The rules

As I paged through The Globe & Mail this Saturday morning over coffee and Billie Holliday, I got to wondering about limits. Articles weighing the pros and cons of open marriage. Teaching assistants developing brilliant syllabi, only to receive punishment for going outside the lines. Married graduate students sleeping with various department members, a final hurrah to their youth as their spouses foot the bills. Killings performed in the name of so-called family honour.

We fill our walls with insulation to keep the drafts out, coat our social interactions with regulations to ensure that we abide by our principles. But certainly theory often deviates from practice. How many of us have rules? How many of us follow them?
It's a Wednesday night. I'm unwinding from the day over a glass of Chianti and a container of oversalted potato salad. Expansive conversations filter into the night: I'm connecting with a couple friends of mine from the Sunshine State and a fellow co-worker who has been living in Montreal for the past four months. "Come to Paris," she says. It's very 1920s, "Lost Generation" sounding, a couple of ex-pats getting their fill of cheese and chocolate in arguably one of the most vibrant cities in the world. “Maybe for a visit,” I say. Quietly, almost imperceptibly, this city has become home to me. Bloor St. to the North, Front to the South. These are my boundaries.

As my classmates and childhood friends marry off and grow their families, I dance alone in my kitchen, buy myself flowers and can barely keep my bamboo plant alive on a good day. My desire for space and independence defies the limitations of “conventional partnership”, and the only thing I've given birth to in the past nine months fits in an 8 x 4 inch loaf pan and is commonly referred to as Banana Bread. It's not that I don't want to say those vows someday, even though I break out in hives at the thought of it. It's not that I'm too picky, as my grandmother declares. It's that I want a partner. I want someone who pushes me to my limits, who respects my boundaries, and who, at heart, possesses a bit of a rebel spirit.

"Are you a rules person?" I ask Jane.
"Like as in the rules?"
"Maybe. I mean, do you have rules in place that you abide by?"
"Yeah, I guess. I get to bed by ten every night. I allow myself one cigarette a week. And I won't date  a convicted felon. People frown on that sort of thing for some reason," she says, chuckling.
"What about when it comes to cooking? Are you a recipe follower? You are, aren't you," I say, smiling wide.
"It's called remove from packaging. Place in pre-heated oven for 35 minutes. That's my style."
"Your 'food rules'?"
"You can tell Michael Pollan he can eat his words."

It's a Sunday night and a group of co-workers gather 'round at a local bar for drinks, dancing and conversation. The night starts off slowly: everyone mingling cautiously, sipping mixed drinks, beer and red wine. Hugs and handshakes are exchanged. Disco music blares. Everything is going well for a long while. There's a tall man there who arrives late to the party. He's had too much to drink; his cerulean blue eyes betray him. He approaches one of the girls, an acquaintance of his, and she smiles at him.

"I want to say something," he says to her. "There's a night -- I remember. At the RCM. In the spring."

She nods slowly, recollecting. It was a poetry function and the few of them sat around most of the night talking. She couldn’t get the smell of the last Bar Mitzvah out of her shirt, French fries and chicken nuggets.  

"I really flirted with you that night and I'm sorry. I don't know why. I mean, I do know why. You are such a lovely person. That night, I envisioned you as my wife. I didn't want something to happen only to take off. It's pathetic, but I'm a womanizer, I am, and.."

"I don't even know what to say," she says, and this is the truth. Immediately, she feels horribly awkward. "Why are you telling me this?"
“I thought you should know.”
“What, I like you, and by the way, I just can’t help myself from sleeping with half the city? Get away from me,” she says, walking back toward the dance floor.

She meets up with B., who has been waiting for her.

“Time to blow this popsicle stand?” B. asks.
“I’ve got ten minutes before I turn into a pumpkin,” the girl answers.

I like cooking because it makes sense. If you whisk egg yolks with a bit of lemon juice and very slowly add a thin stream of oil, you will get mayonnaise. This is inevitable -- unless you break your sauce. If you cook tomatoes slow at low heat, you will whip the coconction into a silky sauce. It's comforting. Even if life throws you a curveball, you can always head into the kitchen, tie your apron strings around your neck and get to work on a cake or, say, a loaf of Banana Bread, and suddenly things make sense again. But some say that you really learn to cook when you can move away from a recipe and cook according to your five senses. That's when your culinary wings really take flight.

When it comes to cooks, there are those who follow recipes to the T and those who repeatedly stray from them. Some of us take bits and pieces from one, and as if drafting the blueprint of some kind of culinary Frankenstein, go about melding the sections together. This is one of those recipes I've taken to dinner parties that everyone loves -- the chewiness of the rice, the toothsome lentils, the subtle hit of cumin, the sweet and addictive quality of the caramelized onions. Garnished with a spiced yogurt sauce and a few pomegranate aerils, it's comforting, unusual, satisfying -- a dish that closes gaps. It's a dish shared between friends over hard conversations; it's a dish eaten, lukewarm, over laughter. A few humble, homely ingredients are tossed together and made infinitely better by the intermingling; each ingredient sings at its highest note. Despite the fact that it doesn't look like much, the flavours will defy your expectations.

Mujaddara with Spiced Yogurt & Pomegranate

Adapted from Food52

Mujaddara:

1 cup rice (I use a short-grain brown rice)

2 cups green or French lentils
3 tbsp ground cumin
2 onions, sliced thinly
2 tbsp unsalted butter
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt

Yogurt sauce:

½ cup Greek-style yogurt
2 tbsp lemon juice
Zest of half a lemon
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp cumin
½ tsp cayenne pepper
2 heaping tbsp chopped cilantro

Pomegranate seeds (optional)
1. Cook your lentils and rice. Lentils take about 20 minutes from dry -- bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer, covered. The rice will depend on your variety. I cook exclusively with brown rice; I use a chewy, short-grain rice from California. French lentils will no doubt elevate this dish, but ordinary green lentils work just fine.
2. Add the butter to a large pan over medium-high and cook your onions. You're going to caramelize them. It takes a while to whip them into submission -- about 45 minutes or so -- but don't rush the process. You want the sugars to emerge slowly. The dish has so few ingredients that you want to make them shine as brightly as possible.
3. Assemble your yogurt sauce by combining all of the ingredients into a bowl and whisking. Refrigerate and let stand for at least 3 hours for the flavours to combine.
4. Once your onions have caramelized, your lentils have cooked and your rice is finished, mix in a little extra-virgin olive oil, if necessary, to loosen the grains. Add in the cumin and salt to taste. I'd recommend starting with about 1.5 tsps. You'll need more than you think, considering rice and lentils are exceptionally bland.
5. Serve warm or at room temperature garnished with yogurt sauce and a few pomegranate aerils, if desired.

We get around just fine

At a time when we're told to focus on the big picture – namely giving to the less fortunate and thinking of others before ourselves -- it's ironic to feel as though you’re being pulled to focus on the small things. If you don't pay attention, you could find yourself pulled under a strategically placed mistletoe, miss the wreaths recently hung against the marble wall at your workplace, accidentally imbibe one too many festive cocktails. There are so many details to this holiday.

After spending a good amount of the wee hours of Sunday morning trying to get home from a late-night shift, I found myself, four hours of sleep in me, at a prestigious venue in North York built in the late 1800s serving brunch to J. Crew clad ladies and their well-to-do husbands, sipping on Chardonnay and eating plump shrimp. When I served at a wedding back in the fall the grounds were gorgeous – you could see the giant trees in the distance, the abundance of orange and red leaves, and the weather had just begun to cool off. Now, on the inside, pine trees were up and decorated in red and gold, setting off the mouldings and dark parquet floor. R. and I hung out in the women's locker room sipping on coffee in tiny elegant teacups on saucers and eating a breakfast of baked apple oatmeal out of a plastic container, talking about her love life and impending trip. It's the kind of conversation where issues of personal value arise, where you ask yourselves what the big issues and the small issues are. We finish our coffees and return to the hustle and bustle of the kitchen, moving seamlessly from relationships to the purpose of doilies on saucers. We’re small fish in a big pond, but we get around just fine.

A friend of mine is currently battling cancer. He is twenty-eight. The last time I spoke to him he was boarding a bus, preparing for a day of radiation. Prognosis is good, all things considered, and the fact that he has more lives than a cat works in his favour. While it's no small thing, that he can make light of the situation and find the humour in it proves how much larger than life he really is. Speaking with him now, he seems calmer now, wiser now. Seven years have passed since we met and we’re getting older. Cancer is large, larger than all of us, but shows up so small.

My former boss once told me that her husband, who is not a very big man, sold her when he said, “Dynamite comes in small packages.” I smiled.

And then there are these mushrooms, because this is a food blog after all. They garnered rave reviews at the corporate holiday party I brought them to last week and I actually like them quite a bit myself. They're delicious and satisfying and addictive, but don't sit too heavy as most appetizers do. What sets these mushrooms apart, to my mind, is the balsamic vinegar they are tossed and baked in prior to being stuffed. It lends a welcomed acidity and sweetness, mellowing out the richness of the filling. It's the kind of thing I might serve to a small group of friends one night over wine and conversation, the kind of small group that fills a room from end to end.

Stuffed Mushrooms
Adapted (slightly) from Food52

Serves 15-20 people
Please note that this recipe makes quite a bit of filling. The reviewers over at Food52 mentioned tossing some of it into a frittata or an omelette -- a nice idea. It also makes a good dip for crackers or broccoli.

Mushrooms
6 pints mushrooms
4 tbsp good-quality balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt and pepper

Filling
1 package cream cheese (light is fine)
¾ cup grated Pecorino Romano, Asiago or other salty hard cheese
1 onion, chopped and caramelized
3 garlic cloves, minced
1lb ground pork seasoned with fennel and red chili flakes OR mild Italian sausage, browned

Preheat oven to 350F. Stem and clean the mushrooms and toss with the olive oil and vinegar. Season generously with sea salt and pepper. Bake for 25-30 minutes.

For the filling – mix everything together in a large bowl. If your ingredients (caramelized onions, meat) are warm when you add them to the cream cheese it should be pretty easy to mix together.

Stuff the mushrooms and bake for another 30 minutes or so at 375F until the tops have browned.

If you're willing

“Enter through back alley,” I read. “Well, that sounds safe.”
“Oh there it is,” he says.
“That’s not an alley. That’s a street.”
“Ask any hooker, it’s an alley.”

It’s your typical Thursday night shift: we all show up at the venue, not knowing what we’re going to be doing or where we ought to be, and play it cool – which, by the way, isn’t all that difficult to do when it’s -1C outside and windy as all hell.

“So,” C. says, “That guy back there? He’s nineteen. I just hit on a nineteen-year-old security guard. But he looked twenty-five.”
“Are you turning pedophile in your old age?” I answer, smirking.
“No. No, no, no.”

We’re herded upstairs where I meet Bree, “like the cheese but spelled differently,” and Velvet, bartenders who are busy polishing glassware. Velvet glances at me and takes out a copy of Gods Behaving Badly from her bag, handing it over as the client turns her back. “Close your eyes, ask a question, and flip to a page. You’ll get a word.” I do as she says and get an answer to my question. “What is this game?” Bree laughs. “Something we invented ten minutes ago because we were bored.” I like them immediately.

We put in the time, running up and down stairs. Around eleven, when the outside world has left, we gather around the last table standing and eat bacon-wrapped beef tenderloin with truffled aioli, summer rolls with cilantro, olives, cheese, fruit, stuffed mini potatoes. We tell each other our stories – it’s always best to come armed with one or two – and meet the still midnight air together as we make the trek back home. It seems warmer. The winds have calmed.

My day-to-day is jam packed with rules and regulations, corporate policies and standards. There are rules, here, too, but mostly it is about living in the moment, learning the art of infinite adaptability, being okay with plans being subject to change. Some greet uncertainty with caution while others throw themselves head first into the abyss.

After weeks of melancholy-tinged conversations with others about the economy and the state of the world, being reminded of how few choices we really have and how powerless we really are, feeling as though I can choose my own life is re-invigorating. We have never been able to choose our environment; that’s out of our control. But at the end of the alley there is a door, if you can see it, if you’re willing to brave it, and in spite of what you know or think you may know or have been told, adventure lies ahead.

An unlikely paradox: fashion and lentils

The Toronto I know and usually adore has transmutated into a muggy, humid hole of a place. But readers, like almost everything, it hasn't been all bad.

Outside, a car alarm beeps loudly and refuses to cease. I'm not generally a night owl, but I like this time -- a time when the city has quieted, and a new kind of beauty appears. It's not an obvious one; Toronto is rough around the edges. It's not easy to love, and it doesn't don the dresses and designer pantsuits it presents to its shoppers along Bloor St.

But there's that adorable, chubby little girl on Dufferin who made me smile wide. There's R., who works hard and talks about waking up to do yoga in the morning; who throws solo dance parties in the middle of service by salsa dancing on the concrete floors of the kitchen as caterers swirl a roasted garlic and dill aioli over tiny salmon cakes. Tonight I met Huiwot, a twentysomething who laughs more than anyone I've ever met and can be depended on to crack a solid joke just when you need one. She also happens to have a special knack for finding appropriate hiding places for leftover pastries. How do you turn your back on a city that begs you to see it for all of its splendid diversity? Sometimes, it turns out, all you need is two cardboard boxes filled with leftover food, a free ticket home, and a funny companion who grows increasingly excited by the possibility of meeting! the! final! four! tennis! champs!

As of right now, I have no fewer than fifteen borrowed books on my sofa as I type this. I'm not sure when I will read them, but I'm looking forward to whenever that is -- and happy that more and more, I am forced to make time for things, a sure sign that life is (!) moving ahead (!). I am holding on to these wings.

On Thursday night, I had the pleasure of attending the launch party of a fashion line, and was, wonder of wonders, the lone woman of the evening. I often love my job. A single girl among fifteen men! Oh my good luck. I also managed to fanagle an escort to my bus stop, which proves that either I have yet to lose my magic touch or have very good luck indeed. It was a fun evening that culminated with my supervisor sticking a gold star next to my name -- like kindergarten, but with booze.

What has been my sustenance through all of this excitement? A lentil salad -- a humble meal for one. I know what you might be thinking. Lentils? Really? Those things that taste of earth and stone? Yes, those things that taste of earth and stone! Before you call me crazy, know that this salad calls for bacon. Let me tell you: my love for bacon is deep-seeded and incorrigible, and I suspect yours might be, too. Hello, strips of crisp saltiness! Is there anything better than the sound of bacon crackling and spluttering in its own grease within a cast iron pan? Especially as you, still sleepy, sip on a cup of hot coffee and listen to the likes of Sia and Ingrid Michaelson, sun dappling the top of your kitchen island? I'm sure there is something better, but, oh, bacon, you come awfully close. Romancing one's self is underrated.



I also happen to be of the camp that loves lentils. French green lentils are the best, otherwise known as Puy lentils, but regular green or brown lentils work just as well in this recipe. Tossed with rendered bacon fat and red wine vinegar, and topped with a runny egg, it is a fabulous food for a roaster of a summer day.

I hope you like it as much I do.

Lentils with Bacon and Red Wine Vinegar

Serves 4

1 cup green lentils

3-4 strips thick-cut bacon, diced

Rendered bacon fat
1 tsp good quality Dijon mustard
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1/4 cup red onion, finely diced
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
Sea salt and cracked black pepper, to taste

4 poached or fried eggs (optional)

Add the lentils to a pot, fill with water and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and continue cooking until lentils are tender, about 20-25 minutes. I like to add a dried bayleaf to my lentils, but this step is entirely optional.

While the lentils simmer, slowly cook the bacon over low heat. If you cook the bacon on too high a temperature, the fat will not render properly -- and trust me, you want the fat. Low and slow is the way to go.

As the bacon cooks, assemble the vinaigrette. Combine the mustard with the red wine vinegar to emulsify, and add the garlic and onion. When the bacon has finished cooking, remove the strips from the pan and set aside. Quickly whisk about 3-5 tablespoons of rendered bacon fat into the vinaigrette. Season to taste. Dice the bacon, add to the lentils, and pour the vinaigrette over the salad, tossing well to combine. Enjoy topped with a poached or fried egg if desired, or crumbled goat's cheese and toasted, chopped walnuts.

Lentils

Alone in the kitchen with a cold sausage, or why I'm the only one who finds my poetry sexy

There are events that might lead a girl to stand in her kitchen at 2am wearing a tank top and short shorts, eating a cold spicy Italian pork sausage dipped in yellow mustard over a wood counter. Namely: a wedding at the Royal Ontario Museum that went on all night.

There are perks to serving with a catering company. Seeing as I'm virtually penniless and practically unemployed -- and may or may not have a history of dating not-so-rich men -- the closest I'll ever get to attending a wedding of this magnitude is to serve at one. Hours of setting white table cloths just so, setting up silverware and pouring water yielded one of the most beautiful weddings I've ever seen (not that I'm an authoritative arbiter of taste when it comes to weddings, but it was genuinely gorgeous.)

Of course, the food deserves a mention: miso beef satays; california sushi rolls garnished with wasabi mayo; crisp endive boats filled with chopped walnuts, roasted pears and Roquefort; truffled ricotta ravioli with a fragrant basil pesto; roasted golden and purple beet salad with goat cheese and citrus vinaigrette; a mushroom tart overflowing with oozy cheese; nicely seared black cod served on a lentil-mango cake or a 60-day aged beef tenderloin accompanied by roasted fingerling potatoes; vanilla crème brulée spiked with cinnamon that was likely the creamiest thing you'd ever eaten in your life. Suddenly it was midnight, and somewhere in there I poured wine without spilling any and had to hold back tears as I set up coffee cups when the father spoke proudly of his very accomplished daughter and equally accomplished son-in-law.

But when I finally trucked my aching body home around 1:30AM, the only thing on my mind was -- that is, apart from sleep and aspirin -- sausage.

Sometimes a couple date bars and a cup of hot, weak coffee just won't cut it.

What do I eat when no one is watching? I buy cream cheese in plastic tubs, and when the tub is just about finished, I smash a couple crackers inside, smoosh it all around, and eat the concoction with a crack of black pepper.

I like to scoop mouthfuls of cottage cheese right from the container while lying on the couch fanning myself on a hot day, watching bad daytime television. I often forget about my second cup of coffee in the morning and end up drinking it cold. Which, by the way, suits me just fine. I get unreasonably excited over the prospect of treating myself to a jumbo freezie from the convenience store down the street, $.65. In fact, I get so excited I almost skip back to my apartment. Almost. And I eat whole, plain lemons, alone, so no one will give me the look that says, you eat lemons? or will remind me my practices, in addition to being entirely unconventional, are detrimental to my decaying tooth enamel.

There you have it, the makings of a gourmand. So it won't surprise you to learn that after a long night serving rather pleasant people and working alongside fellow servers (otherwise known as future friends), I retired to my single girl apartment to devour a cold sausage with my hands, happily dipping it in a pool of yellow mustard. Readers, I have no shame.

What do you eat when you are alone, and you believe no one is watching?