breakfast blogger

If anyone has noticed my silence lately, I will blame it squarely on a serious illness followed by a destination recovery. During my illness, which stumped my GP after three visits over a period of two weeks and landed me in the hospital, I ate no breakfast. I recovered in the nick of time, as the lady and I had planned a vacation to Florida long ago. It would have been a shame to miss it.

If there was ever a time to go south, this was it. This has been the snowiest winter I can remember since the mid-70s. I can distinctly see in my minds’ eye several school closings and even one or two snow storms that dropped so much snow on the city that my dad’s car was completely buried under a mountain of snow and he couldn’t go to work.

We arrived in Hallandale with a few St.Viateur bagels, took a swim in the ocean, and then made breakfast. I wholeheartedly dislike “Florida bagels” - if a bagel from the Sage Deli is considered an average specimen of a “Florida bagel”. The only bagels I have eaten in Florida (not counting smuggled Montreal bagels) were from the Sage Deli, and I will assume - from its reputation as a Jewish deli - that a Sage bagel is probably superior to most other bagels found in Florida. Still, a Sage Deli bagel is a big, round, stale bun with a dimple in it. When I eat one, my jaw is sore by the time the last bite is making its’ way to my mouth.

I am trying to design the brunch menu for an upcoming event we are having, so I made this:

First I toasted the bagels, which were from the day before. If they were fresh, I would have skipped the toasting. Then I dropped them into a frying pan coated (generously) with butter. I cracked eggs into the holes and waited a bit to get them started. I flipped them and threw on some smoked salmon, hand-cut at the Sage Deli.

I garnished with fresh dill and cherry tomatoes that were from Josh’s Organic Market. We had not really eaten any tomatoes since the fall, so this was a real treat for us, and well worth the sacrifice. Montreal tomatoes in the winter taste like cardboard, and these were like heaven. If you want to read more about Josh’s, check out my Ethicurean post from last year’s trip to Florida, or wait a couple of days for my new post to appear.

We are this beautiful meal on the balcony, overlooking the ocean - here is what we were looking at :

And here’s a shot for you dirty dish fetishists:

During the holidays, our friend Kate suggested that we make Pannetone french toast, so we did.

We used fresh farm eggs that we got from our CSA farm, which is why these eggs are all different colours and sizes.

We also made home fries. We baked these, not only to make them less unhealthy, but to not have to stir them and/or tend to them constantly. It also frees up more real estate on the stove. We simply threw cubes of potato into a big bowl and tossed them with some oil (olive and veg), salt, pepper, and whatever herbs or spices were handy - oregano and rosemary this time. After about 20 minutes we mixed them around, trying to flip as many pieces as possible.

Here they are in the oven:

We also made an apple compote to eat on the french toast.

Here is some cheese we had with our meal. There was a Comte from France and a Manchego from Spain. We invited a few people for this brunch, and they didn’t show up empty-handed, so there was an assortment of fruit and cheese and other goodies to enjoy before, during and after the Pannetone french toast.

The Pannetone french toast:

Yummy!

For dinner that evening, the lady and I made Pannetone french toast peanut butter banana sandwiches, with maple syrup.

Decadent.

Almost every Christmas Eve I can remember was spent with my family, and we always had dinner at a Chinese restaurant and then saw a movie. I missed a few years, in my late teens and early twenties, when most people rebel against their families and other institutions. During these years I usually ‘rebelled’ by being temporarily adopted by a Christian family and sometimes even attending midnight mass at a church. What a crazy kid I was.

This year was no different. My girlfriend, my brother, my grandmother and her caregiver (who is a Jehovah’s witness and therefore did not celebrate Christmas or take the evening off) went for Chinese food. Afterwards, my girlfriend, my brother and I went to see “The Golden Compass”, a fittingly anti-Christian film.

The next day, Christmas Day, I went to Kam Fung for Dim Sum.
Some of you may recall that I wrote about the Kam Fung Dim Sum experience last year, but if you compare the two, we ordered a variety of different dishes each time.

This time I was accompanied by four lovely women, and we chatted, ate lots of dumplings and drank copious amounts of tea. Below is a list of most of what we ate.

Fried calmari
Always one of my favorites.

Spicy fried tofu
One the tastiest but unhealthiest ways to prepare tofu.

Mushroom/pork/shrimp meatballs
Strange, but satisfying. slimy mushroom acts as a container for seasoned ground pork.

Tripe
yech.

Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce
Healthy and delicious.

Fried taro.
I don’t know how this ended up on the table, but it was fine.

Shrimp spring rolls.
Once again, we must have been having some really good discussions, as we cannot remember who said ‘yes’ to these, but they were good nonetheless. The pile of mayo was overkill.

Sesame balls with lotus paste
Classic. Almost sweet like dessert, but still savory enough to keep ordering more food…if we’re still hungry…

Deep fried shrimp dumplings
We all thought we were getting steamed shrimp dumplings. Oh well.

Steamed shrimp dumplings
YES!

There were some that i missed opportunities to get photos of, but that is all part of the mystery of Dim Sum.

For dessert, some coconut and mango jelly pudding
The coconut was slightly mild, but the mango was spot on.

The battlefield:

Afterwards, we walked towards home and stopped for Christmas coffees at Café Olympico.

The best Christmas ever!

I have no idea why this Comfort Inn location is referred to as the “Taj Mahal”, but I don’t really care - it just seemed to me to be a part of the United States of America’s global appropriation strategy. I was in Vermont for 1 night, with my mom, and we just needed a place to sleep. And then of course have breakfast!

Our stay at the lovely “Taj Mahal” Comfort Inn in in sleepy St. Johnsbury, Vermont included complementary continental breakfast. I was a little confused at the geographical contradictions implied by the hotel, seeing as the wikipedia entry on breakfast, subsection 4.5.1, defines continental breakfast as “an institutional meal plan based on lighter Mediterranean breakfast traditions”. We all know (I hope) that the “Taj Mahal” is in India. A South Asian breakfast would have been pretty cool, but instead we would have to settle for a Mediterranean-themed start to our day. Life could be worse.

Of course, I was in the United States of America, where excess and obesity is the norm (even in Vermont!), so this was a actually more of a breakfast buffet - with no Mediterranean theme in sight. Besides a bowl of slowly rotting apples, which was the almost the only healthy food in the room, there was a dispenser offering unlimited quantities of cereals such as some sort of generic Kaptain Krunch, pictured below:

I passed on the cereal once I saw that there was a Do-It-Yourself waffle machine, which is so highly-regarded by the Comfort Inn people that they have a waffle pictured on the main page of their website. After pumping a generous amount of batter into a cardboard cup from the waffle-batter dispenser,you pour it into the waffle machine, flip it, and start the timer.

Exactly two minutes later you get your waffle - W A F F L E T A S T I C ! !

I shared a waffle with my mom and also had a stale roll with a dimple in the middle, otherwise known outside of Montreal as a bagel.

I had mine with a sliced hard boiled egg. MMMmm….

I was tempted to have 15 or 16 doughnuts for dessert, but I decided to hold off until later.

I cannot believe I didn’t have my camera with me.

This morning I ate at THE Montreal Breakfast LEGEND!

The Lady and I had some free time this morning, so we cruised westward to NDG and hit Cosmos. I had recently written a small piece on Cosmos for Hour Magazine and I figured I owed them another visit - this time to show my Toronto-born ladyfriend what a Montreal breakfast is all about.

I walked in and was instantly greeted by Tony’s son, who remembers just about every face that sits at his counter, although it helped that I’ve been eating there since the late 80s. I wish I could remember his name but all those years of eating all those greasy potatoes have robbed my memory of his name. I was also very glad to see Tony at the flat-top. There were rumors that Tony had retired, but there he was, silently minding the flat-top, which was weighted down by a very large mound of Cosmos famous potatoes.

Since it was my Very Special Ladyfriend’s first time there, I wanted to order everything on the menu, but settled on a “creation” on challah and a salami/cheese omelet. The “Creation” is one of the best breakfast sandwiches you will ever come across. This super-sandwich is made on your choice of bread (some eggsellent examples would be a bagel, black bread or marble) and is stuffed with fried egg, grilled salami, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and mayo. I was so overwhelmed that I can’t remember if it also contained bacon, but either way - this was a fabulous experience. The omelet was exactly what you would expect - grilled salami folded inside some eggs and melted cheese.

I guess we’ll have the “mishmash” next time, and I promise to remember my camera.

One of my old favourites recently got a face lift. Time for a follow-up from the breakfast doctor (that would be me, of course).

The outside didn’t change much.

New Claudette vs. Old

It’s weird that they would make these changes and not erase the old look. You can still see where the old vertical sign used to be because they didn’t bother to repaint the metal siding. The exterior doesn’t look any better, it just looks a little different. I wonder who their designer was?

I’m not exactly sure why they renovated. Usually it means that the new owners want to make more money so they slap on some paint, throw in a few new light fixtures, and jack-up the menu prices. This does not seem to be the case.

It seems that the ownership may not have actually changed hands, as the staff was the same, and the food - as good as ever - tasted exactly the same, so the cooks must have survived this strange unnecessary make-over. Miraculously, the prices did not go up. The old look was a hodge-podge of red and white checkered tablecloths and unmatched furniture, appropriate for the type of restaurant that is Chez Claudette. The new look seems to be going for the imported, assembled restaurant furniture picked out of a catalog look, which they have achieved. The interior is a little classier than it used to be, but lacks any character.

If you look closely, you can see that the red brick wall is actually some sort of glued-on plastic sheeting that looks like bricks. Very classy.

The poster on the wall is a replica of The Last Supper, but Jesus and the apostles must have missed their reservation and have been replaced by Elvis, Marylin, Bogey, and other Hollywood stars.

The place will look perfect in 15 years or so, once the new look ages a bit.

The Lady had big eyes and ordered the “Brunch”, two over-easy eggs, sausages, home-fries, brown toast, and…

…a side of french toast ($8.95). Whoa, la - dats a lot of food.

I ordered the “mini choice of meat”, which is just one egg (over-easy) with bacon, and brown toast…

…and opted to “Quebec’ my breakfast and morph my home-fries into a home-fries-poutine ($6.50).

Dynomite!

Last week was my birthday. My Very Special Ladyfriend cooked me breakfast, and it was delicious!

I had heard about Allan Benton’s bacon from Tennessee, and then both Gourmet and Saveur magazine ran pieces on his operation, so I decided to order some before it was too late.

I was glad I had ordered my bacon a few weeks ago, because they are so backed up with orders that they have posted a warning about delays on their website. I am worried that Allan Benton may soon expand his business to keep up with demand, which of course may ultimately decrease the quality of his products.Just look at that bacon!

Hopefully Allan’s ethics will persist and decided to limit his orders to a capacity that he can keep up with. Alternatively, he should get together with other artisanal pork producers and refer customers to bacon suppliers closer to where they live. I am pretty certain that there must exist some phenomenal bacon producers closer to Montreal. I will start my search and let you know how it progresses, along with updates on my waistline and cholesterol levels.

I almost forgot to mention that they do not ship to Canada, so I actually had my bacon delivered to me while I was on vacation in the USA.
Back to breakfast. We had scrambled eggs with dill, cherry tomatoes that were grown in Quebec greenhouses, and a whole-wheat baguette from Capucine & Tournesol, a great bakery right on our corner that makes a lot of no-yeast breads and other healthy fare like date squares (using no added sugar) and kamut bread and even some savoury pies that I have yet to try.

We also had that great bacon, which was good, but very strong. We found it too salty to eat alone, but made the best BLT’s we’ve ever had later in the afternoon. I think I will only use the bacon in sandwiches and also to cook with.
The Ladyfriend was so quick with the dishes I missed the proper the money shot, but suffice it to say - we licked our plates clean!

ps: For my birthday dinner we went to Pied de cochon. Yum!

The Ladyfriend and I went to sunny Florida last month to visit my parents, but also to soak in some warm weather before I had shoulder surgery. The surgery went well, but I’ve been couped up and crabby ever since - I can’t wait to use my arm again.

Now that I’ve sorted through my vacation photos, I decided to get off my Breakfast-Blogging ass and write something.

Like most Montreal Jews (and Quebecois Francophones), my family has vacationed in Florida since caveman days. I guess we all just need some time away from the Wasps. (Where do they take their vacations?) Besides the usual spots like the Sage Deli, Rascal House, and the Deli Den, we occasionally had breakfast at Nick’s, which is just a stone’s throw from where both the Quebecois and the Jews stay - on Hallandale Beach boulevard near the ocean.

This is your typical diner. We strolled in around 10am and it was half-full of old guys who all seemed to know each other. They were gabbing away with the waitresses, who were thankfully not young actress wannabees or over-perky university students, but career waitresses who knew how to do their jobs and added a touch of authenticity to this down-home restaurant.

I got two over-easy with bacon and the Lady ordered a sausage omelet with cheese. We both happily ordered rye toast.

I was glad they had rye toast, which is something most restaurants do not have. Usually you get a choice between white or brown, and the difference is negligible. I don’t eat white bread anymore and standard brown bread isn’t actually whole wheat, it’s just white bread with a bit of whole wheat and some brown food coloring thrown in to fool us.

That being said - this wasn’t rye toast. it was kimmel. In my books rye is rye, and kimmel is rye with caraway seeds. Luckily, i like both, but it could have been a disaster.

Also, we usually prefer real cheese to the processed stuff, but this was so gooey we love it!

The money shot.

Nick’s Restaurant
105 East Hallandale Beach Boulevard
Hallandale Beach, Florida

I apologize - if anyone has even noticed - that I have been negligent in regards to my Breakfast Blogging commitment. You don’t have to tell me: Breakfast is THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY!

Shall I rattle off some petty excuses? For one thing, my parents confiscated my camera (okay, it’s actually their camera) to take their grandchildren (my neice and nephew) to Disney World. Also, I have started writing for another blog whose subject matter is important to me. It is called the Ethicurean and you can read it here. I write about food that is “good”. I almost typed “healthy, but then decided to type “local” or “sustainable” or “clean”, but all those words will soon be trademarks owned by McDonald’s and Wal-Mart. I think you get the point . . .

Just so you’ll know, I haven’t been skipping breakfast. In fact, I’ve eaten quite a few very good breakfasts that I should have written about but felt I could not do them justice without a photo or two. Many have been things that I have already blogged about, like the bagelettes we made last week and the Tropicanas we also enjoyed, plus the multitude of scrambles and over-easy’s and smoothies and sometimes just a small bowl of cottage cheese with banana slices in it. I even went for Dim Sum on the south shore, which I will post about very soon . . . once I download the photos taken by a friend who has his own camera.

A few days ago we had cereal, with blackberries that were leftover from a dinner party we had the night before. I usually only buy berries in the summer, and then I freeze a lot of them, but this week they looked so good and we were having friends over and I just grabbed them and threw them into my little basket, wishing at the same time that my Eastern European great granparents immigrated to a warmer climate where berries are grown locally all year round. This is what we Jews do: complain.

The cereal was blend of 2 Kashi cereals. Kashi is a company that makes organic breakfast products that seem to be healthy as well. I have been scouring the shelves of grocery stores for the lasy few years for cereals where sugars are not listed in the first 3 ingredients, and especially where there are not too many types of sugars in my cereal. If there are sugars in my cereal, they should be natutral sugars and not derived from genetically-modified corn.

Then we found Kashi.

These cereals are amazing! The ingredient list isn’t full of words from a level-3 university chemistry class - they are actually foods. The only weird thing with Kashi cereals are their names. What marketing genius came up with “GO LEAN Crunch!”? It sounds like it was named by the same group of people who translate Japanese snack food names into English.

Then we found “Good Friends” cereal, aslo by Kashi, but not as easy to find. The name isn’t so bad, but the photos on the box and the “Good Friends” story is so horribly sacharine that it actually makes up for the lack of sugar in the product.

As a note, I am almost sure that Kashi has since changed the name of “Good friends” to something like “trio of Flakes, Twigs and Granola”. I am not certain, because their website still calls it “Good Friends” but the boxes we saw in the grocery store have changed. Either way, we love these cereals.

We’ll be in Florida for the next week or so and I will definitely report on my sun-baked breakfast from down south. I may even have brunch with a fellow food-blogger…

We made some soft-boiled eggs a while back . . . I had almost forgotten how good they can be.

I don’t think I had my first soft-boiled egg until I was well into my twenties, but it was definitely worth the wait. I grew up in a traditonal Jewish Montreal home with some finicky parents, who were not boring, but they were set in their ways. Even though we had no soft-boiled eggs, no poached eggs, or even any real omelets, we had some great scrambles - salami and eggs being my all-time childhood favourite. I am now glad my parents were such finicky eaters, because it has left me such a wide range of foods to discover in my adulthood.

We get our eggs from a farm just outside of Montreal, as I try not to buy industrially produced eggs anymore: Chickens are animals - not machines. When I am out of eggs before farm day, I will go to the Jean-Talon market and buy eggs from an old guy who says he has “organic” eggs which are not certified - I haven’t yet fully investigated his claims, but I plan to. If I am too lazy to go al the way to the market, I often pick up some Burnbrae Farms “Free run” eggs at our neighbourhod grocery store.

Whenever I make soft-boiled eggs, I always use my ‘egg timer’, which I never really trust. It’s a fiberglass dome, shaped like half-an-egg, and you are supposed put it into the water when it is still cold and then start cooking your eggs. When the red color fades to the desired level of doneness, you take the eggs out. I don’t normally use these types of gadgets, but this one was a gift, so I use it, with a certain amount of distrust.

I always take my eggs out of the refrigerator as far in advance as possible, which is usually once we have decided that we want soft-boiled eggs. This is hopefully about 30 minutes before cooking, as I don’t want to shock the eggs and have them crack in the hot water. I fill a pot with water, add the eggs and the egg-timer, and then put it on the stove set to “high”.

Once a boil has been reached, I immediately turn down the heat to medium-high to keep the boil as gentle as possible, and wait about 3 minutes. In my opinion, the size, quality, and age of the eggs are all factors which may affect the cooking time. How can this little plastic dome know anything about my eggs? It can’t!

This said, I usually cook my eggs about 3 minutes. I have a 75% success rate, but I am satisfied with my margin of error because I am usually cooking for my lady and myself, and I will gladly eat any undercooked eggs while my lady will happily eat any overcooked ones. This is one of the reaosn I love her.

The best part about soft-boiled eggs is this little egg circumsizer I got as a Christmas gift a few years back, from the same people who gave me the egg-timer. I found this a funny gift seeing as I am Jewish and I got an egg-moyle to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus.

We enjoyed these with kamut toast points and some hunks of cheese.

Yummy.