida and along the way, we're searching out some really great food. This morning we packed up and headed for sunnier skies.

Today's plan was to get as far south as possible, and south we did get. All the way to Shelbyville, KY. Here's what we saw/learned along the way:

1. Detroit is rich with off the highway strip clubs. "The Landing Strip" wins for best name.

2. I came, I saw and I conquered Denny's.

3. Driving into Kentucky, I saw a sign for "buttermilk park." Unfortunately, we passed by in the dark and didn't get a chance to explore. I'm sure it's a wonderful place where pancakes do the backstroke in lakes of syrup and chickens dive head first into rich, luxurious pools of batter. I'm not sure if I'll ever visit buttermilk park but I'm positive that it's as good as, or even better than I could ever imagine.

Well, tomorrow will officially kick off the food fest part of our trip. Time for bed. May all your dreams be filled with BBQ.

An Epiphany in Burgers

It's moment's away from the weekend and I'm sure many of you are already psyching yourselves up for the drive to cottage country along good ol' highway 11. Well friends, that drive just got a little juicer and a little more burger-y.

As a child, Webers was always a sign that we were finally getting close to the lake. Webers Burgers is a staple and a tradition for the zillions of cottage goers that flock to the water every summer. With constant lineups, 50-100 people deep, I've never quite understood the draw. Admittedly a bit of a burger snob (but not in a foie gras kind of way.. just a home-made with love kind of way), I've never really understood the appeal of flavorless pre-frozen tasting patties.

Well my friends, I present to you my latest discovery: Burger Pit! Zac and I have been driving past this place for years. Every time we zoom past, we talk about stopping in for a burger. The giant mom-and-pop-vintage-American-style-burger-shoppe-sign advertising charbroiled burgers has been beckoning us to pull over. How come we never stopped before? The Burger Pit is just down the road from the cottage institution, Webers. Chalk it up to crowd-mentality, but we just figured that Webers was better. And sadly, Webers isn't really all that good. Last weekend, we decided to break free from the flock and let that awesome sign lead us. This was not a mistake. The Burger Pit serves up simple, juicy, homemade, perfectly charred patties. My drive to the cottage had been forever changed. Now instead of yelling out WEEEEEEBERS as we hit the three quarter mark to the cottage, I'll be yelling our BUUUUUUURGER PIIIIIIIIT!

 

The address is listed as 5 Booth Street, but it's right on Highway 11 between Oro-Medonte Line 10 and Line 11, just south of Orillia. Trust me, it's good. Go to there.

Some Damn Good BBQ & A Charcutepalooza Retraction

Last night, James invited Zac and I to be part of an elite rib-taste-testing-squad. Our delicious assignment was to help determine which ribs would be entered in Woodbine Park's BBQ competition this coming weekend. Of course, I can't divulge any of James' secrets but I can tell you that his ribs are killer! I'm sure he'll tell all once the competition is in the bag, so check out his blog to read all about it after the weekend.

Since the grill was already fired up, we figured why not throw on some of our fresh sausages. Now we would be able to experience them as originally intended. Zac dubbed this creation the "club sausage." Turkey and bacon with cranberry-walnut relish all conveniently stuffed in a sausage and served on a bun cut into three sections.

In my last post, I talked about how the sausages were a bit on the salty side and the bacon had overpowered the turkey. Well, here's where the Charcutepalooza retraction comes in: I TAKE IT BACK!! These sausages were not at all overly salty, in fact they had the perfect balance of salt and sweet. The general consensus was that they tasted like thanksgiving dinner all rolled up into one bite.  You could distinctly taste each of the ingredients that went into these lovely little delights. 

I'd say that the lesson learned here is to let sausage mellow overnight so all the ingredients can become friends and learn to get along in a wonderfully balanced and harmoniously tasty way.

I guess the big question now is: what other full meals can we stuff into a single sausage??

The Little Promo That Could

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm rather blown away by the level of response I've been getting from my promo. Just as I was beginning to feel like the chatter was tapering off, both the Applied Arts Blog and PDN Online wrote a little something about my bacon-y package this week. I'm pretty stoked, so I thought I'd share.

For the Applied Arts Article go here.
Click here to read what Heather Morton has to say in her PDN interview for the "Promos I Kept" column.
P.S. Thanks Heather for choosing my promo to talk about... again!

Since I couldn't dream of posting without sharing some images with you, here are three snappys to get you through the day:

Behind the scenes from Charcutepalooza

In and Out Burger in LA - ohhh yum!

 Seriously THE BEST dessert on the planet! I'm salivating just remembering it. No joke.

Butterscotch Pot de Crème with Salted Caramel & Crème Fraiche from Gjelina in LA. Go There.

Big Mac Challenge

A couple weeks ago I received a call from Shelbie Vermette, the photo editor at Toronto's newest and most exciting paper, The Grid.  As soon as she told me the concept for an upcoming shoot, I was immediately on board.  This was going to be FUN!  Four of Toronto's chefs were to be given a Big Mac meal which they were asked to transform, without adding any additional ingredients, into a dish fit for their restaurants.  As you probably know by now I am no stranger to the hamburger, so being asked to take part in a burger re-imagination project had me pretty excited.  Writer Karon Liu and I literally had no idea what to expect when heading out for our shoot.  Each time a dish came out of the kitchen, our minds were truly blown.  The creativity, thoughtful care and humor that each of the chefs put into their dishes was absolutely inspiring.  The chefs were all such great sports that they even let me snap a few quick portraits of them enjoying their creations. 

You can read the full story here and can check out the behind the scenes story here.

Aravind’s Open-Faced Samosas by Chefs Raj and Aravind Kozhikott

Campagnolo’s Big Mac All’Americana by Chefs Craig Harding and Nigel French 

Local Kitchen's McLumi Platter by Chef Fabio Bondi 

The Drake’s Birthday Surprise by Chef Anthony Rose 

Charcutepalooza Challenge #2

Corned Beef? Yes Please! This month's challenge was Brining. If you had told me just a couple of years ago that we could make corned beef, I would have thought you were crazy - that tender, melt-in-your-mouth-put-it-on-rye-with-nothing-but-mustard-and-a-crunchy-Strubs-pickle-on-the-side corned beef of my childhood! I was shocked by how easy it is.

1. Buy Brisket. Ours came from NorpacBeef.
2. Submerge in brine
3. Refrigerate for 7-10 days
4. Rinse
5. Boil for 3ish hours in fresh brine
6. Eat

James and I have decided that we are going to do our utmost to make sure that each of our challenges receive a tip of the hat to our Canadian heritage. Last month, we smoked meat in a snow storm, so this month we decided to look East.

Our first instinct was to stick to your tried and true corned beef sandwich: something that needn't be improved upon and in our minds was truly the best vehicle for corned beef. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. How do we better the best sandwich? By adding cheese, gravy and fries! How could it be more obvious and Canadian. Corned beef poutine!

We would make stock, which would become our poutine sauce, as well as the squeaky cheese curds which make poutine the wonderfully special dish that it is. We'd rest the whole thing on a bed of homemade fries. Oh yes! We officially had an even more challenging challenge on our hands.

James: After a fair bit of research I found out what 'poutine sauce' is. It's basically a 1/2 reduced velouté. I didn't get around to the research until I'd roasted the meat and made the 12hr. beef stock (from a veal stock recipe). Back to Mr. Rhulman with The Elements of Cooking, which I happen to own, have read and quickly forgot. Jogged by the internet, I went back to my hardcopy for some pointers. He points you to one of Emeril's old recipes on the Food Network site. Beyond the basics, I think the most important bit is "Place the stock pot in the oven and heat it to between 180º and 200ºF… cook for at least 8 hours and up to 12 hours." Genius! Don't boil, gently warm all the flavour out of those tough, cheap chunks of crap.

As for the actual 'poutine sauce', I was sure ol' Martin Picard (The Wild Chef) would have included it in his food-porn fois gras manifesto Au Pied du Cochon: The Album. Nope. This considering it has a recipe for poutine in it! So, where better to get the goods than a website about poutine? There velouté is mentioned, and I remembered that I made it in Culinary I at George Brown. Yes! With the addition of a few more aromatics (thyme, bay), a roux and some salt we had turned a great stock into fine velouté.

R: We found a couple recipes for squeaky cheese curds that seemed simple enough. Suddenly, the mysterious and complicated process of making cheese seemed attainable. We diligently heated our milk to the correct temperature then added our lemon juice. As our milk began to (intentionally) curdle, a mix of excitement and disgust washed over us. A word to the wise: if you are making cheese, close your eyes while it curdles and don't breathe in. Blech. Sadly, our cheese did not turn into the poutine curds that we had been dreaming of. We were however, left with quite a lovely ricotta and since I have a tendency to complicate already complicated matters, I thought that come corned-beef-cooking-poutine-making-day, it would be a great idea to make an even bigger mess of the kitchen by baking a cheesecake with our failed curds. Here are the cheese cake and lemon curd recipes that we used. After two failed attempts at making our own, we had to admit defeat and go buy cheese curds from Chris' Cheesemongers.

 

 

  

I hadn't really anticipated that poutine-making-day would actually be rather torturous. When I arrived at James' place that afternoon, I could literally taste the corned beef that was wafting up the walkway. We had a lot of work ahead of us before we could dig in. Ricotta cheese cake, lemon curd topping, poutine sauce and fries all still needed to be prepared before we could taste our meat... le sigh. We motored through the day, cooking and shooting, shooting and cooking. Finally the time had come when the last, twice fried potato had emerged from the oil a french fry.  We were about to discover what all the fuss was about.

J: I don't mind saying that the corned beef we made was the best I'd had, ever. The flavour from the spice blend in Charcuterie is unbelievable. Dear Ginger, thanks for making everything better...again.

R: I can honestly say that it's going to be tough to go back to restaurant made corned beef and poutine after this challenge. James' sauce was flavorful and complex yet subtle enough that it let our hero, the corned beef shine. It was the perfect compliment for our corned beef and crispy fries. I would absolutely recommend that you all run out and buy yourself a brisket to transform into corned beef, and if you are so inclined - poutine-ify it. You'll have no regrets.  Trust me.

 

 
J: I guess the question still remains: What do you do with 4 1/2 lbs. of perfectly cooked corned beef & poutine? Have a French Canadian 'plaid only' dinner, with all your hungriest friends! Success topped with a curd-fail/ricotta-win cheesecake. The end.

Southern Fried Road Trip (Part 4)

This next leg of our trip was the most exciting for me.  Ever since I had read 'Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil' back in highschool, I have dreamed of visiting Savannah, GA.  Romantic, ethereal, mysterious, friendly, beautiful Savannah!  A place where you can rely on the kindness of strangers and words flow from peoples mouths as smoothly as silk.  After ten years or so of visiting Savannah in my mind, I was finally going for real!  From the moment I found out, I immediately began practicing my Southern drawl, (which I might add, is pretty terrible) while promising Zac that I wouldn't use my wonderfully charming accent in public.

After fueling up our car and ourselves, we left Atlanta and were headed for Savannah.

When we arrived at our B&B, Park Avenue Manor, I immediately felt giddy.  We were truly staying in an old southern manor.  Decorated from top to bottom just the way I had imagined it would be.  We were greeted by the owner, with Sherry and homemade brownies, that we were told would be available to us 24 hours a day.  Seriously??  If a hankering hit mid night, I could hop out of bed to sip sherry in the salon by the fire?  How much better could this get?!

As dinnertime rolled around, the B&B owner sent us off to a great pub, with a fantastic beer list, called the Crystal Beer Parlor.  We were on a roll eating only brown things, so why stop now?  A hamburger with onion rings and fried shrimp with handmade potato chips and beer it was!  Zac alleges that our server offered roasted veggies as one of the sides for my meal but, to this day, I still think he imagined it. 

As last call was announced, I started to notice that people seemed to transferring their drinks into plastic cups.  Feeling like I was about to ask a pretty stupid question, I shyly asked the bartender if people were actually taking their beer to go.  He answered with a laugh, that they were and that it is legal to walk the streets of Savannah with alcohol in hand, "as long as you are within 50 feet of a pub, and in Savannah, you are always 50 feet from a pub!"  To go cups of beer in hand, Zac and I made our way back to our B&B for a nightcap of Sherry and brownies.

Flowery sundresses and takeout cups of beer.  In my next life, I'm coming back as a Southern Belle.