The Yum Yum Factor

I am back from a ten day trip to Barcelona and man, am I fired up! I just spent 10 days eating and drinking and exploring, I lugged home three sizes of paella pans, cazuelas, spices, dried peppers, black sea salt and a brain overloaded with ideas.  Keep your eyes peeled for my upcoming posts about my trip, about what we ate, what we saw and where we went, but, for now, here is what is happening in the upcoming month: For our March Supper Club, I am going to do a bit of a Mexican/Greek mash up. There will be tasty cocktails, great food and great dining companions, as always, so go reserve your seat now Get your tickets for our March 18 Supper Club Opaaa! Upcoming Cooking Classes for March For the cheap and cheerful crowd, I have two What's For Dinner Classes at the Musgrave Loblaws in March. You pay $15 and get a $15 dollar gift card for your trouble. March 8 March 22 Also, my next series of Instant Pot classes this month will be taking place ...

Delicious cortado at Soma on King, just west of Spadian I don't usually have to do this but I have to update my opinion on a restaurant. A couple of weeks ago, we had brunch at Wood Fire Pit and I wrote about it here . We were really happy with our brunch and so we went back this past Sunday with the VIP's because The Wren was packed and we couldn't get a table.  This time it was a different experience. First of all, there was no coffee and the waitress, god bless her, told us not to order since she was just making instant. A restaurant that is out of coffee during brunch service is a restaurant that should run over to Starbucks, a block away, and buy a couple bags of coffee beans, am I right? After that it was just kind of one little thing after another. Our very nice waitress left and a guy took over. After ordering tea instead, we were not given anything to put our teabags on and were kind of forced to lay the wet tea bags on the table until we c...

Thrilling the Loblaws gang with my Cauliflower Fried Rice This week was pretty busy, starting with our annual tomato canning session with Nonna  , my September Cooking Demo at Loblaws, deliveries of Almond Breeze , Nanny Hudson's Homestyle Ketchup and a box of edamame from  MacKellar Farms . This means that there is going to be a whole lot of cooking going on in the next couple of weeks and that means lots of new recipes coming on the blog. Except for our Friday night trip to The Wren, we didn't eat out much so there isn't a lot to report on that front. I did attend a couple of media events but otherwise, I stuck pretty close to home. Flavor Your Life delicious canapes and desserts, all made with EVOO at Brassaii I bet you might think you know a lot about olive oil. I know I thought I knew how to choose a decent oil until this week, when I attended a presentation put on by the Flavor Your Life campaign. Jointly funded by the EU, the Italian Department f...

see how my garden grows?

beautiful welcome cocktail of prosecco with pomegranate at Pukka Ascari Enoteca The Kid had a sleepover on Saturday night so Shack and I were lucky and loose, once again. Originally intending to go out clubbing ALL NIGHT, we ended up taking cab to Leslieville with the intention of popping into Goods and Provisions at long last. We walked in the door and turned right around and walked back out. Honestly, how the hell can people hear themselves think when it's that loud? Never mind hold an actual conversation with another human being. Maybe I am just getting old and cranky but I just can't do it. I am sure the food is wonderful and the libations delightful but if I wanted to blow my brains out with super loud music, at least I will pick my own playlist.  We passed Glas wine bar and stopped to read the menu but Shack poo pooed that too and I feared that our night was going downhill fast when I spied Ascari Enoteca across the street. We first dined at Ascari when it...