Taking a break from my Japan trip blogging so I can write down all my thoughts from my recent visit to The Pine in Creemore, Ontario – a one Michelin star restaurant serving contemporary Chinese cuisine using local ingredients. They broke the top 20 on a list of Canada's top 100 restaurants this year, too.

But I mostly wanted to visit because a) is close-ish to the farm, and b) a local food reviewer(?) (he's a guy who posts reviews of all the restaurants he visits and his palate is either super aligned to mine, or I've just been following his recs for so long that I tuned my palate to match his) posted a rave review of the place. And I guess I'm also a huge fan of local ingredients in Chinese cuisine!

I managed to get a reservation for August 1st, which means we went for our one year wedding(?) anniversary (is it a wedding anniversary if we didn't have a wedding and only got married?) and/or our 16th “being together” anniversary. It's always nice to have a reason to go to a nice restaurant!

Other people on the internet can probably give a better description of the place than me, so I will leave it to others to do so. I'm simply going to start with the experience I had, beginning with entering the building.

We were the last group of our seating time to arrive, which was also the last seating of the day. We were put at a round table that probably could have fit 4 people but was set for our group of 2, facing the open kitchen prep area. One of the servers commented that I had a really nice camera with me, and even brought a stool over for me to put it on while not in use! There were hooks for purses, but she brought the stool since it'd be better to not have the camera bang around on a wall (for both the camera and the wall, lol).

We were offered still or sparkling water, and as a complete sucker for fizzy water nowadays, I opted for sparkling. I asked if taking photos was okay, and this server said it'd be totally fine and even checked that I was already brought a stool, which made me feel better about it. It only had about 6-7 other groups of 2-3, so I felt pretty self-conscious with a whole-ass camera with me (it's a me thing, nothing about them – I feel awkward taking photos even in busy restaurants. I'm not cut out to be an influencer, lol).

They started the evening off with a complimentary glass of local sparkling wine, and I had one from Westcott Vineyards. They also offered a non-alcoholic sparkling, which Keelan had.

(I'll be honest, I have no recollection of what this was except it was the non-alcoholic sparkling).

When we were chatting with one of the servers later in the evening, we found out that 90% of their clientele drives up from Toronto and then drives back the same night, so that would probably be why they offered non-alcoholic versions. In fact, they even offer non-alcoholic pairings, which Keelan also had. I had the local Ontario wine pairings, since I like Ontario wines just fine, and I didn't think international wines were worth the extra $50. If I were the kind of person who didn't like Ontario wines, maybe it'd be a better prospect.

Once they took our beverage order, they started serving the food. We were told that it would be 20(!) courses long and it sure was. I do not remember everything that they told us about the courses, and wish I took notes or something, because I also want to steal their ideas for my own cooking! (I am not anywhere close to executing on their level though lol).

The first was the “Beijing Rosette” and the only thing I remember about it is the duck confit puree, which was excellent. The green rosette was very crispy and I'm pretty sure it was made with some sort of green that's in season, but I would not be able to tell you which one. When serving this, as well as all the other dishes that didn't require utensils, they told us how many bites was recommended, and this was 2-3. I maybe did 4-5 bites because of how crisp it was – it shattered so much that I wanted smaller bites to keep it all in my mouth.

Next was one of their signature dishes – the tea egg. This was devilled egg style with a mustard and egg yolk filling. The white was flavoured with tsaoko (black cardamom), and the whole thing was topped with sturgeon caviar from the Atlantic. I loved this one and it's probably the most elegant tea egg I've ever eaten.

This was followed by the “No Boil Boiled Fish” which played on the Chinese dish that I love eating, “water boiled fish”. Also honestly could not tell you what this dish consisted of except the fish, which was a trout tartare. The flavours riffed on the traditional dish without being as spicy.

Then our wine/beverage pairings started coming out. The sommelier(?) (or otherwise the beverage pourer) told us that it'd be ~3 courses per pairing on average. I lamented the fact that I clearly wasn't drinking quickly enough, but they said that it's fine to go at whatever pace and that lots of people only have sips anyway.

My wines are mostly self-explanatory since I made a point of taking photos of the bottles and labels (and it was super nice that they placed a bottle on the table with the pairing!) but I'm not a huge fan of chardonnays. This one was actually quite nice and drinkable though – it's wild fermented so it had a lot of umami to cut the typical chardonnay qualities that I don't like!

For the non-alcoholic option, Keelan had a sumac-ade. He said it was oddly salty but he wasn't sure if it was because that's how sumac is or because of how they made it. Now that I'm writing this up, I wonder if the salt was an addition to add a savoury note to match the wine?

The next course was a rock crab rangoon. I believe the flowers here are phlox. I really loved the presentation on this one. I was also the weird one asking the server who cleared the dish, “do you know what kind of rock this is?” and when he was like “uh, no,” I followed up with, “is it local?”

It is, in fact, local, so Keelan and I suspect it it granite. Our server did tell us that the chef searched around the area for nice stable rocks for the wordplay/presentation! The other local rock could be limestone but it didn't look or feel like limestone would. Plus limestone would be an odd choice for food, since it dissolves in acids...

“Wuxi Lamb Ribs” was next, and I really liked this. The lamb was perfectly cooked – it's actually so hard to cook lamb well (or maybe I just have bad luck with finding it?), so I was really impressed. There were multiple sauces involved, but I don't remember any of it. I think one was some kind of molasses (but not actually molasses). However, I do remember that the flowers on top are Bachelor's Buttons.

These cute little rolls on crabs (which I said to the server, “I think I've seen these as fountain pen holders” because I'm a complete weirdo) are a little take on jianbing, hence the name “Good Morning Shanghai.” The chef apparently ate tons of these when he was in Shanghai. These were crispy, unlike the soft crepe that a traditional jianbing is, and it actually reminded me more of the crispy little roll cookies you can get at egg waffle places (the direct translation would be “egg roll” but that does not lead to the right places when searching the internet).

Anyway, these were filled with lobster and crab puree, hence the cute holders. I could eat a million of these – if someone were to mass-produce these as a snack, I would be there.

I don't have real recollection about this wine, so I suppose it was just a typical gamay. I can't remember if I've ever been to Malivoire but I've certainly had lots of their wines before.

Keelan started to get some de-alcoholized wines as his pairings. This one was apparently steam distilled.

This cute dish was called “Oyster and the Oyster Thief”. The little oyster shell was made with the oyster thief seaweed (which the internet actually tells me is an invasive species in Canada – I'm a fan of eating invasives as a control method). There is an oyster blade beef tartare. I think the puree on top was made with oyster mushrooms but don't quote me on that. It was a lovely oyster dish with no real oysters. Beef tartare is obviously more chewing than I would like for a real oyster but I really liked this one.

As a nod to Shanghai's French colonial past, and one of the restaurant's signature dishes, we have “The French Concession”. It's the only French dish on the menu, with a piece of sourdough toast topped with foie gras ice cream. I don't remember what berry puree is on top.

Another dish with playful plating and a play on words, “Hold Your Tongue”. It was a beef tongue croquette. I think the green puree was yet another in-season vegetable, but absolutely no recollection of what it was.

What I do remember, however, is our server clearing away the empty plate and saying, “let me give you a hand with that,” which was fantastic.

The next wine was a rose from Pearl Morissette, which recently ranked as top restaurant in Canada. They also have one Michelin star. I've never been to Pearl Morissette but would like to go! I don't have strong memories of this wine either, so it must've been fine or an otherwise typical expression.

The non-alcoholic option went back to a little rhubarb-y drink for Keelan. He said the straw was super weird – the bottom was actually a bulb with a bunch of holes in it, making it hard to drink when you got to the bottom.

The next dish was a cute take on “Prosperity Salad,” which is a Singaporean tradition for Chinese New Year. There was from the bottom going counter-clockwise, trout roe, watermelon radish, beets, idk, chrysanthemum greens, idk, maybe pickled cucumbers?, and flowering cauliflower. In the centre under the flowers was more trout.

We were provided a set of cutlery to do the mixing, and another to actually eat with, which was fun. But my favourite part was actually this:

Love this fish cutlery rest.

The next dish had different cutlery, and also different cutlery rests.

Mushrooms! We even got to choose. I picked the morel and Keelan picked the chanterelle. The server who had the box open for us to pick from was like, “you guys really know your mushrooms,” since both Keelan and I had said out loud which mushroom we wanted before grabbing it. I don't recall what other mushrooms were available to pick, but they were all pretty distinctive edible mushrooms, so I'm more surprised that most other guests wouldn't know the mushrooms. But I guess I'm also the weird one who asks about rocks, so...

Anyway, onto the next wine pairing. I think this might be the first orange wine I've had? I've seen orange wines a lot more on wine lists and especially in the natural wine space recently. This one apparently is notable for the length of skin contact – apparently typical orange wines only have like 5 days of skin contact whereas this one is over 200.

I recall telling Keelan that this wine was surprisingly tannic, not in flavour necessarily but in the way it stripped the tongue. But tannins come from the grape skins, so it's not actually that surprising.

I'm not sure how you would describe this but maybe as a wine replacement? Mock wine? Especially since it's using verjus.

The next three dishes were the dim sum course! This was the carrot jiaozi, so a carrot skin and carrot puree inside and a carrot sauce outside.

The red dumpling was called “Red Oil Handcopy” which we were told was a direct translation of the Chinese dish it's riffing on. I suspect it's 紅油抄手 which is wontons in chili oil.

The last one is a mushroom dumpling, hence the mushroom cutlery rest. It was filled with mushrooms and had a mushroom foam, reminiscent of cream of mushroom soup but less heavy.

Keelan said this course was his favourite.

After this course, we actually were asked to get up and come up to the kitchen where we had a little palate cleanser. The menu cards tell me it was called “Refresher”. It was a little white currant popsicle and was refreshing.

The next dish took place outside in their back garden, which was really cute! But that is why the photo is so garbage. The dish was a Digby scallop with a black garlic tamari, which was fermented in-house for 6 months. It was smoked in the shell, and the smoking setup was actually in the garden I believe. Except it was dark so I couldn't really see it or get a photo of anything it or anything else. The garden also had raised beds with some nasturtiums and herbs though!

But I really liked this! The scallop was very tender and the flavours worked really well. I also thought this was a nice interlude. It forced us to get up and stretch our legs for just a little bit, and enjoy the outdoors since we've had some nice summer weather too. The server chatted with each of the three groups for a little bit before we were ushered back inside (this is when we learned about most people coming from Toronto).

The next wine was a Riesling from Cave Springs, and I love Cave Springs Rieslings, so I was excited when I saw the bottle. It was a 2015, so a 10 year old wine. Our beverage server said they wanted to highlight the age-ability of Ontario wines. Personally I just drink things as we get them in the mail, since we're part of two wine clubs... but I did like this one. It was richer than the Rieslings I usually associate with Niagara (or maybe it's just the ones I gravitate to and thus buy), which are bright with lots of acidity and minerality. This felt heavier on the tongue and lingered.

The non-alcoholic beverage was another de-alcoholized wine, this time a pinot noir.

This next dish was called “La Zi” on the menu cards but I'm really not sure how it ties into the dish I'd associate with that name, la zi ji which is spicy chicken (both the translation and what it is). This wasn't really spicy at all! It was beautifully cooked trout though, with a braised pattypan squash. There were multiple sauces in the middle, one of which was apparently pawpaw based.

Now that we're in the “mains” territory, I guess we have one wine per course. This obviously has a really cool bottle. I've been to Stratus, and they do some really great wine. This was a Cabernet Franc that I honestly couldn't tell you anything about. But I like cab francs and I like Stratus, and so I probably was predisposed to liking this wine already. I'm assuming it was a typical expression of a cab franc.

Keelan had another de-alcoholized wine.

The red wines were there to stand up to the char siu here. This was a veal char siu, made with rose wine I believe? The nasturtiums garnish was from their back garden, and they encouraged us to eat it. The mustard circle is where they painstakingly spooned the sauce in, one spoonful at a time, from a copper measuring cup.

After they finished that, Keelan asked our server, “do you ever just wanna... [pouring motion]?” which she laughed at. She said yes, and that they went through multiple spoon iterations and this one that they landed on is the most aesthetic, but has the least capacity! I certainly admire their commitment to the experience.

Anyway, this was probably my least favourite of the whole meal, which is unfortunate because I think they intend it to be their star course. The round portion at the right was oddly mushy for me. The square portion was a better texture but I was already put off from the round bit that I don't think I enjoyed it as much. The flavour was great but I couldn't get past the mushiness.

Now we were into the dessert courses, and with that, a sparkling rose. I don't recall anything about this wine either, but I do remember thinking this was a decent wine for something out of Prince Edward County (we visited some years ago and were not impressed with the wines there). The orange wine is also from PEC so I guess they've improved over the years!

Keelan also got a bubbly option – this was his final pairing.

The first dessert was a riff on douhua (or I know it more as toufu fa), and they called it “Tofu Flower” in another direct translation. We had a tofu jelly(?) on the left with a soy milk sorbet on the right. They were both dotted with haskap puree and with a rhubarb ginger syrup to round it out.

I am not actually a fan of tofu in the slightest, but I actually liked this. The tofu pudding(?) or whatever you'd call it had a panna cotta texture to it. It definitely wasn't a typical douhua, which is just freshly made soft tofu. The soy milk sorbet tasted super fresh, and I think that helped me get over the soy-ness, which is what I don't like about tofu and soy milk. If I recall correctly, they made these all with local soybeans.

My final wine pairing was a late harvest Riesling. As mentioned before, I love Cave Springs Rieslings, so I liked this. I also definitely prefer late harvests to ice wine, because ice wine is just way too sweet and syrupy for me.

Their “HKFT 6.0” – the 6th iteration of their Hong Kong French toast – was very very good. A deep fried milk bread coated in egg, as all HK French toasts should be, served with caramelized condensed milk and shaved salted egg yolk. They also poured over a smoked milk, which they suggested we drink like cereal milk after eating the French toast.

My one comment on this is that I expected a filling, potentially a salted duck egg custard, like most HK French toasts, but there was none! I get that it'd probably be too rich and also it'd be hard to get the balance right in something of this size, but it stuck out to me.

Finally, into the last desserts of the night, or the “Tianshi” course. This was a sable with a sweet pea ice cream.

Some “timbits”! We joked with the server that it's “local” cuisine where you drive down to the nearest Tim Horton's and pick up a 6 pack. These were actually a corn fritter coated in five spice sugar. Their five spice is very cardamom forward.

Finally, more rocks! Well, actually tuiles. I do not recall what made these tuiles special. I enjoyed eating it. But I think I enjoyed the timbits more.

Anyway, that rounds out the many courses we had at The Pine! In terms of final comments, I think it was a lovely experience but I wasn't prepared for it to be 3 hours long. That's on me more than anything.

The service was outstanding, and everyone was very knowledgeable and friendly. It wasn't a snobby affair, either – the vibe was casual while still being professional. But they let their personality as a restaurant shine, and I really liked that. And I think it was just well suited to me as a person.

People always talk about “authenticity”, and I think The Pine has it. They're out here making good food (stellar food) and having a good time doing it, and it doesn't feel like a place that's chasing stars or “best of” lists. They can get the star and onto the lists because they're good at what they do.

At least that's the impression I got.

I will say that the miss with the char siu felt extra disappointing, mostly because it should have been a star of the meal. I think it also is slightly because of the price point at over $200 per person just for the food, especially comparing to the one Michelin star restaurant we went to in Nara on our trip (which I still need to write about). I think they were vastly different types of experiences but there were no misses there, and it was less pricy (even accounting for the depressed yen at the moment).

Some more pictures available in my album here but honestly not much that wasn't included in this post.

Meant to post this before I went camping but didn't, whoops! So here it is, almost a month later. Which is actually pretty good, considering I'm at like 8 months past my Japan trip without having blogged about 90% of it...

#food #photos #restaurant

So this past week has been exciting in the sense that I got sick right after Keelan recovered, then when I was kind of recovered, he got food poisoning from some take out, and now we're both in the recovering phase.

To be honest, highly do not recommend.

But I felt well enough to cook two soups this week, as we have some ridiculously warm (for March) days. The header is a winter melon soup, which I made with a winter melon that I grew at the farm! It had pork meat balls, carrots, and vermicelli in it, along with ginger and garlic.

This other soup is houtou, a specially of Yamanashi in Japan. I'd seen it first in YuruCamp, but since I'm planning my trip to Japan and will be going through Yamanashi, I've been seeing it a bit more frequently.

Houtou is a miso soup with wide flat noodles called houtou, and it's similar to udon – but wider and thinner. The noodles actually were quite easy to make by hand since I didn't need too many of them.

Typically houtou is a vegetable only meal, but it's pretty hearty. I used kabocha (also from the farm harvest last year) since it seemed all houtou recipes featured them, and a miso that I fermented myself. There's also carrots, napa cabbage, and enoki mushrooms.

Speaking of my miso though, I am almost out so maybe it is time to start up a new batch. I love the rich flavour of old miso, since my current one is over 2 years old now, but new miso is good too.

#food

Once again, we went up to the farm for Family Day weekend! We were able to drive up to the house, but there was snow on the ground. It was also cold enough that we did not turn on the water. While we were there, we got more snow! Our neighbour actually came over and pre-emptively plowed a path for us to get back out, which was really nice of him.

Actually it's really interesting looking at my post from last year and all the photos – especially the river. While the river's not frozen solid, or even close to it, for many years, we definitely had more ice this year than last!

But I think it overall was a really nice weekend. We went on two long walks through the bush, where snowshoes were definitely required. It was also cold enough that my silly dog, who usually prefers staying out all day, would ask to come back in. Usually she only does that when we're eating dinner haha.

Speaking of dinner, on Sunday night, I cooked up some A5 Miyazaki wagyu – the Japanese butcher near me had a Family Day special so I thought it'd be a nice time to splurge!

We picked up 4 200g tenderloins. I did a reverse sear in the toaster oven and cast iron pan. Originally I was thinking I could grill them up, but it was too dark and cold for me to want to go back outside to prepare dinner lol.

I got them beautifully rare on the inside! I think I might actually prefer wagyu to be closer to medium but they were still really good. We had one spare tenderloin that we took home. I thinly sliced it up and put it onto a bowl of rice, and it was amazing. If I were to do it again, I'd probably make a black pepper sauce for it, but we just wanted a quick dinner.

Anyway, as usual, more photos are available in the gallery! I am trying to do some more artsy shots... or at least non-dog and non-food photos. Not sure if I'm any good at it, but I'm having fun, so that's all that matters!

#photos #farm #food

This post is overdue by many many months, but a lot of things happened that made me delay writing about... mainly in that I wanted to blog about the convention that my friends and I went to, but then none of us really enjoyed the con so it kind of deflated any enthusiasm I had.

But one good thing we did was go out for an omakase dinner at one of the oldest Japanese restaurants in Toronto – Ginko Japanese Restaurant! It was all of our first omakase experience and it was really wonderful.

We booked the tatami room and I had asked if we were allowed to come in cosplay – since we were at a con – and they said it'd be fine! But they're used to Anime North so I imagine they get a lot of cosplayers.

Our omakase menu was already printed and waiting for us after we removed our shoes and entered the tatami room. It was a really nice touch! Our server asked if we wanted any drinks and we picked this sparkling sake. She was like, “this is a great sake for a group of young girls,” which was a nice compliment lol. Sorry, but we're just old(ish) nerds. The main image above is a glass of our sake, and the one below is the bottle, though!

Anyway, we started with hassun 八寸 – a collection of food served in small dishes. It's like an individual appetizer platter.

Front L-R:

• rapini kimisu
• hotate nuta ae
• corn tempura
• buta kakuni

Back L-R:

• hamachi shiokoji yaki
• nasu dengaku foie gras
• mini chawanmushi

One of my friends is picky so she pre-ordered her meal from the regular menu and her appetizer, gyoza, also came at the same time.

The buta kakuni is a braised pork belly.

The nasu dengaku! This time with the cover off, haha. This is a classic Japanese eggplant dish. It's grilled with miso, with a little sliver of foie gras on top. I loved the execution of this – nasu dengaku is something I make at home a lot when eggplants are in season with my own miso, but it's definitely not this elegant.

I don't have close-up shots of the other dishes (or if I do, I didn't like them enough, lol), so here are some brief notes on the other items:

The mini chawanmushi is a steamed egg dish. This version had some uni on top, and inside were a few mushrooms (if I'm remembering correctly). I always love small steamed egg dishes, but I know not everyone does. It's very Asian, and I don't seem to see it in western cuisine, so I think that's probably why?

Hamachi shiokoji yaki was a grilled yellowtail marinated in shiokoji. Actually, shiokoji is pretty trendy in the food scene right now, but this was the first time I'd actually had something marinated in shiokoji. My recollection of this was that it was pretty good but definitely not the standout item for hassun.

That actually goes to the corn tempura! I loved the sweet (and in-season) corn kernels embedded in the light batter. And it was wonderfully non-oily. I actually want to make this myself this year, when my corn is ready to harvest.

The hotate nuta ae was a scallop with miso, and I always like scallops. This was super dainty and elegant, and one scallop was just the right amount.

Finally we have rapini with kimisu, which is an egg yolk and vinegar dressing. Kimisu is actually pretty similar to mayo or hollandaise, but I loved the rich yellow colour. I was actually thinking of making this at home as well, but I'm not sure what I'd serve it with...

Anyway, moving on, the next course was wanmono 椀物, or the soup course. We had an asari miso soup, which was really nice! It was surprisingly rich. I rarely cook clams because the boyfriend doesn't like them, but I do love them in a soup like this.

My friend on the alternate menu had a salad here. She said it was tasty!

For yakimono 焼物, we had lamb yuzumiso yaki. The grilled lamb chops topped with yuzumiso was so good!! I loved this so much that I immediately looked up recipes for yuzumiso haha. My friends also thought it was amazing. I would love to recreate this dish at home but rarely cook lamb. But I have it on the list haha.

We also had a sushi course – shokuji 食事 (which actually is just “meal” and not sushi-specific haha). I'll be honest, I don't remember exactly what everything is, but I'll give it my best guess.

L-R:

• ootoro (fatty tuna)
• hirame?
• salmon with ikura
• tai?
• soft shell crab sushi?

Our server afterwards asked us what our favourite was, and universally we liked the hirame(?) best. I wish I remembered the exact fish because it was so good! Our server was surprised because apparently most people say they like the ootoro best because it's so fatty haha. But I think we all liked the hirame because it was so refreshing and the texture was really different.

While we were eating our lamb and sushi, my friend had the pork katsu and she said it was amazing – crispy and not oily!

Finally we wound down the meal with dessert – amami 甘味. My non-omakase friend got the sakuramochi. Our server said you can eat the oak leaf if you want or not, and it's just up to your preference. I think my friend ate it haha.

For the omakase dessert, we had a glass of fruit kanten with a scoop of ice cream. I got matcha ice cream! The kanten in the light syrup and fresh berries was a really refreshing dessert for summer.

There was also the option of black sesame ice cream.

So while the con was a bit of a bust, we managed to have an amazing time at a fancy restaurant. We made the best of it!

#food #photos #restaurant

Back at the end of October 2023, I had the opportunity to take a 3 day workshop held by my local cooking studio with noted wagashi master, Eijun Mitsubori.

It was a really amazing experience, and I originally wasn't going to do it! I had talked myself out of it when the class was first announced since the price point was a little high. But at the last minute, the studio owner offered me a discount since I'm a regular student at his other classes, and I scrambled to make it happen. I'm just a total sucker for a discount.

But I will say that it was absolutely worth it – I got a great deal but I would've happily paid full price! I'm only now getting to writing the blog post and editing the photos, but I wish I had the time/brainspace earlier since I'm sure I've forgotten a lot.

The wagashi we made over the 3 days is something called kougeigashi or imitation wagashi. That's because it looks like something else. Our class made wagashi that looks like osechi ryori – a traditional new years “bento” or food set. So maybe I'm actually only slightly late for this blog post? Haha.

There were only 3 of us in the course, so it was a very intimate setting. And it was actually really interesting language-wise for me – sensei's interpreter only knew Mandarin and Japanese! The studio owner then re-interpreted it into English (or sometimes Cantonese). One of the other students knew Mandarin and some English, and the other one knew Cantonese, English, and some Mandarin. Then there's me who knows English, some Cantonese, and some Japanese, haha. I actually had a lot of fun seeing how the Japanese got transformed through so much interpretation!

Plus, I got to do some Japanese practice! I understood probably 60-70% of what he said during the course, since luckily he didn't use super complicated grammar. I learned a lot of obscure vocab (when will I use wagashi terms in real life? lol) and managed to hold a few simple conversations with sensei. And at some points, I even did the translation back into Japanese to relay comments from the others to him! One conversation I remember having was about how salmon isn't a traditional sushi item, but how they do have salmonids in Japan in the mountains haha.

Actually, on the third day of the course, I was walking to the studio and ran into sensei and his translator, who were also walking over. We had a conversation about the weather, as one must do in Canada when outside, lol.

We started off day 1 with an introduction to sensei and his wagashi. Once that was done, we got right into it, starting with first with the easiest parts. The lotus root, bamboo shoots, edamame, shiitake, and burdock were all made of nerikiri. We also made the datemaki, scallops, and uni out of nerikiri! Sensei made a single broccoli as well haha.

While all of us students had experience working with nerikiri before, it was interesting to see the ways he showed us to mimic things. We even fried the burdock to get it to be the right colour! The uni was really cool since it wasn't on the original plan but he was just like, “y'all wanna learn how to make uni?” (my own liberal translation haha).

Day 2 was a really long one – Sensei was even like, “we might be here for a while.” We worked on the shrimp shells, which were made out of anpei. Anpei had this texture and workability that made it good for the shells and antennae and leg parts! Once we finished forming them, we let them dry so we could work on them more.

We also made blocks of layered kanten for the salmon and tuna sashimi as well as a thin layer of kanten for the squid sashimi. The kamaboko was made out of awayukikan, and the decorative carrots out of kanten. I didn't realize it until after I'd left the studio for the day, but awayukikan is like the wagashi version of marshmallows!

There is just so much work involved in making a realistic imitation, lol.

When Keelan picked me up, he also brought Koharu, and people thought she was adorable.

The final day was focusing on the finishing touches. We made the ikura, formed the shrimp bodies, painted the shrimps, cut the sashimi, and generally made the pieces look “nice”. And that's in addition to assembling everything!

Shrimp bodies, by the way, were made of uiro – it had the transparency that mimics a real shrimp's flesh. And we piped kanten for the ikura into individual corn starch holes! I was joking with the studio owner that I was expecting to do some molecular gastronomy with spherification in sodium alginate, and he was like, “then it wouldn't be wagashi!” But then sensei said that he did, in fact, make ikura with spherification on TV once because it was faster and looks more impressive on TV!

The kanten for the sashimi was such a pain to cut because we didn't get great adherence between our layers. I was like, “if I were a sushi apprentice, I would've been kicked out already...” lol. There was so much kanten waste because of poorly cut sashimi pieces!

Anyway, at the end of the day, I did manage to make a pretty good looking wagashi osechi ryori. Some other finishing touches we did included making thin leaves from nerikiri, brushing kanten onto pieces to give them a gloss, and building up some height in the boxes with waste pieces and anko haha. I'm actually really proud of my maple leaf shaped wasabi piece! It's definitely not “real” wasabi but it looks enough like a real piece of fake wasabi haha.

I do have a few more pictures in my gallery but most of the photos I took were actually more process-based so I didn't bother editing them. I might add to the gallery later but these were kind of the “best” shots haha.

I had a really good time at the class, and I really hope sensei comes back to Canada again! And I feel really lucky that I live so close to a cooking studio that's willing to bring such a famous wagashi master over to teach us, who was so nice and personable. When I was leaving the studio with my wrapped up box of sweets, as I was saying bye to sensei, he told me, “make sure your dog doesn't eat your wagashi!”

Next time he comes to Canada, I'll be more prepared and won't sign up at the very last minute hahaha.

#food #photos

Well, my birthday was actually months ago back in June, but I'm only getting to writing the blog post now.

I didn't do anything exciting but I did go to the farm where I made myself sous-vide wagyu steak – the real stuff imported from Japan, in fact.

I also made some roast potatoes to go with it, along with garlic bok choy which was grown in my garden!

The other thing of note that we did was go hiking at MacGregor Point!

It was a nice provincial park which had a rocky beach that Koharu liked to clamber over.

I also snapped this photo of wood lilies there! They're actually a native flower but I'd never seen them until this hike! I actually shared this photo on Mastodon the other day but for something I just took in the moment, I just really like how it turned out.

So, we have another year done in this cycle. It was a nice, low-key birthday, which is how I like them, haha.

#food #photos #farm

As usual, I procrastinated editing photos, but at least they are being put up in the same month in which I took them!

We had an unseasonably warm weekend where it was over 25C! That was unexpected… not unpleasant, but I’m not sure I liked it. We had a lot of garden work planned and doing that in summer-like heat was not fun.

Anyway, under the cut are some photos I’d like to highlight, but the full gallery is also available at this link!

Managed to snap this turkey sitting in a tree while walking through the bush.

Turkeys always look silly to me, and doubly so when they’re in a tree haha.

During the unseasonably warm weekend, the ramps/wild leeks were starting to pop up! I was so excited since they're delicious and ephemeral. We have a lot at the farm, so I can harvest as much as I want – the bulbs too. In other places, they have become locally endangered from over-harvesting, so I'm glad I have my own personal supply.

Of course, this meant that I made that night's dinner with a bunch of ramps that I pulled up that day. Smashed cucumber salad with ramps, mashed potatoes with ramps, a grilled ramp on the side... it was delicious and made me feel like spring was actually happening.

Also, fun side note, the pork chop I bought was called “Nagano pork” – which is confusing because it was from Quebec! The internet told me that Quebec is a major pork exporter to Japan and this breed of pig was developed for the Japanese market. Well, it was delicious at any rate, and I would totally buy it again.

#food #photos #farm

I'm also trying to pack lunches for when I go into the office. And what better way to enjoy lunch than making it super cute?!

Above is rice in the shape of an otter. It's in a sea of onion ginger sauce from the shogayaki pork. There's also a hardboiled egg and some yu choy with oyster sauce. This was actually a lunch for the boyfriend but I'm counting it anyway because it's just so cute.

This one is chicken thigh with ponzu sauce with garlic gai lan. If you saw my previous post, this is a leftover lunch! There's also gyudon. And this bento box is super cute – the top is actually another bowl so I could bring a pack of instant miso soup to work!

There's even a mandarin for a well balanced work lunch, lol.

It's a good time to get into this habit because I'm being forced into the office more frequently starting in May…

#food

So here's some recent dinners I've cooked:

Pickerel with greens

Taco night

Yu choy and rainbow trout tempura with handmade udon

Handmade fettuccine with pan fried scallops in Alfredo sauce

Beef udon with gai lan, right bowl has a raw egg (mine) and left has braised tofu (the boyfriend's), because I'm a Chinese person who doesn't like the taste of soy lol

Ponzu chicken, garlic gai lan, miso soup

So anyway, hopefully I keep it up!

#food

On March 5th, I went to a wagashi making class! It was at a local cooking studio, and I’d been wanting to do it for a while! In fact, I had talked to some of my friends about the wagashi class from this cooking studio back in March 2020, but y’know… some stuff happened in March 2020. But at any rate, it was nice to actually get to attend and learn!

The two wagashi that we learned to make in this 5h class were a nerikiri maple leaf and a kinton Christmas tree. Very seasonally appropriate, haha.

Nerikiri is a bean paste cut with a little gyuhi (a type of mochi) to make it more elastic. We learned a technique called “bokashi” to blend the colours together.

The inside of the nerikiri was a houjicha bean paste.

The kinton for the Christmas tree was made of a matcha yokan, which is a bean paste that is set with agar. We piled it up over a matcha bean paste filling and then decorated it with little ornaments! The colourful ornaments are nerikiri, but we also used arare. For the snow-capped look, we used some crumbled senbei.

It’s pretty hard to see the matcha interior vs the matcha exterior, but it’s there, I promise!

Anyway, I also wrote a much simpler blog post in Japanese to do the whole Japanese practice thing.

#food