The Food Allergy Foodie

Hospital 'food'

My mom has recently been in the hospital for a surgery.  During the week that she was there she complained about the usual things; grumpy nurses, noises at night, and of course the food.  My mom follows the blood type diet, not for weight loss but for improved health.  Since being on it she's felt so great.  She eats things like bulgar salad (recipe coming soon!), sprouted whole grain breads, organic beef and fish.  She doesn't eat refined sugar, wheat or dairy.  This is a lot for a hospital kitchen to take in.  She knew she'd have to bend the rules while she was in there, even though she feels best while eating for her blood type.

I remember my mom always stressing that eating healthy means eating a variety of colours within the food groups.  Dark greens, purples, reds, oranges, yellows...and greys?  Hospitals are supposed to make people better, but this meal (potatoes, cauliflower and beef (if you weren't sure)) made my mom sick.

yuck.

Sassafraz for Summerlicious

I was so excited last Wednesday morning that I didn't even hit snooze once.  I hopped right out of bed and got dressed quickly because I was meeting a friend for lunch at Sassafraz!  I had such a positive experience at Pagaea on the first day of Summerlicious for $20, so I was expecting the $30 Sassafraz lunch to blow it out of the water.

Sassafraz is a Yorkville celebrity hangout, a place to be seen, and supposedly a place with great food.  I would have had a more satisfying experience at Swiss Chalet (which I did the next day).

I started with the Boston lettuce salad with sweet and sour summer berries and citrus dressing, which was uninspiring and too acidic.  My friend Lisa had spicy black bean soup with crème fraiche and chives.  The soup was suspiciously similar to the Campbells version they served in my university cafeteria.

 

I had a glass of Niagra reisling with lunch, not as sweet as it's European counterparts, but it was nice light accompaniment.  Lisa and I both wanted to try the grilled adobe brushed chicken breast with corn salsa and buttermilk potato puree.  Eating out at good restaurants for me, is about tasting things I've never tasted, seeing things plated in ways I've never thought of, and being amazed at how simple ingredients can taste so amazing in the hands of the right chef.  Ours tasted exactly like my mom's usual barbecued chicken breasts brushed with Diana sauce, which I enjoy eating on her back deck on a summer evening...for free.  Lisa thought the potatoes tasted like they came from a box.  The corn salsa was good, but not interesting.  I don't think that Sassafraz is going for comfort food, and if they are this rang a little too true!

When our server took our order he first seem surprised that I wanted wine and then insisted we decide on all three courses at once.  I wasn't sure about dessert.  I asked if I had to decided on it right away, he said yes!  I said, well if I have to make a rushed decision I'll have the strawberry and rhubarb tart (with white chocolate sorbet).  The sorbet was rock hard and didn't taste like white chocolate at all.  The tart shell was good, like a shortbread cookie, but it was filled with soggy fruit.  Lisa had the tiramisu with Kahlua chocolate sauce and espresso bean croquant.  Here it is here.  It tasted fine, but no different than the President's Choice version you can pick up at Loblaws.  Since we had ordered our dessert at the begining, the food runners automatically brought it out after our main course and dropped them in front of us.  But we wanted tea, so we had to wait until our server noticed that we weren't eating.  Lisa told me to take a picture of the tea pots because, 'the tea was the best part'.  It was.  Loose leaf Sri lankan earl grey.

Although I was disappointed, I do have something positive to say.  They were really careful with my allergies (nuts and seafood).  As each course came out the person who brought it would specifically say that it was nut free before placing it down in front of me.  Then before we left, our server said he hopes we come back sometime, and he'll remember, no nuts.  Sorry Fred, we'll never be back.

Digital Gardening

I'm not sure what this says about us as a society.  Is it a good thing that kids learn that food comes from the ground and not just the grocery store?  Or, does this just mean that fat kids will be pretending to grow carrots while eating cheetos on the couch?  What do you think?

Pangaea Restaurant

Since living in Toronto I have somehow missed every Summerliscious and Winterliscious.  I now feel terrible regret over this!  This year I have a resolution to take in as much of this city wide culinary celebration as possible.  On the opening day of this two week event, an old friend and I headed to our lunch reservation at Yorkville's Pangaea.  We were the first people in the dining room, eager and hungry.  They are offering a $20 lunch menu and $35 dinner menu for Summerlicious, which is a huge steal, normally a dinner ranges from $150-200.

We both started with the soup of the day, cream of asparagus.  I ordered mine without the lobster oil that you see here.  The soup was very light and refreshing with a bit of a lemon zip.  The asparagus flavour was amazing, woodsy and fresh.  It was like biting into an asparagus spear only in liquid form. 

I liked the way that we were served bread.  Our server brought around a basket and gave us one of each, olive boule and crusty white, 'so we wouldn't have to choose'.  He left us with a small round ramekin of lemony white bean spread.  Later in the meal he returned with the basket saying, 'have one more, this time you choose' and with it came more delicious spread.

My friend is a vegetarian, she ordered the risotto which was packed with summer mushrooms, leeks, cherry tomato halves, and although the menu says olive oil, we were both sure we tasted truffle oil.  It was amazing and quite a large portion too.  K's now worried that the bar has been raised too high and she won't be able to enjoy risotto in the future and I'd agree that that's a totally rational fear.

I had the lamb saddle roulade which came herb crusted, on sherry macerated mixed bean salad with a 3 day lamb reduction.  The menu said something about horseradish, but I didn't realize until afterward that I didn't get any.  In any case there was nothing to complain about.  The lamb was done to a perfect medium rare and the bean salad was so springy it was inspiring.

Looking at the dessert photos is making my mouth water all over again.  This was the best dessert experience I've had in a while.  The white chocolate panna cotta, topped with whipped cream and poppy seed tuile came balanced on a cinnamon nest of kataifi (a middleastern shredded phyllo dough), which tasted like a fine dining version of shredded wheat.  It was surrounded by orange reduction and wild blueberry compote.  So many flavours and textures!  It was the kind of sensory overload that a good dessert should provide.

K had angel food cake with Niagra apricots, strawberries and cherries which came surrounded by creme anglais.  The restaurant had filled up by this point with the happy hum of business people and ladies who lunch.  Although we passed on wine, we felt giddy with satisfaction, laughing and talking over tea and the remainder of our desserts. 

Many Torontonians complain that Summerliscious results in restaurants dolling out small portions and bad service.  This was not our experience at all.  It was a great foray for us into the restaurants of Yorkville, which we usually would not be able to afford.  Since going I have told countless people about how good it was.  As far as I can tell Summerlicious is a clever promotion that works.

 

Lychee Fruit

Before last night I'd only had canned lychee fruit by way of my favourite martini.  When I saw them at the grocery store I thought I'd give them a try.  They remind me of sonic the hedge hog, when he's all balled up.  They're pink and prickly outside, inside they look like an eyeball without an iris. 

You open them by sticking your thumb nail in right below the stem and peeling away the skin.  Then tear in one spot and remove the pit.  Roll it back into shape to serve.

 

The flavour is floral and sweet, a little bit like honey.  The texture is different than anything I have experienced.  It is something like a grape but more dense and rubbery with a thin harder layer where the pit was.  Hmm, that doesn't sound very appetizing.  Trust me they're delicious and apparently full of vitamin C.  Although I will continue to eat them soaked in vodka, from now on I'll also be eating them fresh.

Epicurious has several lychee recipes, including one for martinis!