The Hungry Squid

I never cease to be floored by my mom's talent in the kitchen. She uses a combination of creativity and culinary experience to make incredible food from an endless variety of cuisines; there are always so many new and interesting dishes to sample. I love being her sous-chef for this reason; it's always an amazing learning experience, and I get to experiment with ingredients and spices that M and I don't have in our own tiny maritime kitchen. It also gives me the chance to step back and work on documenting part of the cooking process, which is infinitely helpful when trying to re-create dishes that use tricky techniques. The baklava we made this afternoon is a perfect example of this. Baklava comes in countless forms, and the version that we made was a combination of a number of recipes patched together by my mother. One of the keys to success is rendering the butter, or melting it until the milk solids just begin to separate from the fat (similar ...

The past few days have been a whirlwind of laughs, snow, dogs, food and music. After almost 2 and a half years, N, S, A and I reunited and for 48 hours we relived the lovely days of our undergrad youth. The only thing missing was dear H, who was held up by the nasty ice storm that ravaged parts of southern and eastern Canada over the weekend. I guess that means that...an encore is in order! Summer '14, ladies? A was the last to leave, and we ended an epic few days of eating gourmet home-cooked food with an experiment that involved Nutella, cocoa and a microwave. That's right guys: we attempted, and succeeded at making, a Nutella chocolate microwave mug cake. The cake batter itself was simple to prepare -a few basic ingredients mixed together in a large, attractive mug   - but the microwaving part was the wild card. We were very careful and deliberate with our experimentation, having heard urban myths of mug cake explosion disasters, but our cake was splendid, a de...

One of M's and my most enduring memories is of the small taco joint 2 blocks from South Beach, Miami. It was a hole-in-the wall place with cheap white tables topped with checkered plastic tablecloths, ads for local concerts and dicey haunts on the peeling stucco walls and somewhat rough-looking local men tending the counter and back kitchen. Certainly not a tourist trap, and M and I are still not sure how we ended up there, but I am forever glad that we did. Because it was there that I found my love for fish tacos. I had tried, and liked, fish tacos before - one of our favorite restaurants in Montreal is a small, hip, Tex-Mex place that serves up fresh gator burgers and tacos with a big ol' mug of bourbon iced tea. But what our Miami taco stand lacked in decor, it made up for in taste. The tacos were exceptional, and exceptionally simple; homemade, white-flour tacos spread with guacamole and salsa and filled with firm, white fish, cooked Baja-style, with impossibly...

To candy ( noun ): To make an item of food delicious and superior to its un-candied counterparts. I have no clue why I've waited so long to candy food. Maybe it was an innate fear of working with anything requiring candy thermometers (not needed for this recipe), or many it was just ignorance. Either way, my eyes have been opened... and the future is full of candied goods. And perhaps also more trips to the dentist. These little gems are delightfully easy to prepare (M can attest to this; I made 3 batches in 3 days) and sinfully easy to devour. After making the recipe as indicated the first time around, I experimented with sea salt and hot pepper flakes to add a bit more depth to the flavors but really, these treats can stand proudly on their own. Crunchy, buttery, sweet...the perfect accompaniment to everything at all times of day. Brown sugar candied walnuts From here Ingredients 1 1/2 cups raw walnut halves 1/2 cup brown sugar, loose Optional: Co...