Le Cordon Bleu, Week VIII – “Dear Kermit…”
Dear Kermit - We both knew this would happen sooner or later. Cooking at a French school, we were bound to encounter the distasteful task of cooking frog. To be more exact... frog legs.
La Bottega Nicastro – Buon Appetito!
There is little else that can comfort, soothe and completely quiet; mind, body and soul quite like Italian food. Elegant in its simplicity and selective in its ingredients, Italian is (by far) my favourite food and the reason I'm a fan of La Bottega Nicastro.
Le Cordon Bleu, Week VII – In the heat
“If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” ~ Harry S. Truman No question that enrolling in Le Cordon Bleu is among the most challenging and rewarding things I’ve ever done. Past the halfway point there is no…
Essentials in the kitchen – Burn Treatment
When you work with fire, chances are, sooner or later you’re gonna' get burned. Ching Wan Hung (also written “Jing Wan Hung”) Chinese burn ointment. I have a big tub of it in my locker at Le Cordon Bleu which I apply liberally to the scorched, splattered, sizzled and fried flesh that arrives there.
Simply Biscotti – “Leave the gun take the cannoli”
Shelves lined with cookies and coffee paraphernalia and tiny front shop jammed with customers gripping steamy cups of cappuccino, drooling over the pastry display; Simply Biscotti is a must stop in Ottawa’s little Italy.
Le Cordon Bleu, Week VI – Crackin’ the Books
The daily walk to school through the city's core - over the Rideau Canal, past the campus of Ottawa U to the big yellow mansion that is Le Cordon Bleu - is my solace. I focus on the classes ahead and leave behind any unfinished business that is anything other than my culinary studies and dive headlong into the plan of the day.
Le Cordon Bleu Week V – Le Petit Canard
There are few things more intoxicating than the smell of butter. Melting, sizzling, baking, butter has been my great love for many years, along with its companion... cream they simply make life worth living. That is, until you are introduced…