Unidentified Food Objects

It's been a few days. It is term paper time!! And I feel like my head is exploding! And I am in the library all day and can't bring myself to browse, peruse, search or seek anything new to eat with my spare time!

*this is an illustration of the author's mental capacity at this very moment*

 So as a pittance for my negligence in tasting new and exciting foods, and since I have no gourmet cakes to share with you while I write on economic market transformation, I offer a guessing game for my lovely readers!

Since I am mainly living off of wilted wraps from the bottom of my backpack, Tuesday night's leftover casserole, and library cafe food...

Guess which of these things you want to eat after 18 cups of coffee, 23 journal articles, and CANNOT BE FOUND ANYWHERE AFTER 6 PM ON A STUDENT CAMPUS:

*jeopardy music*

Option A - fairtrade organic $4.00 latte 

Option B - anything with lots of flax in it... muffins, rolls, cookies...

Option C a gloriously unhealthy cheeseburger, or pizza

Option D a vegetarian sandwich, WITH organic mixed greens to boot

Option E a pretentious bagel with dill cream cheese and smoked salmon lox

Well folks, if you thought, "cafes at universities wouldn't be so silly as to have smoked lox and organic sandwiches, but no pizza, burgers, or constipating white flour?! "




Welcome to the University of Over-Awareness!

99% of the time I am proud to join in the pretention

I drink my level-ground traded locally roasted extra dark drip from my stainless steel mug, while I nibble on a locally baked berry blast bran muffin, while I walk around in my Co-op Raincoat, while I discuss the post modern neo-neo synthesis of political theory with my other self-satisfied friends..

However, when cooped up like the very chickens my peers refuse to eat, I am going stir crazy for something that actually satisfies the rumblings of too many double americanos in the dark depths of my gut.

So be warned: if you see me, step aside before I start chewing on the sleeve of your supple leather jacket (yes veggies heads thats made of cows)

I'm starving for a good McDonalds. Or Megabite. Or Chowmein. My taste for cuisine seems to be deteriorating with my cognitive skills...

I'll try again tomorrow kids, have a good weekend!

A Wedding Cake sidebar for the day...

So some of you might know that I am employed in the bakery industry. I have been decorating cakes and pastries to pay for school. I have a blast doing it, meeting lots of great people, Red Seal bakers, talented decorators, and all-round crazy people who also start work at 5 am..

So when my cousin's good friend had a last minute time crunch for her wedding, I was asked to make the cake. EXCITEMENT!

The theme was Malaysian ( if i recall correctly...) for the groom's heritage.

There was a unity symbol on the side, and a cherry blossom branch on the finished cake.



I made the cherry blossoms by cutting gum paste with a flower shaped cookie cutter.

I then used a wilton gumpaste tool and a flower shaping sponge, and pressed the flower into a 3D shape.

 The centres were made by putting a dab of royal icing in the middle, and sprinkling yellow edible glitter in them.

When dried the flowers looked like this

The cake itself was a 2 tier, 4 layer chocolate cake with chocolate raspberry butter cream icing as the filling.

This was a first for me using chocolate cake, and the recipe was not as dense as I had expected when baked, which isn't ideal for a fondant cake.. Unfortunately, this made the fondant not my smoothest, but it still looked pretty good after a 20 minute drive in my passenger seat. At least - from what I was told - the cake itself was delicious, and I guess that's the important part. Who doesn't hate going to a wedding and getting tiny pieces of dry crumby cake with thick starchy fondant on tip..

I am going to call this one a success!

The Devil's Fruit..

They don't call it snake fruit for no reason..

Also called "Salek", this is an Indonesian fruit with an odd scaly skin that lends it's name.

 Now, this is supposed to be a 'citrusy' fruit with three lobes, each containing a pit. Thank you wikisearch, but let me tell you how it is....

You will begin by peeling back the scaly skin of the snake fruit. Then you will inhale, and notice the pungent aroma of feet wafting towards your eager epicurious nose.... But it can't be! (you will exclaim) This is a Balinese delicacy! (you will wash fruit in case shipping has disrupted it somehow)

The truth was, this fruit smelled like my running shoes, and possibly tasted worse. Really, it was like an overripe and sour pineapple. I can't say that I didn't try, but I got about halfway through before it hit the bin. Maybe i honestly bought an 'off' fruit, or it was just picked too early in order to be shipped...

Another dud, another day.

Thankfully my taste buds will persevere to be tortured again soon..

Yellow Fingers, Fresh Tumeric

I found fresh tumeric root at the market. You might be familiar with this spice, it usually appears in the form of a yellow powder that is often used in curry.  However, fresh and on it's own. it looks like skinny orange ginger, with a centre in it like a carrot.

It smelled like a garden fresh gingery carrot... what an interesting correlation to it's appearance!

I remembered after i minced it unto tiny little pieces, that this smelly spice also turns everything you add it to a bright yellow: including my left hand for the next two days..

It made for delicious and hearty pumpkin soup with organic mushroom broth and garlic!

Gooseberries..

So I have had scarce run ins with gooseberries. I was truly convinced that they are sour and taste funny.

On a whim I tried some that were local and freshly in season. Let me tell you, I was pleasantly surprised!


They have lots of little seeds inside, but the sharp taste of these gooseberries was pleasant to me.

I cooked them with some pears and maple syrup, and baked them in a chunk of Camembert with dried cranberries the way my aunt used to...

I actually preferred the gooseberry version even more than I thought, because they had so much flavour and weren't too sweet..

I will be buying more next time I see them at the produce market!

(Unfortunately, there are no photos of the baked cheese: it was consumed with a bottle of wine and a girlfriend or two... actually two bottles of wine and one girlfriend. Still delicious, and more for me!)

Mangosteeeen!

So there is this crazy looking little fruit. It looks like something from Dora the Explorer, right? All round and purple and with cute round leaves? ... I digress..

There are "cloves" inside the mangosteen that come out individually.  You cut around the thick firm shell and inside is the fruit. The number of petals on the bottom of the fruit corresponds with the number of cloves on the inside, magical!

Each clove has a large flat seed in it. They reminded me of a persimmon seed, and had sort of a clear jelly substance around them...

The fruit itself was a light and foamy texture, with a mild almost citrusy taste. A google search would tell me that this is a superfruit, but i would prefer to eat a summer peach any day of the week.


Tasty and fun!

Coming Soon: Pickled Herring...

It is in my fridge, and I have fled landmasses in fear of this evil little fish wrapped around a pickle and finished with a toothpick. It is tormenting me from a plastic deli container on the top shelf.

I foresee finding a replacement food to try before I get brave enough..

Will be back posting soon.

Steph