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It’s been a while since I’ve thrown a vlog down for you .. so here’s one live from my kitchen!

Here are the links:

Annabel Karmel’s official website has some test recipes for you to check out. Then head on over and pick up her books at Amazon.

This is the recipe for Bolognese Sauce I use for Z’s spaghetti.

1 tbsp vegetable oil
50g finely chopped onion
20g chopped celery
1 small clove garlic, crushed
1 medium carrot (approx 85g), peeled and grated
100 g lean minced beef
150 ml Passata
100 ml unsalted stock or boiling water
1/4 tsp fresh thyme leaves or a pinch of dried thyme
a pinch of sugar
3 tbsp Annabel Karmel’s Mini Pasta Shells

Method:
Heat the oil in a saucepan and sauté the onion and celery over a low heat for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally until softened. Add the garlic and cook for one minute. Add the grated carrot and sauté for 4 minutes. In a separate pan, dry fry the minced beef until browned, stirring occasionally. Add to the onion and carrot. Pour over the tomato and basil sauce, boiling water or stock and add the thyme and pinch of sugar. Cover and cook over a low heat for about 12 minutes. Remove from the pan and pulse for a second or two in a blender to make a smoother texture.

Meanwhile, cook the shell pasta according to the packet instructions. Drain and mix with the Bolognese sauce.

Information
Suitable for freezing
From 9 months
MAKES 3 PORTIONS [source]

I don’t use the pasta shells. I make a batch of the sauce and then sprinkle in La Molisana’s Spinagarda pasta. It’s shaped like grains of rice and is the perfect length for Z. I don’t actually cook the pasta, I just toss it in when the sauce is done and it soaks up the extra water and cooks itself.

I use Bob’s Red Mill Steel Cut Oats for his oatmeal. Find them in the health section of your grocery.

Make the oatmeal as per the package. In a saucepan sautee the diced apples and pears in 1 1/2c of water. I toss in a pat of butter and a cinnamon stick too. Just sautee and boil the apples and pears until they break down like mashed potatos. Add extra water if you need to.

When they’re done, mash the apples up and mix with the oatmeal. Put in ice cube trays and freeze.

We give Z two or three cubes of oatmeal for breakfast each day mixed with a piece of fresh banana, or some mango or blueberries. It’s the perfect breakfast!

It’s so easy to make your own baby food. Try it!

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I’ve made all of Zacharie’s food since we switched him to solids. My dear friend Erin Davis gave us Annabel Karmel’s book as a baby gift and the ease of the recipes was simply inspiring.

Each weekend I boil up potatoes, apples, tomatoes, chives, leeks and more. I grind up chicken, and turkey, and puree away. I make pasta and sauce and oatmeal and freeze it in trays for the week ahead.

It’s a great system.

But I gotta tell you, if we lived in France, I don’t think I would be going through the trouble. I just can’t compete.

The baby food the french babies get to snack on is spectacular.

Carrots, turkey, lamb, salmon, spaghetti, squash, couscous, apricots, apples, pears. Sure, all similar staples to back home, but it’s when you open the food bowls you see the difference.

In Canada, the food looks processed, pureed, and boiled into non-descript fecal matter. In France, you could crack open one of the ready to feed serving bowls and swear you had heated up your own freezer meal for lunch.

Come on, we all lick our fingers when we feed our children, and after sampling the stuff Z got to snack on the past 2 weeks, I was tempted to dig in right alongside him. Pot Au Feu, Turkey Stew, Apples with biscuits and more.

The Bledina baby meals are also broken down more consistently by age with a more gradual and visible texture added to the meals as the babies get older. 4, 6, 8, 12, 15, 18 mos+ all get their own individual meal plan.

Going to France we overstuffed the bag with diapers to use on the trip, coming home, we overstuffed with baby food.

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To celebrate our engagement on Monday night, Jen and I opted for a romantic dinner in.

A couple of boxes of takeout from Mezzo di Pasta and a bottle of Tavel from the marche.

Again, we’re not pairing this properly, but Jen was so excited to see this half bottle on the shelf, she dropped it (must have been the extra weight from that engagement ring;). It didnt break, we bought it.

This wine is only available in the spring and is ripe for the hot Mediterranean days to sip on a patio with a bucket of mussels. It’s about +2 and raining in Paris and we’re having bolognese pasta. So the pairing is off - way off. But this is Paris, and Jen and I got engaged today, and Zacharie is sleeping. All that makes a perfect pairing.

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Vancouver is a vibrant multicultural city, that’s easy to see. Live in Richmond? Even if you’re not from Hong Kong, you’re definitely down with Chinese New Year. If you live in Surrey you know all about Diwali, regardless of your ethnicity.

This week everyone’s Irish, there isnt a “real” Irish district of Vancouver, so everyone’s down with St Patrick’s Day. Our family is Persian this week, because we live in North Vancouver and this week is Persian New Year.

Jen, Z and I went down to Yaas Bazaar on Lonsdale to pick up some fab kebabs and rice for dinner last night. Just to make it all right for the season, I served up a Guinness on the side. Now that’s multicultural!

Norooz is the Persian New Year, and it happens when the vernal equinox happens in Iran. This year that’s 9:18a on March 20 in Tehran, which means the new year actually happens at 10:18p on Wednesday here in North Vancouver.

There’s a pretty cool collection of customs associated with the new year, most associated with the same rebirth we see with the season. As we switch from winter to spring and the buds start blooming, and the life cycle starts again seems like a perfect time to celebrate the new year.

Yesterday there was a big festival at Mahon Park in North Vancouver, but if you missed that, you still have a chance to check out some great celebrations of the season. Tomorrow night, you need to take a walk down to Ambleside Park for the 2008 Red Wednesday Bonfire Festival, better known as Chahar Shanbeh Soori.

It happens on the last Tuesday evening of the year. Every family gathers several piles of wood or brush in the streets or parks to be lit shortly after the sunset. Then all the family members line up and take turns jumping over the burning fire and singing “sorkheeyeh toe az man, Zardeeyeh man az toe” (I give my paleness to the fire and take fire red healthy color.) Yellow or paleness symbolizes the sickness and pain and red symbolizes heath.

The symbolism doesn’t end there. When we were at Yaas, the place was packed. As you walk down Lonsdale you see racks and racks of wheat grass outside the shop. Inside, everyone was crowded around a huge fishtank filled with goldfish. The corner with the bakery was squeezed tight with pistachio treats. The smells and smiles of the season filled the entire place.

Just as we rush to get a turkey with trimmings for Thanksgiving or Christmas, the Persians have a similar hustle for a very specific shopping list. They need 7 things on their table as they celebrate Haft Seen, each with a separate and important symbolism.

The Haft Seen is a spread with seven items which each symbolizes a wish or theme. All seven items in this ceremonial table starts with the Persian letter seen or S in English.

Get ready to go on a scavenger hunt, here’s what you need:

1. Sabzeh (grown wheat or lentil) for rebirth

2. Samanu (flour and sugar) for sweetness of life
3. Sekeh (coin ) for prosperity and wealth
4. Senjed ( dried fruit of Lotus tree) for love
5. Seer (garlic) for health
6. Somaq ( sumac berries) for warmth
7. Serkeh ( vinegar) for patience

There are some other random things you can toss on your table, such as painted eggs, which represent fertility, a mirror that represents image and reflection of life, and a goldfish in a bowl that represents life.

So while you’re raising a pint of green beer today, come up to North Van and grab some fresh green grass and a goldfish.

Aidee Shoma Mobarak!

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Jen just got home from her “Dinner Club.” Her girlfriends get together once a month and have a pow-wow at a hot spot. Tonight it was Jules Bistro in Gastown. Last month it was La Terrazza.

To show you how badly needed this Dinner Club is for Jen and her social life, the nice coat she wore tonight hasnt been worn since last month’s soiree. How did she know? She found someone else’s car keys in her pocket, probably dumped by a coat check or valet.

So how do we get a set of keys back to someone?

Google.

All that we had was a Volvo fob, and a Tiffany’s charm.

On the back of the charm was engraved a first name, and a company. That’s it. Put them in Google together and we found a matching person who had donated to the Weekend to End Breast Cancer. With that entry we discovered her last name.

Put the first and last name into Google and we discover a bulletin board post she made 2 years ago complete with phone number and email address. Now the email address has expired, as she has switched companies, but we will try the home phone number listed tomorrow.

So… good news / bad news. Google will help you get your keys back if you lost them, but it will also give out a lot of information about you to anyone who has a little bit of information about you.

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I’m putting this recipe here mostly for my own reference. I make it every couple of months and I’m always having to Google the recipe. I caught it on an episode of CityLine, made it once and have loved it since. I have used regular bacon, thick cut bacon and ham hock for the meat.

1 small smoked ham hock
2 cups dried split peas
1 1/2 cups carrot, celery, onion, diced
2 cloves garlic minced
8 cups water
1 bay leaf
salt & pepper to taste

In a large saucepan, place the ham hock, split peas, bay leaf, and minced garlic. Cover with water, and bring to a rapid boil.
Once boiling, skim and return to a simmer.
Simmer gently for one hour and 15 minutes.
Add the diced vegetables, season with salt and lots of ground pepper and continue to cook for another hour until the ham hock is fully cooked and the meat is easily removed.
Remove from heat, lift out the ham hock, peel away the fat, and remove the cooked meat.
Place the meat back into the saucepan with the cooked split peas. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
Serve.

Serves 8 – 10. [source]

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Today is the day before Lent, the Christian season remembering Jesus’ 40 days and nights in the desert being tempted by the devil. [wiki]

During this time, you’re supposed to go through your own personal torture by “giving something up for Lent.”

Back in the day that meant leaning down your meals and a lot of fasting. Since today was the last day to use up fattening groceries on hand, that usually meant pancakes. Hence the Pancake Tuesday title.

Mardi Gras translates from the french to fat tuesday. Again, a reference to the last chance to have the good stuff before “giving it up for Lent.”

How Mardi Gras turned into plastic beaded necklaces in exchange for a quick flash of boobies, I’ll leave you to discover on your own.

Jen and I aren’t religious, we’re not giving anything up for Lent, but we do love us some pancakes. So, instead of boobies - let us show you our pancakes!!

Jen rocks her stacks old school - plain butter and syrup.

Me? I like ‘em special, so I made a syrup with a squoosh of Aunt Jemima, a handful of frozen berries, a pat of butter, a cinnamon stick and orange zest.

Wow. Yum.

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Still slushing through the snow, here's what's up on the radio:

    - If you're a political junkie cheering on the sidelines of the US election. Check out GlassBooth.org to see who you "should" be cheering for.  Check out this article I wrote about how I think quizzes like this should be mandated at the voting booth.

    - Entertainment Tonight is about to go all "Anna Nicole" on Heath Ledger, if they havent already.  They have a bought a video of Heath in a very drug filled environment and will air it tonight.

    - Getting ready for the Super Bowl and beer's not your thing?  Check out these football friendly cocktails. And don't forget the food!!

    - Oprah went and got herself a new book club book.  And a handy new gadget to read it with.

    - Pepsi has "leaked" their SuperBowl commercial starring Justin Timberlake.

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Email. Twitter. Blog.

BTW, for all you peeps who listened to Z95 “back in the day,” that’s JoJo Nickolls (tall funky guy with good hair) showing Bourdain the games.

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Order an apple pie and a coffee at a McDonald’s Drive Thru and they’ll ask you if you “want fries with that.” Regardless of whether or not it matches the meal, staff are trained to squeak an extra few pennies out of every purchase.

Supersize? Cheese? Appetizer? Dessert? No wonder we’re big fat fatties, restaurants are making it “cheaper” to eat more.

Over the next week and a half, you’ll notice another round of decent upselling with Dine Out Vancouver hitting the city’s restaurants. It was launched as a way to get people to visit restaurants during the lull after the Christmas holidays. The bait is pretty good too, a chance to eat 3 course meals at some high end fancy pants restaurants for $15/$25/$35.

If you’re taking the restos up on their offer, I’m sure you’ll find those aren’t the only “deals” on the menu. They’ll have some $45 and $55 prix fixe options as well. Oh, and don’t forget the wine pairings, they’ll serve that up for an extra $5 - $10 a course.

The press releases and websites will all trumpet a chance for a couple to sample some fine food for about $50, but once you’re tempted by the seared ahi tuna instead of the mixed greens, the Joie Noble Blend pairing instead of still water, the tax and tip - you’re lucky to get out for less than $100.

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, I’m just saying Dine Out can be like a trip to Costco - all you want is a big ass jar of peanut butter, but you walk out with a tv, pool table, dvd player and 100lb bag of potatoes.

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