assembly line, originally uploaded by mintyfresh.

I have been so very busy since we decided to move that I haven’t had a minute to myself to blog about dumpling day! This is very very overdue.

In February and March I was “self-employed”, which is pretty much a fancy description for having lots of coffee shop meetings, reading a lot of books, and not needing an excuse to skip work for a 10am yoga class. But it also means that I had a lot of time on my hands to cook, which, after sixteen months of “I have five minutes to eat” tomato sandwiches in the NAC’s greenroom, was a pretty exciting prospect.

My favourite cooking project of choice is always dumplings, and when a friend asked me how to make them (since I swore they were so easy) I decided the best thing I could do would be to host a group of girlfriends at home to show them how myself! (See – this is what I do when I have free time. Fill it up.)

The planning required for an event like this is pretty much nil, though if you are me, you will make up your own custom-designed recipe cards and package up little take-home containers of homemade garlic-ricewine dipping sauce in advance. If your girlfriends are like mine, they will also roll their eyes slightly and say “of course you did”.

Otherwise, it’s easy:

• Invite your guests! Figure out how many people your kitchen could reasonably accommodate on your countertop and then subtract one. Don’t invite any more people than that number (and include you in that total, too).
• If your friends are like my friends, buy wine. Maybe a lot of it. Just in case. (And snacks, but not too many because you’ll soon be eating dumplings).
• Buy all of the ingredients you’ll need for two or more (you choose) batches of each recipe you want to make.
• Remind all your guests to bring a tupperware container with them for all of the dumplings they’re going to take home for their freezer.
• Follow each recipe – either give everyone their own recipe, or give everyone a step and share in the assembly,
• Make 1/2 of the dumplings, splitting the remaining half between all of your guests.
• Enter dumpling coma.

We made four different kinds of ‘dumplings’ at Dumpling Day when I hosted it in March, including spinach & water chestnut wontons, edamame and ricotta dumplings based on this recipe from 101 Cookbooks, and some spring rolls, which are definitely not dumplings, but Tanya Skeates of Soupcon had just taught me to make them and maybe I was just showing off a little.

The one we made that I love the most at the moment, though (and the recipe I made tonight – first Montreal dumpling marathon, yay!) is this recipe for veggie dumplings (slightly adapted and adjusted; hint: add 1/4 tsp five spice powder, ignore the egg, use water instead of chicken stock and don’t even bother with that oven-heating business) from Smitten Kitchen.

The process can be long, so I highly recommend accompanying it all with a glass (or two) of wine. When it gets warm, add an ice cube or two to cool it off again. Space invader ice cubes optional.

The end result is dinner for two (and a lot of leftovers for lunch – these are great cold), dinner for more if you pair it with something else – a sesame noodle salad and some homemade ginger soda, perhaps?

Everyone who came to dumpling day ended up going home with a hefty container full of freshly made dumplings either ready for the freezer or ready for the next night’s dinner. New dumpling converts!

Of course, no cooking session would be complete without angus sneaking in to steal some of the ingredients (after the fact, of course!). Om nom, little kitty. He only likes the greens, but he really likes them.

It takes a special kind of chef to open up his kitchen to the paparazzi.

And no matter how you want to slice it, nor how enthusiastic our praise, that’s what we were, we dozen or so camera-weilding foodies, when we stepped off of the freight elevator into Chef Blackie’s kitchen on Wednesday night.

Having worked at the NAC for some sixteen months (an experience for which I will forever feel lucky), I am no stranger to the special moments that can happen within the giant walls and multiple storeys of the fortress-of-the-performing-arts, bound both to protect them and present them. But none were more special that this – a unique opportunity to not only step inside what some might consider one of the best kitchens in the city, but to participate. To cook! To tour! To plate! And to eat, in the company of the same chef who happens to be in the process of turning what has always been considered fine dining at the NAC on it’s head.

From the immense Chef’s Table (it can seat 24 in a pinch), to the personalized tour (if I could have snuck that new induction cooktop home in my purse, I absolutely would have), to the fabulous team of chefs who get to call the experience that we were part of on Wednesday their work, to the smiling faces of the staff, and the welcome from President and CEO Peter Herrndorf, we were spoiled, surprised, and I don’t think anyone sitting around that table would have been able to wipe the smiles of glee off their faces for anything.

While we were really there to get a sense of Blackie’s new Taste5 menu (which you can try yourself – and should – from Monday to Saturday on nights when there are performances in Southam Hall), this was about more than that. It was about embracing a community that very rarely gets to sit as a group and chat with some of the greatest chefs we can find and have a conversation. It was about showing a broader audience that just because a restaurant might have been around for decades doesn’t mean that there aren’t fresh ideas and surprises waiting for you.

The NAC should count itself lucky to have Chef Blackie blazing a trail towards something completely different (and delicious) for a place that represents, as do the NACs stages, some of the best that Canada’s culinary arts scene has to offer.

If you haven’t given the “new” Le Cafe a try, you should. I know, I, for one, will be back.

Check out my full set of photos and commentary from the evening here.

And to read more, check out the commentary of the rest of the very very good company I was keeping, including C’est Bon Cooking, Simply Fresh, Whisk, Shawn Dearn, Lana at Apron Strings, After The Harvest, Foodie Prints, Rachelle Eats Food, Kayahara, and of course we can’t forget our lovely hosts @jcovert and @michaelblackie. The entire night was such a pleasure, I can’t wait for it to happen again. I can only hope that I’ll find such a vibrant, interesting, and opinionated collection of foodies in my soon-to-be-adopted hometown.

(And sidenote: did I mention that he sent us home with recipes, on top of it all?)

A few weeks ago I was contacted by the PR firm for president’s choice, and they offered to send me a basket filled with all sorts of goodies from their new holiday collection, including salted chocolate covered caramels, non-alcoholic sparkling wine, fruitcake with whiskey, and MANY other things that sounded extremely yummy. I like to believe that I had just come out of a very long meeting, and was very hungry, which is why I said yes, but really, I cannot resist free food. Especially free food packages that appear to be 50% chocolate.

So late last week, I arrived home to find a GIANT (no literally, it was giant) Fedex box deposited on my doorstep (thanks for just *leaving* it there , fedex, with no signature or anything. I’ll remember that next time I order something expensive and need ot choose a shipping method). Inside was a veritable food wonderland – chocolate, sauces, tapenades, sparkly wine-esque things, fruitcake (UGH, brett’s fave), and more.

It’s been a busy few weeks here, so we’ve hardly had time to dive into any of it, but we’re having a few parties this weekend and next, so I’m expecting to make this all part of the spread (even the fruitcake…that should be interesting). There are a few things we have opened, though, so I’m reviewing them below – not *just* because they sent me a basket of free stuff, but because these are things that I had been looking at at Loblaws, and if I was, somebody else was, wondering if they were thumbs up or thumbs down. So now, the verdict!

What can I say about these chocolates other than we ate the entire first layer within a day of these appearing in our house? Lana describes them well over at Boyfriendly Cooking, but they are just the perfect blend of soft caramel, dark chocolate, and tasty sea salt on top. Not too salty, but salty enough that you don’t want to eat more than a few because they’ll make your lips pucker…in an “I just ate delicious caramels” way. They certainly helped me get through a very tough week with some very late nights getting ready for ladyfest. Which is now over….so I can resume eating the rest of the caramels now.

Every time I have stood in the tea aisle at Hartman’s lately, I have looked at this hot chocolate. Picked it up, read the back, put it in my basket, taken it back out, read the label again, admired pc’s new packaging (because really, it’s cute! They must have fired their boring old agency), and put it back on the shelf. Because really? $6.50 for a little tin of hot chocolate? I mean, I know…it promised to be ‘gourmet’, it promised to be mostly ‘high-quality’ chocolate, and it also promised (gasp!) 14 grams of fat per cup. YES, YOU READ THAT RIGHT. So I never took it home.

Now that we have it at home, I’ve made one cup, with soy milk instead of regular milk and I have to say….so not worth $6.50. Or 14 grams of fat. Maybe I’m just not a hot chocolate snob, or maybe I just have unique tastes, but I think the powdered hot chocolate – hello carnation instant! – tastes better. Less syrupy, less chocolate pudding, and thank goodness….less fat. So, now I know, not only just because I have a 90% unfinished tin in my house, that I can just walk right on past this product in the tea aisle without any remorse or temptation.

Chocolate mousse cups. Two words: Christmas Chocolates. They were ok. They were not fantastic. They could have used more care in presentation instead of looking like they came off a factory conveyor belt. Were they ok? Yes. Were they moderately tasty? Also yes. But would I buy them over other chocolates I know and love? Probably no.