I’ve lost two things of utmost important to me twice in a row. This has never happened before, and I had merely a week to recover before this thing was yet again taken from me. I even wore it around my neck, saw to it every morning, and wrapped them up tightly. I’ll tell you what this is in a little bit.

Have you ever lost something in such a way where you literally could have un-lost it if only one action was changed? If I wasn’t in such a hurry, I would have remembered to take my keys out of the purse I used yesterday, so they’d be inside today’s purse. If I didn’t look at the pedestrian, I wouldn’t have gone through that red light and been pulled over. If only, if only, if only. You know what it’s like to regret something so sharply when something so small could have made the difference.

My friend lost her monthly bus pass this past weekend when we were out together, and I felt so terribly that this had happened to her at the beginning of January. That pass is not inexpensive! We re-traced our steps, asked the shop-owners if a customer had turned it up, but it was no cigar like Cuba without a beach. I tried to cheer her up by saying there should be a pocket that takes inventory of its contents every time something is dropped inside, will sound an alarm when it’s removed, and only opens up when your unique fingerprints reaches inside.

The things we miss the most are the things we want to protect, right? I’m re-reading a book called Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer and came upon this page I had dog-earred upon my first read about pockets and protecting valuables:

We need much bigger pockets, I thought as I lay in bed, counting off the seven minutes that it takes a normal person to fall asleep. We need enormous pockets, pockets big enough for our families, and our friends, and even the people who aren’t on our lists, people we’ve never met but still want to protect. We need pockets for boroughs and for cities, a pocket that could hold the universe.

Eight minutes thirty-two seconds …

But I knew that there couldn’t be pockets that enormous. In the end, everyone loses everyone. There was no invention to get around that, so I felt, that night, like the turtle that everything else in the world was on top of.

Wouldn’t it be neat if we had such a device against loss. I think the question wouldn’t be so much what you will never lose again, but what you want to store. The down-side about infinite storage space is that it encourages you to be indiscriminate about your belongings. Sort of like a Gmail account — you never have to delete anything again, so you end up accumulating new folders to sort out all the non-essential things you keep. If Gmail were a pocket, it would have lots of zippers and embedded envelopes within it.

In a few weeks, it will be Chinese new year, and what many families like to do to celebrate is sit around and fold dumplings together. I have a confession to make: I only found this out two years ago, and I’ve been Chinese all my life! So last weekend, since my sister is in town, my family sat together and made shrimp and pork dumplings.

Actually, the fun part was folding the wonton wrappers into place. To secure these pockets of savoury bites, there simply are no rules. There are so many ways to fold dumplings — my mom folds her like a napkin on a cruise ship dinner table, my dad manages to make his look like the ruffly edge of an oyster shell, and my sister folds her look like you could use it as a cootie-catcher. The main point in making dumplings is to make sure the contents don’t spill out! That means a) having the self-control to not overpack your wonton wrapper b) moistening the wrapper edges like you would an envelope c) not changing your mind once you’ve set a fold. This, and a lot of hands and hours will help you to never lose the contents in your pocket.

Oh yes, back to the thing I lost twice in a row. What can you wear around your neck, attend to each morning, and wrap tightly? That would be my health. I got sick twice — the first time during Christmas, and now again, the second week into the new year. I wore a scarf around my neck, took my vitamins every morning, and wore my mitts like they were my own fingers. But what can I say — I still caught two consecutive colds. Guess I better get on inventing those awesome pockets.

Pork and shrimp Chinese dumpling recipe

• 1 package wonton wrappers (NOT the same as spring roll wrappers, trust me I tried both)
• 1 lb raw shrimp, peeled
• 1 lb minced pork
• 3 stalks green onion, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp cornstarch
• small bowl of water for dipping
• salt and white pepper
• Place all the raw shrimp in a large bowl. Mash it, like you would mash boiled potatoes (in Chinese, my dad calls this technique “hacking away”, though it paints a more savage picture in a literal English translation. Sorry vegetarians.)
• Combine the pork, and mix well.
• Add green onions, and salt and white pepper to season.
• Prepare a dish of water with cornstarch, and mix well.
• Taking a wonton wrapper, place it in the balm of your hand. Cradle a teaspoon-sized ball of the pork and shrimp filling into the centre of the wrapper.
• Dip a finger into the cornstarch water, and paint all along the perimeter of the wonton wrapper. Don’t add so much so that the corners are soggy — it should look like a moistened envelope.
• Fold the dumpling. To get started on basic shapes, watch Andrea Nguyen’s video.
• Wrapped dumplings can be frozen, or cooked immediately.

Try this: finish a book. Or an entire section of a newspaper. Lately, I catch myself wandering off by the slightest distraction — sometimes it’s an ad or a discount deal neighbouring a newspaper column (yes Porter, your marketing money is being used well). Sometimes I get sidetracked by remembering I can’t forget this thing, and while I reach for my iPod to add it to my reminder list, I also read the items before it and, oh yeah, I meant to tell so-and-so about this cool app I had bookmarked, and as I finish the text message, I don’t even remember the main topic of the article I was reading that set me off on this chase. A thousand years from now, anthropologists are going to see the cause of multiple talents and neuroses in their day by singling out one thing in our generation: attention deficit disorder.

During the holidays, we wish ourselves to rest. We’re just going to take it easy, play it by ear. Take a break from it all.

And then try as we may, there’s the old habit of checking inboxes, updating our statuses, and faster than Santa came down that chimney, we’re just as plugged in as we were before the holidays. Worse, the quietness of things switched off is a little bit unsettling. It’s indicative of their addiction to noise, I can hear those anthropologists theorizing.

Maybe the trick to grabbing and keeping your attention is to eliminate other distractions.

Finishing a book becomes practically an act of self-discipline — just flip page by page, one at a time, and let the reading pace bring you eventually to the back cover. For all the times we’ve “read” a book by scanning chapter headings, and even the way we jump between webpages, it takes so long to read from the top of the page to the bottom. A friend of mine finishes her book by setting aside an hour before bed to read. Part sleep hygiene, part slowing down, her habit is be cumulative but rewarding. If only I had the same discipline!

Last night, I made a Thai sauce that seemed to do what I could not — focus on one subject, and eliminate distractions. With more than five ingredients, the tangy sauce was really the protagonist in the dish. The sauce is where all the zing is, without competing with other flavours like a showdown of chefs, and tumbled over grilled salmon that I didn’t even marinate very much. Served in a setting of coconut steamed rice with roasted asparagus lightly tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper. That should be a straight-forward plot!

Thai salmon with coconut rice recipe (from About.com)

• 2 to 4 salmon fillets or steaks
• 1/4 cup rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup liquid honey
• 3 or 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp lemongrass, finely chopped
• 1 tsp chili sauce
• 2 tbsp fish sauce (if you’re wondering which one, here’s an elaborate reference)
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 1/2 cup orange juice, freshly squeezed
• zest of one orange
• 3 or 4 tbsp coconut milk
• cornstarch
• Wash and pat-dry the salmon. On medium-high heat, grill the salmon. Don’t turn it over too often because the fish will flake and break. Instead, let each side cook for about 6-8 minutes on medium-high heat, or until the middle is no longer raw.
• Combine the vinegar, honey, garlic, lemongrass, chili, fish sauce, soy sauces. Set about a 1/4 cup aside for the cornstarch, and bring the remainder to a boil in a saucepan. Lower heat and let the sauce simmer.
• Add the zest, orange juice and coconut milk to the saucepan.
• Spoon cornstarch into the sauce set aside, being sure to flatten any cornstarch balls before adding more spoonfuls. Gradually add the cornstarch mixture into the heated sauce, stirring the saucepan constantly.
• Serve immediately.
• This dish also goes well with coconut rice, which is simply made with 2 parts coconut milk and 1 part water. We had asparagus to make it a complete meal too, which can either be grilled or roasted in a 370ºF oven for 20 minutes.

• 1 winter squash, like buttercup or butternut
• 2 stalks celery, coarsely chopped
• 1 carrot, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 red onion, diced
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley, coarsely chopped
• 1 tbsp honey
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 2 1/3 cup vegetable stock, and reserve 1/3 cup
• Preheat the oven to 400°F, and line a baking pan with aluminum foil for the squash. Set another another casserole dish aside.
• Prepare the complimentary roasted vegetables: toss the celery and carrots in olive oil, salt and pepper. Add the first 1/3 cup of stock.
• Prepare the squash: Keeping the skin on, slice in quarters. Dissolve the honey into 1/4 cup water, and rub onto the sides of the squash. Season with salt and pepper. Drizzle with olive oil. Place the flesh side down so that the surface can caramelize
• Roast the squash and other vegetables for 40-45 minutes.
• Test the doneness by prodding the squash — if soft to touch, cut away the skin and dice squash into large sections. Let it cool completely, along with the other vegetables before the final step.
• Puree the roasted squash, other vegetables, parsley, and remaining vegetable stock until desired consistency is achieved.
• The soup can now be kept in the fridge for several days, or frozen for up to 1 month. Add water to thin out the soup if you find that it is too thick when re-heated.

Have you heard of Camilla Gibb? She is an anthropologist-turned-writer born in London, England and grew up in Toronto. If that wasn’t enough to make me curious, my professor-friend Anne Meneley knew Gibb, and even attested to tea-sipping with this Giller Prize finalist on her front porch. For the longest time I’ve wanted to read her book because I love the fine dotted details of culture that a good anthropologist is trained to not only observe, but describe in a manner most investigative and least invasive. If National Geographic were a novel, that’s what you’d find when you read the work of a cultural anthropologist.

Gibb’s latest novel, The Beauty of Humanity Movement, is set in modern-day Hanoi, Vietnam where an American expat searches for her father and his life during his disappearance in the war, and so far this historical fiction is being told through bowls of broth-infused pho, extra-long chopsticks, and the starvation-savaged girls who learn to beg with their bodies. It is a Hanoi emerging out of a desperate and trying time, revealing the heart of the nation as it is. Recently, Gibb even spoke about The Beauty of Humanity Movement at the Toronto Reference Library. So from having trolleyed this book along on my commute between errands, work, and home, I have to share with you, food-oriented reader, this deliciously descriptive part …

Tư’s mother, meanwhile, had knocked on the doors of every one of the new butcher shops that opened in the 1990s until she found one proprietor who was obliged to listen because he came from the same village as her mother. The story is now legendary in their family: ‘Tell me nine ways to prepare pork for Tet and I’ll consider hiring you,’ the butcher said. And so Tư’s mother recalled the pork dishes they used to eat during the holidays at her grandmother’s house. She described the sensation of her teeth collapsing through fried rice paper into the soft, ground pork middle of a spring roll, the crisp saltiness of pig skin fried with onions, the silk of the finest pork and cinnamon pâté coating her tongue, the soft chew of pork sausages, the buttery collapse of pig’s trotters stewed with bamboo shoots, the ticklish texture of pig intestines resting on vermicelli and the fill of sticky rice, pork and green beans boiled in banana leaves. Just when she was about to falter, she remembered how her father used to reminisce about the dishes his mother made for Tet during his boyhood in Huế: pork bologna, fermented pork hash, pig’s brain pie …

The butcher raised his finger. ‘You’re hired. Stop there before I fire you.’

My mouth salivates from just reading this list of nine from one ingredient! What impresses me the most in Gibb’s book is the resourcefulness of the Vietnamese during the communist occupation. Now I know that things were scarce and carefully doled out between households under communism, but really, really that blows my mind, this mind that is attached to this body which is used to North American plentifulness, is that society lives everyday under controlled limits. From where you can walk on the road, to the number of tinned milk cans you can collect.

Imagine if at your grocery store, all the cashiers took customers with 1-8 items or less. That’s it. You can only cook with eight items or less. Would I be able to whip up nine dishes under such constraints, like Tư’s mother? And don’t forget the frequency of rations. This might be the last time I check out eight items for weeks!

Which poses an interesting question to us, reader-busy-in-the-kitchen: What eight items would you take out from the grocery store to survive on? Would you divvy up the nutritional guide and shop accordingly? Stock up on the comfort foods during such regress? Under such constrains, what would be your eight things to live on?

Thinking about resourcefulness in food, I admire those who make use of an entire animal. My mom has always prepared fresh fish in the traditional Chinese way where the whole body is steamed and consumed with light soy dressing and green onion, unlike the censored chopped parts of fillets that make the eater forget where the dish came from. When I was travelling in Amsterdam, I came across a Turkish restaurant called Saray which prepared a whole fish deliciously grilled to perfection. I remember the crispy skin, the delicate almost buttery texture of the meat, and running my knife against the wiry spine to eat as cleanly off the bone as I could. That’s where this photo comes from.

It’s good to be back. The strange thing about being away from a regular blog is that you are still thinking about what you’d write, what you’d shoot, what recipe you’d share next. So after a bit of a break, typing out another post feels right.

While I’ve been offline, it’s been a good time to learn new things and meet other cooks and bloggers. Did you know that a whole network exists out there just for Canadian food bloggers? And I even met some of the folks in person. Of course it is nice to meet other people in the digital world, but nothing takes the place of real facetime. (No, not that one …)

The inspiring online food community

If you’ve been weaving about the food blog universe for a while, you may know of Chocolate and Zucchini. Earlier in November, I had the chance to hear the author Clotilde Dusoulier speak about what it takes to make a smash-hit food blog — though she didn’t describe it in that way because she is modest, as shrewd managers of success are. Still, if you haven’t tried her infamous yogurt cake, you should get thee to the dairy section. The way I came to this event was through Ann, a food photographer I met by chance at a class, and she told me about the Food Bloggers of Canada who were part of the foodie community covering the event. As I read about the food photography tips, PR strategies, and members’ food blogs on the FBC website, I was hooked. Signing up with the FBC was like how Walter must’ve felt when he joined the Muppets — I felt like I was meeting my own kind who went to tweet-ups, carried business cards for their online project hobbies, and cared about which hashtag to use. All their energy for food blogging was contagious, and I was inspired for the time to come back online.

Food offline can feed others

For almost a year, I’ve also been meaning to connect with Spezzatino, a food magazine that gives proceeds to the food banks and agencies to help mobilize the goods. Spezzatino is another great network out there in the real, physical world that also feeds real, tangible mouths. I finally had a chance to email the editor in chief and get a feel for volunteering on an issue. Since then I’ve recently joined their team as an editor out of the desire to do something with my love for food and words that might make a tangible impact.

Let’s be real

But before I blow up balloons with hot air, I’ll say that the hiatus helped me face my limits. Initially, I left as a web design newbie wanting to learn the language of HTML and CSS. Now, I return as a web design newbie who still can’t decipher the code (though this website is sympathetic). In talking with other food bloggers and reading their blogs, I also saw a lot of great slideshows, contests, personality and recipes that I admire and wish I could replicate. But that’s just it — you can’t make something yours that isn’t natural to your style or too steep on your learning curve. After all, if blogging isn’t fun anymore than we must assess what went wrong! Clotilde shared ten rules to food blogging which the FBC nicely summarized, and #4 is to be genuine. What’s true of what you have to can offer? What are your strengths, and how can you exercise that  knowing your limits? All that being said, I am definitely not a web designer and there are so very many talented bloggers out there who can do slideshows, contests and recipes better than I can! Why not let them shine and do their thing, while I do mine?

And so, dear reader, the return onto this blog is a fortified and thoughtful one to what it means to be genuinely pedestrian. While there won’t be layers of visual stimulation that other blogs may provide, I hope you will still enjoy the food stories and focused photography that I love to bring to you. Having met more food bloggers, I hope to invite them into this space where we can share ideas and talk shop when it comes to cooking everyday.

To make up for the long silence, I’ll leave you with three recipes. And of course, the story behind them …

Salt and pepper green beans

This recipe came from the resolve to never have a stringy, lifeless beans again! Flash-fried, they remain crisp like their sharp green colour and almost, almost can be snacked on like french fries.

• 1 lb string green beans
• salt, pepper, sugar
• Trim the edges off of the green beans.
• On high heat, add water to a shallow pan so that the surface is just covered.
• When water is boiling, throw in the beans to the pan, and season generously with salt, sugar, pepper. Keep watch of the pan, as water will evaporate.
• Add water in small quantities as needed, and season accordingly until the beans are cooked and crunchy. When beans take on a lively green colour, they’re probably done, around 10 minutes.
• Remove from heat and serve immediately.

Sweet potato shepherd’s pie

A twist on the comfort classic uses sweet potatoes and ginger instead of white potatoes. The first time I made this I was being experimental, then when I made it again at a friend’s house, she added the necessary butter and milk to make the sweet potatoes extremely smooth and smashable. If ginger is too strong for you, lower the quantity or try using the powder spice instead.

• 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 1 tsp – 3 tsp fresh ginger, minced
• 1 lb ground beef
• milk
• 1 tbsp butter
• salt and pepper
• Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
• Boil the sweet potatoes in water, for about 20 minutes.
• Meanwhile, heat oil in a pan, fry onions until slightly undercooked. Set aside, and brown the beef in same pan, seasoning with salt and pepper. Drain the fat. Combine the onions when the beef is nearly cooked. Spread the beef mixture into the bottom of an oven-proof casserole dish.
• Check softness of the sweet potatoes. If they’re soft to the fork, remove from heat and add ginger, mixing well. Incorporate the butter and milk to achieve desired softness.
• Layer the smashed sweet potatoes on top of the beef, and use a fork to create a criss-cross pattern on top. Bake for 25-30 minutes.

Cod and clam chowder with garlic bread, adapted from Circle B Kitchen

Offline, I’ve also had the chance to cook and share meals with newly arrived refugees to Toronto at Matthew House. The great thing about Matthew House is that it serves as a welcoming home while residents can stay while they work on their next steps in Canada. Inside the dining room, there is a giant round table with a lazy susan where we set the dishes to be eaten communally, and conversation ensues in the best English that we can manage! Fish is a favourite for the residents, and so that’s what I try to make and innovate each week. This cod and clam chowder was said to be the best yet.

•  2 lbs cod or firm fish, de-boned and skin removed
• 7 small potatoes, cubed
• 2 cans of clams
• 2 cups of clam juice or diluted in water (reserve)
• 1/2 cup celery, chopped
• 1/2 cup carrots, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 cup cream or milk
• 1 tbsp dill
• 1 bay leaf
• salt and pepper to taste
• fresh parsley, chopped to garnish
• crusty bread
• butter and garlic salt
• Preheat the oven to 375ºF.
• Combine all the ingredients except for milk and parsley in a deep, oven-proof casserole dish. Bake until fish flakes and potatoes are tender, around 1 hour.
• Transfer dish to stovetop set to medium heat. Slowly stir in milk, and let the soup simmer, adding salt, pepper and extra dill to taste.
• While soup is simmering, cut up a crusty loaf. Whip garlic salt into the butter, and serve on the side for guests to slather onto their bread.
• Serve soup together with the garlic bread.

So in like fashion, I’m telling you in advance that I will be MIA on this blog for a few weeks. I’m taking a few courses that will hopefully make this spot in cyberspace a bit better, and have some plans up my sleeve!

In the meantime, feel free to follow me on Twitter @valeriesylam and on Facebook www.facebook.com/thepedestriancooks to stay in the loop and drop a hello.

By the way, these blueberries were picked at Andrews’ Scenic Acres this past summer and man, is it every laboursome to fill a basket! The little blue buggers hide inside the bush and I found myself on hands and knees so often that I lost the people I was picking with! Still, nothing smells like accomplishment than a freshly-picked basket of berries … even if it took a couple hours later!

One of the things I love about Canada is the whole gamut of landscapes we have in one country. Living in Southern Ontario, there are deciduous trees that fan out their verdant leaves in the spring and give a dying show to remember, saving the best colours for last before the frost snips them short. Having visited the Yukon for literally an afternoon, I remember the stubble along the land and thinking that the dogs that ran across it must have felt like a hand brushing a man’s chin as he wakes. Can the brazen deciduous grow in the savage cold, up north? The answer is an obvious matter of survival of the fittest. But a part of me admires the boreal flora, low as it may lay. There’s a weathered resilience that doesn’t need a postcard to convince us of (unless you’re talking about Mark Prins, landscape photographer based in Whitehorse — read a great interview with him here).

The thing about resiliency is that long period of waiting. In our culture, immediacy and choice are what we’ve come to expect, even feel entitled to! Translated from Greek, the word patience in biblical text means long suffering. We wait and wait and it’s hard to endure not-having when you can get something comparable just as quickly. Just buy it, just microwave it, just throw it away, just get a new one. With all the immediate options, this gets us used to treating things as disposable, don’t you think?

Here is one recipe that asked me to be patient. After apple-picking with my family a couple weekends ago, I’m still going through the last of the apples and frankly have had my fill of apple pie until Christmas! How about something savory … apple pork chops! The thing I’ve learned with cooking fruit is that it requires medium heat, to coax out the sweetness and soften it through. If flash-fried on high heat, the apples would for a caramelized crust before softened inside. For the pork, I have to admit that my chops usually come out dry. But my heat was too high, and I didn’t think about other things I could add to keep the meat tender! This time I kept the pork on medium heat, flipping it over every so often and adding a bit of water when the pan was looking dry. The end result? Moist and succulent chops, paired well with the bright sweetness of simmered red onion and apple. Patience has its rewards! Oh, and a tip to make the long suffering a bit more bearable? Cook when you’re not hungry yet.

Apple pork chops recipe

• 2 pork chops or tenderloin for boneless option
• 1 red apple (Pink Lady, Cortland, Fuji, just not the tart kind!), sliced
• 1/2 large red onion, sliced
• salt and pepper
• sugar
• Marinate the pork with salt, pepper, and sugar in equal proportions. Set aside for a few hours, or overnight is best.
• Heat oil in a pan, and fry the onions and apples on medium heat. Keep cooking until the flesh of apple looks softened. Remove from the pan.
• On medium heat, fry the pork. Once you see the bottom side cooked, flip it over, and season again with salt, sugar and pepper. Add some water and cover the pan to lock in the moisture. Keep checking that there is a bit of jus on the pan, and replenish with water, salt, sugar, pepper.
• Once the pork is almost done, cook the apples and onions in the pan together. Serve immediately with rice and green beans.

Softball game, bases are loaded. You rip across that diamond as the bat cracks upon impact and slide victoriously home but at the cost of your shins, as you realize that scrape is going to bleed out more blood than the base can soak up. Better have a really big gauze in that red cross box of yours. (Lars, zoom into the kid’s face and keep zooming past his mouth shrieking open in pain!) Airplane just ripped in two? How about an oxygen mask? (Lars wait, we’re pretending that the top is still over your head so that you can see the mask dangling above you.) Or, my favourite: lost and stuck after a day’s lone hike while the sun is setting and you hear nothing but the howling wind (Lars, cue in the fierce wind audio and quickly pan to a coyote moon silhouetted by a cliff piercing above a tense thicket). Got any energy bars left in that backpack?

When the going gets tough and decides to walk away further into the abyss of ghastly ordeals, we can all use an emergency kit. Usually they are full of things that help make us feel better, whether that is physical or psychosomatic. In the case of food, we call these comfort foods, which typically pile up in the latter category at the expense of the former. But there is one element in the comfort, emergency food we might all look for in an emergency — Lars, this time you can choose:  blizzard, freak windstorm or mighty monsoon rain? That common thing we’d seek would be warmth.

Provided there is electricity, perhaps you’ll want something hot off the stove. And so in the tenet of healthy eating, here is a salad that is not only good for you, but hot and tasty. Note the star ingredient, watercress. Whereas lettuce will wilt at any ray of heat, watercress will come alive in it. The flavours work really well if you include a bit of broth as well.

Warm watercress salad recipe

• 1 1/2 cup watercress, washed and dried
• 1/3 cup black olives
• 1 chicken breast, marinated with salt, pepper, and your favourite herb
• 1/4 cup chicken broth or stock
• Grill the marinated chicken breast, seasoning with salt and pepper as it cooks. Remove from heat when it’s just done and slice into bite-sized pieces.
• On high heat, pour the broth into a shallow pan. When it is boiling, throw in the watercress and gently mix. Cover the pan, and let the watercress cook for 3-5 minutes, or until the green colour brightens.
• Add the olives and chicken to the watercress and gently toss. Serve immediately.

Let’s just say that in the absence of a refereeing iPhone at a game of Scattergories this past holiday weekend, I was stuck trying to name a famous duo or trio beginning with the letter F (Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin! Oh, only after the fact). And then arguing that Peablo Bryson is a famous singer whereas Paris Hilton’s blinded stars do not qualify her as a vocalist. Important matters, friends, important matters to settle.

On the topic of referees, did you have a standard by which to measure your Thanksgiving dinner? My aunt normally hosts our extended family dinners, and because my cousin got married just a few weeks prior, my dad offered to “bake the birdie”. My aunts can be a pretty tough crowd to please, mostly because they are fantastic eaters or cooks themselves, but I think we passed. Birdie wasn’t burned, to say the least! But now that Thanksgiving is all said and done, are you up to your waist in turkey leftovers?

The way I referee the enjoyment of a turkey feast is by how long you can keep turkey interesting. It’s really easy to captivate an audience by serving a hot, piping turkey fresh out of the oven, the juices flowing as the knife glides through that crisp bronze skin and everyone’s eyes are following the carver’s hands as they arrange white and dark meat onto the serving plate. After this sumptuous presentation, are we still hungry for turkey in the leftover days to follow?

A few of my no-fail turkey favourites would be an open-faced sandwich on a sturdy slice of bread — not the crusty baguette but a proper square of toast that gets appropriately soggy with the weight of warm gravy. Or a turkey and apple salad, which can be made by chopping both ingredients, adding fresh chives and a handful of walnuts, raisins and folding all of it into some tangy mayonaise. This year I decided to go with something truly on the side. Cheddar biscuits, which can be gently re-heated and totally packable.

Cheddar Biscuit recipe (adapted from Martha Stewart)

•  4 cups flour
• 2 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp coarse salt
• 2 cups sharp cheddar, grated
• 2 tbsp herbs (such as sage, thyme, basil)
• 3/4 cup cold butter, cubed
• 1 1/2 cup buttermilk
• Preheat oven to 450°F. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add cheddar and sage.
• Using a pastry cutter, cut in the butter until mixture is the texture of coarse meal, with a few tiny pieces of butter remaining. Add buttermilk and mix with hands just until combined, 2 to 3 times. The dough should be slightly elastic when pulled apart.
• Form the dough into small balls and place biscuits on a baking sheet. I like to form decorative impressions by criss-crossing a fork on the surface, but the biscuits can also be kept puffy. Bake until golden, about 12 to 15 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

The first day of October was also the first weekend it really felt like fall — crisp, cool and sunny all at once to make us savour the autumn air long enough to seek the comfort of a cozy room. The nip outside made it all the more appropriate to come into the Cookbook Store on this first day of October, where it smelled like someone was trying to sell their house. Stay for apple pie, anyone?

Holding their first ever apple pie contest, the Cookbook Store received pies from all around the GTA, along with fifteen varieties of heritage apples from Siloam Orchards. If you closed your eyes and entered through the storefront decorated with colourful leaves and wispy branches, you’d think you had wandered through the forest and safely found the cottage where Little Red Riding Hood brought her basket full of goodies to her grandma. While there were no wolves in sight, the aroma of apples and cinnamon that filled the store would be enough to lure a hungry one inside.

The categories for best apple pies were simple: traditional two crust, and everything else! The judging panel includes author and acclaimed food editor Elizabeth Baird, assistant store manager Jennifer Grange, and long-time customer Dina Fayerman. When the clock struck two for judging, forks were poised over the heavenly slices and notebooks jotted upon in silent chewing concentration. Dina remarks that the judges came to a consensus without even consulting each other. Congratulations to Carolyn, winner of the traditional two-crust pie category with a brown crown on the perimeter of the crust. The winner of the non-traditional pie is Connie, who used Granny Smith apples and ground almond in a recipe baked into a springform pan. Since contestants were asked to bring a copy of the recipe if taken from a cookbook, recipes will be posted on the Cookbook Store’s website. Much talk continued about the finer details of pie making after the winners were declared. Do you peel the apples before you baking? Which apples make the most flavourful pie? What makes an excellent crust? Do you use an egg wash?

Asking Jennifer what her favourite apple pie recipe wasn’t a deliberating matter. Walking straight over to a corner of the store, she pulled the orange spine of Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook off the shelf and revealed her two favourite recipes — one with a crust and one with a crumble. “For those who don’t roll out the dough,” she says of the latter. When baking pies, she opts for a recipe that calls for a variety of apples.

For someone like myself who likes the no-fuss deliciousness of a crumble and totally tactile experience of crumbling the topping, here I will share the crumble recipe from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook. Note the almonds in the crust! That’s my favourite part of this recipe. To me, apples in the fall are a lot like plaid — compatible and versatile with so many good earthy things like hard cheddar, cinnamon, nuts, and cold cut butter.

Martha Stewart’s Apple Crumb Pie

• 2 ½ pounds assorted apples (such as Macoun, Cortland, Jonagold, Empire, or Rome), peeled, cored, and cut into ¼ -inch-thick slices
• almond crumb crust (recipe follows)
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed
• ⅓ cup sugar
• ¾ teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• Preheat the oven to 350°F. Evenly and firmly press a little more than half of the crumbs (about 2½ cups) into the bottom, up the sides, and onto the rim of a 9-inch glass pie plate. Press firmly into the edges. Freeze pie shell until firm, about 15 minutes. In a large bowl, toss together apples, lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Pour the mixture into the chilled pie shell, mounding apples slightly in the center. Dot with butter. Sprinkle the remaining crumbs in clumps over the apples to cover completely.
• Bake, rotating halfway through, until the crust turns golden and the juices begin to bubble, about 1 hour. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. The pie can be kept temperature, loosely covered with plastic wrap, for up to 2 days.

Almond Crumb Crust

Makes enough for one 9-inches pie

• 1 ½ cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons blanched almonds, finely ground
• ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 ½ sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature, cubed
• In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, almonds, sugar, and salt. Using a pastry cutter, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with a few larger clumps remaining. Using your fingers, squeeze the mixture together to create pea-size to ¾-inch pieces. If not using right away, cover and chill until ready to proceed.