Forgot the Potato Chips!

Colin just got home, he went to the store to get the rest of the supplies needed for tonight’s television extravaganza. . . and he forgot the chips.

I wonder if we could send one of the moggies out to the depaneur like this chap . . . .

Wishful thinking. . . .

Cats on Sunday

With the soon to be historic playing of the Family Guy Star Wars episode just mere hours away, I wanted to get a post in before the festivities began.

Recipe That Joey Can Actually Cook : Belgian Endives withHam with Cheese

8 Belgian endives
8 slices boiled ham (not too thick)
1 c. white wine

SAUCE:

2 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. flour
1 c. milk
1/2 c. grated Swiss cheese
Nutmeg, salt & white pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.Wrap each endive with a slice of ham. Place in a baking dish and pour wine over them. Cover and cook for 20 minutes. Melt butter, blend in flour and add milk, stirring constantly until the sauce begins to thicken. Add cheese and continue to stir until melted. Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper. Pour the sauce over the endives with ham and return to the oven for approximately ten minutes until the sauce bubbles and is nicely browned.

(source)

When to Tip?

Earlier this week when I was on http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com they posted a entry about tipping that can be found here. Take a read of how passionate people got with their replies! Even I entered a reply!

This is what I wrote. . . .

 

its called a GRATUITY. I think in this instance it has two meanings – GRATIS – or free, you as the customer give FREE MONEY to a wait staff. As the server it mean GRATEFUL, you provide good service and then you get said FREE MONEY.

I give tips based on service. I don’t think I should ever have to freely part with my HARD EARNED money if the recipient themselves hasn’t worked hard to earn it.

I work on phones, and no matter how shitty MY day is, it is never the fault of the person on the other end of the phone. And I treat people with utmost respect at all times. Its my job to do it, even if I have to do it through gritted teeth.

I been known to leave without giving a tip – and I never frequent places again that treat me poorly. I also TELL others about poor experiences, in hopes they don’t go there either!

But – when I am happy with services – I’m the type of tipper you DREAM of!!!!

Just two weeks ago, I gave a 150% tip. Yup, more than TWICE the cost of the bill.

She was wonderful, and deserved to be compensated for being polite, courteous, knowledgeable and efficient . . . .

Anyways, I’m getting distracted. . . . I went to our local sushi place tonight, and when I left the woman behind the counter asked me “Why you no tip?”. I told her simply that I didn’t think I needed to. . . .

I need to know what everyone else thinks, should I have tipped? When do you tip? How much do you Tip?

Background

• I walked in, and I ordered take away
• I waited 30 minutes
• None of the wait staff or kitchen staff talked to me, beside to ask me not to sit at the table for “real customers”. I had to stand for the full 30 minutes.
• I had to ask for chop sticks, soy sauce and napkins.

Besides that, when is the last time you walked into your local McDonalds, Dominos or KFC and had to tip to get take-away??? Am I a horrible person?

JAWS

Colin and I are having a lazy Saturday afternoon, watching “Jaws”  . . .

. . . and you know what dawned on us. . . .

 . . . . . We have no idea where to get good English style Fish’n’Chips in Montreal.

 

What a shame, eh?  Any body know where to get Fish’n’Chips ’round here?

picture source shark.   picture source fish’n’chips.

Monday Melee (June 18 2007)

A Fracas Project! You’re invited to participate. Get details and see the participant list here.

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The Pizza Edition. I’m hungry, what can I say.

The Monday Melee Questions:

1. The Misanthtropic: Name something (about humanity) you absolutely hate.

I hate the stigma attached to pizza, that its fatty horrible and never nutritious.

You can make healthy pizza.  You just need to be far more selective of your ingredients, and you really can’t get ‘healthy’ pizza from your local pizza parlour.

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2. The Meretricious: Expose something or someone that’s phony, fraudulent or bogus.

30 minutes or its free.

How many of you have really gotten the pizza free if its late?

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3. The Malcontent: Name something you’re unhappy with.

Small pizzas are too expensive to justify ordering them for one person. So we don’t order pizza that often, cause Colin isn’t really home for dinner during the week. 😦

I wish I could eat pizza every day.

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4. The Meritorious: Give someone credit for something and name it if you can.

Domino’s pizza local to us sent us some kick ass coupons, we haven’t gotten pizza from them in a while. One is $10.00 any order. The second is a free large pizza. SCORE!

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5. The Mirror: See something good about yourself and name it.

I can be flexible with my toppings on my pizza. I’m pretty easy to please when it comes to pizza pies! 😉

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6. The Make-Believe: Name something you wish for.

I wish I could make real ‘pizza joint’ pizza at home.

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So We Were Down In Snowden . . . .

Colin and I went to dinner with Chow and Alex tonight to Kanda Sushi in Snowden.

On the walk back to the car after dinner we saw the oddest thing.

A Hasidic Jewish Bachelor Party, at 8:30pm on a Thursday.   Of course the backdrop to the shenanigans was a smoked meat joint called ‘Benny’s’

Gotta love Montreal.

Is there Dog Meat in Spam?

I received a corker of a spam email today in my work account.

Made me laugh, I wanted to share it. . . . .

---

From: Zairiati Hendricks [mailto:orgiesrhubarbs@grupopi.tv]
Sent: Friday, May 18, 2007 10:24 AM
To: Joey
Subject: Re: 

Hello my friend!I am ready to kill myself and eat my dog, if medicine prices here (http://addressofwebsiteIwon’tpromote) are bad.Look, the site and call me 1-800 if its wrong..

My dog and I are still alive 🙂

http://www.markdrew.co.uk/blog/

I best get cracking and order me some cialis. . . . . . .

Hepped Up on Goofballs

Last night we had Scott over for a wonderful Adonis Steak BBQ, and a little Guitar Hero battle.

Scott was telling us about his girlfriend’s evil cat, so we decided to give Scott some of our Premium cat nip to mellow out the devil cat.

We put it in a little snack-sized zip-lock baggie.  We were laughing about the fact that if Scott got stopped by the cops on his drive back into the city and they found the baggie, he’d surely get in shit (it was totally more than for personal use, if you know what I mean)

We put the baggie on the counter and forgot about it as we dined on wonderfully prepared steak, baked potatos, grilled asparagus. . . .  .

We retired to the basement for some all out battle of the bands in Guitar Hero, then we hear a small crash of a plate hitting the floor and a mad scramble of paws and claws along the wood floors.

Scott and I didn’t think much of it, its a common sound in our house and Colin was upstairs at the time.

About 10 minutes later Scott went upstairs to get Colin (it was his turn to play Thunderkiss 65 on Hard).

Scott discovered 3 Slothy Bob Marley-esque mellowed cats lounging in the middle of the dinning room with a bag of the good stuff ripped and strewn across the floor.  I can just imagine the conversations the three of them were having, I’m sure there was some Bevis and Butthead “huuuhuuuu” laughing among them.

(Not one of my cats – but it sets a picture for the scene. . . hahaha)

Quickly after they were discovered they decided to become super-active and run up and down the stairs like mad fools.  Chasing each other, trying to nip each other’s tails.  There was quite a few little scraps and hiss fits.  In the immortal words of the Simpsons, they were certainly ‘Hepped up on Goofballs’

I thought given the antics, perhaps I should feed them their evening meal, this was to ensure they didn’t get the ‘munchies’ later.

They acted the fool for the remainder of the evening.  And I got the stern talking to from Colin reminding me that I shouldn’t ‘give’ the cats ‘nip in such high dosages.

I kept trying to tell him that they’d simply helped themselves.

Needless to say my moggies got locked out of the bedroom last night. . .  .hopefully they are sleeping off the trip right now and I have normal & well behaved moggies when I get home.

No more ‘nip for a while.

LOVE Marche Adonis!

On the past weekend while Colin and I were out on our errands (looking for lawn mowers) we decided to stop at Marche Adonis for some fresh steaks to put on the BBQ for dinner.

When we’ve been to Richmond’s house for a BBQ he always buys his meat from there, so we knew we were expecting good beef.

We walked up and down the fresh fruit and vegetables, not since we lived in England and bought from the local fruit market have we seen such beaufiul, undamaged, ripe and perfect produce! That is one thing I’ve always hated about Canada – is that you can only really get good produce for a short period of time each year.

Marche Adonis is Lebanese, and imports much of its fruit and vegetables this time of year (from Spain & Greece), but because they are a small market everything is well taken care of. There was little to none bruised fruit on the counters.

I was very impressed! (Remember I worked in a grocery store, so I’m a grocery snob as it were)

We continued onto the fresh cheese counter, the large Olive and anti-pasto counter, then to the glorious fresh meat counter.

We bought filet minon. 5 huge beautiful and tender steaks for $20.00. There was also fresh made souvlaki and brochettes as well sausages.

We checked out the fresh fish (which all looked great and very fresh!). Then onto the bakery and fresh bread. We picked up a still warm french baguette (that we ate in the car on the way home)

Pickled eggplant, jalapenos stuffed with feta cheese, fresh made spicy steak rub rounded out our purchases.

We quickly went home and got started. Colin being the master of the BBQ got to work on preparing the meat with the spicy steak rub.

I cut the vegetables up so we could grill them too on the BBQ (We have one of those grilling baskets, which is a MUST for anyone who BBQs alot like us)

The meat was by far the most glorious steak we’ve ever cooked at home. It was simply perfect!

The ingredients of the perfect steak are as follows:

• add one Colin who loves to BBQ, and understands the importance of tempurature on the BBQ
• add great and beautiful FRESH meat from a place like Adonis
• add good quality spices

I went back to Adonis last night to pick up some more steak and other fresh meats and vegetables. We plan on BBQing all week!

Yum!

Marche Adonis

4601 Boul Des Sources
Roxboro QC, H8Y 3C5

Phone: 514-685-5050
Fax: 514-685-9268

This is not fast food. It is slow food : www.cheddarvision.tv

Have you ever wondered how long cheese takes to age, or the process it takes to make it.

Now the makers of West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers invite you to watch cheese ripening. . .LIVE!

They have a webcam that allows you to continually, live and un interupted, view the ripening of cheese!

The process should take about a year (and we are only a mear 125 days in).  For those that are a little impatient, or weren’t able to enjoy watching grass grow – there are links on the main home page to time lapsed YouTube videos.

Is it me, or is this all a little cheesy?

(Gawd I love puns)

www.cheddarvision.tv

Yahoo News 

Gibby’s!

Tonight we went for a meal at the Old Port in Montreal at the historic 200 year old Gibby’s Restaurant.

 Anyone from Montreal understands that Gibby’s is an institution of culinary delights.

Gibby’s is a steakhouse, with the most amazing cuts of beef going.

Its the kind of steak you talk about, days, weeks, months, years later!  Trust me, its that good.

Mrs Graham had the Beef Wellington, I had the New York Sirloin, and both Colin and Mr Graham had the Gibby’s Cut steak.

Awesome meal.

After the meal, we walked along the boardwalk on the Old Port, and talked to the crew of the HMCS Halifax ship which was docked at the Port.

  

Raclette with the In Laws

Yesterday night for dinner we tried Raclette, often also called “Party Grill” – raclette is the new fondue of the 70s.  You sit around, grilling your food as you eat, talking and laughing.

 Those of you who know my father in law, know he doesn’t cook for himself.  Never has.

 This has been a year of change for him, at Christmas Paul, Kate, Colin and myself watched him serve himself coffee, and use the microwave at Christmas.  The room fell silent with gobsmacked onlookers!

Both Mr and Mrs Graham enjoyed the experience, but won’t be hosting their own raclette meal any time soon.

  

Happy Easter.

Happy Easter everyone.

Colin got me a chocolate cat for easter. . . . check out the FREAKY eyes!!!

Colin’s Awesome Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

****Update May 11 2007**** As linked on Wikipedia for Grilled Cheese!  Congrats Colin!  hahaha

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We made grilled cheese tonight for dinner. As mentioned in a previous post, my husband makes the best grilled cheese. Its real comfort food, and when you have a rough day they really hit the spot.

Since I made my previous post I’ve received 5 emails from various people who stummbled onto my blog asking what Colin’s secret is to the perfect grilled cheese, today was the first opportunity to interview Colin. . .so as the master cooked his masterpieces, I took down the proccess – almost verbatim
Ingredients:

Very Soft Thick White Bread (For those in Quebec, Think POM ‘Ultra Soft’)

Cheese, two types (The better the cheese the better the sandwich, processed cheese is not real cheese – not matter what they tell you in the commericals) Colin likes to use Havariti and Extra Mature cheddar.

Margarine or Butter (the good stuff, not the low fat crap)

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Steps:

1. Butter the bread (remember you are buttering the outside of the bread, the part that will be on the pan). Butter all the way to the edge of the bread.
2. Preheat the pan to slightly under medium heat. (1/3 heat)
3. Put your cheese on the bread, and create the sandwich. Some people like to grate cheese, Colin doesn’t believe this is nessasary – but to each their own)
4. Don’t overfill your sandwich, usually two layers of cheese will do you. Otherwise its too much of a gooey mess. Colin likes to add extra ingredients, like bacon or sliced home made dill pickle – he says it adds colour and texture. Don’t bother with bicks – must be home made or gourmet.

   

5. You are just toasting the bread, so the cooking does not take long. If the bread sizzles when you put it on the pan, the pan is too hot. You are usually cooking for couple minutes on each side (depends on your stove). Colin likes to check his sandwiches often to ensure they don’t burn.

6. After you flip them (they should be golden brown) you press the sandwich down lightly. (La Belle Provience does this-again anyone from Quebec will appreciate this)

7. Then cut on the diagonal, serve immediatly with a dollop of ketchup and some soup, salad or chips.

In Summary,

the secret to the perfect grilled cheese sandwich is quality ingredients and control the heat.