Happy Halloween

If I see "Spooktacular" or "Boonanza" one more time I think I'm going to scream. But to tell the truth, I actually prefer Halloween over Christmas. Not that I go to costume parties or anything. Kids can't even come around because I live in a secure apartment building. So I'll just try to bring a bunch of healthy snacks (is there such a thing in stores at Halloween?) to the day care where my son used to go. He's in Japan now. It's apparently becoming trendy for Japanese to celebrate Halloween these days. Give me a goddamn break.

Anyway, I carved daddy pumpkin and baby pumpkin for him. Have a goddamn spooktacular boonanza.

I'm Awake Now

Yes, I’ve been remiss. But sometimes there’s just nothing to write about . . . it’s been one of those doldrum summers. Very few food adventures.

An abortive attempt to firm up a fresh pasta recipe by using cake flour instead of durum semolina (apparently it mimics the Italian 00 grade flour) which ended up tasting like bland store-bought. Ah well, lesson learned.

And then, incredibly, the possibility of creating a restaurant. Since it’s basically a peyote dream at this stage, the less said the better.

But in the past couple of days, a stirring of the old culinary urges. First, prompted by watching Julia Child on PBS and seeing a certain Nancy Silverton describing how to make a sourdough starter. Well, that got my attention. The last time I tried to “capture” wild yeast, it was a miserable failure. I attributed it to a general lack of wild yeast in Montreal when it was -25 outside. But I discovered that it doesn’t work that way, if you have organic grapes. More on that later.

And today, I scoured Côte-des-Neiges looking for my favorite pickle, dill spears with garlic. It seems they’ve disappeared from the shelves of all Montreal stores. None at Metro, none at Maxi. Haven’t been for months. In fact, the main wall of dill pickles at both places now advertise “No garlic.” Sacrilege!

So I decided to make them from scratch. I delved in pickling a few years ago, so I had the canning jars ready to go. All I needed were the correct cucumbers and some fresh dill and I was off. It only took about three hours (a lot of just waiting) and no specialised equipment, and now I have two quart jars of spicy garlic dill spears all pickled and ready to sit in a cool place for two weeks until they’re ready to devour.

I wrote everything down, so if they’re outstanding, I’ll post the recipe. Might even make a movie out of it.

Also came up with a new way to make curry that blew away even me. The good thing is that I wrote it all down and reproduced it from my own recipe the next day, and it was actually better . . . it’s just a hair’s breadth away from being as good as the Jalfrezi at Mysore . . . absolutely fantastic with my basmati pilaf and naan from the little grocer at Plaza Côte-des-Neiges.

It’s getting cold, and about time, too. A Montreal winter is just the thing for this pasty, miserable summer that has come and gone. And the creative juices are stirring from their long hibernation . . .