K for Korruption!

So you're just sitting in the kitchen, enjoying your morning bowl of Special K, and you're perusing the box, as people do with breakfast cereal boxes and -  WHAM!  You realise that someone has censored your wheat and rice flakes!

You can love your shape in the spotlight, as long as it's all covered up!!

Pumpkin Processing - Doing It From Scratch!

I've been eyeing my neighbour's mini-pumpkin patch behind her house and it's five perfect flame coloured pumpkins. I'm really too old to raid a pumpkin patch (aren't I?), so I was happy when she offered one up on the condition I not just make a jack-o-lantern out of it. 

I love anything pumpkin, missed it terribly in Istanbul, and am now staying in Naramata, which has the fine distiction of being one of only two Cittaslow communities in Canada!

So let the processing begin!

Love that colour! Ok ,first I scrubbed this baby. 

Notice this isn't a sugar or pie pumpkin, just your average pumpkin pumpkin.

I should say that Turkey does have pumpkins, and last year at this time I watched the little old ladies of Cappadoccia split open pumpkin after pumpkin, scoop out the seeds and throw the rest away! 

Don't believe me?)

Here's a load of scooped gourds headed for the compost! 

(This pic was taken on the street in Goreme.)

I digress! Back to the job at hand. With great effort this thing got split in half. I did it using a rolling pin, a dishtowel and a big knife I wasn't in love with. BANG! BANG! BANG! 

(I also waited till mom wasn't home, for some reason, loud banging in the kitchen distresses her.)

Face down on foil. My mom has a convection oven. (Love the convection oven!) 

Hot air cooks food 25% faster at a lower temp!

Forty-five minutes later...

...mushy!

I let it cool a bit and peeled the skin off leaving just the pulp behind. The pulp got pureed through a blender and produced about 8 cups of pumpkin puree. 

Obviously, this isn't hard, just messy and time consuming. I can see the attraction to canned pumpkin, but this is Cittaslow designated Naramata! No shortcuts here!

Walnut pumpkin muffins. 

The walnuts came from our friend Ricky's huge walnut trees. Keeping with the slow food movement, we collect bags of them every fall, dry them and use a hammer to crack'em. Our fingers get red and tender quickly, so it's best done slowly over a few weeks.

And two thanksgiving pies!

These pies were good, despite not being made from proper pie pumpkins. Would I do this again instead of canned? Actually, yes. 

But not this year. The next pumpkin I process is going to have a candle inside!

In Search of Sri Lankan Cuisine

One of the most pleasantly surprising things about Sri Lanka is that even though it's just a stone's throw away from India, it's not really like India. In fact, Mel and I observed several times that Sri Lanka reminded us of a mix between Thailand and Goa, (Yes Goa is in India, but Goa is nothing like India either!) 

This is particularly true when it came to cuisine. I love indian food and can rattle off six dishes right now that I count among my favorites. None of those were to be found in Sri Lanka. I think that's a good thing, but the problem is that traditional Sri Lankan cuisine is getting harder and harder to come by.

Our guesthouse owner in Kandy sat with us one night and lamented that there was no decent place to eat in town outside his guesthouse, (we concur!). He'd taken his family and friends out to dinner the night before to celebrate his son's birthday. 

"Chow mein! Chop suey! Fried chicken! Why can't I find anything really Sri Lankan beyond a Sri Lankan-style curry?"

He was right. Every menu we encountered was the same. Only in a few select quest houses did we find real Sri-Lankan home cooking. I can hear people now saying, "Yeah, but you probably only ate in touristy places", I assure you we ate with the locals more often than not!

Ella weekly market - notice the vegetable that translates as "snake vegetable". 

It tastes like a cross between zucchini and okra, we ate it mostly on veg curry.

Eggplant and limes! Buying this way in markets is my favorite way to buy
produce. I love how basic ingredients can transform from this.....

...to this.

A very monotone guesthouse dinner in Sigiriya, the dishes on the left are not spicy,

the ones on the right are. Sri Lankan curries are renowned for being spicy - they have kick, 

but not burn-your-taste-buds spicy. Then again, Mel and enjoy a curry that can

 make your eyes water and your nose run!

This was served with rice. 

Vendor on the train selling fried snacks.

Each piece just costs 10 cents! Idli and vadai with shrimp and chilies.

The vendor served up his snacks in cones made from his children's 
recycled math textbooks.

At last! Traditional Sri Lankan cuisine! With some chow mein thrown in for good measure!

Dining out in the UAE: Lebanese Food

Whenever we find ourselves back in Al Ain, we make sure to head out to one of the great Lebanese places on Khalifa Street. Al Safadi is one of our favorites because of the good service and fresh & flavourful food. We've been frequenting this place for years now. 

As soon as you order, the dishes in the photo above arrive at the table. A huge platter of fresh veggies, a dish of black and green olives and another full of homemade pickles and radish. Oh, and pita bread and crackers of course! Our vegetarian friends have options! Our vegan friends have options! 

Hummus beiruti ( garlic and greens added) and moutabal 

(an eggplant dip similar to babaganoush). This stuff is to die for. 

I looked forward to these two dishes all the way over on the plane! 

Really good olives! I've missed you!

Olives in Canada are just not the same. 

A pint of lemonade with mint. 

The mint is pulverized into a paste and blended into freshly made lemon juice. 

Fantastic on a 50-degree-in-the-shade-kind-of-day, which are typical in Al Ain.

A simple pleasure in life. Mint tea. Sigh.

We weren't that hungry on this day, so we didn't order the fatoush, taboulleh or lamb marinated in yogurt. (We usually bring along a group to order that much.) Besides, I learned to make a decent taboulleh in culinary school. Here it is! (I wish I'd made this more when I lived in Turkey.)

1 bunch of parsley, leaves only, roughly chopped

1 tomato medium dice 

1/4 cup fine bulgur, washed and soaked in boiling water for 10 minutes

2 green onions, white and green parts, finely chopped

a few leaves of mint, roughly chopped

juice of 1 lemon

1/4 cup olive oil

salt & pepper

1. Combine all ingredients. Rest in fridge for at least 30 minutes. Toss before serving. 

Light on meat, heavy on vegetables; light on sauces, heavy on herbs and spices - I love this healthy cuisine and can't find anything quite like it in Vancouver. Especially at these prices!

Bye-bye Al Safadi! Until next time!

Help My Sister Become a Winner!

As many of you know, my sister has been living in a van down by the river for the past 4 months. (Ok, really a fifth-wheel next to a creek.) but in her Chris Farley existence, there is a glimmer of light! We're talking about having her picture chosen as a finalist in the "Istanbul Eats Photo Contest"!

The contest has two sections, one is National (Turkey) and the other international. Mel's picture is of noodle makers taken a few years back in Shanghai, so look for her under the "international link" labeled "Melanie Noodles".

Simply e-mail your vote for "Melanie Noodles" to istanbuleats3@gmail.com.

What does she win if she's successful? Kudos and bragging rights! That's it! But it's a lot, when you're living in a van, down by the river!

Cookies!

Cupcakes!

Mel and I decided to try our hand at 

cupcakes this week, our first attempt! 

We used the pastry bag and huge tips that came in my NCAV kit and made them work for this project. The icing recipe also came from my NCAV textbook, (hey I paid $100 bucks for it, gotta get some use out of it!) 

The colours are crazy because my 

kitchen is a bleak, fluorescent lit black hole. 

Surprisingly, this was Mel's first and only time to actually pick up a pastry bag and she got the hang of it in  only a few tries! Cake and cookie decorating is only something I did more as a teenager around Christmas, (except this year's gingerbread house), so my skills are rusty but getting better!

Next up....cookies!

The Best Menu and Feedback Ever!

Best menu design ever! 

Courtesy of Bowes' cool girlfriend, Rachelle!

The best menu feedback ever!  

Courtesy of Ella's cool boyfriend Chris!

Day 70: The Big Night

The final night set up.

I usually include a lot of pictures of food in this blog, but tonight, food takes a back seat. This blog is about the people who make it happen - my classmates.

3 out of 5 of our stove members 

with our mentor, Chef Warren just before final service.

Amy wrote "success" and "victory" on each member 

of our stove for good luck!

Pre-service confidence!

Last minute chiffonade!

The Guest Judges arrive and watch our every move....

....while banquet prepares the graduation dishes!

Service begins! My team in action....

....so focused, they never even noticed I took these pictures.

Chef C mans the pass with his terminator vision 

and trusty thermometer, nothing substandard gets past him, 

especially split beurre blanc!

Relief!! It's all over but the dishes.

Big shots finish the night back at Barneys...

...with tequila. Of course. Thanks KK!

Day 69: Final Practical Exam Day 2

Morning prep begins at 8am, here our classmate who 

came to us all the way from South Africa is 

making cones for chocolate writing.

Second restaurant day today. I can't say the last 2 days have gone smoothly, but they weren't total disasters either. In fact, each day that goes by, my team of five gets better and  better. I know I still make a lot of mistakes, and I could still make better choices, (especially when it comes to choosing the right tool for the job), but we are all slowly getting better. Here is our day today in pictures. 

Setting the table for our guests.

Last minute instructions for the servers.

(Yes that is the same girl in all three pictures!)

On the line! 

My stove-mate plates up our quail appetizer...

... and another partner steps in with the sauce.

Another stove's cream soup.

Our consomme. 

That's a little rice paper bag of brunoise veg. This presentation

 got good comments from our guests.

Pear 3-ways! (Next stove's dessert.)

Our dessert just before going to the pass. 

I swore at this dessert all morning, it 

worked out (mostly) in the end, but this 

was a challenge to put together.

 It's delicious though, my classmate 

Tristan gets all the kudos for inventing it..

So tomorrow is it! The culmination of the last four months, there will be a bigger, longer service and a few of our guests will be chefs from some of the busiest kitchens and catering companies in the city who will give us 20% of our final grades.

I'll be leaving my team of five to take my turn on the banquet team, and although it's a little disappointing that I won't be on the line -  I'm also happy, because I really need a break. My hands and arms are all blistered up from various burns from working the stove, and I think I might be developing tendonitis in my right wrist.  I'm also hoping that being on banquet will allow me to take more pictures.

It's a cliché but - I really can't believe it's almost over.