Archive for June, 2006
food and family review.
By Karen | Sunday, June 25th, 2006 | No Comments »
This has been a busy few weeks in the Clement clan as well as of cooking at home. The pictures can describe better than my words can, so here’s a chronological highlights reel. Go to my Flickr site and browse the new photo albums (down the right-hand side) to see all.
I was inspired by another one of my favourite food bloggers, Matt of Abstract Gourmet, to make an off-the-cuff risotto:
Kurt tried a new summer BBQ recipe one night:
Hanging with Dad, Lola, and Tito Ramon and family on Father’s Day (Cactus Club):
To celebrate our one-month wedding anniversary, we cooked a gourmet French meal at home with our new tableware and an excellent 2003 bottle of Blue Mountain Pinot Noir:
And just last night, my dad’s birthday party (along with several other June-born Clements) at Reylar’s Filipino Restaurant in New West. We had the whole restaurant to ourselves and I went wild with photos and some video clips of my relatives’ live band. It’ll take me a while to sift through them so when they’re ready, I’ll post anew.
Michelle’s photos of our wedding.
By Karen | Tuesday, June 20th, 2006 | No Comments »
Still waiting on the official photos. In the meantime, Michelle and Raf have both posted their photos of our wedding to the communal wedding pool on Flickr. Here are some of my favourites from Michelle’s set:
Dave and Michelle:
Dave and Raf’s shenanigans with the appetizer:
They even got the other guests involved:
My super-macked-out cousin down the red carpet:
Me and dad almost at the red carpet:
Dancing to the live band:
Kurt apparently ravaged me getting at that garter:
If you have photos to share, please either email them to me in all their uncropped, unedited original glory…or post them onto the “Kurt & Karen’s Wedding” group we set up in Flickr so that we can all share and print our favourite photos.
kurt’s created a (wine) monster.
By Karen | Sunday, June 18th, 2006 | No Comments »
Before I met my husband (tee hee), I was not much of a drinker. The most alcohol I’d take in in a night was one or two gin and tonics. Figured since I was already such a hyper person, I didn’t need any further stimulants in my bloodstream to get me to dance on tabletops or the like.
But still, the greatest thing about our relationship was that he opened my horizons to a lot of new experiences. Granted, most of them were vices: beer, wine, tequila body shots, no-limit texas hold’em, and VLT machines; (–to be fair, he’s also showed me europe, golf, football, winnipeg, and lake country) but after 5 years I cannot believe how deep I’ve gotten into the world of beer and wine.
I used to be with beer and wine like how I still am with cars. I could tell colour and make (beer vs wine) easily, and model if and only if it’s printed right on the bottle. But try to get me to understand differences in terms of taste, quality and bouquet, or to identify a drink by taste alone, and I would have been at a loss. Not sure when this changed, since the transition was slow, but now at least I know enough about what I like and dislike to have hates (ice wine, shiraz, “lite” beer) and clear favourites (Guinness, honey brown lagers, soft-tannin blends). It’s disturbing that my blog posts and camera-happinesses are directed at wine bottles, and that I have scoured Google for favourites I cannot find.
Take Provençal rosé, for example.
Ever since our trip to Provence, I have been ga-ga over this type of wine. I had never tried rosé at home before, but my perception of it was that it was akin to the sweet ice wines that I have never really been fond of. Not dry enough for my liking. So how surprised were we when the French rosés were incredibly light, dry, soft, and subtle–perfect for summer lunches on a sunny patio by the Mediterranean. I couldn’t get enough. We bought a single bottle to take home with us, but unfortunately focussed on buying reds for the rest of our wine tours in France. Only too late, we discovered that an overwhelming majority of rosé is consumed in France, with the rest primarily being exported to Europe.
Apparently, California ruined the North American market for the whole lot of us when their rosé creations stereotyped the wine as blah, off-sweet or off-dry “in your face” flavours. We went to our local Okanagan wine store for a free rosé tasting and I was bitterly disappointed–not only in the wines I hoped would be serviceable, but in the response of their sommelier that there are no plans for the region to emulate the rosés from Europe. God damn it!
So in essence, France and Kurt ruined me for rosé, because now nothing short of an authentic Provençal variety will please me. Guess this means that now I am an utter wine snob?
shawn’s 25th birthday at guu.
By Karen | Thursday, June 15th, 2006 | No Comments »
Kurt and I went to Guu with Garlic (Robson & Bidwell) for my cousin Shawn’s 25th birthday. Most of the cousins (well, the cool ones) came out as well as a plethora of my cousin’s friends. To celebrate, Shawn and the other birthday boy, Ian, dressed in togas. Shawn’s was complete with headband leafed in real laurels. That’s hardcore.
It was the first time we went to Guu even with our obsession of trying all the good restaurants in the downtown area. It’s a Japanese tapas bar, so don’t expect your average sushi dishes. I’m pretty sure you couldn’t order sushi if you tried. The food was stellar and very well plated. I hope my photos did them justice. There were also pitchers and pitchers of beer and a near unlimited supply of plum wine, which I couldn’t stop drinking. It tasted like a liquid version of those little flat red discs of candy you’d get from Chinatown, often distributed around Chinese New Year. I remember pigging out on them as a child. In any case, the wine was yummy and worth having again when we return to Guu.
We were a little worried that as the older cousins and the married couple, we’d stick out of Shawn’s crowd like a couple of old, married, square, sore thumbs. It turned out alright, though. The cousins were there and we were the rowdy bunch as usual, and some of Shawns friends were closer to our age than his. And I’m sure the giant bottle of Jack Daniels that my brother passed around put everyone at ease.
Below are the photos on Flickr–and here are the videos clips as well: shawn chugging and a toast to shawn.
parmesan chicken with capers.
By Karen | Tuesday, June 13th, 2006 | No Comments »
Kurt outdid himself on one of his famous chicken recipes last night. He cooked it on his brand spanking new Jamie Oliver saucepan, care of T-FAL. Can that baby ever cook evenly. The chicken turned out super-crispy on the outside and super-moist on the inside. Kurt even put an extra dollop of capers in the pan, just for me!
We paired it with a sauvignon blanc that we got as an anonymous wedding present (in a yellow wine bag? who was this?) and happily, with our new favourite sparkling water from France, Badoit. I’m so ecstatic to discover that our grocery market downstairs stocks this. In my mad research phase googling Badoit and dry rose wine imports, I had thought that Badoit was only commercially available in the US. You should have seen me whooping in the aisle yesterday when I saw over a dozen of the slim red bottles on the shelves.
france-inspired dinner.
By Karen | Monday, June 12th, 2006 | 2 Comments »
Kurt and I had Jay and Chris over to break in our new wedgewood china and speigleau wine glasses. Also broken in: Kurt’s new Jamie Oliver T-FAL saucepan; 5-quart Kitchenaid stand mixer; fancy-schmancy empire red Kitchenaid ice cream scoop; yet another Kitchenaid item–this time a spatula; and the last-minute strainer purchase referenced below.
Kurt made his signature steak with a red wine reduction (cabernet franc this time) and tried to emulate the provencal tomatoes we loved at our Chez Cesar lunch in Cassis.
Our dessert was inspired by the Oeufs a la Neige I had at La Maree Verte in Paris. In searching for the perfect oeufs recipe, I came across this beautiful blog by La Tartine Gourmande that had an Iles Flottantes recipe. Apparently it is oeufs a la neige except with hard caramel. Armed with her pictures and my Cordon Bleu dessert cookbook, I made my first attempt at this yummy meringue recipe.
The creme anglaise from the cookbook turned out very nicely. There was a hiccup at the end–I didn’t have a big enough strainer to do the creme all at once, so most of it curdled on me before I could ice it. Kurt did an emergency strainer purchase and Round 2 came out perfectly.
The meringues were trial-and-error. My cookbook told me to shape the meringue into egg shapes using two slotted spoons. Either my meringues were not stiff enough or the slots of my spoons were too large, because they kept oozing out through the cracks. So I tried a different shape: how about making a mountain peak, like La Maree Verte did? No luck either. The saucepan poaching method didn’t seem to work for non-egg shapes. Even if I did manage to place the conical meringue into the syrup, the peak collapsed or contorted as soon as I tried to poach it on its other side. I reverted to a ball shape using non-slotted spoons.
Once I did manage to poach them, they puffed up like I expected…for one minute. After that, the volume deflated significantly and produced very flat, limp ovals that weren’t meringue-like at all. Scrap cookbook technique.
I whipped out my ramekins and baked the rest of the meringue in a hot water bath as La Tartine Gourmande suggests. I also tried to create a caramel nest to crown the dessert, and with Jay’s help, we managed to do a decent job on the first meringue. Unfortunately, the caramel cooled down too quickly for us to continue making ribbons. It was just as well since our tasters had a hard time eating said caramel without getting it hopelessly stuck in their teeth.
Lessons learned:
- make meringues stiffer and bake them in ramekins
- use a soft caramel sauce instead
- dress the provencal tomatoes with way less breadcrumb, less herbes de provence, and a ton more olive oil
video clips taken in paris.
By Karen | Saturday, June 10th, 2006 | No Comments »
Finally uploaded the short clips we took in our first few days in Paris. Unfortunately, memory card space became an issue after Day 3, as we were too lazy/busy/sick to find a decent cybercafe to offload photos in town.
- Our first night in Paris
- Eiffel Tower sparkling
- The bells toll at Notre Dame
- Pan of the mummy in the Louvre
my head is five pounds lighter.
By Karen | Thursday, June 8th, 2006 | No Comments »
Literally.
post your wedding pics here.
By Karen | Wednesday, June 7th, 2006 | No Comments »
Created a “photo group” on Flickr, and asking all of you who took photo and video to share your hi-res stuff with us. We’d like to have a one-stop place for our family and friends who were unable to be present that day.
Check your email for an invite to post, and if you didn’t get an invite but would like to upload stuff, drop me a line and tell me what your email is.
Visit: http://www.flickr.com/groups/hamiltonwedding/
wedding-related photosets.
By Karen | Tuesday, June 6th, 2006 | No Comments »
We’re back from our honeymoon and had a great time during that as well as on the wedding day. We are still exhausted and jet-lagged, having just come home on Sunday night, so here’s a quick post to give you the pictures you may want to look at.
- Engagement Photos
- Hamilton Wedding Shower
- Clement Bridal Shower (video highlights)
- Pivotal Shower Lunch
- One Last Salsa Fling (photos from Raf)
- Karen’s Stagette (Leanne blogs about it) (Pole Dancing video) (Cross-border run to Jack in the Box)
- Our wedding, according to Raf (Raf blogs about it) (Leanne blogs about it)
- Our wedding, according to Lorraine (you may need to register)
- Our official wedding photos (currently empty)
- Post-wedding brunch and gift opening
- Our honeymoon photos (all 702 of them!)
- Our honeymoon highlights, pared down to 200 of them
I’ll blog in more detail once things settle down. Still have a bunch of name-changing errands plus a myriad of thank you cards to write. Enjoy!