So we are babysitting a yellow labrador named Daisy. Our dog Stella, also a yellow lab, now has a buddy. Stella has been playing non-stop–neck fights, running around tables, wrestling for “the stick”…the list goes on. Stella has dark circles under her eyes.

This is only day one; Daisy is here for two weeks. Here are a few pics of them going nutso on each other and one of Stella on her pretty new pillow–thanks to Daisy’s parents!

My food writing class had a chocolate tasting this week; similar to a wine tasting, we judged the chocolate–Did it snap when you broke it? Did it melt in your hand (if it did there’s too much oil additives).

My friend Kelly, owner of Toute Sweet in Jordan brought in four samples–milk chocolate, then a dark chocolate (about 65% cocoa), then single origin chocolate (meaning from a single plantation). One was from Costa Rica and another from Papua New Guinea. The darker the chocolate the higher the cocoa content–but, the less I liked it. The flavour went from creamy to gritty. The dark PNG had a tobacco taste–picking up on the soil where it grew.

My favourite was the hot Belgian chocolate shot with chilies. Sipping hot chocolate — It went down smooth then smacked-you-up-the-side-of-the-head with chili.

The rest of Kelly’s visit was eating, and more eating. I had a hang over from food when she left.

Here we are.

It was odd timing for a visit, however. While we ate at The Forks in London overlooking the Thames, later that afternoon I helped organize a meeting at a women’s shelter.

It made me think of food as necessity and then pleasure.

Stuffed and starved;

it’s also the name of a book, so don’t think I’m that clever.

At My Sister’s Place, the women’s drop in centre in London, we made a beef stew and talked about food. I felt like I had a foot in two worlds.

I’m not vegetarian, but for some reason, I love tofu. I know. It doesn’t taste like anything.

And, if you eat too much of it, it gives you gas. Some soft kinds resemble white phlegm. But. I love the stuff. I especially love it fried so that the outside is crispy. So, I love the crispiness that it assumes. It can’t do this by itself. I also love the hard kind that feels like a meatball when you mix it with sweet and sour sauce. My step-mom crumbled it once and fried it with curry powder. It tasted like scrambled eggs, Indian style.

Really, I have nothing more to say about tofu. I just love it.

I can’t explain why I love it. I just do.

M

In the “Meaf” last weekend with Tom, Ned and Stella, my dog. Being there reminds me that outside is the best place to be…

In Meaf…

The Stella Bean and mom.

After the day outside, we headed to Ned’s for apple cider and vodka. Perfect.

I started going to Meaford few years ago. I met Ned when I interviewed him for a story about wild animals. He thought he saw a cougar; not the kind sitting on a bar stool.

Ned is the associate editor of Mountain Life Magazine–(www.mountainlifemag.ca). The mag covers outdoorsy activities in the Southern Georgian Bay area. After chatting with Ned for that ‘other’ magazine, he asked me to cross over and write for him. I jumped on board. I’ve written about trail running, wood carvers, fair trade coffee, photographers, and now…bra tossing. Take a peak of me on the chair lift at Blue Mountain tossing my bra; it’s a tradition amongst female skiers, but you’ll have to wait for the story in the November issue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkQWbZ40hZ0&feature=player_embedded

I finally got out to cross country ski. Circle R Ranch is in Delaware — just west of London.

www.circlerranch.ca.

It’s a family run business…I bought my skis from the owner and his grandson fitted my bindings. I love coming around the loop of the trail to the club house where you can smell the wood smoke.

Inside, there’s a fire and tons of old couches and upstairs you can grab a hot apple cider and piece of oatmeal raisin carrot cake. Killer.

My legs are dead tired and so is my head–I just tried putting my jacket in the fridge, so, I hope these pictures will suffice for now!

I came home after my first ski of the season to a pea meal sandwich and a bowl of vegetarian chili with a dollop of sour cream–oh, and a tall cold beer. I almost fell asleep in my food.

I do not cook. Do not take this next post as a sign that ‘oh, she cooks, and so she’s recommending a bunch of cookbooks of her fav recipes.’ Wrong. I eat. I read about eating. I also sometimes dream about eating.

So, now I will teach a writing course about food writing in January at western in the Writing, Rhetoric and Professional Communication department. (www.uwo.ca/writing)

For the past few months I have been devouring, forgive me, I mean reading food literature. You’d have to be living under a rock for the past 10 years if you haven’t noticed that everything is food now: food memoirs, politics of food (sustainable farming, genetically modified, fair trade…), food as health reporting…the list is endless. Every genre of writing has a complementary food equal.

But, at the heart of it all, food means pleasure and togetherness. Ahh. That’s sweet you say.

So, I have listed below a few of my favourite food books…

The holidays are a great time to catch up on reading and eating, so enjoy.

Melanie

The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten. This is from Vogue’s food critic; he’s also the pompous judge that sometimes shows up on Iron Chef America. Highlights of this book: he hates Greek food. He writes that Greeks should stick to the two things: white statues and philosophy. He also adds: Indian desserts look like face cream.

M.F.K. Fisher wrote Serve It Forth back in the 1930s or 40s. It was a long time ago. It’s a seminal work because she talks about the psychology behind food–something quite new for its time. She talks about food and emotions and her life. “When a man is small, he loves and hates food with a ferocity which soon dims,” she writes.

Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl (former editor of the now defunct Gourmet Magazine). As the most famous restaurant reviewer in the world, anonymity is key. So when the identity for the New York Times food critic is compromised, what does Ruth do? Well, she fashions a series of disguises. One time she dresses like her eccentric mother. But, she dresses as herself, the famous Ruth Reichl–a woman who has restaurant owners falling over themselves to impress. The difference in service and quality of food from the two identities is telling.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. On the more serious side of food writing, do you know where your food has been? Michael Pollan does and it’s not pretty. This part of the food reading makes me sad. I love food. I love the way I feel after a great meal with friends. I would hate to think that we can’t all have access to this and that the food we love is in jeopardy.

Best Food Writing 2008, an anthology edited by Holly Hughes. This is a collection of essays, reports, reviews, muses and more about food from some of the best food publications around the world. I love the variety: a story about Singapore’s outside food vendors; a story about why butter, real butter, rules; a story about making the perfect tea biscuit; or, a story about a New Orleans restaurant that resurrected after Katrina. This book put me through a list of emotions.

As Ron Burgendy, aka Will Ferrell in the movie Anchorman, says so eloquently after losing his dog Baxter: “I’m in a box of emotion!”

When I was an English student at Western University–oh, back in the early 90s– I worked at the bar on campus. In the basement of Somerville House, The Spoke Tavern was a place where staff hung out after class, after work, on the weekends–you get the idea. I was introduced to bands such as Ontario’s The Lowest of the Low, The Hip and Spirit of the West–to name a few; I also met one of my best friends there.

I spent more time at the Spoke than in class.

In the late 90s, the Spoke moved to a new location in the main student building. But sadly, it didn’t carry of the old Spoke charm–no dingy basement feel, no dark corners to hide with a beer and a new man. Eventually, the bar section closed off from the kitchen and a muffin and coffee kiosk joined in. It felt like a franchise.

But, good news: the Spoke charm has reemerged: my former Spoke boss Mark Serre has opened his own bar. The Morrissey House, named after The Smiths’ vocalist Morrissey, and I believe Mark’s mom’s nickname, Mo, it’s a bar with all the feel of a hang out: located in an old brick house, there’s cozy rooms and live music all the time. I know Dave the bartender who worked with Mark at another bar, and I know Amy, the server who I could chat with forever.

Many former Spokers hang out here, including me.

After teaching at the university, I often bring my laptop to do some work to the Mo and order my Irish fav: a Kilkenny beer. I also love the celtic Thursday nights. Three Penny Piece play folky favourites like Stan Rogers.

Since discovering this place, I have introduced it to my writing group and most recently, my mom’s friends on mom’s stagette night.  I will not publish any of my mother’s drunk antics, suffice to say the ‘girls’ loved the place.

To read Mark’s latest, visit www.themorrisseyhouse.wordpress.com.

I was feeling overwhelmed by food. Not eating it. I’m doing research for a food writing course that I’m teaching at Western University in January and I could write a book with the information that I’m amassing.

Food writing can touch so many genres: reviews, reporting, narrative, memoir, profiles. Food writing  also draws on so many life experiences — sex, philosophy, biology, anthropology, sociology…

I went to a food writing seminar on the weekend to help clear the haze and find direction.

Called Eating Your Words, four writers, with four very different perspectives spoke about food:

Ian Brown, a feature writer for the Globe and Mail told elaborate dramatic stories of food and memories; Margaret Webb spoke about the politics of food writing.  Author of Apples to Oysters. A Food Lover’s Tour of Canadian Farms (www.margaretwebb.com) she stressed the importance of  knowing where your food comes from and sustainable agriculture.

Corby Kummer, notably the author of author of The Pleasures of Slow Food, talked about editing and the importance of reading your work out loud; Michael Symons from Australia has written One Continuous Picnic: A History of Australian Eating and A History of Cooks and Cooking. Michael talked about the history of food — there’s over 3,000 years of it to be exact.

After they all spoke, I asked a very non-technical question: “what is your favourite meal.” Here is my favourite response:

Ian Brown begins to tell an elaborate story gesturing with his hands and contorting his face for emphasis. He was on an anniversary dinner with his wife when they recognized some friends. Ian hugged the woman and began to feel warm, very warm. “I never thought I had any feelings for her, at least that way, but yet I was getting really hot.” But as he turns around, he notices his linen suit jacket is on fire. As he looks up, four waiters are running towards him with glasses of water. Ian begins doing the running man, slowly. The crowd of foodies are busting a gut laughing.

“For me, great food is about memories, nostalgia and connection with family.” The flaming jacket will certainly stick out in my mind.

Then it dawned on me: stop trying to make this food writing course about what it should be and focus on what food means to you. Thanks Ian for reminding me of that. By the way, his favourite meal is steak and kidney pie.

Melanie

My two food experiences this weekend couldn’t have been farther apart, but equally tasty and famous in their own right.

The first, Violas subs, is located across the road from the Outlet Mall on Military Road in Niagara Falls, NY. From the plastic menu, I order a capicola (Italian pork shoulder) with tomatoes. Behind the counter, the owner is frying up meat that isn’t generic luncheon sandwich meat. The cash register is an upright clunker circa 1960, when the place opened. When the hoarse sounding woman asks if I want it hot or cold, I make the mistake of asking if they have whole wheat buns. She looks at me as if I have two heads. White. Bread. Only. I feel like a huge food snob.

But, don’t get me wrong. It was hands down one of the best sub creations I’ve ever had–take that Subway. Sandwich artists my ass.

That night, we decide on the Tasting Menu at the Peninsula Ridge Winery’s newly managed The Kitchen House Restaurant: peninsularidge.com. Chef Ross Midgley (a Maritimer so you know he’s a good guy) and his wife Wendy, a sommelier, work together–she in front of the kitchen, he in the back.

The dining room is located in a red brick Victorian home overlooking the acres of vineyards on the Beamsville Bench–a land of perfect grape growing soil in the Niagara Escarpment.  The air sweeps across Lake Ontario, picking up warm air, and then it hits the wall of the escarpment and drops it back down. This cycle continues and means this area in Ontario has a longer growing season than the rest of Canada. www.escarpment.org

That’s why so many of the restaurants in the area can offer a seasonal menu–you won’t see a strawberry on a menu in December! A tasting menu is a series of dishes paired with wine, but not just any wine, the chef has chosen wine that brings out the flavours of the food. And, instead of a full glass, servings are about two ounces; it’s just enough to swish around your mouth.

For three hours, Nancy and I moved through five, yes, FIVE different plates…here’s a virtual taste of my favourite. Caramelized goat cheese with arugula (a bitter tasting green) and beets served with Peninsula Ridge’s Wisner Sauvignon Blanc.

Ok, I’m skipping right to dessert! Ross says that he’s tried to take this off the menu a few times –change it up a bit–but that guests keep asking for it. Sophisticated smores. Ross has taken the traditional graham cracker, melted marshmallow and chocolate that Canadians love to make while camping and made it elegant: the melted marshmellow is soaked in icewine and sits on top of chocolate ganache and the cracker. It’s served with a vidal ice wine, which is equally as decadent.

Gatta run. Literally. With the amount of calories I consumed this weekend, I’ll be cycling, running, jumping, swimming….dog sledding…rope jumping…