Aspire to everything Inspired

Getting ready for winter

Are you ready for winter, friends?

Those chill breezes... the falling leaves... the six inches of snow...   all are good indications that winter is well and truly here.

I'm stocking up on hot chocolate, to make sure we don't have a sudden supply shortage mid-snow storm or anything.  I mean, really, how APPALLING would that be!?  So...

• Four canisters of Godiva Dark Chocolate, ordered from Godiva.com? 
• Two large canisters of the new Starbuck's Cocoa Powder picked up at Costco? 
• Three enormous canisters of Stevens' Dark Chocolate (ditto Costco)? 

Check, Check, and Check!!

It might be enough to see me through the winter, or at least January.  But I don't know what we'll do if you drop by.  Maybe I should pick up some more?

The Dutch word for mustard is "Mosterd", in case you were wondering

Here's proof that that I work with some truly amazing people:

Several weeks ago, I was introduced to a new colleague who was visiting from The Netherlands.  We had a brief, but cheerful chat about working together in the future, how she was enjoying her visit to the USA, and my last visit to her beautiful country.  Five minutes, maybe seven - tops.  I happened to mention that I needed to visit The Netherlands again soon, as my favorite Dutch mustard was almost gone. I know -- of all the reasons to visit a country... because I need more mustard?  LOL!  We had a good laugh at that.

Well.

Flash forward to October...  she's back in the U.S. for a customer visit and guess what I discover on my desk one morning?  A beautiful jar of her favorite Dutch mustard!

Now that is one thoughtful colleague, don't you agree?  I work with some truly awesome people.

And obviously, she's much smarter about transporting mustard than I am too!

La Moutarde Verte

Green Mustard

GREEN mustard?!

Yes.  Yes, indeed.  I found this beauty at a specialty food shop in Toronto.  The bright green color comes from the three herbs mixed in -- including basil.  Doesn't that sound intuhresting?

That's what I thought too.

Sadly, I didn't pack very wisely.  The 10 tiny bottles of maple syrup were carefully wrapped, double-bagged, and tucked between clothes in my checked bag.  The mustard?  I rolled this one up in tissue and stuck it in my carry-on bag. 

My carry-on bag?

Yep.

It didn't make it through Security.  Rats.  So maybe next time one of us picks out a fancy green mustard in a specialty food shop, we can sample it and discuss how it actually tastes...  {sigh}

The view from over here, No. 13

 
So here's something that's occasionally nice about business travel...  Room Service for breakfast!

The bacon was crispy, just as I ordered, and the buttermilk pancakes were HUGE.  and delish!  I love that my order of hot chocolate came with a small pitcher of hot milk too.  What a thoughtful gesture!

I'll admit that the Room Service pancakes were an unusual splurge... usually its fruit, yoghurt, and granola (yum!).  Sometimes though, a girl just needs pancakes, y'know?  What's one of your favorite meals when you travel? 

If you pass around a sign-up sheet to bring cupcakes...

I'll sign it.

And I'll make a beautiful platter of fresh, gorgeous (and certainly delicious!) cupcakes. 

I'll start two hours before the event.  And will only be 30 minutes late.

Delicious smells.  Pretty paper liners.  Luscious swirls of sweet creamy frosting.  Sparkling coloured sprinkles.

"Ooooooo.... "

 
YUM.  Next time though, I'm going to put cherries on top too.

Blog to watch: Word of Wisdom Living

Have you heard about this great new personal blog?  Written by a grandfather with plenty of life experience, an avid curiousity to learn, and sage advice to share...

 

A whole year of good eating advice, healthy recipes, weekly challenges, and a seriously good dose of common sense.  Sounds pretty smart to me! 

Check it out here...

The Healthy Recipe #1:  Breakfast Compote (pictured above) had me at "hello".  

 

[Saw it first at Black Eiffel.  All images from the Word of Wisdom living blog.  Looks sort of Martha Stewart-esque, don't you think?  I'm guessing that's due to his daughter Brooke, a former Art Director at MSLiving.  For good eats and good sense, you should definitely check it out!]

Chocolate Pots de Creme

Today, I'm sitting at my new desk, daydreaming of one of my favorite recipes from one of my favorite cookbooks...

The recipe was actually far easier to make than I thought it would be...  (don't you just love it when that happens?)

Though it made a lovely photograph, I actually realized that I didn't need to chop the chocolate so fine.  It took a lot of time to chop that much chocolate... and it was just going to be melted anyway!  A rough chop (for chunk or wafer-size) would have gone faster and been just as good.  It also would be interesting to use a couple of different chocolates, don't you think?  A mix of semi-sweet, Belgian dark, maybe a dab of milk chocolate... 

The next steps in the recipe involved the stove-top, sugar, lots of whisking, and then baking.  And not much photography - because we just can't risk messing up cooked chocolate, y'know!

And the end result of all this chocolatey goodness?

Topped with fresh whipped cream... with a few fresh berries on the side... Mmmmm...

Pardon me while I wipe the drool off my desk... {sigh}

The Magic Ingredient

So the story starts out something like this... A family Easter brunch was planned and food assignments were made.  Someone was planning on store-bought potato salad.  Now I don't know about you, but I'm not a fan of mass-produced potato salad.  Sometimes there's so much creamy fluff to it that you can't help but wonder if they ran short of potatoes.  So.  I emailed back and volunteered to make potato salad.  The email correspondence that ensued shall hereafter be referred to as The Great Potato Salad Discussion of '10.  And let's not refer to it again, please, because by Friday afternoon I'd really had enough discussion about potato salad already.  Hmph.  Who'd have thought there was so much to say!?

To bring our story to a happy conclusion though... homemade potato salad was approved (with caveats, of course, e.g., enough leftovers for someone, and not to be made with red potatoes for that person, and no eggs, and...).  Right.  Homemade Potato Salad.

What everyone didn't know... is that I had long since moved on and was plotting to make both Potato Salad and Coleslaw.  Hah!  We're pulling out all the stops for our brunch here!

Except that I've never made coleslaw before.  So to avoid erroneous ad-libs with julienned carrots and golden raisins, I pulled out that seminal tome of fresh cooking, The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters.  Coleslaw recipe, page 244.  Hmmm... right next to a Potato Salad recipe that I've never read, page 245. 

Coleslaw looks pretty easy, right?  Well, the good news is that it was!  I even had almost all the ingredients on hand.  Except for the cider or wine vinegar.  And curiously enough, Alice used it in her potato salad recipe too.  Hmmm...  really?  Really.

(!)

I decided to be adventurous.  I would try Alice's potato salad recipe with the cider vinegar instead of using my usual mustard-based method.  And guess what?

That little bit of cider vinegar added to the cooked potatoes was magical.  It gave the salad a wonderful, subtle flavor that was simply delicious.  Alice, once again, I am amazed, simply, amazed! 

I'll definitely be using that tip again.  So now you know too.  The magic ingredient in potato salad?  Cider vinegar.  Who knew?!

And P.S. to Alice:  thanks for not including julienned carrots or golden raisins in the coleslaw either.  That bit of apple though?  It was perfect!  {whew!}

In which Dinner is decided

Me:  "Self, what do you think of homemade chocolate chip cookies for dinner?"

Self:  "Great idea!  Sounds delicious.  Let's do it!"

Me:  "Mmmmm...."

Ideas for Sweet Treats

I just love the look of these sweet Valentine treats by Williams-Sonoma.  It's almost enough to make me track down large alphabet cookie cutters in order to make my own X and O s'mores.  {sigh}  Almost.

[X and O S'mores and Message Heart Cookies by Williams-Sonoma.]