In the just the past few weeks we have seen that the two large planters with tomato plants have just started to change colour. With any luck we will start to pick some really juicy red tomatoes inside within a week.

Baden

Our recent visit to Paris were memorable for a number of reasons and we had taken this third trip to Paris as an opportunity to seek out some new culinary experiences that we hadn’t done on the previous two visits. One of the things on this list that we had tried out was on the last day in Paris and that was to have a soufflé.

Now I don’t want to overstate how this all transpired as we didn’t have a list of things to do while in Paris with eating a soufflé being one of those must do items. It just so happened that we went to a really nice restaurant on the last day of our trip called Le Petit Zinc (see And Finally… in Barb and Baden’s Excellent Paris Adventure – Final) and Barb just really by chance ordered the soufflé. Well, maybe not just by chance as eating a soufflé in Paris was something that intrigued us both and not something to be casually turned down on anyone’s last day in Paris.

Suffice to day (and as you can read in my previous posting) the soufflé was pretty good. If I recall, I think that I came up with some better words than pretty good but suffice to day that the Paris trip ended on a high note.

Fast forward to last week.

After tasking the soufflé in Paris, I was determined to attempt to make my own soufflé at home at some point. I say attempt because I was reasonably sure that a soufflé was the type of dish that would take a few tries (or least to get it perfect). So I found a recipe for a soufflé in my of my recipe books and gave it a try.

I have to admit that for the first attempt at making a soufflé (or 6 soufflés in this case) they turned out pretty well. I will probably make a few adjustments for next tome but the same light, silkiness that I remember from the soufflé in Paris was definitely there.

One of the things that most people associate with a soufflé is that they fall. While the images from movies of the soufflé deflating when someone slams a door in the house or otherwise makes a loud noise are probably overstating the case by a large margin, a soufflé actually does fall.

As I had made 6 soufflés and just one was more than enough under most circumstances, there were several soufflés left over that Barb and I did not eat. We ate our soufflé almost right out of the oven with only a few minutes rest to let it cool slightly. Of the remaining soufflés, they actually did begin to deflate within about 15 minutes out of the oven (see the above picture). I guess there are some truth to this after all but I suspect that this would never actually happen in the oven.

If you have have never had a soufflé before, the best way that I can describe it is that it is like a warm mousse but much lighter. It’s that really delicate texture that makes the soufflé so appealing. Given how things turned out on my first crack at making soufflé, I can easily say that it will be on the menu again very soon.

Baden

Located on Mainland Street in Yaletown, PHAT specializes in a variety of soups and sandwiches with a Jewish-Montreal focus. From a variety of bagels, smoked meat sandwiches and matzo ball soup, PHAT had dozens of different items on the wall-mounted menus that all looked delicious.

Barb and I both ordered smoked meat sandwiched on dark rye. Piled high with smoked meat and (mine) with a zesty hot mustard. Barb, of course, refuses to have mustard on anything that she eats which I can’t understand one bit given her German background but what can you do.

Coming up real soon is our Eastern Canada vacation and and we will be ending our trip in Montreal where we will no doubt be having smoked meat sandwiches on several occasions. If the smoked meat that we have in Montreal are as good as the ones at PHAT, then I’m sure that we’re going to be doing quite well.

Baden

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PHAT
1055 Mainland St., Vancouver
604-684-6239

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Originating from Guérande, France (in the Brittany region), Le Paludier salt is a grey, coarse almost “wet” looking salt that is made by evaporating sea water to recover the fleur de sel (literally “salt flowers”) or salt crystals. The result is a slightly more earthy taste compared to regular table salt.

While the taste difference are probably fairly subtle between this raw sea salt and regular iodized table salt, it is more the health benefits that drive this type of specialty market. More and more there is a desire to consume food products that are raw or at least less manufactured and this type of salt is there to meet that demand. In the 1Kg bag that I have of the Le Paludier salt I probably have enough for a year’s worth as I don’t usually use salt in huge quantities by and large.

Sadly I did use this salt large quantities on Friday night when I made gazpacho for Peter and Liz and inadvertently added far too much of this salt into the food processor. Unfortunately, that’s what you get when you’re pouring salt in out of the bag and not using a spoon.

I’ll probably only use this raw salt (which by volume is far more expensive that regular salt) only at the table and not cook with it as the distinction will probably not be tasted in a cooked dish. At the very minimum, the unique colour and texture will be a distinctive difference.

Baden

Two years had gone by after we had come back from Spain when gazpacho was re-introduced into our lives by our friend Anna. By this time we had shared meals with Tony and Anna several times and had gotten used to always having very unique and delicious dishes at her table. When Anna happened to serve gazpacho for us as a starter, I knew that I had to re-introduce this back into our lives after a few years on hiatus.

Like most simple dishes, gazpacho has as many variations as there are cooks. The recipe that Anna gave me contained mainly cucumbers, tomatoes, garlic, red peppers, fresh basil and parsley and all went into a food process for about 30 seconds. Literally, the most amount of work was cutting up the vegetables.

This all gets me to the part of the story as to why there was a two year gap between having gazpacho at Tony and Anna’s and me starting to make it again myself. The key missing ingredient was a food processor.

I had always had my eye on a food processor but for a variety of reasons held off on buying one. I didn’t want to just add another kitchen appliance if it wasn’t going to get some kind of regular use. So it was a few months ago when my birthday was coming up that I happened to come across the email from Anna with her gazpacho recipe that I thought that the time was right to finally make the plunge to add a food processor to my kitchen.

I already had a smaller Black and Decker food processor (about 2-3 cups in capacity) but it really never got much usage as I have found that for most jobs that small it was often easier to do it by hand start or one of the other appliances that I have like the blender. When I found that there was a 12 cup KitchenAid food processor available through our Save on More points, I started dropping subtle hints* to Barb that it would be a good birthday gift.

* Subtle hints in our house are emails to Barb with a link to the item on the Save on More web site with the subject of “Get this for me for my birthday”.

Because of all of the vegetables and herbs that are the heart of gazpacho, it carries a very fresh taste and I find that it is a perfect replacement for salad. The fact that it is served cold adds a refreshing aspect to it that is perfect on a hot summer day.

With us now having a fresh supply of basil and parsley in our herb garden just outside of our kitchen door, making gazpacho is easier than ever and makes a regular appearance as a starter to our dinners instead of a salad. If gazpacho is the reason why you’ll go out and buy yourself a good food processor (or get one with your Save on More points), it will all have been worth it.

The recipe for Anna’s Glorious Gazpacho ca be found here.

I have made some very minor changes to the recipe. The one thing that I have omitted from Anna’s email to me in my posted recipe is that Anna has specified that organic vegetables be used wherever possible because the taste was superior. While I do use a lot of organic food in my cooking, it is my opinion that there is very little to no taste difference between organic and non-organic food and it is not for taste reasons that I choose to cook with it. I may do a more complete article on this subject in the future but no doubt I will be hearing some comments from Anna on this subject.

Baden

I had mentioned in my previous post on the subject that we were planning on doing a trip down to Africa next year and the wheels are still in motion on that goal. Right now our plans are really to try and decide on what areas of Africa we will want to see and some of the major sites that are going to make it to our itinerary.

Obviously since seeing the animals are going to be a big part of this trip, being in the right places at the right time is a very import part of the planning since most of the large animals migrate from place to place depending on the seasons and weather. If you intend to see any of the “Big 5″ animals (Lion, Leopard, Elephant, Buffalo and Rhinoceros), you have to plan things well. The of course there’s the weather that we need to consider.

Obviously many details to consider.

We will probably be looking to book our flights to Africa quite soon after we get back from our Eastern Canada adventure as we plan to book the flights on points and don’t want to wait too long and risk disappointment of not getting the dates that we want.

This will be the last posting of our Africa Adventure until after we get back from our upcoming trip. I’ll also drop a hint that we have talked about a few options for our 2009 Excellent Adventure – one of them is so wild that I dare not even say it. Suffice to say, that if that option becomes a reality, it will make our trip to Africa look like a trip to Disneyland in comparison.

Stay tuned …

Baden