How do you organize your recipes?

I don't have a good system for recipe collecting.

In fact, my "system" consists of a cookbook stuffed with loose recipes that I've printed from the internet or written out by hand. The more recipes I keep, the harder it is to close the book because of all the paper inside. This obviously isn't working so well.

Last year, I bought a plastic accordeon file folder at Staples. I planned to use it to organize all those loose sheets of paper. That never happened.

I recently read an interesting post about recipe-organizing software. The writer actually designed her own software because the ones she tried didn't work for her.

I'm not sure I could ever use a computer model for all my recipes. There's something so tactile about reading a recipe on a page and keeping it stored in a book.

Ideally, I'd love to be organized enough to create a large recipe scrapbook, where I could paste recipes I'd printed from the internet or collected over the years. I think this would create a lot more memories than online software.

I'd love to do a feature story for CBC about the new ways people are organizing their recipes with software. From my preliminary research it looks like there are a lot of programs out there. Some of the more popular ones are MacGourmet, Living Cookbook, and Mastercook.

How do you organize your recipes? I'd love to hear what your systems are. If you don't mind me contacting you for my radio story, leave your website info or send me a quick email.

Vancouver eats

A real, live diner, right down the street from our hotel. The Templeton serves burgers, breakfast and deep-fried Mars Bars in a retro 50s room lined with booths and swivelly counter schools. Complete with jukeboxes on every table and an old-fashioned milk machine.

Bandidas Taquiera is an adorably funky/grimy taco shop on Commercial Drive. I ate fresh corn tortillas topped with a fabulous mix of guacamole, sweet potato, red cabbage and pumpkinseeds. J had a butternut squash enchilada with soy cheese that actually looked and tasted like cheese. Cheap and delicious.

Late-night tapas at a dark, cozy Spanish cafe. The comfort of talking with an old friend who I hadn’t seen in far too long. The fabulous combination pictured above: manchego cheese with quince paste. Stingy on the walnuts though.

Nuba Cafe, Another find near the hotel. (Despite my extensive restaurant searches, many of them were pretty far from where we were staying and not worth the effort). This cute, casual Lebanese cafe had excellent food at a good price. Here are my remnants of a falafel sandwich and tabbouleh. I also had a shortbread cookie stuffed with ground pistachios: like baklava in cookie form. We came back a few days later for amazing hummus and crispy caulifower with tahini sauce.

Late-night eats at The Naam in Kitsilano. This 24-hour vegan hotspot was recommended by my sister and a fave of our newly-transplanted Vancouver friends Elliott and Eva. They took us here to dine on ginormous servings of rice bowls, sesame fries, and veggie burgers, all topped with a large amount of sprouts and julienned vegetables.  The evening passed in a fabulous blur of wine-induced eating and talking.

Granville Island Public Market, full of produce stands, food stalls, and interesting shops. Not quite as large or diverse as the St. Lawrence Market in Toronto (which I realize I never wrote about here), but still lots of fun. I bought Thai red rice at a wonderful Asian foods shop, and we went a little overboard with homemade donuts at Lee’s Donuts. Chocolate donut with thick mint icing = sugar overload. Especially at 11 o’clock in the morning.

Guu, one of Vancouver’s many Izakaya restaurants. Izakaya are Japanese bar-restaurants that basically serve Japanese fast food. Traditionally, they’re a place to go drink after work and enjoy some good food while you’re at it. It’s a fun, loud atmosphere, with the cooks and servers shouting hello and goodbye to you in Japanese as you enter and exit. They also yell out every dish as the order comes in and goes out. We went here for supper and sat at the bar. It was fascinating watching the chef in front of me cooking. She moved from the cutting board to the deep-fryer to the broiler to the sink in smooth motions. Spreading thin pieces of beef across what looked like a cookie-cooling rack to stick under the broiler, then pulling dumplings from the deep-fryer to plate with a squeeze of mustard sauce. The chef next to her swirled sauce in a flaming wok, then turned around and picked up two heavy wooden lids resting over a rectangular basin, dipping into the vat of broth to fish out large pieces of meat, vegetables and fish bobbing there. I could have sat there watching for hours. Despite an unfortunate incident with some bacon-wrapped enoki mushrooms (the texture just wasn’t doing it for me), the food was great. We came back a few days later for lunch, and the atmosphere was definitely more subdued. The chicken and rice bowl, however, was delicious.

So there you have it. Five days of Vancouver eats. There were many places I wanted to go but couldn’t, and you may notice a conspicuous lack of sushi. We did have sushi once, and it was good, but nothing remarkable. Next time there will be more. We both agreed: this definitely wasn’t our last trip to Vancouver.

To where the flowers bloom

J and I are off to Vancouver tomorrow, and to put it lightly, I am EXCITED. I've never visited Canada's West coast before, and we both need a vacation. It's going to be a relaxed few days of wandering and eating. And hopefully it doesn't rain the whole time.

I have two food-related items on CBC over the next week that I wanted to let you know about. On Thursday morning on Edmonton AM, I'll review Famoso Neapolitan Pizzeria (it's the magic of radio! taping things and making them sound live!). Then, next Monday on my cookbook column on Radio Active, I'm talking about a local cookbook that has just won big: Kitchen Scraps by Pierre Lamielle. Pierre lives in Calgary and writes a food column for Swerve magazine. He's a chef-illustrator and his book is a unique, witty visual feast. It recently won Best Illustrated Cookbook of 2009 at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards - good job Pierre!

I hope to return from Vancouver with some food tales. And I hope to actually share them with you this time, unlike my trip to Toronto. I always meant to write about some of the cool restaurants and cafes I visited, but time just got away from me. I'll try to do better this time.
Have a great week!

A divine meal at Farm

It’s not often that I go out for a fancy dinner with a friend. J is my usual dining companion, and when he’s not around I don’t usually splurge on restaurant meals. So it was a huge treat to enjoy a fabulous meal at Farm in Calgary with my friend Gina last month.

Farm has gotten some play on local food blogs, which is how I first heard about it. Calgary cheesemaker Janice Beaton opened the tiny, small-plates restaurant in October 2008. Beaton’s eponymous cheese shop is tucked into the back of the restaurant (more on that later). I don’t know the Calgary dining scene well, but Farm seems to have filled a niche in the city for casual, beautiful dining and a focus on local ingredients.

It was definitely near the top of my list of restaurants to visit in Calgary. Because of a busy weekend, I knew I would only be able to go for supper at one place, and this was it. Gina loves food as much as I do and was happy with the choice.  

(Please excuse the blurry photos – I was using Gina’s camera which I wasn’t used to)

Farm is nestled in a small storefront along trendy 17th avenue. The rustic wooden sign hanging outside beckons you into the restaurant. Step inside the door, and the warmth is apparent. We were greeted by a friendly server who offered to take our coats, a small gesture that I always appreciate. Farm doesn’t take reservations, and we were seated at one of several two-person tables, by the window and right around the corner from the front door. One of my only complaints of the whole night was the chilly draft from the door opening and closing throughout our meal – it was a freezing January night. We were also close to the 12-person communal table and for a while we could barely hear each other talk over the noise level.

We sat down and looked around the restaurant, a narrow space stretching back from the street, with a long bar and open kitchen along one side. Charming was one word that immediately popped into my head. In fact I wouldn’t mind at all if my house was decorated like Farm.  The decor is clearly trying to conjure up images of a farmhouse. The tables are thick blond wood, and the mismatched wooden chairs and faded wood frames on the walls create a bohemian feel. But it’s cut through with chic elegance from large, old-fashioned teardrop chandeliers, a gilt-framed mirror, and clean white dishware. Striped cloth napkins and milk-bottle water pitchers add homey touches. Another table feature that immediately caught our eye was an old-fashioned teacup holding a single tealight – original and beautiful.

The specialties at Farm are cheese and charcuterie – which is why I was so excited to go there. The choices are printed on large black chalkboards at the back of the restaurant, and also on white strips of paper brought to your table. Both Gina and I love cheese, but we don’t know much about the many varieties, so we asked our waiter to explain the choices and make some recommendations. There was, however, one cheese on the menu that jumped out at me. Cave-aged gruyere. It’s the best cheese I’ve ever eaten in my life, and I told Gina we had to get it.

She was more than happy to comply, and we decided on five choices for $25 (you can also order one for $5.50 [but come on, why the hell would you?] or three for $15). Since Gina was keener on cheese than meat, we ordered four cheeses. It was hard to know what else from the small menu would work. How much food did we need? Again, we checked with our friendly waiter. We were both intrigued by the mashed peas and lemon ricotta spread with crostini, but he thought that would be too much cheese after a whole board of it (most of the plates do contain cheese in some form, including mac and cheese and grilled cheese). Instead we decided on the goat cheese fritter and spinach salad, and the miso-glazed sablefish with spaghetti squash and brussel sprouts.

First, the cheese board: an absolute delight. Each cheese or meat arrives with an accompaniment and sliced baguette. These were our pairings (from left to right):

} Migneron, a semi-firm cheese with shallot jam

} Roquefort Papillon, a blue cheese with wildflower honey

} Le Dauphin, a bloomy, soft cheese with fruit chutney (can’t remember the exact kind)

} Cave-aged gruyere, a hard cheese with tomato chile jam

} Valbella meats venison salami with brassica mustard

It was so much fun to construct tempting bites with the different parts of the plate. Everything was delicious, but we both agreed our two favourites were the gruyere and the roquefort. This gruyere is just stunning: it has a nutty, rich and creamy taste, despite being a hard cheese. It’s reminiscent of Parmesan, but a bit softer and more flavourful. It shone in the same bite with the tomato chile jam. The Roquefort was soft, rich and strong, and the honey combination was outstanding. The salami was great but we both found the mustard too overwhelming – same thing happened with the chutney and the Dauphin cheese.

The rest of the meal continued in cozy, luxurious morsels. The goat cheese fritter was well-executed, although I always forget that I’m not actually the biggest fan of ripened goat cheese – I find its flavour a bit too strong. The spinach salad had a tangy dressing and was dotted with grapefruit segments and fresh shaved fennel, making it bright and flavourful.

This was only my second time eating sablefish – the first was at Cactus Club in Edmonton – and it was just as good as I remembered it. The preparation and taste were flawless. The fish was perfectly salted and melted in our mouths, and the vegetables were humble peasant stock all dressed up. The fish lay on a bed of buttery, rich spaghetti squash, surrounded by a ring of bright green brussels sprouts. They were split in half and pan-fried a golden brown, cooked to perfection – not too firm and not too soft. 

The portions at Farm aren’t big – hence the small-plates designation. But Gina and I had a great time sharing our food, each getting a chance to taste everything. The rustic nature of the evening continued with the dessert menu, which was printed typewriter-style on a large index card and laminated. What drew our eyes was the chocolate chip cookies – the perfect end to a simple but exquisite meal. They arrived warm on a flowered china plate, crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. We only had room for two of the five but took the rest home. 

I was also intrigued by the chocolates Farm offers for dessert, made by Epiphanie Chocolates in Calgary. The price tag – $8 per chocolate, if I’m remembering right – turned me off, but they did sound amazing.

Our main server throughout the meal was fantastic, checking up on us just enough. The only misstep was another server who tried to take away our cheeseboard before we were done. She was met with a firm No.

I can’t wait to go back to Farm to try more cheese and more charcuterie, like the housemade pork rillette and the lamb liver pate. I can’t wait to go back for another warm, relaxing meal at a place that truly cares about the experience of wonderful food in a beautiful atmosphere.

When I went to the bathroom I snuck around the corner to check out the cheese shop – closed at that time. It’s small but beautiful, with a large glass cheese case and lots of specialty preserves and jams. I feel lucky that we have our own amazing cheese shop in Edmonton, Paddy’s Cheese. I discovered Cave-aged gruyere thanks to them!

Farm
1006 - 17 Avenue SW
Calgary, AB
Tel. 403.245.2276
www.farm-restaurant.com