The Clocktower's own raspberry wheat ale

Sometimes, when you’ve been doing a lot of physical work and had a really long day, all while being on the road, the thought of trying to figure out what to eat is an exhausting chore… especially when there’s 5 of you voting on the restaurant choice.

And sometimes, all you want is a great big juicy burger.  So on this particular Friday night, that was our choice.  The 5 of us hopped in our rental car (well actually… it was a rental mini-van… because that’s how we roll… cruising downtown Ottawa in a white Dodge Caravan – stylin! Oh yeah!) and headed off to the Glebe area to try the much talked about and suggested The Works burger bistro.

Clockwise from top: Andre and Krzys, Howard, Hank - they're used to an ever present camera in their faces

After faffing about finding parking, paying for parking and tumbling into the restaurant looking tired and disheveled – actually, that was mostly me… I had to wait a long time for the boys to do their hair – we were told it would be at least an hour wait for a table.

Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t wait anywhere for an hour just to have some food – I don’t care how good it is… there is always somewhere else tasty to eat.  So we stumbled back out on to the street and stood on the sidewalk wondering what to do.  And lo and behold… across the street from us was the Clocktower Brew Pub – another on my list of must try places suggested by Ottawa food bloggers… as long as it was the Bank Street location.

the boys saw me taking a photo of my coaster so they all tossed theirs in to the mix

So I scanned the street to see what street we actually were on and… it was Bank!  So we totally jaywalked – they do that a lot in Ontario.  I don’t get it!

Five minutes later we had ourselves a cozy booth and some tasty beverages to drink while we sussed out the menu.  I tried out the raspberry wheat ale – I’ve been hearing a lot about raspberry ales lately.  Seems like it’s become a trendy thing.  At first I couldn’t taste the raspberry at all but after a few more sips it was definitely there as an undertone.  It was quite good!

Hank's meatloaf... I can't believe he ate those mushrooms right next to me...

Andre, Krzys (pronounce it Kris) and I all went with the Canuck burger, made with a smokey red ale bbq sauce, local aged cheddar and peameal bacon.  The guys had fries but I got the pub chips with spicy mayo.  Howard had the standard burger and Hank went out on a limb and had the meatloaf.

the Canuck burger with pub chips

Andre and I loved our burgers. They were loaded with thick slices of tomato, lettuce and red onion and a big slab of pickle – no skimping on the fresh toppings. I loved the BBQ sauce and the cheddar was very aged and sharp.  Krzys found it too strong for his taste but I loved the added tang.  Sometimes the cheese on burgers is so mild you don’t even know it’s there but this was not the case!

But the pub chips were my favourite – they’re hand made potato chips, crispy on the edges but a little soft and chewy in the middle.  Dusted with a mango chipotle spice and dipped in the mayo they were delicious (they make an appetizer serving as well!).

not a drop left behind... good sign!

I can’t speak for the meatloaf or the standard burger but both Hank and Howard pronounced their dinners as being very good.

This is definitely one I’d repeat.  Reasonably priced, their own beers on tap (it is a brew pup), higher quality than normal ingredients and some nice flavour combos.  Sometimes you need a good burger to hit the spot after a long week!

I think… I hope… that honest to goodness spring has arrived here on the west coast.  I don’t want to get carried away and cause too much fuss in case it scares it off… but it’s actually possible we may get summer like temperatures this weekend!

What better way to kick it off than to start experimenting with salads?

Salads are great because the possibilities are endless and you do not need to be able to cook to make something fabulous that also looks so pretty.  I often make them for lunch just by chopping up some veggies and greens and chucking them in a tupperware container.  Add some protein in the form of nuts, hard boiled eggs or leftover meat from the night before.  If you’re really hungry you can add a carb like the leftover roasted potatoes I used here, or a grain of some kind.  Sprinkle a little grated cheese for your dairy group, add an olive oil based homemade dressing and you have your healthy fat.  All in one bowl. Simplicity!

Usually, I’m very unglamourous… everything goes in the tupperware container, I pop the lid on, shake it all up and then eat it.  But last week I wanted to practice my salad styling and presentation.  Styling is always the hardest part of taking photos for me.  I don’t pay much attention to presentation when I cook, because frankly, it’s usually a pretty limited audience: me!  I just wanna eat it!  I also understand why there are food stylists and food photographers. Very different skill sets!

Styling a Salad For its Closeup

One thing I have noticed when photographing food is that, given a choice, styling specifically for a photograph is different than plating food for the people who are going to eat it.  So here’s a few things I learned while trying to improve my salad styling:

1. Choose your dishes carefully.  White is always a safe bet but can be kind of boring.  Don’t be afraid to experiment with other colours.  If your salad is a rainbow of ingredients you probably want to stick with a single solid colour dish, like this yellow bowl.  It’s bright and cheerful but doesn’t distract from the salad itself.  If your salad is monochromatic, don’t be afraid to use something with a pattern.
2. Layer your ingredients.  The greens are the hardest part – they can be a bit unruly (sometimes that’s good though!).  Use them to make a bed which you can layer the rest of your ingredient.  And whole leaves work much better than chopped or torn lettuce (but make it more difficult to eat later!)
3. Keep your ingredients to a minimum in order to showcase them for the photograph.  It’s really hard to see here but there was also cucumber and celery in this salad – but it’s kind of lost.
4. Keep it moist.  Try tossing the ingredients in a tiny bit of dressing before adding each one to the dish, or spritzing them afterwards with a very fine mist of water or dressing.  As you can see here, I drizzled on dressing before shooting but the meat looks a bit dry (it wasn’t!).  A little coating of dressing would’ve made it look fresh from cooking.

There’s no real recipe for this dish.  It was lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, celery, chopped leftover roasted potatoes, Italian sausage and cranberries, topped by the sesame Thai dressing I happened to have in the fridge.  And then all tossed together (in a tupperware container) and eaten!

I took the photos over a week ago and I can’t remember much about them except that it was mid-day at my kitchen table.  I know I didn’t use a tripod and I did use a reflector held up by my fruit bowl.  The light looks like it was diffused but I know I didn’t use a diffusor so I’m wondering if it was an overcast day so the light wasn’t too direct.  I need to write this stuff down!

Until next time!

One of my favourite parts of being on the road for work is getting the opportunity to try new places to eat!  One of the challenges, though, is finding good food.  It’s so easy to fall back on an old standby when you’re away from home, tired and not too sure of where to go in a strange city.

The Keg, Boston Pizza, Milestones, Earl’s, The Cactus Club… all are chains that got their start here in Vancouver and have now spread across Canada and even the rest of North America.  It may not be a unique experience but at least you have a pretty good idea of what you’ll be getting – a solid, pleasant meal that will leave you, at the very least, full and fueled.

My long time good friend, colleague and sometimes food photography protege, Hank. Even he couldn't resist photographing the bagels in the wood fired oven

There’s always that little fear factor of trying a new place in a new city – what if it’s not good?  And there’s nothing worse than being exhausted and starving at 9pm on a weekday and sitting down somewhere new and getting a really lousy meal.  Then you just wind up eating a can of Pringles from the mini-bar at 11pm to fill the void (actually, I’ve smartened up – I buy a big can as soon as I get into town in a new city… much cheaper and lasts the whole trip!)

what he was shooting while I was shooting him! *photo courtesy Hank Smith

And this is why food bloggers are wonderful!  A few weeks before I left for a 8 days in Ottawa, I put the word out on twitter that I was looking for tasty, relatively budget conscious, casual places to eat.  Preferably not a chain.  And Ottawa food bloggers responded with a stream of suggestions and out of all the ones I tried, there wasn’t a bad one in the bunch!

Even the window was cute!

One that came up a few times was Continental Bagels.  Located in Byward Market, they serve Montreal style bagels either on their own or in a variety of tasty sandwiches.  Our hotel was within steps of the market and on our first morning we thought bagels would make a good, quick breakfast.

bagels, bacon, eggs and cheese... what's not to love??

We had fun watching the bagels being put into the wood burning oven and then being pulled out all hot and fresh and ready to eat. I had a plain bagel with cream cheese and Hank had the Continental Sandwich which was an egg, bacon, and cheese sandwich on a bagel of your choice

One of my favourite breakfasts - a bagel with cream cheese. Add a cup of tea and some OJ and I'm all good

We enjoyed them so much that we also went back the next day for a second quick breakfast.  Hank stuck with the Continental and I had a cinnamon bagel with cream cheese again.  We also bought a dozen fresh bagels to go for the rest of our crew (which included a native Montrealer who proclaimed them to be very good!) and they were a big hit with a group of hungry boys.

So for a quick tasty breakfast, especially if you’re on the run, I would say this is a can’t miss!

I’ve just been in a funk the last week.  Post show let down I think.  Missing my friends who it feels like I haven’t seen in forever and like my last post hinted… feeling very disconnected from the real world.

Last night I was looking for some old episodes of Las Vegas I thought I had on a hard drive somewhere, so I could load a few on my iPad for a little road trip this weekend.

Ok, so this is totally off topic but ummm… Josh Duhamel… YUM! Right?  And on my flight home from Ottawa I watched New Year’s Eve.  Have you seen this movie?  I don’t even remember it being in the theatres but it was such a cute movie! Perfect for a plane trip and it has a HUGE cast of peoples… like… the aforementioned yummy Josh Duhamel.  So I thought I’d watch some of the old Las Vegas episodes… a little guilty pleasure for a vacation…

Annnnyway… I couldn’t find them.  But I stumbled on some old iMovies I made with my photos.  That used to be one of my favourite things to do.  I used to recap every year with photos of my friends and family from things we’d done the year past and put them to music and share them.  I haven’t done one the last two years.  Lame of me…

Why did I let something I love so much fall to the wayside?  And the photos… well… they were so much better than what I do now.  I’ve lost my eye.  And I think I know why… I’ve stopped looking.

I’m looking at a screen all the time… be it a computer, an iPad or a phone.  I’m looking to see what the world is doing through a social media stream instead of watching it unfold in front of me with my own eyes.  I feel like I’ve lost my spark a little bit.

So I’m unplugging this weekend.  A trip to the States will enforce that.  I’m not taking my laptop, my iPad won’t have data and my phone will be shut off as soon as the roaming charges hit.

But I will take my camera.  And I will watch the world.  And maybe I’ll make an iMovie of my trip and share it with my friends

While I was scrolling through old movies I was listening to the music that I used for the soundtracks… I always choose the songs really carefully.  Two that stood out were, All You Need is Love and Burn Out Bright.  They made me realize that as long as there’s a tomorrow, there’s still a spark inside you!

The future is a question mark
Of Kerosene and electric sparks
There’s still fire in you yet,
Yeah, there still fire in you

If we only get one try
If we only get one life
If time is never on our side
Well before I die I wanna burn out bright…

Burn Out Bright – Switchfoot

Have a great weekend everyone! Find a spark and watch the real world go by!  I promise next week will be back to regularly scheduled programming.

Oh Canada - standing on the opposite side of the Rideau Canal from the Parliament buildings on my first day in town.

I spent the last week in Ottawa closing up the biggest project by far, of my year.  I worked with an amazing technical crew that works with me on this project every year.  It was a year of hard work in the making.

There were a few arguments, some raised voices on occasion, frustrations, crossed wires (figuratively and literally).  But mostly it was just a lot of flat out hard work accompanied by a lot of laughs, giggles, the occasional beer, good food, and a bunch of hugs.

I’m happy to say, it went smooth as silk.  Hands down the best gig we’ve ever done.

And nobody on my team shouted about it on twitter or facebook or in a blog post (until now, that is.  Because I am shamelessly writing a post about them!).  Nobody was worrying about their personal brand or if this would improve their traffic or ad rates or if it would get them a book deal or a tv show.  I mean, seriously… who would read a book about IT people making diagrams or running cable?  But… come on… I know you would watch a show about the Real IT/AV Project Team of Canada.  Maybe somebody would push somebody into a rat’s nest of cable!

I spent a week working and playing with people who for the most part do not blog. Or tweet.  Or Instagram. Or even really Facebook.  They don’t spend a lot of time on their Berries or Androids (not an iPhone in sight, by the way…).  In fact, I was probably the most guilty of that and I consider myself a mild phone addict user!

It was all a little weird, if I may say so… like I fell into the twilight zone!

So, I’m being a bit tongue in cheek here, obviously.  (I hope it was obvious – if not, I surely won’t be getting a book deal!)

I’m sure at some point you’ve all had to explain to somebody exactly what your food blog is.  It’s fun isn’t it?

You write about food… that you just made… and you take pictures of it… even when you go out to eat… Sooo… ok… why exactly do you do this?  Do people read it?  They do?? But why?

Umm… well… I don’t really know why!  Because?

And if that wasn’t fun enough, then try to explain to them how you started up an organization for fellow food bloggers… that’s when you get a lot of puzzled frowns, a few questions and then a “well that’s kinda cool I guess” and the conversation moves on. Invariably it moves on to my dog… Sam is way more interesting to most people than my blog.  Everyone asks about him!

my puppy had a serious case of the missings. as did his mum. reunited after my late flight home last night.

It was good though.  It put things into perspective.  We’re not performing brain surgery or determining the economic future of the world.  We’re having some fun, playing with food.

Food blogging is not, as one fellow food blogger said recently “a contact sport”.  Nor is it a competitive sport.  Lately, it’s felt a lot like both!

It also made me realize that as much as the internet opens up many doors and brings new people into our lives, it doesn’t replace, and nor should it eclipse, the people who are physically present at any given moment.   Family, friends (real life friends) and colleagues are important.  Really important.  They shouldn’t be taken for granted.  Nor should they take second place to people who we barely know outside of 140 characters at a time or who we’ve never met.

They’re the people who have to put up with us every day, for better or worse.  And they’re the people who know all the little things about us that we can’t hide on the internet… and they still put up with us!  This seriously amazes me on a regular basis!

They don’t deserve attitude or snark.  They don’t deserve being made to feel like also-rans.   They don’t deserve to find out about our lives’ big moments through facebook or twitter.  They do deserve a heart felt thank you now and then for being there or an apology when we’ve screwed up.  Or just a random “hey, how ya doin, I was thinking of you today” phone call.

I’m guilty of so many of these things.  It was good this week to have some enforced internet black out time and spend it with people who made me feel like I was important to them.  It made me realize just how guilty I am of putting the real world second sometimes.

All I could think of through breakfast was the Seinfeld episode where they're all at the coffee shop counter and the conversation gets lost in translation. Still, I love these four fellas

And so… I just want to say thank you to “my boys”, as I so fondly call them, because I know they won’t blow their own horns.  I could say “you know who you are” but I hate that.  If somebody does something awesome… tell the world who they are or else keep it quiet and thank them privately.  People deserve to know directly when they’ve done something awesome.

Roger, Hank, Howard, Krzys, Andre and Yuri, you rocked it.  You knocked it out of the park.  Again.  Every year you make me look good.  And every year you keep me in stitches with your silliness and your humour.  I wish every job could be as much fun. I love that you go sightseeing with me,  that you are mildly amused by my picture taking in restaurants, that you bring me chai lattes just because (and that you remember that I like chai lattes), that you always make sure I have somebody to eat dinner with in a strange city, and a million other things that you might not even realize that I notice.  And I love that you work your collective butts off.

And now all of you reading know just how awesome these fellas are.   They are a big deal.

More to come on Ottawa in the coming days/weeks.  We did hit up some great eateries and I had the pleasure of meeting fellow food bloggers Cameron from India on My Plate and Janice from Kitchen Heals Soul (no  photos were taken during either meeting – go figure!)

Oh My, SalaThai is the latest dining pass package from the fun fellows at VANEATS.ca.  I was excited to review this pass – Thai food is one of my favourites and it’s been a while since I’d visited SalaThai on Burrard.

The latest dining pass from VANEATS.ca is a 6 course sampling of Thai dishes that includes two generous entrees.  At $18, this is a great meal for two to share with good value.  I headed out with Sean from Sean’s Adventures in Flavortown, who was also reviewing the package, to give the new pass a try.

When we arrived we were seated at a table right by the window which gave us some fun watching all the people wandering on Burrard Street.  Unfortunately, we did have to wait quite a while before we had anyone bring us any water or ask us if we’d like to order a drink.  But the food came quickly and we started with a trio of appetizers that included Som Tom, Gar Hor Bai Toey and Thai Crispy Squid.

The Som Tom is almost like a Thai cole slaw made of shredded green papaya, tomatoes, green beans, ground peanuts, fresh chilies & lime juice.  It’s a nice light dish and the dressing has a bit of a kick to it, especially as you get further into it.

The Thai Spicy Squid is a lightly battered squid tossed with mixed Thai herbs and spices.  It was very tasty but really no different from calamari that you can get in most restaurants and I would have preferred it with a little splash of lemon  juice to highlight the flavour of the squid.

My favourite of the three was definitely the Gai Hor Bai Toey, tender pieces of chicken marinated in a chef sauce wrapped and cooked in pandanus leaves.  I could’ve eaten an entire entree of this.  The chicken was juicy and perfectly seasoned – not spicy at all but very flavourful.  Very tasty.

Next up came our two entrees, the Royal Pad Thai Chao Wang and Gaeng Keaw Whan.  Both were generous portions, perfect for sharing.

The Royal Pad Thai was one of the better Pad Thais that I’ve had.  Sometimes they can be too sweet and the sauce can be overpowering but I really liked this one and I liked the ratio of sprouts to noodles (I like the soft and the crunch together!) and there was a generous helping of shrimp.

The Gaeng Keaw Whan was a green coconut milk curry with sliced chicken,  bamboo shoots, eggplant, bell peppers & sweet basil leaves served with rice and noodles.  Curry is a comfort dish for me and this one had the perfect level of heat and flavour.  I think there are many people who might find it too mild (green is traditionally one of the spicier curries) and they didn’t ask what spice level we’d like.  So if you do like some strong heat, you might want to double check with your server.

Our dessert was Klauy Tod, homemade coconut ice cream with a deep fried banana.  The ice cream was a huge treat for me, being lactose intolerant.  It’s made with coconut milk so it’s dairy free and was absolutely delicious.  In fact, I was so excited about it that I dug right in before I even took a photo.  Sean stopped me just in time and we sort of put the ice cream back together and took a picture!  Thanks, Sean, for letting me eat all of it!

The Oh My SalaThai package is $18 and will easily feed two people.  The package goes on sale at VANEATS.ca April 18th until the passes sell out (and VANEATS.ca packages do sell out quickly so you’ll want to get on this one right away!)

SalaThai is located at 102-888 Burrard Street, Vancouver

Disclosure Notice: I Was provided with one complimentary dining pass for the purposes of reviewing the package, courtesy of  VANEATS.ca.  All opinions stated within are my own.

Do you remember the show Friends?  And Joey and his obsession with sandwiches?  Ok, well I totally get where Joey was coming from.  Sandwiches, or sammiches as I refer to them, are the best. thing. ever. Even better than cookies.

I know! Better than cookies! Now if that’s not a statement, I don’t know what is.

A few weeks ago I posted about the Whitewater Cooks With Friends cookbook, which I loved.  There was one dish in it that caught my eye and I knew I had to give it a try: Margie’s Pork Tenderloing Saltimbocca Roasted on a Bed of Apples.  I didn’t have any tenderloin on hand when I was reviewing the book so it would have to wait until the next shopping trip.

Ok, this might be the best thing I’ve ever made. Like… EVER.  That’s right.  EVER.  The recipe was super simple but soooo tasty. Lots of wine, dijon, prosciutto, sage, maple syrup… oh my.  And what was even better was, when I opened up my pork tenderloin, which seemed unusually fat, it was actually two sealed together.  So I made them both!

And that meant… leftovers! Lots and lots of leftovers!  Some I snuck right off the plate late at night but with the rest I made, believe it or not, apple mustard gravy rice pudding (trust me… sounds weird but was so good), my own crazy version of ishi yaki with pork and egg and the most amazing toasted pork and apple sandwich.

First, you’re going to start off slicing some good, crusty bread and you’re going to grill that in the oven (you could toast it too but I like grilling for sandwiches).

Next, you need to assemble your fixings.  Slice up some of the leftover pork nice and thin, make sure you get some of the sage in with it and some of the prociutto.  Heat up some of the leftover braised apples and add a healthy slather of dijon mustard and good ol mayo.

Make sure you slather it on when the bread’s right out of the oven and hot so it seeps down into the pores.  Next you’re going to pile apples on one side of the bread and the pork, prosciutto and sage on the other side like so:

At this point, you turn the camera to your left and look down to see your moochie trusty canine companion as he vigilantly watches over you, protecting you at all costs to his safety.

please don't forget I'm here and I love pork and apples and bread and you love me, right?

Yes, isn’t he just a vigilant little soul?  He’d sell me over in a heartbeat for a slice of that pork.  Don’t kid yourselves.

Not only is this going to make one delicious sandwich but, it is really quite beautiful to look at.

Slap it all together and away you go.  Share with your dog if you must (Sam did get a tiny tidbit of pork – he knows who the sucker in this relationship is…).

And here is a picture of my Ishi Yaki (rice with pork, prosciutto, tomatoes, spinach and egg all cooked into it)

All of it was pretty freaking yummy.  Just sayin.  You can find the Pork Saltimbocca and apple recipe on page 110 of Whitewater Cooks with Friendsby Shelley Adams.  Seriously… one of the best things I’ve ever made.

Food Photography Tips

I went way overboard with the photos for this post but I borrowed the Canon 24-70 2.8L lens from a friend last week to do a portrait shoot (which, omg was scary and pushed me way out of my comfort zone!).  Anyway, he’s letting me hang on to it for a bit and you can bet I’ll be making as much use of it as possible until I have to hand it back.

I can’t even begin to tell you how much I wish I owned this lens.  I know I say you can take beautiful photos with whatever you have and you absolutely can but… oh my… every time I’ve used this lens over the last two years my pictures are just that much better.  And my post processing is almost non-existant.  The other night I saw somebody posting about how they had just got this lens but had no idea what to do with it and I nearly cried.  I would know EXACTLY what to do with it and there is was in the hands of somebody who’d been told it was good but had no clue why or what they could do with it.  If they are using that lens with their camera on auto… I will sob.

There are too many photos here to list all the settings but if you’re curious about one of them in particular, leave a note in the comments and I’ll post them for you.   I can tell you the first three were shot by balancing the roasting pan and the platter on my sink and using the window light to back light them at about 6pm in the evening.  The rest were all shot on my kitchen table with the light to the left – no reflectors and my only post processing was to sharpen them.  At the time, I was happy with the exposure but now, after a few days, I think I could have lightened up a bit on them.  But there you go… who’s ever 100% happy with their pictures?!