Looking Back: 30 Years

Happy New Year (23 days into 2016, so it still counts)! How was your 2015? How were your holidays? I hope everyone had a wonderful end of year. I love how everything feels so festive in December, twinkly lights and decorations everywhere. The atmosphere is fun and light, especially at work when everyone is looking forward to some time off.

I actually made this pie on Christmas Eve because I was hosting a family dinner with my dad and brother. I figured Howard likes citrus flavours and my brother loves meringue that this pie would be the perfect dessert to serve. It was . . . but it tasted better the day after when I brought it to my in-law's for Christmas day dinner. Letting it set and chill in the fridge actually tasted better than fresh!

Speaking of chill, do you have Netflix? We watched a lot of shows during the holidays that had us doing all-nighters. My whole sleeping schedule got flipped thanks to the addicting series. We managed to finish Luther, Narcos, and started Making a Murderer. Have you seen these shows? What did you think? What would you recommend we watch next?

I'm deciding to make this a combination post too. Not only are we celebrating national pie day, I also want to chat birthday. I've also hit a new milestone, I'm officially in my thirties!!! Way to make myself feel old there. My favourite cousin recently turned 13 - gasp, a teenager - and I remember babysitting him as toddler. He's still not taller than me yet, I hope that takes a bit more time (we have a height bet). It's amazing how fast time flies. There has been so many neat changes in the past year alone that I'm excited for this year.

Looking back, here are thirty highlights:

1. WE GOT MARRIED! Finally!
2. Had an amazing and memorable honeymoon in Jamaica. Which reminds me, I want to share that in a post soon.
3. In Jamaica, we visited the Luminous Lagoon. Very cool experience, we'd recommend going if you get a chance.
4. Tried scuba diving for the first time. 
5. Met new relatives that flew in from Taiwan and South Africa.
6. Felt the love at my bridal showers. Good friends and colleagues are hard to come by, so when you do find them, make them bake and cook for you.
7. We were fortunate enough to squeeze in some travel. We visited Chicago and flew Porter for the first time!
8. Work perks: Met Judy Blume and had my book signed. Had my photo taken with Chef Curtis Stone. Ate dinner with Alan Doyle. Shook hands with Al Gore. Saw Chef Michael Smith. Shook hands and had my booked signed by Chris Hadfield. Felt the excitement when Ethan Hawke and Rainn Wilson were in the office. Seen Margaret Atwood roam the floors.
9. Helped plan Anne Michaels' book launch for The Adventures of Miss Petitfour. She's a fantastic reader and there were sea shanties.
10. Gained a godson because we're awesome godparents. Still watching in awe as our goddaughter becomes more vocal.
11. Survived an office move. Boxes of books are incredibly heavy.
12. Made new friends with new colleagues thanks to the merge.
13. Switched from the editorial department to the marketing and publicity department. Every day is a learning experience, but we do such cool things.
14. Working with the coolest children's marketing and publicity team ever, I love my pod.
15. Finished watching Veronica Mars as numerous interns vouched for it. It lived up to the hype.
16. Lost at Pongapalooza. In the first round.
17. Made lots and lots of bunting. Then more and more. I've been given the title Baroness of Bunting.
18. Also been given the title Countess of Cake.
19. Featured in the Globe and Mail as an office model.
20. Had an amazing dinner at Grand Electric's Champagne Room.
21. Discovered my new favourite chocolate chip cookies recipe!
22. Had my hair coloured and my nails done for the first time.
23. Got a waffle maker. Just you wait for all the waffle posts.
24. Saw the Pan Am excitement around the city of Toronto.
25. Gave pop pilates a try and was surprised I enjoyed it.
26. My orchid bloomed!
27. Not getting cable and just having Netflix was the best decision ever.
28. Discovering canelés. Ugh, craving one now.
29. Howard surprised me with a spa date. His first one ever!
30. Booked an ambitious trip to Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Taiwan for 2016.

And if you were just here for the pie. The recipe is from the New York Times, which they adapted from Alice Water of Chez Panisse. If you read the comments, you'll see that lots of people doubled the lemon recipe. I ended up doing so as well and it gave the pie a nice inch of lemon filling. I also found that the lemon filling set better in the fridge, despite the recipe's instruction saying not to place it in the fridge after letting it cool for one to two hours.

Recipes: Flaky pie crust | Chez Panisse Meyer Lemon Meringue Pie

The Chase Fish and Oyster

The Chase Fish and Oyster

10 Temperance Street

Toronto, ON M5H 1Y4

647-348-7000

Birthday weekends are the best! We haven't eaten out and tried a new restaurant in a long time, so Howard did a little research and picked a restaurant for my birthday dinner last week. The only stipulation I gave him was that I wanted oysters. I think it's been more than a year since I've had a good oyster platter!

Oyster platter delivered. Each table is given a card and pencil to mark the amount of raw seafood they would like to order. So I penciled in three Foxley Bay oysters and three Salt Grass oysters after our knowledgeable waiter went through the description. All oyster platters come with fish and oyster hot sauce, cocktail sauce, and migonette. Just so perfect that I could try each sauce per oyster. Maybe eight next time so I can really load up the lemon and horseradish on one.

We tried a bunch of sharing plates and this was by far our favourite. The big eye tuna "nachos" - in quotation marks because it was made with crispy taro root chips, hot mustard saffron emulsion, and sweet onion and shoyu dressing. Delicious and refreshing, it was so good during this chilly winter, imagine how much better it would be eaten on the patio during the summer!

Next up, the hot smoked white fish on toast with caviar and pickles. Great flavours and I don't even like pickles! But everything worked together to form that perfect bite.

Couldn't resist a side of shoestring fries. I love fries.

Octopus with harissa, spiced merguez sausage, mustard greens, and sauteed red onions. We made merguez sausages last summer and I thought they were pretty awesome. But this one was a hundred percent stronger and punchier in flavour. There were only a few slices on the plate, which is a good idea because it can easily overpower the octopus.

We decided to share a main, but thought that the portion was similar to the sharing plates. Regardless, the scallops with pumpkin ravioli, foie gras butter, and arugula was rich and creamy.

I always look forward to dessert, but felt this was too much chocolate and sugar for one person. Did I just say that? Darn, I am getting old! But thank goodness we shared it because it could not be finished as a single serving. The hazelnut bombe with hazelnut whipped ganache, dark chocolate cream, chocolate cake, and candied hazelnuts was like a giant Ferrero Roche minus the thin wafer shell. I can't believe I'm going to say this as well, but dessert was our least favourite dish of the meal!

But that doesn't matter, we are definitely going back and looking forward to trying the other restaurants from this hospitality group: The Chase (which is upstairs), Little Fin (right beside), and Colette Grand Café.

Harley Birthday Cupcakes

Logos. Probably the enemy of most decorators. Especially if you don't have a handy printer that shoots out edible sheets that you can apply on top of fondant.

I was given the challenge of doing a Harley-Davidson theme for a birthday party yesterday. Nuh-huh. Not doing it. The logo is way too intricate for small cupcake toppers. But I found a way to simplify it and wanted to share this neat trick with you.

For most things that people request to top their cupcakes and cakes with, there aren't cookie-cutters available for sale. Or if you are able to purchase the shapes you need, is it worth investing in that one specific shape? What do you do then? You improvise with the cutters you already have!

For the Harley-Davidson logos, I used a medium heart-shaped cutter, a small T-shaped cutter, a modeling stick, and tiny letters for impressions.

First, roll your fondant out and neatly cut out the heart shape.

Here's the important trick. If you don't have a cutter for what you need, look to the outside edges of the cutters you already have. As you can see, step two is to trim off the top of the heart with the outer edge of the cutter.

Do the same for the other side for the third step. See how it's starting to look like a shield?

Steps four and five, use the round outer edge of the letter T. Cut out two small dips at the top of the logo.

Time to go sideways. We need another little dip underneath.

Normally I might use more cutters to help, but I found that I was able to trim the fondant with just the T.

Last dip in the logo! When you're done, you can always use a straight edge or modeling stick to clean up the sides.

Finally, impress the letters into the surface! Couldn't use all three colours on one topper? Break it out into three!

And now for some heavenly chocolate photos. The birthday girl is very fond of chocolate.

I glazed the chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache.

Then topped it off with a chocolate butter cream swirl. Could have taken it even further with chocolate sprinkles or a drizzle of chocolate. But the fondant toppers would be sitting on top.

Unwrapping the cupcake liner . . .

Thought I would cut it in half to see the three chocolate layers. Yummy!

Happy birthday Donna! Ride on!

Café Boulud

Café Boulud

Four Seasons Hotel

60 Yorkville Avenue

Toronto, ON M4W 0A4

Tel: (416) 963-6000

It really is a new year for me as I celebrated my birthday last weekend. Level completed and all, I'm moving on to another number (that's all age is ... right?)! To celebrate, my dearest Howard took me to Daniel Boulud's Café Boulud for dinner. At the Four Seasons Hotel, the main lobby also includes D|Bar if one desires to go in for drinks and food in a more casual atmosphere. But since we dressed up and had reservations, we went up to the second level and were greeted by the hostess.

It wasn't a busy night and I was quite pleased with our seats. It was the first seat after the large communal table at the front - look at that gorgeous table in the photo above! Our table was one of the few tables in between the columns - it offered a nice view of the entrance (for people-watching) and some privacy from the sides and back. Best of all, I had a small loveseat all to myself!

The artwork was ... interesting. We were sitting between two pieces, one depicting Michael Jackson, the other was a can of Campbell soup. It was noted on the menu that the art could be bought.

About those menus, our waiter was very hospitable and explained how the menu was laid out. Picture a 4-column, 3-row grid. The four columns are divided into la tradition, classic French cuisine, Daniel Boulud style; la saison, using seasonal ingredients; le potager, mainly vegetarian dishes; and le voyage, a section our waiter described as a place for the chefs to be creative and have a bit of fun. The first row lists the appetizers, the second row is meant for the entrées, and the third are some extra side dishes. We were highly encouraged to mix and match as you don't have to stay within a column of food.

My first pick from the menu was the Seared Albacore Tuna from the saison section. The tuna was paired with winter radish, edamame, a yuzu vinaigrette, and katsuo mirin spice. All great flavours that worked well together, this was a personal favourite of mine.

Howard and I were admiring the light green sauce that was painted onto the plate. At first glance, I thought it was part of the plate's design! But it wasn't, so we started mopping it up with our food.

Howard picked the Nova Scotia Lobster Salad from le voyage for a second appetizer to share. The lettuce was garnished with strips of coconut, crispy fried shallots, chili, a Jalapeño and Lime Gremolata, and underneath, we found a samosa!

I've never tasted lobster like this before. I'm not a huge fan of lobster or crab in general, probably because I've never ate a well-cooked one. This lobster didn't have an overly strong fishy smell or taste, it was - the best way I can describe it - clean. It tasted clean and fresh and it shone on it's own.

The way our waiter was describing this next dish, it was hard to pass up. It was the special of the night which I think they should just put on the menu! The juicy chicken was prepared two ways. You can see the black truffle in the photo where there's a dark patch under the skin of the chicken.

The second, foie gras stuffed in chicken, as seen above in the middle and the chicken on the right. Rich and creamy, this dish was quite the treat. It was a very nice surprise!

This Steak au Poivre is from la tradition and featured a dry-aged Cumbrae strip loin with bone marrow, confit shallot, and pommes Pont Neuf with parsley salad. The flavours of the steak were good, although it wasn't the most tender steak we've had. Personally, the highlight for me were the pommes Pont Neuf! The parsley salad was a little over powering.

And finally, to the best part of any meal - dessert! I tried the Grapefruit Givré, with sesame halva, rose loukoum, grapefruit sorbet, and cotton candy. A givré, I recently learned, is a dessert that consists of sorbet in a frozen fruit shell.

I was instructed to hold the sides of the grapefruit and use my spoon to push everything down in the center. This way I could thoroughly mix and incorporate all of the ingredients.

Howard ordered the Coconut-Roasted Pineapple served with a lime gelée, coconut foam, and banana-passion fruit sorbet.

I didn't even get to try the lime gelée there, it was so good that Howard ate it all! He also raved about the banana-passion fruit sorbet. Luckily, I got to try one of the cake stacks before he consumed them all!

The best treat of the night? These heavenly birthday madeleines, courtesy of the restaurant. They were so addictive to eat, wrapped in a napkin, they were warm, soft, chewy, and not too sweet. After all the food we ate, I thought we would have to pack these, but nope, I polished them off with finesse.

Maila's Dinosaur Cake and Cupcake Tower

We received an amazing e-mail this week from Maila, all the way from California. A sunny state we would love to visit one day. But back to the story, these kinds of e-mails make us so happy! We're grinning like the T-Rexes on the cupcakes above.

Maila wrote to tell us that she made a 6-inch cake and a 4-tiered cupcake tower for a friend's son who was turning three years old this year. The request was made on short notice, but instead of having a meltdown (hey, look, a volcano...), she spent a sleepless night working hard.

In those 24 hours, she must have looked up cake and buttercream recipes and found our fondant dinosaur tutorials.

She also wrote to tell us that this was her first time making a birthday cake and working with fondant. She had never worked with fondant before.

Yes, we were impressed. Your jaws probably just dropped too.

If it were our first baking project, we probably would not have pulled off such an amazing display of cupcakes.

Maila wrote to tell us that the T-Rexes on the grassy field also have a haven of water, it's blocked by the large "3" candle, but you can see the start of water there.

You know what we love? Party hats. These dinosaurs know how to rock the age. Lucky Cody.

Once again, thank you Maila for writing to us and sharing your photos. Then, for giving us permission to share your photos on our blog and facebook page. We are not surprised to hear that the party was a hit. Thank you for making so many people happy!

Photo credits: Maila