Recipe: Warm Potato Salad

I mostly came up with this one on my own. An excellent summer recipe, perfect for BBQs.

1/2 lb panchetta or bacon, sliced and cut into 1/2 inch chunks ( I used spicy panchetta)
1 - 2 lbs new potatoes, scrubbed but not peeled
1/4 cup parsley (flat leaf is best), finely chopped
2 green onions, sliced thinly or 1/3 cup finely chopped red onion
Cider or while wine vinegar (I used herb de provence flavoured cider vinegar)
Olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste

Chop the onions and parsley, set aside.

In a big pot of boiling salted water, cook the potatoes until just tender, about 12 mins. Immediately drain the potatoes and rise under cold water until cool enough to handle. Roughly chop the potatoes into 1/2 cubes and throw them in a salad bowl. Add the onions and parsley, then drizzle everything with a tablespoon or two of vinegar and toss gently.

Meanwhile, fry the panchetta at medium high heat, stirring to break up the slices. Continue cooking until the panchetta is browned and slightly crispy. Immediately add to the potatoes, including any grease that collected in the pan. Add a tablespoon or two of olive oil to the potatoes, depending on how much panchetta grease there was. Add salt, pepper and any other seasoning you'd like to include. Toss gently and serve immediately.

Serves 4 - 6

Weekend Round Up: Stand-Up, Improv & Tea

Friday: Since L was working late with the art department, I decided to call up my new friend Brandon and his wife to see what they were up to. They are newly arrived from Texas and neither of them knows much French so I'd kind of taken it upon myself to help show them around town. Since Andrea was opening for Joey Elias at the Comedy Nest I suggested we do that since it also met the necessary criteria of being an Anglo activity.

After some not very helpful directions from me, they managed to find their way to the club just as Andrea was getting ready to go on. Her set was good and included some material I hadn't heard before, but for whatever reason the audience wasn't that into it.

Part of Joey Elias' thing is to just talk to people in the front row and riff on what they tell him, and oddly enough the couple he was picking on also happened to be from Texas, which we all thought was extra funny. His set was very long, but there was at least point where I had to wipe away tears and Brandon and his wife seemed rather impressed with their first Montreal comedy experience.

After the show I suggest we go for a drink, but then it came out that they'd never had poutine, so I took them straight to Belle Province to remedy that. We got a family style poutine, but between the three of us we only managed to finish about half of it. Then I looked at the time and realized L was probably freaking out so we opted to call it a night.

When I got home L was lying on his back on the sofa, barely conscious after a 14 hour day. I helped him into bed, despite his incoherent and half-hearted protests and tucked myself into bed.

Saturday: Being that L wanted to hit a public pool at some point in the weekend I insisted in doing a pilates workout at home before going out. While I was in the shower we got a call from Alain & MC who were apparently in our neighborhood at a Spring Tea Seminar and they wanted to know if we wanted to join them for a couple sessions on Sunday. We told them we'd join them for the Intro session and talked them into joining us for brunch at Coco Gallo.

After brunch we followed Alain and MC back up to the Jean-Talon Market and L and I got lost in the Marche des Saveurs du Quebec. We decided to stock up on local beers for when Kat and Doug are in town and I picked up some Caribou pate.

When we got home I realized I was exhausted so I opted to take a nap while L sat outside and called friends back west. When I awoke L let me know that he'd taken the liberty of making evening plans for us. We would be going to an improv show called Argument with a Dolphin that was a part of the Fringe Festival.

The show was very funny and successfully washed the disappointing taste out of my mouth from my last improv experience. The format was similar, a single story interupted periodically for the audience to vote on whether to continue the story. But this time, instead of starting a whole new story, there were merely interruptions, either shorter scenes or other games with provocative titles like "Argument With a Dolphin" or "The Slap". After each interruption we were then given the choice of whether to proceed to another interruption, or go back to the story and with one exception of two interruptions in a row, the evening followed a story, interruption, story, interruption, etc. format.

After the show, Mark, Andrea, MC, L and I decided to walk up to Sergeant Recruteur for a drink and Alain met us on the way. While we paused on Mont-Royal to wait for Alain I ran into my colleague Alexandre and convinced him and his date to join us for beer and pizza.

At the bar I opted to stick to the Frousse, and while I was concerned about my tummy and it's adverse reaction to my shish taouk dinner I was shocked to discover that the beer seemed to settle my tummy. I decided to take advantage of this gastral calm and ordered the Beer Mouse cake. While L admitted to becoming bored with the beers on offer, I have to say that the beer cake would certainly entice me back. Thin cake layers with delicate mouse with a faint beer aroma and a layer of dark beer jelly right in the center. Incredible.

By 11 PM it was down to me, L and Mark so we managed to coerce into coming back to our place to hang out. He and L had another beer and decided to finally check out our creepy basement. Turns out there's lots of room down there for storing beer once we start brewing, although that probably won't be until sometime in the fall.

Sunday: Despite our late night, L and I still managed to get up in time to attend our 11:00 AM intro to Spring Teas seminar. Luckily we got to taste the teas too, otherwise we might not have made it through the entire hour.

After our seminar we met up with L's cousin Annie for breakfast at Coco Gallo, and L started to have second thoughts about our planned afternoon excursion to the public pool at Parc Jean-Drapeau. I pointed out that if he wanted to go to the pool he'd need sandals, so Annie accompanied us to Plaza St-Hubert after breakfast so that we could find L some flip-flops and I managed to find some walking sandals.

However, by the time we'd finished our shopping there were some mighty angry clouds gathering so L chickened out for good and we called Alain and MC to see if we could still register for the afternoon session on Japanese tea since we weren't going swimming after all.

After the second session we stuck around the Market and picked up some boar and pork sausages, corn, and new potatoes for dinner. When we got home I opted to scrap my original plan for the potatoes, butter and chives, and skipped out to get some spicy panchetta, green onions and parsley to make a warm potato salad that L is still raving about. (I'll post the recipe tomorrow).

While I was cooking, at my urging, L called our landlord to inform him that the contractors he'd hired to sandblast our building had not only failed to shield our tiny vegetable garden from clay dust, but they had also repeated dragged their hose through it, effectively killing every last plant in it, effectively break L's heart. Later, L also discovered that they had taken our garbage out of our garbage can and left it instead filled it with murky grey water. L wisely decided to stay out of the house on Monday when the workers were due to return to finish the job as he was afraid of confronting them in a rage.

After dinner we tidied a bit in preparation for Kat and Doug's arrival next week, I called my dad to wish him a happy father's day and we watched as much of the second season of weeds as we could fit in before bedtime.

Weekend Round Up: Improv, Opera and Walking. Lots of Walking.

Friday: Got charmed into going to another All Stars! improv show with Alain and MC at Theatre St-Catherine, which was sadly rather disappointing. The crazy homeless man who kept interjecting/playing with crinkly plastic bags didn't help much, but luckily he left half-way through. It was an intriguing format, but like with most improv it really depends on the players and the night and it just kinda felt like things were a little "off". Also, I was exhausted and nodded off a couple of times. Never a good sign.

Yet, despite my weariness I was determined not to be a complete wimp and so we joined Alain and MC on a walk up St-Laurent to take in some of the F-1 street sale action. Had fun laughing at the Eurotrash and L coveted the twice baked potatoes. Ended up walking all the way home from St-Catherines street, which didn't quite take as long as you'd think, and passed out almost immediately.

Saturday: We were supposed to go L's friends cottage just outside of Ottawa so L could get some practice driving, but I was having a very bad day so we opted to stay home. Called Alain and MC to see what they were up to and after a quick breakfast at a cute little cafe in Mile End we walked down to Mont-Royal to meet them. Turns out Mont-Royal was also closed for street-sale action so I loaded up on cheap cotton undies, half-priced organic cosmetics, not to mention free yogurt (yum!).

After a couple of hours of that we went back to Alain and MC's place to have a sit and Alain whipped up some coffee smoothies for everybody, although I had to abstain for the good of my digestive system. While sitting on the patio L thought better of his baked potato for dinner plan and we opted to go to the awesome Mexican place Alain had mentioned the night before. I got a veggie burrito and horchata, which was a little grainier than I was used to, but still super yummy.

Post dinner we continued down St-Laurent towards St-Catherines so that we could take in a little Crescent St action before hitting Place-des-Arts for Madame Butterfly Under the Stars. However, once we got downtown we realized we didn't have as much time as we'd thought so we decided to just grab a beer at Benelux before the opera. I grabbed an apricot cream ale, while L was seduced by the gold medal winning rye beer.

Being that the boys were a)slow drinkers, b)trying to find reasons to procrastinate, MC and I headed off to PDA alone. It wasn't 'till we got there and saw the sea of lawn chairs that we realized how ill prepared we were. We had a mere 5 minutes to find a spot on the concrete by the far right side of the stage to park our bums. Luckily I had a sweater to sit on for a bit of tail bone cushioning, other were not as lucky.

Despite a restless first act, L did manage to get into it. I was impressed by the fact that they'd managed to find a Japanese soprano to play Cio-Cio San, not just the usual white chick with too much eye make-up. When it was all over I asked L what he thought of his first opera, and his response was, "they were all such jerks, except Mme. Butterfly," which, in my opinion sums things up quite nicely.

After the opera we wandered up towards Crescent, but things were starting to wind down and I was getting super tired so we walked to the Metro and called it a night.

Sunday: L had tried to find us a pool, being that it was yet again, crazy hot; but sadly was unsuccessful. We almost ended up at Parc Jean-Drapeau, but at the last minute I convinced him that we should to to the Tam-Tam. He called our friends Andrea and Mark and they agreed to meet us there. We opted to walk the 20 mins to Mont-Royal park through Mile End so we could grab some fancy groceries for a picnic, a concept L seemed to be having quite a bit of difficulty grasping as it had obviously been a while since he had just hung out in a park.

After our mini-feast of sparking blueberry lemonade, whole wheat baguette, guyere chese, summer sausage and hummus I took L on a tour of the sites. In addition to the drumming hippies and the guys (and girls this time) beating each other with swords there were circus arts and capoera and a girl swinging from a giant sheet tied to a tree. L. was also shocked at the number of people drinking in public, but as usual everyone was so chill about it it wasn't a big deal.

On our way home we got caught in a sudden deluge, and while it was still very warm I cannot say I was all that comfortable being that soggy. Luckily it let up enough for us to grab some Portuguese chicken in Mile End which we happily scarfed while watching yet another installment of Buffy. Since L had to be on set quite early the next day we called it an early night, but not before switching our duvet for our summer quilt.

Weekend Round Up: Birthday, Beerfest and Bad Movies

We were a man down at work this week and it was super busy, so I'm afraid I'm only posting this just as I am about to begin collecting adventures for my next installment... sigh.

Friday: It was my co-worker Gaëlle's B-day on Tuesday so she was hosting a little BBQ party at her place. Luckily she lives quite nearby so L and I were able to walk there, although we did get caught in the rain during the walk back at 1:30 AM. The party itself was quite lively, most of my coworkers showed and we even managed to make some new friends. We were planning on leaving much sooner than we did, but the appearance of SingStar 90's meant that I lost L for close to an hour. Needless to say, he was a hit.

Saturday: Didn't get up nearly as early as we would have liked due to the previous night's hijinks, but still managed to get down to Mile End for breakky before noon. Because they were also running behind we even had a little time to kill before meeting up with Alain & MC to go to the Puces Pop Printemps craft fair, so I decided we needed to get some bagels at St-Viateur Bagel and man am I glad we did. SO DELICIOUS! SO CRISPY... SO CHEWY... SO... drool...

At the craft fair I coveted many things and spent $15 on handmade soap. Rosemary and coffee?! Yum! MC got a super cool silver anatomical heart pendant and some hand cream. Alain and L managed not to whine too much.

Afterwards we rewarded the men for their patience and headed down to the Mondial de la bière (International Beer Festival). Being that they had an extra tasting mug, we stopped by Alain and MC's on our way down to pick them up and had an impromptu Apple Trailers party while drinking delicious roasted Japanese green tea. Then Alain introduced L to GTA and I thanked my lucky stars that we don't have a gaming system that would support such a game (for the record we have a Sega Genesis and an N64), otherwise I would probably also be a gaming widow.

While the threat of rain did seem to keep some people away, the beer fest was quite busy as it generally is on the Saturday.

As MC pointed out, the fest has a genius profit scheme: entrance is free, but tickets are $1 a piece. Each tasting is anywhere from 2 - 8 tickets (usually in the 3 - 5 range) and is equal to about half a pint. So you go in thinking you'll stay on a budget and only get $20 worth of tickets, but by the time you've ingested 20 tickets worth of beer you decided you need "lots more ticketsh!" and end up leaving with a pocketful to scrounge a poutine somewhere.

I started off with a trio of stouts, including one with hints of raspberry, then moved on to a lighter, super refreshing ginger beer. In addition to beer I also had delicious Belgian fries, wild deer sausage on a stick and I had a wild boar & field mushroom hot dog on ciabatta bun with homemade sauerkraut.

While in the men's room, L learned of a tent providing 16% golden ale for a mere 3 tickets so we all decided to make that our last stop (like there would have been a choice after 16% beers), since I'd already made reservations for us at the Comedy Nest to watch my friend Christophe headline his first stand-up gig.

By the time we showed up at the comedy club, we were admitted a little on the rowdy side so we were prompted seated right in the first row. I, in particular, heckled and was heckled by the host (all in a supportive, non show ruining way) and MC was the subject of Christophe's serenading, not once, but twice. All in all the show was quite successful, although I'm sure the fact that we were, in a word, loaded, that much funnier.

After some minor Metro mischief I managed to steer L home and we both passed right out.

Sunday: Being that we were in bed by 11:30 PM, neither L nor I were particularly hung-over, but that didn't stop us from being totally lazy house-bums. We watched some more Buffy the Vampire Slayer (finally on to Season 2!) and L decided to finish watching Dead Silence while I did sudoku and snarked at the badness of the movie. Make that deep and painful badness. I cannot express how bad this movie is. Do not bother, even out of curiosity. It is a train wreck and dumber than a tree stump. A retarded tree stump.

After dinner we popped on Valentine, and I'm still not sure why L rented it. I guess he was on a David Boreanaz kick. Also bad, but in a fun, sarcastic late 90's way. But mostly it is bad. And also REALLY stupid.