Ottawa ComicCon

The 2012 Ottawa Comiccon opens today, and to honour my love of both cooking and pop culture, I thought I would put the spotlight on something that celebrates both, "The DC Super Heroes Super Healthy Cookbook".

I discovered this book in my school library when I was in grade 8, and while I was more interested in the superheroes than in the recipes, I loved how it made cooking fun for kids like me, and it was a lot more interesting than the lessons being taught in Home Ec class. I was, and still am, a huge Batman fan, so one of the first recipes I tried was one featuring the Dynamic Duo:

(forevergeek.com)

I wasn't much of a salad eater back in the day, but my parents seemed to like the dressing I had made, or maybe they were impressed with me taking an active part in preparing a meal. At any rate, I was encouraged to try making something else. The next thing I made was from the cookbook was another recipe from the Batman family, Commissioner Gordon's Undercover Vegetables. The recipe was basically oven-roasted vegetables with a breadcrumb coating, but the fact that it was superhero approved made it that much more appetizing to me. There were a lot of good recipes in this cookbook, but unfortunately, the book has been out of print for years. I would have thought with superheroes being all the rage these days this would not be the case, forcing me to rely on images found on the Internet. Maybe I can find a copy of it when I head out to ComicCon this weekend. Excelsior!

( http://brandedinthe80s.com )

( http://brandedinthe80s.com )

( http://brandedinthe80s.com )

The Food List Challenge

Hola, amigos. It's been a long time since I've blogged at ya... If you've been on Facebook recently, you may have seen the latest timewaster, the Food List Challenge. For those who haven't, it's an app that allows you to check off items on a list of 100 foods to eat before you die.  I went through the list, and scored an abysmal 24%. While that is a poor score for someone who calls himself a foodie, I am looking forward to trying most of the foods on the list that I haven't eaten in order to raise my score, improve my palette, and boost my foodie cred.

Here's my thoughts on the foods I did try on the list:

• Alligator: Like almost all wild game, alligator has a similar taste to chicken. I liked the Atchafalaya Alligator I had at Fat Tuesday's, but it wouldn't surprise me it was really chicken that I ate.
• Baklava: The first time I tasted it was when someone brought some into the office one day. You can always count on someone bringing baked goods in when you work for the public service.
  
• Barbecue Ribs: Try Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce the next time you decide to cook up some ribs; you're welcome in advance.
• Bellini: Not my first choice for a summertime beverage, but a cool, refreshing drink nonetheless. 
• Calamari: Take my advice, it's better to try calamari at a restaurant that specializes in seafood, otherwise you run the risk of eating something that tastes like fried rubber bands.
• Cheese Fondue: Cheese, meat, bread, skewers, what's not to love?
• Chicken Tikka Masala: I need a find a good recipe for this, I don't go out to eat this often enough.
• Clam Chowder: This runs through my head anytime I eat it:
  
  
• Cognac: I bought a bottle back when Busta Rhymes and P Diddy did the song “Pass the Courvoisier”, I remember it livened up quite a few house parties back in the day.
• Eggs Benedict: For my money, the best Eggs Benedict in the city is at Stoneface Dolly's.
• Frogs’ Legs: My mom denies every eating frogs' legs, despite both me and my father seeing her take one off her plate, pop it in her mouth, and swallow it one time at a Chinese buffet.
• Funnel Cake: A former roommate of mine always used order one with strawberry sauce and vanilla ice cream when we went to a nearby rest-o-bar to watch "Monday Night Football",  I decided to try one to see what the fuss was about. As I'm not a big dessert eater, I'll stick with wings and beer when watching sports.
• Gumbo: I recently made some gumbo using a recipe from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food: Great Food Fast cookbook.My wife and I loved it, though I wish I had used better sausages and real crab meat instead of the imitation stuff. I'll make amends next time.
• Jerk Chicken: Even though I don't like really spicy foods, I love a good piece of jerk chicken. I don't get people who insist on having the spiciest food just to show how much heat they can endure, you can't enjoy a meal if your eyes are watering and your tongue is burning.
• Lobster: That next time I have lobster, I want to have the Lobster Wellington, a dish I saw featured on "You Gotta Eat Here!", but it looks like I'll have to go Moncton's Catch 22 Lobster Bar for that meal.
• Octopus: This may be a cheat, but I enjoyed the baby octopus that found its way in a plate of calamari I had.
• Raw Oysters: I developed a taste for oysters back when I worked at a local supermarket, I used to take some of the samples that were prepared for the customers. Not bad eating for a guy making minimum wage at the time.
• S’mores: If you haven't had s'mores on a camping trip, you haven't really been camping.
• Snail: The word "snail" doesn't look appetizing on a menu, but call it escargot, you have yourself a delicacy. With enough garlic butter and cheese, anything can taste good.
• Spam: Depending on who you ask, Spam is either something you put in between two pieces of bread and stick in a lunchbox; something that clogs your inbox; an important staple in Hawaiian cuisine; or the keyword in a Monty Python sketch. I preferred the sketch over the sandwich, and I'm not that big a Python fan.
• Sweet Potato Fries: Tasty, but I prefer boring old regular spuds for my French fries.
• Venison: Back in the day a friend of my father's gave him a piece of deer meat from one of his hunting trips. I don't know if frying it a pan with some onions is the proper way to cook venison, but it tasted pretty good to me.

Cooking with the Wild Ace

In honour of Wrestlemania weekend, I'm going to focus on a local pro wrestler I know, the Wild Ace. He used to wrestle in the now-defunct local promotion PCW, Provincial Championship Wrestling. When he wasn't in the squared circle, he was my personal trainer when I could be bothered to go to GoodLife. He also fancies himself to be quite the chef. This is NOT part of his wrestling gimmick.- Check him out in his Cooking Corner.

Who Wants to Host a "Mad Men" party?

The television phenomena "Mad Men" returns on the 25th, and what better way to celebrate the adventures of Don Draper and the rest of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce than to host a viewing party. It's a great way to get into the spirit of everyone's favorite 1960s period piece, and with all the food being served, you don't have to be a fan of the show in order to take part in the fun. When it comes to the food, you can go one of two ways, prepare some of the dishes seen on the show, or prepare something using a recipe from the swinging sixties. A great starting point for old cookbooks is the public library and the remaining Book Markets in Ottawa. It's not a bad idea to going through an old cookbook anytime, really - where else can you get a good grasp of the basics of what are now classic dishes? Foods such as fillet of beef wellington, potato gratin, creamed spinach¹, leg of lamb², or as an alternative, lamb lollipops and Swedish meatballs were featured on various episodes. The spread can be filled out with era specific dishes such as deviled eggs, gazpacho and rumaki³. For dessert, you could go with either a grasshopper pie, or a lime sherbet to complete the retro touch. And what would a Mad Men be without liquor? Put that drink menu you always get from the LCBO to use, and buy what you need to make some martinis and Old Fashioned's. Break out your fancy chip-and-dip bowl, and pretend it's Pete's wedding gift. All that's needed to complete the evening is the wardrobe. Depending on your budget, your best bets are either Value Village, Ragtime, or the "Mad Men" inspired line at Banana Republic to complete the look.

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^{1 "}TV Dinners: Mad Men Menu and Party Plan"
² "How to Throw a Mad Men Party: Recipes, Cocktails and More"
³  "The Mad Men Party: the Food"

Lapointe's: Not the Catch of the Day

For someone who calls himself a foodie, I don't go out to restaurants as much as you would think. When I do, it would be to celebrate an event of some kind, or as part of a date night. On one of those date nights a few years ago, my wife and I, after wandering around the Market for a while, decided to try Lapointe's Fish Market Restaurant. We enjoyed the food there that day and we both added Lapointe's to our list of favorite restaurants. Unfortunately, this is not now the case for either of us.

The first time we were there, I ordered the halibut fish and chips, and Dawn had the calamari. I’m not a big fish eater, but I enjoyed my order, the batter was crispy, the fish was nicely cooked, and the tartar sauce was so good, I only used the ketchup for my fries. Dawn liked her plate of calamari, saying it was the best she had ever eaten, neither rubbery, or over-fried, served with a spicy dipping sauce. Even though it was a busy Friday night, we received our orders in a reasonable amount of time. We both looked forward to our next outing at what we thought was our new go-to restaurant for seafood.  When that Friday night come around sometime later, we again went with the fish and chips with some calamari as an appetizer. Our meal was good, but it didn’t blow us away as it did the first time. We both chalked it up to an off night in the kitchen, and we still considered Lapointe's a good place to go for a meal. That all come to an end during our next outing there.

Unlike the previous times, we went on a weekday as we were celebrating my birthday. Even though there were few people in the restaurant, we still had to wait five minutes to be seated. Once we were seated, there was another long wait to get our drink orders placed, and another long wait to get our water glasses filled. Then for whatever reason, despite there being plenty of empty tables throughout the place they seated another patron so close to us you would have thought it was a table for three. The final straw came when a group of people came in, and were seated and got their orders placed before us. We got up and left. Someone who I assumed was the manager asked us in passing if everything was alright, and I told him “No, it isn’t!” as we made our way up to street level. The evening was salvaged when we decided to go across the street to Coasters Seafood Grill. The difference was like night and day. Even though it was busy and we had to wait for a table, we were served drinks from the bar in an area off to the side of the entrance. When we got our table, the wait staff didn’t think it was beneath them to actually do their jobs, and took our order. The experience at Lapointe's turned Dawn off seafood for the evening and she ordered the cheeseburger platter. As I was still in the mood for something from the sea, I went with the all-you-can-eat mussels served in a garlic and white wine sauce. We were both satisfied with our choices, and have gone back to Coasters since then. Fortunately neither the food nor the service declined in our subsequent visits.

I have never had as bad an experience at a restaurant as I did at Lapointe’s before or since that evening. When Dawn called the restaurant to complain the next day, the manager apologized profusely, and mailed us a gift certificate for a complimentary meal. That free meal voucher was included with the gift we gave to a couple we knew who were getting married. Despite learning the restaurant is under new management since our last visit, we have not been back to the York St. location, nor have we gone to any of Lapointe’s other locations. As far as I’m concerned, when a restaurant allows its standards to fall off the charts this badly, they should never be given a second chance. I’m not expecting a perfect time every time I go out to eat at a restaurant, but I shouldn’t leave a place with that bad a taste in my mouth without even getting served one forkful of food. This restaurant is definitely the one that got away.

Cooking with...Coolio?!?

One of the worst cooking shows I've seen, "Rachael vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook-Off", ended with Lou Diamond Phillips beating Coolio to win $50 000 for charity. If you're having a hard time wrapping your head around the idea of the guy who sang "Gangsta's Paradise" on a cooking show, this isn't the first time Artis Leon Ivey Jr. has been filmed in the kitchen. He hosted his own cooking show on YouTube back in 2008. I assume he stopped making episodes when he was detained at Los Angeles airport in 2009 for possession of something that he shouldn't have cooked up, crack cocaine. At any rate here's Episode 1 for your Family Day enjoyment:

Valentine's Day cooking

Everyone's favorite Hallmark holiday is around the corner, and a lot of people will be going out for a meal with their special someone. While you can't go wrong with the Valentine's Day menus restaurants trot out this time of year, I would recommend people attempt to make something at home. I can understand why one would balk at doing this, as no one wants to run the risk of ruining a romantic dinner by making a mistake in the kitchen. But with a little planning, that doesn't have to be the case. A good Valentine's dinner doesn't have to be complicated.  In fact, the less complicated the meal is, the more time you'll have for the "dessert" part of the evening. The first time I cooked for my wife, I decided to make a roast chicken. My wife, being the sweetheart that she is, loved the meal, and she really appreciated the effort I put into it. Little things like using the good plates, candles, and a tablecloth, helped. When it comes to cooking, you can't go wrong when you cook with love.

Roasted Lemon Chicken

thyme (fresh if possible)
oregano (fresh if possible)
rosemary (fresh if possible)
chopped garlic
white wine
1 lemon
chopped onion
olive oil
1 chicken (about 2 kg in size)

1. Cut the tips of the wings off the chicken. Separate the skin from the meat by gently working from the front and back of the breasts with your fingers. Separate the skin as far as your fingers can reach. 
2. Rub inside and outside the skin with pinches of the spices, some salt and pepper, garlic, olive oil, and the juice from the lemon.
3. Place the chicken breast-down in a roasting pan and sprinkle with some more spices, olive oil, lemon juice, and onions. Roast at 375 degrees F.
4. After 20 minutes, flip the chicken over, baste, and roast for an hour.
5. To make a gravy, bring 3/4 of a cup of white wine to boil in a pan and add the drippings from the roasting pan. Add 3 tablesppons of flour (or cornstrach) and whisk until smooth over a medium heat.

This meal is best served with a salad and mashed potatoes. Happy Valentine's Day.