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"J" is for Josiah

A milk chocolate "J", that is.

Craving

And speaking of gezellig (not the best segue, but there you go), I have had this week an intense craving for hagelslag.  Dark chocolate hagelslag on a toasted, buttered English muffin.  Yes, that's right, candy on toast for breakfast (or lunch, or as a midnight snack, for that matter).  My mouth waters just thinking about it.  Yum!  I usually crave hagelslag this time of year, probably because of that other great Dutch treat given out at Christmas: chocolate letters.

What do you crave?

Food for Thought

I've been reevaluating my dietary choices, partly because my waistline has slowly expanded this past year, and partly as a response to a book I picked up recently at the local library. The book, "Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating" by Mark Bittman, discusses the impact that our eating habits have on our health, and more importantly, on the environment. In the video below, Bittman shares some of his thoughts on the subject.



I highly recommend his cookbooks, such as "How to Cook Everything" and "Kitchen Express". Check out Bittman's website at http://markbittman.com/ for more information and recipes.

No Frills Heaven

Our grocery shopping run into Ktown usually involves two or three places to pick up groceries.  The cheapest and first stop is Walmart for milk, boxed and jarred goods, some frozen items and bread.  Then we head to Wholesale for whatever Walmart didn't have in stock, fresh veggies and fruit and meats.  Then, we would head either to Extra Foods or Safeway (the most expensive!) for whatever else was left on the grocery list not found in the first two grocery stores.  To be honest, shopping this way takes the fun out of cooking.  I had always wished that Ktown would get one grocery store that carried everything we needed at reasonable prices.  And that carried flat-leaf Italian parsley (a staple in a lot of my home cooking).  Apparently the palates here in Northern Ontario like curly parsley, but not flat leaf parsley (as I've been told by a number of produce managers over the few years we've been here).  In TO, we could walk (!) to the nearest Food Basics and buy whatever we needed for meals, including flat leaf parsley.  And the variety of fruits and vegetables, wow! 

Then, this weekend, I walked into heaven.  The Extra Foods grocery store had recently been converted into a No Frills store.  Now, you might think that a No Frills store seems to be a low end grocery store, but, compared to where we have had to get our groceries (aside from the extrememly overpriced Safeway), it's not.  In fact, it felt like stepping into a TO grocery store for the first time in three years.  It's brightly lit, well stocked, reasonably priced, carries a multitude of products, and get this: I was able to buy FLAT LEAF PARSLEY for the first time in three years.  So, no more driving all over Ktown for groceries (which the family hated).  We now have a one stop shop.  That means more time for the library, hanging out at the parks, and Tim Horton's, and...

Delish

This past weekend we were in Winnipeg as part of FK's birthday celebration.  We spent some time Saturday morning at the Forks Market, where we discovered a wonderful bakery called the Tall Grass Prairie Bread Company.  I highly recommend this bakery as it has very delicious food, especially the Gouda cheese croissants.  We arrived just as one of the bakers was preparing the croissants for baking.  Very fascinating to watch!

McDonald's Squared

Today was the first day in awhile in which we had to go to town on a Saturday for a grocery/library run. Of course, being the morning person that I am, I suggested getting up early so that we could have breakfast in town. All agreed, so we piled into the car at 7 AM this morning, drove to town and had breakfast at McDonald's at FK's insistence. This was ok by me, even though I prefer Tim Horton's breakfasts, because McD's has televisions which are showing Olympic coverage (and they also have coffee; definately need coffee in the morning). As we don't have satellite TV, to watch clips and reports from Vancouver was a welcome luxury. I even got a little verklempt watching a clip of speed skater Charles Hamelin skating to a gold medal finish, his girlfriend (silver medalist Marianne St-Gelais) jumping up and down, screaming and finally running down the stands jumping into his arms. Yes, I'm a) a proud Canadian and b) a hopeless romantic (but don't tell anyone).

So, filled with eggs and English muffins (and coffee, did I mention coffee?), we set off to do errands and visit the library. As we drove away from the library, it was once again decided that we would go to McD's for lunch. Sigh. And double sigh when the kids didn't even eat their food. And I, who feels guilty when there are leftovers, had plenty of delicious, scrumptious, McD's French fries. Triple sigh.

This afternoon I went for a run, burned off calories from two of the aforementioned French fries, and at least felt a little human again. And for supper, a delicious fruit smoothie to end the day on a healthy eating note.