Imagine one of your co-workers, the "other" office foodie, wanders by and hands you a bottle of wine. She picked up a pair of wines from Nova Scotia's Jost Winery during her most recent trip to the maritimes. Jost is famous for their specialty "maple" wine. The bottle you were gifted was raspberry.

After examining the label, I looked up and, as innocently as possible, asked, "And, what makes you think I know anything about food?"

Silence.

"Well, I know less about wine.", I added.

Smiling, she responded, "It goes well with chocolate. Promise me you will try it and not just cook with it."

"So no raspberry wine reductions to add to ice cream or liquid nitrogen to make a sorbet?", I responded. Having friends in analytical labs comes in handy sometimes.

"Uhuh", she snorted. "You clearly know nothing about food."

She sauntered off, leaving me wondering how best to appreciate the wine. Given the office has a complement of wine aficionados, I chose to crowd-source a determination. I quickly ordered a box of chocolates from Lori Sword, talented chocolatier and owner of Koko Chocolates, and reserved a boardroom for lunch. Friday brown bag lunch, followed by a wine tasting, was a go.

Did I mention I work with amazing colleagues? After the invitation went out, another bottle of Jost Raspberry Wine found its way into my possession. This one, a year older.


Two vintages of Jost Raspberry Wine with Koko Chocolates

A Recent Bottle of Jost Raspberry Wine, beside another from when Jost called itself a Vinyard on its labels

When I submitted my order on the Koko Chocolates' website, I mentioned the chocolates were for a wine tasting. I did not ask for any specific truffles.

Chocolatier-Selected Truffles

The verdict, the raspberry wine was a great dessert wine with a different sweetness than would come from an ice wine. The older bottle of raspberry wine had a stronger astringent quality. The younger, a fruitier flavour.

Pouring the Raspberry Wine

Older Raspberry Wine

Younger Raspberry Wine
The older wine also had a lighter colour, almost orange.

The fruity sweetness went well with the darker chocolate selections Lori picked out for us.

Knowingly, I had Koko Chocolates' business cards ready when my colleagues asked. Everyone, remarked at the quality of the truffles. They had a crispness that comes from masterful tempering. The truffles were seamless. There was no caving.

The office foodie claimed the leftover chocolates. With more than 9 of us in the room and a pitcher for disposing of extra wine, the bottles were empty.

Between the thank-yous for organizing the event, I was asked when the next tasting would be. My response, "And, what makes you think I know anything about food?"

Particulars:
koko chocolates
45 Spencer Street
(613) 277-3254

foodiePrints is 4 years old, an adolescent, even in blog terms. Last month, Jenn and I felt it was high time it spoke its first words. After all, babies have been known to utter a word or two after 9 months and string words together between 2-3 years. After e-mailing organizer Lynn of the Turtle Head blog, we managed to fill a place left by a last minute cancellation. The bloggers behind foodiePrints would speak at Blog Out Loud Ottawa (BOLO).

And, no, this isn't a timely post. Jenn and I are attacking our blog's backlog now that our kitchen renovations have but minor touch-ups remaining. We actually walked into the 2010 BOLO venue, Irene's Pub (885 Bank Street), covered in a thin film of dry wall dust.

Bloggers ourselves, we follow a large number of blogs. Many are Ottawa-centric. Not surprisingly, the majority are food-related. I also have a collection of technology blogs I follow. We have had the good fortune to share coffee or lunch with some of our favourite bloggers in person. When I came upon the BOLO blog, several weeks before the event, it listed many local bloggers I would love to meet.

Besides schmoozing with some of Ottawa's creative writers, there is nothing like hearing authors read their works. It fills in the nuances and offers a glimpse at the thought processes behind the words.

While we enjoyed all of the readings and put faces to many of the twitter handles belonging to bloggers we follow, here are my stand-outs:

• Beautiful prose from Woodsy of Coloured Marbles (Between The Lines)
• Rich short story from XUP of XUP (Owen's Ear)
• Geeky good advice from Tanya of Spydergrrl on the Web (Embracing My Geekiness)
• Lively commentary on the state of the web from Elizabeth of And Go (Elizabeth re: Abusive Relationships)
• Hilarious recount of a torn personality when wasps make her house their home from Nat of Nat's Brain (Waspageddon)
• Very touching thoughts from Rebecca of A Little Bit of Momsense on her baby daughter, then 4 months old (An Ode To My Sweetie)

Jenn and I read our post about food and generosity. It highlights the work of chefs and restaurateurs who donate resources and time to raise funds for various causes and charities.

So, what does one do at Blog Out Loud? You meet new people. You chat. You listen to blogs speak.

Bloggers and Attendees

Nat of Nat's Brain

BOLO Sticker

If you're lucky, you get to try one of the bloggers' cookies.

Elizabeth of And Go's delicious Lavender and Lemon Cookies

Oh, and you order dinner along the way....

Decently Grilled Burger

Fresh Salad
Cost for a pair of burger platters and 2 ice teas: $30.86 (after taxes, before tip)

Alas, we had to leave early, missing readings from Dani of Postcards from the Mothership (In Which My Vexatious Breasts Get a Makeover), fellow food blogger Jennifer of It Ain't Meat Babe (Black Olive and Tomato Toasts (Murray)), and our host herself, Lynn of Turtlehead (My Heart Will Go On)

More after the jump...

As someone who is learning how to cook, which my two failed bakery projects this past weekend can attest to, I have the following advice. Firstly, when you look at cook books, look for publishings that explain why a certain method or ingredient is used. This way, you are not enslaved to heavily granular recipes. Also, look beyond cook books to culinary references that delve into flavour pairings and techniques. Secondly, avail yourself of some cooking instruction. This can range from taking a weekend course at a local culinary school to having friends over to learn how to make a new dish together.

Chefs, trained on the savoury side of the culinary arts, tend not to use recipes. Pastry is a partial exception, as you need to be more precise with proportions (ratios) and quantities of ingredients. As a fledgling baker, make a scale your friend. You needn't buy a kitchen scale. Nutrition scales work just as well. If you can afford it, avoid spring loaded models whose mechanical parts succumb to wear. Go with digital scales. But, I digress...

Many home cooks from generations past had more sophisticated instincts for cooking. Theirs was an understanding of why adding an ingredient or performing a specific action produced a result. Ours is a practice of scouring traditional (newspapers, magazines, or books) or new media (websites, forums, twitter) for recipes with highly detailed step by step instructions. As a result we have no ability to substitute missing ingredients or expand on a recipe to make new dishes.

Couple the growing loss of culinary knowledge with hectic everyday life-styles and technology that fosters a sense of instant gratification, it is no wonder producing processed foods is profitable. Processed foods are fool-proof and convenient. Our groceries are even abstracting us from the food we eat. Meat that was once an animal comes cleaned and portioned in sterile shrink-wrapped trays. Increasingly, I am seeing seeded, peeled, and cubed vegetables for purchase. Need I even mention frozen chopped herbs?

When I was last at the supermarket, I overheard a father suggest his adult-daughter buy a whole chicken instead of deboned chicken breasts. "It is cheaper", he said.

His daughter's response, "Do I look like I know how to take apart a chicken? I haven't time to figure it out."

While I shook my head, 3 realizations struck me, our hyper globalized and high speed world makes us

1. increasingly afraid to fail
2. increasingly afraid to try new things
3. quick to give up.

Does the growing leaning towards locally produced and/or organic foods help things? Not really. Market pressures urge producers, small and large, to tailor their product offers to consumers. Many are home cooks who do not necessarily have the skills to prepare anything with them. Eating locally means cooking seasonally. We need to have collections of dishes or techniques that adapt to the changing availability of meats, fruits, vegetables, and starches.

Worse, some people are deluding themselves that non-locally sourced or non-organic certified products are inferior. It makes an interesting landscape when intensively grown "organic" produce competes with locally produced fruits and vegetables whose growers cannot afford organic certification. Both tend to charge similar prices. This forces another question, are consumers beginning to equate paying a premium with quality food?

More after the jump...

Earlier this summer, friend and triathlete Isabelle Rivard (@spoonsie aka: @trispoonsie) proposed the idea of putting together bacon recipes to sell a cookbook, all proceeds going to her isaonabike.com Give to Live campaign to raise funds to fight cancer. Given Izzy has a recipe for chocolate chip bacon cookies, we decided to make reverse chocolate chip mocha bacon cookies. But, we wanted to candy the bacon.

Candied Bacon Chocolate Mocha Cookies

The mocha component comes from Starbuck's mocha powder, which may be 1/3 sugar, based on reverse-engineered recipes on the web.

Starbuck's Mocha Powder
In hindsight, we missed an opportunity to add a true Java-bean flavour to the cookies, something we plan to remedy in the near future.

Still, the resultant cookies were rich, sweet, and slightly smokey. When I sprung half a batch on my office, only the like-minded foodie, someone who is currently eating her way across Italy, tasted the savoury component. Though, having brought beet brownies and pear chocolate cake to the office previously, most everyone figured there was something "different" about the cookies. Suffice it to say, I have an interesting reputation with my co-workers...

Recipe for Candied Bacon Chocolate Mocha Cookies

Candied Bacon Added to Last Sift of Flour

Completed Batter

Cookies Cooling on a Rack

Cookies Boxed

What You'll Need:

• 1 cup butter (2 sticks)
• 1/2 cup white granulated sugar
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup mocha powder (or 1/8 cup Dutch processed cocoa + 1/8 cup skim milk powder + 1/8 cup icing sugar)
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 tsps vanilla
• 1 3/4 cups cake flour
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 cup of white chocolate chips (less if desired)
• 1/4 cup chopped candied bacon

More after the jump...

For this week's "relatively" Wordless Wednesday Patio Post, we visit Chef Matthew Carmichael's Restaurant E18hteen on York Street. Protege of famed Master Chef Susur Lee, Chef Carmichael was recently decorated with a bronze medal at the 2009 Canadian Culinary Championships.

The Canadian Culinary Championships consists of three competitions, spread over two days, with eight distinguished judges, all proceeds going to Canada's Olympic and Paralympic athletes. Seven chefs from seven Canadian cities competed, each having taken gold in their local Gold Medal Plates. Chef Carmichael represented Ottawa-Gatineau.

Suffice it to say, Restaurant E18hteen is one of the highest end restaurants in Ottawa. It is also one my pocket book has not permitted me to dine in to date. I have however given gift certificates for this restaurant's tasting menu as a wedding gift to a very dear friend and mentor.

Did you know E18hteen has a patio?

Patio Section on one Side of E18hteen's Main Entrance

Patio Section on the Other Side

Cozy Two Seater Tables

E18hteen's Main Entrance
Clean, simple, and elegant, its patio serves as a canvas for what patrons consistently tell me are amazing dishes.

Particulars:
Restaurant E18hteen
18 York Street
(613)244-1188