Living Lush

In the past two weeks, I've wrapped up my contract at school, moved one bizarre Canadian-Brazilian from Québec to Montréal, and turned on my oven twice a day during the midst of a 5-day heatwave sweeping over southern Ontario and Montréal. As I write this entry, a spectacular sound-and-light show is eliminating temperatures that have reached 44 degrees with the humidex. Steaming and sautéing will no longer make me seem like a crazy person.

Monday was the first day we really settled into our new St. Henri nest. I'll post pictures of our spectacular, large yellow kitchen in a couple of weeks (and maybe some of the rest of the place as well). We're so delighted. The old tenants left us with a window A/C, which means we've been living as if we're a couple in a bachelor apartment - eating, sleeping and playing scrabble in le salon..... and irritating one another. But with an empty schedule, I can't completely separate myself from the kitchen with all this free time! So I've been oscillating between the public pool (2 blocks over, three times a day, packed with St. Henri kids and a lot of tattooed hipsters), reading (Rohinton Minstry's A Fine Balance) and......... COOKING! No baking though - I haven't completely lost my mind. Although maybe Meg did - she turned on her oven long enough to make me gluten free chocolate chip banana muffins that I've been eating for brekkies topped with the sensational Liberté whipped fromage à la crème. Wowza Fowza.

But back to Monday. After wining and dining at various restaurants and friends' houses during our week "living in limbo", it was quite appropriate to have Meg and her brother Kevin over for dinner for something proper. House salad, chicken quarters topped with homemade pesto, smashed tomato garlic rosé sauce over gluten free pasta and fresh Québec green beans from the Atwater Market.

The best part about this dinner is Meg's aptitude to take beautiful photos on her brother's swanky camera. I WANT ONE!!!! They are the most beautiful portraits of my creations I've ever seen, and I must admit that I'm chuffed with myself! I love how the focus is the food, but the detail in the background is just as important. For example, check out the little bottle of maple syrup beside one of the salad closeups. That smoky sweetness came from the father of our friend Fannie in Québec City. Fannie wed Dan's best friend Jean-François last summer in a gypsy-themed outdoor wedding at her father's small cabane à sucre (sugar shack). After managing to explain to him in French how much I loved to cook (especially with maple syrup), he gave Dan and I each a bottle. The bottle in the picture is clearly Dan's; mine only lasted about two months. The syrup found its way into the simple balsamic, olive oil and garlic dressing to give a bit of sweetness against the pickled goods I'd tossed on top.

I'm trying to develop my own house salad masterpiece. The Naked Chef says everyone should have their own special creation. This one was good, but not...... ambrosial. I'll keep working on it.

The pasta, I must say, was lovely. Here's the sauce recipe:

Smashed Tomato and Roasted Garlic Rosé Sauce:

• One pint of cherry tomatoes from your local farmer's market

• Half a clove of garlic, with each bulb halved

• One bunch of thick-stemmed asparagus

• One half of a Spanish onion, cut into thicker pieces

• One cup of cooking cream (15%)

• One cup of white wine

• Juice from one quarter of a lemon (I also zested the lemon beforehand to sprinkle fresh zest lightly on the pesto chicken)

• Olive Oil, Butter, Salt 'n Peppa

• Place your tomatoes and garlic on a tray and toss them in olive oil, salt and pepper. Put them in a preheated oven to 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. Take them out, toss them around, and put them back in the oven for another 20.

• All the while..... sauté a tablespoon of both olive oil and butter together with a clove of crushed garlic and the lemon juice. Add your onion to the mix, keeping the temperature on medium. Once you see the onion beginning to caramelize (about 5 or 6 minutes), toss in generous chunks of asparagus and sauté for another 5-7 minutes.

• Add your cup of cream, and then little by little, the white wine. You can taste your sauce for flavour once you've brought it to a boil to see if you fancy some more wine or cream. Bring the sauce to a low temperature and let all the flavours "do their thang" until your tomatoes have popped and your garlic is roasted. Add these goods, and let the sauce simmer for at least another ten minutes.

Mom's reading this and thinking, "damn! This requires time!" Yes, yes it does. But time is of the essence.........

KOS