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One True Love

One of the very first true loves of my adult life was an older man. Correction: a rather tall, lanky older man, who happened to be missing a few of his more significant front teeth. I have always been a sucker for those hunky Canadian hockey players…

Tim Horton was a professional hockey player, and in 1949 signed on to play with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Over the next 20 years he worked on the kind of career that got him inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1977, three years after his death in a car accident. Before he left us, Horton started his doughnut and coffee shops; of which there are over 2,200 outlets in Canada and the northeastern U.S. today.

What you get at “Timmy�s” is certainly not gourmet coffee, and you certainly can’t order a ‘skim milk latte’ or an ‘espresso con panna’. Their coffee is very plain and very simple, but it is delicious. I’ve had many Saturday morning discussions over Tim’s coffee and doughnuts about what they could possibly be putting into their coffee to make it so addictive. Being the poor detective that I am, I think it all boils down to quality coffee and fresh brewing, plain and simple. And that simple formula has worked for them.

My relationship with this brawny hockey player began in the summer of 1990. I was working for my father, painting hallways and stairwells in a condo in Scarborough, just outside Toronto proper, saving up money for university. My older brother was working with me and he introduced me to the coffee shop around the corner. Every morning we would go to the drive-through with my dad, who ordered us each a coffee (small with milk only for my dad, a large double-double for Dave, and a large with a-little-coffee-with-my-cream-and-loads-of-sugar for me) along with a pack of Tim-Bits for sharing. This was the breakfast of champions and hallway painters, alike.

Now, fifteen years later Tim Horton’s is still my coffee house of choice – I am always hoarding little piles of $1.46 in change (S. has no idea where all the coins from his pockets disappear to!) for my morning caffeine fix. Luckily for me there is a Tim’s in the hospital where I work. There are also two within walking distance from my parent’s house – so I’m always calling ahead to find out what people want when I stop on my way. While my dad still has a small with milk, David has stopped drinking coffee altogether and I have switched to milk only in mine. But the coffee remains the same – and for my money the doughnuts rival Krispie Kreme’s any day of the week… but especially this month, because it’s Mmm…Canada this month and Tim Horton’s is Canadian, through and through (even if it happens to be American-owned).

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Mmm… Canada

How Sweet is Canada?

Our lives revolve around it, our dreams are punctuated by it and our families are pulled together by way of it. Food is the essence of everyday life, the thing that we can’t live without and the reason we get up in the morning and why we sit down at the table every night (even if it is sometimes in front of the television!).

Even though it unites us all, it also marks, almost like no other part of life, our varieties and distinctions. I have wondered on more than one occasion what food in Canada tastes like to someone who isn’t me. What does Canada taste like to someone who perhaps didn’t grow up here from childhood, or someone who left here and then returned having experienced other places and other cultures? Or what would it taste like to someone who grew up in the Prairies or the East or West coast of Canada rather than in Ontario as I did…? There are so many diverse food cultures in this country that it seems almost impossible to experience even a fraction of them in a lifetime.

That is where food bloggers are essential. I can visit a web site any time of any day and see what someone in Vancouver meticulously made for dinner, what vineyard someone in Niagara frequents or what bakery someone in Ottawa prefers over all others. I can learn about Middle Eastern-Canadians, Irish-Canadians, Asian-Canadians and Aboriginal Canadians (and the list certainly doesn’t stop there!) and what they prefer to eat and what they love specifically about Canada’s food culture. I am no longer limited to what is available in my own neighborhood, city or province – I can experience the entire country, with a click of my mouse, via all the amazing Canadian food blogs out there.

That is what Taste Canada was all about. In 2005 we asked Canadian food (and non-food) bloggers, ex-pat Canadian bloggers and even a few "wish-they-were-Canadian" bloggers to share what Canada tastes like to them. To make and write about their favourite Canadian meal, the meal that most said "Canada" to them. We had dozens of eager participants who shared their favourite Canadian foods, meals, markets and restaurants. It was amazing to see the diversity and yet also the similarity between so many different people across such a huge country.

This year let’s make our proverbial pot a little bigger; a little sweeter, if you will. Let’s get together as many bloggers as we can to share their favourite Canadian confection, indulgence, dessert, sweet…anything really! As long as says Canada to you and you can get some sort of Sugar High from it, we want to know about it.

What do Canada’s Confections taste like to you? From the butter tart recipe your mother handed down to you through generations to the recipe for Beaver Tails you came up with after visiting Ottawa last winter and skating the canal, we want to know! If you have found the ultimate way to showcase Maple Syrup or the greatest Donut recipe or the best accompaniment to a great Ice Wine or even the most delicious way to make strawberry shortcake with the juiciest, most enormous Ontario strawberries, we want to round them up in one big post. Or perhaps you have a favourite dessert that just screams Oh Canada! to you and you alone. Well then make it and write about it so we can all indulge in it along with you.

Write and post your Mmm… Canada entry between June 23rd and 28th. Then send me an email at jennifer[at]domesticgoddess[dot]ca with the following information:

– Your name
– Your blog name and URL
– Your post’s title and URL
– One photo (if applicable), sized to 150 pixels wide, with your blog name as the filename
– If you are a Canadian blogger, which province or territory you are living in
– If you are an ex-pat Canadian blogger, which province you are from and what country you are living in now
– If you want to be an honorary Canadian for this event, what country you are living in
– If you aren’t a blogger and would like to participate, please post your contribution (along with the above info) in my comments on the day I post the round-up (July 1st of course!)

For those of you who want to use the Mmm…Canada, The Sweet Edition image, feel free to steal away!

And if sweets aren’t your thing (or you want to make something sweet and something salty or spicy, head on over to Jasmine’s site to participate in the savory version of Mmm… Canada. She is asking bloggers to contribute a regional savory dish, a meal their family brought to the country or something they think of when they think of Canadian cuisine. It can be any course (starters, soups, breakfast etc), a reminiscence or a photo essay or a recipe.

Let’s take this Canada Day to new gustatory heights! I want everyone to say it with me: Mmm…Canada!

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You’re No Food Network Star!

Last week I asked you to all examine your own accident-prone past in your own kitchen(s). For your effort I promised to award one The Next Food Network Star prize package to the most disastrous (but believable) kitchen horror story anyone could come up with.

The scariest stories (yes, she had many) came from Holly of Phemomenon (see below for a copy of her kitchen disaster story).

The prize package, courtesy of The Next Food Network Star includes the following:

1. Cookbook – "Bobby Flay’s Grill It!"
2. Food Network Keychain
3. Next Food Network Star Poster
4. Next Food Network Star Postcard
5. Next Food Network Star T-shirt

Congratulations, Holly!

I have so many stories I could share, but I’ll just concentrate on this past winter.

I have been in quarantine with our preemie son since his birth (2 months early) last October (until abou 1 week ago). Anyway, baking has been my salvation this winter – but sleep deprivation and baking don’t mix very well. I usually end up doing something stupid, or that I just know isn’t going to end well… and then doing it anyway.

So, my story is all about the week before Christmas – and I’m a bit ashamed to admit that I’m not exaggerating here. First I cut two fingers by not paying attention while cutting up tomatoes, then I put a hot from the oven pyrex pie plate into the sink and started to run not hot enough water over it – it exploded, literally (thank goodness it mostly stayed in the sink).

Then, sticking with the exploding glass theme, on Christmas morning I had forgotten to chill a bottle of sparkling cider we were given, so I put it in the freezer and promised myself I would remember it was there… but I didn’t. It exploded and left frozen, sticky slushy cider and green glass shards all over the freezer (still cleaning up after that one).

Finally, also Christmas morning, I had decided to make a new sticky bun recipe. It seemed too big for it’s pan, but I decided it would be alright. Well, then I forgot to put a sheet pan under it to catch any drips. Well, the drips became flat out overflow – and since I have a gas oven and burnt sugar is flammable – I set the oven on fire.

I am still trying to clean this mess up as well – and I even had to unscrew and remove the floor of the oven – which I got to spend the rest of Christmas day trying to clean. (Oh, and I still haven’t been able to get the oven floor screwed back in correctly either. It is being held in place with my heavy pizza stone. I should probably stay out of the kitchen, but I try not to let it get me down!)

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I’m No Food network star

My Life, in a Nutshell

Or to put it simply, “Why I Could Never Be the NEXT FOOD NETWORK STAR…”

When I was very young my father crowned me with the nickname “Murphy”, as in “Murphy’s Law”: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. I was, to put it mildly, “accident prone”. Actually, accidents followed me around like dark shadows, turning up when I’d least expect them, ruining perfectly good days.

When I was three I was up at my cottage and my brother had broken a juice glass on the floor of the kitchen. My mother cleaned up all of it (she thought) but my foot somehow managed to find the one piece she had missed. It embedded itself into my foot and I ended up in the emergency room a few days later waiting to have it removed (for which I received a pretty pink balloon…my brother was jealous).

At the ripe old age of 4 my brother (still jealous) sat me down on the kitchen floor and gave me a horrific hair cut. To this day I fear haircuts and anyone bearing scissors in the kitchen.

When I was six I tugged on the kitchen door at the cottage and the glass window fell out of it, nearly slicing off my right thumb. No emergency room this time, just a big bowl of hydrogen peroxide and a clean dish towel for a bandage. I have nerve damage in that hand and am still upset I never got a pretty pink balloon to make my brother jealous. Entering that kitchen still gives me the heebee-geebies.

At the age of eight my brother (jealous much?) whirled me around the grocery store in a shopping cart and tipped it over (with me still in it). Now I become somewhat traumatized when I walk through the doors of any large grocery store…it makes shopping a nuisance to say the least.

At 19 a good friend cooked me dinner but the chicken was slightly undercooked and I ended up sick in bed for over a week…minus one good friend. To this day I am a bit paranoid when it comes to cooking chicken.

When I was 27 I was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder. A very similar disorder is caused by e. coli so I am a bit overly cautious when I cook ground beef…to the point of burning it sometimes.

Recently I wanted to make myself a cup of tea. I turned the stove on, walked out of the kitchen and made a telephone call. I returned to my kitchen to find the stove on fire and the room filled with thick grey smoke. I had turned on the wrong burner, on top of which was an old tea towel. I think you can guess the result…the house still smells funny to me and I have left the tea-making to S.

So those are my flaws (a few of them anyway), do with them what you will. But if you’re going to think ill of me for them perhaps you should examine your own past in your own kitchen(s). For your effort I will award one The Next Food Network Star prize package to the most disastrous (but believable) kitchen horror story you can come up with.

Please send me an email before June 2nd with your tragic story and I will choose the best (worst) and post it on Tuesday June 3rd. The prize package, courtesy of The Next Food Network Star includes the following:

1. Cookbook – “Bobby Flay’s Grill It!”
2. Food Network Keychain
3. Next Food Network Star Poster
4. Next Food Network Star Postcard
5. Next Food Network Star T-shirt

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My Favourite Mistake

I have been posting a lot less frequently than I would like to lately. So many things have been keeping me away from my wee MacBook laptop in the past few weeks. Nothing exciting unfortunately, it’s just that I haven’t had the opportunities I would like to have to sit and write, or stand and cook and then sit and write, as it were.

With the weather warming up (finally!) I have been craving fresh, light citrus desserts. I thought for a nice treat I would make some gorgeous teeny tiny lemon tarts with meringue tops. Yes. Those would be perfect for a warm spring evening.

Only they weren’t. To start, they weren’t very lemony. The crust, while delicious, unfortunately did not work well with the not-so-lemony filling. And don’t get me started on the meringue — it looked haphazard at best and down right horrible at its worst. They did smell good however and I appreciated their (the tarts’ that is) effort, even if they did look as though they had been drawn by an extremely un-artistic 3 year-old (no offense to 3 year-olds or their talent!). And, strangest of strange, there was a huge amount of filling left over from the original recipe. I used maybe 1/10 of it making the tarts, and I figured I’d put the remainder in the fridge thinking I might make more tarts the next day.

The next day, after I’d finished making the horrible, deformed-looking tarts I was not sure what to do with the left over filling. Then I thought about a cheesecake recipe I had made once that was quite similar and decided that I would mix the left over filling with some mascarpone and cream cheese and make a cheesecake with it. Hmmm. So that is how I came up with this lemon cloud cheesecake recipe. It still might need a bit of tweaking, but it was good. Good the day I made it after coming out of the oven and cooling for about an hour or so, but much better the next day after being in the fridge over night.

I love it when mistakes in the kitchen turn out so deliciously!

For more citri-fied desserts, be sure to check out Helen’s blog for this month’s SHF round-up on Friday!

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Tarting it Up




My fingertips are red from all the strawberries I have been eating lately. Once spring begins to bring the fresh, warm breezes to tickle my cheek and the sun begins to stream through the windows early in the morning I begin to reach for berries…especially of the “straw” variety.

I can eat them freshly washed with the stems still intact. I love them dipped in white or dark chocolate. Filled with sweetened cream cheese, with ice cream or angel food cake. I love them in breads, in pancakes and in milkshakes. They’re delicious in pie, cobbler and coffee cake. You name it, strawberries make it better.

When at an Italian restaurant one evening a few summers ago I ordered a light dessert after an amazing, but a little heavy meal. The waiter had suggested a bowl of fresh strawberries with a little brown sanding sugar and some perfectly aged balsamic vinegar. I had never had this combination before and I was a bit surprised at the flavours. Once you get past the initial thought of vinegar on berries it is all good. The flavours play off of each other so magically it’s almost hard to believe you would ever eat the two separately again.

When I had three pints of strawberries languishing in my fridge recently I kept thinking back on that wonderful dessert. I also remembered a bottle of white balsamic vinegar that was begging to be used in a delicious, interesting recipe. Pairing white balsamic with a beautiful, unctuous custard was the best thing I’ve done in some time.

Next time I’m making balsamic ice cream and serving it with strawberries…that says delicious to me!

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Leisurely Breakfast


Now that I am back at work weekends are so much more important to me. Those extremely short two days (whatever happened to the thought of a hour-day work week??) are when I get to spend REAL time with Leith and S. It is when I can relax a bit, rather than just buzzing around, attempting to get out the door as I tend to do on week day mornings. Weekends are spent doing all the household tasks that pile up during the week like laundry and vacuuming and gardening (now that it is *almost* warm enough!). Saturday and Sunday are the only days I really get to cook and bake because I’m simply too tired to do so when I get home from work. Weekends are so much more busy now, but that goes without saying I suppose.

Because our Sunday mornings can be pretty laid back (we tend not to get out of the house much before Leith gets up from his nap at 1pm!) I try to treat Leith and S. (and myself) to a nice, leisurely breakfast. Sometimes it is French Toast, other times it is Fruit-Filled Pancakes…whatever we eat it’s delicious and much more of a treat than the toast or cereal or apple-on-the-run that tends to be our speedy weekday fare.

Lately I have been on an apple kick. I don’t know how it happened, but I’ve been eating one everyday (let’s hope it keeps the doctor away!) and I have been wanting to make lots of apple dishes as well. The recent Apple Cake was so good I went out and bought a huge 10 pound bag of apples and everyday I am dreaming up more and more apple desserts and snacks for us. If you have a favourite apple recipe, please do let me know about it – I can always use more!

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Love is a Powerful Thing

When I got married a few years ago I vowed not to cheat on my husband; never to love another the way I do him. I pledged a few other things as well (like to not irritate him too much and to make him breakfast on the weekends) but the “love” one is the promise causing me some difficulty today. When I started this blog I swore to myself that I would not allow it to enter into my private life too much, that I would avoid blogging about the really delicate facets of my existence. I am about to break these two very important covenants.

Continue reading “Love is a Powerful Thing”

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Sweet Serenity Now!

I grew up in a house where dessert was never an after-thought. That sweet, final touch to each evening meal was something we were guaranteed to get, no matter the occasion – or lack thereof. Dessert to my family is something you don’t dare question or forget, you indulge in it, enjoy it and most of all you’d better not forget to bring it.

Continue reading “Sweet Serenity Now!”

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No More Sticky Fingers

Those who know me well know I am a huge tea drinker. Actually, just about any hot beverage appeals to me, but tea seems to be at the top of my list lately. I used to be a chronic java addict, but I tried to give up coffee last summer while in the hospital (not a difficult task when the coffee is as bad as it is in there). It stuck for a while but these days I find a cup of coffee every now and then is a lovely indulgence.

Continue reading “No More Sticky Fingers”