And now, the recipe ...

I know I know, you can't take it anymore! You must know! Which is it for heaven's sake?! Steadfast food snobs or complete culinary converts?! The anticipation is killing you! Well ...

The chip is out of the bag ...

Success. My closet guilty pleasure is now, well, let's just say the chip is out of the bag. We have achieved the very elusive complete culinary conversion dear readers.  The chip bag is empty. I repeat, the chip bag is empty.

I knew I had it in the proverbial chip bag when I started to pile on the cheese. Picture this: the bottom slice was broiled, oiled, rubbed with garlic, cheesed, topped with chips and cheesed again. Then, it started. The subtle peeks over the shoulder, the what did you put on top of that it looks not too bad proceeding to wow, that looks really really good proceeding to when will it be ready? (either they were hooked or they were really hungry).

Between you and me, I made sure to open the oven at the most opportune times allowing for maximum olfactory advantage. When your battle is this epic you have to pull out all the stops.

The moment of truth:

 

 

 

    

Let the crumbs speak for themselves.

Fellow food lovers, you should have seen it. The senses kicked in and salivating, savoring, crunching began and sounds were coming out.  Then, behold, the widening of eyes, the flavors registering and, the ultimate compliment:  this would make great pub food, you know, in a bar, after beer, and lots of drinking ... soooooo goood ... Yes!

For those of you who are looking at this thinking you shouldn't ... you totally should. I'll give you a few reasons so you can sleep at night. Laugh as loud as you will but this is the perfect fall food (yes I dare) in moderation because it replenishes salt lost during the summer months of heat and sweating. It gives the needed fat (yes, needed fat) to prepare the skin for the moisture depletion of the next 6 months of dehydration (at least on the east coast Canadian end). It gives you antioxidants from the fresh garlic and the good fats from the olive oil.

I guess this would be a good time to dish so:

Here is what you need:

2 slices of bread of your choice (crusty outsides and soft insides are my loves)

1 small clove of garlic

1 bag of lays ( big or small depends on how grand pow!pow!pow! you want your sandwich to be)

peppery olive oil 

extra old cheddar (shaved or grated), no mild will do.

mayo (good stuff please, it is a chip sandwich after all)

yellow mustard (go retro!)

Here is what to do:

1. Pre-toast both slices of bread in the oven at 350 to your desired crispiness. Drizzle the "bottom toast" with olive oil, rub it with a fresh clove of garlic and top it with cheese. Gingerly place the chips on top of the cheesy bread (they drop like lead if you are not careful).Then, you guessed it, gingerly, place the cheese on top of the barely balanced chips (if you lose some, cheese or chips, panic not, just pick up, discard and replenish).

2. Once perfect, place cheesed chip bread in a 350 oven for as long as it takes the cheese to melt (for me, 1.5 minutes on broil and on the very top rack)

3. At this point, adorn the "top toast" with mayo and yellow mustard and place (I know you know what's coming here) gingerly, on top of your perfectly finished chip sandwich.

Bon appetit dear reader.

And thank you for keeping an open mind.

Happy Halloween dear readers.

Together for the ride ...

It was exactly a year ago today dear readers. At 5:05pm. I remember the day well. It was cool, like today. It was gray and chilly and I was sitting in my study, debating. It was a pretty scary idea. The idea of taking my innermost (nutty, neurotic included) thoughts and putting them out there in the world. For all to see and scrutinize. I sat and thought, and typed. I swore I would always be honest. No matter how whacked. It went on for a few hours. And then, I clicked publish. 

And off we went. Together for the ride. 

I want to thank you, dear readers, for being there and cooking with me and commenting and not judging my confessions and neuroses and enjoying and, most of all, to thank you for reading. I love knowing that you are there. It warms my heart. We've crossed all continents and cultures in this past year and it has been a heck of a ride. I can't wait to continue.

In honor of this special day and in honor of humble beginnings, I'm going back. To the beginning. Here is how it all started. Happy One Year Anniversary dishchronicles. A glass lifted to many more adventures.

Humble beginnings ...

Ever since I can remember, I have been in love with food. My earliest childhood memory is of raiding the cupboards for the freshly delivered yogurt from the milkman. My grandmother took great care to place the jugs out of reach on the highest cupboards possible but at the tender age of four, I had a plan. The stories of my being caught precariously balancing on teetering books, jug in hand, little palms covered in yogurt because I stuck my hand inside the jar to get it out (how else could it be done) and guilty look on my face topped of with a thick creamy yogurt mustache always bring me a smile. Good times.

I was the cause of great drama in the kitchen to the dismay of all the elders in the house, with incessant nagging about how and why. Not paying attention to me was not an option.  I was this mini fireball whirling around with a thousand questions. I loved the noise, the smells, the colors and textures, the arguments the ladies would get into when there was a question about what the best way to do something was. I was right there with my opinion should they need it.

You can imagine then, how well this went off in Romania in the very early eighties withvery stern Eastern European grandmothers and aunts trying to prepare for company. The occasional threats of spankings and being chased around the house with a shoe in their hand waiving furiously and mumbling something I could not quite make out due to running for it were well worth it.

As a teenager, my tastes were not so discerning (aka: I was broke) but even when I made my mac and cheese out of a box or my hamburger helper, yes, out of a box, I felt compelled to make them my own. I was adding all kinds of things to them, some good and some not so good but always experimenting with textures and flavors. I am about to let you in on a secret. Only three people in the world know this about me. One of my favorite things discovered during this frugal period was the chip sandwich. Yes, you heard right. The chip sandwich. To the horror of the one person who has actually witnessed my creation (the other two know only through legend), and to be frank, to mine because I cannot believe my first dish shared will be a chip sandwich for goodness sake but here we are, I would bite ravenously into what I consider to be the snack of all snacks.

Now, you have to be brave to try this. You will battle food snobbery, face disbelieving friends, deal with grimacing faces and shouts of are you nuts! and how could you eat that! but if you can get past these things, you will discover one of life’s very guilty pleasures.

The original, in all its plastic 60’s style glory, was composed of the whitest sugary Wonder Bread (yup, here I am with Wonder Bread in my blog) so soft that if you pinched it, it would be thin as paper and super salty and crispy regular lays chips. Step one, separate your bread slices. Step two, place a mountain of chips on top of one slice. Step three, place your other slice on top of the pile, squish down hard and voila! I tell you the soft texture and sweetness of the “bread” against the crunchy crispiness and saltiness of the chips …perfection. When I was feeling fancy, I would add yellow mustard. Mmmmmm …

 Okay, nostalgia and shock aside, since it seems that by some cosmic joke this was meant to be the first recipe I share with you dear readers (I hope you don’t judge me and tune in for the next one) I will write here a more shall we say … delicate version of the abovementioned so you can have high class snack with your beer. I am going to test the recipe tonight on two unsuspecting dinner guests and let you know how that went. Steadfast food snobs or complete culinary converts … stay tuned…

There will be blood ...

I have a few posts coming up for you dear readers. It has been a crazy couple of weeks. In between, I had to sneak this in. This is a first for me dear readers. A food event that I am on the non consuming end of. I've never been on the non consuming (of course, I am going to consume but that will not be my number one priority... as it usually is) side of a food event before. This will be my first. And it's a competition. For charity. I want to win. For charity! I'm nervous and excited. I'm curious and somewhat (seriously) on edge. Six hundred and fifty people in one space does that to me...that is the number of people that will be there. Breathe in...breathe out... neuroses on display ...

Very public display of innermost neuroses aside, what food event you say? This one. Some really cool people from some really cool restaurants in Montreal, are cooking, yep, some really cool burgers in a competition to help an amazing organization help some amazing street kids get back on their feet. Today I met my Chef, owner and partner in crime. He's cool, charity close to his heart, he's cooked with the poor and in monasteries for orphans. I can't wait to tell you more about him. Let the burgers be made and the games begin.  I assure you, there will be blood ...but in a good way! Come on!

Amazing organization and team GDS ...

Now, since my stories are human ones and will come to you after said event takes place (and I've consumed everything and talked to everyone and shot countless pics and procured secret recipes and for sure have gotten myself into some predicament or other) I leave you with a pesto recipe. A very different one. You'll love it. Ready?

Time to dish.

Sage and Garlic Stem Pesto

Here is what you need ...

• One bunch of garlic stems
• One cup of peppery extra virgin olive oil
• Two big handful of walnuts
• Two big handful of pecans
• Half of a bunch of sage leaves
• Sea salt
• Parmesan or Romano (optional, I did not add any cheese to this one and it was awesome)

Here is what to do ...

1. Ready, this is a doozy ... place all your ingredients in a blender, or mortar and pestle if you have a big enough one and blend! or mash!

Enjoy on toast for breakfast, with or without a juicy tomato, over fresh pasta, as a marinade for lamb or any other animal you enjoy, over fried or cocotte eggs and then crack the yolk in there, in crepes with asparagus and some super sharp cheddar...and so on...and so forth ...

Gathering ...

Today is a day for gathering dear readers. It's a little chilly outside but the sun is out, shining that special light that only graces us as summer is coming to an end. Artists of pen (or stick, stone and feather point, depending on the century, of course) and brush have said it that is the most beautiful light known to man. I tend to agree. Fall is one of my favorite times of year for so many reasons (with the exception of a slight issue I have with what follows Fall, of course). It is my favorite time to cook, eat, be at the market, paint, write, sit still and look, walk, breathe and just be. The sky is huge and the light and everything it illuminates, enchanting. I have always thought of Fall as natures way of giving us a magical feast for all the senses before the sensorial desert arrives.

Well, since it is a day for gathering, I must be off to...well...gather. But, before I go out to collect the herbs in my garden for drying, I have a tomato sauce recipe to share with you dear readers. It is a special one that I look forward to making every year. For those of you who have been requesting it all these years, here it is. For the rest of you dear readers, it's my favorite, and I hope it will be yours too.

Here we go ...

Hang in there ...

One left ...

Ahhhh ....shake it out ...

Time to dish.

Oana's Annual Tomato Sauce

Parenthesis: Yes, I felt a little weird about third personing myself but what the heck, let's be crazy (I may change it tomorrow if the weirdness turns into shame)...And, don't freak out about the cooking time. Just go to sleep or if you do it during the day, pick a lazy Sunday and prepare your favorite series. I just finished with Entourage. I am a little late to the table, as usual, and played catch up so I can appreciate season eight. But that's another story. Here we go.

Here is what you need...

• A big, huge box of plum tomatoes (aka half a bushel), very ripe. If yours are not so ripe, just leave them on the counter, covered with a cloth for three or four days and they'll come around.
• Olive oil, one cup
• Apple cider vinegar, half a cup
• Sea salt, three tablespoons
• Sugar, three tablespoons
• Soy sauce, three tablespoons
• Balsamic vinegar, half a cup
• A big huge sauce pot
• Turkish oily chili flakes, as spicy as you like it baby
• Butter (optional, some years I use it, some not. It depends on what my palate and thighs are saying to me that year), a quarter of a stick.
• Garlic, four cloves, smashed
• A potato masher, yep, that's what I use

Here is what to do...

1. Wash the tomatoes. Still with me? Okay good. Score the tomatoes, a little X on one side of their little round bodies. It does not matter which one. Once scored, place the tomatoes (in batches because unless you have industrial pots, they will not all fit) into boiling water (must be boiling otherwise you will cook the tomatoes too much) for about three to four minutes. This loosens the skin so that you can peel them.
2. Peel the tomatoes, and discard the skins (I have not yet been able to figure out another use for them).
3. In your giant sauce pan, heat your olive oil and add the smashed garlic. Cook until fragrant. Then add your tomatoes and on high heat, bring to a boil. At this point reduce the heat to a low simmer and prepare for ten hours of cooking. What I do is this. Two hours in, I add all the other ingredients, stir and mash the tomatoes with the masher. Then I stir again, leave it for another two hours, stir, mash, check seasonings and then to bed. When I wake up, I stir, mash, check the seasonings and voila, all done. You may add more salt or sugar or acid or spice, depending on your own personal palate but if you do, add it during the last hour of cooking when you have a pretty good idea of what the final sauce is. I say this because flavors concentrate with long cooking times and you may think you need something at the beginning or half way through but it may not be necessary towards the end.

I use this sauce for all kinds of things. Pasta, all kinds, of course. In scallopinis, lasagna and over eggs. Anything Parmesan'ed. Chili. Add some fresh tomatoes, onions, avocado, lime and coriander and you have an amazing salsa. 

Happy Thursday dear readers. Enjoy.

And so I went ...

I was not sure what kind of tale this was going to be. I went around and around, thinking to myself, what am I going to tell you about? Disclose ... if you will. Do I venture into it all? Do I rant? Unleash? Complain about crummy cuisine and overcooked lobsters (that’s all they do for heaven’s sake!)? Ponder how people, supposedly in the tourist trade, can stink eye guests (meaning tired us) brows furrowed in suspicion and then balk,  aghast that one does not want to sleep in (or pay a bleeding fortune for) what is clearly another one's son’s bedroom (proof: there were pictures of him all over it, his clothes were everywhere, a giant cross covered his giant portrait above the not so giant bed) which they are claiming, indignantly “no, no, c’est une Auberge, tout les Auberges sont comme ca” while the grandmother is scowling two feet away because we are disturbing her soaps? The list goes on (kind of literally ...as it turns out).

No, I thought. I don’t think so.

Why ever not?! You ask?

Well, dear readers, there is another story here that I wanted to tell you.  One of hopes and dreams! Of struggles and of pain! And in the end …of humiliating defeat.

This, dear readers, is a story of raspberry picking.

On the last day of what was a horrifically horrible trip (it sucked, I suspect you may have guessed that), I spotted it.  Saw it from the golf course across the way. It had been eluding me this whole trip. At first, I thought I had hallucinated it (I was massacred by bugs, had two huge swollen lymph nodes and was convinced veins were filled with poison). So, I walked tentatively over, took a closer peek, and it was, in fact, true. Hot damn! Right before my weary puffy eyes, was this:

Suspicious... 

A little context, if you allow. 

My expectations of this trip were as follows:

1. We were going to hit the road! Dear readers, the ultimate road-trip! We were going to feel free! See our land! Nothing planned! Stick it to the man! ish!
2. We were going to throw ourselves into the ocean, giggling and screaming as we frolicked in the waves!
3. We would come back golden and glistening from all the time spent lingering about in the sun!
4. We were going to go camping! Just us! in nature! with our beautiful tent with skylights and our gourmet camping menu!
5. We were going to eat beautiful meals of crabs! and lobsters! and shrimp! and clams! (and any other sea creature that was unlucky that day)! prepared myriad ways by jolly people welcoming us and excited to share their local cuisine!
6. We were going to fish in the sea and I was going to realize my dream of killing a fish! Or fishing a fish! Or whatever!
7. There were going to be countless raspberry farms and blueberry farms! Too many to choose from and we would come back with baskets and baskets! And make confitures! And pies!

The realities of this trip were as follows:

1. I hate being in the car for prolonged periods of time. The road trip is not for me (unless I have like three months to take my time). I am a bit of a princess, I learned, and I am okay with this. I also like to have things to look forward to. The land was seen, and it was spectacular.
2. There was no throwing, giggling, screaming or frolicking. Said ocean was brown and full of seaweed. Full. Full like little kids were struggling to pick it up (it was about half their body size) and throw it at one another. Shores and beaches were so rocky it was like going to an Asian reflexologist. Foot bruises were not long to follow. 
3. We came back, cold, white, itchy, sore, puffy and early. 
4. After the beating...or eating...or biting...we had taken by local crazy poisonous insects (aka black flies and some other unidentified hungry flying cretures) and this was on the "beach" we decided that perhaps venturing into a forest would be a bad idea.
5. We ate said crustaceans and mollusks. They sacrificed their lives in vain. At least at restaurants they did. No one was welcoming or excited to share their local cuisine. Along the whole coast. When we had given up and had had enough of dry, overly cooked, overly salty blehghh, we went to the fish markets and farmers markets, and took matters into our own hands. We ate beautifully for the rest of the trip.
6. Nothing was killed or fished. The ocean was too angry. I would be too. If I was her.
7. There was not one raspberry farm claiming Come hither! Pick me! Or blueberry farm. Nothing was ready. It had been too cold and too dark and these little berries that thrive on the life that the sun gives them, had either perished from disease or, had remained green.

Blueberries ...not yet blue ...

This leads us here. To a golf course in Carleton. With a peek across the street, at a raspberry farm, claiming what I thought was the impossible. Come hither! Pick me! And so I went.

Hopes and dreams: I was going to take my basket! Skip (well, maybe just a little) through the raspberry fields (with my basket hanging over my arm, you know how that looks). Admire the beautiful surrounding mountains, barns and countryside! Be master strawberry picker and come out with bushel fulls or basket fulls!

Mountains and countryside ...

Barns ...and countryside ...

Struggles and pain: Yes...well... so here is the the thing, I am prone to giddy bouts of excitement, where sometimes my sheer and utter enthusiasm blocks out some of the...well...technicalities of some situations...if you will. So there was, basket in hand, silly grin on face, weary puffy eyes, ready to go.

In these.

And this. Just in case I got hungry I thought. It would go so well with the raspberries I was about to pick.

As you may imagine, this is not exactly ...shall we say ...the proper raspberry picking gear. At first, it didn't bother me. You know, the little brushes against my feet and face. The buzzing sounds around me. The slight pinches on my toes. I thought, I could handle this. Not so bad. I picked my first raspberry. And was quite thrilled with myself.

Thrilled ...and delusional ...

Humiliating defeat: About seven minutes in (and six berries later) the insects sent in the forces. It was an attack of unseen proportions. They had me from all sides. Biting my toes, my heels, my soles (how the heck they got under my feet I do not know),the top of my feet, my ankle bones... while their accomplices took the top half. The back of my neck and head, my eyelids, whacking and buzzing like a bunch of crazy...well...insects. Which they were. Dear readers, I hightailed it out of there faster than ...well ...something that runs really fast. Like a gazelle...or a cheetah perhaps...You get the point.

Humiliating defeat ....

And six beautiful raspberries...

Humiliated, itchy and even more puffy than when I went in, I took my six berries, confessed humiliating situation to the barn keeper, purchased some baskets of already picked berries (by people who obviously have the proper attire to face said insect army) and walked back, across the way to the golf course, to face equally eaten and defeated husband (he had to stop at eight holes, the army was too strong, he was bleeding) and to get the heck out of there. We drove ten straight hours. And then I made jam.

Time to dish.

Beautiful (not picked by me) raspberry (or blueberry) jam (I made both, at the same time)

You can't imagine how easy this is dear readers.

Here is what you need...

• Beautiful raspberries, picked by whomever, 4 cups of them
• Organic cane sugar, also 4 cups
• Juice of one lime.

Here is what to do...

Ready? 

1. Place all your ingredients into a large pot. Stir once, gently, to incorporate everything. Gently because the raspberries are delicate and you do not want to annihilate them. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for about ten minutes. Pour into sterilized jars. And seal.

Enjoy on top of lovely buckwheat crepes, (click here for recipe, still have not figured out link thing yet, shame still fills me, someone help) alongside guinea fowl or roasted chicken, in a beautiful nut butter sandwich, or, if you are like me, just dip your spoon into the jar, remove and lick.