The Yum Yum Factor

Francisco de Melo Palheta: The James Bond of Coffee Beans    In 1727, a Portuguese army officer named Francisco de Melo Palheta pulled off what might be history’s smoothest—and steamiest—coffee heist. On paper, he was just a guy bringing coffee to Brazil. In reality, his mission was an audacious cocktail of espionage, seduction, and agricultural ambition. Espionage, Flirtation, and a Side of Coffee The story goes that Palheta was sent to French Guiana with a task: get his hands on their coffee seedlings, a prized and closely guarded secret at the time. But the French weren’t exactly handing out coffee cuttings like party favours. So, what’s a clever Portuguese officer to do? Enter: the governor’s wife. Palheta cozied up to the lady in question using charm and a dash of daring.  She fell under his spell, whether it was his military swagger, his smooth-talking skills, or perhaps an irresistible  wink . And when it was time for him to leave, she slipped him a farewell g...

The last time I posted on my blog was 2021, but it's time to revive The Yum Yum Factor. We all need a break from things that once took time and headspace. I am in a different place than during the decade I posted regularly, but I am ready to get back to writing here. Even if it's only for me to document my adventures, so be it. Back then, I mainly wrote recipes, with some travel and Toronto food-centred content thrown in for good measure.  Where the hell have I been? I have been cooking in a professional kitchen since about 2018, which has changed my relationship with the food world. You spend your life fantasizing about being a real chef, and then when it happens, it's never what you thought it would be. There is a world of difference between spending days in my kitchen, cooking whatever I want in my PJs and working in a catering kitchen. I have learned more in the last 6 years than in the previous 300 years of my life. I travelled with my sister in 2018/2019 (the first ti...

 Hello my lovlelies! The family is on our first vacation in almost two years and it's a covid friendly affair. Not ready for international travel, airports and sharing air for 8 hours, we threw our Segway Ninebot Max scooters on the roof of the car and headed east. We stopped in Montreal for the first night, thinking we would just get up early and continue on our way. HAH who is going to bitch about burrata and rose outdoors? Like that was going to happen. I booked us into the brand, spanking new Hotel St Thomas on Sherbrooke, we dropped all of our crap into the ginormous room and hit the road on the scooters. It was a Monday night, which means just about any restaurant I would want to visit is closed so we did the only thing you can do in on a Monday.... we went to Old Montreal and grabbed an outdoor table at Bevo Bar and had a lovely bottle of Rose, some pizza and apps, perfect after a long day of driving. Once we woke up, we all knew we wanted to stay another night so I took ca...

I am not trying to reinvent the wheel here, or anything, but a friend made Middle Eastern Lentil Soup and so I decided to get some going as well. This is a soup I cook all the time and it's one of my favourite comfort foods but today, it's humid and dark and rainy and I need something with a bit more kick to it. I made my regular recipe, more or less but swapped out the spices for my favourite Turkish chili flakes, added a drizzle of my Crispy Garlic Chili Oil because that always makes everything better and a mound of my crispy fried shallots or onions that I always have in the pantry. They are tasty and easy and cheap and you can get them in any type of Asian grocery store. Wow, that's a lot of crispy things going on. Urfa Biber Maras Both are available online if you aren't lucky enough to have a Turkish grocery shop nearbye. I put them in everything and go through an alarming amount of them. Thankfully, I buy big jars of them at the Turkish store so I never run out. T...

I enjoy the challenge of offering a vegetarian version of dishes I serve that are an equally delicious version of the meal that the carnivores are going to eat instead of completely different plate. I wanted to put  Aguadito do Pollo  on an upcoming menu and I knew I wanted to feed the vegetarians something that will have the same flavour profile and so I tried a few things. Aguadito de Pollo is a traditional Peruvian meal that is often served for breakfast after a big party aka for a hangover, making it a staple for New Year's Day or after a big wedding or party. Adding tofu was okay but not great and I also didn't feel like the Jackfruit worked - I wanted something that would really add some heartiness and also have the soft texture of the pulled chicken and neither of those options did that for me. Using a small white bean -either cannellini or navy beans- hit all the right notes. Other than no crispy chicken skin, I didn't feel like I was losing anything by replacing th...

  More adventures in adopting a more heart healthy diet mean more vegetarian meals with less sodium, healthier fats and a soupçon of cheese to punch it up. We have been having a lot of braised beans like the braised romano beans on polenta that I did for Ontario Beans. these beans have become a weekly thing in our house I know that all kinds of beans are now approved so it was time to move onto lentils. My favourite lentils are either Beluga or Du Puy but I haven't been able to find those on any of my online ordering platforms and I have been using plain old green lentils and, rest assured, they work just fine. Just don't use the red lentils because they disintegrate into mush, which is delightful in other recipes, but not in this one. If you use low sodium broth, use less kosher salt. If you use a salt free broth, you will have to up your salt a bit but the roasted tomato/feta and chili oil add so much flavour and saltiness that you don't need as much as you might normally...

One of my husband's favourite things to eat is pasta with bolognese. Normally, I make it with Italian sausage, ground beef, tons of kosher salt and olive oil. Clearly, my much loved version would not, in any universe, by considered "heart healthy" even with a bag of magic beans but a life without bolognese is not a life worth living.  We have not had any beef or real pasta in a month so I decided it was time to healthify our sauce and because every whole wheat pasta I have bought has been soundly PooPooed, I cut the difference with fibre enriched white pasta and we will just eat smaller portions, less often.  This was my first try and I don't think I am going to change anything, to be honest. I added in a bit of carrot and fennel to make up for the lack of fennel seed etc in the sausage and give it a bit more flavour and pretty much replaced half the ground beef with ground mushrooms a la my usual Blend and Extend mushroom magic . You can cut the fat in this recipe ev...