Culinary -- Hot Cross Buns

I like hot cross buns and with Easter appearing quickly on the horizon this blog entry is sort of appropriate. The large grocery chain in Ottawa sells hot cross buns all year long. They taste very good after a long workout or a hike with tea or hot chocolate. I recently learned that there are variations in how they put the white cross on top of the bun. I always thought that the white stuff was some sort of special baking material. My local bakery does something different. They put the cross on the bun after it is baked and it is a seam of fresh butter. This make these extra tasty. Over the next little while, I'll be eating a lot of hot cross buns giving me a chance to decide whether I like the baked cross or the butter cross.

Date Squares and Caesar Salad

This is a culinary blog entry. I recently have taken a strong liking to date squares. It is similar to my enjoyment of a caesar salad. A couple of years ago while volunteer I spent a summer preparing caesar salads on Saturday mornings. It got to the point where I could tell how long ago it was that the greens/lettuce had be washed and spun in the salad spinner. The crisper the salad the sooner it had been prepared.

When my folks were visiting Ottawa recently we visited a bakery that they had been eager to visit for a long time. We made two trips to the Rideau Bakery. When I headed down to my folks place for the winter break I brought down a shopping list of breads that my mother wanted. One of the bakery's specialties is date squares. They are yummy and so sweet. While doing some Christmas errands we stopped in at my mother's local bakery and I asked for date squares. They were not as good as the ones in Ottawa. Today, my folks and I made our second time to the Oakville Whole Foods store. I bought a variety of there scones and you guessed it, date squares. Compared to other date squares the ones from Whole Foods were better as they were not as sweet and the top material did not disintegrate and they looked and tasted healthier.

Mundane jobs

I was at a wine and cheese last night and as we drank more wine the topics of the conversations started to get more interesting. We all started to describe some of the more boring and mundane summer jobs we had when we were younger. One of my friends Jessica talked about spending the summer filing forms in folders. All day long she would file forms for the city. The discussion eventually came around to me and I describe how I was part of a team that sorted 10 tons of pears for a local cannery. Each pear had to be measured. If it was larger than 2.25" it would be sent to the fresh fruit market and if it was smaller it went to a cannery to become part of a fruit cocktail. We would sort the pears that had been picked during the day in a large barn just after dusk. During the day I would pick a ton of pears or 60 bushels. It was hard work at the same time it was fun and rewarding work as you could see your progress at the end of each day.

Beignet au sucre

Tonight after my running workout, I stopped by a specialty food store in search of a protein-carbo recovery bar and was trolling the shelves a bit and found something that I had to buy. It was a beignet au sucre or a icing sugar coated beignet. In one of Jason's recent blog entries he talked about how they had gone out for beignets and coffee. The beignets were made in Tucker, GA and came in a package of four. There is a bit of an art to getting them out of the package and into your mouth with out getting coated in sugar and wearing a white moustache. When I'm in GA later this year, I hope that I can experience fresh beignets.