Oh, Canada!

Home again, with no profound longing to stay in the UK but a determination to return to France and spend more time immersed in the culinary culture.
Air Canada had an odd choice of meals on the way back--chicken and lamb. Lamb is one of those foods that people seem to feel strongly about, they either love it or hate it. On this flight, they seemed to hate it because the chicken was gone long before they reached my seat. Fortunately, I enjoy lamb, though not out of a little plastic container with a pile of salty soggy green beans and three small chunks of potato that have seen better days.
It was, dare I say, baaaaad. Hee!

Paris!

Ah, Paris--the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysees, the Louvres, the traffic...
Spent the afternoon exploring some side streets and back alleys in central Paris, and found a boulanger/patisserie (breadshop/bakery) with nary a sign of another tourist and not a word of English heard. I had a delightful lunch that culminated in a slab of chocolate mousse on a hazelnut crust that was very nearly the end of me--I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. It was fab.
Water, wine, bread, chocolate, cheese--all cheap.
Pop--a friend paid @12.50 Canadian for a large glass of orange pop.

Smoked salmon

I've long heard that Scottish smoked salmon is the best in the world, and thought to myself 'oh, come on, could it really be better than Willie Krauch's?' The answer is yes indeedy--had my first plate of Scotch smoked salmon night before last and it was absolutely incredible--much more robust smokiness, altogether amazing.
But I prefer Nova Scotia fish and chips--not keen on the tail and skin still being on my fish when I get it!
Off to Stonehenge--don't suppose there'll be any Druid home cooking...

Thai, Indian & British

Outside of pubs, the food is sadly as bad as touted. I just had a steak that the cow should've indeed been mad to have been killed for, because it was absolutely dreadful. However, the tiny hole in the wall curry spot had the most fabulous lamb and incredible na'an made to order, and it was cheap.
and we hit a fantastic Thai place with brilliant appetisers, so all is not lost.

London

Here I am in London, city of grime and expense--full of history and plenty of bad food, as expected. A tour guide told us that of the 6K or so restuarants here, about half of them are Indian, and that the official city dish was chicken tikka masala--it seem to be true, it's been on every menu we've seen. Weather's been great, though. Cheers!

Finally!

I'm off for two weeks, traipsing around London and Paris. British food is slowly overcoming its reputation of boring and bland, while guidebooks warn that it is becoming harder to find a decent restaurant in Paris. We shall see, as I go in search of steak-and-kidney pie and fish-and-chips in London, and the perfect steak frites in a Paris bistro. Oh, and what would a trip to England be without a real high tea, that national institution?
I had wanted to visit one of Gordon Ramsay's restos in London, but an email requesting reservations that I sent six weeks ago went unanswered--perhaps I'll try when I get there.
Toodle-dee-doo, and au revoir!

Vacation!

Ah, vacation. These last few days before taking off are always the hardest to get through--your brain feels like it's shutting down, mentally checking out, before you're quite ready to go.
Nothing could top last year's Italian excursion, this year it's London and Paris. I fell in love with Italy because of the food and passion for living, I hope to have a few good meals on this trip (all jokes about British cooking aside). In the meantime, I have the delightful cuisine of Air Canada to look forward to...

What's for Dinner?

No wonder whole blogs have been dedicated to that age old question, "What's for dinner?"
It's way past suppertime, and I still haven't eaten because I don't know what I want. When I was a child, my mother would say "If you don't know what you want you must not be very hungry", but I think it's less about being hungry and more about making decisions.
Suppose I have a piece of salmon and am unhappy? Should I have a pork chop instead? What about that little steak in the back of the freezer? Something simple like an omelette? I just can't seem to commit, because once I commit I've set up an expectation that since I'm cooking it, if I don't like it then it's my own fault. But if I don't like it, then I've wasted a mealtime. I can't bear to waste a mealtime because I live to eat, not eat to live. In the run of a week, I eat only 4 suppers at home, the rest of the time is eating out. Four suppers, where I can relax and really enjoy what I'm eating, in the comfort of home--that's a lot of pressure. 7 breakfasts, 7 lunches, 7 dinners, a total of 21 meals a week and I only get to make 4 at home.
I'm ordering pizza.

Crunchtime at the Market

May 1 already. It's a great time for food lovers, spring. Take a walk through the Farmer's Market and there's no way you can leave without being inspired to go home and start cooking. Unless, of course, you can't cook because there are so many people that you couldn't wait three hours at each vendor and that woman ran into your achille's tendon with her babystroller so many times that you're sure it's severed and the violinist from the wandering classical quartet put your eye out with his bow and by the time you got to the wine vendors you were in so much misery you drank what you bought in one gulp straight from the bottle while the wine afficionados looked on aghast but you just didn't care because not only were you feeling wretched what the the poked out eye and cut tendon and all but you needed something to wash down all the chocolates you inhaled because you couldn't find your way to an exit and thought you might die of starvation.
Yeah, it could happen.