I really don’t like cold food. Hence, I’m a soup girl, but sometimes I force myself to eat salads. Lately I’ve discovered excellent dressings and stunning salad presentation, so it’s more of a game. Challenge accepted! Having been fortunate enough to travel to the Caribbean, the flavours of this salad help bring a taste of the islands back home with me.
Our family gets giddy for holidays. Knowing me as you do, it shouldn’t be a shock that I have an entire storage room dedicated to wreaths, décor and cookie cutters divided meticulously into seasons. Yes.. I do. And I gently rotate them throughout the year so that the next holiday’s treasures are easily accessible. Beloved traditions have permeated every Hallowe’en, Christmas and Easter in order to make memories and bond as a family. We have special recipes and songs, outfits and stories handed down through generations. While all of this adds sparkle to life, sometimes these traditions aren’t entirely selfless. At times, I focus more on the spectacle than actually spending real time with my kids. My heart races as I just admitted that.
I’m starting to share with you some of the recipes from my self-published cookbook which was really a labour of love. I assembled our family recipes for my mother and I’m making them available on Urbanmommies moving forward. I made the banana bread from my cookbook on the first instalment of my new Facebook Live feature “Let’s Be Honest” which will be running on Mondays at 12 p.m. Pacific time. It won’t always be me cooking, it’s just a chance to chat about what’s been going on while I do things in my mom life.
Raise your hand if you’ve watched a weather report and gone back to bed. Or abandoned plans to leave the house when snow began to fall. Canadian winters can be brutal and many of us fall into the trap of staying inside to avoid the elements. Unfortunately, this can result in more screen time and less memory-making family moments.
As a little girl I used to have hot chocolate in a china cocoa set from 1860. The ritual and care required so as not to chip the cups etched the experience on my memory. The hot chocolate was the powder kind and on special occasions, it would contain dehydrated mini marshmallows. You could watch the sugar crystals in the powder as they dissolved. Back then a product was a product and nutritional ‘truths’ were a given. Soup, salad and milk were good for you. Candy was bad, and unless potatoes accompanied your meat, it wasn’t a proper dinner. Eating from the four food groups detailed in Canada’s Food Guide and doing some school ‘particip-action’ would keep you fit.
Sometimes I have thought that if I could have any superpower, I would want the power to eat everything I want to and have it all be a) good for me and b) not able to make me fat. This, out of all the available superpowers. Why would I want to fly? Or walk through walls? No, I want my superpower to be eating.
It is really kind of sad, if you think about it. And also possibly a tiny bit unhealthy. But, there you have it. I HAVE AN UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD.
Yeah, no. We’re not even going to try and throw a football ourselves, let alone teach someone else how to do it. But the entertaining part and talking about how to throw a football party is a snap. Superbowl and Canada’s Grey Cup conjure images of hot dogs, nachos and chips, but that kind of tailgating is a little boring. Let’s deconstruct the normal and start with a hearty, versatile ingredient that warms even the coldest of bellies during football season. I give you: pasta. We created two fun recipes inspired by football traditions, but with a bit of a Canadian twist!
I have Election Fatigue, and I am sure you do too.
The week we have all been looking forward to is finally here, and we can once again enjoy a campaign-free existence, if only for the next few years. What always gets me about an election year is the constant barrage of negativity; thanks to Donald Trump, that negativity seems to be amplified by 1000.
I had all but given up on trying to talk to various Trump supporters about their candidate–I was, and still am, incredulous that people would vote for him and genuinely curious as to why; sadly, there seems to be great difficulty in their collective ability to clearly define their position with intelligent sentences and without personal attacks. Social media has made it possible for everyone to be an expert and political pundit, unfortunately, and not everyone has the knowledge (or depth of vocabulary) to pull it off.
Does anyone ever get a girls night anymore? Certainly not me!! And worse? When you get one, do you really want to be cooking and fussing over sweating it out in the kitchen? Didn’t think so. Pizza – the bake-in-home kind, is a perfect option for an easy girls night pizza celebration, and the new line of Dr. Oetker Ristorante Ultra Thin Crust pizza is my go-to choice. I adore pizza and am very particular with what I consume. The crust must be thin. (This new version sports the thinnest crust ever!) And crispy but not too much. (I verified it comes out perfectly every time). Toppings must be perfectly cooked and the combo has to be perfect. (Picking off items that I dislike makes me feel just terrible. And kindof picky.)