Christmas Baskets
As with past years, my better half and I put together some Christmas baskets as gifts for colleagues and friends. This year we substituted local artisanal products for individually-wrapped chocolate.

For a sweet component, we ordered various assortments of truffles from local Koko's Chocolates, hand made by Ottawan Lori Sword.

Koko's 8-piece Sampler
In fact, when giving chocolate during Christmas 2009, we only gave Koko's, ordering box upon box of varying sizes. I even replaced my family's annual box of Hershey's Pot of Gold with a 16-piece box of Koko's.

For the Christmas baskets, we paired 8-piece sampler boxes with bottles of hand-mixed Refashionista mint tea ($8/jar), ordered from Etsy.

Mint Tea

Regarding Koko's chocolates, many of my colleagues are chocoholics. Their thoughts:

• "These are really good chocolates" (she, losing complete interest in other chocolates on her desk)
• "They look like works of art" (after he opened the box and proceeded to walk around the office to show them off)
• "The chocolate is so...umm...crisp" (he, referring to the perfectly tempered chocolate)
• "The flavour. OMG!" (he, after popping the Triple Chocolate truffle in his mouth)
• "Excellent!" (she, reminiscing about having finished the box)

To my dear friend Yannick, I told "My goal this Christmas is to get you off of Godiva. These should do it!" I should ask him his thoughts. Stay tuned!

Christmas Pot Luck
This year, the Christmas parties we attended included a pot luck. For it, we pointed our hosts to foodiePrints and said, "anything goes!" One, selected char-siu. His better half, lemon chiffon cupcakes.

Knowing both friends are fond of the dark sugars from maple syrup, I modified foodiePrints' char-siu recipe to employ palm sugar, sugar that is analagous in flavour. Since palm sugar usually comes packed in puck-like shapes, I heated the marinade mixture in a double boiler to help the chunk of sugar dissolve. It was a straight substitution, palm sugar for regular sugar.

Here is the test batch, using boneless pork butt (aka: pork shoulder)

Finished Char-Siu taken out of the Oven, Glazed

Char-Siu being Sliced

Char-Siu Sliced
The batch we brought to the pot luck was a crowd pleaser, most everyone asking for the recipe.

Regarding the lemon chiffon cup cakes, Jenn decided to substitute a Kastella sponge for the chiffon sponge. I iced the resultant baked and cooled cup cakes with the same marshmallow icing we used for a batch of chiffon cupcakes that were sold at a Breast Cancer fundraiser during this past year's Glebe Garage Sale.

Kastella Cupcakes with Lemon Marshmallow Icing
The only modification, I flavoured the icing with lemon to cut the sweetness of the Kastella. To do so, I made a syrup by boiling down a mixture, consisting of the zest of 1 lemon, the juice of 2 lemons, a 1/2 cup sugar, and a 1/2 cup water. Once the mixture was reduced to 1/3 the volume, it was left to cool. 7 tbsp of it were then added to the marshmallow icing mixture, replacing both the 6 tbsp water and 1 tbsp table syrup.

By the time desserts were served, potluck party-goers were full. One of our hosts decided to eat the leftover cupcakes with milk, using them to fuel his morning marathon training.

One of the other guests brought a very pleasant lemon and poppy seed cake from The Cake Shop (250 Greenbank Road).

Lemon Poppy Seed Cake

Cake Served

Cake Box
It was quite good, moist, naturally lemony, not too sweet, and every bite was evenly distributed with poppy seeds. Yum.

Office Christmas Party
This year, my office Christmas Party was held at the up and coming Les Brasseurs Du Temps (BDT), a brewpub located in Gatineau. According to the Real Ontario tourism website, the site was formerly the Hull Waterworks building. Colleagues told me the building that borders on a creek was once a museum. The waiter, who served my guests and I the first time I visited, said the building once housed a mill and brewery, circa 1821. Whatever its previous incarnations, on May 21, 2009, owner Alain Geoffroy opened the doors to an eatery that features beers brewed in house by brew-master Dominique Gosselin.

Inside, the visuals are mostly wood, from wood paneled walls to hardwood floors. The tables are painted black and the ceiling is extremely high, betraying the buildings former heritage as something other than a brewpub. Needless to say, it is a very open space.

Dining Room

Table
Beneath the bar area, which is opposite the 100 seater dining room and an adjacent open kitchen is the brewhouse. A spiraling pathway leads from the restaurant down to it.

Bar with 13 taps

Brewhouse
The restaurant is disarmingly informal and its bilingual staff were knowledgeable about BDT's beers during both my visits.

Along one of its walls is a chalkboard, listing the many in-house brewed beers. Its beer menu includes other Quebec microbrews as well.

Chalkboard

That late afternoon when my colleagues and I assembled for our Christmas party, I ordered an ESB.

ESB
I am not an aficionado, so the nuances and the sheer variety of in-house brewed beers was lost on me. I can only say with any surety that my glass of beer was pleasant to my palate. When I first dined at BDT, my more knowledgeable quests ordered tasting glasses of several in-house brews. They enjoyed their samples very much.

Food-wise, the menu recommends beer pairings with several dishes.

Menu
That said, I found the food spotty. According to our Christmas Party's waiter, BDT's chef is consulting only. A colleague later told me the chef comes from Chelsea's acclaimed Les Fougères. BDT's kitchen is thus made up of line cooks who have only been cooking together since May.

It explains a lot. When I ate lunch at BDT the first time, I ordered the Joe Monferrand Burger with bison ($15), which came topped with pan-fried crispy bacon, melted gouda, and a tomato salsa. While I found it somewhat under-seasoned, one of my guests, a Cordon Bleu-trained Chef, disagrees. We all ordered the same plates and we all left satisfied.

Unfortunately, when I came back with my colleagues, things were somewhat different. I ordered the charcuiterie "duo de terrines" ($8) to start. What was served was a very tame, but decent plate of pork terrines, accompanied by Dijon mustard, caramelized onion relish, whole black olives, and drizzles of a fruity extra-virgin olive oil.

Charcuiterie Appetizer
I enjoyed it.

My main, a one-piece beer battered fish and chips ($12), demonstrated that the consulting chef must not have been consulting that afternoon.

Fish and Chips
The batter around my fish was thick and greasy. Inside, the white fleshed fish, which reminded me of basa, was dry and harsh. The fries were fried until they were hollow.

If ever you fry up from scratch fries (freshly cut from potatoes), you forget a fry from one batch, and it turns up in your next, you will find that it develops a dark crust and the potato within seemingly disappears, leaving a large air space. I was served a plate of these. I am also not sure why I was served three "Dixie" containers of mayonnaise.

Oddly enough, mine was the only plate with hollow fries. My colleagues each received better batches of fries. Though visibly glistening, they would have benefited from being better drained of oil.

Our waiter, being extremely helpful received my customary 15% tip, but I did tell her about my over cooked fries as she took my mostly eaten plate. I had hoped the issue would be brought back to the kitchen.

Later on, I would hear BDT's kitchen somehow found a way to produce a fish and chips that resembled gelatinous lutefisk. The diner, none other than @refashionista and her family.

At the moment, unless you know the chef's in, I suggest sticking with the beer and nibbling on menu items that need little attention from BDT's kitchen.


BDT's Business Card

More after the jump...

My better half and I find that we eat out quite the bit during the weeks leading up to and including Christmas. There are always good friends in town or visiting, with whom we like to get together at one of our favourite eateries one last time before the new year. With the large dinners Jenn and I usually prepare between Christmas Eve and Boxing day, it is nice to sit down to a great meal at a great restaurant.

Brunch: Benny's Bistro
This year, we discovered a great brunch place, which we have determined somewhat inappropriate for our growing brunch club. It has limited seating. It is quickly busy and it does not take reservations (first come, first serve). Located surreptitiously in the back of the celebrated French Baker bakery (119 Murray Street) on the epicurean end (near Dalhousie Street) of Murray Street, Benny's Bistro is a local's favourite for lunch during the work week and an amazing brunch during the weekend.

As the Urban Foodie (@whisk_food_blog) wrote in the Ottawa Metro (a commuter newspaper), Benny's is a "Simple Touch of Paris in the Market." I could not agree more.

Local Art in Recessed Alcoves, Checkered Floor, Warm Colours

Bistro-Style Tables
Though, the service at Benny's is many many times better than what Parisian Bistros are reputedly known for.

The Saturday morning we visited, the special was an omelet ($14), which is what I feel, a fresh take on New York Nova and Eggs; an omelet with roasted salmon belly.

Special
It was spectacular, fatty salmon belly cooked delicately in an ever so slightly runny and made-to-order omelet. The kale was just wilted too, offering both an earthy flavour and not quite cooked texture, fresh and green.

Roasted Salmon Belly Omelet with Wilted Kale

Omelet Disassembled
The accompanying salad consisted of arugula and string shaved beets.

Me, I ordered the organic forest and leek confit "taco" ($15).

Breakfast Taco
It too was spectacular. Accompanying the freshly cooked mushrooms and confit leek were braised Belgian endive, arugula leaves, shaved butter nut squash (likely shocked to fix the curls), and a lemon and horse radish creme fraiche to tie everything together. Its base, a round of puff pastry. Garnishing, a slice of in-house pickled beet.

The Perfect Bite
The mixture of fresh, peppery, sweet, earthy, fatty, bright, and buttery flavours and crunchy, crisp, and soft textures resulted in an adventure for the palate, akin to a crisp hike in a forest.

Regarding the service at Benny's, our dishes were served within 10 minutes of ordering, even with a nearly full dining room. Because my better half is sensitive to cheese, they happily subbed out components of their brunch special and furnished us with a side of roasted fingerling potatoes. The potato side was just as carefully cooked as our mains. We originally thought the potatoes were cooked in brown butter.

When seated, our hostess greeted us with a bowl of freshly cut bread from the French Baker bakery, nothing stale here. Drinks followed very quickly thereafter. Coffee for me and tea for Jenn.

Bread

Tea

Total: $42.38 (with coffee, tea, and side of roasted fingerling potatoes and before taxes)

For small parties of 4 or less, eating at Benny's is one of life's luxuries you should avail yourself of. If you are a local foodie, it is a must visit.

Please note that Benny's does not open for evening service, its dining room reserved for special events only.

Lunch: Le Cafe
When we found out the Toronto foodie who baked one of the Christmas cookie care packages we received was coming to Ottawa for the Christmas holidays and wanted to have lunch with us in the ByWard Market, I made reservations at Chef Michael Blackie's newly re-opened Le Cafe (53 Elgin Street) in the National Arts Center (NAC). Our guest, Bonita (@boneats) of the Bon Eats blog.

A little background, Jenn and I hadn't visited Le Cafe since we started dating years ago. It was at Le Cafe, then under the late Chef Kurt Waldele, that I tried my first seared duck breast and duck confit. She, her first steak frites, the steak perfectly seared fillet. On a pair of students' budgets, eating at Le Cafe was somewhat extravagant, so we visited sparingly, only celebrating special occasions there. Later on, I would find out one of my then supervisors, someone who would prove to be a mentor in my career, had proposed to his wife at Le Cafe, also during Chef Waldele's tenure.

Chef Blackie made a name for himself locally at Perspectives (525 Legget Drive) in Kanata's Brookstreet hotel, earning 4 Diamonds from the CAA/AAA. Many of the chefs I follow on Twitter congratulated him on his taking up the reigns at the NAC and later tweeted positive comments for his new menu.

Menu
Chef Blackie is also a regular competitor during Gold Medal Plates.

Inside, the restaurant had largely not changed since Jenn and I were there last: dark stained chairs against white linened tables on a dark carpet. The textured white ceiling add a dimension of openness. The floor to ceiling windows overlooking the Rideau Canal offer a picturesque view, no matter what season.

Le Cafe's Dining Room

Table with Place Settings
Please take note of the one piece coarse salt and pepper grinder/dispenser on the table. It will come in handy later.

With Christmas not a week away, I ordered the soup ($6.50) to start and one of the specials that Monday, Le Cafe's interpretation of a turkey dinner ($11.50). I wanted inspiration for the turkey dinner Jenn and I were to prepare later on that week.

Sweet Potato Corn Chowder
Drizzled with truffle oil and ethereally light in texture, the cream soup was rich and flavourful, perfectly seasoned.

Turkey Dinner
Beautifully presented, Le Cafe replaced traditional stuffing/dressing with a savoury bread pudding. On top, sliced turkey breast. Then, yu choy (a Chinese green), bread pudding, cranberry sauce, roasted baby carrots, and turkey jus.

Dry Turkey
Alas, my slices of turkey breast were on the dry side. I had to drag bites through the savoury jus and tart cranberry sauce to make them palatable. Given the shape of the slices and the fact we were the first table in the dining room to be seated, my slices were likely first carved off the roasted turkeys. As someone who has been on a quest to prepare a moist roasted turkey, I find the first carvings from the top of the breast drier, as it is most exposed to the dry heat of the oven.

Bonita and Jenn ordered the other special that Monday, line-caught rainbow trout ($11.50).

Pan Seared Rainbow Trout
Both Bonita and Jenn, whenever possible, prefer their fresh fish medium-well, ever so slightly rare in the center. The trout was a little over cooked for their liking. Each fillet's corn meal crust though was crisp and carried a nice crunch. The sauce was a good accompaniment and the mashed potatoes, wonderfully smooth.

Bonita, Jenn and I remarked at all our dishes coming adorned with yu choy. Bonita aptly dubbed it Chef Blackie's "it" vegetable for Christmas 2009. We giggled quietly when other tables were served their dishes and patrons found their accompanying greens exotic. Yu choy is a staple vegetable in Asian diets, the three of us eating it in our respective homes the night before.

For drinks, with Bonita and Jenn having plans that afternoon and my having to return to the office, we decided to order purified water.

MB In-house Purified Water
According to a media-release, Chef Blackie had installed a Vivreau Water Purification System that purifies tap water, producing both a carbonated Perrier analogue and a non-carbonated option. At $3/re-usable glass bottle, a portion of sales goes to the NAC's National Youth and Education Trust.

As someone who very rarely drinks wine, I am weary of the disapproving looks I get from wait staff who think I am at a restaurant for a cheap meal. Usually, I order cranberry juice or a cocktail to finish the meal. But, with the in-house purified tap water on the menu, I have another option. At Le Cafe, our waiter's look changed from disapproving to amused, when I asked if bottles from "Chef Blackie's Vivreau Water Purification System" were available.

Total: $67.80 (after taxes, but before tip)

More after the jump...

Ever since Jenn finished schooling at Queen's, she and I have been throwing Christmas dinners for her family every year. This year, we went with a turkey-based feast. Due to other engagements Thanksgiving weekend, we opted for Mongolian Hot Pot using a chicken pho broth in October. This left me without having cooked a turkey for 2009 and I could not let December pass without roasting one up.

Given the shopping insanity we witnessed at the nearby Loblaws Superstore (190 Richmond Road), leading up to the week of the 25th last year, we opted to order an (apparently frozen) organic turkey from Wellington's own Saslove's (1333 Wellington Street W.). Originally scheduled for pickup on Christmas Eve, we requested to fetch our turkey the day before (December 23, 2009). We were glad we did. Apparently, the entire neighbourhood and surrounding ones order turkeys from Saslove's. While the 22nd of December was quiet at Saslove's store front, word quickly spread that the entire shipment of turkeys had arrived. Surprised employees had to create a queue to the back of the butcher's the next day to hand out turkeys. They created a queue to the only cash and till that could handle debit and credit cards. They created a bypass queue to a second cash and till for anyone paying with cash. Guess which queue was longest? On the bright side, everyone in line was friendly to one another and the staff made light of the situation to lift spirits. I remarked to Jenn that we have never had a better turkey buying experience. Though, next year, we will be ordering two small turkeys instead of the giant $86.31 (before taxes) monstrosity we ended up lugging home. Interestingly, giblets cost an extra $5.

Dinner-wise, here is the menu we chose:
Chinese Appetizers (Small plates for Arrivals)

Small Plate Buffet

Rolled Prosciutto

• Pig tails slow poached in a soy master sauce with brown sugar, Chicken marinade, ginger, and star anise, served warm
• Stir fried ginger and scallion omasum (3rd stomach of a chow), served warm
• King oyster mushroom chips
• Atlantic smoked salmon
• Pingue prosciutto from The Piggy Market

Starter

• Cauliflower Soup, flavoured with Parmesan and topped with shredded and crisped king oyster mushroom

Mains

Feast

Tortiere

Lo Mai Fan in Lieu of Stove-top Stuffing

• Butter and Summer Savoury Roasted Turkey Breast
• Turkey Leg Confit
• Traditional Quebec Tortiere (filling: pork, ground beef, onion, cloves, rosemary, thyme, celery and potato) from Petit Bill's Bistro ($16.95, $5 of which to raise money for the Salvation Army's Toy Mountain campaign)
• Stir Fried Chinese Greens (Yu-Choy, which seems to be the green of choice this Christmas), courtesy of Jenn's mom.
• Sticky Rice (called Lo Mai Fan) with Chinese Sausage (lap cheung), celery, and shiitake mushrooms

Dessert

• Fresh fruit (freshly cut pineapple and orange segments)
• Apple Pie from Farm Boy, courtesy of Jenn's brother

Recipes follow:
Omasum
The recipe for the stir fried ginger and scallion omasum has already been posted to foodiePrints.

Pig Tails
Pig tails, like pig feet are offcuts prized by Asian cuisine. They are usually long braised in a sticky sweet sauce, loaded with umami for special occasions like Chinese New Year. For Christmas dinner, we opted to slow poach them (2 hours) in a soy master sauce, originally leftover from a red-braise. This master sauce is one Jenn and I continually re-adjust the seasoning of and use to poach chicken with to make soy sauce chicken. We poached the tails the night before and reheated them in a pan to caramelize the sugars, just before guests arrived.

Pig Tails Added to the Soy Master Sauce

Pig Tails Poached
The tails took on the flavours of the poaching liquid. Their skins softened and caramelized beautifully in a well seasoned cast iron pan on medium heat.

More after the jump...

Since Christmas 2006, I promised myself to bake something different every holiday season for the potlucks my better half and I attend. Christmas 2007, we made cranberry scones, learning how in a baking workshop at a local bakery (Three Bakers and a Bike) earlier that fall. We would make them again a year later, but this time I re-worked the recipe to use only butter. I would also make several batches of biscotti, but I looked for something new, thumbing through magazines and surfing the web.

Eventually, I settled on Alton Brown's "Macaroon Delights."

AB's Macaroon Delight
Seeing AB's vid on how to make the macaroons would be one of the last videos I watched from the Food Network website. In following months, the powers that be blessed modifications to the site that not only favoured Microsoft Internet Explorer, but also browsers on the Microsoft Windows platform. As a proponent of open source software, I use Ubuntu Linux, my preferred web browser, Mozilla's Firefox.

Even more interesting, the webmaster or database administrator would mix up AB's two macaroon recipes on the Food Network website, an older recipe coming from Good Eats' "Down and Out in Paradise" special. For some odd reason, half way through the month of December, the month when food websites are most heavily searched, the title and links of AB's macaroon recipes were mixed up. "Macaroon Delight" was no longer search-able. Its corresponding recipe was renamed "Paradise Macaroons." The "Down and Out in Paradise" macaroons was renamed "Toasty Coconut Macaroons."

That said, whatever they were intended to be called, AB's holiday macaroons came out great!

Biscotti Macaroon Platter

Without re-printing AB's recipe, 14 oz of unsweetened + 2 oz of sweetened coconut (by weight) were mixed with 2 oz of sweetened condensed milk (by weight), a pinch of kosher salt, and 1 tsp vanilla extract.

Sweetened Condensed Milk

Dry Coconut Mixture

Then, 4 large egg whites, 5 oz of fine granulated sugar (by weight), and 1/2 tsp of cream of tartar were whipped with an electric mixer until they formed medium peaks.

Egg Shells

Whipped Meringue

Medium Peaks
I discovered that a smaller metal bowl, allowing the egg white and sugar mixture to pool halfway up, produced a better meringue. After all a meringue is what beating egg whites and sugar together produces.

Finally, the meringue was folded into the coconut mixture to lighten it. The mixture was scooped onto parchment lined half sheet pans and baked in a pre-heated 325 F oven for 25 minutes.

Final Mixture

Tray of Baked Macaroons

Close-up

Trust me, use a disher when scooping the macaroon mixture to produce a nice tight package. Otherwise, you will end up with these:

Flat Macaroons
They still brown up nice though, producing a toasted flavour.

Browned Macaroon Bottom

The taller macaroons turned out chewy, crispy, sweet, vanilla-flavoured, and slightly caramel. They disappeared quickly at the pot luck they went to. Incidentally, AB's original recipe, topped the macaroons with semi-sweet chocolate and chopped nuts. I will have to try that sometime...

Other Notes
While the macaroons baked, I decided to play with meringue a little more, using a Tyler Florence recipe and producing the following snow peaks.

Snow Peaks

Close-Up
Clearly, I need more practice, working with a pastry bag.

Here are the logs of biscotti that turned into what was platterred above...

Biscotti Logs

During Christmas 2008, I also discovered pre-cut parchment paper.

Pre-Cut Parchment Paper
While convenient, a roll of parchment paper is cheaper by length overall and much more flexible when using half sheet pans.

And as always, here are contingency ingredients in case the macaroons didn't work.

Dry Cookie Mix and Marshmallows

Cupcake Tins, Almonds, Cranberries, and Powdered Sugar
You don't want to know how many cartons of eggs I had in reserve. The pantry is always stocked with extra bags of sugar and flour. Worst case scenario, I planned on baking up chiffon cupcakes and icing them with a marshmallow frosting.

With foodiePrints celebrating its third birthday - its first published blog entry, a twice re-written "hello world" and its first recipe, one for almond biscotti - I discovered that we have relatively few Christmas-themed posts. This post aims to slowly remedy this by compiling a selection of images from our archives to share some of our traditions.

Office Christmas Parties
Office Christmas parties are an interesting species of get-together. As Jack Knox wrote in his "Office Christmas party all about being inappropriate" for Canwest's canada.com, the general consensus from business leaders is to attend. For the organization, they provide management an opportunity to evaluate staff's soft skills for future advancement. Such includes appropriate dress, conversation skills, and showing discretion. For employees, they provide the opportunity to get to know each other in a relaxed setting and get a sense of the prevailing thoughts of management.

The party I attended with my better half's office was held at Ottawa's then Civic Centre (1015 Bank Street) at Landsdowne Park. There, I watched my first live hockey game, featuring Ottawa's 67's.

67's Game

Served was typical sport stadium grub.

Onion Rings and Chicken Fingers

Not Particularly Spicy Wings

Beer, Mexican Corona

Mine was held at La Boîte à Chansons (444 Bd De l'Hopital) in Gatineau, a very large restaurant, whose interior is made to resemble a log cabin.

La Boîte à Chansons

There, I ate a traditional Quebec feast:

Clockwise from bottom: tortière, meatballs, roast beef
Everything was smothered in gravy. Though, I was instructed the tortière, a revered meat pie dish, had to be eaten with ketchup.

Mini Tortière, properly served
Indeed, the tortière did well with some added sweetness and acidity to match the savory filling and rich pastry.

A week later, my team also bid farewell to our office assistant, a wonderful gal. She happened to be the person who ensured that I ate my serving of tortière without embarrassing myself. To celebrate her advancement, we took her out to lunch at Naples Pizza (70 Rue Montcalm), again on the Gatineau side.

While my colleagues each ordered great pizza, I went rogue and ordered the lasagna (spelled "lasagne" on the menu, cost: $9.95). Here is the oddity of pasta I was served. It still puzzles me today.

Chimney-shaped Lasagna

Filled with Pizza Sauce, Cheese, and Pepperoni
On Naples Pizza's menu, the lasagna was described as "a special blend of Italian Noodles, Pepperoni, selected Cheeses, & Meat Sauce." Lesson learned: When going to a renowned pizza house, order what it makes best. Comparison-wise, a personal combination pizza ("mushrooms, pepperoni, green peppers, bacon & onion") cost $9.75.

Christmas Baking
That year, Jenn and I baked cranberry scones and almond biscotti, batches of each destined for two potlucks and several close friends.

Regarding the biscotti, I followed the tried and true recipe that launched this blog.

One Batch of Almond Biscotti, drying

Though, whilst searching for that year's Christmas basket fodder, we came across these biscotti at the Dollar Store.

Dollar Store Biscotti
They were slightly more puzzling than the chimney lasagna.

Regarding the scones, their recipe comes from a baking course we took at Ottawa's Three Bakers and a Bike Bakery (1281A Wellington Street W.).

Scones Destined for Jenn's Parents
I am not at liberty to share that recipe, but here are hints that work with all tea-style scones recipes. When making scones, there must be enough fat to coat the flour mixture to form pebbles.

This is too dry

So add enough fat that...

...the mixture resembles this.

Bake six to a half sheet pan, lined with parchment paper

Cool on cake racks...

...and you will have great scones

A Toaster
That year, a dear friend gifted my better half with something she had been eyeing for a while...

A Hello Kitty Toaster

Naturally, it arrived boxed in pink

Interestingly, it makes pretty good toast...

...which we ate a lot of that Christmas

On a related kitty note, here is a mousse filled chocolate kitty Jenn's sister Jasmine received as a Christmas gift.

One odd looking chocolate cat
And, here is how we discovered it was filled with mousse...

One bisected odd looking chocolate cat

Speaking of tortière, the following is a twitter conversation I had on the subject this past weekend...

More after the jump...