A good bowl of pho is a work of art. An addictive, delicious work of art, that I crave sometimes with the intensity of a crack addict needing a fix. Maybe that’s a hyperbole, but it feels very true nevertheless.  Over the holiday break I feasted on plenty of delicious foods including a roast goose, a leg of lamb, homemade egg nog, the best fruit punch in the world, and many other delicacies, and yet by the time this week rolled around I was craving a bowl of restorative pho with a scary intensity.

I am not alone in my love, there are many addicts roaming the streets looking for their next fix, so I’d like to tell you about the most amazing pho in Calgary. It’s served in a small nondescript restaurant in Chinatown, one of those ones you’ve been to many times, and the decor looks like a hundred other venerable establishments.  It’s located in a building that positively reeks of all manner of dried seafood, so you have to bravely cross that barrier before you get there, but never mind, it’s worth it.

A pho lives and dies by its broth, and Pho Hoai’s broth is a work of art. Rich, meaty, silky, it’s as close to ridiculously great as I’ve been able to find in our city. The soup will inevitably contain some noodles, your choice of meat, sliced onions and cilantro if you so desire (I don’t), and will come gilded with a huge plate of the freshest, largest basil you’ll ever see, a hot pepper or two, some lime wedges, and a large handful of bean sprouts to add some crunch. The rare meat slowly cooks in the hot broth as you swirl around the noodles and achieves a perfect tender texture.

And as you toss in a handful of sprouts and basil, and drizzle in some lime juice (or a metric ton, if you’re like me), and sip that rich broth that tastes like a spicy hug, you can’t help but feel that the universe must be a pretty benevolent place for something like this soup to exist.

5/5 

I thought I’d throw out a quick update on the orange kitty we rescued last winter. Last we spoke, he was busily settling into the house, and being a lover not a fighter he was mainly placating all the house cats that didn’t reciprocate his ever loving attentions.  He is the cuddliest cat by nature, and he is now allowing me to pet him, as long as he doesn’t see my hand approach him directly.  He also hisses at the front door if it’s open, and runs away to hide probably hoping that he never has anything to do with the great outdoors ever again.

With Alfie, he ended up making peace and now they are happy to run away from scary noises together.

With Tweak, he has a mutual pact of non-aggression. He tries to be all loving, but she looks at him sideways and walks away.

But it was my big white deaf boy that was the main object of his affections.  He LOVES the big white furball, and follows him around the house worshipfully. And despite the fact that they’re both male, he tries to get frisky with him. And he tries to hold him down and clean him, and groom him, and cuddle up next to him. It’s hilarious and entertaining by turns.  And now I have a big gay orange cat, and poor confused Cheney who has no idea what he’s done to deserve this.

PS – He also has a supremely useful trait. When Cheney locks himself in the bathroom to have a yell (see story), Pumpkin runs to the rescue. Upon hearing his plaintive cries, he headbutts the door and lets Cheney out. It’s very sweet to watch, and incredibly helpful as well.

“I’m gonna hug him, and squeeze him, and call him George…”

I’m still mired deep in schoolwork with no end in sight. And I’m kind of grateful that it’s winter, because as everyone knows, the winters in Canada are long, dark and deep and there is far less to do, so studying does not feel like such a deprivation. Let’s face it, I’ve spent many a winter surfing the internet aimlessly and dreaming of tropical vacations, so it’s hard to say I’m missing out on much. And James is taking some courses as well, looking for a change from his present career, so we’re both in the same boat of studying every night and weekend. It’s kind of a lovely way to spend our evenings. We swear a lot.

It also leaves time for those ambitious, leisurely recipes that I always bookmark, yet seldom take time to make. You know the ones I mean – coq au vin made with a proper rooster, choucroute garnie, pot au feu, biryani, and many other recipes that take plenty of time and ingredients. If there were restaurants that served proper versions of these dishes, I’d gladly pay someone else to do the cooking, but there really aren’t many in Calgary, so in order to experience the glory of poor, regional cooking, I must find the time to make many of them myself. Plus I enjoy mucking around the kitchen as a reward for studying. That and exercise keep me sane.

Surfing a Russian recipe blog, I came across a beautiful tutorial for  a beef daube, and it looked so good that it started a veritable craving. The ingredient list seemed pretty reasonable  – not much beyond beef, aromatics, a bottle of wine, bacon, shallots and onions, and it looked and sounded glorious.  Then I remembered seeing a daube recipe on one of the most drool inducing sites, fxcuisine. (Take a peek, the photos are amazing.) I promptly combined the elements I liked in both recipes, and came up with my very own version of a rustic beef stew that was close to divine.

If you feel like attempting such a feat, the steps are very easy. The hard part is mentally coming to terms that it will be four days before you eat it.  (Although for the record, everyone cheats and has a small serving the day it’s finished).

So without further ado:

3.5 lbs grass-fed stewing beef/chuck/blade (preferably from your local farmer), we used the excellent Hoven farms beef

1 bottle red wine (all the recipes say the best you can spare, but we used a $6.99 store special (Naked Grape?) ’cause, well – it’s stew)

1 orange (I had some mandarins that I repurposed)

5 – 7 juniper berries (I used rowan berries, where we get to the attempted murder part), honestly you can skip it and it’ll be fine, or use gin

3 cloves

8 black peppercorns

1/3 cinnamon stick, or a 1/4 tsp cinnamon

lots of garlic, bunch of thyme, parsley

bay leaf

salt

flour

1/2 package bacon/lard/salt  pork

shallots or onions

1 lb carrots

1 pigs foot (there is no ewwww, you eat the animal, use all the parts)

1 oz whiskey/cognac/vodka (also not mandatory)

So the first step was pretty easy. Put the meat into a dish/bowl to marinate. Add smashed garlic cloves, chopped onion quarters, and orange quarters.  In a mortar/bowl/cutting board smash the cloves, bay leaf, peppercorns and cinnamon and sprinkle over the meat.

Aaaand this is where I improvised and instead of trying to find juniper berries, I had a stroke of inspiration and grabbed a bunch of rowan berries from the rowan tree in my front yard.

I know they have a slightly bitter, astringent taste not too far removed from juniper, although they lack the piney scent juniper has. James saw this turn of events, and proceeded to read me the riot act about how ‘everyone knows those berries are poisonous’ and how this is a plot to kill him. This is partially a long running joke in our house, and partially his very real fear of poisonous berries.  I calmly and lovingly mushed the hard berries in the mortar and added them to the meat, telling him that as soon as ‘everyone’ becomes a botanist, we can discuss the dangers of rowan berries, until then, I’ll take years worth of empirical nibbling over his prejudices. He told me ‘if you put those in there, I’m not eating it’ and I told him ‘then don’t’. On that note, I sprinkled the meat with salt, poured on the wine, and left it wrapped in the fridge to marinate for the next two days.  This was Sunday evening. Do give it a flip every day or so.

Tuesday night was when the stew was actually made. This part of the process took me about 40 minutes, you may well be faster.

First, take out your well marinated meat, and strain the marinade into a separate pot.

Then cut up the bacon, carrots and the onions that I used instead of shallots.

Then prepare the bouquet garni – this is where you take the pigs foot, bay leaves, and thyme (also parsley if you have it) and tie it up in a square of cheese cloth.

Brown your bacon, then fish it out and place it at the bottom of your stew pot, ideally cast iron.  Leave the fat alone.  Now, many classic recipes talk about blanching the lardons, including the one from fxcuisine. Apparently this is to remove excess salt and smoke. You know what I like in bacon? Salt and smoke. So I said no way to that nonsense and left the bacon as the golden goodness that it is.

Brown the onions in the bacon grease.  Also toss them in the stew pot.

Turn your heat on high, and brown your meat, in batches if you have to. Be sure to carefully fish out the bits of spices, as they’ll burn viciously. The idea is to just sear the edges, not cook much, so high heat, quick tosses. Add it to the stew pot.

Here you can multitask – turn on your thick, fragrant marinade, and add a splash of hard alcohol.  Let the whole thing come to a boil, and simmer for a few minutes to dissipate the alcohol itself. In the meantime, make a small batch of dough  – about a cup of flour and a bit of water. The reasoning here is that no steam can be allowed to escape, along with any flavor components.

Place the dough around the rim of your pot, add carrots, tomatoes, and whole peeled garlic cloves. Make a little nest in the middle, and drop in your pigs foot bundle, pour hot marinade into the pot, and smack down the lid.  Cook at 320 or so for about 3.5 – 4 hrs. Then, it’s probably pretty late, so take the whole pot and stick it outside. If it’s not cold enough to stick the pot outside, then there is no reason to be making daube. The idea here is that as the meat cools down, it absorbs a great deal of fragrant liquid, gorging on the sauce and becoming plumper than ever.

The next day, take in your pot, and break open the dough seal.  Take the substantial layer of fat off the top, and the cheesecloth bundle, and discard. Place on gentle heat to warm up the stew. Inhale the magic fragrance of the steam. See how the pigs foot contributed magical collagen to the stew, making it unctuous and rich. Dip a spoon into the sauce and taste. Now it’s time to gild the lily.

Depending on the quality of wine, and how much salt you added, and how acidic the tomatoes were, the stew may need a gentle tweaking of flavors. You can increase the acidity with a spoonful of red wine vinegar, or some lemon juice. You can add some umami by adding a bit of Worcestershire sauce or a mashed up anchovy, or olives, you can mellow the sauce by using beurre manie – butter blended with a bit of flour.  Our cheap vino definitely called for a bit of mellowing, and umami is never a bad thing, so I decided to go with a paste of two or three mashed up anchovies, a tablespoon of butter, and about a tablespoon of flour. While the stew was heating up, I mashed up all the ingredients and stirred them into the pot. Anything with flour should be boiled for a few minutes to remove the raw flour taste, just like gravy.

To serve, we boiled up some egg noodles and tossed them with a bit of butter and parsley. Mashed potatoes would not have been amiss at all, but we were out of potatoes and too lazy to leave the house.

So of course, the stew smells amazing and looks like comfort. The offending berries are a long forgotten danger. And James’ resolve melted slowly with the smells of a rich beef ambrosia.  And of course he could not resist the siren call of a daube, and now he’s in the hospital with food poisoning. Just kidding.     In a way we’re both right – rowan berries do contain a toxin that is neutralized by cooking or freezing, but really, they’re a pretty harmless berry. They’re too bitter to eat raw in any quantity, so they’re great for adding punch to a marinade.  Also, sorrel contains oxalic acid and apricot seeds contain cyanide, so whatever substance rowan berries have, they’re not that exciting in the culinary world.

Bon appetit! And needless to say this recipe doubles like a charm, and gets better and better each day you eat it.

Congrats decthirty  – please shoot me your details, and you’ll have free entrance at the door.

It’s time to get your drinking face on, and tie your bibs!

Fall is most definitely in the air, as our chilly weather and rain outside can attest, and one of the great things about fall is the return of the Rocky Mountain Food and Wine Festival!  I’ve gone the last two years, and had an absolute blast. See here for recap.

This year, courtesy of the wonderful PR team of the festival, I have a pair of tickets to give away to the Friday evening portion of the festivities (it also runs Saturday), so leave a comment if you’re interested to be entered to win.

Details:  Friday, October 14 (Calgary BMO Centre)

Hours: 4-10 pm

Notes: Tasting tickets purchased separately (0.50 ea)

Must be 18+ to attend, no minors allowed

See you there!

Cartoon from toonpool

So it’s been a while since I’ve had anything to share with y’all, and the main reason is that I’ve been swamped up to my eyeballs in schoolwork. Why schoolwork? Because I decided that now is a good time to put a few courses in towards finally finishing my degree. Which I have yet to finish. Sigh.

You see school and I have a hate-hate relationship. I think it’s boring and stupid, and it’s always told me that I have ‘potential’ and if only I’d ‘apply myself’… But I ‘ve always been uninterested in applying myself to learning stuff that is often factually incorrect (economics), irrelevant to my job (marketing), and plain ridiculous (most of management).  I still try and keep my grades up, but I don’t enjoy it.

I am a child of the digital age, and in an hour with Google I can reach amounts of information that are not fathomable, in any format I like. I love to learn and have the world at my fingertips. It’s hard to get excited about stuffy textbooks and linear approaches to learning, never mind dealing with whatever innovative (read ridiculous) approach the prof wants to take towards exams. 

But my main quibble with school and schoolwork is my own predisposition. I am a die-hard generalist who loves to learn a bit about everything, but does not relish the prospect of delving too deep into subjects. It’s my problem, not the University’s, and yet it’s made it quite hard to focus on my chosen major for the last little while. But focus I did, and have finished three courses in the last little while, and am about to embark on the bread and butter of the curriculum.

According to the student course reviews (yay Internet!), I have three brutal courses ahead of me, brutal as in brace yourself, it’ll be a wild ride.  And after that nothing seems hard, apparently.  So that’s why I’ve been MIA lately, it’s just a good bit of mental effort to work, study, exercise and have pitifully random social life. I don’t want to abandon the blog though, so I’ll definitely be around, just more sporadically than usual.

Wish me luck, please, I’ll need it.

I hired a personal trainer.  I’ve been fairly active for the last two years, but kind of freely and sporadically, and I really wanted to step up my game, and get off the weight loss plateau I’ve been stuck on. What better way to achieve that, than to find yourself accountable to a well built man who will encourage you, motivate you, yell at you or give you advice as the situation requires, right?

So I had my first workout two Fridays ago. It was a full body workout, at about half capacity, so as not to cause undue damage to my lazy muscles. By the time it was done, I was drenched in sweat, red faced, absolutely fatigued, and could not raise a glass of water to my mouth. Still, I felt good and oh so virtuous as I limped home. And then my body rebelled in the most spectacular fashion.  I don’t know if it was hormones, age, if I’m simply far more optimistic about my physical fitness level, or what, but it was sad, funny, and painful at the same time.

My girl friend sent me one of those email chains about women and personal trainers. You know the one I mean:

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A WOMAN’S WEEK AT THE GYM

This is dedicated to everyone who ever attempted to get into a regular workout routine:

Dear Diary,

For my birthday this year, I  purchased a week of personal training at the local health club.  Although I am still in great shape since being a high school football cheerleader 43 years ago, I decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and give it a try.

I called the club and made my reservations with a personal trainer named Christo, who identified himself as a 26-year-old aerobics instructor and model for athletic clothing and swim wear.

Friends seemed pleased with my enthusiasm to get started! The club encouraged me to keep a diary to chart my progress.

________________________________

MONDAY:

Started my day at 6:00 am. Tough to get out of bed, but found it was well worth it when I arrived at the health club to find Christo waiting for me. He is something of a Greek god– with blond hair, dancing eyes, and a dazzling white smile.  Woo Hoo!!

Christo gave me a tour and showed me the machines.. I enjoyed watching the skillful way in which he conducted his aerobics class after my workout today. Very inspiring!

Christo was encouraging as I did my sit-ups, although my gut was already aching from holding it in the whole time he was around.

This is going to be a FANTASTIC week!!

________________________________

TUESDAY:

I drank a whole pot of coffee, but I finally made it out the door. Christo made me lie on my back and push a heavy iron bar into the air then he put weights on it!  My legs were a little wobbly on the treadmill, but I made the full mile.  His rewarding smile made it all worthwhile. I feel GREAT!  It’s a whole new life for me.

_______________________________

WEDNESDAY:

The only way I can brush my teeth is by laying the toothbrush on the counter and moving my mouth back and forth over it.  I believe I have a hernia in both pectorals.  Driving was OK as long as I didn’t try to steer or stop. I parked on top of a GEO in the club parking lot.

Christo was impatient with me, insisting that my screams bothered other club members. His voice is a little too perky for that early in the morning and when he scolds, he gets this nasally whine that is VERY annoying.

My chest hurt when I got on the treadmill, so Christo put me on the stair monster.  Why the hell would anyone invent a machine to simulate an activity rendered obsolete by elevators?  Christo told me it would help me get in shape and enjoy life.  He said some other shit too.

_______________________________

THURSDAY:

Asshole was waiting for me with his vampire-like teeth exposed as his thin, cruel lips were pulled back in a full snarl.  I couldn’t help being a half an hour late– it took me that long to tie my shoes.

He took me to work out with dumbbells. When he was not looking, I ran and hid in the restroom.  He sent some skinny bitch to find me.

Then, as punishment, he put me on the rowing machine– which I sank.

_________________________________

FRIDAY:

I hate that bastard Christo more than any human being has ever hated any other human being in the history of the world. Stupid, skinny, anemic, anorexic, little aerobic instructor.  If there was a part of my body I could move without unbearable pain, I would beat him with it.

Christo wanted me to work on my triceps.  I don’t have any triceps! And if you don’t want dents in the floor, don’t hand me the damn barbells or anything that weighs more than a sandwich.

The treadmill flung me off and I landed on a health and nutrition teacher.  Why couldn’t it have been someone softer, like the drama coach or the choir director?

________________________________

SATURDAY:

Satan left a message on my answering machine in his grating, shrilly voice wondering why I did not show up today.  Just hearing his voice made me want to smash the machine with my planner; however, I lacked the strength to even use the TV remote and ended up catching eleven straight hours of the Weather Channel..

________________________________

SUNDAY:

I’m having the Church van pick me up for services today so I can go and thank GOD that this week is over.  I will also pray that next year my husband will choose a gift for me that is fun– like a root canal or a hysterectomy.  I still say if God had wanted me to bend over, he would have sprinkled the floor with diamonds!!!

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

And this was my reply to her – pardon the language, I was too sore to care.

I used to laugh at stuff like this until last Friday…

Friday – came home shaky and wiped out, and passed out until Saturday, no dinner, NOTHING.

Saturday – woke up in enormous pain. EVERYTHING hurt. A lot. Stairs were painful, sitting down was painful,  brushing teeth – painful.

Sunday – more pain. Popping advil, can’t put my hair in a hair tie – hurts too much. Asked James to wash my hair. Evening I said fuck it, and took methocarbomol with codeine – didn’t really help.

Monday – still can’t do ponytails. Called and cancelled Tuesday’s workout as I’m clearly not moving yet.

Tuesday – only the most persistent muscles hurt, the weird small ones that you didn’t know existed.

Today – residual pain around elbows and butt. Should be okay for Friday….

FML

And this my friends is why I haven’t posted lately. It hurt too much to move my fingers.

PS – On a serious note, I’ve had a few workouts since, my recovery time is getting much better, my diet is inching closer to where it needs to be, and believe it or not, I’m having fun.

I’ve always had a healthy interest in using my hands – in MAKING stuff – be it cooking, fixing a fence, growing a garden and other such pursuits. I took shop in high school and occasionally help James in his work as a hardwood installer.

But while I have enthusiasm in spades, I have an appalling lack of experience and know-how. My father is reasonably competent at building/making/fixing stuff but he’s not a good teacher, lacking all patience. My uncle is a cross between MacGyver and an artisan, and can build or make anything, including a full blown house, a sauna, a patio, etc. but alas, most of my life we were on separate continents, and I lacked say, a reitred neighbor with a woodshop next door, or something equally convenient.

So a Lee Valley Woodworking For Women course seemed like the answer to my prayers – the course was taught by an experienced carpenter, was geared towards newbies, and promised to teach many handy skills while accomplishing a fully finished product – in this case a lovely bench.  And my intrepid adventurer of a friend Jean and I, promptly signed up.

The course took two evenings and an entire Saturday, which was not nearly long enough for eight teams of women to accomplish such a lofty goal as a full blown bench, I’m sorry to say. Apparently what takes an experienced carpenter about six hours, takes easily three times as long with inexperienced people tripping all over themselves, asking questions and sharing tools.

The course started out peachy – with lovely intros, a crash course on power tool safely, a handing out of supplies, and a tour to the power shop in the back which contained one of them amazing table saws that stop when they hit flesh, you seen those ads on YouTube? Apparently it’s like magic, and they demo them with hot dogs. Luckily we didn’t have to test that feature of the table saw, although we did learn all about kickbacks the hard way.

The first day we mainly chopped up our pieces of wood into some of the required parts, glued the bench legs together, and went home. The time flew by obscenely fast, and it was lots of fun.

The second day we finished chopping up the pieces (just about), and did something else and the day was over. That quickly. Seriously, they could teach the theory of relativity at that workshop. Poof, and it’s over, what three hours?

The final day promised to be busy from the get go – we were to finish cutting ALL the pieces now, plane some of them, give them a three second sanding, glue the frames together (using biscuit joints), jigsaw some decorative arcs, put everything together, build the cushion, and stain the bench. Sounds like much? It was a marathon mixed with a comedy of errors.

First there was the ridiculous instructions of the bench blueprint that had to be ignored, and new ones written on the board. Then there was the wrong cutting of the holes with the biscuit jointer, resulting in some unnecessary wood removal, then there was the not quite precisely cut pieces that had to be held together with hope, prayer, buckets of glue and an obsene amount of clamps.  The list goes on and on. At first we were all precise and such, and as the day went on we threw perfection in the toilet and had fun just clamping and gluing stuff until it held, racing against the clock the entire time.

One of the major challenges was the lack of adequate supplies for all the students, which made getting everyone through all the steps incredibly frustrating. There were only a couple of sanders, two jigsaws, and NOT ENOUGH CLAMPS! Now I know why all those woodworking forums all say ‘buy lots of clamps heh heh’.  Those supplies would have been barely sufficient if there was a master plan that divided the class into two groups, and applied each half to different parts of the project from the get go, with military precision.  But as self-organized as we tried to be, there are major logistical difficulties in getting everyone through the single miter saw, table saw, planer with any degree of speed. Basically the project chosen by the instructor was a bit ambitious given the size of the group and the equipment, and it could have been done better if there was much more organization and pre-design of a game plan.

Overall Jean and I both enjoyed the course, but certainly more in retrospect than at the time. At the time there was only a frenzy of sanding, gluing, clamping, swearing, staining, and stapling.  There is a certain trade off between building something useful, in the amount of time given, and learning new skills. For those of you who speak woodworking, the bench was held together with bisquit joints, which is great, but I’d rather have learned a mortise tenon or a dovetail joint. It’s unlikely that I’d have a bench, but that’s the trade off, I guess.

But at the end of a really long day, the benches were finally finished.  I am quite sure that mine at least, should not support a full sized person, but the cat sure approves. 

Here’s Jean’s masterpiece – her chosen stain was absolutely stunning, giving the wood a weathered, old finish, reminiscent of an ‘old barn by the sea’. And she chose outdoor fabric so that the bench can be outside.

As I type this, it’s 12 C outside.

Yep, 12 in July.

While Toronto, Montreal and many other tracts of the country are literally cooking, we in our marvelous Calgary are enjoying a fall weather revival.

My friend just emailed me to say ‘Bet you’re glad you didn’t plant that garden now, hey?’  and in fact I am. I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but two awful summers were enough for me to see which way the light in shining, (or not as is often the case in Calgary), and now I can sit back and enjoy every cold, windy, rainy day.

But cold or not, unpredictable or not, our summers are what we get, and what we make of them, so it was with great excitement that I took myself down to a fairly new BBQ shack off the beaten track.

Located in the industrial area, and housed in a revamped garage, Holy Smoke BBQ and Smokepit first opened to little fanfare with limited  hours, and immediately began to pick up local buzz. As their popularity grew they stayed open later and more, and shortly after their weekend hours came into effect I was there waving my napkin.

For some reason BBQ like Mexican food immediately craps out when it reaches the prairies. We have had any number of Mexican restaurants and BBQ joints try and fail in Calgary, and at best both could have been called ‘meh’. Some sort of invisible border stretches over the land this far north reducing greatly the taste and spirit of the food. Perhaps those fiery foods draw heavily on their landscape and terrain and become watered down when traveling to the land of snow and winds instead of the hotter, slower climates they originated in.

But Holy Smoke appears to be bucking the trend. You can smell the amazing, mouthwatering smoke as you approach the low building, and the few communal tables were full inside. They have a limited but good menu, and we sort of ordered one of each items, all the sides they hadn’t sold out of yet, and 25 BBQ ribs at a buck a piece. Ahem.

Hauling our bounty home, we proceeded to chow with abandon, pausing only to establish if a certain sauce goes better with a certain meat.

Here’s some photos from best to worst, worst being very very relative:

The pulled pork and the beef brisket – side by side – heavenly combo. Both of the sandwiches were fantastic. Soft, smoky meat, tender, flavorful and only enhanced by the solidly good dipping sauces. The buns held up to the meats well, and like a mother pretending she doesn’t have a favorite child, I’d be hard pressed to choose between them. Which is why you should always grab a friend and share.

The sides – we tried one of each that was available and the cornbread broke, so no photo. All the sides were nicely inoffensive. The macaroni salad and baked beans were pretty good – better than supermarket but not in the homemade category. The coleslaw avoided the uber-sweet mayonnaise dripping calorie-fest and was pretty decent but still too sweet for my tastes. My favorite was the broken cornbread – more of a sweet corn muffin than cornbread it was a lovely foil for the smoky meat. I wish I’d gotten another one.

Oddly enough the ribs were not as good as they looked. They were a bit shy of easy to pull off the bone, requiring some mastication skillz and membrane pulling, but worst of all they committed a cardinal meat sin – no salt. I’m sure they had SOME salt on them, but none that we could detect, so you had the odd combination of smoke, spices, and no salt.  Salt is some imperative to seasoning meat that there are reams of books on the subject, and every bite was an odd disappointment until we seasoned them ourselves, stuck ‘em in the oven to warm up, and enjoyed them for the next three days.  But it was not what stellar ribs should be like.

So overall  – I am thrilled Holy Smoke is here. They are head and shoulders above previous BBQ offerings Calgary’s had. Their sandwiches are works of art, their sides and sauces a fair addition to the meatfest, their ribs can use some work, and on their site Brunswick Stew has just appeared, which is on my food bucket list.

4.2/5

Holy Smoke BBQ and Smokepit

4640 Manhattan Rd SE

(403) 605-9365

Mon-Fri: 10-8

Sat: 11-4

I’ve quite a bit of stuff to blog about, but I could not find my camera to PC cord for a few weeks, and so had zero photos to show for the last while of activity. Just as I was about to order a new cord online, James found it somewhere in the basement where it found itself after a fit of zealous de-cluttering. And all was well in the world.

You ever do that? Clean so well that you never find something again? I swear three quarters of the battle in house cleaning is finding places to put stuff, and not just temporary out of sight solutions either, but proper homes for all the ‘stuff’ that finds its way into our homes. And I’m a pretty zealous thrower-outer - I regularly toss, recycle and donate all sorts of crap that we no longer need and aren’t sure where it came from in the first place.

Anyhow, the other day found me in the Mission area of Calgary, where I managed to hit up not only Cruffs, but Yann Haute Patisserie while waiting for my ride.  Cruffs was closer to my destination so I popped in there for a quick Cream Puff – because I love cream puffs. There is not much to the store -  the counter where magic happens and a row of bar stools facing the huge store window. 

The cream puffs come in two sizes – small and huge, and since I hardly eat sweets I got huge. You know, to compensate.  The shells are pre-baked and filled with cream filling to order – so you get a perfectly creamy treat with no sogginess.  I asked the genleman at the counter what his favorite flavor was, and went with the recommended hazelnut.

The puff was perfectly crispy and tasted pretty good - none of the fake shortening-like flavor you get with supermarket frozen cream puffs, but none of the elusive taste of fresh cream puffs baked with butter. The filling was perfectly balanced blend of creamy and hazelnut, and the whole thing disappeared alarmingly quickly. Then I got one to take home.  Verdict? Perfectly lovely but not craving inducing.

3.5/5

Cruffs

2312A – 4St SW 

Wandering just a bit further, you come to a lovely jolly yellow house off 4th street, and ascending up the steps you end up in a house-turned-bakery that quickly took Calgary by storm, quickly becoming known for their macarons and other baked goods.  And here I have a confession to make. As well as being a bit indifferent towards dessert, I am not the world’s biggest fan of macarons. I’ve tried them a few times, and they just don’t do anything for me. So I blew thirty bucks on other stuff, like the best baguette I’ve tried in Calgary:

And very tasty croissants:

And the piece de resistance – a chocolate/hazelnut beignet that could make you weep. It is so good they’ve been sold out every time I’ve been back. I wish they would hang a sign when they have them or triple the batches or something. On the other hand I’m sure my waistline thanks the rarity factor.

5/5

Yann Haute Patisserie

329 23AVE SW