More of a mental stroll ...

Dear readers! Hurrahh! Spring is here in full force! At least for now, anyway. There are those naysayers with spine-chilling weather reports looming in the background claiming frost is lurking and imminent but we choose to ignore them.

This is going to be a visual post dear readers. My senses have simply been overcome by all the little details in the last couple of days and frankly speaking I have been walking around the city nonstop like a lunatic and taking photos, nonstop, like a complete lunatic. The photo taking lunacy was not strictly confined to the strolling part. I completely cleaned our backyard and went snaphappy on the little gems starting to grow. I went to this cool show  for the first time and, well, you know, snap snap snap... And so, I have lots to share. Like lots. So we'll do some now and some later in the week. Considering it's Friday later in the week will be in about two days from now. And more next week. Mmmhmmm, I got lots people. So let's go for a walk you and I. Not a three hour joint hurting but still can't stop kinda' walk, more of a mental stroll ...

Yep, I really do park this way. The horror. The shame.

The sky.

I wanted to take them all home. Then I considered the stabbing Napa could possibly get. And the stabbing I would probably get. Decided against it. Will visit them instead.

Quebec sidewalks...ahhh...spring ...

Spring on St Laurent ...

Lights and breezes ...

Perfection ...

It's you and me.

Hibernation over.

First beautiful day at the Jean Talon Market.

Freshly pressed. Umm...yeah, yes please.

And now, you didn't think I would leave you without a recipe did you?

Time to dish.

Bubbling, amazing Korean Pork Belly Hot Pot

Adapted from Saveur Magazine

At the end of my walk, this awaited. Korean Pork belly hot pot. Here we go yo.

Here is what you need:

• 1/4 cup solidified lard or boar bacon fat
• 2 tablespoons of Korean crushed hot red pepper, hot hot hot people!
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 2 scallions, trimmed and minced
• 3 ounces pork belly, cut into 1/2" cubes
• 3 cups rich beef broth
• 1 sheet of nori 
• Half a block of silken tofu
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp. Asian sesame oil
• Half a cup of shitake mushrooms, sliced
• 1 egg
• Fresh coriander

Here is what to do:

1. Heat a medium stone pot or heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat. Add lard or boar bacon fat, crushed red pepper, garlic, and half the scallions, and cook, stirring frequently, until fat melts and garlic and scallions are fragrant, 1–3 minutes. Let me tell you, your kitchen will smell heavenly. Then add pork belly, and fry stirring frequently, until just cooked through without browning, about 3 minutes. Carefully add broth, and boil vigorously until slightly thickened, 20–30 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, cut several wide strips of the nori and set aside. Drain the silken tofu, and add to pot. Bring broth back to a boil, and cook until tofu has warmed through and breaks into smaller pieces, about 10 minutes. Add your remaining scallions, and salt and pepper. Stir in your sesame oil and then garnish hot pot with your nori.

3. To serve, carefully bring boiling hot pot to the table, break egg into hot pot, and allow to poach for a few minutes before eating, stir through and add coriander. Serve with bowls of hot steamed rice or udon noodles.

Happy spring!
I hope.

Serves 2 – 4

And curd it was ...

Somehow last Wednesday, I found myself with 24 eggs. I was expecting 12. I had plans for 12. There were only supposed to be 12! Ahem. But then life (aka: Jean-Pierre's wife Debbie) bestowed upon me 24. Those are a lot of eggs, I thought to myself staring blankly at my refrigerator in my puffy slippers and nose.

What is one feverish puffy person to do with such yolky quantity, I said to myself (still staring blankly at my refrigerator in my puffy slippers and nose).

I sent out tweets, im's and other such modern enquiries. I flipped a few pages with listless fingers. Then! I vaguely remembered through the puffy fog, that I had a full bowl of Meyer lemons and key limes that were long (like skin hard as a rock long) in the tooth. And then like a beacon in the fog, it hit me. Curd! When life gives you lemons and eggs...you make curd. Curd people.

And curd it was.

Long in the tooth ... but oh oh oh so juicy ...

Eggs from the farm...each one a different color and texture ...

Totally awesome lemon & lime curd

The golden glorious result ... curd ...

Here is what you need:

• 1/2 cup ish** of  freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice
• 1/2 cup ish** of  freshly squeezed Key lime juice
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature please
• 1/4 cup of fine sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 4 large egg yolks, room temperature please
• 2 large eggs , room temperature please
• a tiny pinch of sea salt

Here is what to do:

1. In a bowl that you can later put over a pot of simmering water, cream your butter and sugar and honey until they are lovely and light and everything blends together. Then add your yolks, then the eggs one at a time, beating well to incorporate after each one. Stir in the salt, then gradually add your ridiculously amazing juice, working the juice in as you go. At this point it may separate but don't worry it will come together when you put it over the simmering water.
2. Now fill your pot half way with water. Bring to a simmer and put your bowl of curd on top of it. Stir lovingly and constantly, and heat the curd slowly so that the sugar has time to dissolve (usually about ten - twelve minutes). Once the curd is just thick enough to coat your spoon, it's done. Take it off the heat because it will thicken, like a lot, as it cools. Put it in a beautiful jar, let it come to room temperature and then put it in the fridge. It will keep for about a week. Or, as in my house, it will be eaten before the end of the day. Straight from the jar. Like pudding.

You can have it with dark chocolate, it's the best.

You can have it on top of mascarpone, it's the best.

You can serve it with fresh fruit, it's the best.

You can serve it on a flaky croissant, it's the best.

And so on, and so forth.

Onward curd!

**It's a forgiving recipe darlings so not to worry, just to enjoy!

***Ccccurd curd curd curd is the word, cccurd curd curd ...yeah...sorry, Peter Griffin, chicken, bird song, bbbbird bird bird, curd, yeah ...you know ...da da da da da da ta ta ta ta ... curd.***

Long live lord lard...

Dear readers, I am going to come right out with it. Get straight to the point. Right after these sentences. I want a love day for fat. That's right. You heard correctly. A love fat day. I'm a little late in writing this I know, but all this past Feb Valentines business has got me thinking. Chocolate gets a love day (oh. come. on. you so know it's about chocolate). A day where everyone loves it and adores it and gushes over it and takes pictures of it and eats it and rolls around in it...I say, it's time for a love fat day. A day where everyone loves it and adores it and gushes over it and takes pictures of it and eats it and rolls around in it...

I will call it ... Lovefatday.

A day, when lard is lord! Where butter is baron and porc is prince! A day where suet is shah! A kingdom of corpulence! Where gras and skin and oil and cheese and pig and all things fatty can be celebrated in all of their oilygreasyglory!

Long live Lovefatday!

And yes, I do sometimes imagine a village where clouds are puffy pork rinds and rivers are melted boar bacon fat and sometimes the treetops are cotton candy but instead of sugar it's deconstructed bacon with maple syrup... I imagine I will call it ...Fatland. Where we celebrate Lovefatday. And swim in boar fat (which would really keep our skins supple) and bite bacon clouds.

I'm going to go back back under the covers now.

Sore bronchial tubes and hacking cough. Illness possible cause for wacky post. Long live Lord Lard!

Time to dish.

In honor of Lovefatday, I present you:

Lovingly wrapped Boar Bacon Sweet Potato Fries

Photo credit health bent. Edited by yours truly. Was too busy stuffing my face to take any. Fat!

Is it wrong of me to want to insert Angelina Jolie's leg in here ...#Iblametheilness

Here is what you need:

• Boar bacon, thinly sliced
• Sweet potatoes, cut into french fries, as thick or thin as you like them
• Duck fat (what?! it's Lovefatday!)
• Sea salt flakes
• Tiny amount of finely ground lemon zest

Here is what to do:

1. Pre-heat oven to 425. Here we go. First, grate your lemon zest, about a half of a teaspoon, and mix it with the salt flakes. Then, render your duck fat in a frying pan and then let cool enough to be manageable but still liquid. Coat your sweet potatoes in this fatty glory and coat the bottom of your oven dish in it. Now, wrap each duck fat coated sweet potato fry, lovingly, in one thin slice of boar bacon, and lay them down nicely side by side. 
2. Roast at 425 for about 15 minutes or until the sweet potatoes are "soft". Once thats done, turn on the broiler and crisp up that bacon! Keep an eye on it though.
3. When they are done, take them out sprinkle the with the lemon sea salt flakes, and serve them with an amazing blue cheese dip. Which I will give you the recipe for. Soon.

Happy Lovefatday dear readers!

From Fatland.

Oana out.

In your face pig ...

Well, I never imagined I would be doing this but here I am. Sitting in my hairdressers chair, getting my hair done (what else would I be doing you ask, way to state the obvious you say, ahem...) Annie Lennox in the background and me tapping away at the keyboard, writing. How diva. All I am missing is my personal assistant...who by the way, should have told me that the farmers market in Val David was yesterday. That's right. Yesterday. And I completely missed it. But oh wait, I don't have a personal assistant. So I went. With big excited eyes, jumping up and down in my car seat. To an empty parking lot. With no one there, hence emptiness. Because the market was yesterday.

Dear readers, with all my hopes and might, I wished it untrue. 

Maybe they were inside!!!!! Maybe everybody walked!!!! Maybe the padlocks on the door were to keep people in!!! Maybe the lights are all of to preserve flavor!! Maybe there was absolutely nobody there because they were all on the other side of the building! Maybe there was nobody on the other side of the building (yes, I went) because they had all just decided to go around the other way (you know like when you are looking for someone and they are looking for you and you just keep missing each other, like that). Maybe ... maybe ... well... okay ... maybe it's closed...

And so it went dear readers. It was closed. There was no more denying it. I had run out of scenarios. I gave one, last, doleful look through the glass at the hollow emptiness inside, hunched my shoulders in an appropriate manner for such situations, and left. I was all torn up. Blue about my missing hog. And totally upset with my personal assistant (completely untrue as I don't have one)! By any means, I will be going back in March and guess who is not scheduling it for me ...

Anyhow, thus ends this particular tale, and after all this I bucked up, and went to eat crepes. With ham. In your face Gaspor.

Bitter.

Time to dish.

Not a Gaspor Porc recipe. An amazing Chicken Broth. In your face pig...

Ha! And amazing beautiful chicken from Jean-Pierre.

Here is what you need:

• One whole happy chicken that has spent his/her life like a chicken should.
• One leek
• One onion
• Shiitake mushrooms, about a handful
• Asian dried dates, about a handful
• Galangal, a piece about the size of your thumb
• Ginkgo Biloba, about a cup, just ask your Asian grocer, they are like little yellow balls
• Dried hot, whole chiles, as many as you can tolerate
• Goji berries, about a quarter of a cup

Here is what to do:

1. This is a whopper now, are you ready? Place all the ingredients, whole, into a giant stockpot and fill it up with cold water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer and let it be for about four hours. Serve the broth with the chicken meat, goji berries, dried (well not anymore) dates and the ginkgo biloba. Toss the rest of the ingredients out.

Dear readers, you will love it. It will cure whatever ails you and fill your souls with joy.

In your face pig.

Put the bag down ...

Big week dear readers and here I am checking in with you like the industrious person I am attempting to be. I am spending this week learning about black garlic, making cocoa pasta, talking to farmers and local tea growers about tea I would love to grow here,  hugging mushrooms, sketching packaging, planning my next couple of paintings and taking heaps of photos. 

Whoa. What's that you say? You would like a little more elaborating on the whole hugging mushrooms thing? Well I couldn't help myself!  I'll tell you. I'm not ashamed (well, maybe slightly). There I was just going about my business when suddenly there they were right under my nose. Huge bags of huge morels and chantrelles. Like the kind huge enough to stuff with meat. Before I knew what I was doing (who are we kidding, I knew exactly what I was doing) I just picked up the bag, glanced lovingly at it,  inhaled lovely magical (but not literally) aromas and hugged the bag closely. Not to be forgotten, the chantrelles' olfactory pull lulled me in and I lovingly sniffed them and then, hugged the bag closely.

Then I realized people were looking at me.

Haahaahaa I chortled as if it was the most natural thing in the world to hug giant bags of mushrooms. Looking conspicuously from left to right I kept calm, put the bag down, well, calmly and just backed away slowly ...(soothing voice: nothing unnatural at all here...) all the while mentally flogging myself with there I go again hugging mushrooms! and who hugs mushrooms anyway?! and I literally just hugged a bag of morels! in public!... You know, I think I got a little sidetracked... wait, wait, it was you who asked about the mushrooms! Phew... sometimes I make myself wonder ...anyhow okay, what I wanted to tell you is that it is a big week because it is the first farmers market of the year! In Val David! And I'm going! To try sweet vanilla scented milk fed Yorkshire-Landrace suckling piglet! So excited (the irony that there is no exclamation point here is not lost on me). I can't wait to go and I can't wait to tell you about it.

In the meantime, forget you ever read this.