Best of all, they’re Canadian. I wish I’d bought the stock when it was value-priced. Do I wait for another economic downturn or are they set on the track to equity-performance stardom? Where’s my Magic 8-Ball?
Categories: Modern life
… random observations from my journeys through a well-lived life
Today, I experienced what the kids call an ‘epic fail’. In the kitchen. Where I’ve spent thousands of hours in the last 50-some years.
Let’s begin at the beginning. I’m hosting a dinner party in a couple of weeks. One of the menu items will be a vegetable lasagna (grilled eggplant, grilled zucchini, roasted red peppers, homemade marinara sauce, bechamel sauce, mozzarella and Parmesan (not homemade) and ricotta. The ricotta you get in the stores is okay, but I wanted something rich and fresher to round out the panoply of flavour layers in the dish. How hard could it be to make ricotta? It’s just curdled milk protein, right?
With recipes culled from the pages of Chow and Karma Cucina, I assembled my ingredients – four cups of 2% milk, two cups of whipping cream (yeah, I know that seems contradictory, but the recipe said…), 1 teaspoon of kosher salt and 4 tablespoons lemon juice. I heated the liquid gently in an enamel pan, until little bubbles appeared around the edge of the mixture, stirring so that a disgusting burned-milk crust didn’t form on the bottom closest to the heat. I added the acid (juice), stirred a few times and stood back to watch the miracle of curds forming (which is what I was told would happen). Nada. 
Maybe I needed to heat it a bit more. So I cranked up the burner again, counted to 25 then turned it off. Dragged a skewer through to see if there were any curds of note. Nope. Tasted the leftover lemon juice. Not grimace-inducing, so perhaps it wasn’t sour enough to stimulate curd-forming. Rummaged through the cupboard to find some vinegar and measured out two tablespoons (if 1 is called for, why not 2, to speed things up). Gently moved the mass around in the saucepan to distribute and waited another 10 minutes. Used a slotted spoon to scoop up what should be nicely defined curds.
Now, I’ve had my not-so-great kitchen productions – the ravioli that wouldn’t stay closed, so that the roasted butternut squash filling oozed from the too-thick pasta layers into the water, so that the whole thing looked like an explosion in a pumpkin factory, the coconut cream pie with too much cornstarch in the filling, that we needed an electric knife to cut through, the over-exuberant sourdough bread that spewed onto the oven floor and formed a nearly impenetrable barrier on the cooking element. Hey, if you don’t try, you don’t mess up and you don’t learn.
But this bowl of ‘stuff’ didn’t resemble those mounded bowls of well-defined curds the cooking websites display. Nooooo, what I was reminded of was baby barf. That finely textured spit-up the little darlings surreptitiously deposit on the back of your shoulder as you’re burping them when they’re over-full of breast milk and rice cereal. Mothers, you know – the slurry someone else kindly tells you is smeared and smelling up that clean fleece vest you donned over your new yoga top before you dashed out to the supermarket.
There’s salt, vinegar and lemon in it, so it’s not like I can recycle it with cheese and hide in scalloped potatoes. I’m not tasting it, either, seeing as the texture of cottage cheese on my tongue makes me nauseous. Luckily, the quart of cream was from Costco, so it actually cost less than the carton of milk I used. Back to the drawing board? Nah. Perhaps I shouldn’t have taken liberties with the acid proportions. Honestly? There are obviously some things that are better bought, than made.
Maybe I’ll pour it in the garden, over the rose bushes that the rabbits are gnawing to the ground. See if it works as a repellent.
Categories: Cooking & food, Modern life
Tagged: bechamel sauce, Cook, Costco, Curd, kosher salt, Lasagna, Ricotta, roasted red peppers, vegetable lasagna
The power of the Internet! There are few of us whose live have NOT been touched by this awful disease. Somewhere, some time, there will be someone who finds a cure for this scourge.
To highlight some of the critical work being done at the Goodman Cancer Research Centre, McGill University gathered some of their top scientists, students, lab techs and dedicated volunteers, who turned on the music – and danced!
Categories: Argument, Modern life
Thank you Dr. Evans. Eminently watchable. Easy to understand. Excellent advice to start off 2012. Our family Doc recommended this. A Happy, Healthy New Year, everyone!
A Doctor-Professor answers the old question “What is the single best thing we can do for our health” in a completely new way.
Dr. Mike Evans is founder of the Health Design Lab at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, an Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of Toronto, and a staff physician at St. Michael’s Hospital.
Follow Dr. Mike on Twitter @docmikeevans
Facebook/docmikeevans
Categories: Family, Modern life
Tagged: Dr. Evans, exercise, good health, reducing illness, walking
Buying a new car should not resemble a proctologist’s examination. Hub was in the market for a new car. His Honda Odyssey had served him well for 12 years but it was time for something newer and sexier. Being the scrupulous engineer that he is, he did a ton of research and decided on…a 2012 Honda Odyssey. That suited me fine. The vehicle is comfy, quiet and large, which is good because we carry a lot of stuff. In the summer, a folding picnic table, chairs, hamper and plug-in fridge (to keep the wine and salad cool!). In the winter, there’s our sports gear and roadside safety equipment.
But I digress. He signed up for the Automobile Protection Agency (APA), downloaded the new vehicle specs and pricing and information on what he might get for a trade in. Off we went to get the 2000 appraised. Got a great quote and with that in hand, we ventured into our local dealer in Newmarket to see if they would match the pricing and to look at colours. I mean, we’ve all been encouraged to ‘shop local’, right? We’d been in there a couple of weeks before, scoping out the model selections and speaking with a sales manager, who’d said they wanted our business and were prepared to deal. We’d offered to come back when it was time, when the dealer incentives were better and when we had figured out a price. It was time. We had a price. We went back. Well, the first words out of the salesman’s mouth were, “What do you want to pay?”
Not exactly what we were expecting, since we’d said we wanted to check out colours first. He said we couldn’t see any colours until we’d inked a deal. WHAT? Hub handed him the APA printout with the pricing and said, here’s the deal. The next thing Buddy did was to scoff at the printout. He threw out a low-ball price for a trade in, without even looking at the vehicle parked outside the door. Basically, he implied Hub was lying. I began to uncoil.
“But that’s right off the APA website,” says I. “I’d like to see the colours available for that model.”
“What do you want to pay?”
At that point, I walked away, muttering bad things under my breath. He’d burned the deal, as far as I was concerned. His attitude was poor, he made no attempts at being conciliatory and he treated us like we were idiots. Totally misread his customers – two adults who were going to pay CASH. Instant commission, Bucko. Plump up the month-end stats, too. Ongoing commitment to service the vehicle there, thus adding to the dealership’s profits. He’d also made a crack about having already spent time with us discussing the vehicle and taking us for a test drive. Like, excuse me, that’s your JOB!
Hub, of course, loves the chase, so he stayed to talk with the salesman, who was scribbling numbers on a sheet of paper and counter-arguing everything Hub said. When I’d finished reading the newspaper in the cavernous showroom, I wandered back. The ‘Sales Manager’ had joined the debate. He was holding our printout by the corner, like it was something dirty. He, too implied that we’d never be able to make the deal outlined on the APA website. “In fact,” he crowed, “I’ll bet you $50 cash you won’t make that deal.” Wow, that’s really professional, Bub. Denigrate your potential customers.
Never ones to back down from a challenge, we hied our way down the Don Valley to Parkway Honda, spoke to a first-rate salesman named Frank, who didn’t argue, didn’t quibble about the price, called to confirm the trade in offer, drove us out to the lot to pick out the colour we wanted and signed the deal. Honest, pleasant, helpful, patient. Time elapsed – 2 hours. That was last Thursday. We picked up the new vehicle yesterday. A lovely young man named Thomas, who’s studying kinesiology at York University, spent 45 minutes walking us through the features of the new Odyssey. He attached the old plates, we finished signing the reams of documentation, Frank presented us with a box of fresh cannoli as a thank-you gift and we drove home – happy. Now THAT’S customer service.
We’re going to Newmarket Honda this afternoon to pick up the $50.
Categories: Argument, Modern life
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