I have rediscovered Casa Grande just recently but it sure looks as if their following has not waned over the years.  We arrived for lunch before the strike of noon and managed to snag a table but had we been detained we might have been out of luck.  I recommended the cosy place recently when Daughter #2’s BF was looking for an authentic Italian place to plan a date.  With the red and white table cloths and wax-laden white candles, it reminds me of the spaghetti eating scene in “Lady and the Tramp”. 

I have yet to sample a pasta as I try to avoid carbs at lunch but the salads are divine.  I am a purist when it comes to salad dressings having carefully noted the technique while travelling Italy.  A salad like the Greek one that I chose this time or the Italian that I enjoyed on my last visit,  just need a couple of tosses with a good quality olive oil and some vinegar to let the veggie and protein tastes shine through.  If the salt and pepper have not been added in the kitchen, then season at the table and you’re done.  The mozzarella in the Italian and the feta in the Greek is plentiful and satisfying.  But just to make sure, my friend and I who were sharing the salad also ordered a small Italian sausage pizza.  And even though our eyes were bigger than our tummies, it was a  great lunch accompaniment.  Although, had we known that the salad also came with a basket of grilled garlic toast, we likely would not have ordered the pizza as we left the entire bread basket untouched. 

The pizza crust was as good as my home-made (imho) with lots of crunch and a hint of sweetness. Even smothered with cheese and topping, you could tell that the sauce was carefully prepared. 

I am really looking forward to my next visit as they serve one of my very favourite Italian dishes.  They call it Seafood Spaghetti-I remember it as Spaghetti ai frutti de mare from our travels up the east coast of Italy. 

The server was handsome and attentive and the gentleman behind the cash register who I am guessing also has a hand in the food quality, equally handsome and charming.

Kath’s quote: “It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it; and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied; and it is all one.”-M.F.K. Fisher

That’s Amore.

We gathered recently for a good old fashioned working bee.  Daughter (in law) #3 had made too much perogy filling for another get together that she had hosted and invited a gang over to use it up.

We set up different work stations: one to stir the dough for the outside, another to cut the dough, a multi-person station to fill the wrapper and another to package the finish product. 

Not what ours looked like

Son #1’s first ever home-made perogy!

Now here’s where we went amiss. I had a whole stack of won-ton wrappers at home in my freezer and I brought them along to speed the project along.  Had we also set up a boiling station, I think the end result would have been more successful because my perogy portion got overly soft and a bit gummy before I could serve them as a meal.  Hindsight is 20/20 as they say.

We even got out our Baba aprons.

What a lovely way to pass an evening.  Son #1, Daughter #1, Goddaughter #2, Sister #3, Daughter (in law) #3 as I had mentioned and me.   There was pizza, wine,  good conversation and great laughs and we all went home with a packet of our accomplishment.  I’m thinking they knew what they were doing in the “olden days”.

My Mom is the Peroqy Queen-ask anyone who has ever tasted her’s.  Now I am pretty sure that everyone thinks that their Mom holds this title.  If so, send me your Mom’s recipe and I’ll test against my Mom’s:

2 1/2 c flour

1/2 t salt

3/4 c warm water

2 T oil

1 well beaten egg

After mixing, let the dough to rest in the fridge or an hour or so before rolling out.  I have also used a pasta roller for this process with great success. 

Kath’s quote:  “Food is a subject of conversation more spiritually refreshing even than the weather, for the number of possible remarks about the weather is limited, whereas of food you can talk on and on and on.”-A.A. Milne

Love endures.

D is away on vacation right (the secret to a fabulous marriage) and for some reason I always decide to take on a DIY project when he is away.  I suppose it is to prevent boredom which is crazy because I’ve got every available time slot booked up to hang with the kids, try new eating spots and get caught up with old friends.  And the refinishing project that I thought was going to take all week is already complete.  It was so much fun, I couldn’t stop myself.

I bought a dining room hutch a couple of years ago from a neighbour and the furniture style never worked in our house but because we entertain so many guests, I had to have a place to hold all our dining extras.  I’ve had an eye on distressing it for a long time and I’m crazy for turquoise.  The colour reminds me of the Mediterranean and Caribbean seas and having the colour surrounding me, does suppress the desire to live elsewhere.

If I were to do an inventory of what the hutch contains, you would know a great deal more about my family and me: 

-my first set of china acquired just recently and not purchased but handed down from Sister #2 who bought it at our favourite little second hand place

-huge wine glasses, at least a dozen for white and another larger size for red

-heart shaped rocks and shells collected from my favourite beaches

-hand-painted bowls made by Hortensia’s son’s in laws (my friend and one of my favourite inhabitants of Isla Mujeres)

-a set of flatware purchased at Dollorama because they contain all my favourite colours and look like they were hand made

-a set of Blue Willow dishes that I started saving when I was 17 and have just rediscovered

-the fixings for margaritas and martini’s

-a wine skin and wine decanters of all descriptions

-all kinds of colourful and mostly mismatched linen

So what prized possessions are hiding in your dining room sideboard?  Next project-the dining room table….. 

Kath’s quote:  “Ponder well on this point: the pleasant hours of our life are all connected by a more or less tangible link, with some memory of the table.”-Charles Pierre Monselet

Let love be multiplied.

Just to set the record straight…the life of a foodie is not always about dining out, trying new products and concocting inventive dishes, sometimes we just wanna be a couch potato.  Last night I served my family popcorn for supper.  And it wasn’t the trendy new sweet and salty variety and it wasn’t even air-popped.  It was Orville Redenbacher’s “Buttery”  (I thought that I exhibited amazing restraint by not grabbing the “Extra Butter” variety).  To make matters worse I didn’t pull it out of my well-stocked foodie pantry…I ran out and picked it up at Mac’s just before we settled in to watch “The Amazing Race” (a Sunday evening TV treat).  Since I have created this time of self-confession I should fess up that I then proceeded to watch another 2 hours of  TV because it was the finale show of “So You Think You Can Dance Canada” (my Wednesday TV treat).

So that you don’t get all concerned that I only consumed fat and carbs last night, I also had a two “just pulled from the garden” carrots and a glass of red wine.  So I did ingest some vitamins and anti-oxidants too.

In reality we did have a lovely sit down Sunday lunch instead of our usual dinner as D’s folks were able to join us from the country (hence the carrots).

Kath’s quote:  “But some of us are beginning to pull well away, in our irritation, from…the exquisite tasters, the vintage snobs, the three-star Michelin gourmets. There is, we feel, a decent area somewhere between boiled carrots and Beluga caviare, sour plonk and Chateau Lafitte, where we can take care of our gullets and bellies without worshipping them.”-J.B. Priestley

Let love be multiplied…..

I am not sure if I am remembering correctly or if I am perpetuating an urban myth but I recall that Chicken Fingers were invented at The Keg.  When the chicken breast craze started some 30 years ago (before then we were all content with drums and thighs), chicken processors had to find a use for the little strip of the chicken breast which does not always stay attached.  The guys at The Keg could get this product very inexpensively and it was actually the tenderest part of the breast so it could be cooked quickly, not dry out and be served as a bar food. 

In those days they were called “Chicken Tenders”.   As the new item was experimented with there were a number of coatings tried-my favourite being panko flakes.  In addition to a number of sauces which were invented to dip them into. 

Now, this part is absolutely true-the honey-dill dressing that fingers are often served with, absolutely was invented by The Keg.  It is still my favourite of any choice and we make it often at home-using equal parts of liquid honey and mayo and adding as much dry dill as desired.

Where’s you favourite place to order chicken fingers?  Do you have a recipe that you would be willing to share?  Stay tuned to read about Mitzi’s and see Jamie Oliver’s Crunch Garlic Chicken from his Food Revolution.

Kath’s quote: “‘Bee vomit,’ my brother said once, ‘that’s all honey is,’ so that I could not put my tongue to its jellied flame without tasting regurgitated blossoms.”-Rita Dove