As promised, Daughter #3 (Baby Lady of the Prairies) with another freezer meal to prepare for your baby’s arrival or a wonderful gift to provide to a new Mom. 

Kath’s quote:

“This curry was like a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony that I’d once heard…..especially the last movement, with everything screaming and banging ‘Joy.’ It stunned, it made one fear great art. My father could say nothing after the meal.”-Anthony Burgess

Love-that is all.

Daughter #3, aka J2 is Blogging as Baby Lady of the Prairies and provides Pre & Postnatal Services in the Heart of Winnipeg www.specialdeliveriesfitness.com.  When she was guest blogger for me recently she mentioned making freezer meals to prepare for your baby’s arrival.  These would also be wonderful gifts to provide to a new Mom.  Come back tomorrow for her Chicken Apple Curry Soup.

Kath’s quote: “I always wondered why babies spend so much time sucking their thumbs. Then I tasted baby food.”-Robert Orben

Love-that is all.

“Paris was Yesterday” is not a food-themed recounting as are the majority of works  that I normally read and provide excerpts of here.  In fact, if I were to pick one subject of the many that were included in this read, it would have been the coming together in Paris of the major writers of the young century at Janet Flanner’s favourite French cafe.  This reminded me of  “Midnight in Paris” written and directed by Woody Allen-a film that we loved in spite of the critics not being particularly thrilled with it.

In her lengthy introduction, she sets the scene for her time in Paris and this is primarily where her food references are found including this one from page 7:

“With my stomach stirred to hitherto unexpected satisfactions, with my palate even now able to recall the sudden pleasure of drinking a tumbler of more than ordinary red or white French wine.  I can recall the sensual satisfaction of first chewing the mixture in my mouth a crust of fresh french bread and then the following swallow of the wine itself, like the dominant liquid guide leading my nourishment down through my gullet into my insides.  Eating in France was a new body experience….

The lunch was a fixed price and in its lack of surprises.  There was a plate of hors dourves including a slice of Jura pate, flavored with wild thyme, and as the main dish, a succulent stew or an escallop of veal and a salad with goats cheese, plus a small black french coffee which tasted like death.  It was a civilized, countrified, appetizing inexpensive French meal.  It probably cost me about thirty cents plus a ten per cent tip for Yvonne the Terrible” ( so named because she was such a terrible waitress).

My favourite artists also assembled in Paris and are represented in this book.  I am particularly fond of  the work of Degas and Monet and not so much of Picasso but this reference makes me feel more inclined towards him, as a person.

“By this time he had his arms around me and was thumping me enthusiastically on the shoulders.  “You look fine; not a day older”, and I said “Nor do you”, and he said  “That’s true;  that’s the way you and I are.  We don’t get older, we just get riper.  Do you still love life the way you used to, and love people the way you did? I watched you and always wanted to know what you were thinking…Tell me, do you still love the human race, especially your best friends?  Do you still love love?” “I do”, I said, astonished at the turn the monologue was taking.  “And so do I!” he shouted, laughing.  “Oh, we’re great ones for that, you and I.  Isn’t love the greatest refreshment in life?” And he embraced me with his strong arms, in farewell.”

Kath’s quote: Isn’t love the greatest refreshment in life?  Pablo Picasso

Love-that is all.

Photos of Monet & Degas are my own, taken in Musee D’Orsay, Paris.

If you are in the Grand Beach area, you will not want to miss out on this surprizing foodie adventure.  Just north of the Hwy. 59 Grand Beach turn off, on the west side of the highway, sharing the parking lot with a Woodstove company is a little yellow school bus which has had various personas over the years.  If you are expecting a plain fast food burger and frozen fries, hold on to your beach hat!

The burgers are hand-formed patties from grass-fed beef and the cheese-burgers come with your choice of five Bothwell cheeses.  I do not have the entire run down of selections because we were in a hurry to get back into the city yesterday.  But from the three parties of people from my family who are raving about the little place, I know that there is smoked Gouda and jalapeno.

Bothwell cheeses are also featured in their artisan grilled cheese sandwiches.

Smoothies can be whipped up and I understand that the milkshakes are very good but the star of the show (for me at least) are the hand-cut fries and poutine made with Bothwell cheese curds!  I got to taste the fries first hand when a take out box of them appeared with a roving gang of friends this weekend (they just opened Saturday).  The fries are sliced daily and retain that sweet and almost nutty flavour that only fresh cut fries can.  I can only imagine what the combination of a savoury gravy and Bothwell curds would do to enhance them.  I understand that from-scratch onions rings are also on the way.  Yum-cannot wait until Friday when we had up to the Beach area again.

Tell them Food Musings sent you and I predict that you will get extra curds on your poutine!

Kath’s quote:  May your potatoes always be crisp and may the cheese “sing” in its freshness. For, what is a poutine but a glorious ode to the perfect melange of spuds, curd and brown roux!-LouLou, Laval Ouest, Québec (from poutinechronicles.ca)