My wife and I have done our fair share of dinner parties as well as catered quite a few friends’ weddings and the number one most requested item by far is Crystal’s patented chilli. The fact that I’ve been producing high-end catering/resto food for almost fifteen years doesn’t ever factor in. If we’re showing up to the pot-luck you can bet we’re bringing chilli. (more…)
autumn
I was sipping coffee in the back yard this morning and felt the first wet whispers of autumn up through my sandaled feet. *sigh* Time to put on some socks, clean the gutters and make some soup. Fennel-Roasted Salmon
Andrew and Nikki, our awesome neighbours across the street were kind enough to slip me a big chunk of sockeye from their last fishing trip with only the promise to “do something good with it” in return. I love my neighbourhood!
The next day was surprisingly warm and clear so I caught up on the last of the garden maintenance – Pull those last two carrots, rake the lawn, hit the gutters – and started plotting dinner a little early. I’d collected a couple big armfuls of fennel stalks, some fresh and some dried from last year (they make great garden staves!) and I wanted to cook with ‘em. My mind was already set on grilling outdoors; I just needed a plan of attack. (more…)
Gone To Seed
“Still alive I am.
At the end of a long dream.
On my journey,
fall of an Autumn day.”
– Matsuo Bashō, The records of a weather-exposed skeleton (1684)
I sit in my living room, coffee in hand with the fire from the wood stove sputtering and popping behind me, toasty and content, while outside my austere little zen garden shivers and rots in the autumn frost… It’s all gone to seed. (more…)
Golden Chanterelle Mushrooms
It’s autumn, there’s no doubt about it now. The skies have darkened to the gunmetal grey colour we all know so well. The mornings are too cold to roam the backyard in shorts… Back to my ratty jeans, I guess. I can see the steam of my morning coffee rising against the bitter chill with an almost audible hiss. The leaves play a staccato beat in the greenbelt as they fall, hitting every brittle branch on their way to the mushy floor. And the rain… oh, the rain completes the autumn ensemble by punishing the gutters with waves of smooth and freestyle jazz arrangements in the key of dank.
I couldn’t be happier. (more…)