Food Wine Sleep

Caesar salad is perhaps the most popular and wide spread salad anywhere. I don't think I have worked in an establishment where Caesar salad wasn't served in one form or another. Invented by the Italian Caesar Cardini, in a restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico. The story is, that on a holiday weekend in 1924 supplies were running short and in a last minute improvisation Caesar said to one of his staff: "Take all of these ingredients to the table and make a real ceremony out of preparing that salad. I want the guest to feel that they are getting the house speciality prepared for them". So it happened and perhaps the most famous of salads today was born, "prepared a...

I've categorized this dish in winter but truth be told it reminds me more of summer. It was a dish that my mother would make a huge pot of a few times each summer. Each pot would last about a week and meant that my mother could spend more time enjoying the short Canadian summer rather than missing it spending her whole summer in the kitchen. I still use that approach when I make Chilli, I make enough to feed an army, portion it up and freeze it. It makes a great winter warming meal when you really don't feel like cooking but still want a warm home cooked meal.

Some of the best beef comes from Argentina and with it comes one of my favorite steak accompaniment. This thick parsley-olive oil paste is as commonly eaten in Argentina as ketchup is in the rest of our world. There are several variations and I guess every chef in Argentina has his own special twist to it. However it always features Italian flat parsley, virgine olive oil, vinegar and garlic.