Pastéis de nata, Portuguese custard tarts
With snow still falling in mid-May in Toronto and our dreams of spring in England and Portugal up in smoke during lockdown, airline disruption and quarantine, my thoughts turn to some of the delicious sweet treats we are missing. Heavenly cream melts in your mouth. Custard tarts are crunchy and sweet at the same time. Bring on these Portuguese desserts and to heck with the waistline! Continue reading “SWEET PORTUGUESE”
How nice to have memories of freer and more pleasant times in this covid-19 era. Thursday March 8, 2007, was just such an occasion for our wine scribe, Jim Walker and his wife Hélène Buisson. The fact that it was spent in Burgundy wine country certainly didn’t hurt.
The image of the scallop shell is steeped in history and heraldry, but since my beloved loves scallops themselves, I recently made her the traditional shellfish in a white wine sauce, known as Coquille St. Jacques, without worrying about any of the deeper meanings. Continue reading “SCALLOP LEGENDS”
Stranded crew member on zombie ship
Hundreds of cruise ships without passengers are tied up at docks or anchored at sea, and most will not resume operation until the “no sail” ordered issued on March 14 by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is lifted. In the meantime, the cruise industry is racing to come up with new and more rigorous health measures that will make cruise ships less likely to become floating petri dishes, and get the “no sail” order lifted. But how far will cruise lines need to go, and how will potential passengers react? Continue reading “CRUISING WILL SURVIVE, BUT IT MAY GET WEIRD”
Gentlemans Portion 