Let’s celebrate!

Tomorrow is my birthday and for my present, I’d like to hear about your favourite birthday food treat. Do you love chocolate cake or prefer a perfect peach pie? Or, would you rather skip desserts and toast your day with an excellent bottle of champagne or an aged Bordeaux?

As a summer birthday girl, I’ve celebrated many years with light, fluffy cakes filled with whipped cream and berries. Although there are usually still local strawberries around on July 7th, my very fave is a classic Black Forest Cake. I even have a dream to someday sample one just like Heston Blumenthal featured on his BBC television show.

Cupcakes are another favourite of mine and selecting those little yummies for my birthday treat has a benefit for those around me. You see, I find that  eating one cupcake seems to lead to eating another. So, if I have a dozen on hand, my mouth will be full all day. And, since a full mouth is a quiet mouth that can’t complain about wrinkles, spare tires and other disappointments that come with advancing age,  me gorging on cupcakes makes everyone happy!

Now it’s your turn. Tell me what food you enjoy on your birthday.

BTW, photo credit once again goes to the lovely and talented Tracy Cox.

Party invitations

So, it’s summer and we’re all a little broke but that doesn’t mean we should give up on having a good time, does it? No siree! Even if you can’t afford to treat your pals to strip loin steaks and a grand cru wine, you can still make them feel special.

I found these fun invitations in the party section at the dollar store. The idea is that you open them up and add a message outlining the party details; next, reseal the bottles and deliver one to each of the people on your guest list. What a great way to get a summer party off to a festive start!

Do you have any cheap and cheerful party planning tips and techniques to share?

What’s with gooseberries?

I’m the first to admit that I don’t know everything about food. In fact, not being able to know everything about food is one of the reasons I think it makes such a satisfying profession. Working in this business is always interesting and offering up new challenges.

But, sometimes, those challenges catch you by surprise. Take yesterday for example. I zipped over to my local fancy supermarket – it was the only store open in my area on Canada Day – to pick up a few things for recipe testing when I saw this hand-written sign: “Ontario Gooseberries are Here!” Excited that there was something newly seasonal in the store, I plunked down $3.99 for a pint of gooseberries grown on Allberry Farm in Jordan, Ontario.

I was excited as I drove home. Here I was, on the precipice of a new food experience. I literally came home, washed them and popped one into my mouth before I even put my keys away. And you know what?  It was awful! Super sour. I admit it;  I spat it out.

Dudes what’s the deal with gooseberries? Do you need to cook them or did I get a woefully under-ripe container?  Or, is the name the key: are they only fit for feeding to geese? As you can see above, they look pretty enough to eat. Seriously, I need you guys to send me your gooseberry advice and recipes.

Cocktail for Canada Day

Since Italian bitters such as Campari and Cynar are bringing Milanese flare to fancy urban lounges and patios this summer, bitters seemed like the perfect place to start when I considered developing a Canada Day Cocktail.

I love the dry, quenching taste of a classic Campari and soda like the one pictured here (Thanks for another great photo, Tracy Cox!) but I wanted to make something even more summery for our country’s birthday. In the end I combined yummy, cold watermelon with campari to create this Campari Canadiana pitcher drink that you can share with friends. Cheers!

Campari Canadiana

1/3 cup (75 mL) campari
1/3 cup (75 mL) sweet vermouth
3 cups (750 mL) watermelon chunks
2 cups (500 mL) crushed ice

Combine all the ingredients in a blender or food processor and puree until slushy and evenly combined. Serve in tall glasses with a straw and a stir stick. Makes 6 servings.

Classic Campari Cocktail

ice
1 oz (30 mL) campari
1 oz (30 mL) sweet vermouth
1 orange wedge
soda

Fill a double old-fashioned glass almost full with ice. Add the campari and vermouth and squeeze the orange wedge over the glass. Top with soda and garnish with the orange wedge.

Do you have a special Canada menu or drink that you serve every year?

Topline Trends Tuesday: Preserving: jam, jelly and pickles

I’m posting about an hour early today. It’s not that I’m an early bird looking for a worm or that I’m more organized than usual. No, I’ve got camp induced insomnia. My son left yesterday for camp and, although I looked forward to the peace and quiet of the house being an adult sanctuary, the truth is, it’s just not the same without his smelly boy bones cluttering the place up. 1 day down; 27 to go.

Fortunately, I have my work to divert me and that means that you get Today’s Topline Trends Tuesday an hour or so earlier than usual!

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Although it’s not a new way to spend time in the kitchen, preserving is back! In fact, it’s difficult to find a publication that doesn’t have a story or feature about making jam or jelly right now. Specifically, I noted articles in the New York Times, the June issue of Eating Well, the May issue of Waitrose Food Illustrated and the June issue of Sainsbury’s. And in cyberspace, ChezPim has been making (and selling!) marmalade all winter while Jessie presented these quick, fresh pickles in her blog.

While the current crop of preserving articles focus on fruity concoctions, I’m pretty confident that pickling and other canning methods will turn up in the late summer and early autumn issues of many national and international magazines, too.I just hope no one gets to Luke Despatie before I do ‘cause I want to pick his brain and post his pickling tips for you guys here. (Luke’s stand out pickles came in second at his local fall fair, which makes me very curious about the winning pickles; I just can’t imagine any better than Luke’s!) And, of course, my long time friend and colleague Jennifer Mackenzie’s new book The Complete Book of Pickling, is going to be at my elbow all season long, too.

What about you? Are you a committed canner? Newly canning curious? Or, do you prefer to buy your jams, jellies, pickles and condiments fully made and ready to enjoy? I confess that when I was a kid, I loved helping my mom strain jelly but as an adult, I rarely make jam or other preserves since there are so many wonderful ones on store shelves.