Fall fell on September 22nd this year. It means that my better half and I took down the happy sunflower door decoration and put up the straw scare-crow wreath with the red and orange leaves. This also means that our trips to the local Parkdale market will be highlighted by trees changing colour and it's time for me to try my hand again at zucchini bread.

In Autumn, zucchini tend to be too mature to cook using fast high heat methods, grilling thick over the barbecue or slicing thin in stir fries. As such, I tend to peel the thick dark green skins off, de-seed them, and shred the flesh to make bread.

My recipe was the same as last year's. However, I made two batches of batter this time around and portioned the second batch into a muffin tin. That was a mistake.

Here's the batter:

Zuchini Bread Batter

Here's the resultant loaf:

Loaf

Sliced
Mmmmm...Yummy savory goodness. Every peppery bite was great!

And the resultant muffins:

Muffins

Binned with Prejudice
They outright failed to set, so I tossed them.

On the bright side, I got to try out my new fangled measuring spoon:

Metal Measuring Spoon

If metal doesn't suit your fancy, the spoon also comes in plastic:

Plastic Measuring Spoon
They make great gifts.

If squash soup doesn't suit your fancy, and you need a starch for dinner, think croquettes. According to wikipedia.net, croquettes are parcels of food containing some sort of filling, that are coated in breadcrumbs, shaped into a cylinder or disk, and deep fried. Wikipedia also mentions that the croquette form was initially French, but has equivalents around the world. Judging from its various names, German "groketten", Hungarian "krokett", Dutch "kroket", and Filipino "croqueta", it seems that related dishes are more likely adopted as opposed to indigenous.

To make squash croquettes, I looked to a recipe from former Canadian food tv star David Rocco's Dolce Vita and substituted squash for potato. Google actually returned a link to the episode of Dolce Vita on youtube when I searched for the recipe to link to:

Get it while it's up. I'm pretty sure the video is copy written and is on youtube without permission. If or when the video is taken down, here is a link to the recipe on the foodtv.ca website.

Regarding my squash croquettes, here's what turned out:

Batch of Squash Croquettes

One Croquette Up Close and Personal
Just as David Rocco said about his potato croquettes, my squash croquettes turned out crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside. The difference: a sweetness from the squash came out. It was almost as if the croquettes were made with sweet potato.

How'd I make them? I seasoned up a halved squash with salt and pepper and placed the halves in a pre-heated 350°F until softened. Then I cored out the flesh and forced it through a ricer, one of my all-time favourite kitchen toys. Afterward, I sliced up some mozerella into strips. I mixed an egg into the riced squash and started forming parcels, encasing strips of mozeralle inside. Finally, I coated the parcels in an egg wash and bread crumbs. Each parcel was then reshaped as needed and shallow fried. Shallow frying croquettes involves placing several parcels in oil that comes halfway up each parcel. Once one side browns, flip over and cook the other side. Serve with meat and a leafy green.

BTW, if you want to avoid darker croquettes, replace the oil and clean out the pan after every two batches. The "stuff" that is left behind from the each batch tends to coat the next batch and causes the croquettes to prematurely blacken.

Done.

Every month, the Canadian arm of the American Food Network, foodtv.ca, has a "cooking club challenge." Instead of organizing members into local chapters that meet regularly, the "club" is simply participants of an online blog called Food for Thought. Each month, blog writer Catherine Jheon chooses a recipe. Participants make the suggested recipe in their own kitchens, plate up their attempts, capture a digital image, and either e-mail the image and a brief description to the blog or submit the image and brief description to a Flickr group.

Personally, I like to check back from time to time to see what seasonal recipes are chosen. I also like to see what prizes can be won. You see, the images are also judged. Both winners' and losers' images end up on the foodtv website. Me, I haven't yet participated in the "challenge", but I have made one of the chosen recipes: Jamie Oliver's Pumpkin Soup.

And yes, this is another autumn posting for this week's lunch with my colleagues.

Presumably, Chef Oliver concocted the recipe for his "Jamie at Home" series. I found the recipe somewhat odd and decided to augment it with a quasi-Italian recipe from former Canadian food network star, David Rocco. The former recipe employs chestnuts for texture and flavor. It also starts with rendering out fat from pancetta. The latter recipe employs potato for body. Both recipes refer to squash as pumpkins. Apparently, Europeans do not distinguish varieties as we do in North America.

Me, I omitted the chestnuts and pancetta. I believe that both flavors will muddy up what should be a vegetarian dish that highlights an autumnal veg: butternut squash! However, I really liked Chef Oliver's approach for dry roasting squash to concentrate flavors.

Here's what turned out:

Butter Nut Squash Soup
The soup was thick and velvety, tasting distinctly of squash. The carrots provided a punctuated sweetness that went well with the squash. The onions and celery added a slight savory dimension.

Recipe:
What You'll Need:

• 1 large butternut squash (or 2 small ones)
• 1 tsp of freshly ground coriander seeds
• 1 tsp of freshly ground black pepper
• olive oil for drizzling
• 4 tbsp of butter
• 1 large-sized carrots (approximately 1/4 cup when finely chopped)
• 2-3 stalks of celery (approximately 1/4 cup finely chopped)
• 1 medium white onion (approximately 1/2 cup when finely chopped)
• kosher salt for seasoning
• 3 cups of water or light vegetable stock
• 2 medium-sized russet potatoes
• 1/2 cup of heavy cream

Prep and Method follow after the jump:

More after the jump...

When July ended, my fellow analysts and I decided to return to the Metropolitain Brasserie, a bistro-style open air eatery in the Byward Market. We wanted to enjoy another lunch on Metropolitain's terrasse. I wanted to know if the restaurant was a one-hit wonder and could make something beyond a good croque monsieur. As such, I ordered the lunch feature, the restaurant's lunch special. One of the other analysts followed suit.

Here's what we were served:

Oil Poached Salmon with 2 Sides

Before I go any further, let me point out that the special was not printed on the menu. There was no chalk sign at the entrance of the restaurant, advertising it. There was no paper insert in the menu. We learned of the special from the waitress, Sarah. She spoke well of the dish, waxing almost poetic: salmon slow cooked in oil, oven baked potatoes, and a leafy salad. For some odd reason, I thought that the chef was making confit salmon.

In Sarah's defense, this is what we were served: oil poached salmon, mesculin salad with one halved cherry tomato, and oil crusted baked new potatoes. The salmon was slightly overcooked, tasted a little harsh in the mouth. It was also pale in colour, so it more than likely was farmed and not wild. The salad was wonderfully fresh, but I would have preferred more tomato. The single tomato on the plate was very sweet, denoting it more than likely coming from local sources. The potatoes were starchy and under seasoned. All in all, it wasn't a terrible meal.

What's the problem? The dish cost $24.99. With an iced tea and taxes, lunch came out to $30.45. With tip, the meal cost $34. This is unacceptable given the small portions and the fact that it was lunch.

To give some perspective, here's what $30 can get you for brunch at Dunn's in the Byward Market:

Eggs Benedict with Dunn's Smoked Meat

Jackie Mason Breakfast

The total cost of the 2 meals, including bottomless coffee, a glass of orange juice, and taxes, was $25.97. With tip, the meal cost $30. Besides, our server Stephane even spoke French with me, allowing me to practice the conversational vocabulary from my evening language course.

Mine was an indulgent Eggs Benedict (poached eggs over cured meat, served on bread, sauced liberally with hollandaise) that substituted an untoasted plain bagel for the traditional English muffin and sliced smoked brisket for sliced or chopped ham. Everything was smothered with a smooth, warm, and gently seasoned hollandaise that was freshly made. If hollandaise is allowed to cool, it can separate. As the following picture denotes, the poached eggs had wonderfully runny yolks. The home fries were a bit much, considering the components of Eggs Benedict. They seemed to come from frozen.

Runny Egg Yolks
The hollandaise and egg yolk carried the savory flavors very well. The slight sprinkle of paprika added a floral peppery-ness. The textures worked very well together.

The Jackie Mason breakfast was ordered by my better half, Jenn. It consisted of 3 egg scrambled with fried (borderline burned) onions, a side of tomatoes, lettuce, and red onion, and a toasted sesame bagel. Jenn actually made a sandwich with the vegetables and bagel. Gratefully, she ate a good number of my home fries.

Before someone gets upset, I am aware of the weakness of this comparison. Should I really be comparing breakfast and lunch in the Market? Not necessarily, but $25 for a single entree is a bit much. My suggestion when bistros are so bloody expensive: Eat a big brunch, skip lunch!

Particulars:
Metropolitain Brasserie Restaurant
700 Sussex Drive
(613)562-1160

Dunn's Famous Deli
355 Dalhousie Streeet

What do you do when the management of your condo building decides to perform electrical maintenance one Saturday and informs you that, for that day, all power will be shut down?

First, you contact the property manager to ask why the work can't be done during a week day when the majority of tenants won't be at home.

When you hear that the answer resembles the typical corporate excuse to dismiss rational concerns, you go to the dollar store. There, you pick up 8 mini ice packs ($1 each) and one large ice pack ($2 each). Reason: As Alton Brown recently explained in a freezer-related episode of Good Eats, placing bottles of frozen water through out your freezer provides insurance against spoilage during accidental power outages. The bottles of water act as capacitors, keeping neighboring frozen goods frozen, even as they themselves melt. In my case, because the power outage is intentional and prolonged (power will be off for approximately 8 hours), I substituted ice packs for water bottled and distributed them throughout my freezer 2 days before "lights out." Ice packs are filled with a viscous fluid that has different thermal properties than water. It melts far more slowly. Hopefully, this will keep my well stocked freezer frozen. Otherwise, I am going to heap spoiled foods on the doorstep of my property manager's home and car and wish him an unhappy Halloween.

So, if power is out, how am I blogging? I'm currently sitting in the lounge of a Chapter's (downtown Rideau location) with my ancient laptop, sipping something called a Grande Tazo Chai from Starbucks. After all the years of Starbucks' existence, I still don't understand why a medium-sized cup is called a "Grande." The drink itself tastes somewhat artificial, but the spice from the chai tea is carried well by its dairy ingredient. Given that the drink seems rich, I'm wondering if the dairy ingredient is cream. At $4.29, I hope I bought some time to sit and blog before I'm accused of loitering. At least the older gentleman, sitting in front of me is somewhat entertaining. He's playing the hapless proletariat, trying somewhat unsuccessfully to impress a much younger woman.

On the bright side, my better half and I took a stroll through the Byward Market on our way to brunch at Dunn's this morning. There, we found pumpkins. We found lots of tourists too. They seemed to be very interested in the pumpkins.

Pretending to be a tourist, I joined the crowd and took pictures. This first picture is what a lot of Asian tourists seem to be interested in capturing:

Jack O Lantern-sized Pumpkins

Here's what I feel is a sexier take:

Better side of Pumpkins

Since Jack O Lantern-sized Pumpkins make unwieldy souvenirs, a pumpkin farmer two autumns ago started selling painted mini-pumpkins in the Byward Market. Now they're everywhere.

Painted Mini-Pumpkins

While most people forget that pumpkins can be cooked and eaten, one stall in the Byward Market had sweet "eating" pumpkins for sale. The sales lady suggested that the pumpkins make good pies. I only saw large bowls of luscious creamy soup.

Eating Pumpkins

If decorative pumpkins aren't on your Fall menu, how about lacquered gourds?

Decorative Gourds
I recommend against eating these...

It seems that I volunteered to present some culinary insight during an office pizza lunch that has been scheduled next week. Initially, the intention was to have members of my directorate discuss their fall plans. I volunteered to provide inspiration in the form of Autumn-related blog entries from foodieprints. While I am currently combing through foodieprints' photo archive for Autumnal recipes to post, I am also looking for pictures that signify Autumn.

Here is my first post for the lunch:

What better signifies the end of summer than open air market stalls, overflowing with full grown melons? Melons represent several months' conversion of water and sunlight (with some help of good soil) into mass. This is the reason that slow growing pumpkins are associated with fall. This is also the reason that the best tasting melons appear when the leaves start colouring.

Speaking of pumpkins, here are two albino varieties that I found in the Richmond Superstore last weekend:

Regular-Sized White Pumpkins

Miniature White Pumpkins
Both my better half and I see white pumpkins as great fodder for fashioning pale-coloured Jack-O-Lanterns. We just hope that families that make them will also salvage the flesh to make pale-coloured pumpkin soup afterward. At the very least, their seeds make great roasted snacks.

If you favor something sweeter, how about trying a Quebec-grown yellow watermelon:

Yellow Watermelon

Halved Servings

Sliced Servings
At the beginning of September, if you see me coming down the street with a bag of roma tomatoes in hand, odds are I'll have a yellow watermelon under my arm. Yellow watermelons tend to arrive on stall shelves the same time that local vine-ripened roma tomatoes do. And, just like local roma tomatoes, locally grown yellow watermelons spend much more time attached to the vine. Thus, they tend to be ridiculously sweet, sweeter in fact than the much larger red variety that is sold throughout the summer. Yellow watermelons also tend to be spherical as opposed to oblong. This is perfect because, once you taste a locally grown yellow watermelon, you'll be tempted just to halve your next one and eat it with a spoon.

Here's a melon that came to me on a plane this fall. My better half's mother brought two of these melons back from Vancouver this September. She tells us that it is a "Korean Watermelon.' I have yet to see the variety in Ottawa.

Side View

Stem End

Halved

Seeded and Sliced
The flesh reminded me of under-ripe honeydew. The seeds remind me of musk melons. Please note that the melons sold in Canada as Cantaloupe are actually musk melons. Authentic Cantaloupe are only available in Europe. I've a feeling that we should have left the melon to ripen more before we cut into it.

Go buy a melon this weekend. You won't be sorry!

Well, it may not be a great idea to forgo apples altogether, but according to a study conducted by the Research Laboratories of the Catholic University in Campobasso, Italy and the National Cancer Institute of Milan, people who eat small portions of dark chocolate regularly, have significantly lower levels of a protein linked to inflammation. Keeping inflammation under control is preventative treatment for cardiovascular disease.

According to WebMD and topnews.in, the study, called the Moli-sani project, will be published in the October 2008 issue of the Journal of Nutrition. It involved surveying approximately 20 000 randomly selected men and women from Southern Italy on their consumption of dark chocolate. The study further states that the ideal daily intake is 6.7 g (0.23 oz) per day.

Unfortunately, neither WebMD nor topnews.in specify what percentage of coco solids (chocolate liquor) is required. According to wikipedia, the Americans have no standard defining "dark" chocolate. European rules specify a minimum of 35% cocoa solids.

In any case, I adore dark chocolate, so I went looking for a preparation of Lindt chocolate indulge in some "daily preventative medicine." I found the following:

Prescription for Cardiovascular Health?

According to the package, there is 165 g of chocolate, individually wrapped into 30 portions. This means that every luscious square contains 5.5 g of chocolate. Given that this is 70% cocoa, I'm going to assume that one square will suffice for ideal.

Cheers to Italian researchers. For years, I nurtured the hope that chocolate, in moderation, is good for your health.

Before we begin, let me introduce you to the new rage in breakfast sandwiches: the morning Luther Burger (aka: Paula Deen's Lady's Brunch Burger)

The Luther Burger with an Egg
Source: flickr.com

foodiePrints is already familiar with the Luther Burger concept: hamburger patty, a slice of sharp cheddar cheese, and two rashers of crisped bacon, sandwiched in between a halved Krispy Kreme "Original Glazed" doughnut.

Now, add an egg and serve it with a side of Paul Deen

Did anyone else notice Ms. Deen licking one of the fingers of the hand she picks up the burger with to hand it to her guest?

Forget lame or game...Scary! Scary! Scary!

During the Beijing Olympics, MSNBC's Today Show aired a piece with Jennifer 8 Lee (interviewee), author of "The Fortune Cookie Chronicles." It dispelled what amounts to 6 myths in American culture. To Al Roker's (interviewer) poorly feigned surprise, 6 of the cultural icons that Americans normally associate with being Chinese really aren't. They either never originated in China or have very little to do with authentic Chinese culture. They follow:

1. Fortune Cookies: Fortune cookies are actually Japanese in origin. In fact, the Japanese precursor, flavored with miso and sesame, is still made by small family-owned bakeries in Kyoto.
2. Soy Sauce Packets: Soy sauce packets in the United States contain soy sauce that has no soy as an ingredient.
3. Duck Sauce: Duck sauce has no duck in it and it isn't served with duck. Instead, it is made with dried Turkish apricots.
4. General Tso's Chicken: General Tso, whose full name is Zuo Zongtang, is the famous Qing dynasty military hero who played a prominent roll in quelling the largest civil war in history: The Taiping Revolution. In China, he has no association to a fried chicken dish with a sweet and spicy sauce. He is not the Chinese Colonel Sanders.
5. Egg Rolls: Chinese people associate the egg roll with a rolled pastry that is sweet, yellow, and flaky, not pimply deep fried packages.
6. Takeout Boxes: In China, takeaway comes in Styrofoam clam shells and plastic bags, not white paper cartons with metal handles.

The piece was aired on August 14, 2008, probably as a filler given the haste with which Roker spoke to Lee. What really surprised me is that the accompanying webpage on the msnbc website has no pictures.

Though the myths dispelled were American, the majority apply to Canada. As such, we at foodieprints decided to rectify the oversight and provide some pictures from our photo archives.

Fortune Cookies: Done rather badly too!

Winner Fortune Cookie

Fortune
In Canada, like in the US, fortune cookies accompany oriental meals. However, the fortunes are written in both official languages (French and English) and come with lottery numbers. The fortune cookie above accompanied the bill for a meal at the Emerald Buffet (formerly Duberry's), located just off Montreal Road (33 Selkirk Street). The cookie is an example of poor quality control as it doesn't really obscure the fortune.

Soy Sauce Packet:

Kimlan Soy Sauce Packet
Since Kimlan soy sauce is imported from Taiwan, it contains soy. The ingredient list on the packet agrees, listing "fevre soja" (French for soy beans) as the second ingredient. The item behind the soy sauce packet is an empty packet of Diamond brand roasted almonds. The reason that it accompanies the soy sauce packet in the picture is because non-soy soy sauce contains hydrolyzed vegetable protein. It seems that the roasted almonds were coated with hydrolyzed corn and soy protein.

Duck Sauce:

Gold's Duck Sauce
Honestly, I never heard of duck sauce until I came across a freezer display at the College Square Loblaws at the corner of Baseline and Woodroofe (1980 Baseline Road). Perched on top of the frozen ducks were jars of duck sauce. The sauce resembles plum sauce in colour. I will have to take a closer look one day at the ingredient list.

Egg Rolls:

Egg Roll King's Egg Rolls

One Tray of Egg Rolls
These are the egg rolls that can be found in most Asian grocery stores. There, you would be hard pressed to find the pimply deep fried package variety. On that note, friends of mine who worked in North American Chinese food restaurants regularly remind me that egg roll wrappers resemble slices of white bread. Whereas spring roll wrappers are thin and produce a crisp shell, egg roll wrapper are thick and produce an oily crust. With respect to the egg rolls pictured, they are indeed flaky. They crumble very easily and are eaten as snacks.

With respect to General Tso's Chicken and Take-Out Boxes, neither I nor Jenn have ever tried the former. We have only seen the latter at a Thai restaurant in a food court.

The confusing title is due to my increasingly coming across two words that substitute "sandwich" on the Internet: Sammich (or Sammitch) and Sandvich. This post is my way of clarifying the issue.

Sammich:
The sammitch is and example of what I like to call OJ, online joalle. Joalle is the Quebecois word for colloquial slang and encapsulates an entire lexicon of spoken words and phrases that does not exist in formal language. In the case of the "sammich", it is a bastardized word form of the English word "sandwich" and can be found in online forums, instant messages, and wiki's. In fact, it is pervasive enough to have 4 entries on urbandictionary.com. Here's the one that I feel is most apt.

noun . Two or more slices of bread with a filling such as meat, fish, cheese or any edible delights placed between them. "give me a bite of that sammich"

Source: UrbanDictionary.com

Sanvitch:
I first came across the "sanvich" in the gaming sub-forum of a large online forum. According to the Valve Corporations' website steamgames.com, the Sandvich is an item for "heavy class" players in Team Fortress 2.

According to wikipedia, Team Fortress 2 is a dedicated team-based first person shooter video game for the XBox and Playstation gaming platforms. It is celebrated for its gameplay, graphics, and comedic value. In the game, players can choose between nine player "classes", categorized into offense, defense and support roles. The heavy class player or "Heavy" is a stereotypical Russian character, depicted as a big brute with a heavy accent. He is obsessed with his guns and chomps on a cigar. He serves the role of heavy artillery. He can sustain more damage than any other class, but he is slow moving, owing to his carrying a minigun.

The sanvich functions as a healthpack for the heavy class player. It never runs out, but it replaces the Heavy's shotgun weapon during consumption. When eaten, it provides 120 health points and leaves the Heavy completely vulnerable for 4 seconds. To make matters worse, during those four seconds, the Heavy' produces chewing sounds that give away his position.

No matter the term, I find that properly made sandwiches balance taste and texture. They can highlight specific ingredients. They can be as equally messy to eat as satisfying.

Sandwich (neither sammich nor sanvich) Encyclopedia:
For examples of great sandwiches, head over to Esquire magazine's online sandwich encyclopedia. There you will find a somewhat dated listing (circa 2006) of the best places in the United States to buy a sandwich, but the list itself is a wonderful collection of sandwich variety. Be it the overstuffed Jewish-run deli Reuban, the authentic Italian porchetta, the herbal Vietnamese Bahn Mi, the fried French Monte Cristo, or the New Orleans Po' Boy, every time I go back to the listing, I find myself drooling.

And yes, when I get my fingers on a good sandwich, my sloppy chewing sounds will most likely give away my position!

This just in: Here's another great sandwich link from omglists.com. Linked is an illustrated list of 9 "underrated sandwiches." They Follow:

1. Po' Boy
2. Gyro
3. Dagwood
4. Banh Mi
5. Sloppy Joe
6. Fluffernutter
7. FalafelTorta
8. Croque Monsieur & Croque Madame.

These sandwiches are not underrated in my book. Currently, I am using the list as a checklist for sandwiches that I need to find, eat, and post pictures of to foodiePrints. So far, 3 down!

Since I took ownership of my first home mid-August a couple years back, some of the first dishes I attempted as a new homeowner were hearty Autumnal ones. This is because, my first meals as I moved in were soups and stews that either came frozen or from cans. Since autumn in Ottawa begins in August, it lasts through October, and I lived so close to a large outdoor market, I decided to make the same meals from scratch.

My first dish?

A light zucchini and pork stew
This light stew had a thin broth that took on the sweetness of the vegetables, while carrying a gentle saltiness and savoriness from sweating the aromatics in chopped bacon. While it is not hearty fair, it'll fill you up and warm you when the temperature starts to drop and the leaves begin to colour.

Lets start with a Visual Ingredient List:
4 strips of bacon



chopped fine

1 large onion

half frenched and half chopped fine

4 gloves of garlic

chopped fine

1" finger of fresh ginger

chopped fine

3 carrots

peeled and cut diagonally

5 medium-sized waxy potatoes



peeled and cubed

3 small zucchini





peeled and cubed

1lb of Pork Butt



cut into bite-sized pieces

Visual Method follows after the jump:

More after the jump...

How do you know that Apple's Iphone is making inroads with mobile consumers? How about someone spending the time to meticulously re-create the Iphone's touch-based user-interfaced with baked goods?

Iphone Cupcakes
Source: Recent Gizmodo

To Rim, I haven't seen cupcakes made to resemble the Blackberry interface. Then again, given the price of the new Blackberry Bold, perhaps proud owners simply don't have the funds to purchase the ingredients.

How do you know that Apple's MacOS is making inroads with computing enthusiasts? How about someone spending the time to create Mac-inspired chocolate frosted cupcakes?

Apple-themed Cupcakes
Source: Older Gizmodo

To Microsoft, I'm glad you've decided that confusing your market is something you no longer want to do. However, don't think that spinning a badly thought out lead up to a "real" marketing campaign is going to get you cupcakes. Nothing good came with hiring Jerry Seinfeld.

Cupcakes sound delicious? How about manufacturing speakers for mobile devices in the shape of cupcakes?

Cupcake Speakers
Source: UK Gizmodo and Technobob.com

Even though these were released in 2007, I think they're going to make great Christmas gifts this year. I hope Semk still makes them...

If you're going to make cupcakes, you're gonna need a good recipe. I suggest Alton Brown's recipe for Chiffon cupcakes. However, how do you know how long cupcakes have been in the oven? How about a cupcake timer?

Cupcake Timer
Source: Older Gizmodo

Thanks to Gizmodo for it's coverage of Geeky Cupcakes!

Right now, I'm thinking about lemon chiffon cupcakes...To the kitchen!

In 2006, I came across an image via e-mail that I quickly dismissed as digitally altered. It contained an older gentleman and an impossibly big rabbit. Today, while I searched for information for a poutine entry, I stumbled across the image again.

Apparently, the image was never doctored. Pictured are a German rabbit breeder named Karl Szmolinsky and a giant gray rabbit, Robert. At 10.5 kg (23.1 lbs), Robert measures 74 cm in length and has 25.2 cm long ears. The image comes from an archive belonging to the Chicago Tribune. It is dated January 15, 2006.

A quick google search produced more information. According to a February 2007 Washington Post article, Karl Szmolinsky is a retired chauffeur who lives in Eberwalde, a town in eastern Germany. He gained international attention when a North Korean delegation approached Szmolinsky to purchase 6 rabbits (including Robert) to start a breeding program. The aim: create another source of meat for the North Korean population. According to Szmolinsky, a giant gray, in the hands of a skilled butcher, can yield up to 15 pounds of lean meat.

However, while rabbits breed well, the giant gray variety may not be a cheap meat source. To grow to their large sizes, farmers have to deal with the giant grays' equally large appetites. As such, their feed to meat ratio may make them cost-prohibitive to rear. Szmolinsky himself admitted that it takes "wheelbarrow-loads" of rabbit feed, hay, and vegetables to raise giant grays to Robert's size.

Here's a youtube video of German news coverage from Reutors on Szmolinsky and his giant rabbits:


Here are additional images:

Giant Gray being Weighed

Giant Gray with another Rabbit

Unfortunately for Robert, according to hoax-slayer.com and smh.com he and the rabbits Szmolinsky supplied may have been bought and eaten at a birthday banquet for North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, rather than being used as breeders as intended.

BTW, as hoax-slayer.com also points out, Robert is not the first giant gray to hop across the Internet. Some of you may recognize the image of Herman, showing his enormous feet.

Like Robert, Herman also weighs approximately 23 lbs. He too lives in Germany, Berlin to be exact. His owner, Hans Wagner, feeds him approximately 2 kg of food each day and houses him in his own custom-built oak hutch.

Since I have yet to find mention of Herman being put into a pot, perhaps his enormous feet make him enormously lucky...

Like many cube dwellers, I work in an office building with a food court at its base. We are surrounded by eateries, but given the significant expense (time and money) that comes with eating out everyday, I bring a packed lunch. Even if I were to eat at the food court, such things as the $6.95 three-item special at the chop suey stand add up. Over a year, assuming 3 weeks of annual vacation, it comes out to approximately $1702.75 - $6.95 multiplied by 5 days a week multiplied by 49 weeks a year. Besides, be it last night's leftovers or a humble sandwich, our ready access to microwaves and refrigerators permit us awesome variety in what we can pack for lunch. That said, there are prying eyes and curious fingers in office fridges. Looses part of lunches have been nipped away. Entire lunches have disappeared.

I would wager that all cube dwellers have either experienced lunch theft of some kind or know of someone who has. Most recently, my colleagues and I discovered that someone must have been shopping for microwaveable containers in our office fridge. The thief took both my neighbour's cereal container and large lunch tupperware. The next day, the thief took my Corel bowl with a microwaveable lid. Bagged lunch-ables were left alone.

While I had considered leaving something unsavory in an expendable container for the thief, a New York designer named Sherwood Forlee has a better idea: Anti-Theft Lunch Bags


Moudly-Looking Zip-top Bag

Makes Clever Sandwich Camouflage

According to Sherwood Forlee's website, "anti-Theft Lunch Bags are regular sandwich bags that have green splotches printed on both sides." Once you put your sandwich inside, no one will want to touch it. So long as you get to it before an over-eager office assistant tosses your sandwich out, it is safe from theft. Great stuff!

Here's a suggestion: white spores, printed on clear tupperware.

Anyhow, Sherwood Forlee has a fair amount of experience coming up with innovative products. If you goto the frontpage of his website skforlee.com, you will find both an interesting user interface and listings of his professional and independent designs.

To Sherwood Forlee, that sausage on a kaiser looks messy but delish! Given your travels, I'm wondering if its authentic German wurst. Cheers

Ever since F-Cup cookies blazed a path through the blogosphere well over a year ago, the Japanese confections with the questionable claim still show up with from time to time. It seems that everyone is still fascinated with the cookies that are marketed to enhance a girl's breasts.

For instance, here's a link to a recent entry (March 13, 2008) from the Deliciously D blog. It paints a rather negative view of the product.

Here's a link to a entry in a travel journal with other F-Cup products. Apparently, the F-Cup product offer is rather diversified:

F-Cup Pudding and Tea
The travel journal belongs to a woman in the UK, named Laura Blackhall. Ms. Blackhall took the picture in a store in Japan, during her 6 months working in Tokyo.

I guess the makers of the F-Cup cookie, B2UP, decided that there is a market for breast enhancing foods besides cookies.

Pudding:

F-Cup Pudding
Source: Yein Jee's Asian Journal Blog

Tea:

F-Cup Tea
Source: Casa Jappo Blog (Latin)

Judging from the dates of the blog entries (mid-2007), these products seem to have been put on the market the same time as the original F-Cup Cookie.

According to the B2UP website, the active ingredient in F-Cup cookies, pudding, and tea is an extract from white pueraria mirifica root (also known as white kwao krua root). According to Wikipedia and CookiePedia, this root, which is indigenous to Northern Thailand and Myanmar, has high concentrations of phyto-estrogen. Because this naturally occurring substance mimics estrogen in the human body, B2UP markets that its products have breast enlargement "effects." Interestingly, B2UP's website is also shared by the getbustupgum.com domain name.

Other of B2UP's pueraria mirifica laced products have appeared on the web:

Iced Tea (in case you're not interested in hot tea):

F-Cup Iced Tea
Source: Live Journal, dedicated to F-Cup products

Cake (Have your cake and eat it too?):

F-Cup Cake
Source: Cosmetics BB Blog (Japanese)

A quick scan of B2UP's website turned up two products that may go a little too far.

Gum:

B2UP Gum
B2UP gum was listed on one of Steve Levenstein's blog entries on inventorspot.com

Coffee:

F-Cup Coffee
Given that B2UP sells F-Cup tea, what makes F-Cup coffee strange? While the the F-cup Cookie has 55 mg of pueraria mirifica, a serving of F-cup Coffee has 135 mg. That's right kids, F-Cup Coffee has double the breast enhancing ingredient.

Now, I'm wondering if there's a lethal dose of pueraria mirifica. After all, there's enough food products to have F-cup in every meal.

After a quick browse through recent postings, I've realized that it's been months since I posted any entries from my meager kitchen. Here's a quick and easy method to put pasta on the table when you're short on time.

Firstly, when it comes to quick meals, it really helps to have purveyor of fresh pasta in walking distance. Of course, I am referring to the Wellington Village's very own Parma Ravioli.

Card

Secondly, and I can't stress this enough, a well stocked pantry is a must. If you can't cook from scratch, a pantry that is well stocked with canned and dried ingredients allows you to shorten time to plate, but preserves the quality your dishes.

Based on what I cobbled together from my fridge, pantry, and herb garden:

Ingredients

• fresh veal and lamb tortellini
• sun dried tomatoes
• garlic
• shallots
• basil

Here's what turned out:

Plated Quick Pasta Dinner
Method:

1. Blanch (briefly plunge into boiling water and remove to cold water) the sundried tomatoes as directed on the back of the package. This will soften the tomatoes enough to handle them.
2. Drain and finely chop the tomatoes
3. Cook the fresh tortellini as directed. For mine, this involved 5 minutes of simmering in salted boiling water. Since they will be further cooked in the pan with the shallots, garlic, and tomatoes, cook the pasta to super-aldente (very toothy)
4. Reserve 3-4 tbsp of pasta cooking liquid
5. Finely chop shallots and garlic
6. Add 3-4 tbsp of olive oil to a pan and gently sweat the shallots and garlic with a pinch of salt on medium heat.
7. Add the reconstituted tomatoes to the pan
8. When the oil colours red and the aromatics soften, add the pasta
9. Stir until combined and add the cooking liquid. The cooking liquid contains enough starch, that it will combine with the cooking oils and thicken to form a sauce to coat everything in the pan.
10. Stir until the pasta is coated with the tomatoes and aromatics
11. Plate and top with chiffonaded basil

Done!

BTW, it seems that I always make pasta with this method for Mademoiselle Ling every time she comes to visit. It's usually the first dish I serve when she arrives.

I've followed one of the older tech news/review sites since before the web really had a version (today: Web 2.5 almost 3.0). During that time HardOCP, or [H] (as it is sometimes referred to), has retained a constant identity, which seems firmly entrenched in Web 1.5. This is because [H] was one of the pioneering websites to develop a large user base in a online forum. Since this forum is located on a separate site, called HardForum, [H] is not quite Web 2.0. [H], itself, is populated by independent computer hardware reviews and hardware-related news items. The news items are also characteristic Web 1.5. The vast majority are drafted from links that are sent by e-mail to the site moderators.

One of today's news items was entitled "No Calorie Chips, Made Out of Paper." Ordinarily, chips are separated by several degrees from computer hardware. That is, unless a [H] moderator, named Steve, points out that potato chips are a staple for LAN parties.

Such an outlandish title requires an obligatory picture. The chosen image includes two bags of the chips and a less than flattering picture of the Icelandic "Product Designer" who "innovated" them (Hafsteinn Juliusson). The image was lifted from the designer's online portfolio. It follows:

Hafsteinn Juliusson, Product Designer Extraordinare
Here is a better picture of Hafsteinn Juliusson's no calorie chip alternative, called Slim Chips.

Slim Chips
They're indeed made from paper and come in sweet potato, blueberry, and peppermint flavours.

If you think, coloured, flavoured, and crisped edible paper is whacky, Juliusson has another food-related innovation: Kebab-Style Blóð-Berg Drink.
Here is the "Arctic Thyme"-based drink:

Drink
Here is the Kebab preparation:



Drink Kebab
To serve, ice is shaved off the ice chunk and placed into cups. Kebab cones anyone?

As I recently remarked, I outright refuse to purchase a car because of the incremental negative effect another vehicle on the road will have on the environment. However, I discovered that the money I save from maintenance and fuel is spent on my now doubled grocery bill. Groceries have become more expensive. You are either paying more for the same product or you are paying the same price for less.

With respect to the latter, shrinking packaging, ABC's network news aired a story about the phenomenon last June. Apparently, everything from ice cream to paper towels are shrinking. In fact, so many examples of shrinking packages were found that ABC could not fit them all in their report. Instead, the report pointed to the consumerist.com website for more information.

Further exemplifying the trend, an early September article from the Associated Press included a product survey that identified certain name brand products that have shrunk. Here are some highlights:

• Kellogg Co. has shrunk the packages of 14 items sold under the its Jacks, Cocoa Krispies, Corn Pops, Froot Loops and Honey Smacks brands by an average of 2.4 oz
• PepsiCo Inc. shrunk its large jugs of Tropicana orange juice from 96 oz to 89 oz
• Unilever shrunk its jars of Skippy peanut butter from 18 oz to 16.3 oz
• Unilever, also reduced its jars of Hellman's mayonnaise from 32 oz to 30 oz.
• Wrigley Jr. Co. reduced the number of sticks of gum in each Juicy Fruit, Big Red, Doublemint and Winterfresh brand package from 17 to 15.

While I wanted to scour the local grocery store shelves for similar occurrences, I've been recently warned that store owners do not look too favorably on a person with a digital camera, taking pictures of products in their stores. Apparently, they have the right to 1) escort me off store property and 2) ban me from their store for life. If they escort me off store property unceremoniously, it's a value added service. As such, I'm holding off from doing a product survey of my own.

However, here's an example of a product I purchased from the Superstore at the corner of Richmond and Kirkwood that is bucking the trend.

Pom - Pomegranate Tea Pre-August 2008

Pom - Pomegranate Tea - Post-August 2008
Differences:

• increase from 399 ml (13.5 fl oz) to 473 ml
• change from glass bottle with hermetically sealed lid to plastic bottle with screw top lid

Now I'm wondering how much those glass bottles cost to manufacture if the drink maker can increase the amount of tea by 74 ml and maintain the same price.

Redflagdeals.com is currently holding a "back to school" online raffle to win, of all things, Kraft Dinner (KD). According to the information on the website, the raffle is targeted at students "paying their way through school" to "help make sure that they always have(SIC) something to eat." The entire mountain of Kraft Dinner goes to whomever comes closest to guessing how many boxes are in the pile. Guesses are submitted online. Here is a link to the contest rules. The winner will be announced September 24, 2008.

What I really found amusing about the raffle is the comment that was posted with the announcement: "Looks like a great way to get scurvy." Medterms.com defines scurvy as follows:

A disorder caused by lack of vitamin C. Symptoms include anemia; soft, bleeding gums; and bumps under the skin near muscles. Scurvy in early childhood can cause musculoskeletal problems. Treatment is by including foods high in vitamin C in the diet, and by vitamin C supplements if needed. See also: Paprika.

With respect to the "See also: Paprika", apparently Nobel laureate Szent-Györgyi won his prize because he isolated a substance from paprika peppers that cured scorbutic disease (scurvy). He named it ascorbic acid, which is otherwise known as Vitamin C. Paprika peppers have 5-6 times the Vitamin C of oranges or lemons.

To the winner of the mountain of KD, you may want to add paprika peppers to your bowls of mac and cheese. At the very least, season your noodles with paprika.

To everyone else, the price of KD at Superstore is $0.99/box this week (week of September 9, 2008). No name is somewhat cheaper and it too comes in a pile:

No Name Mac N Cheese

In related news, Starbucks is offering a complimentary cup of coffee to all teachers (K-12) in Ontario and Western Canada. Proof of teacher status includes a teachers' federation card or school district badge. Entitled, the "Great Start for Great Teachers" special, the offer ends September 29, 2008.

If you're wondering who's winning the gadget blog war, Gizmodo or Engadget, I have to say that Gizmodo just edged into the lead. Last weekend, on Saturday morning, Gizmodo posted an exclusive interview with none other than Alton Brown, host of my all-time favourite cooking show, Good Eats. The interview centers around asking the Food Network star what gear he took with him during his filming Feasting on Waves, his latest travel food mini-series.

In case you are not familiar with the his "Feasting On" travel food mini-series, during the past 3 years AB put a crew together and filmed an expedition, sampling local food and cuisine along the way. His past two outings were motorcycle-based and stayed in the continental United States. Hence, they were called Feasting on Asphalt. Apparently, both expeditions were so well received that the Food Network decided to fund a similar expedition by boat in the Caribbean. Here is a summary from the Food Network website:

Alton Brown goes in search of America's culinary roots and Caribbean flavors in Feasting on Waves. He starts his journey on St. Kitts (aka St. Christopher), named by and for Christopher Columbus on his second journey to the new world. Alton, like Christopher, is traveling North and West through the Leeward Islands and on to the British Virgin Islands. Alton maintains the spirit of Feasting on Asphalt and seeks out the most authentic and traditional foods of the regions and meets the people who created them. Restaurants are the most obvious targets but Feasting is about the unexpected, so Alton also ventures to find roadside stands, street vendors, farmer's markets, farms, spice houses and homes of local cooks who make specialties of the region.

According to the Gizmodo interview, besides the standard HD audio/video equipment, AB armed himself with Panasonic?s yet to be released HDC-HS100 AVCHD camcorder, an Apple Iphone, a Garmin GPS, and a pair of film cameras. Interestingly, he took no computer with him, neither Mac nor Windows laptops.

What really surprised me was that, while AB insisted on being tape-less for filming, he didn't take a digital SLR camera with him for pictures. Instead, he took a 30-year old "metal Canon EF" for slides (slide film) and a 35 mm Leica Point and Shoot (POS) with a fixed 40 mm lense for print (print film). The canon camera is eerily familiar. It looks a lot like my father's old trusted manual Canon camera, which, even with film's imminent death, I doubt he would be willing to part with.

The images come from Marion Laney (ForgottenGulf.com), care of the Gizmodo website. Interestingly, when I went to the ForgottenGulf website, I saw no footage from Feasting on Waves. The reference stands nonetheless.

As for me, I can't wait to see the first episode that aired last night. Homemade DVR FTW!

If ever there is a tell-tale sign that summer is at an end, it has to be the sea of frosh (aka: freshmen), swarming unsuspecting workers during an event called Shinerama. Each year, when downtown workers arrive for work after Labour day, they find newly minted university students strategically placed at every street corner and bus stop, canvasing donations to fund research into cystic fibrosis. Donors are handed colorful stickers. The goal is to sticker every downtown worker.

This year, I found that some enterprising students actually followed people going to and returning from coffee shops. This is because, if you're carrying a fresh cup of coffee, you often have a pocket full of change.

After the past two Shineramas, when I got home and removed my sticker, I headed straight to my balcony to harvest all my basil to make pistachio pesto. By the first week of September my homegrown basil plants are usually tall enough to reach my hip. This is when I know that they have grown enough leaves that I can make a big enough batch of pesto to cook with.

My recipe for pesto is pretty simple: 1) dump all the leaves I can strip off 2 stalks of mature basil into a food processor, 2) add a handful of unsalted roasted pistachios, 3) salt and pepper, 4) drizzle in about a 1/4 cup of olive oil, and 5) pulse until combined. Pesto has many uses.

This year, when I went out to fetch my basil, I found that it had invaded the other potted plants.

Basil with the Japanese Peonies

Basil with a Tomato Plant

Basil under the Lilly plant

One excellent use for pesto is pizza:

Lazy Man's Ready Made Pizza Crust

First Pizza

Second Pizza

First Pizza Baked

Maybe it'll become a tradition: Shinerama Pesto Pizza every September after Labour Day.

BTW, cold pesto pizza makes great breakfast food.

Cold Pesto Pizza

A non-pizza application follows after the jump:

More after the jump...

In March, I posted one of two entries about the Greatest Epicurean Achievements in the History of Humankind. One of these abominations was the legendary Luther Burger. It consists of a hamburger patty, a slice of sharp cheddar cheese, and two rashers of crisped bacon, sandwiched in between a halved Krispy Kreme "Original Glazed" doughnut. In the entry, I mentioned that Luther Burgers are served, on occasion, on campus at Google.

Here is proof that Google serves Luther Burgers to its employees:

Luther Burgers at Google's Cafeteria
I found the image on Kris Abel's blog at ctv.ca. He found the image in an August 26th entry from the hopelessgeek blog. The image itself comes from a flickr collection, belonging to the handle "ccaveness."

It is a well known perk that "Googlers" are fed on the company's dollar. In fact, the company budgets approximately $7530 USD to feed each employee per year. This determination was based on allyinsider.com's estimate of $15 USD/meal and entitling each employee to breakfast, lunch, and snacks everyday.

According to a news article from cnet, the meal entitlement once included dinner. Furthermore, in the interest of reducing costs and curbing new employees gaining the typical "Google 15" (or Google 20) lbs, the tea trolley and afternoon snacks may also be axed.

Whatever the case, you gotta admire a company that fuels its people with cutting edge food so they can produce cutting edge software. Luther burgers are recent innovations in the food world. Speaking of cutting edge software, I have to mention Tuesday's beta release of Google's experimental web browser, entitled Chrome.

As an aside, what concerns me about Chrome is one term that used to be in Google's licensing agreement and regards their taking ownership of clicks and form submitted content. If Google originally wanted ownership, this means that they may have already implemented the software function to collect the information in the software itself. I've yet to install Chrome to see how it sets off a workstation software firewall.

Some time ago, I wrote an entry about how a restaurant, called Le Bop, served a New York treat (Lox on a Bagel) to some grateful public servants on the Gatineau side of the river. I happen to be one of them.

This summer, Le Bop underwent renovations and revisitted their menu. While new windows, new floors, and some original fixtures were put in, the Lox on a Bagel platter was dropped from the menu. In its place is now the "Kyushi___ Salmon Sandwich", which goes for $11.00. If you think $11.00 for a sandwich platter is a little steep, my colleagues have informed me that Le Bop's famous nachos are $2 more as well. To add insult to injury, nachos now comes with either sour cream or guacamole. If you want both, it'll cost you. If you want additional sour cream or guacamole, it'll cost you.

Getting back to the new sandwich, to put it mildly, I wasn't impressed. In place a gently toasted bagel with thin slices of soft smoked salmon, savory cream cheese, sweet red onions, and sour capers, Le Bop's owners decided to put a dry sorry excuse of a fish burger. From what I could tell, the cook took canned salmon, mixed it with mayonnaise and breadcrumbs, formed it into a patty, glazed it with teriyaki sauce, and pan fried it. He or she then sandwiched the now double cooked salmon (canned salmon is already cooked by the canning process) in a whole wheat kaiser roll and topped it with wasabi mayonnaise. It was served with a side of very fresh salad and some starchy lukewarm fries. Judging from their colour and texture, the fries were more than likely fried from frozen.

At $14 (including taxes and tip), I decided to boycott the restaurant for the next little while and set forth to make my own Lox on a Bagel.

Now, since the sandwich is a bagel sandwich, I figured I'd start with a really nice bagel from the Ottawa Bagel Shop, my local bagel establishment. The Ottawa Bagel Shop smokes its own salmon to boot, so, one morning, I picked up a dozen sesame seed bagels ($6.95) and a package of smoked salmon ($6.29) and headed home for lunch. The cost: $13.24 (including taxes)

Here's what turned out:

Ottawa Bagel Shop's In-house Smoked Salmon

What's left of my Dozen Bagels

Halves, Smeered with Cream Cheese, Dotted with Capers, and Layered with Pre-sliced Smoked Salmon

Plated and Served

So, for $0.71 more, I'm down a side of salad and fries, but I'm up 11 freshly made sesame seed bagels and a luscious Lox on a Bagel sandwich.

BTW, here's how you rejuvenate a day old bagel from the Ottawa Bagel Shop.

Sprinkle with water, Wrap in aluminium foil, Bake at 350°F for 10 minutes

Particulars:
Le Bop
5 Aubry
Hull, QC
(819) 777-3700

The Ottawa Bagel Shop
1321 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON
(613) 722-8753

It's the first Monday of September, which in Canada marks Labour Day. Why is this significant? Traditionally, Labour Day also marks the beginning of a new school year. Be it, kindergarten, public school, junior high school, high school, college or university, schools open today. Classes begin tomorrow.

With respect to post secondary schools, today is also the day that the influx of out-of-town students peaks and campuses become busiest with parents hurriedly moving their children into their respective residences. According to yesterday night's evening news telecast, this holiday weekend will see the population in the national capital (Ottawa-Gatineau) region swell by approximately 79 000 students who will be studying in one the four local colleges or universities.

What does this have to do with food? For one, students moving into residences at one of Ottawa's two universities adopted a new food-related tradition this weekend. Incoming students at Carleton University received home-baked cookies from their new president, Dr. Roseann O?Reilly Runte. It is a tradition that Dr. Runte has upheld for over 20 years. In Friday's edition of the local commuter paper, Metro, she estimated that she will hand out approximately 2600 cookies to arrivals. What astounded me was that she baked 2000 of them personally. Over the years, she has found chocolate chip cookies to be the most popular.

Secondly, 79 000 incoming students impact local eateries, grocery stores, and other related businesses. It means meal plans for those in on-campus residences and groceries or takeout for those in off-campus housing. For both, the vast majority of students' budgets rarely allow them to frequent local restaurants beyond the local pizzerias or pubs. For the latter, students have to find a way to balance preparing their own meals, maintaining a modest household, and surviving the onslaught of homework. A lot of them also need to hold down a part time job to maintain a positive cash flow. Unfortunately, as an article from the Washington post reads, typical students quickly exhaust their limited cooking repertoire in the first week of classes and begin a "steady diet of delivered food."

One solution is to give students a crash course on food preparation pre-Labour Day Weekend. This way, they have the skills to quickly prepare dishes and the knowledge to turn ingredients from weekly grocery sales into nutritious meals. One example of such a course was organized by the Washington Post: Cooking 101. It was taught by Chef Susan Holt, founder of an American cooking school. During the one-time class, she taught two teenage students to prepare homemade meals. The curriculum included basic knife skills, seasoning basics, some molecular gastronomy, and even some filo-work. As the article from the Washington Post states, the majority of the skills taught used to be traditionally passed from parent to child.

The lack of knowledge transfer was exemplified during my better half's schooling when I caught her trying to teach a former fellow student how to make ramen noodles over instant messaging. The attempt was somewhat unsuccessful as he later complained that his noodles were too salty. Apparently, he neglected to add water and opted to just season his noodles with the instant soup pack. Ramen, btw, turned 50 this year.

Speaking of eating well, I recommend new students and former ones alike consult the new Canadian food guide. It has been updated to better reflect Canada's diversity by including some ethnic foods. As I discovered on redflagdeals.com, print copies are free. For quick reference, here is a link to a html copy. And, here's a link to a pdf copy.

Happy eating to all this Labour Day. I'm off to enjoy some sunlight.