Lost thoughts

I found this entry in one of my long un-touched social networking sites. I wrote it a year ago and still the feelings ring true...

TORN

Here I am, back from a four-week trip back home. And I've been vacillating between the feeling of relief of being home, in my house, my bed, away from Manila heat and traffic, and the feeling that I've somehow left a piece of myself behind.

Being away for years and years makes one forget how one is truly connected to his or her family. When we first came here, it was exciting, and new, and full of promise. Missing the family I had left behind was the last thing on my mind. The preoccupation with the endless possibilities before me made the sacrifice seem inconsequential. But now, those possibilities have become realities, and although they are good realities, the fact still remains...the rest of my family is half a world away.

For the past four years, missing them has become a constant reality, a steady undercurrent that stays in the background of every little thing. You get used to the feeling. And after a while, you don't even notice that it's there. But going home and going through the separation once again brings those feelings to the surface and makes the longing so acute.

And so I sit here torn. I love my life here. The opportunities, the peace, the conveniences, the uncomplicatedness of it all. But I can't shake the feeling that something, a huge chunk of something is missing.

Happy Halloween!

I carved a pumpkin for the first time! The boys and I had a blast!

Score!

We went on a roadtrip to New York/New Jersey last week to meet up with family. It was sort of a pre-Christmas thing. We drove (with our dog!) and spent a few days with my dad catching up, shopping, and eating :-)

We went to TJ Maxx and take a look at what I snagged!



Yup, a Le Creuset 5 1/2 quart dutch oven for $99.99!!! I almost jumped when I saw it in the store. Plus the color matches my 12 inch skillet. Happy dance! :-)

P.S. The hubby got a dSLR camera as an advanced Christmas gift. I've started using it for my photos. What a difference! Another happy dance! :-)

Definitely not about food...

I haven't posted in a week. One whole week. I think that's the longest period of time I've gone without putting up something, anything on this blog. Why have I not been posting, you ask?

Exam coming up. Check.
Dental issues. Check.
Work til 6pm on some nights. Check.
Hubby enjoying his new cooking skills. Check.
And lastly...

New dog. Check.



Oh, I did make Ina Garten's lemon cake using key limes. It was "amazing" according to one of my colleagues. Definitely worth a repeat performance.

See. I said this post was not about food. But it always comes back to food. In the end, it's always about the food :-)

Me and http://

Thanks to this blogger for the cartoon :-)

Food and Wine Tasting

A good friend came to visit from Calgary and right after we picked him up from the airport, we headed straight to Ontario's top tourist destination...Niagara Falls. Big mistake. It was the Labor Day holiday, a long weekend on both sides of the border, so Niagara Falls was PACKED! Agoraphobia, here we come! But we had trekked all the way, so we decided to grin and bear the maddening crowd. We even rode the Maid of the Mist (first time for us!) and the kids had a blast getting soaked.

My favorite part of the trip was a visit to Niagara-on-the-Lake. We wanted to visit more wineries but the traffic was so bad that we only had time to do one. We decided to do the Art of Food and Wine at Peller Estates. This particular tasting combined different wines with different foods to demonstrate how food and wine can clash or complement. For this tasting, we were given a sauvignon blanc, an unfiltered merlot, and a vidal ice wine. And for our food, we had a cucumber mint soup, smoked beef ribs on rice with artichoke hearts, and for dessert, an oatmeal cake with brown sugar cream cheese frosting. You can see from the picture that the servings were pretty tiny. But for $12, you can't really expect much bigger morsels, I suppose.

The sauv blanc was crisp and light and it really enhanced the grassy notes of the soup. The freshness of the cucumber came through even after we had sipped the wine. Excellent pairing. Of course, our host asked us to try the soup with the merlot. Bleh. The merlot was definitely too strong for the soup.

Next up was the meat and merlot pairing. The merlot we were given was very rich and full-bodied. Lots of tannins and very robust. This was definitely not a sipping wine. In fact, I didn't quite like it when we first took our sips. Our host asked us to try it first with the soup. Not good. But when we had it with the smoked beef, the proteins in the meat broke down some of the tannins and smoothed out the wine a great deal. Gone was the mouth-puckering bite and the background flavor of fruit, mostly berries, began to come through. Amazing what the right food will do to a sip of wine and vise-versa.

For dessert, we had an ice wine, which is Ontario's biggest wine product. The grapes for ice wine are harvested in the dead of winter, when the freezing temperature concentrates the sugar in the fruit. The resulting wine is very sweet, almost syrupy. And the first time you try it, it's actually quite a shock to the palate. Our host, though, put it quite nicely. She says that a sip of ice wine at the end of a meal is like the clash of a cymbal in a symphony. Done with restraint, it gives that necessary oomph, that point of emphasis, that fleeting high. But repeated cymbal clashes deafen the ears like a whole glass of ice wine overwhelms the taste buds.

All in all, it was a lovely experience. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Just not on Labor Day weekend.

These are a few of my favorite things...

Seven reasons why I love my silicone spoonulas and spatulas.

1. They're heat safe up to 500 degrees. This means I can leave them in my pot/pan and have no fear that they will melt (unlike plastic).

2. They do not conduct/retain heat. Corollary to #2, this means that if I leave them in the pot and touch them a few minutes later, I will not need to go to the ER for burns on my hand. This also means that when I taste as I'm cooking, I need not be worried that the hot cooking utensil will sear off my tongue and lips (unlike metal).

3. They are easy to clean. Silicone does not absorb colors and odors from food so even if I cook a tomato based dish, they will not turn orange (unlike wood).

4. They' re cheap. I paid an average of $5 for each one of mine.

5. They're durable. They look the same today as they did when I bought them a year ago, despite daily use and abuse.

6. They're soft but tough. Soft enough that they won't scratch my non-stick and enamel pans but sturdy enough to scrape the fond when I deglaze.



And, of course,


7. They're pretty! (do you notice a pattern here? pretty mixer, pretty knife, and pretty spoonulas...)

Me and my Furi: BFF

That means Best Friends Forever, for those unfamiliar with the term :-)

The first time I laid my eyes on a Furi knife was 5 years ago when we stayed with a lovely lady and her family in Brisbane, Australia. Jo, as I will refer to her in this story, widened my culinary horizons. She had never trained formally, and neither had I. But we spent many days experimenting in the kitchen and showing each other our favorite recipes. She had a vegetable and herb garden with a kaffir lime tree in her backyard. And because her husband worked off shore in South East Asia, she had a wide repertoir of Thai, Malaysian and Indonesian food. Because of Jo, curries, lemongrass, cilantro and mint became not just mere acquaintances but turned into trusted and oft used friends in the kitchen.

Jo had 2 Furi knives, a chef''s knife and a paring knife. And when I first held them in my hands, I knew that this was the knife I wanted. But I couldn't bear to part with AUD$100 for one knife, especially because my husband and I had barely begun to embark on our careers. So I went back home to Manila, all this time pining for those elusive Furi knives.

When we moved to our apartment in TO, I started shopping for a knife that wouldn't break the bank but would be a good investment and last me a long, long while. I was in Linens N Things, scanning the ceiling-high wall of knives...and lo and behold, up there, on the highest shelf was a lone box set of Furi knives, on sale, for the amazing price of CAD$79!!! I almost could not believe my eyes! I hurriedly bought the set and practically ran out of the store, fearing that the staff would realize how much a bargain I was getting. So for $79, I got a 10 inch chef's knife (my absolute favorite), a boning knife, a serrated utility knife, a carving fork and knife, a paring knife, a peeling knife, and a sharpener. Amazing deal.

I still wonder how much better a Global, a Shun, a Mac or a Wusthof would be. I've held them in my hands at my local Williams-Sonoma. But my Furi still feels the most comfortable. I love the fact that I can hold it with greasy or wet hands and it never slips. I love that fact that it has no seams, no nooks and crannies where bacteria can hide. I love the fact that with a few swipes on the sharpener and it as sharp as the day I bought it and I can cut paper thin slices of tomatoes again. And I love that it looks so good. So sleek and shiny. Just looking at it makes me happy :-)

My preciousssss....

I've wanted, pined and longed for a Kitchen Aid mixer for as long as I can remember. From the moment I felt the first pangs of culinary curiosity, this was one of the things I knew I needed to have. So when we moved into our own place here in TO, I said to myself I was going to get one. But it took me a whole year to finally take the plunge. And I have not looked back since :-)

This marvelous machine makes short work of cookie dough, bread, egg whites, whipped cream, lumpia filling, and my liege waffle batter. It kneads, whips, beats, and mixes. And most importantly...it's pretty!

When I finally get my own real kitchen, "my precious" will have her own place of honor. I want a cabinet with a sliding attachment so that I can keep her dust-free yet easily take her out when I need her. I don't know why I call it a "her." I just thought a great multitasker that can also look pretty can only be female. Hehe!