my week in food photos, april 29 - may 5, 2013

if there are bao (buns) to be eaten, i'm first in line

Bison Short Rib bun from HotBunzz

I had seen Hot Bunzz (@HotBunzzTO) around on Twitter for awhile but our first taste of their buns was at the September 2012 Toronto Underground Market where their Beef Basil Thai bun was a hit with both Paul and myself. I've been stalking following Hot Bunzz on Twitter ever since. Growing up in a Chinese family like I did, I ate a lot of buns (or bao as they're called in Chinese), especially meat-filled ones, so I'm always curious to see how these little snacks are interpreted by others.

For the past few months, Hot Bunzz have been hinting that something big was happening and I finally learned what the buzz was about - they were launching a permanent space! When Hot Bunzz's Mitch invited me to preview their new place inside the (also new) Urban Bistro (@UrbanBistroTO) at 21 St. Clair Ave. West, I couldn't be more excited and accepted immediately.

After arriving, I spoke with owner Mark about how Hot Bunzz came to be and he told me he was inspired by the traditional Asian bao after travelling through Hong Kong and Shanghai, but wanted to do something different with the fillings. He believes that "food is about adventure" and you can definitely see that philosophy in the HotBunzz on display - the flavours they were previewing were Sicilian Sausage, Canadian Elk and Bison Short Rib.

happy mchappy day - wednesday, may 8!

On Wednesday, May 8, McDonald's is celebrating the 20th McHappy Day in Canada and they need our help!

For every Big Mac, Happy Meal or hot McCafe beverage that's sold on May 8, McDonald's will donate $1 to local children's charities, including Ronald McDonald Houses. Last year, that totaled $8,000,000!

Did You Know?

• Last year, on McHappy Day, McDonalds Canada sold 402,802 Big Macs, 207, 246 Happy Meals and 709,907 hot McCafe beverages?
• 1,400 McDonald's restaurants will be celebrating McHappy Day on May 8
• 10,000 families stay in Ronald McDonald Houses each year

How you can help (super easy, I promise!):

• On May 8, go to McDonald's and order a Big Mac, Happy Meal or a hot McCafe beverage (or all three!) 
• Spread the word to your Facebook friends and on Twitter using #McHappyDay

Watch how Ronald McDonald House Charities give sick children what they need most - their families.

Disclosure: I am not sponsored by McDonalds Canada. For helping to spread the word, McDonald's Canada has made a donation to Ronald McDonald House on my behalf, otherwise I have not received any other compensation for this post. 

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!

my week in food photos, april 22-28, 2013

watch out kitchen - i'm making macarons!

If you haven't been able to tell from my blog, Twitter and Instagram feeds - I love macarons. A lot. Paul likes them well enough, but I ADORE them. I even managed to talk Suzie (my sister) into giving macarons out as her wedding favours just so I could eat more macarons. LOL. It's gotten to the point where I get upset when I see people mix up the terms "macarons" and "macaroons" (which I also like, but let's be serious, they are not the same thing).

As my love affair with macarons started getting a little more "obsessive", I realized that my wallet really couldn't keep up with my appetite, so I started looking into baking my own.

As a rookie baker, I'm really nervous when recipes are complicated and generally I tend to stick to simple recipes. After reading all over the internet about how difficult and finicky macarons were to make, I was daunted. Hungry, but daunted. In the end though, my hunger for macarons won out and I started looking for recipes and baking tips.

Macarons from Butter Avenue

There are many, many, MANY wonderful blogs posts, cookbooks and internet articles on how to make this beloved little French pastry but there were four blogs that I returned to again and again while doing my research (and mentally psyching myself up for the challenge):

• For flavour inspiration, recipes and delicious photos, I love scrolling through Amy's Food Adventures and Sylvia's A Baked Creation blogs
• For a ton of macaron making info, I relied heavily on Eat. Live. Travel. Write and Bravetart

my week in food photos, april 15-21, 2013