How to find the extra time every day to eat properly...

Don't you hate misleading titles?

Here's a little tip from me to you - there IS NO time. So we need to stop complaining about it and make the time! Yesterday was a crazy day - in and out of important meetings where it was important to be relaxed, casual, positive and focussed. Talk about a connundrum. It wasn't a day to be frazzled by no time, nothing to eat, running on coffee, aggravated by a red-light because I've just lost 60 seconds kind of day... But "mama said there'd be days like this" so I just suck it up and do my best.

Walked in the house at 8:05 after having no lunch (unless a bag of S+V Lays counts as lunch)and hungry. The Ratatouille from yesterday went to Bill hours earlier. I always find it funny how I go to great lengths to ensure Harrison and Bill are really well fed, and will neglect myself... I was tempted to just eat popcorn but decided against it. Motivated by the killer potatoes from yesterday, I wanted to duplicate the dish because it was so insanely good.

It's rare that I run home and do a dish two days in a row, but this one was just that good. A great tip is DO NOT CHANGE OUT OF YOUR WORK CLOTHES BEFORE GETTING DINNER GOING! Put an apron on if you're 'Chanel'd, but those 15 minutes on the front end mean dinner that much sooner. And would you rather eat at 8:45 or 9?

I peeled potatoes quickly, and Harrison helped. Sliced them into thin slices, and then grabbed the leftover chopped onions from the freezer, sprinkled them over top. Crushed two cloves of garlic, and sprinkled those too. Covered with remaining layers of potatoes (saving the prettier slices for the top) and again poured the last of the mushroom broth filling to 2/3 full. Turned oven on to 350 and sure enough? Heavenly scent in 10 minutes (while I was slipping on my jeans and a t-shirt) and dinner was ready by 8:40.

I could have skipped it.

I could have ordered in.

I could have heated up some boxed prepared factory cardboard thing.

I'm glad I tried, because nothing was more comforting on a schedule-silly day than a beautiful potato mushroom gratin.

"Find Time" With These Crazy-Busy Tips:

* Have an apron in your kitchen and let it be the first thing you put on after you take off your coat.
* Dice an onion or two and keep it in the freezer in a plastic bag.
* There is no "time". Get over it and eat real food anyway.
* Remember flavour bases like onion, garlic, lemon, tomato, basil, paprika and dijon mustard - they are your best friend when rushed.

Home cooked food is a great band-aid for chaos.

Eating something real is better than skipping a meal entirely - especially if it's something homey and comfortable and delicious. It can counteract a crazy day.

Sunday Smells...

I have just taken a bite of a spectacular potato gratin which has left the house fragranced with a roasted potato, garlicky, oniony "sunday-ness" that I have really been missing lately.

I miss the overwhelming smell of a beautiful roast on a Sunday. Even though a whole generation of kids are now growing up with only the smell of Swiss Chalet pick-up, or delivery pizza as their sunday signals, my mom frequently made a beautiful roast chicken that was the centrepiece of a family dinner.

Vegan centrepieces for me now are harder to come by, but today I think I've really duplicated (and trumped) those heavenly aromas.

Roasted Potato Gratin

I had some beautiful (ONTARIO) russet potatoes (one was even in the shape of a heart!) and some shallots. This weekend has not gone as I planned, and I spent the majority of yesterday (all night - 12 hours) WAITING (yes, there's a story there, but it's not about food, and quite boring) with nothing but From Julia Child's Kitchen and Bill for company. As a result, I have read cover to cover some great techniques for bringing out the best in food.

I refuse to stop reading about omnivorous food, even with a vegan lifestyle, since the techniques, ideas and aromatic flavours translate just as well to veggies as to meats. I often daydream about teaching cooking classes to busy women and moms, and have decidedly concluded that the meat has to stay in while people learn to cook. If not, the transition is just too extreme - too drastic - too scary for anyone to make meaningful changes to the way they feed themselves or their families.

In any event, after all this reading about the French love of potatoes, I couldn't wait to get home!

I thinly sliced three peeled potatoes, and began to layer them with some chopped garlic and shallots, olive oil, salt and pepper. It felt like a food-y card game! Some leftover mushroom soup from last week was slowly added to the bottom to fill the casserole dish to 2/3 full. I roasted them at 350 for probably 40 minutes, but the smell made the house smell incredible after 10. It was like a gorgeous French bistro.

The potatoes are browned, savory and spectacular. This has been a good week although I have MISSED blogging my recipes out of sheer exhaustion and time constraints.

Last Sunday, I sent out to do an onion soup without the beef stock and it turned out amazing. Even though it was "easy" there were a few tricks to it, but it's worth writing down.

Carmelized Onion Soup with Whole Grain Garlic Croutons

I took two or three medium onions and added about a tablespoon of olive oil in a soup pot. I lightly cooked them until they were translucent, on a low heat. Then after about 10 minutes, I turned the heat up to medium, grabbed my favourite wooden spoon, and started stirring. Over time, the onions will turn a beautiful brown colour - and it's important to keep them moving every few minutes. Take about 15 minutes to stir (unload the dishwasher) stir (sort through that storage container drawer to make sure I have lids for each vessel) stir (clean out old fridge leftovers) and VOILA! Perfectly carmellized onions, with a thick layer of brown on the bottom of the pot.

Leftover quarter cup of red wine (white would be fine too) gets poured into the pot now, and the sizzle will lift the beautiful browned bits off the bottom of the pan. Deglazing a pan this way is magic and once you try it, you'll never skip the step or wash that pan again! I added some oyster mushrooms to the pan, and their juice, along with the wine softened them perfectly. Finally, I added some vegetable stock from a box (because I haven't made my own lately) and simmered on low heat for 15 more minutes until the rest of dinner was ready.

Harrison LOVES mushroom soup, and I thought this would blow his mind. Since it wasn't the creamy kind (that my mom will make him) he wasn't wild about it. He said "it's OK" but then pushed it aside. And I was a actually happy about it, because that left more for Bill and I!

I topped the soup with some toasted whole grain baguette croutons that I made by cubing up stale bread, and tossing them with a bit of olive oil and garlic in a warm pan until they browned.

A Vegan in Paris

Jet lag keeps waking me up early, so I have some time to blog about my incredible week in Paris. Harrison has recently turned 10 and I have always wanted to do something special for him for his milestone birthday. "Paris with my son "has been on the agenda for more than 10 years. On returning from my last trip to Paris, I found out I had been pregnant during the trip, so there was no more fitting place than to take him back to the City of Light.

While the lights were still magnificent, I think it could be renamed the City of Animal Products.

Being a vegan was nearly impossible there, and after four months of very clean eating, I often wondered beforehand how my tastebuds, and my stomach and my cravings would react.

I am a HUGE fan of French writing, french culture and bien sur, french cooking. Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking is really an incredible book on technique, and I have loved reading about one influential woman's literal transformation in Paris after falling in love with the cuisine.

This summer and early fall, I prepared many dishes from this MASTERFUL work of culinary literature - with each result more sumptuous and stunning than the last. Julia Child redefined french cooking - out of an intense curiosity, fuelled by her personality traits of thorough, scientific and exactingly particular high standards, and finally out of an affair of the heart for both her husband and ultimately her self. Vegan or not - this cookbook is a passionate and definitive work of art.

French cooking is also based in art. The attention to detail, technique and correctness is unparalleled in other cuisines. Every detail lends itself to perfecting a dish.

SIZE matters. The first time I read that a carrot NEEDED to be chopped into even 1/8 inch pieces instead of 1/2 inch chunks I laughed. I thought "Oh, come on! a carrot is a carrot". But I was wrong about this. Small pieces impart more robust flavour to a sauce or a dish than an irreverant "chunk". That is how it is done - comme il faut.

Il faut. It means "it must be". In law there are multiple ways of reading legislation and any lawyer worth their fleur de sel knows that the word "shall" means something very different than the word "may". I venture to say that "il faut" is one level above "shall". It means "just do it" with no "si, et, or mais".

And the results blow your mouth and your mind. My previous two trips to Paris, once as a new lawyer and once with my entire family bore this out.

I have a very proficient taste memory, and I know this helps in my cooking. I can "taste-remember" what flavours go together, what textures match up with each other, and how a dish will work together. My tastebuds know instantly what is a match, and are also adventurous enough to try new matches - often with wonderful results.

Taste is like relationships. If, when you are young you like the taste of a purple plum, you could just buy purple plums forever. They could be your favourite fruit, and you could probably remain wedded to purple plum for the rest of your life, without ever trying something new.

Or you could explore, sample, try, test, and experience. Every item of edibility has subtle things to do to your tastebuds. Interplay between sweet, salty, bitter, sour, spicy and umami define our food experiences every single day, and they define who we are and who we become.

Limiting oneself limits ones self.

A palate without limits opens you up to savour variation of the human experience. Obviously I am not a "plums-for-the-rest-of-my-life" kind of person. I want to stretch. I enjoy the new tastes and savour the discoveries.

I wanted to experience veritable cuisine Parisienne again knowing (10 years later) more than I knew 10 years ago. I wanted to plunge my fork in and enjoy.

I also wanted to remain as close as I possibly could to vegan cuisine while doing so. As we prepared, packed, boarded, and flew toward the french coastline, I hoped that there would be dishes I could delight in.

I knew from reading about vegan Paris that this would be a challenge, and that I may have had to settle for some butter, some cream, and some meaty seasoning in my vegetable dishes.

It was impossible.

Unless we had been prepared to seek out vegetarian restaurants with equal intensity as "let's go to the Louvre", or "let's go to the top of the Eiffel Tower", it simply was not doable. It saddened me a bit, but also gave me that tiny bit of cheater's permission to sample foods I no longer eat.

My first meal at Brasserie LIPP was sole meuniere. A buttery filet of sole with parsley and lemon was absoultely marvelous, although the sauce tasted much thicker than anything I have eaten in the last four months. I had a bite of Harrison's salmon poached in a tomato cream sauce, and was struck with the intense salmony taste, and the heavy creamy accompaniment. I enjoyed the lightness of the sole, and immediately set my mind on how I was going to duplicate a vegan version. (I am thinking about something with layered potato, sweet potato, carrot and parsnip...)

At Cafe des Deux Magots, I ventured towards the most vegetarian item I could find : A Tomato and Cucumber tartine on Poilane bread, with a tiny half-ounce of warmed goat's cheese. It was good, but didn't alight my imagination like I thought it would. I was struck with the filmy, slick taste of the goat cheese.

While searching out things to do in Paris, I came across a bed and breakfast five minutes from the Arc de Triomphe, called "The Gentle Gourmet B and B", which specializes in vegan living, (from bedding to breakfasts). Their accommodations were perfect for Harrison and I, and the breakfasts were amazing. They deserve a separate blog entry (maybe tomorrow?), but suffice it to say that if I were ever to go back to Paris or to recommend where to stay to a friend, il faut rester avec the Gentle Gourmet B & B. The best things I ate in Paris were at Deborah's in the morning.




Unless you ultimately take your last breath with the very first person you become really fond of, most of us go through a breakup. Unless your first job is the one you retire from, most of us will begin and end a professional endeavour of some kind. Unless you are born and remain in the same home for your entire life, you will remember what it is like to change residences. The packing and unpacking. The reestablishment of items from one home to their new place in another.

For me, this trip to Paris was like running into someone you used to know well, but know very little about now. It was like remembering what it was like to work at a previous job, but knowing that what you are doing now is much better suited to your personality. It was like revisiting an old apartment with someone else's things set up there... The walls are the same, but it is no longer yours.

People should exit our life if they are not compatible with us. We should move through our careers and change, and adapt, and hopefully find the endeavour that we are most suited to. We should change living situations to live best.

After eight days in the world's most spectacular city, I wanted to get back to the job that fulfills me, the complicated man that I love and the city that is home. And even though I sampled a taste non-vegan cuisine, I wanted to get back to eating plants.

Par ce-qu'il faut.