Being a foodie blogger has many fringe benefits.  I am able to make dates with my girls to join me for a lunch and other times I have invited D along to an opening or special dinner event.  J1 and J2 have even had the opportunity to “sub in” for us on a culinary tour of the Muskokas.  Rarely am I able to invite the entire family along to an event, but this past weekend we “almost” all got to participate.  My readers know how important family is to me and how I love to spread around the benefits of my wonderful life.  Last week, Chef Matt Frost of Earl’s on Main St. inquired whether we were available to join him at his Chef’s Table to sample their new Brunch menu.  The weekend was already very, very full but we were so glad to have agreed.

Chef Matt met us at the entrance to the private dining room and we were delighted to have a separate area to ourselves.  It is not that we are rabble rousers or anything, quite the opposite in fact.

We wanted to make sure that Wee One, who was accompanying us, didn’t give one of her urgent cries and disturb guests around us.  Coffee and mimosas were poured all around and we settled in to a brunch extravaganza.

First up were Cream Cheese Cinnamon Buns which we were told will be served to everyone who joins the good folks at Earl’s for brunch.  Had it been the only thing that I knew that I would be eating that morning, I would have enjoyed every gooey morsel but anticipating that there was more ahead, allowed me to restrain myself after a taste.  I love a good yeasty and cinnamony bun, pure and simple, so I considered the frosting overkill, but I know that those of you with a sweet-tooth with go gaga for them.

Matt then explained that a key component to the brunch menu was their crusty sourdough bread.  Matt created the starter himself and so you will know that whenever you tear into the flavourful loaf, no matter when in the future, you will be eating something that he created for your dining pleasure.

When made into French Toast, we loved that the flesh of the loaf was airy but the crust was crunchy and full of ridges to make it even more so. The Chantilly cream, berry puree, real maple syrup and butter, were the icing on the cake-literally.

We mistakenly thought that the frittata that came out next would be with a potato base (potato lover that I am).  J2 clarified that a frittata is simply a quiche without the crust.  This one is its own cast iron frying pan which kept it piping hot.  I particularly appreciated the nuggets of goat cheese when offset by the glistening green chives, which was likely added for a colourful garnish but was what I thought, an essential ingredient for my tastes.

The Croque Madame was declared to be the favourite of many of our family members.  In short, it was a grilled ham and Swiss cheese sandwich that had been crowned with a rich yolked Omega 3 poached egg and surrounded by a Serrano cream sauce.

While in France, D and I took every opportunity to order a Croque Monsieur which the Parisians often have in a cafe as a snack.  The addition of the poached egg makes the Monsieur, a Madame.

Matt plans his tasting menu to serve the richest and heartiest dish last.  I would have selected it as my favourite, no matter when it had been placed in front of me, combining many of my favourite brunch foods into one dish.  Officially titled Chorizo + Mushroom Hash, the dish was exceedingly more delicious than its name.  The base of the hash were Yukon Gold Potatoes that had been roasted and smashed and then tossed in a garlic confit.  The poached egg and field mushrooms enhanced the dish but not, in my mind at least, to the extent that the delicate hollandaise and clever addition of avocado slices did.  The inclusion of breakfast sausage would have been an insult to this dish, instead the choice of chorizo was brilliant.

You are certain that you have consumed beautifully created food when even the plate that is being cleared away is beautiful.

Many restaurants are judged at brunch by their Eggs Benedict and Earl’s are sublime.  The substitution of thinly sliced Virginia ham rather than thick Canadian bacon, matched the delicacy of the poached eggs in a more appropriate manner.  The same potatoes as the ones utilized in the hash, accompanied the dish. Heaven, I am m in heaven……  Each time I go out for brunch I have to specially request that my hash browns be served crispy without being deep fried to extermination.  If I simply go to Earl’s in the future, I will never have to make that request again.

As desert and to demonstrate a lighter offering, Greek yoghurt layered with home-made granola and berries arrived.  The inclusion of fresh mint and agave syrup elevated this Earl’s dish above the version that I prepare at home (yes-I even make my own granola).

Earl’s Brunch Menu is available at all Winnipeg locations on weekends and holidays.  Thanksgiving weekend would be a perfect time to go, but don’t wait that long.

Kath’s quote: “All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast.”-John Gunther

Love-that is all.

You know the saying: “a watched pot, never boils”?  I think that is true of the way people grow and mature too.  The daughter on Sister #2 is more than my niece.  She is my Goddaughter but even more than that, our two families are intricately knit together.  Our unique connections go back to the time when she and her brother and our three offspring were all babies and toddlers.  The bond has been cemented over time with our two families sharing our little (500 square foot) beach house on Lake Winnipeg.  Close proximity, hormones, humidity, mosquitoes and heartache will do that.  Now, an exciting new time has begun for our families.  Sister #2’s family have moved to a new home that they are in the midst of building just a few doors away from us at the lake.  My niece has moved as well and not just out of their home, or across the province but to the other side of the world-Australia.  Were she to have stayed, I do not believe that I would have seen the osmosis in her.  She was always exquisitely beautiful and a talented artist and dancer.  But while she was away she also became this amazingly mature, knowledgeable, engaged, self-aware person.

This new person has brought knowledge to our family. She is exploring the complex wold of food science and raising provocative ideas amongst us. She has been with us for a wonderful summer and now she has gone back to her new home “down under”.  But not before we enjoyed one last Sunday meal together.

Mom and daughter planned the menu together.

Cedar Plank Salmon in a honey mustard sauce.

Brown and wild rice pilaf with celery and mushrooms.

Asparagus tossed in pesto.

Parsnips, carrots and parsley root with fresh dill.

Beets with walnuts and chevre.

I contributed this rustic caprese salad with heirloom tomatoes.

All these good things created a gorgeous palate of colour on our plates.

The piece de résistance was this amazing cake that crowned our time together. The recipe was not original so I cannot post it, but here is the link: http://nutritionstripped.com/chocolate-coconut-flour-cake-with-chocolate-mousse-frosting/#.UjfWOuDFVdg.

The surprizing cake recipe was made with dates for sweetness and the frosting was concocted from avocado!  You just have to try it for yourself to believe the tasty results.

My Mom with my Grandbaby. 

In addition to wishing my niece well before her departure, we all took the opportunity to snuggle with the Wee One and marvel at her growth and changes.

Kath’s quote: “Life is no brief candle to me.  It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it onto future generations.”- George Bernard Shaw

Love-that is all.

I hate wasting food.  This is one of the times when allow myself to use the word “hate”.  The five second rule has a long extension in our house.  My heart breaks when I open that mystery tupperware in the back of the fridge to discover that a special leftover that I was coveting for my lunch, has grown a fuzzy sweater and has to be put out of its misery.

Turns out that a couple of these veggies were not squash but a cucumber like veggie that I had not tasted before.  So after this photo, I replaced them with more squash.  I then used my new favourite veggie in a rustic Greek salad to accompany the pasta.

I love the abundance of this time of year and we are delighted with our garden share basket every week but I am very careful to set aside hearty veggies like carrots, beets and potatoes to enjoy in a week or so and focus on the more perishable items.  Recently I blanched and froze cabbage leaves to make cabbage rolls in the future and I have been grilling and freezing our squash varieties to try to keep up.

Last evening though I concocted a new use for zucchini and sunburst squash.  The family loved it including an intern from out-of-town who is living with us until Christmas.

The quantities in this recipe are approximate for two reasons: a) by the time I get to test the recipe again, the urgency of the season may have past and 2) less stock or more vegetables will only change the consistency, not the taste.

A great deal of the marvelous flavour comes from the bacon and renderings, so if I were to convert the dish to a vegetarian recipe I would delete the bacon, use a vegetable oil and add more onion and garlic to punch up the flavour.

Kath’s quote: “The first zucchini I ever saw I killed it with a hoe.”John Gould

Love-that is all.

My culinary memories of summers at Grand Beach include waiting for the bakery door to open to purchase just-out-of-the-oven cinnamon buns or tasting gravy served on French fries for my very first time, at a bright orange wooden stand called Jo-Anne’s.  Perhaps Lanky’s was the place that you loved or maybe a little place that was fittingly called the Blueberry Patch.  As we vacation in the Grand Beach area every summer and have done so for decades, we have seen many places come and go.  Our favourite in recent years is a place called Ty’s Café at the Sandbar Motor Hotel.  We’ve enjoyed their Friday night Steak Dinner features and their hearty breakfast skillets.  There was a time when they would feature all-you-can-eat pickerel and fries but had to put a kybosh on that when it became enormously popular.  Now the only pickerel appearance is their fish sandwich at lunch time.

We found ourselves seeking out a cool refuge on what turned out to be the hottest day of the summer.  Good thing J2 and I were overheating and hungry too.

She ordered a colossal burger dubbed the Big Kahuna when she spied that it was garnished with grilled pineapple and back bacon.

I lost my head and selected the Meat-Lovers.

What was I thinking? Mine was topped with no less than ham, bacon and sausage!  Needless to say, I could only make my way through a small potion.  These were burgers like you might see on a Food Network show.  You know the kind where the host can hardly fit his mouth around it.  Maybe you thought that burgers this size were an exaggeration.  I am here to say, they are not.  It took an enormous effort to squish mine down to biting size.

Perhaps my appetite for a gigantic burger was negated by the heat and sun. In truth, it was because I had started to nibble on a “few” of the hand-cut shoe string French fries and low and behold, the fries were gone before I even attempted my first bite of burger.

Years from now, when I reminisce about the summer of 2013, I will remember Ty’s two-fisted burgers eaten in that blessed air-conditioned café.

Kath’s quote: “I am not a glutton — I am an explorer of food.”-Erma Bombeck

Love-that is all.

We opted to keep our golf cart for another day.  This gave D an excuse to hop into the cart and go and scare up some breakfast.

He found the juice man and then made his way to Café Aluxe.  D had met the baker the night before at Limon’s.  He had spent the entire long day previous baking and by the time D got there, he was almost sold out.  We did manage to get a couple of wedges of coconut-encrusted banana bread which was packed with flavour and beautifully moist.

We decided to check out Da Luisa at Casa Louis Ixchel.  We were considering the restaurant for the progressive dinner we were planning for the following evening.  Our son and daughter-in-law had celebrated their wedding anniversary there and thought that we might like it as well.  We were encouraged to look around and thought that it was a gorgeous spot.

After toodling around for the morning, we came upon Oscars Grill and we had built up a hunger and a thirst.  D opted for the shrimp tacos and I a fish sandwich.  Both were pretty good but the truth is, we had eaten so much amazing food over the two weeks, that we were quite used to pretty good.

We think that we might have happened upon the Oscar of Oscar’s.  Can anyone verify this?

I dropped D off at Little Garrafon for an afternoon of snorkeling as I spent the time shelling, shopping, writing and reading.  At happy hour, I met up with the gang at Casa de los Suenos.  After visiting the island once or twice a year since 2006, this is another place that I had never been.  We were delighted with the atmosphere and the décor of the open bar.  

But it was pretty obvious what we were there for….the food!

We ordered and shared tastes of a variety of their offerings including: Tortilla soup,

Chiles Relleno,

Chicken Nachos,

Fish Tacos,

Crab Cakes,

Calamari,

and Caesar Salad.

We were serenaded

and then treated to another stunning sunset.

Our happy hour treats turned out to be our supper and so we whiled away the evening with a whole lot of nothing which is exactly what we love to do on Isla.

Later that evening though, we were getting a little bit peckish and realized that we had not indulged in desert yet so we hopped back onto the cart and headed into Centro.  We knew exactly what we wanted and who would be serving it.

We have a number of local Isla friends that we miss when we don’t get to see them and we had not yet run into our friend Jose until earlier that day.  We had whizzed by him on our golf cart when we heard a shout “Hola! My friends!”.  We turned the cart around and there was Jose with his big grin and winning ways.  We had not seen him since he had taken such good care of us two seasons previously at Hotel Pariso.  How he recognized us, we will never know.  We stood in the street to get caught up and he shared with us that one of his jobs was selling baking for his friends. When we stayed a couple of years at Pariso and he acting as co-host he would do anything for us.  We asked him each evening as we headed out for dinner, if we could bring anything back for him.  He would sheepishly suggest diet coke and when we would stock him up, you would think that we had given him the most amazing gift in the world.  Jose is one of the many reasons why we love Isla and the islanders so very much.

Jose recommended the peach pie and we could not get the anticipated taste out of our head!

So we started our day with a sweet and ended it with another but then again, every day spent on Isla is sweet.

Kath’s quote: “An apple is an excellent thing — until you have tried a peach.”-George du Maurier

Love-that is all.