Several of my co-workers asked me for my Bolognese Lasagna recipe after I posted the following pic on Flickr.

Bolognese Lasagna
The problem, I actually don't have a recipe for the lasagna. This is one of the dishes I make entirely from taste, the ratios of ingredients for a pair of 10" rectangular pyrex pans honed from practice.

Here are some cook's notes from my most recent attempt:

Since I still haven't purchased a pasta maker, I use dry. Though, I have found, and this may shock some of my readers, ready-bake pasta sheets make better lasagna, at least in my kitchen.

Ready-Bake Pasta Sheets
The reason involves the time it takes the trays of lasagna to bake in the oven. I have found dried pasta sheets, even when par-cooked or just cooked to super-al dente (a little more toothy than toothy) lose their starch coats after baking. The meaty bolognese I make is by no means wet, but enough moisture is present that the pasta sheets comes out with a slippery texture.

I usually start with 2 lb's of medium ground beef. Lean will do, but fattier beef sears off better. Yes, you read sear. Over the years, I have found that a rich ragu, which is what a bolognese essentially is, comes from scraped fond and seared ground meat. Flavour, comes from adding spicy Italian sausage meat. For 2 lbs of meat, 2-3 sausage links worth of sausage meat, generously dosed with red pepper flake, paprika, and black pepper adds spice for flavour and fat for texture.

This time around, I decided to capture juices by adding fried breadcrumbs, mixed with dried herbs, to the ground meat mixture before searing it up in a metal pan. By frying the breadcrumbs crisp beforehand, they took on some toasted flavours. Both the breadcrumbs and herbs hydrated when the meat cooked, trapping juices.

When cooking the ground meat mixture, cook in batches and let the meat sit for a minute or two to develop a crust. De-glaze after every batch with a splash of dry white wine (no more than 3 tbsp), reserving the deglazing liquid for the following tomato syrup.

For the tomato component, I made a concasse using two cans of plum tomatoes. I seeded the tomatoes, draining them of their canning liquid and juice and reserving both. The tomatoes, I roasted in the oven at 350F for 90 minutes to concentrate flavours and slightly toast the tomatoes. The canning liquid, juice, and white wine deglazing liquid mixture, I slowly reduced on a stove into a thick syrup, resembling pancake syrup. I then blended both together in a table top blender, pulsing until almost smooth.

When you purchase canned tomatoes, read the labels for sodium content. Purchase only canned plum tomatoes whose salt is no more than 50 mg/125 mL (1/2 cup). Primo brand tops out at 300 mg/125 mL (1/2 cup), an unnecessary amount.

Always, always taste the bolognese as it comes together. Some canned tomatoes taste better seasoned than others, even despite the salt content on the label.

To the tomato component, I added sweated finely chopped mirepoix vegetables: 2 parts onion, 1 part carrot, and one part celery. I find that 2 small cooking onions to 2 stalks of carrots and celery is optimal, but it depends on taste. Sometimes I add more. Sometimes I add less.

To complete the bolognese, the tomato component was mixed together with the meat component and heated through.

Every layer of pasta sandwiches a layer of ragu and a layer of bechemel. For the bechemel, I usually use 1/3 cup flour, 1/3 cup canola oil, and 2 cups of milk. To flavour it, I like to infuse garlic by dropping 3 whole cloves into the milk as it thickens. I retrieve and discard the cloves as I build the lasagna.

The topping is a mixture of bechemel and egg wash, something I borrowed from a Greek pastitio recipe I came across years ago.

That's it! When available, I make a concasse of tomato from vine ripened tomatoes. The fresh flavours transform the dish. Given that it's winter, we make do.

Yesterday evening, Jenn and I sequestered ourselves in a Bridgehead Coffee House. She, to work on her lessons for the coming week. Me, to sort and prioritize the many blog entries in foodiePrints' backlog. With the lunar new year only a week away, I have decided to fast track several Chinese food blogs, including one involving of a traditional multi-course wedding banquet. Many of the dishes are also served during a multi-course Chinese New Year banquet. That said, two coffees, one hot apple cider, and an oatmeal cookie later, we both had made some progress.

As luck would have it, two of our friends (@spoonsie and @isfalk), both members of the Ottawa (Elite) Brunch Club, wandered in. They had just completed a grueling session of yoga and needed to hydrate. We decided to head out to dinner together at the nearby Chilean restaurant, Vina Del Mar (1079 Wellington Street W). There, I discovered how worldly one of our dinner companions is, he quickly identifying authentic Chilean dishes and lamenting that the menu included no regional drinks. We both shared a laugh when a Mexican Mariachi trio wandered by, singing Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World."

When we parted, Jenn whispered to me she wanted dessert, so we stopped into Canvas on the way home. With the dining room fully seated, we took our regular seats along the bar and ordered from the evening's dessert menu. Then, Jenn and I realized how long it has been since we last visited the establishment. The dinner menu had changed. The Ottawa Magazine published a piece, including Canvas' Sunday brunch. And, the Urban Foodie had reviewed the restaurant in a Thursday edition of the Ottawa Metro (a complementary commuter paper). Moreover, Jenn and I had discussed the little bistro with several fellow food bloggers the week before. Everyone remarked at the deep baritone voice of one of Canvas' regular young hosts and sometimes Maitre D.

Greeting Canvas' owner, Charles Beauregard, warmly, I ordered the figs ($7.00). Jenn, the berry crumble ($7.00).

Not two days before, I had wandered by Chef Jason Laurin's Sticky Fingers blog, taking note of his asking his readers how they served their figs. Well, Canvas' kitchen serves them topped with bruleed vanilla sugar, local honey, a small piece of honey comb, and C'est Bon Goat cheese.

Figs served with honey comb, drizzles of honey, and C'est Bon Goat Cheese

Close up, showing the bruleed vanilla sugar
Like Chef Laurin, I consider figs an under appreciated fruit. Even I eat them infrequently. With winter in full swing, I was surprise to find fresh figs on the menu. I found the bruleed vanilla sugar and local honey complemented the fruity sweetness of the figs. Whereas, the sharp goat cheese offered contrast and richness. The goat cheese also went incredibly well with the honey comb. It was a blissful dessert.

What Jenn dubbed a bumble berry crumble balanced classic streusel (a mixture of flour, grains, and sugar) and fruit well. There was enough baked streusel to go with every bite of fruit.

Bumble Berry Crumble
Better still, the streusel was not overly sweet, again complementing and not competing with the baked fruit beneath. Unfortunately, as Shari Goodman wrote in her Urban Foodie review, Canvas is at its best in the summer time when locally source produce is fresh and plentiful. The raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries that both made up the crumble and accompanied it fresh, while sweet, were not vine-ripened sweet. The recipe seemed honed to feature the complex flavours and deep sweetness of fruit that was nurtured on the vine, not picked raw and ripened on a truck traveling from either Argentina or Chile.

Still, both dishes were served well and made for good desserts. Best, Canvas is known for great service. That evening again demonstrated such, everyone was friendly and attentive.

Particulars:
Canvas Resto-Bar
65 Holland Avenue
(613)729-1991

This morning Rebecca (@bitofmomsense) of the "A Little Bit of Momsense" blog posted an entry with a rather significant blast from my past, asking about everyday vices. Hers, Pepsi (sometimes Coke), chocolate, coffee and fast food. The blast, a vintage video from Canadian band, Men without Hats. After commenting two of my past vices, I realized I forgot one from my childhood, McDonald's.

Having grown up in North America during the height of the MTV age, McDonald's was unavoidable. Eating there was an occasional treat, but I developed a taste for its golden fries. In fact, I think that McDonald's defined the single fried shoe string-style fry for a generation. So, while this foodie appreciates Belgian-style fries, he sometimes has McDonald's on his mind.

Having McDonald's on the mind may be the intention behind the rather creative "thought bubble" advertising, gracing the walls of subways. One photo of the advertising at work has been dugg heavily on digg.com.

Think Good Thoughts
Source: EpicWinFTW Website

Here is another.

Think Good Thoughts
Source: lorenzodom's Flickr stream

Unfortunately, the McDonald's dishes we have on our minds tend to be the product of marketing. Here's another installment of "As Advertised" vs. Reality:

Crispy Chicken:

Crispy Chicken as Advertised
Source: McDonald's of Jackson Michigan Menu


Crispy Chicken Box

Crispy Chicken in Reality

Big Mac:

Big Mac as Advertised
Source: McDonald's of Jackson Michigan Menu


Big Mac in Reality

Angus Burger:

Angus Burger as Advertised

Interesting Sticker

Angus Burger Box

Angus Burger in Reality

Big Mac Snack Wrap:

Big Mac Snack wrap as Advertised
Source: Health Kicker Website


Big Mac Snack Wrap Wrapped

Big Mac Snack Wrap in Reality

Big Mac Snack Wrap Opened

Promotional Buffalo Chicken Snack Wrap:

Buffalo Fried Chicken Snack Wrap as Advertised
Source: Orange County Register Website


Buffalo Fried Chicken Snack Wrap Wrapped

Buffalo Fried Chicken Snack Wrap In Reality

Buffalo Fried Chicken Snack Wrap Opened

The various photos come from foodiePrints' archives. We go to McDonald's somewhat rarely given the sheer number of locally-owned eat-in restaurants we have come across over the years. As for what we think of its various sandwiches, they are somewhat uninspired but nothing unexpected given McDonald's menu. To paraphrase an older entry, McDonald's food suffers form achieving economies scale. Its menu is a fixed one with limited options, prepared with assembly line efficiency. Having streamlined food preparation to ensure lowest cost no matter what ingredients are seasonal, this is the food McDonald's serves.

That said, I think McDonald's food stylists and photographers are very talented, transforming the reality of McDonald's menu into what we end up being marketed.

On January 25, 2010 Ryan Anderson (@ryananderson), web strategist, public relations professional, and founder of Fat Canary Communications, contacted me with a url to an event at Ottawa's Urban Element. Sponsored by the Chicken Farmers of Canada, its guest speaker would be the Ottawa Citizen's (a local newspaper) Food Editor, Ron Eade.

Billed as an "Ottawa Food Blogger Meet-up", I was intrigued, so I signed up. According to its event details, Eade would deliver a keynote about sodium and food writing and there would be a chicken pate cooking demo. All good points.

In the proceeding week, I tweeted the event to local food bloggers on twitter, encouraging everyone to attend. As the date of the event approached, bloggers registered in greater numbers, some I have not come across before. Many I became very excited to finally get the opportunity to meet in person. Others, I had already met and wanted to catch up with. Two of my favourite Ottawa food bloggers confirmed: Rachelle of Rachelle Eats Food and Shari of Whisk Food Blog. Two local chefs who blog confirmed: Chef Tracey Black of Best Tools for Schools: Lunchtime Solutions and Chef Jason Laurin of Sticky Fingers.

To my astonishment, professional writer (sometimes food writer) and legendary parenting blogger, Andrea Tomkins signed up. Hers is the blog many Ottawa bloggers (food or otherwise) measure themselves against, myself included.

Why was this such a big deal? Ottawa's food blogging community, as Anderson and I discussed during the latter part of the event, is large for such a small city. I have enumerated 52 blogs alone. Many of us know of one another. We read each others' work. We comment on each others' blogs. We debate points of contention on the Ottawa Foodies forum. But, we have few get togethers. By contrast, Toronto's foodie community, with its much larger complement of food bloggers, is more organized and has almost weekly get togethers.

As for the event itself, with Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's Chicken Run on the Canadian Food Network and Food Inc. having had its run in theaters, I expected the Chicken Farmers of Canada event to outline the checks and balances employed by the 2800 farmers the organization represents to produce "quality" chicken, humanely and safely. If you visit either the Chicken Farmers of Canada website or blog, you will find the organization has dual mandates, being responsible to farmers and being responsible to consumers. On the one hand, Chicken Farmers of Canada produces policies its industry follows. On the other, the organization lobbies government to ensure the interests of farmers are represented in agricultural policy and trade decisions. The Chicken Farmers of Canada blog's tag-line is to explain how Canadian chicken goes from farm to plate. The event's tag-line was to get "more Canadians back into the kitchen and pass(ing) on healthy cooking skills to the next generation." Attach to that, Eade's intention to talk about salt in food and food writing and we should have had a pair of very passionate talks and some lively discussion.

Instead, we glimpsed at a chicken farmer, whom I wanted to hear much more from. Eade gave an informative talk about food blogging, raising some thoughtful points about the state of food. We watched Urban Element's resident chef, Candace Butler, make a chicken liver pate and fellow bloggers got to meet each other. It made for a somewhat confusing, but very enjoyable experience.

Resident Chef, Candice Butler

Sous Chef, Line Leblanc
Regarding the chicken liver pate, Chefs Butler and Leblanc prepared several batches beforehand for sampling after Eade's keynote.

Three Flavours of Pate
Sherry Chicken Liver Pate with Pic Bois Maple Vinegar, Bourbon and Rosemary Chicken Liver Pate with "a bit of duck", and Brandy Chicken Liver Pate with Hall's apple and Thyme.

When we arrived, trays of appetizers, made by Sous Chef Line Leblanc were served, only two of which included chicken.

Sundried tomato strata with C'est Bon Goat Cheese

Caramelized onion and pear tarts with Bleu Benedictine

Mini chicken pot pies

An individual mini chicken pot pie

In-house pork rillete with Rochon farm zucchini relish

Chicken dumpling with peanut sauce

Cod cake

Pulled pork with smoked tomato jam

Afterward, Anderson called the event to order, explaining the Chicken Farmers of Canada organized the event to essentially build familiarity with people. In our case, people who are passionate and openly write about food in Ottawa. Apparently, their entire web strategy is being revisited from rebuilding the website from scratch to using social media for richer outreach. Then Eade was introduced.

Food Editor Ron Eade

Here are takeaways from Eade's talk on food blogging:

• Time is the most valuable resource in our hectic lives.
• With distractions like the World Wide Web (referred to as the "Internet"), Specialty Channels like the Food Network, Newspapers, and Magazines, blog readership is precious and must be nurtured.
• Those who read our blogs are choosing our content over others.
• While newspapers try to be everything to everyone, blogs are more focused, a medium unlike traditional media.

Here are Eade's suggestions for cultivating a lasting audience:

• Keep your blog fresh by updating it regularly, preferably every second day
• Do not let your blog go silent
• Add a personal spin so your reader can identify with you, the blogger
• Keep your content entertaining
• Don't bury content, making it difficult to access (Eade dislikes "more" or "read more" links)
• Add value such as photos, videos, and links

Here are takeaways from Eade's talk on food, besides the fact that processed foods harbour an unnecessary amount of salt.

• Traditional print media is guilty of "dumbing down" recipes, simplifying them to a very granular state, effectively suppressing any ability to develop culinary skills (something we have taken issue with at foodiePrints)
• With people dependent on granular recipes, they have lost the ability to be flexible in the kitchen.
• We have become a "nation of non-cooks", making it a strange dichotomy that cook books and fancy kitchen equipment sell surprisingly well in a poor economy.
• It maybe a deliberate effort by food producers to disconnect people from food sources, encouraging waste and objectifying animals as cuts of meat

Eade concluded his talk by encouraging food bloggers to espouse how simple it is to make ready-made foods be they frozen or canned from scratch. One suggestion from another blogger is to start dinner parties earlier with guests in the kitchen, participating in finishing dishes.

So, good company from local food bloggers, good hors-d'oeuvres (complementary of the Chicken Farmers of Canada), and food for thought. I think it an evening well spent.

Links to blog entries on the event from fellow food bloggers:

• Rachelle Eats Food blog (always a pleasure Rachelle)
• Unique Culinary Experiences (Urban Element's in-house blog)
• Eaten Up and Humanyms (great to meet you Pearl)
• Eva's Food World (a blogger at the event I must have missed)
• Sheltered Girl Meets World (great to finally meet you Katy and Dima too)
• Lemon Kitchen (great to meet you Tracey)

Update: This entry has been cross posted on Ottawa Tonite.

Particulars:
Urban Element
424 Parkdale Avenue
(613)722-0885

Before we begin, please note that sometime late Monday night, fire gutted a three-story apartment and commercial building on Eddy Street in the Hull sector of Gatineau. It made the 40 people, who were living in the residential portion section of the 95 Eddy Street building, homeless. Five businesses were destroyed, including De La Ghetto clothing Shop, Blanchisserie Eddy laundromat and La petite cuisine de Tony.

95 Eddy Street, courtesy of Google Maps
The Ottawa Citizen (a local Ottawa newspaper) reports that there were no injuries caused by the 6:02 pm blaze.

According to the Gatineau police, the Canadian Red Cross quickly mobilized to help displaced residents. With the spat of fires razing apartment buildings in both Ottawa and Gatineau of late, we at foodiePrints have made another donation to the Red Cross. We encourage readers to do so as well. Here is a link to options for donating: Options. Here is a link for donating online: Donate Online.

Now, why is an apartment fire on a food blog? Two reasons. Firstly, I work in Gatineau and have frequented the family-owned and run restaurant, La petite cuisine de Tony. They made a decent Lebanese fatayer. Secondly, I am slightly troubled by how CBC Ottawa reported the incident. My concern stems from an American survey I came across last night via the PR Squared blog.

The survey, conducted by Cision and Don Bates of The George Washington University’s Master’s Degree Program in Strategic Public Relations came up with, what was for me, a startling finding:

...an overwhelming majority of reporters and editors now depend on social media sources when researching their stories. Among the journalists surveyed, 89% said they turn to blogs for story research, 65% to social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and 52% to microblogging services such as Twitter.

Cision however added the following caveat:

...it's also clear that while social media is supplementing the research done by journalists, it is not replacing editors' and reporters' reliance on primary sources, fact-checking and other traditional best practices in journalism.

Indeed, as many have no doubt observed, the speed with which a lead becomes a story and is reported has increased. Most local news concerns in Ottawa even have twitter accounts. I have seen both @CTVOttawa and @OttawaCitizen request pictures or accounts from witnesses of events.

At 8:30 AM (EST) this morning, CBC Ottawa's website reported the fire with a photo that had the caption "The fire destroyed 16 apartments and five businesses, including a bakery and a dry cleaner." The report read that a brick building at 88 Eddy Street had been the site of the blaze and has since been torn down. A friend of mine graciously provided me a screen capture of the report as it was originally posted:

CBC Ottawa's Original Report
He had it cached on his phone from when I told him that the wonderful little Portuguese bakery and sandwich shop I introduced him to two weeks ago may have burned down. The shop's green awning is in the picture from the original report.

The shop, called Estoril, is situated at 89 Eddy Street. I am particularly fond of it and its owners, visiting the eatery twice a month since I first discovered it last June.

Well, there are some problems with CBC Ottawa's story as it was originally reported. First, the building at 88 Eddy Street is across the street from Estoril. The building at 89 Eddy Street cannot possibly hold 16 apartments.

89 Eddy Street, courtesy of Google Maps
There is also no dry cleaner. Such is readily apparent from Google Maps.

At 10:30 AM (EST), CBC Ottawa updated its story to change the address to 95 Eddy Street.

CBC Ottawa's Updated Report
The update also added several accounts of the fire and a photo of the torn down building, taken by CBC's Chad Pawson.

At 12:37 PM (EST), CBC Ottawa updated its story again to change the number of apartments in the building to 12, forgetting to change the caption next to the paragraph. The caption still read 16.

To CBC Ottawa, may I suggest you take a little time to verify facts before you post a story, especially a headlining one? This includes getting addresses straight. If you can find the time to dispatch someone to the scene to take a picture and attach a Google Map to the online report, you can find the time to demonstrate that fast-paced journalism doesn't have to be sloppy journalism.

For instance, as I just found out by walking down Eddy, judging from the layer of ice on the building, Estoril did suffer water damage from the firefighters putting out the fire in the adjacent building. Estoril is presently closed, but I saw one of the concerned owners go in and out. It has not been torn down. However, the City of Gatineau is co-ordinating cleanup of of the torn down buidling and Gatineau police is re-directing car and pedestrian traffic as needed.