The Yum Yum Factor

I am actually covering two weeks in my week in yum because I missed last week as I was busy being a tourist in Ottawa. I will be spending lots of time there this August and so I will be cooking less but eating out more as I travel back and forth to divide my time between The Kid and Shack. Alysha Brilla and her kick ass female horn section On Saturday, July 18 I had been invited to go down to Woodbine Park by Two Oceans to have a glass of wine and check out some music as part of the Jazz Festival. I hate big crowds so the chance to sit in the VIP area and watch the bands was an offer I could not refuse ( I love what the Jazz Festival does for my Beaches neighbourhood but I can't go myself). Along with some tasty beverages, we heard this amazing young Tanzanian Canadian singer/songwriter, Alysha Brilla   Imagine Amy Winehouse if Amy Winehouse had a bit of a reggae vibe, was full of positive energy and light and taught yoga instead of drank lots of booze and wrote so...

Shack said I look like a Ninja Chef Since I have spent almost the entire week closeted inside my house, fighting off some nasty lung infection, I have nothing to share, in terms of where I went or what I ate so I will share some of the cool stuff I have seen on the internet. Being sick means lots and lots of time on the internet. It also means a ton of Netflix so I worked my way through the Danish series, Rita  which is a crash course on how much more socially advanced the Danish are when it comes to sex, drugs, education and every other issue that North Americans think are too scandalous to discuss with kids. It's clearly a show that a family would watch in the evening - think My So Called Life but with nudity, swearing, pot smoking, rampant drinking, gay teens making out, abortion and chain smoking. Actually, the only backlash this show received in Denmark was about the lead characters constant chain smoking, always right outside the school doors as she greets s...

Meet Godwin Ihentuge, one of the faces of the new Detroit abandoned buidlings like the former Central Train Station, while hauntingly beautiful, are a reminder that there is still much work to do When I say Detroit, what comes to mind? Do you think of the abandoned buildings that abound in the city? Do you think of the fact that the population has dwindled from over 2 million down to 700,000? Maybe you think about the dying auto industry, the lost jobs, the bankrupt, failed pillar of the American Dream. Well, those things might be true, to an extent, but to write Detroit off is short sighted. I just spent a weekend in downtown Detroit and the city that I experienced is full of energy, hope and, most importantly to me, really great food. I did not consume one morsel of food that did not wow me. Every restaurant that I set foot in was beautifully designed, bright and airy and staffed with knowledgable, excited young locals who are so happy that you are there that they bend ...

I have been using my Yonanas machine constantly since it got here and I have to tell you, I love it. My only regret is that I didn't have this thing when the kid was little because, if I did, I would have made him this stuff every day of his little life. I used to try to make "ice cream" from frozen bananas with a blender and a food processor but it would get over whipped and gummy and I just gave up and kept buying the Haagen Daz. I do have a soft serve ice cream machine as well as the attachment for my kitchen aid but the main drawback to those machines, apart from all the cream and sugar, is the fact that I have to make room for the big drum in my freezer and I have to know I want to make ice cream 24 hours in advance to make sure the drum spends that time chilling in the freezer, where I have had to remove a turkey to make room for it so every time we make ice cream, we eat turkey dinner. With this thing, you just plug it in. That's it. You make sure to al...

a toast at Wright and Company starts off a 1.5 day eating bacchanal  So, when I told people I was taking a road trip to Detroit to eat, most of them looked at me like I had three heads. DETROIT? Yes, Detroit has suffered in recent years and it's downtown population has shrunk from 2.5 million to about 700,000. It's more famous for it's hauntingly beautiful, derelict buildings than it's former, GM fueled, glory but walking around downtown, you can imagine what this place was like in it's hey day. Detroit was the ultimate showpiece of the American Dream and it's downfall was dramatic and swift, weighed down with corruption and a huge economic and social disparity. view from the delightful People Mover All of that may be true but the Detroit of today is experiencing a renaissance of sorts and it's an exciting place to be right now. Young chefs,  entrepreneurs  , artists and movers and shakers are working their asses off to breath life back int...