Laika: ***Buuuurrrp***
[Looks up at me]
Laika: what was that crazy sound?!? Did you burp? I didn't burp! What was it?!?!
Me: At least it wasn't one of your farts. 😆
I normally don't bother with cooking trends, but not gonna lie, the Big Mama's cinnamon roll cake that's all over reddit sounded delish... So I made it.
Laika's latest thing is jumping up behind me to lick the back of my head while on zoom calls.
It's behavior I should discourage, but also it's pretty darn cute.
Total time from drop off to clearing security at Schiphol was 3 hrs!
After a little bit of duty free shopping (& acquiring a peated port finished Dutch whiskey) I made it to my gate just as they started boarding.
I'm about 48hrs into this Sydney trip & the whole thing can best be summed up as "parks, walking & stereotypical Aussie foods" 😆
Lammington, meat pie, jaffles:
OLCC (state liquor control) claims there are 4 bottles of Blood Oath Pact 8 for sale in Portland. After calling the shops, it turned out this was the only bottle left!
My last canelé in Bordeaux.
I didn't eat nearly as many as I had intended, because surprisingly many of the small patisseries don't offer them. Of the big 2 chains, Bailladran was better than Toque Cuivrée (in my limited sampling of data).
This morning @nonsie asked me what we had eaten, but wanted to know in English. Google translate doing it's thing 😆😂🤣
(I mean, technically, yes, it's a type of meat/sausage pie)
Had a perfect lunch yesterday of pâté en croûte from Arnaud Nicolas. Started with the shrimp, then duck+foie, pork+foie+pistachio, pork+foie+pistachio+dried fruits.
The rhubarb millefeuille was also amazing. Tart & flakey! The only negative I can possibly muster is that nobody ever knows how to cut millefeuille without making it into a mess. 😆
Desserts were also hit & miss. I was looking forward to the strawberries, since they stole the show on the tomato carpaccio. Getting a whole bowl for them was a treat!
Gazpacho with a lovage+mustard ice cream was just strange. Texturally, the cucumber bits were annoying in a soup I wanted to just be smooth. But the sharp bite of mustard at the end of each mouthful was unpleasant.
Sweet & sour veggies was a strange combo. The s&s sauce was made with grapes & came close to that Chinese restaurant standard in taste, but paired with the veggies that seemed sauteed in butter, it didn't make sense.
Zucchini sushi tasted good & the kalamata olive tapenade (in the swirls & underneath) made it interesting. But it ate strangely—too big to pick up, so it needed a knife & fork.
The veloute was something that could inspire culinary students as the standard for this mother sauce. The herbed whip cream, while it provided an interesting temperature contrast, didn't work. There was too much & it melted too quickly. Perhaps adding a stabilizer like methocel?
Dover sole continued the "needs salt" trend. The sauce bucked the Italian "never cheese with fish" rule & I suspect they thought the cheese in the sauce would add enough salinity. Sadly, the potato was the best item of the dish (it was quite good)
The beet tartare was a creative play with a fake egg (sour cream + carrot) & mustard (carrot puree). But the beets themselves ate like a standard northern/eastern euro beet salad. It *looked* like steak, but felt flat.
Squash blossom stuffed with smoked eggplant "caviar". I'm honestly not sure why they used the word "caviar". The size here was perfect at 4 bites. Again, could have used salt, but more so, it needed texture w/ something crisp.
The tomato carpaccio is a seasonal play on their classic turnip carpaccio. It's a simple dish that's dependent on top ingredients. In this case the tomatoes were quite good (& a touch more salt would bring them out), but the strawberries were the star.
I mean, the math is with the pro-gun crowd on this—if people were allowed to have their guns, they would have only had *one* shooting instead of three. 🤦🏻♂️