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I’m often annoyed by graffiti. A few years ago, the cable company’s box on our front lawn was tagged by the disenfranchised youth of our neighbourhood and I was irked to no end. Seeing that unnecessary eye clutter every morning really ticked me off. But, when I saw this food graffiti in Montreal last week I grinned from ear-to-ear.

Why, I wondered, isn’t there more food graffiti? So, I went looking on the good ole internets (gawd, I miss the verbal comedy of the Bush era!) and discovered a few other gems of the genre:

-Toast
-Halal
-Shrimp
-Tofu
-Pork
-Anti- fast food
-Bacon

While I’m not sure food graffiti is a full-blown trend or even an emerging trend, I have to say, I’m intrigued!

Have you ever seen food graffiti? Got a picture you’d like to share? If so, add a link in the comments section.

Have you heard about the Blog Aid Cookbook yet?  If not, there’s great news ahead. You can help the survivors of the Haitian earthquake with just a click of your finger. Pretty cool, huh?

It’s all thanks to Dinner with Julie’s Julie Van Rosendaal who, mere hours after we all learned of the seriousness of the quake damage, emailed a group of bloggers and asked if we would send her recipes and pictures for a fundraising book she wanted to create to help the disaster victims.  Julie’s an old friend so I complied immediately. Apparently quite a few others did as well. The result, just three weeks later (!!) is a wonderful, full colour, print-on-demand cookbook.

All proceeds from the book sales will go to Haitian relief via the Red Cross and Doctors without Borders and, as if that weren’t cool enough, the people who helped bring the book to life, - West Canadian Graphics and Blurb are matching the proceeds raised. Likewise, if you purchase before February 12th, the Canadian government will match the total, too. It’s a trifecta of charity people!

Besides Julie and I the book is jam packed with recipes by other popular bloggers including:

Chef Michael Smith

Gail from http://thepinkpeppercorn.blogspot.com/ Pink Peppercorn

Emily Richards

Catharine from Weelicious

Cheryl from Backseat Gourmet

Jeannette of Everybody Likes Sandwiches

Nishta from Blue Jean Gourmet

Lauren of Celiac Teen

Charmian from Christie’s Corner

Shaina from Food for my Family

Marisa of Food in Jars

Shauna and Danny from Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef

Lauren from Healthy Delicious

Alice from Savory Sweet Life

Tara from Seven Spoons

Jess of Sweet Amandine

Helen from Tartelette

Pierre of Kitchen Scraps

Tim from Lottie and Doof

Tea from Tea & Cookies

Jamie from My Baking Addiction

Lori from Recipe Girl

Melissa from The Traveler’s Lunchbox

Brooke of Tongue-n-Cheeky

Aimee of Under the High Chair

This book makes a wonderful gift so consider it for your Valentine(s) or as a hostess gift, too.

Thanks for your support of the Blog Aid Cookbook! Even if you can’t buy one yourself, please post a link to this post as a facebook or twitter update to help spread the word. Thanks!

Lord knows the life of a hostess is never easy. From shopping and cooking to cleaning up both before and after the party, it’s a job that is only rewarded by seeing your friends eat, drink and be merry. And by a few vodka shots before and after the guests arrive (or is that just me?)

While dinner parties are pretty easy to serve since all you have to do is put the food on the table and every one sits down to eat, parties such as Super Bowl, Oscar Night and the like where everyone sits around the TV are much more difficult to serve. After all, who wants to interrupt the view of the entertainment by standing up to circulate the food?

That’s why instead of putting out big platters of snacks, I like to make little snack cups that give everyone a variety of things to nibble on. This idea is also great for crowded stand-up parties where the snacks can languish on out of the way side tables.

Are you planning a movie night or other TV-centric party before the winter ends? If so, what will be on the menu?

Photo credit

Where do public eating and sex converge? More interesting to me is should they converge? Or is sex private and eating optionally public?

I used to work in a restaurant and I’m going to admit that I scoffed at people who asked us as kitchen folks to help further their romantic plans. Rings in desserts, jewelry boxes under cloches, you name it; they asked for it and I sneered. Public proposals just seem tacky to me especially on Valentine’s Day, the cheesiest day of the calendar.

But that all seems tame and rather sweet and quaint now that I’ve read about what is being promoted at Mildred’s Temple Kitchen. It’s almost Valentine’s Day and my old friends who run Mildred’s, people I’ve known for over 10 years, have left me confused with a promotion that encourages patrons to treat their fine food restaurant as a destination for bathroom sex this Valentine’s Day.

What do you think?  Am I prudish or should fine dining remain the offsite foreplay for a romantic night? Does promoting in restaurant sexcapades negate the romance of a fine dining date night or just bring frank realism to the foreground? And, does promoting your restaurant as a sex destination cheapen the food experience you offer?

You know my initial reaction, now discuss!  I really need your opinions to help me figure out my own thoughts on this promotional campaign.

So, it’s almost Super Bowl Sunday. What will be on your menu? The ubiquitous chicken wings, beer and chili are fun, but as Canadians, we’ve already had that party menu for Grey Cup, right?

So, why not mix things up a bit and show off how clever you are by having soup for Super Bowl? It’s easy. Just borrow a bunch of bowls from your friends and make a bunch of different soups. Set up a soup buffet. Make some homemade bread and a big salad and you’ll score a touchdown!

Need some soup recipes? Check out this roster from my repertoire:

• French onion
• Carrot Coriander Soup
• Parsnip Lemon Soup

Now that we’re out of January, I’m hoping that the 2010 food trend predictions slow down for awhile. It’s been a busy couple of months not only fielding questions and doing interviews about food trends but also reading all the other food trend predictions out there in the media. I need a wee rest!

There’s no doubt that macaron interest is at a fever pitch and that whoopie pies are getting their time in the spotlight. However, while cupcakes may have become mainstream and not qualify as an emerging or developing trend anymore, all this talk about macarons and whoopie pies being the new cupcakes is hogwash. Here’s why:

1. Anyone can make a cupcake and frosting using a simple recipe or mixes. Not so for macarons. They take special attention and are pretty darn fussy for even experienced bakers to make.
2. Kids love cupcakes because they can be customized. Sandwich cookies like macarons and whoopie pies offer a lot less opportunity to express your personal decorating creativity.
3. Macarons contain nuts. Ergo, they are never going to be served at schools, kids’ activities or birthday parties for kids.
4. Whoopie pies are cute and delicious but, like macarons, they aren’t as flexible in form.

So, while both macarons and whoopie pies are trending up, they are not the new cupcakes IMHO. Care to disagree? Go right ahead. After all, that’s why I have a comments section.

While I’m generally a warm weather lover, I do enjoy one aspect of winter cold: When it’s -15 °C and the wind is howling, there is not only very little incentive to go outside, but there is no peer pressure either. Absolutely no one is going to raise their eyebrows at you for staying home to cook and bake instead of heading outdoors to exercise when it’s this cold. (The exception might be those  odd people who go winter camping but I don’t know any of them so all is well.)

So, I’ve been taking advantage of the recent cold snap by keeping the oven warm. Pumpkin loaf and scones both popped out of that  toasty cavern last week looking (and smelling!) good enough to eat. While I’ve given you my cardamom and ginger spiked pumpkin loaf recipe before, I’ve been stingy with my scone directions. It’s time that changed. So, without further ado, here is my scone recipe. It’s adapted from one that was in Cook’s Illustrated a couple of years ago:

Toasted Maple Oat Scones

11/2 cups ( 375 mL) rolled oats

½ cup (125 mL) chopped pecans

½ cup (125 mL) homo milk (use light cream if you’re a skinny mini)

1 egg

¼ cup (50 mL) maple syrup

11/2 cups (375 mL) all-purpose flour (approx.)

2 tbsp (30 mL) baking powder

½ tsp (1 mL) salt

2/3 cup (150 mL) cold butter, cubed

½ cup (125 mL) dried sour cherries or cranberries

1 tbsp (15 mL) turbinado or other coarse sugar

Preheat the oven to 300°C (150°F). Spread the oats evenly over a baking sheet. Arrange the the nuts at one end. Toast for 5 to 8 minutes or until lightly golden.  Transfer to a rack to cool. Measure out 2 tbsp (30 mL) of the oats and set aside. Increase the oven temperature to 450°F (225°C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Whisk the milk and egg until smooth. Stir in the maple syrup. Measure out 1 tbsp (15 mL) of this mixture and set aside.

In a food processor fitted with a metal blade, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Pulse to combine. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture is mealy in texture. Transfer to a bowl. Add the cooled oats and nuts. Blend well. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the milk mixture. Blend until a ragged dough forms. Use lightly floured hands to bring the dough together into a ball.

Lightly dust a clean work surface with a little flour. Sprinkle half the reserved oats over the flour. Transfer the dough to this area and pat into a circle that is 1-inch (2.5 cm) thick. Sprinkle with remaining oats. Brush with the reserved milk mixture and sprinkle evenly with coarse sugar. Using a sharp knife or a pastry chef’s scraper, cut the dough into 8 wedges. Transfer to the prepared pan. Bake on the middle rack for 12 to 14 minutes or until golden. Serve warm.

It seems too cloyingly retro to put little frilly paper cuffs on the bones of a rack of lamb, but using a parchment paper or silver bone holder (called a manche, en Francais) for a larger roast has a truly practical purpose: it gives you a clean handle to hold when you’re carving your roast.

You can go fancy, like the silver ‘manche à gigot’, a clamp that is designed to be the perfect size for holding a leg of lamb. Or you can keep it simple like I did on Christmas Eve when I tied a triangle of parchment paper around the bone end of the whole ham I glazed for our family feast.

When’s the last time you cooked a bone-in roast? If you don’t do it often, what holds you back?

Did I mention to you that my husband is writing a cookbook? Well, he is. And, it’s already two weeks overdue to be submitted to the publisher. That means I’ve been jumping in and helping him with last minute testing and proofreading. As a result, even though I desperately needed and wanted to go for a manicure, we spent all Saturday afternoon making oxtail ravioli.

To be honest, spending time in the kitchen with him again is rather fun. I think I’ll miss it when he goes back to working downtown at his restaurant. Likewise, I learned a lot about making ravioli and thought I’d share some tips with you in case you get inspired to give it a whirl yourself. I can’t share Martin’s recipe since his book isn’t published yet, but I’ll add a couple of links to other good sources after my tips.

• Don’t try to make ravioli with bought fresh lasagna noodles from the grocery store. They are about 1000 times too thick. If you don’t want to make fresh pasta, substitute wonton wrappers instead.
• No matter what filling you choose, be sure to roll it into compact little balls so that there are no air pockets in the final raviolis.
• Let the freshly made ravioli cure for an hour or so before boiling so that the egg used to make the two layers of pasta cling to one another has time to set.
• Keep the fresh ravioli in a single layer on a cornmeal or flour dusted tray. If freezing, flash freeze in a single layer and then bag the ravioli.

Some recommended recipes:
-Artichoke Ravioli with Tomatoes
-Mango Chicken Ravioli
-Ravioli Caprese

I imagine I’m like most moms. News stories about children in trouble pull at my heartstrings and stick with me. Like most food writers, I’m also well aware of the startling statistics that show how many children struggle with their health due to childhood obesity. While I don’t think we should shut down our dialogue about this problem, recently, I’ve become concerned about how our discourse is leading – in some cases – to more problems.

Case in point, Joanne Richard’s recent Toronto Sun article points out that more young girls than ever before are skipping meals to lose weight. It seems we’ve told them they are fat but not given them the proper tools to self evaluate or take healthy actions if they are indeed overweight.

Worse yet, parents in Florida are being urged to make foolish, radical choices to ‘help’ their fat kids. While Martin and I were vacationing there earlier this month, I was gob smacked to hear radio commercials advertising lap band surgery for kids. The big selling feature on these commercials was that your child would only need to miss 3 days of school. No mention of the nutritional issues, dietary or lifestyle changes they would need to cope with after the surgery.

How do you think we can better bring awareness to childhood obesity and help families to work with their kids to change their eating habits so that they’ll be healthy teens and adults? There must be a better way.