Best of Edmonton?

This week, SEE Magazine released their annual results for "Best of Edmonton".  For the list, you can go here.

I just had to comment on this - while most categories seem OK, there really are some that I think they just copy from year to year - or, people just vote stupidly.

Favourite Edmontonian - Michael Phair.  Ok, I agree that people liked him a lot when he was on city council, and I have to agree that he could be favourite Edmontonian for 2007...  But come on, that was 3 years ago... unless you are involved in community relations for the UofA, do you really see him doing much?  (as an aside, I think he's stalking me - I do actually see him everywhere - but he is hard to miss in his wild shirt choices).

Best local professional athlete - third place was Ricky Ray.  Srsly?

Best donair - third place - Charles Smart.  Ok, just you try and go get a donair from Charles Smart.  Woops - it's a big pile of gravel.  This place has been closed for over a year AND TORN DOWN!

Best fine dining - Packrat Louie - ummmm?

Best brunch - Culina - granted, the food there was really good - but not what I would consider the best.  (hello, Smitty's anyone?) - I guess good ol' Smitts doesn't really count as brunch though.

Best everything else - to win, your store / business / brothel MUST be located on Whyte Ave.  If not, don't even think that you're ever going to win in any category.

Except if you're Ikea.

Mother's Day Gluttony

For mother's day, Greg and I decided that we would cook a gourmet meal for our wives (read our baby mammas).  Here's what was on the menu:

For an amuse bouche, we had tuna tartare - (recipe here) - this was amazing!  Some diced ahi tuna in a soy / lime / wasabi sauce.  I decided to serve it on a spoon, like this:

This was so good, that we broke the amuse bouche rule and had to have a second helping.

For the appetizer, I wanted to make a pan-seared foie gras with caramelized apples (recipe here).  So, at Sobey's Urban Fresh, across the street from where I work, they used to sell foie gras.  (at least, they did in March).  Turns out that they don't anymore.  Woops.  So, with some scrambling (and phone calls by Kathryn, because I hate the phone), we found mousse de foie gras.  I thought that we'd give it a try.

Served with this dish was a home-made brioche.  This recipe is from the French Laundry cookbook.  I was really impressed that I could cook something from that book.  The brioche and apples were amazing, the mousse, not so much.  But, live and learn.  The brioche recipe is here.  And here's a link to a really funny blog of someone who cooked her way through the French Laundry book.

By the way, making the brioche dough with a hand mixer was a bit troublesome... I had to keep re-attaching the dough hooks after they got bogged down in the buttery dough.

A picture of the brioche (before / after).

And the finished appetizer:

Next, a palate cleanser of cranberry sorbet (recipe here).  This was helped by Donvier, my good friend and ice-cream maker.

For the main course, we had Beef Wellington.  Note to anyone wanting to make this - please be sure to buy/make puff pastry - Phyllo pastry is NOT the same thing.... (requiring a second trip to the grocery store).  With this, we served creamed spinach and a Gorgonzolla and pear risotto.  The risotto was absolutely amazing (and probably the only thing on the menu that a vegetarian could eat).

The Wellington recipe is here, and the risotto recipe is here - from an interesting cooking blog.

Finally, for dessert, we had lime panna cotta with mint and tequila.  This was like an amazing creamy lime-y jello.  We had to eat it out of the ramekins, because we couldn't tease it out (despite calling it names).  It was a nice, light, awesome end to a wonderful meal.

Side note - the meal was even better because Greg and I served it all wearing chip-n-dale outfits, I mean just aprons, no wait, shirts and ties.