Some like it HOT

Tea afficionados, how do you know how hot to brew?

My Breville IQ Kettle is the most frequently used appliance in our household. There are days when I roll out of bed, stagger over to it zombie-style, and heat the water for tea (Yorkshire Gold, a single cube of turbinado sugar, 4 min steep, splash of 1% milk). More often, I awaken to its welcome chime and clattering of porcelain - and I know dear husband is truly the love of my life, and I've got four minutes of luxury left before the daily grind begins.

It's a variable temperature kettle. On the box, it states "Different teas need different temperaturatures to bring out their best." So, if you're serious about tea, you need this kettle. It has 5 temperature settings: for green, white, oolong, french press and black tea lovers. 

Since I was four, I've been drinking a cuppa each morning, but always black. Green teas were always bitter to me. A few years ago, in a tea apothecary of sorts, the owner gave me a tip - green tea needs to not oversteep, and it needs water that is not too hot. Then we traveled to Japan, and I came back wiht some beautiful roasted rice matcha. There was no way I was going to scald those delicate leaves with this kettle!

Truth be told, I had considered getting Breville's grand kahuna - the Tea Maker - for its motorized basket, clear glass jug, and programmable features, but for half the price, the ergonomic handle, soft open lid, cordless jug and aesthetic design of the IQ Kettle (re-branded from the 'Smart Kettle' to Aussies) won me over.

If we ever get into coffee, we'll go across the street and take advantage of the billion-dollar espresso machines at a local cafe. But hey, we could just as well use the 'french press' setting, right?

We've got the Breville toaster too. Can you tell we're drinking the Breville kool-aid? Okay, it's tea in my cup. Got me.

Fish on Friday

With Friday coming up, this morning I headed to the market to pick up a slab of salmon for tonight, and tilapia to curry tomorrow. Since I was almost late for my appointment with the lovely people at the Integrative Health Institute, instead of running home first, on arrival I asked Virginia at reception if I could leave my bag in their fridge. She obliged.

As I was leaving, Virginia handed me back my bag and exclaimed, "That's a lot of fish!" She is trying to eat fish more often, and was intrigued by the sheer weight of my shopping bag. From there we had a really nice conversation about seafood: sources, equitable fishery practices, and preparation. And, Virginia telling me I should write a blog! So here we are; I'll try to capture some highlights of our talk:

• If I ever meet anyone who wants to eat more fish, I highly recommend they read Four Fish by Paul Greenberg. This book covers the dwindling varieties of fish available to the general population in North America, sustainable fishing, and the importance of eating 'ocean-wise' whenever possible. It's available in audio form at the Toronto Public Library, and in paperback at my fishmonger of choice, Hooked.
  
• Shopping at Hooked is an educational experience in and of itself. The staff are incredibly knowledgeable, and they offer fun classes like called 'Shuck U' - one of my most fantastic solo evenings. The flagship is in Leslieville and a newer location in Kensington.
  
• Pearl Diver (formerly Starfish) has a great happy hour - called Zinc n Drink - if you love oysters.
  
• Diana's (in Scarborough) has huge boxes of oysters for amazing value - if you love oysters and can shuck 'em. Their motto is "Eat fish, live longer. Eat oysters, love longer." Love it.
  
• Yes, tilapia is a delicate fish. But my mother literally grew up on a beach, with sand in her hair and fish for breakfast each morning. She taught me the importance of playing nice with delicate fish. The base sauce is created first, boiled vigorously, and then just before serving, the filets are laid every so gently in the sauce, thicker pieces first. Enough water is added so it's skimming the top of the fish, and the lid is put on tight, so you're pretty much steaming the filets. Guests do not serve themselves. The cook herself places the fish on a piping hot bed of rice or greens.
  
• And the salmon? Hawaiian brown salt, or turbinado, sprinkled with a splash of ponzu, broiled in the oven. The citrusy-salty-sweet is perfect with a gorgeous slab of Irish organic. I doubt it's wild - you only get wild BC sockeye salmon once a year, it's prohibitively expensive, and the fat content is so low that the kids don't like it anyway.

Ah, if we could only get our foods fresh, local, organic, wild, equitable and sustainable - and at a good price point, of course. But something tells me we'd still argue about flavour. Sigh.

Eat like you're poor; eat like an athlete

Tarahumara runners, in Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, eat mostly pinto beans, squash, chili peppers, wild greens, pinole, and lots of chia. Bone-strengthening calcium gets worked into tortillas and pinole with the limestone the women use to soften corn.

The beer - Tarahumara tesguino - is very lightly fermented, so it's low in alcohol and high in nutrients.

No access to brew-your-own corn beer? Wild geranium (geranium niveum) is as effective as red wine at neutralizing disease causing free radicals. It's anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antibacterial, and antioxidant. Still, there's something kinda awesome about elite super-athletes getting crunk on corn beer before race day.

The author is instructed to eat more fruits and veg; specifically, eat fruit, beans, yams, whole grains, and salad for breakfast. Day 1 on the diet is kicked off with a salad containing: an apple, kidney beans, raw spinach, and broccoli slaw, topped with poppyseed dressing. Wow. Reminds me of the Celestine Prophecy - where they talk about our bodies needing to be woken up with raw vegetables in the morning.

Recently my cousin told me that an oncologist advised her exercise would reduce her odds of getting cancer. I found this shocking, since we all know that physical activity reduced the incidence of heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and other blood-related illness, but cancer too? Well, here's the missing link, right here in print in this book:

According to Dr Robert Weinberg, MIT cancer professor and discoverer of the first tumor-suppresor gene, 

one in seven cancer deaths is caused by excess body fat... 

cut the fat, and cut your cancer risk.

A little further down, Dr Weinberg postulates we need to build our diets around fruits and veg: When cancerous tumors are removed by surgery, they are 300 percent more likely to grow back in patients who eat a Western diet, as opposed to lots of fruits and veg.

To sum it up, Coach Joe Vigil says,

Eat like a poor person, and 

you'll only see your doctor on the golf course.

The Food Map

Whenever I'm in a random corner of the city, hanging out with friends or family informally, the inevitable occurs. Someone's stomach grumbles, and slowly heads turn my way. As a self-proclaimed Lover of All Things Edible, people just automatically assume I know where we should all go eat. Food is so personal; what floats my boat just might rock yours the wrong way!

So, this is something I've been tossing around in my head for a long time. A food map marking places I want to check out, as well as places where I've had great experiences. So I can just whip it out and say, well, we're here, so let's go... here!

Let's see if it makes my life easier. We all know technology is fraught with pitfalls, but aside from that, everyone's got an opinion ;) 

Pretty Hot and Tempting

wanna check out these phatty joints asap:

1. Yasu (no lunch)
2. Splendido (no lunch, only weekend brunch)
3. Edulis (only Sunday lunch) - mom n pop French
4. Patria (no lunch)
5. Campagnolo (no lunch)
6. Bar Buca (lunch)
7. F'amelia (no lunch)

Pretty Italian-focussed, no?

One of these days I'm going to create a Google map overlay with these want-to-try and the tried-tested-true restos I listed in a previous post.

Confessions of a Closet Hippie

Probiotics

Recommendations

• Consume fermented foods and beverages like sauerkraut, kim chi, beet kvaas, kefir (water and dairy), yogurt, cortido, etc. on a daily basis.
• Consume prebiotic foods that selectively stimulate the growth of beneficial bacteria already inhabiting the gut. These include onions, jerusalem artichoke, and fruits and vegetables high in soluble fiber (sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts, asparagus, turnips, mango, avocados, strawberries, apricots).

Fiber

Recommendations from my midwife

• There are two kinds of fiber: soluble and insoluble
• Soluble fiber is more important for you now - try to eat more apples!
• Insoluble fiber comes from cellulose - carrots, greens, etc and 'bulks up' the stool

Recommendations from my naturopath

• For insolube fiber, eat chia seed pudding. Check out Oh She Glows for inspiration
• Eat fermented foods like tempeh, kimchi, kefir, sauerkraut
• Consume foods rich in omegas and fatty acids like avocado, oily fish

Surf and Turf

A group of friends and I were thinking lately of doing a surf and turf night. Sounds simple enough - but we want to re-create something very special.

Rewind a few years. Hubby and I had bought a couple of steaks for dinner, when we got a call from Thanh and Jenn (then childless and prone to spontaneity).  "Lobsters on sale at TNT! Let's do this." "This" being, show us how to cook lobster fo' real. My friend Gilda's dad had just extolled the virtues of Maggie sauce, and Thanh had scoffed.

The issue was, we had just bought these lovely hunks of marbled, grass-fed protein, and there was no other opportunity to cook them in the coming days. So we pulled a Jesus-with-the-loaves-and-two-fish, and decided to pool and share by cutting the steaks in half. We also threw in some wedding-at-Cana action (hope I'm not going to hell for these references) and popped open a Watson.  That's a gorgeous, buttery Chardonnay from my favourite winery in the world, Closson Chase, in that little slice of heaven called Prince Edward County. The tragedy is that we don't often eat foods that pair well with this big, butterscotch majesty - but this proved to be the perfect occasion. Yes, our guests also brought a big bad red, for the meat course. And Thanh got down to business with those crustaceans.

We surfed, we turfed. At the time our son was 6 months old or so; I still remember him peering out from behind his plate heaped with a giant lobster, in utter rapture. I rummaged through the gadget drawer and found a forgotten butter-warmer (ceramic dish on a tiny stand with a votive candle for heat) that my mother had picked up from a trip to the Maritimes almost a decade ago.

That night became legendary: the wine, the laughter, and oh! the food - all the elements randomly slipping and sliding into a blissfully perfect meal. I think the impromptu nature of that night was part of its success; the feeling that "we'll make do with what we have" blanketed all the proceedings in such a way that no one felt pressured to perform, but instead supported to take risks without the fear of failure. Isn't that what a good test kitchen needs? An environment where you can learn, you can create, and above all, you can have fun.

Forward to the present. A couple additions to both our families (baby girls), and though we wouldn't like to admit it, we are probably less spontaneous than in days of yore. But, whenever we get together, a gleam will get into someone's eye, they'll mention that night, and we'll all lapse into silence, licking our chops. It seems inevitable that we should do it again, right?