All Posts Tagged With: "cooking"

I’m not quite sure what happened, but I appear to be growing up. No, no, it’s not one of those tearful milestone moments – I don’t have a graduation cap in hand, I haven’t received any prestigious awards, and I still don’t have a job. In fact, the growing up I’ve been doing appears to [...]

I’m not quite sure what happened, but I appear to be growing up.

No, no, it’s not one of those tearful milestone moments – I don’t have a graduation cap in hand, I haven’t received any prestigious awards, and I still don’t have a job.

In fact, the growing up I’ve been doing appears to be rather mundane. It’s the day to day things, the little efforts that are changing. I’ve finally been applying some of the lessons I picked up from reading that O magazine that’s always on the coffee table at home. Eat well! Look great! Feel happy! In fact, according to Oprah, all I need now is a jewel-toned twin set to achieve whatever is at the end of her aspirational rainbow.

Big change number one: I now own a hairbrush (not just one, but two brushes – these things come in spurts, apparently), so I’m looking slightly tidier.

I also bought a bike, so I suddenly get regular and vigorous exercise riding along Ottawa’s beautiful canal, which allows me to lower my cholesterol levels and get in touch with nature. And although I ride at a very leisurely pace (I have no other), I still spend the rest of the day trying to air myself out underneath the hand dryer, which allows others to notice how much exercise I’m getting, too.

Since my little adventure with cooking began, I’ve begun returning home from the grocery store overwhelmed with yuppie staples like fresh mozzarella, yellow zucchini, and Tuscan sausage, whipping up semi-elaborate meals with a total lack of modesty.

I didn’t even see that movie Julie & Julia, but it seems to have unleashed some sort of long-buried desire to revel in the sensory pleasures of anything with an expiration date.

I even clean things now. Last year I did not clean things – ever. My roommate will attest to this. But I swept the floor three days ago. And I put my shoes on the shoe rack last week (I am still working out the details of what else needs to be cleaned.)

The best part of “getting my act together” (as certain individuals have put it), is the ability to shock and amaze with skills that others would consider standard. It has been a long time since I have impressed anyone with my more prodigious skills – reading very bad novels very quickly, for example, or making up lewd limericks for people on their birthdays.

Still, lest I become the inspiration for another Margaret Wente column on spoiled, incompetent young people, let me attest that lots of third year students have long mastered basic domestic tasks, and are busy living smooth and successful daily lives.

My friend Rebecca, who is a music student at York, makes her own pasta sauce from scratch. I’m pretty sure she even had an herb garden at one point. Ivy, a forestry student at UBC, eats a lot of strange vegan-type grains, and does the stairs to Wreck Beach as a morning workout (for anyone who has not trudged up them before, these stairs appear to number around one billion.) Last year, Jess, the roommate, cooked a whole ham. A ham. It wasn’t Easter, and I don’t even think it was Sunday. She just felt like cooking up an enormous pig flank, I suppose.

Continual disarray is certainly not the rule for university students, although the road to fresh vegetables and well laundered sheets can be long and arduous, the road to adulthood even more so. However, the struggle is beautiful (or at least appreciated my roommates and Mums), and possibly inevitable.

After all, I resisted for years, and it seems to finally be catching up with me.

If you can put it in a sandwich, you can put it on these pizzas – and impress your friends, too

I am on a bit of a culinary kick at the moment.

This would surprise almost anyone who knows me well, as I am not known for my enthusiasm in the kitchen. If anything, I invite friends over for dinner and then learn how to cook the chicken. Gives it a sense of urgency, I find.

Because of this, I’ve received an endless number of cook books for Christmases and birthdays – “Easy Chicken”, “Rookie Cooking”, “Cooking for Useless and Impatient Slobs”, etc. None of these have enticed me. I open them, I look at the pictures, but something stops me from re-creating the meal.

Namely, there are too many ingredients involved. Really  – when am I going to need oregano again? Let alone capers.

So I am providing here a series of impromptu recipes. I say recipes loosely, because to qualify for my approval, they have to be too simple to appear in any genuine cook book. So simple they would shame any genuine cookbook. So simple they can be made in about ten minutes, while reading the paper, washing the dishes, and talking on the phone.

The first recipe is my Mum’s, and it has been my saving grace at endless dinner parties. It is called the “gourmet pizza.”

The “gourmet pizza” is only gourmet because it looks more attractive than the average pizza.

Use a pita of any size or disposition, layer on what you want, put in the oven on broil, and take out when it looks crispy. The only key is good, colourful ingredients (this we have learned from the Italians.) Here are my favourite combinations:

The Italian Pizza: Pesto sauce with fresh mozzarella, a combination of green and red peppers, onions and zucchini, plus shrimp or prosciutto.

The Cowboy Pizza: Barbeque or chipotle sauce, Monterey jack or cheddar, with caramelized onions, red peppers, and roast chicken (you can always use a full, cooked chicken from the grocery store for this one.)

The Asian Pizza: Peanut sauce, plus mozzarella, red peppers, cilantro and shredded carrots, roast chicken or shrimp.

I’ve also tried sausages, bacon, feta cheese, cucumber, goat cheese, asparagus, and a particular favourite – slices of avocado. I rarely use actual tomato sauce. A good rule of thumb is: if you have it in your fridge, you can put it in a sandwich, and if you can put it in a sandwich, you can put it on a pizza and serve it to friends.

If you’re entertaining for many, supply the pitas and the spreads, and get everyone to bring a different topping. Everyone picks what they want, and the combinations get a little more exciting than your average pepperoni.

For other lazy, sloppy and generally unwilling student cooks, I’ll be including a series of super short and easy “recipes” from time to time, suggested by competent and creative friends across the country (and one in Australia.)

Soon to come are tips for making Mexican salsa burgers (with sweet potato fries and fresh guacamole), and the world’s easiest salad wraps.

Universities see a rise in dorm cooking, more dining hall options

Once upon a time, eating in a college dorm meant soup in a hotpot or getting pizza delivered. The most interesting thing about the campus dining hall was often the salad bar.

No more. These days, college students have gourmet palates and a growing interest in preparing their own food. Mini-refrigerators and microwaves in dorm rooms are as essential as laptops. Chefs drop by dorm kitchens to give lessons, and dining halls provide takeout containers and ingredients for kids who want to cook their own meals.

“‘Are we allowed to have mini-fridges and microwaves in our residence hall room?’ That may be the No. 1 question our residential staff encounter from new students entering Western Illinois University,” according to John Biernbaum, who oversees the school’s housing and dining services in Macomb, Ill.

“The culinary literacy of college students is increasing,” said Tom Post, president of campus dining for Sodexo, a food service and facilities management company that works with 600 campuses in North America. “Students today grew up watching celebrity chefs on TV, eating organic food, enjoying authentic world cuisine and valuing good nutrition.”

In response, cafeteria menus have changed, with Sodexo’s top campus foods for 2009 including Vietnamese pho (noodle soup), mini-samosas, goat cheese salad and chicken mole. But colleges are also catering to student demands for more flexible and individualized dining options.

Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., offers recyclable takeout containers called “GustieWare” in the dining halls. This fall, Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., will offer students on its meal plan a chance to pick up groceries in the cafeteria as an alternative to a cooked meal.

At Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif., food waste from the dining hall is used as compost for an organic garden where students grow lettuce, peppers, corn, kale, squash, carrots and other vegetables.

“The students also throw a garden party every week – usually Friday afternoon – where they get together to harvest the vegetables, then dine on the food with some live music,” said Jim Marchant, Pitzer dean of students. The garden is used “to teach principles of sustainable agriculture and encourage college community members to become more connected with the source of their food.”

Chartwells, the company that prepares food for dining halls at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, offers microwaveable meals that students can take away, as well as a program called “My Pantry,” where students can have food individually prepared, or even do their own cooking.

“Clearly there has been a great rejection of the (traditional) campus meal plan, both because of the inflexibility of it and because you have so many different kinds of tastes now,” said Nach Waxman, owner of the Kitchen Arts & Letters cookbook store in Manhattan. “And the dorms have changed: They have kitchens and food prep rooms. When I was in college, there was no such thing.”