the winter classic

So, while many of my friends were nursing hangovers on January 1, I was up at 5 am, driving from Windsor to Ann Arbor in order to freeze my buns off sitting on metal bleachers for the entire day. Why, you may ask?

The Winter Classic is (according to Wikipedia): "...an event held by the National Hockey League (NHL) on or around New Year's Day in which a regular-season hockey game is played outdoors, in an area with a resident NHL team."

That sounds pretty tame, right?

the best laid plans...

So, I had everything planned out perfectly:
Fri. Dec. 20: my last day of work before the Christmas holidays (and a two-week vacation!)
Sat. Dec. 21 & Sun. Dec. 22: Paul and I finish our Christmas shopping
Mon. Dec. 23: bake cookies for my entry in the kitchen frolic Cookie Advent Calendar
Tues. Dec. 24: spend Christmas Eve at home with my family
Wed. Dec. 25: spend Christmas Day with Paul's family

What actually happened? Our house lost power around 12:30 am Sunday (Dec. 22) morning and didn't get any power (or heat) back until early Dec. 24, nearly 56 hours later. Needless to say, almost all the food in the fridge/freezer was lost, although we did manage to give some away to those family who still had power  and we spent most of our nights staying with generous and hospitable family members. It's actually kind of scary to be sitting in a dark house, on a dark street, without power or heat and absolutely no way of communicating to the outside world (no phone lines or cell phone service!). It was eerie to say the least.

I also had to give Paul his Christmas gift early because it was being stored in the fridge! It was a monthly subscription to the Carnivore Club (more on that in a future blog post!)

Paul and I barely finished our Christmas shopping (we managed to do so by Christmas Eve) and I didn't get to do any Christmas baking at all. So, the Cookie Advent Calendar is missing Day 24, but I'm hoping to fix that sometime before I go back to work on January 6.

The ice storm and freezing weather that caused the huge power loss across southern Ontario (and parts of the northeastern US) created some beautiful photos, but seriously, you can only look at so many pictures of frozen trees before you think about the damage and inconvenience it caused, including some tragic deaths.

I'm very grateful to my family for being so generous, opening their houses to us and forgiving our hastily wrapped gifts (and my lack of baked goods this year). It's times like these that remind everyone what is really important about the holiday season - family and friends.

I didn't get much of a chance to take a lot of photos (trying to figure out how to save Christmas and stay warm is a really annoying distraction!), but here's just some of the beauty, aka destruction, in my neighbourhood.

No matter how you spent this past holiday season, I hope that it was filled with family, friends and an abundance of warmth and food!

Paul and I are heading out of town to spend New Year's Day at the Winter Classic (it's like I can't get enough of being cold or something!) so I also want to take this opportunity to with everyone a very safe and memorable New Year's Eve and Day! Here's to 2014! I can't wait to share it with all of you!

Ready, Set, MO

I've gotta be honest. I'm not a fan of moustaches. Beards? Sure. Goatees? No problem. But moustaches? Sorry, only if your name is Tom Selleck (seriously - have you ever seen Selleck without his moustache? I tried to Google a good, non-photoshopped image of him sans moustache for this post and came up empty - for once the internet failed me. ).

Anyhow, the one time I will actively promote the much-maligned moustache is during the 11th month of the year. Because it's Movember!

For those of you wondering what the fuss about moustaches (or Mo's) is about, "Movember is the month formerly known as November, where men and women across the globe join together to raise awareness and funds for men’s health issues. Men grow a Mo (moustache) for 30 days to become walking, talking billboards, for our men’s health causes - specifically prostate cancer, testicular cancer and male mental health initiatives." (from the Movember Canada website).

And us gals have a part to play to! Mo Sistas are dedicated to supporting Mo Bros throughout their moustache-growing journey. While (obviously) not expected to grow a moustache, Mo Sistas can lead by example in other ways by encouraging the men in their life to know more about their health and for supporting the Mo Bros they see out there on the streets, bravely sporting (or trying to grow) Mo's.

As a registered Mo Sista for the first time, I'm hoping that I can count on your support as I raise funds for the Movember campaign.

My sister, Suzy, and me, rocking cookie Mo's

If I've ever donated to your cause when asked, supported your business with my dollars or otherwise have been of some help to you, be aware that I'll be bugging you for the next month to return the favour. This is my first fundraising attempt, and I'm a little nervous, so please don't leave me hanging!

You can support my Mo Sista efforts in several ways:

• make an online donation directly through my Movember Canada page (tax receiptable) 
• give me cash when you see me (if you give me your full contact info, you'll get a tax receipt)
• donate a prize/auction item for me to use in my fundraising efforts
• purchase a Moustache Necklace that I've made - more details here.

Moustaches will be available in black, turquoise and hot pink! Coming soon...

THANK YOU in advance for your support and for putting up with my consistent pestering for the next 30 days! And a special thank you to Chris, my Movember Team Captain, for letting this newbie join in the Mo fun.

Let's go MO!

paul + stephanie = homeowners!

I just wanted to write a quick note to let you all know about an exciting new happening in our lives - Paul and I bought a house!

It's our first home-buying experience, so we're pretty excited. There's quite a bit of work to be done in the place, so you'll probably see lots of tweets, and maybe even a few blog posts, as we slowly turn our house into a home.

Right now, I think I'm most excited about about choosing the appliances for our new kitchen! Eep! There are so many choices out there that it's all a little overwhelming, and as someone who loves spending time in the kitchen, I really want to make sure that these appliances are not only nice to look at, but also very practical (and within budget!)

So...dear readers, if you have any tips, links, advice, etc for someone who's pretty much decorating a whole house from the ground up - please, please share! Even if it's just to let me know which brand of oven you like, or your favourite fabric for a couch or your best painting tip - I want to hear them all!

summerlicious for our anniversary!

Paul and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago and we celebrated by having a few lunches during Summerlicious.

For those outside Toronto, Summerlicious (and Winterlicious) are two food festivals held every year here in Toronto. Winterlicious runs during the first two weeks of February while Summerlicious occurs at the start of July (both typically slow times for restaurants). During both these events major restaurants across the city offer a limited menu of prix fixe lunches and dinners at a discount from typical prices. Currently the prices are $15, $20 or $25 for lunch and $25, $35 or $45 for dinner, with drinks and tips not included.

Some restaurants book up really quickly, but Paul and I don't generally choose a place based on popularity, but we go based on the menu. Plus, this year, we decided to try places that were in our neighbourhood.

I don't normally review restaurants here on kitchen frolic, but I wanted to share a recap of the places we tried and the menu items we ate. Watch for my recaps over the next few days!  :)

happy first birthday!

365 days (actually, 366 since 2012 was a Leap Year) ago today, I posted my very first blog post here on kitchen frolic.

In the span of a year, what started out as a tentative step into the world of food blogging has turned into lots of wonderful new opportunities, allowed me to meet some incredibly friendly and generous people (both online and in real life) and increased my time in the kitchen. I'd like to believe that my cooking has improved during this time too!

I started this blog in order to encourage myself to become a better cook and to document my adventures (along with Paul) in the kitchen.While I can happily say that my blog has seen us spending more time in the kitchen, many other wonderful things that I never expected have also happened along the way. To name just a few of the highlights from my past year of food blogging:

• meeting Thomas Keller at a launch event for his latest book, Bouchon Bakery
• attending our first Toronto Underground Market
• pulling out a batch of non-cracked, non-hollow, with-feet macarons from my own oven
• getting a Direct Message through Twitter from Nigella Lawson
• becoming a Brand Ambassador for Canadian Beef
• placing the first-ever order at HotBunzz
• becoming a monthly contributor to the FoodiePages blog
• creating my online Cookie Advent Calendar

Plus, I got to see "kitchen frolic" painted on a downtown Toronto wall, pinned to a map in TV show The Glades' production offices, chalked onto a restaurant sign and printed on a T-shirt and a McCafe mug! Even after a whole year, it's still pretty exciting to see my name on something I didn't create.

Of course, one of the best parts of starting this blog has been getting to meet so many friendly and passionate food-lovers from around the globe. There's no way I could name all of you here, but you know who you are. Whether we exchange blog comments, have back-and-forth Twitter conversations or have eaten together in real life, I am so glad that my path has crossed with yours and I hope to meet many more of you in person someday!

And just like any milestone, there are a few people that I have to thank:

A very special thank you to Paul for putting up with my kitchen messes, for accepting the fact that I have to take photos of all the food before he can eat it and for not complaining too much that I bake more than I cook.

Another thank you goes to my family and friends for putting up with my incessant food-fact spouting, for constantly gifting me with food-related Christmas and birthday gifts (especially my sister, Suzie!) and for being brave enough to try my kitchen experiments.

And of course...

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for being on the other side of the screen and spending some of your time reading my blog!

the best laid plans...

I had big baking plans going into the Easter weekend - I had four days off and during that time I was determined to dye some Easter eggs! Bake Easter-themed cupcakes! Make another attempt at macarons! Do something with marshmallow Peeps!

And then I got sick. Not "a-few-sniffles" sick, but "moaning-in-bed, will-the-pain-never-stop, taking-6-hour-naps" sick. Okay, that's probably being a little overdramatic, but two things were true - I am taking naps that last over three hours (which is always a sign that I'm sick since I never nap otherwise) and food is the furthest thing from my mind.

The only thing I did manage to check off my Easter to-do list was the macarons. Luckily, I had made the shells (and fillings) on Friday afternoon before I fell ill, so I only had to assemble them yesterday morning (which, by the way, left me exhausted and in need of a nap - yeesh!) They weren't as good as my second attempt earlier this month, but it's still a work in progress!

So, unfortunately, I don't have any fun Easter recipes to share with everyone, although I do have these pretty, spring-coloured macarons (vanilla shells filled with either Nutella-ganache or lemon buttercream) to show off. You can see by the tiny, lopsided feet, that these were definitely not my best effort. But they do taste pretty good!

kitchen fiascos

Things have been a little quiet in our kitchen since the holidays - Paul got sick a couple of weeks ago and just as he started recovering, I came down with a bad bug. Which means that for the past several weeks, we were either not in the mood to cook or not in the mood to eat. Either way, it's been a lot of tea, chicken noodle soup and sleepless nights at our house.

We're both now on antibiotics and on the road (hopefully) to recovery, so hopefully we'll be back cooking up new recipes soon.

In the meantime, I thought it would be funny to look at a few of the things that went wrong in our kitchen in the past few months.

Apparently, my main problems in the kitchen seem to involve either baked things that didn't rise properly:

vanilla macaron shells

baked doughnut holes

Or things that were a little too generously filled by me, causing some minor eruptions.

mint-filled brownie cupcakes

pork potstickers

I'm hoping 2013 has more kitchen successes than failures, but it's all about learning, and no one learns perfectly the first time around, right?

I'm sure that the more we experiment in the kitchen, the more "fiascos" will happen, so there will definitely be more of these little photos to share!  :)

What about you? What small fiascos have happened to you lately?

taking the 50 book pledge in 2013

I've always been an avid reader, but it gets harder the older I get - there just doesn't seem to be enough time in my day to sit down and read. But, as the new year began, I noticed the hashtag #50bookpledge on Twitter and decided that I would make a conscious effort to read more books...and not just cookbooks either!

Reading 50 books is a huge goal - that's almost a book a week. It also doesn't help that the first book that I chose is over 800 pages long!

So, for the rest of the year, I'll be tracking what I'm reading here on the blog (see the new tab I added above!). Some of these books will be old favourites that I'm re-reading again, but others will be brand new.

I know a lot of my Twitter and blog friends are also taking the pledge, so I'd love to know what you're reading! Even if you're not taking the pledge, do you have any books to recommend to me? Leave me a comment with your favourite books - I'm always looking for new reads!

happy 2013!

Happy New Year friends!

2012 has been a wonderful year of new adventures for us, and me in particular, most notably starting a new job and launching this blog.

I've met so many wonderful people through kitchen frolic and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for supporting and encouraging me as Paul and I continue to explore new recipes and food experiences. I am still sometimes in awe of how extremely warm and generous the online (and real life!) food community is and I know that 2013 will be full of new friendships, new tastes and fun food adventures!

I don't know if I want to set any "food resolutions" for 2013, as I'm horrible at following through with any type of resolution, but some of the things I definitely want to accomplish this year:

• keep on blogging (at least twice a week!)
• cook a new dish from one of my many cookbooks at least once every other week
• meet more of my online foodie friends in real life
• improve my piping skills (as in piping frosting, meringue, etc)
• keep practicing making macarons

Some of my "non-food" resolutions for 2013, which I might mention from time to time here on this blog are:

• read 50 books (I took the #50bookpledge)
• launch my own PR/marketing company

What about you? Are you making any resolutions for 2013?

the top 8 things i ate in rome

Ok, so you've seen the Top 10 (non-food) things I saw in Rome, but I know some of you are thinking, "But what about the food???"

Even though I blog about food and I think about food A LOT, I was so excited to be heading to Rome that I didn't really plan what I would actually be eating in Rome. Keep in mind, this was a last minute trip and we had not anticipated heading to Italy for at least another few years. But, I figured, it's ROME. I'm sure there will be good things to eat everywhere I look! I definitely wasn't wrong about that.

The only things that dampened my eating spirits (which are generally pretty high) were:
1. because of the August holiday season, some of the places we wanted to eat at were closed
2. it was so HOT that I didn't really have much of an appetite except for constantly craving water and gelato

Anyhow, I took a real "fly by the seat of my pants" attitude towards eating in Rome. Paul was the one who was busy online and in guidebooks, jotting down places that he wanted to check out (over which half were closed, unfortunately), so my plan of attack was to let Paul pick the location and then I would find something new and delicious on the menu once I got there.

Good plan, right? Except that neither of us speak Italian and some of the better places that we got to didn't speak any English or have English translations, so there was some guesswork and crossed-fingers as well.

In the end, I definitely tried some new things that I've fallen in love with (I'm looking at you suppli and granita caffe) and also twists on old favourites (a nutella cannolo - yes please!).

Here are the Top 8 things I ate in Rome (in no particular order):

Granita Caffe con Panna from La Casa del Caffe Tazza d'Oro

Oh. My. God. When you read about this, you're going to want to make some for yourself. Like right now.

This place was on Paul's "Must Visit" list (I love this guy!) - the Tazza d'Oro sits by the Pantheon and is famous for its coffee (in a country that's famous for its coffee). There were some really amazing things on the drink menu, but the Granita Caffe con Panna is the one that it's famous for.

The drink consists of three layers - a thick whipped cream is placed on the bottom, then a scoop of rich, deep espresso granita (imagine a shaved ice) and then topped with more thick cream. This is definitely a coffee you eat with a spoon.

We loved this so much we went three times while we were in Rome (we actually went four times, but they were closed on one of the days we went).

Even better - Paul managed to make an extremely close copy of the drink after we got home (don't worry, I'll be sharing the recipe soon!) so now we can have it anytime we want! Hooray!

Ananas gelato from Gelateria I Caruso

Another one of Paul's "Must Visit" locations, this little gelato shop is not really near any tourist location, so it was relatively quieter, and the menu is smaller (and only in Italian) - I can't remember, but I think there were less than 25 flavours (compared to a place like Della Palma, with 150 flavours!) . Plus, the gelato containers are covered up so you can't even see the colour of the gelato and make an educated guess as to what the flavour might be.

Luckily for me, the word "pineapple" is the same in French and Italian. We had four different gelatos from this place and the Ananas is definitely our favourite (it ended up being our favourite flavour from the whole trip). It was like you were eating crushed, creamy pineapple in a cup.

This was the one gelato shop where you could actually see them making their products - if you peek in the main window of the shop, you can see someone making gelato! Amazing!

p.s. Besides being known as one of the best gelato places in Rome, Paul had another motivation for choosing this place to visit. If you know me well enough in real life, then you'll know right away why we're partial to this place!  ;)

the top 10 (non-food) things i saw in rome

Paul and I are back from our one-week vacation in Rome and if you've been following me on Twitter and/or Instagram, then you'll know we packed A LOT of sight-seeing into seven days!

We chose to go to Rome at the very last minute - within the span of 10 days, we decided to go, booked our flight/hotel and hopped on a plane. If we had actually taken the time to do a little research, we would have learned that Rome in August is:
1. insanely hot (it was roughly 35 degrees Celcius everyday, with another 8-10 degrees extra in humidity); and
2. mainly closed down as many Romans take their holidays during this month.
But, we made the most of the situation, had backup plans in case any restaurant/attraction was closed, drank gallons of water and ended up having a wonderful trip.

Simply put, Rome is stunning! Everywhere you look, there's something old, historical and beautiful. And I'm not even going to start on the food right now - that's for future posts! We saw so many memorable things that it's hard to narrow it down, but because this is a blog post, not a book, I tried my best to pick some of my favourites to show you. (Thank goodness for our brand new Nikon D3200, which we bought two days before the trip - it actually makes our photos soooo much better!)

Here are the Top 10 (non-food) things I saw in Rome (in no particular order):

Inside the dome of St. Peter's Basilica

Located within Vatican City, Saint Peter's Basilica has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world and is regarded as one of the holiest Catholic sites. For me, this basilica is memorable in a few ways - it was the shortest line-up we had (it took less than five minutes to get in both times we went!), it was the one place that enforced the "cover your shoulders" rule, and it was the place where I almost passed out from heat stroke (but that's a story for another day!)

We took a lift up to the dome level and got to walk along inside to see the ceiling up close. I think the photo speaks for itself.

The Vatican Museum exit staircase

The Vatican Museums display works from the huge collection built up by the Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries, including some of the most renowned classical sculptures and important masterpieces of Renaissance art.

Yes, the works of art are impressive, and the Sistine Chapel is included in the entry fee to the Museums, but one of the sites that will stay with me forever? The stairs to the exit! Designed by Giuseppe Momo in 1932, the broad steps are somewhere between a ramp and a staircase and actually consist of two separate helixes, one leading up and the other leading down, that twist together in a double helix formation.

This has become my favourite staircase in the whole world. Yes, it's very wide and quite steep...and perfectly designed. Just take a look at this photo - isn't this a beautiful site?

buongiorno roma!

Paul and I are off to Rome!

This is our first trip to Italy and we're super excited to see all the amazing sites and eat some real Italian food! We don't get to travel as often as we'd like (why is travelling so EXPENSIVE?!) so we try to make every minute away count. Since we decided at the last minute to go to Rome, we don't really have a set itinerary so are kind of going with the flow and trying to plan things "on the fly".

I'd love it if you joined me (sort of) on our trip! Follow me on Twitter and Instagram (ID: kitchenfrolic) to see what we're up to and what we're eating. If you've been to Rome before, we'd love to get your tips and recommendations!

long weekend = food

We just celebrated Canada Day long weekend and it seems that all we did was eat! Check out some of the food we noshed on these past three days....(more detailed posts involving Kawartha Dairy ice cream and blueberry muffins coming soon!)

welcome to kitchen frolic!

Hi!

My name is Stephanie - welcome to my food blog, kitchen frolic!

My day job is in corporate communications and marketing (in an industry that's as unrelated to food as you can possibly get), but I'm pretty obsessed with food the rest of the time (and sometimes while I'm at work too).

I was born, raised and reside in Toronto, Canada. Growing up, most of my friends lived on hamburgers and french fries, but my parents were very traditionally Chinese, so I grew up eating with chopsticks at home and having lots of Chinese dishes. Now I'm all grown up (mostly) and married to an amazing guy, Paul, who's half-Italian and half-Irish and who uses chopsticks better than I do. We'll pretty much try anything food-wise (although I'll probably squeal and run away if you hand me anything remotely related to an insect).

I was hesitant to start a food blog because there are already so many great (and not so great) food-related blogs out there, plus I am a real amateur in the world of food. On the other hand, I definitely needed an outlet for my food fixation and I really wanted to get back into writing. In the end, I gave in and decided to start this blog with the hope that I'm semi-interesting enough that some of you may check it out regularly and enjoy what I have to say!

Thanks so much for stopping by!