Before we begin, for those readers of foodiePrints who know me personally, you know I am not a fan of Valentine's Day. I think it an artificial holiday, originally intended to benefit greeting card and mass-produced candy companies. In fact, I used to celebrate Valentine's Day with other detractors, many single and some in relationships, and an Anti-Valentine's trip to a pub. There, we would toast the couples who find themselves obligated to dine in fancier than usual restaurants for one evening of the year.

According a Wency Leung piece in the Globe and Mail, restaurants' front of house staff hate working Valentine's evening because of the heightened sense of tension amongst two-seater tables. The socially imposed ideal of a candlelit dinner on Valentine's Day, complete with flowers and chocolates, is not for everyone. Yet, couples engineer a night out that they end up spending in uncomfortable silence or loud bickering. The piece includes an account of public debauchery that I won't get into.

Now that I have found my better half, I am a proponent of embracing the aspects for which Valentine's Day seemingly celebrates with over-sized red plush dogs who have pink and white hearts sewn on them. That is, appreciate your significant other throughout the year. This includes everything from making them breakfast spontaneously on any given weekend to picking up flowers for them on the random occasion. Maybe the sun is shining especially bright one day.

Needless to say, I prefer not to celebrate Valentine's on February 14th. Last year, Jenn spent Valentine's Day with friends, skating the canal during Winterlude and shopping. I did have dinner awaiting everyone when she got home. But...I have been known to take her out several days before. This year, I am keeping that tradition. My gift to her: I'm leaving foodiePrints' camera and notebook at home.

Speaking of restaurants, I know some of my readers will have been rushing this past week to negotiate reservations for Valentine's Day. The day when a dozen roses costs 4-times to 10-times what they regularly cost. The day when store shelves are bereft of boxes of chocolates. The day when bins of red plush dogs are mysteriously empty.

Here are some suggestions for your last minute plans. Firstly, Ottawa has a large number of fine dining establishments, but bear in mind they vary from lower end sit down to higher end sit down. The following recommendations also happen to be the same as I give for the rest of the year. But, I do have one caveat. If your better half has a favourite restaurant, go there. Otherwise...

Small Plates
For small plates, something that won't break the bank, try Stephen Beckta's and Chef Michael Moffat's Play Food and Wine (1 York Street). The difference between the small plates format and traditional table d'hote or a la carte is structure. You have less structure and many more options with small plates. Having gone to Play twice, I really enjoyed the freedom of being able to order two plates (completely ignoring courses) and leisurely eating them amidst great conversation. If I were still hungry, I ordered another. Expert wine suggestions were even printed on the menu. Stephen Beckta was once somelier for the legendary Chef Daniel Boulud.

Bistros
For bistros, try Chef/Owner Arup Jana's Allium (87 Holland Avenue), which happens to be my favourite restaurant, or Chef/Co-Owner Steven Mitton's Murray Street Bistro (110 Murray Street). What I absolutely adore about bistros is the fact that you will eat great food, but in a more laid back atmosphere than higher end expensive restaurants. Heck, signature dishes to judge bistros by are steak and fries (steak frites) and mussels and fries (moules frites). I would normally recommend Black Cat (428 Preston Street), but its chef, Steve Vardy, recently departed, so I consider it a new restaurant, which I have yet to try.

High End
For something high end, there is Le Cafe, currently operated by Chef Michael Blackie. Le Cafe is the restaurant my better half and I visited on very special occasions when we started dating, then under the tenure of the late Chef Kurt Waldele. We have since returned to be served good, but not spectacular, food. Why do I recommend Le Cafe? Because it is a restaurant in Ottawa that aspires to provide the candlelit dinner ideal Valentine's Day perpetuates. If you need to go that far, Le Cafe meets all the necessary requirements: white linened tables, multiple sizes of forks and spoons, tea cozy lights, small floral center pieces, and classic French food.

Brunch?
Here is a suggestion that is somewhat avant garde. Given Valentine's Day falls on a Sunday this year, take your better half out to brunch. My suggestion is Benny's Bistro (119 Murray Street). As the Urban Foodie (@whisk_food_blog) wrote in her Metro Ottawa review, it is a little piece of Paris in downtown Ottawa. Only, the service is better and the dishes use local ingredients. Besides, with the French Bakery on the same premises, you know the bread will be good.

Links to write-ups on Allium, Play, Le Cafe and Benny's.

Here are some prospects for eateries I consistently hear great things about, but have not yet tried. For high end, there's Chef Rene Rodriguez's Navarra (93 Murray Street) and Stephen Beckta's eponymous Beckta Dining and Wine (226 Nepean Street). For a bistro option, there's Chef Chris Deraiche's Wellington Gastro Pub (1325 Wellington Street). Another brunch option is Jak's Kitchen (479 Bronson Avenue), in which I have only had coffee, but marveled at the menu and the plates served to tables around me.

Catered Valentine's
If dining out is out, it may be a little late to schedule a catered meal at home, like Andrea Tomkins of "A Peek inside the Fish Bowl" writes in her blog, but here are two caterers I know will put out an amazing spread: Epicuria Fine Foods and Catering (Chef/Owner Tracey Black) and Essence Catering (430 Parkdale Avenue) (Chef/Owner Jason Laurin). Linked are their Valentine's catered meals.

As for me, I'm taking my better half to Atelier (540 Rochester Street) for a 12 course meal that should prove another wondrous epicurean adventure. She and I foodies, we will have fun figuring out what Chefs Marc Lepine, Sarah Allen, and Michael Holland intended by the dishes. We also expect to have next to no idea how the dishes were prepared. Oh, I made reservations a month ago...

(The idea behind the images of the gummy bears out for a Valentine's dinner comes from the "á la discothèque" blog.)

Particulars:
Play Food & Wine
1 York Street
(613) 667-9207

Allium Restaurant
87 Holland Avenue
(613) 792-1313

Murray Street Bistro
110 Murray Street
(613) 562-7244

Black Cat Bistro
428 Preston Street
(613) 569-9998

Le Cafe
53 Elgin Street, Ottawa
(613) 594-5127

Benny's Bistro
119 Murray Street
(613) 789-6797

Navarra Restaurant
93 Murray Street
(613) 241-5500

Beckta Dining & Wine
226 Nepean Street
(613) 238-7063

Wellington Gastropub
1325 Wellington Street
(613) 729-1315

Jak's Kitchen
479 Bronson Avenue
(613) 230-2088

Epicuria Fine Food Store and Catering
419 Mackay Street
(613) 745-7356

Essence Catering
430 Parkdale Avenue
(613) 850-4776

Atelier
540 Rochester Street
(613) 321-3537

More after the jump...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Think Good Thoughts
Source: EpicWinFTW Website

Here is another.

Think Good Thoughts
Source: lorenzodom's Flickr stream

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

Crispy Chicken:

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


Crispy Chicken Box

Crispy Chicken in Reality

Big Mac:

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


Big Mac in Reality

Angus Burger:

Angus Burger as Advertised

Interesting Sticker

Angus Burger Box

Angus Burger in Reality

Big Mac Snack Wrap:

Big Mac Snack wrap as Advertised
Source: Health Kicker Website


Big Mac Snack Wrap Wrapped

Big Mac Snack Wrap in Reality

Big Mac Snack Wrap Opened

Promotional Buffalo Chicken Snack Wrap:

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


Buffalo Fried Chicken Snack Wrap Wrapped

Buffalo Fried Chicken Snack Wrap In Reality

Buffalo Fried Chicken Snack Wrap Opened

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Resident Chef, Candice Butler

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

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

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

Sundried tomato strata with C'est Bon Goat Cheese

Caramelized onion and pear tarts with Bleu Benedictine

Mini chicken pot pies

An individual mini chicken pot pie

In-house pork rillete with Rochon farm zucchini relish

Chicken dumpling with peanut sauce

Cod cake

Pulled pork with smoked tomato jam

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

Food Editor Ron Eade

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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