Mexican Cooking

Well, I had to return the Rick Bayless book back to the library. I tried to renew it, but someone else requested it. Oh well, someone else will have the joy of enjoying some good recipes. Along the way, I've made some dishes, learned a few things. I can make a decent guacamole and a decent hot sauce/salsa. Got some taco recipes as well with some variations on similar themes. Also, the basics are the same for a lot of these dishes.

Spinach and Mushroom Enchilada

Huevos Rancheros

Spinach and Chorizo Taco

Tomatillo Chicken

Portabella and Zucchini Taco

Shrimp Ceviche

Olympic Hockey Gold and Hockey Nostalgia

Like most of the country, I was glued to the television on Feb. 28, 2010 watching the Olympic Gold Medal Hockey game between the Canadians and the Americans. This one took me back. I don't know why, but this one more than the the Salt Lake win at gold really brought me back to being a hockey fan. Having the games in town and having the goalie of the Vancouver Canucks in net for Canada probably had something to do with it, but it was something more than that.

I haven't really followed hockey since shortly after the Canucks '94 Stanley Cup run. Leading up to that run in '94, I was a big fan of the Canucks. I was lucky enough that my parents got tickets to see games every once in a while. As a kid, the Canucks weren't a winning team, but they were our team, so we cheered for them. We didn't have the huge stars, we didn't have a Mario Lemieux, or a Wayne Gretzky, but we had a Trevor Linden and Linden was the man. I remember going to a game and I didn't know who Cliff Ronning was. He scored a couple of goals that game and I knew who he was after that. Everyone loved to see Odjick fight and loved it when he scored a goal too. We didn't have a great team, but we were getting there. It always seemed to me that the Canucks of that time were much more than the sum of their parts and really were a special team. In the Stanley Cup final in '94 they fought hard, but ultimately it ended up in disappointment. I followed the Canucks for a little bit after that, but as the years passed, the team changed. Core Canucks players like Trevor Linden, Cliff Ronning, Kirk Mclean, had diminished roles in the team and were traded away. The Canucks moved to a new stadium. They changed their jersey and colors. It didn't seem like the same team that I followed when I was growing up. My interest in hockey waned. I don't blame the Canucks, or the guys that made up that great team. Every athlete and team has to peak and everyone's time in the sun comes to an end eventually. They made a great run for the final and I was glad to be a fan for that time. I have some great memories of going to the Pacific Coliseum to watch the games. I remember the crack you heard as a stick hit the puck. Snacking on some caramel corn, or a frosted malt. Of course, pissing in that trough in the Coliseum men's room. My friends and I would rush to the back of the Coliseum after games and wait in the rain for a chance to get the players' autographs. It was great being a Canucks fan in the early 90's.

Having this Olympics in Vancouver, our country's team playing in our town, in our stadium, it felt like that again. As I watched that Gold Medal Game, I was that kid back in '94 watching the Canucks try to snatch the victory from the New York Rangers in game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals. There was some nervousness as the Americans tied it up to force overtime, a sense that it might all happen again, that disappointment of '94. But that made it all the more gratifying when Crosby scored that winning goal. In the crowded apartment I was in, when Crosby scored that goal, we all jumped up from our seats and gave high fives all around, our arms around each others shoulders in a big huddle. To me, it was like the promise of 1994 had been fulfilled. There were no riots this time, no disappointment, only celebration and joy. As we took to the streets, we saw a celebration that Vancouver had never seen before as closed off streets were flooded with people in Team Canada jerseys, flying Canadian flags high with pride. I'll always remember how great it was to be a hockey fan in Vancouver in 1994 and now I'll always remember how great it was to be a hockey fan again on the last day of February, on the last day of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Tomatillo Chicken

I've recently started trying to learn how to cook. I've had a bit of an interest since watching Iron Chef (the Japanese one) way back, but haven't acted on it until recently after watching some shows on Food Network.

I got into Top Chef from watching Top Chef Masters. After watching that show, I tried to look for the cookbooks of those chefs. Hey, if you're trying to learn, why not learn from the masters? When I was in Boston last month I found one of Rick Bayless' books at a bargain store for ten bucks, so I picked it up. I think Rick Bayless came off really well on that show and not just because he won it.

The first episode of Top Chef Masters I watched was the dietary restrictions episode with Zooey Deschanel. She's a vegan who doesn't eay soy or gluten. So, I was watching that show hoping to see some chefs struggle. They actually all did really well. I'll admit I was watching that show in part because of Zooey Deschanel as well. If you haven't seen (500) Days of Summer, check it out. It's pretty good. I also think she was good in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Maybe one day I'll write about why I like that movie despite the fact that everyone I know who saw it hated it. You know what, yeah, I'm pretty much going to have to write my review of that to defend my taste in movies. Anyways back to the cooking, the Top Chef Masters were faced with the task of cooking a meal with no animal products, no soy, and no gluten. Rick Bayless was unfazed. He said he had no problem cooking vegan because his mexican cuisine didn't rely on meat at all. He creates the complex flavors of mexican cuisine through his use of chilies. Another episode that really made an impression on me was the challenge where they had to take contestants from previous seasons of Top Chef as their sous chefs. I think Bayless was probably the one that really took into consideration the suggestions of his sous chefs and when he won, gave them all the credit they deserved. As the head guy, he could have easily taken all the credit, or just said nothing and let the diners think the meal was all his creation, but he openly praised his sous chefs and their contribution to the meal. Of course, Bayless was impressive in the finale too, which he ended up winning.

Now this is all well and good. Rick Bayless seems like a good guy and can create some great meals, but can a beginner cook like me get a good meal out of his cook book? I had made his Guacamole recipe and his Huevos Rancheros. Both were easy to make and turned out pretty well. A couple nights ago, I decided to try making Tomatillo Chicken. What are Tomatillos? Look it up yourself. Wikipedia is only a few keystrokes away. Hehe. Nah, I'll tell you. A tomatillo is a small green fruit that is related to the gooseberry. I took a slice off one and tasted it before starting the recipe and it was pretty tart. Didn't taste like a tomato at all. From the name you'd think it might be a little tomato, but it's really not. So, the recipe is a roast chicken with a tomatillo sauce. The tomatillos are roasted first and then processed into a green sauce, then baked with the chicken.


Again, this was a very simple recipe and it came out great. I really liked the tomatillo sauce. It really has a great balance of flavors. The tomatillos are tart, but there's yogurt in the sauce to balance it out and a serrano pepper to add some spice. I ended up cooking the chicken a little longer than the recipe called for. I guess I was using thicker pieces because it wasn't done after the length of cooking time he stated in the book. It was a delicious dish. Definitely something I'll make again.


This afternoon, I made a shrimp ceviche. A ceviche is citrus marinated, raw seafood. This recipe used cooked shrimp. It turned out alright. A quick, easy to make snack.

Downtown at the Olympics

The Olympics are in town, but I haven't gone to do much Olympic stuff and I don't feel like fighting the crowds to get into something. I'm not interested enough to put much effort into it. However, free stuff that has no line up, I'll check it out. So yesterday, I took transit downtown after work. In preparation, I browsed through some reviews of the various pavilions and houses. It seems like people are complaining that there isn't much to do. I get it. Usually if you wait in a line, you get to see a show, or you go on a ride at an amusement park, or something. People wait in line an hour, invest their time, they expect something. So, I can see people complaining, but I'm not going to set my self up for that kind of disappointment. I'm going for stuff that's free, and has no line up. So, getting out from Waterfront Station, I walked the block up to Canada's Northern house. Zero line-up. Good stuff. There was a lot of artwork in there. Displays with various animals like muskox, polar bear, etc.


They had a little stage and there were some performances there. When I was there, there was a dance done to drums. There was a short line up for a booth where you could email out a video of yourself. I didn't really bother because again my thing is, I'm trying not to line up for anything at all. At one point, I had to go to the washroom, but just on principle, I was not going to wait in that line. Ok, that part's not true, but yeah, the mission of the night, not lining up for anything. Met up with a friend and walked through the place again.

After that, we went up a few blocks to the Royal Canadian Mint Pavilion. It seems like there's some buzz about this because you can actually touch some Olympic medals. We did see a line outside for this. It wasn't ridiculously long, but still kind of long and it's a line-up. I didn't want to spend a large chunk of the night waiting in line. However, there's another room in the pavilion, The Gold Room. If you were going to The Gold Room there was no line up, so in we went. They had a 100kg gold, million dollar coin.



They also had a gold brick that you can pick up. Now I already started trying to think of some Ocean's 11 type scheme wherein we could steal this brick, but it was attached by a thick chain. There's no getting past that.



After that I didn't really know what else to go see. We went around Robson Square and the art gallery to see if there was anything there. The zipline was closed. Ended up running into some friends and went to meet some other friends at the Bread Garden on Granville. The rest of the night was spent wandering around not really doing much, but just soaking in the festive spirit of the Olympic atmosphere. As one of my friends said, it's like Canada everyday for two weeks. I did end up waiting in line for one thing though. It wasn't a long wait, but I spent a couple minutes waiting for some poutine at Fritz. Now, I don't mind waiting for something if it's going to be worth the wait. Poutine at Fritz, you know that's going to be worth it.

Blog

Ok, so I've created a blog to get Jenny off my ass. That's right Jenny, I made a blog. Are you happy now? Some of my friends suggested I make a blog to share my random thoughts and rants. Why? I have no idea, but I think they find them somewhat entertaining. I'm assuming they intend to point other people over here because I could just continue to send them my thoughts in email. Maybe they don't want to hear my insane ramblings anymore, but I'll assume the more favorable notion that they want these ramblings out there for all to see. So, I'll write this for YOU, the hypothetical reader. Enjoy.

What am I going to write about? All of my various interests. What I'm doing, eating, reading, wearing, watching, etc. I'll give you an idea of what I'll be writing about. Probably have some martial arts/fitness training stuff in here when I get back to training. Currently trying to heal a knee injury, but when I was training, I was training pretty regularly and keep on a loose diet plan. I'm also trying to improve my rudimentary culinary skills. Currently working on recipes form a Rick Bayless book. I read comic books, manga, graphic novels, whatever you want to call them. Currently reading Matsumoto's Gogo Monster, Hornchemeier's All and Sundry. Trying to catch up on Love and Rockets and will probably reread Promethea as I recently got the first volume of the big fancy Absolute Edition hardcover. I might keep a bit of a log of my jeans as I break in the raw denim.

First up, Happy Chinese New Year everybody. Had a nice family dinner last night. We went ridiculously early to avoid the rush. The Chinese restaurant we went to had a couple of flat-screens on the walls and they were showing the Olympics. Short track speed skating was on and I feel kind of bad because I kept looking at the T.V. throughout dinner. I did talk to my cousin and my dad a bit, which is generally all I do anyways at family dinners anyways. Back to short track speed skating, that's always a bit of an exciting event because you watch that thing knowing there's the possibility that someone might get taken out and cause everyone else to crash leaving a lone aussie to win it. I also like the false start and it's like this with all races. If you're watching the event and a false start happens, they'll show a slow motion replay of it. Watch the skaters. There's always one guy that has that expression on his face, "Come on man, what the fuck? Someone pulled a false start? I was all ready to go." Hey, can I swear on this thing? I guess we'll find out when I try to publish this. Seriously though, that always happens. That was my pathetic attempt to write about the Olympics because really I haven't been following it.

Oh, I do have something else. I know everyone's probably sick of hearing about the opening ceremonies, but didn't John Furlong say that Gretzky wasn't going to be the final torch bearer? I thought I read somewhere that he said that. Maybe he said no one has guessed it and one of the papers had guessed Gretzky. It was something like that wasn't it? I might be wrong, but I thought that was put out there. Maybe he was denying it because it was not only Gretzky, but the four of them lighting the cauldron together, but Gretzky was the one on the truck bringing the torch to the waterfront cauldron. I don't really have an opinion either way on whether it should have been Gretzky or not. However, looking at it from a PR standpoint, if you're going to say no one has guessed it and the prevailing notion is that it's Gretzky, I'm expecting someone better than Gretzky. I don't know. Maybe that's just me. You wouldn't come out and say that it's not Gretzky and then have someone less popular. So, if you deny that it's Gretzky, I'm expecting someone better than Gretzky. When it turns out it was Gretzky, I'm a little disappointed because now that you denied that it was him, I was expecting someone better. Really, they shouldn't have made a comment either way on whether it was Gretzky, or whether anyone had guessed it or not. In that case if it was Gretzky, I would have been expecting Gretzky and gotten Gretzky. That's fine. If it was someone better, or more surprising, that would have also been fine. If it turns out to be Gretzky, or someone not as good as Gretzky, at least you didn't create the expectation that it was going to be someone better. So, really why wouldn't you just not say anything about the identity of the final torchbearer. That's just my take on it. It just seemed like an odd step to me that they came out and said that no one had guessed who the final torchbearer was when it pretty much was Gretzky.