I Love My Mother-in-Law

As you might have guessed by the title of this post, here's R's guest post about his experience preparing for the wedding. I warned R that he may not be "preaching to the choir" here. But, I'll let you come to your own conclusions.

***********************************************************



Psychgrad and Giz seem to thrive when the kitchen is overflowing with open cookbooks, dirty dishes, and ridiculous amounts of food. I, on the hand, find it draining. In fact, I am still recovering from the wedding preparations. This posting will expose the dark side of the Equal Opportunity Kitchen and shine a light on the signs of an addiction to cooking.

Most of my family members and friends were scheduled to arrive in town a few days before the wedding. Luckily, I had booked off a couple days in advance of their arrivals in order to run a few errands and do a bit of cleaning so that I could spend time with them once they arrived. Much to my dismay, the place was a disaster. There were cookies everywhere. There was flour on the floor. There were stacks of dirty dishes filling the sink. At times, I couldn’t even see the kitchen counter surface because there was so much stuff on top of it. The mess overflowed into the kitchen and even into the office as we needed more storage space. I tried to clean the place, but it was a losing battle. It just kept getting worse and worse. How on earth could I explain to my family and friends that they couldn’t come over, because the place was too dirty? Below are a couple of photos that show what the place looked like.





One day I came home and Psychgrad and Giz seemed really overwhelmed. A bunch of people were coming over for supper the next day and we had a lot of food left to prepare. I jumped into the role of Project Manager and tried to motivate Giz by telling her to work faster, but to no avail. An important part of Project Management is understanding the “Scope Triangle” and that time, cost and quality are the trade-offs inherent in every project.


I couldn’t get Giz to work faster and we couldn’t postpone the event, so I couldn’t change the time aspect. Giz wasn’t open to ordering a pizza or anything else and I couldn’t pay anyone enough to squeeze into the disaster of a kitchen to help out, so I couldn’t change the cost aspect. The quality aspect was going to suffer. It was clear that we needed to change the scope. We needed to eliminate a few options from the menu. However, when I suggested to Giz that we don’t make everything as planned, she replied, “what are you getting at?” She couldn’t fathom the idea of hosting an event and not having an insane amount of food. This was a moment of clarity for me. I realized that Giz has an addiction to cooking and she needs help. Here’s the proof:
• Instead of reading regular books, she reads cookbooks.
• Instead of watching real television shows, she watches cooking shows.
• Instead of checking normal web sites, she checks out food blogs.
• She asked me to go to the grocery store at least twice each day.
• She is so out of touch with the real world, she hasn’t even heard of Usain Bolt. He was only named Sportsman of the Year!!!

We need to have an intervention to save her. Who is willing to help? Please post messages of encouragement. Together, we can help her beat this addiction to cooking!

Guest Blogging: Teddy Leslie Poutine

R wanted to share one of his favourite meals with you: poutine. He's not really a hard-core cook. So, pre-packaged components are sometimes his ingredients of choice. If you would like to see a more "from scratch" version, check out this link to FXcuisine.

**********************************************
John Maynard Keynes once remarked that his major regret in life was not having consumed enough champagne. If he had known about poutine, I think he would have regretted not having consumed enough poutine instead of champagne. Enough of the cheesy opening, let’s get to the real cheese – cheese curds!!! That’s right! This post is about cheese curds smothered in gravy on top of fries. I’m talking about POUTINE! This is R. I’m writing a guest post on Psychgrad and Giz’s blog – Equal Opportunity Kitchen. What good is an equal opportunity kitchen if you can’t blog about a meal like poutine? This posting is our submission to the Potato Ho-Down. My potato-ho name is Teddy Leslie.


Poutine is very popular (especially in Canada) to eat as a quick take-out meal or to eat at a late-night diner after a night out partying, but it’s also very easy to make at home. Sometimes, it’s nice to just have a simple meal that you enjoy. I love poutine, so I picked up the ingredients: French fries, gravy and cheese curds. Here are some instructions, so you too can enjoy lots of poutine at home.

First, cook French fries in the oven until they look nice and crispy. Either straight-cut or crinkle-cut fries are fine. Next combine gravy powder with water and boil it as per the instructions on the gravy packet. Poutine tastes like heaven, so it’s no wonder that the ingredients involve St. Hubert and the patron saint of poutine, St. Albert. I prefer to use St. Hubert poutine gravy and St. Albert cheese curds. Next, place the cheese curds over the fries and smother with gravy. Then, say a prayer of thanks to St. Albert while the cheese curds slowly melt and enjoy the religious experience.

A couple of important points to remember:
- Grated cheese is not a suitable substitute for cheese curds. Seriously, it won’t taste the same.
- Be adventurous. I’ve had poutine with bacon and fried onions. I’ve also had it with peppers, sausage, ground beef; you name it. It all tastes good together.


St. Hubert is a franchise restaurant you can find in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick.




Add some cheese curds (like St. Albert cheese on top of your fries).



Then the gravy...Voila - poutine.

Guest Blogging: R in France

I arrived in France yesterday. R has been here for about three weeks now and....HE HAS BEEN TAKING PICTURES OF FOOD! It hasn't taken long at all for him to go from making fun of me for taking pictures of food to taking pictures himself, by his own volition. So...I have convinced him to write a guest post, talking about some of his culinary-oriented experience in France, so far. Without further ado... In the words of Neen and Do, I pass the baton.



This was the main course that I had a cocktail reception in the champagne region. It was very flavourful, but it had a bit too much olive oil. I also had some nice champagne that night.



This was the dessert from the cocktail reception. The lady that I was sitting by didn't want her dessert, so I dominated it for her. She's a big coffee fan, so I gave her my coffee as a thank you.



I visited two champagne houses and the first one was Pommery. This is a picture of a cheesy decoration in one of the tunnels. Champagne is kept in tunnels underneath the ground where the temperature is always around 12 degrees Celsius. Making champagne is a very complicated process. The bottles are slowly rotated and tilted upside. Eventually, a sediment forms in the bottom of the bottle (the neck when it is upside down) and then the neck is dipped into a solution that is about 25 degrees below Celsius so that the sediment freezes. Then, the bottle is opened and the pressure pops the frozen sediment out of the bottle. Because the sediment is removed, champagne does not improve with age like wine.



The second champagne house I visited was Moet & Chandon. The tour was very similar to the tour at Pommery, but I found it a bit pretentious. This is a statue of Dom Perignon, the monk that invented champagne.



This is a view of one of the buildings at Moet & Chandon. Obviously, the company isn't hurting for cash.



This is a macaron. My friend in Paris told me I had to have a macaron. Apparently, people line up outside some of the nice pastry shops in Paris, especially around Christmas time to buy macarons. It was good, but it wasn't cheap.

Psychgrad's note: You can check out a recent round up of macarons here.



In the Montmartre region of Paris, we stopped at a cafe for lunch. I was a feeling a bit deprived of fruits and vegetables, so I ordered a salad. It was dynamite. I really enjoyed the "lardons", which are sort of like little pieces of salty bacon.



Here's another view of the salad. The cheese is parmesan.



I spent one night in Paris and went to a restaurant called "L'ardoise", which was recommended by the concierge. For 33 euros, I had a wonderful three-course meal.



This is the appetizer. There was a lot of dill, which I loved.



This is the main course: lamb and peas. The sauce was amazing.



Voici le dessert. Il y avait beaucoup de canelle. I loved the cinnamon!

Psychgrad grabs the baton back...

Wow...I'm surprised at how factual R's guest post was. He's usually a big joker. I think organizing the pictures stressed him out.

Stay tuned...We'll definitely have more posts about our next couple of weeks in France.