redbird | Entries tagged with 2012

After working out today, I decided to treat myself to a gelato. One of the flavors on offer was "marrons glaces," with candied chestnut pieces. I asked for a sample, and then ordered a combination of that and lemon. It was tasty, and now I know something else I like. At some point I may have to try candied chestnuts by themselves, not as a gelato flavor. As a side note, I was amused that they had that one flavor name in French, with everything else in Italian (the Italian for lemon, pear, vanilla, chocolate, and pistachio are a lot closer to the English names than "marron" is to "chestnut").

I had been grumpy about being there by myself this morning, instead of having a trainer session—Emilie has stood me up two Thursdays in a row, and now is going on vacation for another fortnight, and yes, she had reason both times, but it still means I'm not seeing her for a month. But the grumpiness didn't survive the good exercise, much less lunch and gelato.

Also in the small but pleasant, a few nights ago

cattitude and I were walking in the park and I spotted a muskrat, walking across and path toward the river. We don't see them very often, almost never on land, so that was a treat.

As long as I'm posting, gym numbers:( Read more... )

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We bought a Hubbard squash at the Greenmarket this morning, because it looked reasonable (that is, ripe, and not too big).

cattitude baked it for dinner tonight, treating it the same way we do acorn squash*.

My first thought was that it was okay, but that I liked acorn squash better; Cattitude agreed. Then I scraped too close to the skin of the squash, and got a bitter-tasting forkful. After hitting the skin again, I carefully took a spoon and scooped out a mouthful without touching the skin of the squash. Still bitter. My best guess is that once I'd primed my mouth with even the bit of bitterness, I couldn't not taste it when I ate more of the squash. Cattitude confirmed that he tasted a bit of bitterness; I'm not sure whether that part of the squash was bitterer than the rest, or if he just hadn't been aware of that flavor until I said something. Possibly a bit of both: even after the squash started tasting bitter, the sea scallops (sauteed with bits of bell pepper) didn't.

So, yes, it's food, but I don't think we're likely to buy it again: we'll probably stick to acorn and butternut squash.

*Cut the squash in half, put the halves face down on a baking dish, bake at 400°F (200°C), and when it's almost done turn it over, pour in butter (or margarine) and maple syrup, cook a few more minutes, serve.

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I hope to do more of a con report later; for now, I want to note that last night I tried two new foods, alpaca jerky (having never had alpaca meat in any form) and hani melon (I think Jon said hani, it might have been hami). The jerky didn't taste significantly different from beef jerky; the melon was okay, not as good as the yellow watermelon I'd been eating earlier in the evening, but Jon said this wasn't a very good example of that kind of melon.

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It's possible that salted milk chocolate is a reasonable thing. Unexpected salted milk chocolate is not.

(

cattitude bought a box of thin squares of chocolate, in a variety of flavors. I had thought that the variety was milk and a couple of intensities of dark chocolate. The dark chocolate was nice, so I picked up a piece of milk chocolate.

I don't at the moment know whether there's any unsalted milk chocolate in there. I am not fond enough of milk chocolate to want to explore this question right now, because the answer may be no, and even if it's yes, I can't count on getting an unsalted piece.

The next question is whether any of the dark chocolate is salted.

(Fortunately, I have an unopened bar of Green and Black dark chocolate with cherry, and most of a bar of Lindt 85% dark, neither of which is salted.)

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While I was visiting

rysmiel I tried two jam sort of things as part of breakfast/brunch (along with having cretons and other protein on bread): a quince preserve that had some of the marmalade nature, and cloudberry jam. The quince was interesting, not as bitter as I'd expected. The cloudberry jam was a mild flavor, perfectly reasonable but not something I'll be seeking out again (sorry, Mris). Noting this here because I don't recall having either of those fruits before.

The trip also involved good sushi (Kashima does a very nice mackerel nigiri), poutine with smoked meat (just what I wanted at that point), and superior gelato at Suite 88. That last was prompted by my passing a dubious-looking gelato stand in a mall early last week, and thinking "I can do better if I wait a few days"; I was reminded also of

rushthatspeaks's posts about Florence and gelato. Suite 88 may not be quite in that category, and the choice of flavors much smaller than usual, probably because a lot don't appreciate cold desserts in a Montreal winter, no matter how snug the gelateria. But they had raspberry and chocolate (my choices) and vanilla and pralines-and-cream and mocha and a couple of other options, and we were all pleased with what we got.

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Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

Don't mourn, organize

Chestnut gelato

Hubbard squash

Home from farthing party

Not what I was expecting

jam, more or less

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