Ian Coutts's Blog, page 2
August 5, 2013
August 4, 2013
June 7, 2013
Three words for “comfort food”
Guest post by Catharine
It’s cold, rainy, blustery – and June. This has called for a quick reshuffling of culinary priorities: specifically, a return to comfort foods.
And in my view there is no cuisine better suited to comfort than Italian. There’s nothing quite like risotto, polenta and pasta for warming you up on a wet, nasty day. And this trio also offers up some of my other favourite culinary qualities: ready in under an hour; need no recipe, just a grasp of basic techniques; provide great...
June 1, 2013
Five fantastic pairings
Wednesday night was an interesting one around this household. Our job: taste eight different cheeses and seven different beers to come up with our five favourite pairings. This was all in aid of my tutored tasting session at the Great Canadian Cheese Festival in Picton today.
Before we get down to brass tacks, though, why pair beer and cheese at all? Of course, I’m a beer guy, so I would basically consume anything – garlic-scented cardboard, jalapeno-and-sour-cream wood shavings – with beer, a...
May 30, 2013
Cheese, beer, cider. This is work?
Some days I find myself asking, “So, this is work, right?” Yesterday was one such day, involving a leisurely drive through the countryside picking up samples of cheese, beer and cider in preparation for my appearance on Saturday at the Great Canadian Cheese Festival in Picton, Ontario. Oh, and then spending much of last evening figuring out some interesting pairings.
I won’t give too much away, except to say that there are some fascinating things happening on both the cheese and beer fronts i...
April 4, 2013
Two cities, one micro. It doesn’t add up.
For a smallish city, Kingston has a lot going for it. Great architecture. Good restaurants. Interesting people. And, as Catharine just pointed out, equal access to Montreal bagels and excellent cream cheese. We have pretty much everything, with one glaring exception.
This was brought home to me on a recent visit to Peterborough. Another mid-sized Ontario city, it’s in many ways the anti-Kingston. It’s smaller, not as rich, and starts looking slightly ragged a block or two from the downtown. Ye...
April 1, 2013
Trek to Montreal for bagels? No knead!
GUEST POST BY CATHARINE
Sometimes you just have to mess with perfection.
One of the most important steps in my life, from a food perspective – which is the only one worth worrying about, really – was moving to Montreal and discovering the Montreal bagel. If you know nothing of this farinaceous delight, I direct you to the website of Jon Seligman, a descendant of Hyman, Montreal’s putative (an area of some controversy!) Bagel King.
I learned that a true Montreal bagel must come hot and smoky-frag...
March 27, 2013
300 beers and counting: Beertopia!
I have found Beertopia, and it’s in a suburban shopping mall.
Not just any mall, of course. Finding myself in Ottawa recently for work, I suggested to Catharine a little beer-hunting on the Quebec side of the river. We had no clear destination, but she felt that if we headed towards Aylmer, a fairly affluent suburb of Gatineau (the city formerly known as Hull), we might find something.
Boy, did we: Bières du monde, tucked into the Galeries Aylmer at 181 Rue Principale, about ten minutes’ drive...
January 7, 2013
Three Kings: Guest post by Catharine
For some reason, probably the three feet of snow just outside our door, this winter’s menus have been driven by thoughts of Mexico. So it seemed only fitting to officially close off the holiday period yesterday with a home-made Rosca de Reyes or Three Kings Cake for Epiphany.
This is a cake with bling. Really: the ring shape of the cake and decorations of candied fruit on top are supposed to mimic the jeweled crowns of the three wise men, who arrived bearing gifts on the twelfth day of Christm...
