Many-a-time, I've heard stories of the legendary apple, ham and cheddar sandwich. Recently, I've even come across a melt, featuring the same ingredients on sliced sourdough:

Cheddar, Ham, and Apple Melt
According to the description from "Tales of an LA Addict" on flickr.com, the ham is smoked, the cheddar is sharp, and the bread is smeared with apple butter. The apple looks thinly sliced.

To me, it makes perfect sense. The apple provides sharpness and sweetness to contrast the savoriness of the ham and cheddar. As such, I decided to apply the theory to apple pie.


An unassuming surprisingly good store-bought apple pie

Take a slice and shred some cheese on top

Microwave for 15 seconds and the disaster is complete

Substitute bread for pastry. Substitute mozzarella for cheddar. Substitute fresh apples for cooked.

To borrow a line from the character Ross (played by David Schwimmer) in one of my favourite episodes ("The One Where Ross Gets High") of the sitcom Friends, "It tastes like feet!" While I have no idea what feet really taste like, I feel that the innate disgust from the very idea of tasting feet is appropriate to what I put in my mouth. The hot melted cheese, sweet pastry, and warm apples didn't mix. There was sweet and very little savory. The textures were just wrong.

Back to the drawing board. Please do NOT try this at home!

BTW, if you're interested in the scene that featured Ross' line, youtube currently hosts it:

The episode is yet another classic Thanksgiving special. Personally, I feel that Friend's former writers saved the best material for Thanksgiving, but that may just be me.

This Just In: The day after boxing day, Jenn made me the following ham and cheese melt for breakfast.

Ham and Cheese Melt
She made it in a fry pan with some margarine; hence, the lovely crisp crust. Unfortunately, we had no apples, so I'm still looking to try the apple, ham, and cheese sandwich. This, you should try at home!

On September 8, 2008, the west-end NiHao Tea House (81 Holland) closed up shop, citing poorer than expected business. We at foodiePrints really enjoyed having a tea house nearby, especially one that served bubble tea. It is somewhat surprising as I always saw clientèle in the restaurant just about every time I walked by. Then again, since I commute to work in Hull everyday, I usually walked by on the weekends. Perhaps weekday traffic was poor and employees from the nearby office complexes chose to eat or drink elsewhere.

Here are the notices that were displayed in NiHao's windows during the fall months:

Front Window Logo

Front Window Notice

Main Entrance Hours

Main Entrance Notice

NiHao isn't the first Asian-style Tea House to fall in Ottawa. For those of you older readers, you may remember the Sweet Potato Cafe.

Sweet Potato Cafe
When the Sweet Potato Cafe opened, it was one of the first restaurants to serve bubble tea in Ottawa. The cafe was originally run by a Taiwanese family who served a Taiwanese menu to a total of 6 tables in what looked like a converted town house. Everything was made to order, but, sometime between my going there as a university student and 2007 when I took the picture, the restaurant closed. It may have been location. The Sweet Potato Cafe was tucked away on one of the side streets off of Chinatown's main drag, Booth Street. I surmise that, when the rest of the restaurants on Somerset (Chinatown proper) started serving bubble tea, including some dedicated bubble tea restaurants, the notoriety faded and people stopped going.

That said, someone has already purchased NiHao's closed location and chosen to open up a shawarma house, which will compete directly with Les Grillades. Les Grillades, another proprietor of middle-eastern food, is situated almost next door.

Here is the new signage that my better half and I saw shortly after Christmas.

Shawarma House
Called the "Shawarma House", it will be the third restaurant we've seen try to make business in the same location.

Speaking of which, the Allo Allo cafe on Hinton Avenue (78) has also called it quits.

Allo Allo front Window

Notice of Rental
According to Ottawa Foodies, Allo Allo is the last attempt to re-establish business by the owners of the former Westboro Bakery, which used to be located on Richmond Road. Like several other businesses in Westboro, recent property revaluations caused the Westboro Bakery to re-locate because rent more than doubled. Unfortunately, their new location, Allo Allo did not fair well. Again location may have been an issue. The cafe was located very "off the beaten track" from main traffic; two streets off Holland, behind a large condo building.

Best of luck all eateries in 2009! Cheers.

Particulars:
Shawarma House
81 Holland Avenue
(613)722-4800

Les Grillades
85 Holland Avenue
(613)792-3224

Perhaps one of the most "head-slapping, why didn't I think of it mash-ups" is the MenuDB web application, which currently only hosts scanned menus from restaurants situated in Ottawa and Kingston. It has an intuitive web 2.0 interface (AJAX-ified) that features a Google Maps widget with tags to all restaurants for which the application has menus. Click on a tag and MenuDB renders a webpage with the name of the restaurant, its address, its phone number, and its menu.

MenuDB organizes restaurants according to categories ( "Asian", "Carribean", "Casual", "Pizza", "Spanish", "Thai", etc.), and by location ("Downtown", "Lowertown", "Market", "Nepean", "Somerset", "Chinatown" and "Vanier"). One of the most useful features has to be the fact that the team that maintains the web application also stores the hours for each restaurant. MenuDB tells you whether or not a restaurant is open, whenever you select one for display.

Here is a link to the Ottawa version. There are tags everywhere!
Here is a link to the Kingston version. Not surprisingly, the majority of tags are along Princess Street.

Cheers, to the developers. This is a bloody good idea!

Welcome to installment three of "Funny Pictures for a Dirty Mind." FoodiePrints' first and second installments covered everything from candies to juicers.

Speaking of which, let us start with cookie cutters that maybe somewhat inappropriate for the holiday season:

Kama Sutra Cookie Cutters
Source: Boy'sStuff.co.uk

A little more appropriate, colour-wise anyways, is ketchup.

Apparently, Heinz, perhaps the most well known purveyor of the iconic red sauce, decided to embrace the tomato in 2007.

Seeds
Source: Shedwa Pop Culture and Advertising Blog


Slices
Source: Shedwa Pop Culture and Advertising Blog


Stem
Source: Shedwa Pop Culture and Advertising Blog

In 2008, Heinz introduced Hot Ketchup, Ketchup with a spicy kick. In the same vein, it put forward some spicy marketing:

Sizzling Advertising
Source: An old digg.com entry, whose link I have since lost.

And here's a less explicit, but equally creative advert for Hot Ketchup:

Hot Like Matches
Source: AdsOfTheWorld.com blog

As per the previous installments, here is a whimsical picture:

How to Cook Everything By Mark Bittman
Baby in a pot aside, Mark Bittman's cookbook is a treasure trove of recipes for "minamalists." While I do not consider myself a minamalist, I follow Bittman's New York Times column. The man is an everyday genius!

This just in:

Old Post Card
Here's a whimsical picture that more matches the previous installments. It is a scan of a postcard that my dad collected on his tour through Europe when he was a student.

Typical of Canadian suburbs, Kanata is replete with strip malls. Principle amongst them is the Kanata Centrum, a sprawling retail and entertainment hub for residents of the west end of the greater Ottawa area. Centrum is strategically located at the intersection of two major arteries, Terry Fox Drive and Kanata Avenue. Ottawa's Queensway (Highway 417) also exits onto Kanata Avenue within seconds of Centrum.

Typical of big strip malls, Centrum hosts a number of large chain restaurants. Here is a somewhat incomplete listing as new eateries seem to appear every 6 months, including a soon to open Montana's Cookhouse:

• Baton Rouge
• Boston Pizza
• Extreme Pita
• Harvey's
• Jack Astor's
• Joey's Only Seafood Restaurant
• Kelsey's
• Mexicali Rosa's
• McDonald's (inside of Walmart)
• O'Connor's Irish Pub
• Pizza Pizza
• Quizno's
• Scores Rotisserie and Ribs
• Starbuck's (inside of Chapter's)

Interestingly, Centrum once hosted one of Ottawa's 5 Denney's. Today, only 2 survive. The Centrum location closed shortly after 2004/2005 NHL lockout, blaming slumping sales on lower patronage during the hockey season. Scotiabank Place, home of the Ottawa Senators, is a 5 minute drive from Centrum.

What few family run restaurants at the Centrum serve ethnic fare and seat far fewer patrons than the large chain restaurants. They include Sushi Kanata, Ox Head Restaurant (a Vietnamese Pho house), and Thi Fusion (a higher end Asian fusion restaurant).

Recently, another large chain restaurant, popular in Western Canada, joined the fray, Moxie's Classic Grill. Previously, Ottawa's only exposure to Moxie's was in the form of a small establishment at the Bayshore Shopping Mall. The Moxie's restaurant at Centrum is much larger and more elaborate, capable of hosting approximately 200 patrons at any time in its dining room and lounge areas.

At the Centrum Moxie's, the atmosphere is intended to be sophisticated with dark coloured furniture, high seated tables, and an otherwise low light interior. It also features a very long bar with hundreds of bottles of 5 major brand liqueurs neatly displayed in a back lit floor-to-ceiling display case.

Jenn and I tried to go to the newly opened Moxie's at Centrum three times since the summer. Each time was with her family to celebrate a birthday. Each time we were given unreasonable wait times for a table to seat six people for dinner. Like the other 21 Moxie's establishments across Canada, the Centrum location does not take reservations for dinner on Fridays or Saturdays. This is particularly problematic Friday and Saturday evenings when Kanata suburbanites tend to swarm the Centrum's eateries for dinner.

One Saturday afternoon, I accompanied a number of Jenn's colleagues to Moxie's for a celebratory lunch to mark the end of the fall semester. There, we discovered that Moxie's has a slightly modified front-of-house line-up.

According to its human resources (HR) website, the Centrum Moxie's employs, managers, supervisors, servers, lounger servers, bartenders, and hosts. To match its high end decore, Moxies employs multiple hosts and hostesses to create the "first impression", greet guests, "determine tables", "manage guest flow", take care of waiting guests, "create anticipation", seat guests, create the "last impression" and be the "last line of defense." At the Centrum Moxies, hosts are all female, blonde, skinny, and provocatively dressed. Waiters are all female, blonde, skinny, and provocatively dressed. This also seems to be the trend at other Moxie's as well. Take the Moxie's at the Yorkdale Mall in Toronto. Seven of the ten reviews on the restoronto-reviews.com website mention "stunning" female staff whose uniforms leave little to the imagination: "very short skirts" and "low cut tops." One, even likens the restaurant to a "top notch Hooters."

In Ottawa, there are rumors floating around that Moxie's contracts for its hosts differ from those for its waiters. Resembling more modeling contracts, there are specific clauses that involve weight gain and pregnancy. While I could find no evidence of such in the job descriptions from its HR website, all server positions mention "Quality, Service & Cleanliness (QSC) criteria " as duties. Hosts and hostesses have no such criteria listed.

This said, service during our lunch was replete with mistakes. Each was unforgivable because it was lunch time, there was no lunch rush, the majority of the tables were empty, and there was little turnover.

Mistake 1:
My better half ordered a glass of 7-up before we ordered our dishes. One of her colleagues ordered a club soda. The drink Jenn was served tasted like club soda, carbonated, but not sweetened. When we inquired, we were told that there was no mix up. The waitress then left to inquire about the odd taste. She returned telling us that "someone" had mistakenly not added any sugar to the batch made. She then dutifully took back the unsweetened glass and informed us that another will be forthcoming. When she returned, she told us that they were out of 7-up. This culminated in apology number 1.

More follows after the jump..

More after the jump...

If ever I had to question foodies making much ado about nothing, it would have to be the grilled cheese sandwich and the over-the-top lengths that Los Angeles chefs are taking to make theirs the "best." Yahoo published a hotly contested top 10 list of tips from a book entitled "Great Grilled Cheese", by author Laura Werlin. According to an older article from the New York Times, ordering an LA grilled cheese sandwich can be surprising. It can come slathered with short ribs, topped with caper purée and decorated with piquillo peppers. It can come topped with a quail egg.

That specific article even spawned the Serious Eats mega-blog to create the "Serious Eats Grilled Cheese Honor Roll", which, accordingly, does not discriminate between variations on the grilled cheese sandwich, so long as it is delicious. This means that one of the bastions of food blogging has accepted that no matter whether the grilled cheese sandwich is made with freshly baked sourdough, rubbed with garlic, or Wonder Bread and Kraft Singles, all is fair.

Personally, I am of the opinion the food that most North Americans can readily identify as comfort should be true to its namesake: grilled bread (any will do), containing cheese (preferably grated,melted, and oozing). According to the New York Times article, this is the "missionary" and it is but one category that "grilled cheese artisans" compete in in something called the "Grilled Cheese Invitational." Further, while LA chefs seem to be expanding into the "kama sutra" category (grilled cheese++), most believe that the baseline for great grilled cheese is butter. It must be room temperature. Quality means quantity and it must be spread from crust to crust.

Here is a grilled cheese sandwich my better half lovingly created for me.

Grilled Cheese, sans butter
Pan toasted, stuffed with processed cheese, and served with baked (previously fried) potato wedges from the local Superstore (Kirkwood and Richmond), meet instant comfort at my house!

Here is a grilled cheese sandwich that I was served from the griddle at the Teriyaki restaurant at my office building.

Butter Griddled Grilled Cheese

Halved
Jung, I'm sorry, but I forget the name of your restaurant: TerriQ? But fear not, I see quality. Ladies and gentlemen, please take a gander at the crust on the griddled sandwich. The thin layer of crisp must have come from the afore-recommended layer of butter.

Is one better than the other? It depends on your situation. After a long hard day, I prefer the pan toasted grilled cheese when I am home. After 2 days of Christmas baking, 7 days of a bus strike, and waking up at 5:30 am to go to work, I was floored by the butter griddled grilled cheese sandwich. Reason: I can work off the heavy feeling that comes with eating what is essentially very shallow fried bread at the office. At home, I'd prefer to avoid the saturated fat when I want to relax.

This Christmas Ottawa was mired in a labour dispute that brought the city to its knees. The entire public transit system grounded to a halt when the union, representing employees with OC Traspo, clashed with Ottawa's City Council and its Mayor, Larry O-Brien. This left a good number of residents with significant challenges getting around during the holiday season, myself included. Where once I had a 15 minute commute to work by bus, I now had an hour long walk into Hull.

Nevertheless, my better half and I kept the now 3 year tradition of Christmas Baskets alive. In fact, we completely redesigned the 2007 Christmas Basket and put the prototype into production. Four models were released for shipping on December 20, 2008, just in time for Christmas Eve.

Introducing the 2008 lineup:

Christmas 2008 Baskets

This year, we traded up ceramic mugs for Christmas tins, shaped like lunch boxes. The tins came from Dollarama. The tins of butter cookies, Pharma Plus and the Maple Cookies, Sears. Instead of raiding the local Giant Tiger, we picked up large boxes of provisions (i.e. chocolates) from Costco.

Materials

Here are close ups of the finished products:

A lovely blue model

Another blue model

Limited edition red model

Here are the baskets, wrapped for shipping:

Blue Baskets

Individual Blue Basket

Red Basket

And yes, each found a grateful home!

We here at foodiePrints hope you had a Merry Christmas and wish you a Happy New Year!

I find it an interesting co-incidence that Panasonic chose to announce its robotic kitchen assistant just weeks after director Joseph McGinty Nichol (McG) released the official trailer for his new Terminator movie (Terminator: Salvation).

For those of my readers who haven't seen any of the three Terminator films that have been released over the past 2 decades or an episode of the related NBC television series, "Sarah Connor Chronicles", the common theme underlying the franchise involves an artificial intelligence (AI) that decides to eradicate the human race by instigating a nuclear holocaust. It then proceeds to build deadly "cybernetic organisms", called terminators, to complete the task.

While the AI that powers the household robot that was developed in co-operation between Panasonic and the University of Tokyo is far less sophisticated, the Kitchen Assistant Robot (KAR) demonstrates marked advancement in the world of robotics. With 18 sensors in its hand and an internal camera, this one-armed robot can pick up dirty dishes and glasses, rinse them in a sink, neatly line them up in the dishwasher, and press the start button. KAR can actually differentiate between cutlery, cups, and dishes. In fact, it is capable of handling delicate china.

The embedded image comes from dvice.com. A video of KAR in action can be found at Telegraph.co.uk.

According to its press release, Panasonic developed KAR for the emerging household robotic market in Japan that has potential to grow substantially within the next five years. Like many developed countries, Japan's population is aging quickly. KAR is intended ensure the quality of life for the elderly and the infirm. Panasonic's scientists promise to develop further functionality to address other household chores such as laundry.

With respect to the Terminator reference, the first Terminator movie, directed by James Cameron, was released in 1984. For those of you who remember 80s television, you may recall an episode of the original Knight Rider, entitled KITT. vs. KARR.", which aired in November. KARR (Knight Automated Roving Robot) was the prototype version of KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand), a talking '82 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am equipped with a "cybernetic processor" (AI). Apparently, KARR was initially programmed for self preservation, which, according to the storyline, made the prototype ruthless and unpredictable.

And thus demonstrates 3 degrees of separation between a kitchen appliance and universal armageddon...Stick an "R" at the end of its name and you've murderous Firebird Trans Am.

What do you do with left over "Sunday" roast, as the Brits call it? Since I always roast large cuts of beef to medium-rare, one Monday I decided to cut up what was left of Sunday's entree and made beef nachos.

Nachos are one of those no-brainer recipes. Normally, I'd use a ready-made bottle of salsa. Unfortunately, that evening I had none, so I cut up a fresh tomato, one red bell pepper, and 2 stalks of green onions (aka: scallions) and layered them along with the beef. Then, I topped everything with an amalgam of shredded cheddar and mozerella.

Nacho's Oven Ready

Texture Shot

After 7 minutes under the broiler, here's what turned out:

Nachos Done

Texture Shot

Now, this is a food fight posting, so that evening's homemade beef nachos are the home town contender. Chicken nachos from Le Bop are challenging.

Here are the legendary nachos from Le Bop, a Hull bar/restaurant that makes one of the best plates of nachos in the national capital region.

Le Bop's Chicken Nachos

And here's the bill:

Bill

The home town contender comes out punching:

• Cost: approximately $9 (bag of nacho chips: $2.99, vegetation: barely $3, cheese: half a brick so $3-ish)
• James K. Binkley of Purdue University recently released a study, stating that fast-food and table-service meals at restaurants are both larger and have more calories than meals prepared at home.

The challenger counters:

• Cost: $10 before tip and taxes
• Le Bop's chicken nachos come topped with black olives and hot peppers

The home town contender lands a lucky hit across the challenger's chin:

• Drinks are free!
• One sheet pan's nachos easily feeds 2 people
• The beef nachos were constructed with the toppings better distributed because there was more surface area to spread out the corn chips.

The challenger falters and tries to regain his balance:

• Le Bop charges $3-something for a glass of iced tea and the price doesn't include refills
• Le Bop's plate of chicken nachos only serves one, but extremely well
• Le Bop's chicken nachos were piled high, so if the eater is not prodigious with the toppings, he/she may end up with an unappetizing plate of naked corn chips.

Result: Draw!
Both plates of nachos were made with fresh and healthy ingredients. While Le Bop's chicken nachos only serve one and are constructed differently, I usually eat them for lunch with co-workers at the end of a long work week. There's something about tucking into a good plate of nachos at the local restaurant with people who deal with the same management and clientèle to celebrate surviving another week.

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

Apparently, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) has been holding charity gingerbread house competitions for the past seven years at the Rideau Centre. Proceeds go to Habitat for Humanity. This year's participants include local businesses, bakeries, restaurants, and culinary institutes. The winner was an entry by Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Institute. More information can be found at the CMHC website.

When Jenn and I walked by the display of gingerbread houses at the Rideau Center, the following was our favourite.

Gingerbread house competition entry by the Rideau Bakery
It seemed that many gingerbread men were injured to make the entry.

For the developing gingerbread house artiste, Superstore at Richmond and Kirkwood sells kits, no baking necessary.

Ginger Bread House Kits

A No Assembly Required Kit

For the more mature cookie enthusiast, President's Choice has introduced Do-It-Yourself (DIY) "kits" of sorts for baking fresh "Decadent" Chocolate Chip Cookies this Christmas.

Ready Made
For the no bake, no fuss crowd, there is the traditional (Delia Smith approved) ready-made version.

Decadent Chocolate Chip Cookies
Just open and serve.


Display
Cost: $2.49 for a 350 g package (approximately 30 cookies)

The Mix
For the more baking inclined crowd, there is the Decadent Chocolate Chip Cookie mix.

Decadent Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix

Powdered Mix
It comes with a powdered mix and chocolate chips. All you have to do is add butter, mix, portion, and bake.

Here are some my better half baked:

Portioned

Baked
Truth be told, they looked, tasted, and smelled like the original, cakey and rich.


Display
Cost: $2.49 for a 500 g package of mix (made 16 cookies)

Frozen Batter
For the more baking inclined and rushed crowd, there is pre-portioned frozen batter.

Frozen Batter

All you have to do is arrange and bake.

Cost: $3.99 for a 456 g package (makes 16 cookies)

Ever since I read that eating small portions of dark chocolate regularly could benefit my health, I've been eying store shelves for my next prescription. While I prefer Lindt or Drost dark chocolate portions, one Friday (December 5, 2008) morning, I came across a bag of foil wrapped dark chocolate pieces from Dove at a drug store (Uniprix in my office building). It was marked down $2.00 from its MRSP of $5.99 ($3.99), so I picked up a bag.


Dove Dark Chocolate Pieces

Individual Foil-wrapped Chocolates

While the chocolate itself tasted oddly waxy with slightly soapy notes, the chocolates were nevertheless an innovative solution for chocolate delivery. To my complete surprise, I found that Dove had printed suggestions on the underside of each foil wrappers, making them fortune-bearing chocolates.


Fortunes

The following are the "fortunes" that I came across:

• Start a Travel Fund - Voyagez maintenant. Payez plus tard.
• Give out the Wrong Number - Prenez-vous pour un autre
• Wear Matching Underwear - Agencez vos sous-vêtements
• Keep a promise - Respectez vos promessses
• Gossip Harmlessly - Prenez plaisir à potiner
• Have breakfast in bed - Déjeunez au lit
• Have a candlelight dinner - Soupez au chandelles
• Remember your first - Rappelez-vous de vos première fois

I hope that either Drost or Lindt follows suit. I refuse to buy dark chocolate for the wrapper and not the chocolate...

Particulars:
Uniprix
Beaulieu et Seguin
200 Promenade du Portage
Gatineau
(819)771-7439

The World Wide Web works in mysterious ways. While following a link from chipchick.com to slightly dubious kitchenware for car-bound mobile workers, I ended up on a page with some extremely questionable knife designs that have me wondering if the art of cooking has been truly lost.

Let's start with kitchenware that has been designed to give a mobile professional all the comforts of a fully equipped kitchen. Everything plugs into a car's 12 V cigarette lighter.

Full-size (10 cup) Coffee Maker
Source: roadpro c/o chipchick


Saucepan and Popcorn Popper
Source: roadpro c/o chipchick


Toaster Oven and Pizza Maker
Source: roadpro c/o chipchick

Now, let's talk about poorly thought out knife design that can lead to serious injury.

Do It All Knives

Do It All Knives, Individually Displayed
Source: Yanko Design c/o digital grafitti and chipchick

Why am I being so harsh to the designs by Ms. Caroline Noordijk? Embedding different "cutting-actions" into the "unused surfaces" of sharp kitchen knives doesn't make them more efficient, it makes them dangerous to use.

Good knife technique involves using the knuckles of one hand to guide the knife as the knife-holding hand performs the slicing and/or cutting motion. The "unused surface", that Noordijk seems to have issue with, rests against your knuckles. Embedding a peeler endangers your hand. A knife-embedded peeler also cannot not swivel, so it is difficult to follow a curve.

With respect to the zester, dragging a zester across the skin of citrus fruit can require a large amount of force. This is why zesters are usually mounted perpendicular to a handle. To apply the required tork with the zester-embedded knife, you have to hold the blade towards your hand. Should it slip, the knife edge could embed itself in the fleshy part of your hand.

Now, I'm not sure what the picture with the minced garlic is meant to demonstrate. Does the knife have an embedded micro-plane grater? Does the knife have "hollows"? If the latter, I have never understood why knife makers put hollows on anything besides long slicers such as gratons. Oval or circular hollows are meant to ensure that knives do not adhere to fruit, vegetables, or meat. The recesses reduce a knife's surface contact with food. However, smaller knives, like the re-designed ones above, do not have this problem as they already have very little surface contact.

Finally, removing metal from the blade of a knife to include such things as a peeler or a micro-plane grator reduces its structural integrity. Doing so creates areas where there is less little metal. These weak points can snap if the knife bends.

I wonder if Noordijk also designs bandages or gauze. If you purchase her knives, you'll need both to stem the bleeding as you rush to the hospital for stitches.

A sad day passed on March 25, 2008, when Herbert Peterson, inventor of what the Associated Press deems the "ubiquitous" Egg McMuffin, died at 89.

The image (right) comes from the AM New York Blog c/o the Associated Press.

A longtime franchisee and former vice president of McDonald's advertising firm, Peterson introduced the signature McDonald's breakfast sandwich in 1972 in one of his own restaurants.

Legend has it that Peterson was partial to eggs benedict and wanted to make it convenient and portable. Traditional Eggs Benedict is an open face sandwich preparation that consists of half an English muffin, topped with ham or bacon, soft poached eggs, and hollandaise sauce. Peterson's replaced the hollandaise sauce with a slice of processed American cheese. He formed the egg on the griddle with a Teflon circle and broke the yolk. He served everything on a toasted buttered English muffin with a slice of Canadian bacon. Initially, it was served open-faced, but customers quickly discovered that the firmed egg and cheese slice allowed the McMuffin, when sandwiched, to be eaten, one-handed and while driving.

Today, the McMuffin is recognized world-wide as a quick breakfast. As an example, here's a McDonald's breakfast featuring a Sausage McMuffin. I picked it up at a McDonald's franchise (1880 Carling Avenue) on my way to Bayshore one morning.

Sausage 'n Egg McMuffin

Firmed Egg

Greasy Sausage Patty

Hash Brown
Essentially, the Sausage 'n Egg McMuffin is a patty melt. The sausage however is quite greasy and easily passed the napkin window test. The firmed egg was also haphazardly done.

Cost: Sausage McMuffin ($1.31) + Hash Brown ($1.19) = $2.88 (including taxes)

The McMuffin breakfast sandwich form has also been widely adopted by many a food court restaurant to serve the hurried masses on their way to work. Here are two examples:

Firstly, here's a "pre-packaged" Egg McMuffin from Le Marché Info Deli at Place du Centre in Gatineau:

Pre-packaged Egg McMuffin- Front

Pre-packaged Egg McMuffin - Back

Cross Section
This McMuffin preparation features real bacon, a fried egg, and sliced mozzarella cheese. It is served chilled to room temperature, wrapped in plastic. At $2.98, it is a poor value when compare to the made-to-order McDonald's egg McMuffin, which is served hot.

Secondly, here's an "back to basics" Egg McMuffin from the Teryaki Kyoto Sushi Bar at Place Du Centre in Gatineau (and no, I'm not kidding!):

Teriyaki Kyoto Signage

Back to Basics Egg McMuffin
This McMuffin preparation features real crisped bacon, a griddle fried egg, and a slice of processed American cheese. Best of all, this toonie ($2.00) sandwich is made to order, so it is served hot. Why do I consider this "back to basics"? Well, it more closely resembles its inventor's intention: a portable eggs benedict. Cold eggs benedict isn't edible.

Unfortunately, according to August 18th's (2008) Source, Sun Media's Ottawa edition of its free commuter newspaper, an Egg McMuffin (sans sausage or bacon) carries a whopping payload of 300 calories.

Here is the breakdown:

• 300 calories
• 12 g of fat (5 g saturated, 0 g trans)
• 260 mg of cholesterol
• 820 mg of sodium
• 30 g of carbohydrates
• 2 g of dietary fibre
• 3 g of sugars

That's quite the caloric punch for a mere 139 g (4.8 oz) breakfast sandwich.

I guess there's always a price to pay for convenience. Then again, I've a feeling that Herb Peterson didn't intend his sandwich to be a daily occurrence. It doesn't make a lot of sense to eat eggs benedict (egg McMuffin-style or otherwise) everyday.

What do you do when you've a final exam in your evening French course, you've decided to head down to your former university's main library (Morissette) to study, and you're famished?

You determine that the most efficient path to sustenance is to go to the main campus cafeteria. There, you re-discover the horrors of post-secondary cafeteria food.

Apparently, my former university, the illustrious University of Ottawa, decided to renew its exclusive food service contract for its entire campus with Chartwells, an organization whose principle customer are local area public high schools.

Rationale? Perhaps management collectively decided to provide familiar tastes and smells to former secondary school students so they can quickly acclimatize to post secondary life. Same taste. More education?

Then again, the University of Ottawa is a research institution. Perhaps the decision is part of a broader inter-disciplinary experiment to determine the extent to which the human body can handle high school cafeteria food. At least 4 faculties benefit. The faculty of life sciences can determine physiological effects: weight gain, lethargy, and early-onset of cardiovascular disease. The faculty of social science can determine psychological effects of eating foods that high school cafeterias normally serve. The faculty of medicine can develop new methods to treat the toxic build-up of chemicals from processed foods.

If you think I'm exaggerating, I saw students with open face card board boxes of fried-from-frozen shoe-string fries. Burgers came wrapped in aluminum foil thermal pouches. Soup seemed to be made once a day in barrel-sized vats that encourage an unsightly crust to form around the soup's edge. The salad bar violates the law of conservation of mass. A true anomaly of physics, new salad is heaped upon old, assuming that the old salad disappears into nothing.

Not surprisingly, the most popular cafeteria food seemed to be pizza from the in-cafeteria Pizza-Pizza establishment. However, for some odd reason, a slice of pizza in the cafeteria runs you a dollar more than in any other franchise location throughout the city.

So...Same taste...More Education...Emptier Pockets....Great!

Thankfully, my better half and I came prepared. We stopped for provisions at the Richtree Market in the Rideau Centre on our way to campus. While our smuggled food cannot be considered healthy, it is far more edible than the vast majority of the cafeteria-served food.


Richtree Market

Focaccia Pizza (Bread with pizza toppings)

Focaccia Pizza Cross Section

Oversize Chocolate Chip Cookie

Given that it was almost Christmas, we picked up a ginger bread man from Richtree as well.

Gingerbread Man

Left Leg Missing

Limbless

Even with its mal-shaped icing, its impossibly thick and dense texture, and it sitting in a school bag for a couple hours, the gingerbread man provided much needed calories to continue studying into the evening.

To current students at the University of Ottawa, it is a telltale sign when students assigned to provide information to visitors encourage them to eat offsite.

As a former student I am left to question the quality of the my education when my university can be seen, subjecting its students to a large scale unethical experiment.

Particulars:
Richtree Market Restaurant
50 Rideau Street, Level 1
Rideau Centre Food Court
(613) 569-4934

Even with the uber-popular recipe repository allrecipes.com, I still enjoy receiving reliable recipes by e-mail from friends. To date, I've participated in several recipe exchanges. Even with the rating system from allrecipes.com, receiving an recipe from a friend engenders trust that goes beyond recipes with hundreds of positive reviews. Though, nowadays I am more likely to send people links to my blog than e-mail them a recipe.

That said, imagine my surprise when I was forwarded the following recipe by a co-worker:

AWESOME recipe! Please read on interesting concept. Here is a chicken recipe that also includes the use of popcorn as a stuffing - imagine that! When I found this recipe, I thought it as perfect for people like me, who just are not sure how to tell when poultry is thoroughly cooked, but not dried out. Give this a try.

BAKED STUFFED CHICKEN

• 6-7 lb. baking chicken
• 1 cup melted butter
• 1 cup stuffing (Pepperidge Farm is good.)
• 1 cup uncooked popcorn (ORVILLE REDENBACHERS LOW FAT)
• Salt/pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Brush chicken well with melted butter, salt and pepper.
3. Fill cavity with stuffing and popcorn.
4. Place in baking pan with the neck end toward the back of the oven.
5. Listen for the popping sounds.
6. When the chicken's ass blows the oven door open and the chicken flies
   across the room, it is done.
7. And you thought I couldn't cook ;-)

The e-mail just happened to coincide with a great sale from the Superstore for broiler fryer chickens, so I gave it a try.

$1.24/lb Fresh Whole Chicken
At $1.24/lb, I couldn't say no.

And here's my attempt:

Exploding Chicken

Just kidding!

The picture comes from my revisiting ginger-ale can chicken during the week of the sale.

This time around, I coated the chicken with an onion puree that was seasoned with salt, pepper, red pepper flake, and dried oregano. What came out was tender, juicy, and savory. It also had a very slight sweet gingery flavour.

Firstly, I took a chicken and impaled it on a "beer-can chicken stand", holding a can of ginger ale. Because the pesky chicken wouldn't stand on its own, I propped it up with a skewer.

Ready to Roast

Then, I placed it in an oven, preheated to 350°F, until the internal temperature of the dark meat reached 151°F.

Baked

Perfect done-ness for dark meat

Here are two more mugshots of the baked chicken.

Side

Back

To my readers, please be aware that a chicken was harmed in the making of this post. It was delicious!

One of the attractions of living in the Wellington Village is proximity to so many great eateries. Some are even characteristic of Ottawa. Take for instance the Ottawa Bagel Shop. When asked what are their favourite purveyors of bagels, Ottawa natives usually point to one of three: the Continental Bagel Bakery (in the Byward Market Square), Kellerman's Bagel's (several franchises are located across Ottawa), and the Ottawa Bagel Shop (in the Wellington Village).

When I discovered what a wood-fired sesame seed bagel tastes like from the Ottawa Bagel Shop, I decided that I didn't need to visit the other two bakeries. Why go elsewhere when the bagels close to home taste great: perfectly golden, pleasantly chewy, very slightly smokey, and never bready.

They're so good that the Superstore at the corner of Richmond and Kirkwood carry them bagged in their in-store bakery. Though, to enjoy them at their best, go to the source at day break. There is no better bagel than one from the Ottawa Bagel Shop's first batch of the day: soft, newly golden, and warm from the oven. I find it almost magical when the residual heat softens the butter or cream cheese as you apply it.

That said, the Ottawa Bagel Shop is more than just bagels. The bakery also carries gourmet products, slice to order deli meats, and other baked goods, including Art is In Bread. One of the cashiers recently told me that their Art Is In bread is baked in-house. I highly doubt that Kevin Mathieson works out of the bagel shop's basement, but the bread is fresh and new batches appear every morning, except Sundays.

The Ottawa Bagel Shop's gourmet selection includes raw milk cheeses, freshly cured smoked fish, olives, pickled vegetables, dips, and spreads. One of the in-house spreads is chopped liver, a deli staple. Savory, sharp, creamy, and topped with sweet caramelized onions, it goes beautifully with their plain or sesame seed bagels. Think savory chopped liver, tempered by the sweetness of caramelized onions.

Given that the Ottawa Bagel Shop carries deli meats, great bagels, specialty cheeses, an assortment of smoked fish, and its own chopped liver, it really shouldn't come as a surprise that it has an in-house cafeteria-style restaurant. There, they serve everything from bagel sandwich platters to freshly brewed coffee, pies, and pastries (including Jewish potato knishes). There is even a buffet bar with hot foods like black bean chicken, braised pastrami tips, and home-made pasta.

Jenn and I have visited the Ottawa Bagel Shop many times, always purchasing a dozen or so freshly baked bagels. We noticed that it had a coffee bar, but I prefer coffee from the Bridgehead coffee house several doors down. Bridgehead serves, what I feel is, the best cup of medium-roast Columbian coffee in the city. It's fair trade too. Nevertheless, curiosity got the better of the both of us and we eventually headed to the "other side" of the bagel shop and sat down for lunch one afternoon.

An account of our pricey lunch follows after the jump...

More after the jump...