Barb Freda is my kind of cook. She has firm opinions about cast iron frying pans, loves to break long-held culinary rules, and spells my name right. What more could you want in a fellow food writer? Not much, except perhaps to be invited along on some of her amazing travels.

Yesterday, while Barb was lounging on a beach in the Caribbean, I was making sure her blog didn’t get too lonely. For some baking rules  you should follow (mine) and some rules you should not (hers), pop on over to Babette’s Feast. Got a firm baking opinion or two yourself? Speak up! We love a good discussion.

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These hands turn 80 this summer.

These hands have picked strawberries, made jam, kneaded bread, rolled pastry. They have decorated birthday cakes, anniversary cakes and wedding cakes.

They have changed diapers, washed clothes, sewn dresses, mended seams, darned socks, stitched buttons, ironed pleats.

They have tied shoelaces, braided hair and wrapped presents.

They have stroked sweaty hair from fevered foreheads, wiped away tears, plucked thorns from fingers, applied bandages, massaged aching muscles and held the hands of the dying.

Despite arthritis, they carry on.

They sweep, and weed, and plant and water. They rake and prune.

They don’t know sign language, yet speak.

Tonight, when they have put down the secateurs, and washed up, they will pick up a fork. And enjoy a meal made by the daughters she raised.

My contribution to this Mother’s Day meal? Dessert. Of course. At my mother’s request it is pavolva. “And with the yolks,” she said. “Make lemon curd. No need to waste the eggs.”

Your wish is my command.

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This is my French rolling pin. It doesn’t have easy-grip handles. It doesn’t have ball bearings. It isn’t made from cold, heavy marble. It’s just a smooth, tapered piece of hardwood.

For years I wondered why anyone would choose this style over the comfy-handled version with ball bearings I grew up with. Then last December, watching pastry chef Anna Olson use one to roll a perfect circle of dough, I saw the Rolling Pin Light. Its tapered form allows you to guide the dough in any direction you want. My other pin bullied the pastry, shoved it about, barked orders at it. The resulting tussle left all parties looking somewhat dishevelled and my ego fully bruised.

But Anna’s French pin? It waltzed a ball of pastry across the board with smooth glides and coaxed reluctant edges into submission with a mere whisper. Watching her gave me hope. So, I put “French Rolling Pin” on my Christmas wish list. I even drew a few little stars beside it in case no one took me seriously.

Just to be sure my desires were clear, I dragged my husband to a cooking store. I pointed one out. I showed him the packaging. Cracked some off-colour joke about the designer being a timpanist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra (true) so he would remember. And in his wisdom, Andrew obliged. Christmas morning I got my French Pin.

Many pie crusts and palmier recipes later my official verdict on the French pin is in. I love it. My only complaint. It took so long to discover this amazing tool.

Andrew’s verdict: “Great. They’ve found a way to upsell a stick.”

Ignore him. He doesn’t make Pastry.

With this pin beneath my palms, my dough is obedient. Pie crust turns out round(ish), puff pastry forms a reasonable resemblance to the rectangle I intended. It all goes into the oven according to plan.

What comes out? That’s another matter.

Now, if I can just remember to set the !@#$%^& oven timer …

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Some days you just have to take a deep breath and say, “Well, it tasted great!”

The day I broken open my stash of  preserved lemons was one of those days. With bright yellow lemons and deep green mint, I thought I could turn out a dish as pretty as the photo in the book that inspired me.

I was wrong.

The photo of Moroccan Lemon Chicken Tagine with Coucous  in Shelley Adams’  Whitewater Cooks with Friends is spectacular, with an artfully placed grilled lemon half, a cinnamon stick angled just so, and a mint sprig draped seductively across the centre. My version? The only shot that wasn’t a total turn off is shown below. And let’s face it, this could be almost anything.

But it tasted great, so I’m giving myself a pat on the back for using my preserved lemons, and drew you a very spiffy picture on my iPad to make up for things. Move over E.H. Shepard.

Please, don’t judge someone else’s book by my photos. The recipes in Whitewater Cooks for Friends are fun and creative, calling for lots of layered flavours and unusual combinations. The smoked paprika vinaigrette is going to go into my homemade salad dressing rotation and the gravity-defying stacked Pacific Sashimi Towers are convincing me to tempt fate. With starters, soups, salads, entrees and desserts, the recipes in this collection are as eclectic as the friends you bring to your table. My only concern is these recipes are more interesting than I am.

I veered from the original recipe a bit to try my preserved lemons. They were tangy and tart and sour — and oddly sweet. Sweet? Yes.  Not like candy, but a tad sweet. And they worked beautifully in this dish. Shelley Adams seems like a gracious host. I’m sure she won’t mind.

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Monday. One of the most maligned days of the week. According to the Mamas and Papas, not only is Monday untrustworthy, it will leave you crying. All of the time.

Now I can’t have that.

So below is a list of the people who won a copy of my app Kitchen Disasters & Fixes. Since fish seemed to stump a lot of people, I am sharig a few of tips from the Fish & Seafood section, so you’re all winners.

Fish Tips

Dry, flaky fish might not be what you were aiming for, but it does absorb dressings and sauces nicely. You can disguise overcooked fish with Hollandaise sauce or a splash of extra tangy mayonnaise spiced up with some lemon juice, lime juice, fresh ginger and shallots. Firm fish like salmon can be turned into fish cakes.

To help ensure your next fish dish turns out perfectly:

• Use your eyes, not a timer, to determine when fish is done. Check the fish often and earlier than you think it needs.
• To see if fish is done, lift a couple of layers with a fork. If the flesh is translucent, keep cooking. You want the fish to be moist with a tiny bit of translucent flesh at the centre. Overcooked fish is totally opaque and dry.
• Cook thin fillets quickly at a high temperature for a couple of minutes per side.
• Cook thick fish steaks in two phases. Sear the outside on high, then turn down the heat to medium so the inside cooks.
• When cooking whole fish, tuck thin tapered ends under to make the tail the same thickness as the rest of the fish.

Got any fish cooking tips? Share them in the comments section.

In addition to Joni, the winners are: Lisa, Marijke and Carolyn.  I’ll be emailing you with details shortly.

Congratulations to the winners and may your fish always be perfectly cooked any day of the week.

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According to my mother, I have loved butter ever since I was old enough to sneak a one-pound brick of it out of the grocery bag, quietly peel back the foil, lick off a good inch, rewrap the evidence and slip it back in the bag.

I think I was about 4.

Today, I consume fat far more responsibly and the cat is the one who sneaks licks of butter.

Although I use this dairy product prudently, my love of butter remains. I cannot imagine Christmas without rich, buttery shortbread. What would boiled lobster be without its melted sidekick? Just another bottom feeder. And popcorn? Don’t even think the word “butter-flavoured topping.”

So, when Stirling Creamery hosted an evening at Ruby Watchco to showcase their new butter collection, I just couldn’t say no.

Before this butter-infused evening I thought there were two kinds of butter — salted and unsalted.

And I was wrong. So very, very wrong.

In addition to the salted and unsalted versions, Stirling makes European Style Butter with 84% butterfat (compared to 80% with your average butter). One taste and I was back in my  Camden flat in North London. There’s Whey Butter, which has an earthy, slightly nutty flavour, and Goat’s Milk Butter. This one’s a bit like chèvre. It even “ages” in the refrigerator over a couple of weeks.

Throughout the evening, we tasted a sweet and savory dish using each of these four butters. Created by chefs Lora Kirk and Lynn Crawford at Ruby Watchco, these dishes were as innovative as they were delicious. These chefs managed to work butter into dishes in ways I’d never dreamed. While the calories were out of control, this butter binge proved once again that we are limited only by our imaginations. And possibly our waistlines. But this was a special occasion.

To begin, the cocktails used browned butter to sugar the rim. My only complaint was I was driving. Two sips in I had to switch to water (no butter and sugar rim on that drink).

This is the menu board. I’ll walk you through the dishes. For the record, there was no clear winner. Everyone at the event liked a different butter for a different reason. My clear favourite? See if you can guess…

Let’s begin.

Goat Butter: Salted Roasted Beef Tartar with Walnut, Goat Butter & Chervil Streussel.

Goat Butter: Chocolate Cupcakes with White Chocolate Butter Cream

Whey Butter: Poached Shrimp with Corn Pudding

Poached Shrimp with Corn Pudding - 60 seconds later

Whey Butter: Pan-Fried Pound Cake with Citrus Curd

Salted Butter: Hush Puppies with Honey Butter

Salted Butter: Last remaining... Brown Butter Sugar Pie with Butter Fried Raisins

84 Reserve: Sliced Radishes with 84 Reserve Butter and Rosemary Honey

84 Reserve: Maple Butter Blondies with Brown Butter Caramel

Any guesses?

Violas at Ruby Watchco. Something to look at while you guess...

My favourite was the 84 Reserve European-Style, but it’s not for every day. This version richer and (understandably) more expensive than Stirling’s regular salted butter, so I would save it for special occasions and use it only where it would be the star. Like on scones in lieu of clotted cream. Served to my British friends, who no doubt think of Canadian butter the way we think of American beer.

Until now.

Here is the recipe for Maple Butter Blondies. It’s decadent. It’s rich. It’s for special occasions. It’s worthy of Jo Marie’s maple syrup.

    Print This!    

Maple Blondie with Maple Butter Caramel Sauce

Recipe courtesy of Chef Lora Kirk of Ruby Watchco.
Maple Brownie

 

• 1 1/2 cups Stirling 84 Reserve Butter
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 tablespoon Maple Syrup
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 cup coarsely chopped pecans

Preheat over to 350°F. Grease a 9 by 13-inch pan.

In a stand mixer, using a paddle, beat butter and brown sugar together.  Add baking powder, salt, vanilla and maple syrup. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Mix in flour. Stir in the pecans. Pour the batter in the pan and smooth with a spatula.

Bake 350°F for 22-25 minutes.

Maple butter sauce

• 2 cups whipping cream
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup pure maple syrup
• 2/3 cup Stirling 84 Reserve butter

Combine cream, sugar and maple syrup in a heavy, medium saucepan. Stir over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Increase the heat and bring to boil. When it reaches the boil, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, whisking occasionally, until the sauce is caramel colored and reduced to about 1 3/4 cups (about 35 minutes). Mix in the butter. Cool the sauce slightly before pouring over the maple blondie.

 

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 We have our first winner. Joni, who tends to burn things, has won a copy of my new app Kitchen Disasters & Fixes.

I’ll be giving away a copy of the app each day this week until Sunday, so if you have an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, just leave a comment telling me about your biggest culinary frustration and you could win.

There is an Android version on its way. I’m told it’s in the queue and will take another 3 or so weeks before it goes live. When it does, I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, congratulations Joni. I’ll be emailing you details privately. And here is a tip from my app you might find useful:

If burned food is a persistent problem, the bottom of your pots might be too thin. Consider purchasing a heavy-bottomed pot.

How do you solve the issue of constantly burning food?

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Hooray, hooray! The month of May.
My iTunes app went live today.

Okay, I’m not a poet. But I have written a pretty good app. Having had more than my share of Kitchen Disasters, I thought it might be a good idea to share my hard-earned knowledge. Kitchen Disasters & Fixes does just that. It’s currently available on iTunes and I understand an Android version is on its way.

What’s in it for you? Lots.

Besides quick fixes for common kitchen troubles like burned cookies and runny mashed potatoes, I include Rescue Recipes, some handy articles and Avoidance Tactics so you won’t make the same mistake twice. It’s easy to use and doesn’t require an Internet connect to use (only to download).

It’s $2.99 and will pay for itself with one salvaged lasagne.

Of course, I can’t launch a new product without a giveaway, so this week I’ll be giving away an app a day. Want to enter? Just leave a comment and tell me about a cooking problem that plagues you. (Note: You’ll need an iPhone, iPad or iTouch to use this app.)

Happy cooking!

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As luck — and Murphy — would have it, I encountered some serious computer issues right after the maple syrup trek. I couldn’t download photos or work for more than half an hour without the system grinding to a halt. And surfing the web? My high-speed Internet moved as slowly as maple sap drips. Initially, I blamed my aging computer. Turns out the culprit was me.

Did you know that you can’t just dump files and folders onto a Mac Desktop indefinitely? Much like a real desk there is a tipping point. And about 10 days ago, I reach it. The dozens and dozens of large, maple sugaring photos I dropped on my desktop were the final straw. The computer refused to budge and I was held hostage by my technological ignorance.

Fortunately, I found the solution and cleaned up my act — just as I leave for the IACP conference. For the next week and a bit I’ll be in New York City hobnobbing with food professionals like Cheryl Sternman Rule of 5 Second Rule, the amazing Jess Thomson, pairing expert Jill S Hough, Joe from Rouxbe Online Cooking School, and Mardi from Food Bloggers of Canada. Pinch me. Hard.

Potential burglars be warned, Andrew will be stuck at home marking essays and exams. He’ll be in the mood for a scrap. The cats will shed on you. It’s just not worth the effort.

I’ll be back in early April with tales of Stirling Creamery, results of my preserved lemons and no doubt a story or two. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow along as I’ll be tweeting the conference. If you’re not, you’ll just have to wait until I get back.

See you in April.

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Jo Marie's maple tress tapped for sap.

When I was nine, we moved to a house with two huge maple trees in the side yard. Years before, someone had tapped the trees and left the spiles in the trunk. Intrigued by the metal protruding from the bark, I asked my mother what they were for. When she explained, I blithely suggested we make our own maple syrup. Without even pretending to consider my request, Mom said no. At the time I thought my mother — the woman who baked bread, made pastry and even created hand-dipped chocolates for Easter — was being incredibly unreasonable.

She wasn’t. I now understand why.

Earlier this week, I watched maple syrup being made using sap from the trees pictured above (any many others, not shown). This is not a commercial maple sugar farm. It’s not a small-scale, carefully crafted educational display for school kids. This is Jo Marie’s* 100-Acre woods just outside the city centre. Every year, she invites George Brown culinary students to her farm to see, first-hand, how maple syrup is made. I came along for the fun. As did Jonsie, Cooper and Missy —three dogs who were totally convinced we couldn’t do the job without them. It was so much fun, Jonsie couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

Jonsie, always ready to help with any and everything.

I realize I should learn to install a slide show. Maybe later. I make no promises. Until that happens, let’s just call this post a photo essay. I’ll explain as we go. DIYers, please note, this isn’t a how-to piece. I am not giving advice or providing the nitty-gritty details to make your own. This is just a glimpse into what it takes to make maple syrup — assuming you have a big lot, plenty of trees, tons of brush, an 8′ x 3′ pan (yes, that’s feet and not inches), cinder blocks and a whole whack of patience.

Jo Marie calls maple syrup the ultimate slow food since the work begins almost a year before the sap runs. In April, they begin collecting brush and keep at it until they’re ready to collect sap. They need two huge brush piles, each about 10′ tall. You can see the kind of brush used in the photo below.

The large green containers are filled with sap. (Jo Marie refuses to call them “garbage pails”, even though this is what they are designed for originally. These are dedicated to maple sap, so I will call them BGSBs (Big Green Sap Buckets) for short.)) All of the BGSBs are — or were — full to the brim. It will all be boiled down over the course of a few weekends.

Pails of maple sap. Jack shows us how full they are.

While the boiling takes hours, the sap collection takes just as long, if not longer. Each bucket contains only a small amount of sap.

Jack helps us collect the sap.

Each bucket fills drop by drop.

The flow depends on the weather. This year the sap flowed quickly. I timed the drips. One every two or three seconds.

Sap collects one drop at a time.

Even though the sap looks like water, it tastes only faintly of  maple. It’s hard to believe this clear, almost tasteless liquid boils down into the dark, distinctively-flavoured syrup we pour on pancakes.

Sap has the colour and consistency of water.

Jo Marie’s property has so many trees you can’t haul the sap in buckets. So, they have motorized gear.

Bringing in the heavy machinery. Cooper herds.

The small sap buckets are emptied into bigger buckets, which are then emptied into the tank, which is then driven back to the boil point where it is syphoned into the BGSBs. And we have barely begun the process.

Maple sap is poured into the large tank. It will be driven back to the boil area.

The sap is stored in BGSBs until there is enough to boil. If it’s cold, the sap will freeze and you have the luxury to time to collect lots for a boil. But if the weather is mild, the sap can ferment, which means it’s wasted. Fortunately, the nights have been cold enough to keep the sap chilled.

Once filled with sap, the BGSBs are too heavy to lift . Here, a student ladles sap into a smaller bucket. This, too, takes time.

Transferring sap for the boil.

Pouring sap into the boiling pan.

Once enough sap has been transferred, the BGSB is gently emptied into the boiling pan. Even half-full, it’s so heavy with sap two strong adults are needed. As a small, not-so-strong person, I just stood by and took photos.

Jo Marie’s pan is about 8′ x 3′ and sits on cinder blocks. The brush is stuffed under the length of the pan to ensure even heat distribution.

Commercial operations boil sap around the clock, but her family makes batches on weekends. They start the fire at about 8 AM and finish the syrup about 3 PM. This happens every weekend until the sap runs out. The season is usually three to four week’s long, but depends heavily on the weather.

Maple syrup boiling away. That white stuff is steam from the sap, not smoke from the fire.

The trick is to keep the sap boiling, but not let it burn. This can happen as quickly as whipped cream can turn to butter, so someone has to be on hand to at all times to watch the syrup.

Maple sap boiling in the pan.

Even when the syrup is “done,” it’s not done. Because it’s cooked outside in the open air, the syrup is full of bark chips, ash and other particles. It must be stained through a thick filter.

The thick, filter for maple syrup.

And when it’s been filtered it’s still not done. The syrup must then be boiled down again on the stove top. The ideal temperature is 104°F, so you need to keep an eye on the syrup.

Why not just boil the sap inside and save yourself the trouble of collecting wood and straining ash? Jo Marie did that the first year she attempted maple syrup. It produced so much steam and moisture her ceiling collapsed.

Another year, the shelf holding 60 to 80 mason jars of her homemade syrup collapsed. Not a single jar survived the crash. I’d have given up, but Jo Marie is made of stronger stuff and this is the result.

A jar of Jo Marie's homemade maple syrup.

By the time the syrup is in jars, each gallon takes 40 to 50 hours of work. Jo Marie calls this a “hobby.” I call it a labour of love.

This year’s batch isn’t finished yet, so I can’t tell you how it turned out. Based on previous results, Jo Marie’s method produces a richer, slightly smokier syrup that puts the supermarket brands to shame.

I’m not about to make my own syrup. But I have a deeper appreciation for what goes into it. Waffles will never be the same again.

*Jo Marie Powers is a co-founder of Cuisine Canada. She’s one of the most amazing women I have ever met. If she offers you one of her famous maple sugar candies, take it. You will experience a tiny bit of heaven and history all in one bite.

Update: Even more photos can be found on my Tumblr.

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