Spring Entertaining: Olive and Pistachio Tartine

After a long entertaining dry spell, we decided it was finally time to clean up the place and have some people over for supper. I think it was the lovely spring weather that put us in the mood. We love to entertain, but when we're super busy we kind of forget about it. We forget how much fun it is to plan a simple menu, cook up some delicious food, and share it with friends.

In my ever-so-lucky job at CBC radio, I get the chance to test-drive lots of cookbooks. We took some inspiration for our two recent soirees from one I received recently and another I reviewed last fall: Giada At Home by Giada de Laurentiis, and French Taste by Laura Calder.

I've never used a cookbook by Giada, though I've watched her show a few times on the Food Network and mostly been impressed by the size of her cleavage. But this cookbook is good. Simple recipes and a nice style. A few too many family photos for my taste, though.

Laura Calder's French Taste is fast becoming one of our favourite cookbooks. I loved this when I reviewed it, and we're still loving it. Confession: I never used to like Laura when I watched her show. She seemed kind of uppity. But when I interviewed her she was the sweetest thing, and I quickly became converted. I love that this book has little essays on the importance of shopping well, of eating with friends, and other civilized things. She's a charmer, and her recipes are great too. She brings a chic elegance to French food that has nothing stuffy or staid about it.

We made:

Pea Pesto from Giada

Olive and Pistachio Tartine from Laura

 
Warm Roasted Potato Salad from Laura

 
Sesame Soy Avocado from Laura

 
Prosciutto-wrapped dates stuffed with goat cheese from Giada (these were good but sooo rich)

 
Pineapple Upside Down Cake from Nigella Express (another great
book)

 
Our cookbook collection has probably doubled in the past year and a half (through CBC and my own buying), and now I find myself with books on the shelf that I've barely used. This week I'm beginning our menu planning more vigorously, and I'm going to try to use some of the books I don't know very well. Up next: Michael Smith's Chef at Home, Nigella Express, and We Eat Together by Julianna Mimande and Gabe Wong.

Olive and Pistachio Tartine
Adapted from French Food at Home by Laura Calder

This is is the easiest thing in the world but so satisfying, and it was one of the most popular things on the table the night we made it. I always forget how much I like olives and this is a great way to remind yourself.

All you do is take about a cup of black or kalamata olives, pit them (or do the smart thing and buy them pitted), chop them up into small pieces, and mix them with a few tablespoons olive oil, a few teaspoons of chopped thyme, zest from about half a lemon and a little lemon juice to taste. Season with ground black pepper, and that’s it! Spread onto rounds of crisped baguette and sprinkle with chopped pistachios – the combination is so perfect. This is basically a very simple version of olive tapenade, and if you wanted a smoother mixture you could easily blitz it through a food processor or crush it in a mortar and pestle. Really, you could season olives any number of ways and they would be delicious, so experiment and see what tastes good.

Zinc at the AGA

This morning on CBC radio I reviewed Zinc, the new restaurant at the Art Gallery of Alberta. You can listen to the review here. Usually when I review restaurants for CBC, I leave my camera at home. I don't want to draw atttention to myself and make the restaurant think I'm doing some kind of review. But I really want to return to Zinc if only to take photos! It's the most beautiful restaurant I've been to in Edmonton, and one of the most beautiful I've been to anywhere. Chic table settings with luminous blue water goblets, light coming in everywhere from floor-to-ceiling windows, and that amazing end-cut douglas fir wall.

The food looks great too, but the results weren't always fantastic. Definitely not worth the price tag for us. I found the menu pretty blah - a lot of typical choices, and very French preparations. Food like this doesn't have to be boring, of course - it all depends on the chef. The cocktails were delicious, though, and there are some other dishes I'd like to try (like the blueberry and lemon panna cotta and the Brome Lake duck breast).

I've read a lot of negative comments about the service on forums and other blogs, but our service was quite polished. A bit too earnest, and as others have noted, pretty green, but well-timed and polite, even when my husband had to send back an after-dinner drink twice.

We generally eat out at moderately-priced, casual places. The only other high-end restaurants we've visited in Edmonton are the Red Ox and the Blue Pear. We went to the Blue Pear during Fork Fest for the reduced price menu, and I still consider their regular prices prohibitively expensive. The food there was impressive and really pushed the envelope, but the service wasn't great and the atmosphere stank. We really liked the Red Ox and I think it is worth the price. The other high-end places I am itching to try are Madison's and Wildflower Grill - and although it's a little more casual, Wild Tangerine is also near the top of my list. It would be nice to find another special-occasion restaurant in Edmonton.

What are your favourite high-end Edmonton restaurants?

The Flavours of Edmonton CBC Cookbook

In my work at CBC radio I've been lucky enough to do a lot of writing and interviewing people about food. It is probably one of the best parts of my job. Right now I am working on a new venture at the CBC - a cookbook.

CBC is on the search for recipes for an Edmonton cookbook. It's a fundraiser for the Edmonton Food Bank. We are looking for your family's favourite recipes, and the stories that go with them.

Almost every good recipe has a good story, right? Maybe it's something your Mom or Dad used to make, a dish your kids love, or something that always shows up at family parties. Maybe it's something you tasted while traveling in a foreign country and then recreated at home. It doesn't need to be fancy or complicated (in fact, simple is probably better). It could be a main course, an appetizer, a dessert or a baked good. Just make sure it's something original and never-published. Of course, almost all recipes start out published somewhere, but usually you put your own spin on it. What we want is something that's not copied word-for-word from a cookbook or magazine.

Submitting your recipes is easy. Just go to this link on the main page of CBC Edmonton. From there, simply fill out the recipe form with your story. You could have your family recipe published in the final cookbook!

This is a really fun project to work on, and we're hoping communities across Edmonton get involved. So spread the word and tell your friends ... sharing recipes is one of the best parts of cooking!

Update: Any recipes that have been published on a blog are allowed to be submitted.

Orange Love

You know what I am loving these days? Oranges. I know winter is nearly over, and oranges should not be my fruit obsession but frankly, we are still months away from strawberries and raspberries and peaches that taste good, even months away from the plucky rhubarb, so oranges are it. Oranges so juicy that when you peel them, you end up sucking pockets of juice from your cupped hands so you don't waste it. Soft, succulent oranges with thick, fragrant skins. Or tiny, jewel-like oranges with thin skins and miniature sections almost too cute to eat (almost). Or the exotic blood oranges, whose taste I don't actually like that much (kind of musky to me) but whose colour of sunsets is too beautiful for words, and makes me marvel as I open them. 

We have been inhaling oranges around here lately. Also a lot of kiwis. As far as our local food convictions go, this is a no-no. But this winter, we just couldn't do it. We caved. We couldn't subsist on only apples, the same apples from the Farmers' market, apples that ended up turning brown and soft by week's end, apples that just discouraged me. We stopped buying the pears that never seem to ripen but stay hard as rocks. I decided not to feel guilty about buying oranges. Why should I? I decided it was more important to eat a lot of non-local fruit than to let the local apples sit in the bowl and get mushy.

We have oranges piled around the apartment. In a shallow green pottery bowl on the side board, in a black metal slope of a bowl on the high shelf. They look beautiful, glowing and bright. They make me happy. For now, the apples can go into muffins and cakes. I'll eat oranges and kiwis until the first fruits of the summer.