Saturday, April 28, 2007
And the next adventure is...
In a few hours I leave for a two-and-a-half week trip to Southeast Asia. I'm going to be travelling to Vietnam, Angkor Wot in Cambodia, and Bangkok, Thailand. I hope to sample some great food and take a lot of pictures along the way. I'm also scheduled to take a cooking class at the Blue Elephant Cooking School in Bangkok. So I'll be back here later in May with lots of new stories to tell!
Friday, April 13, 2007
Noshing in New Orleans
A couple of months ago my husband attended a conference in New Orleans and I tagged along. This was my second trip to New Orleans (my first one was in April 2004) and both times I had gained a few pounds by the end of the vacation. You'll see why. Here are a few photos from my week there.
As soon as we landed in New Orleans and got settled into our hotel (The Sheraton on Canal Street on the edge of the French Quarter), we took a walk along Decatur Street and made a beeline to Johnny's Po-Boys.
A po-boy is a traditional Louisiana submarine sandwich. This one has breaded deep-fried shrimp, lettuce, tomato, pickles and mayo on a crusty French baguette.
This is a deep-fried soft-shelled crab po-boy sandwich with a bowl of gumbo, also from Johnny's Po-Boys.
A Muffuletta sandwich from the famous Central Grocery in the French Quarter. Another hearty sandwich made famous in New Orleans, the muffuletta is packed with layers of salami, capicolo, and mortadella meats, with provolone cheese and an olive/pickled vegetable mixture.
And, of course, a trip to New Orleans wouldn't be complete without a visit to the legendary Cafe Du Monde on Decatur Street. The beignets arrive to your table hot and piled high with icing sugar.
We enjoyed a nice dinner at Brennan's restaurant. I had the veal with crab meat and hollandaise sauce. We had to ask the waiter what the little yellow package tied with a green ribbon was at the corner of my plate--it turned out to be a half a lemon tied in yellow cheesecloth. Ha!
This is another traditional Creole dish of crawfish etouffee with rice. I wish I could buy crawfish here in Vancouver.
I can never have a enough seafood. This is a cold shellfish platter from Bourbon House restaurant. It's loaded with oysters on the half shell, mussels, shrimp and scallops.
New Orleans is one my favourite cities in North America. The food is excellent, the people are friendly, and the jazz music is fantastic. I can't wait to go back again someday.
Friday, March 2, 2007
Bad blogger
Yes, I know I've been a bad blogger. My last post here was more than a month ago. I could list a number of excuses for my absence (travelling, a bad cold, exhaustion, laziness, hibernation, busy at work) but the bottom line is that I'm still alive and I still love cooking.
I think a big part of the reason why I haven't blogged here in a while is because in all honesty I've become disillusioned with my job as a cook at the hotel/casino. I wouldn't go so far to say that I hate my job, but I'm most definitely disillusioned with it. There's only so many hundreds of pounds of potato salad I can make before I go a little crazy, you know what I mean? (Whenever I hear someone complain about their job, I'm reminded of this scene in a Drew Carrey episode where he says to a colleague, "What? You hate your job? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY. We meet at the bar.")
There are, however, some great things about my job. I'm constantly inspired by some of the incredibly hard-working people I have the privilege to know. Many line cooks and dishwashers I have worked with are recent immigrants and have some harrowing stories to tell.
I've worked with a pastry chef who came to this country as a refugee from the Vietnam war. When he was a teenager he spent three days on an open boat with more than a hundred other people adrift at sea after the fall of Saigon. Then he spent three years in a Malaysian refugee camp before being allowed to come to Canada. A lady I worked with came to Canada from China in the early '90s. She was a school teacher in Shanghai for 27 years, and for the last ten years she's been working as a dishwasher. Another lady that was recently hired as a dishwasher came from Iran. One day she asked me my ethnic background (I'm half-Japanese, half-French); then I asked her and she said, "I'm from Iran." Then she raised her arms in the air and said with great gusto, "And I'm a free woman!" There's another guy I work with who has two full-time jobs and he and his wife just welcomed the birth of twins to their family. He works seven days a week and on three of those days he works from 7am to 11pm. And he always has a smile on his face and he never complains how tired he is.
In many ways these new friends have changed my outlook on life. I never would have had the opportunity to know these people if I had stayed at my cushy and sheltered desk job. They make me realize what a lucky life I have and how ridiculous and shameful it is for me to whine about anything, especially about potato salad. This whole experience wasn't just a career change, it was a me change.
And I expect things will change again sometime soon. Which is another reason for my long absence from this blog. I will remain in this job for a few more months, after which I'll (hopefully) have a very exciting announcement to make, so stay tuned!
I think a big part of the reason why I haven't blogged here in a while is because in all honesty I've become disillusioned with my job as a cook at the hotel/casino. I wouldn't go so far to say that I hate my job, but I'm most definitely disillusioned with it. There's only so many hundreds of pounds of potato salad I can make before I go a little crazy, you know what I mean? (Whenever I hear someone complain about their job, I'm reminded of this scene in a Drew Carrey episode where he says to a colleague, "What? You hate your job? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY. We meet at the bar.")
There are, however, some great things about my job. I'm constantly inspired by some of the incredibly hard-working people I have the privilege to know. Many line cooks and dishwashers I have worked with are recent immigrants and have some harrowing stories to tell.
I've worked with a pastry chef who came to this country as a refugee from the Vietnam war. When he was a teenager he spent three days on an open boat with more than a hundred other people adrift at sea after the fall of Saigon. Then he spent three years in a Malaysian refugee camp before being allowed to come to Canada. A lady I worked with came to Canada from China in the early '90s. She was a school teacher in Shanghai for 27 years, and for the last ten years she's been working as a dishwasher. Another lady that was recently hired as a dishwasher came from Iran. One day she asked me my ethnic background (I'm half-Japanese, half-French); then I asked her and she said, "I'm from Iran." Then she raised her arms in the air and said with great gusto, "And I'm a free woman!" There's another guy I work with who has two full-time jobs and he and his wife just welcomed the birth of twins to their family. He works seven days a week and on three of those days he works from 7am to 11pm. And he always has a smile on his face and he never complains how tired he is.
In many ways these new friends have changed my outlook on life. I never would have had the opportunity to know these people if I had stayed at my cushy and sheltered desk job. They make me realize what a lucky life I have and how ridiculous and shameful it is for me to whine about anything, especially about potato salad. This whole experience wasn't just a career change, it was a me change.
And I expect things will change again sometime soon. Which is another reason for my long absence from this blog. I will remain in this job for a few more months, after which I'll (hopefully) have a very exciting announcement to make, so stay tuned!
Monday, January 22, 2007
Technical difficulties
Blogger isn't letting me post pictures here for some reason. I have a lot of pictures from my dinner at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon that I wanted to share. I'm leaving for a trip to New Orleans this week so I hope to get these technical difficulties sorted out when I get back.
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Aureole, Las Vegas
Happy New Year! Yes, I'm still alive. I'm sorry I haven't posted anything here since November. I ended up working six days a week since mid-November and I was utterly exhausted. You know how most people gain weight during the holiday season? Well I ended up losing five pounds. Thank goodness the holiday rush is behind me now.
I did manage to get a few days off around Christmas though. My husband and I took the opportunity to take a quick trip to Las Vegas. It's an easy two-and-a-half-hour plane ride from Vancouver to Las Vegas, and it was just so nice to see the sun and blue sky again! We've had a record amount of wind storms and rainfall these last two months in Vancouver.
Our first night in Vegas, my husband and I dined at Aureole at Mandalay Bay.
Aureole boasts an impressive 42-foot wine tower at its entranceway.
Wine stewards or "angels" retrieve wines from a mechanic hoist. It's like a scene out of Mission Impossible. There are nearly 10,000 bottles of wine housed in that structure.
Another cool feature of Aureole's wine list is that it is presented to you on a small computer at your table and you can point and click your way through the list.
After browsing through the list, we decided on a Joseph Phelps cabernet sauvignon. The food, wine, and service were excellent. Here are some photos of the food.
MAINE SCALLOP TRIO: crisp scallop wonton, truffle encrusted, ceviche summer roll
BLACK MISSION FIG AND ROQUEFORT TART: warm with shaved Serrano ham
“SURF AND TURF”: braised beef short rib, butter poached Maine lobster, spinach mousseline
FALL BEEF DUO - SEARED FILET MIGNON & SAVORY SHEPARD’S PIE: organic ice carrots, roasted baby leeks
Desserts and French pastries that looked like little works of art. On the far end is a grape frangipane tart with maple sauce, grape gelee and vanilla bean panna cotta. In the foreground is peanut butter ice cream enrobed in chocolate with bananas and marshmallows.
I did manage to get a few days off around Christmas though. My husband and I took the opportunity to take a quick trip to Las Vegas. It's an easy two-and-a-half-hour plane ride from Vancouver to Las Vegas, and it was just so nice to see the sun and blue sky again! We've had a record amount of wind storms and rainfall these last two months in Vancouver.
Our first night in Vegas, my husband and I dined at Aureole at Mandalay Bay.
Aureole boasts an impressive 42-foot wine tower at its entranceway.
Wine stewards or "angels" retrieve wines from a mechanic hoist. It's like a scene out of Mission Impossible. There are nearly 10,000 bottles of wine housed in that structure.
Another cool feature of Aureole's wine list is that it is presented to you on a small computer at your table and you can point and click your way through the list.
After browsing through the list, we decided on a Joseph Phelps cabernet sauvignon. The food, wine, and service were excellent. Here are some photos of the food.
MAINE SCALLOP TRIO: crisp scallop wonton, truffle encrusted, ceviche summer roll
BLACK MISSION FIG AND ROQUEFORT TART: warm with shaved Serrano ham
“SURF AND TURF”: braised beef short rib, butter poached Maine lobster, spinach mousseline
FALL BEEF DUO - SEARED FILET MIGNON & SAVORY SHEPARD’S PIE: organic ice carrots, roasted baby leeks
Desserts and French pastries that looked like little works of art. On the far end is a grape frangipane tart with maple sauce, grape gelee and vanilla bean panna cotta. In the foreground is peanut butter ice cream enrobed in chocolate with bananas and marshmallows.
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