Weekend in Review v.12.01.20

I had been looking forward to this past weekend for ages and it was totally worth the wait. Friday night me, Nat, Ty and Nat’s brother Bro G went indoor rock climbing. It was fun but really humbling experience. Back in the day when I was an adventure tour guide, I used to indoor rock climb every two weeks and I was pretty good at it. Ten years later (ten years!!! Holy fuck, I can’t believe it was that long ago!), I now suck at it. No, wait, not just suck, absolutely fucking blow at it.

I have discovered that I have zero leg or upper body strength regardless of the amount of yoga, fat ladies in deep water and bicep curls I’ve been doing. *sigh* I still hurt. In fact, I hurt more two days later than I did yesterday. I hurt to pull up my pants. I hurt to push the button to dispense wine from the box. That is really bad.

Saturday I had a date with my non-sexual life partner, Puss. We went to the matinee hockey game to see the Canucks slay the Sharks. Afternoon hockey win and a SIGNIFICANT improvement in beer selection at the arena made it even better. If I have to pay $8 for arena beer, you can bet that I’m not dropping that amount of money on a Molson Canadian. Stanley Park Amber Ale? I’m a little more inclined.

For Christmas my boss gave me a $100 gift certificate to The Keg Steakhouse. This seemed like the perfect day to use it. The last time I was given a gift certificate to The Keg, Puss was my date and I couldn’t even dream of bringing anyone else. We started with delightful cocktails, a Bluebery Tea for Puss (orange pekoe tea, Amaretto and Grand Marnier) and a something I can’t remember the name of for me (rum, port, fresh squeezed orange and lemon juices). Our starter was calamari because I can’t say no to squid deep fried with jalapenos and red pepper slices.

For dinner we do what we usually do: order the same thing. *giggle* It’s always by chance that we want the same. It makes sense, we’re non-sexual life partners, lol. Prime rib for Puss, sirloin for me, both with a lobster tail. Hey, we’ve got $100 of free money, we’re not skimping. Our server was amazing. Great conversation, great wine opinions and when we couldn’t make up our minds on wine, he was more than happy to bring us samples to try. We settled on a delicious bottle of malbec. It was a gluttonous meal thanks to the buttered lobster. I believe the line of the dinner/nihgt was, “I know this is butter but it’s really buttery.” (me, many wines in)

For dessert I ordered myself an Irish coffee and Puss and I each had a s’more and a passion fruit infused crème brulée. Know what I only just learned about the Puss? She doesn’t like marshmallows. Weird. I liked the s’more but would have preferred if it had been served hot, she didn’t like it at all. The passion fruit crème brulée had a really great flavour but they did what I can’t fucking stand that SO many mediocre restauratants like this one do, serve the crème brulée cold. Argh, my pet peeve.

Yes, The Keg is a mediocre chain restaurant but my steak was good and both conversation and wine flowed freely. We ate well and by the time we wandered out down the streets of Yaletown, I was stuffed and ready to be mounted (that’s a taxidermy reference, not a sexual one). We didn’t even realise that we had been there for nearly three hours. What next?

We decide to be tourists in our own city and take the aquabus over to the Olympic Village to visit one of our favourite wine stores, Legacy Liquor. After wandering around and eyeing up super expensive wines, we decide to wander over to the Anza for shits and giggles. Neither of us had been in a while so we went to say hello to some familiar faces that we haven’t seen in a while and have a beverage. Ah, the Anza, or Uncle Anza as Puss and I were calling the bar. So many memories there and now we’ve basically abandoned the bar since Puss is no longer the president of the society.

It was a fun night. The next day we were up at a decent hour and wanted to go out for breakfast. We decided on Slickety Jim’s Chat and Chew. Neither of us had been there since the original location burned down, or even to the new location that also had a fire but has re-opened yet again. One thing I’ll give Slickety’s is that I freaking love their jam, it’s more like a compote. This was a sour cherry jam that had giant chunks of cherry with just the right amount of sugar to balance the sour, so good.

I really enjoyed my fun times with Puss. We always have a great time together. So much so that we’re thinking about going to Hawaii again. We were there the winter before last and had such a great adventure. I know I just came from a beach vacation a few months ago but I could definitely go for another one with Puss. Yeah, I like the thought of being on a beach for my birthday.

Or maybe it’s just that I don’t feel like going to work and that’s why I want holiday so bad. I’m in a four day collaboration session this week, then back to the office Monday and Tuesday, a hockey game in the corporate box Tuesday night, then I fly out the next morning for a conference from Wednesday to Saturday. *ugh* Going to be so busy in the next little while so I’m going to preemptively apologise for the lack of blogging in the next little while. I’m also going to apologise for the lack of photos in this one. Instead, I leave you with a few things that have made me giggle on the interwebs in the last little while.

What I Occasionally Feel Like

Sausage Bake

Nat says it best so I’ll just let you read her words. If that saucy broad Nigella says yes, it’s basically like the word of God, if there were such a thing...

I was inspired to make this when I was at Hopcott Premium Meats. Sunday afternoon I got in my car and started driving. No plans, nothing in mind, I turned left and just drove. As I started approaching the boons of Pitt Meadows, how could I not turn off and hit up Hopcott?

Have I babbled about Hopcott before? I must have if I posted about that roasted corn, yellow tomato, yellow zucchini and leek soup. I had no idea what I was looking for but saw some real purdy golden beets, red potatoes and leeks and was hit with the sausage bake idea. I used the last of the sausage that I made last summer in that sausage making class that I haven't blogged about. It was really nice that the pork from the sausage making class and pork from the butchering class no longer brings any memory of the twatface of a man that I took those classes with. In fact, I don’t think of him at all. Well, except for right then.

That made me quite happy so I stopped at the boozerie and bought myself another bottle of scotch to add to the collection. The bigger the scotch collection, the higher my self esteem, right? Like how I make excuses to buy scotch for myself? The Fine Scotch Collection of the one Ms. Moonbeam Bouvier, esq. is proud to announce the arrival of the Auchentoshan Triple Wood to the family.

I first tried this one (the full one on the left) at Nat’s birthday gathering at Central Bistro in the West End per the recommendation of The Captain. Single malt, triple distilled, matured first in American bourbon oak, then two kinds of Spanish sherry casks. The box tells me this results in a whisky rich with a dark fruit, thick butterscotch and roasted hazelnut taste. My mouth tells me this results in fucking tasty and drunk.

Okay, back to sausage bake. I added a bit of balsamic to the mix, for no reason. Before:

After:

Ta-dah!

Wow, sweet roasted vegetables, beautiful bratwurst, spicy Italian sausage paired with a super gingery ginger beer (that was named after me. My moods, not pubic lice.) was close to one of the best dinners I’ve put together for myself in a while. Leftover lunch today was delightful but a ginger beer at my desk would have made it WAY better. Today definitely could have used desk liquor. All in all, delicious. *sweeping curtsey*

La Vâche Qui Rit Soup

Yes, soup made with those little triangles of mooshy cheese with the red laughing cow on it. That silly French cheese that’s been around since 1921? I’ve loved it for years. Whenever I buy it, which isn’t often, I love to spread it on toast like a cream cheese.

While prowling the interwebs for my French onion soup recipe, I came across this one on the Food Network’s site. Lovely Laura Calder, aka Tits Magee, host of “French Food at Home” called this a favourite of enfants de la France. Who I am I to say she’s wrong?

When was I in France last? 2009. Fuck, really? It doesn’t feel like it was that long ago. Puss and I were wreaking havoc on four European countries and on our first afternoon in Paris we wandered upon a fantastic little brasserie/bistro that had a courgette soup. I was perplexed. Normally, I’m not a huge fan of courgette/zucchini but ordered this soup on a whim.

Amazing. It had this velvety texture to it, this delicate courgette taste that I had never experienced before. Coming from an old country background with Greek godparents that owned a restaurant (of course they did), the only zucchini I had ever tasted was soggy sticks that were really only a carrier for dipping sauce or a layer in a moussaka. I hated it. All of it. Zucchini was my enemy. Well, one of them. That’s right mushrooms and olives, I’m glaring at you fuckos.

I’m so glad that I was as open-minded and adventurous with my palate that day because that soup changed by life. I don’t hate zucchini anymore. Now I just hate poorly crafted/cooked/made zucchini. Thst experience made me look at the below recipe and not cringe, but get really excited.

La Vâche qui rit Soup

1 onion, finely sliced

2 lbs zucchini, chopped

2 c water or vegetable stock

salt and pepper, to taste

pinch cumin

4 triangles of Vâche Qui Rit

Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat, sauté onions. Add zucchini, salt, pepper and cumin. Add stock, note: will not cover the vegetables.

Cover and cook until soft, about 30 minutes. While waiting, make a charcuterie plate and enjoy. Below is bread, fresh mozzarella slices drizzled with oil, salt, pepper and cayenne, brie, garlic coil, prosciutto and spicy sopressata.

When it’s done it will look like poo. Very unhealthy poo.

Add cheese and purée in either a blender or with an immersion blender.

This batch makes 4 servings at 188 calories, 2.3g of saturated fat and 4g of dietary fibre. I have a feeling that vâchie vâchie soup is going to be afuckingmazing for lunches with that beer bread I made earlier this week and froze in portioned slices. You might say that I was on a soup mission in the last couple of days. Weekend soup win!

French Onion Soup

Remember when I said that when Cass and I went to Mexico that we had amazing French onion soup and I wanted to recreate it myself? I did today. Didn’t have a recipe of my own but figured that’s what the interwebs is for. I had looked at a few recipes online and basically took what I wanted from each of them to make my own. Borrow, steal, whatever.

French Onion Soup

2 tbsp butter

¼ c olive oil

3lb onions, sliced thin

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp sugar

2 bay leaves

3 sprigs thyme

2 c dry red wine

6 c beef stock

salt and pepper

12 toasted slices of French baguettes, ½ inch thick

2 c Gruyere cheese, grated

3 tsp Parmesan cheese, grated

In a large saucepan over medium-high heat melt the butter and heat oil together. Add the onions, garlic and sugar.

Sauté until slightly coloured, stirring occasionally.

Add the wine, thyme and bay leaves, raise temperature to high, and bring to a boil. Lower temperature back down to medium- high and cook for 5 minutes.

Add beef stock, raise temperature to high and bring to a simmer. Lower temperature to medium and simmer uncovered for 90 minutes. Remove thyme and bay leaves. At this point you can prepare/portion soup for freezing. Carry on, my wayward son, should you choose to eat now.

Preheat broiler. Ladle soup into 6 ovenproof soup bowls. Place two slices of toasted baguette onto the top of each soup blow. Sprinkle each serving with 1/3 of a cup of Gruyere and ½ tsp of Parmesan cheese.

Place soup bowls onto a baking sheet and then in oven under preheated broiler. Broil until the cheese melts, about a minute and a half.

One thing I found while trolling the interwebs for a recipe was an interesting replacement of the bread with a porcini mushroom. I thought that was a pretty great idea for people not eating bread. Not for me because I think mushrooms are fucking disgusting and the only dish they should be on is a petri, but I have two people that I regularly dine with who are doing wheat/gluten free diets right now.

Other substitutions? Should you be a vagematerian, swap the beef broth with vegetable broth.

Puss came over tonight for a hangout, soup, wine and episodes of Metal Evolution. Sam Dunn’s mini-rockumentaries fucking kick ass. I love his film making style about metal music and this series is better than “Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey” because he spends an hour exploring each sub-genre of metal (new wave of UK metal, glam, thrash *sigh, my love*, early pre-metal) rather than trying to squeeze them all in a 2 hour rockumentary film.

To go with food, wine and metal night I thought it would only be appropriate to pair a French onion soup with a French wine. Tonight’s selection was a 2003 Bourgogne Hautes-Côtes du Nuit. Wow, this was a fucking amazing pairing. The wine was soft and so plummy in flavour that it was almost jam-like. That, with not overly salty (like usual) broth, not too soft and not too firm onions, hints of herbs, all lovingly touched with wine soup. The bread on top wasn’t mushy, not like a mushy dumpling but still holding its form, especially the crusts. On top of the bread was grated Gruyere and Parmesan were just the perfect oozy gooey goodness. Just enough salt, flavour, cheesy goodness and jammy wine. Oooh, it was SO good.

So good that Puss passed out on me after 3 episodes of Metal Evolution. Well, I’m not done. It’s my Friday and I’m staying awake to play! While she’s been sleeping on me, I’ve sat here writing, watching more Metal Evolution (even though I've seen all the episodes), drinking more fine wine and watching the first Snowmageddon of the year fall. Aw, look at how excited Puss is about snow. Puss: "Zzzzzzz", lol.