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Every year, my friend Sarah throws a New Year’s Eve party. I daresay it’s the best ticket in town (not that you need a ticket, though it is friends and friends-of-friends only) on the big night — great people, great tunes, tasty food and drink, complete with champagne at midnight.

The centrepiece of the party is the gingerbread “house.” Sarah and friends conceptualize and execute a gingerbread masterpiece which often isn’t completed until the day of the party (as was the case this year). Past years’ dioramas have included the Empire State Building, the Manitoba Legislature, an Ancient Egyptian scene, and a pirate ship. This year it was the sinking city, Venice. I think that the imperfections of gingerbread lent themselves well to replicating the ancient stonework of Venezia, and the jello-as-water was an inspired maneuver.

Notice the fine detail work on the gingerpeople! These Venezians get stripes and scarves. Also, you can’t see her in any of my pictures, but there was also a ginger rendering of Katharine Hepburn, who reportedly lost some of her vision after falling into the highly polluted and toxic canal during a movie shoot.

Check out Sarah’s food blog, Food Adventure Club, for similarly adventurous and appealing edibles.

Gentle Grains doesn't appear to have a website, yet, so here's a photograph of the pamphlet!

Last night I was heading home from some Christmas shopping when I stopped in at VitaHealth on Osborne. In the little area between the till and the bath and body section was a petite blonde woman standing behind a large, round table covered with delicious, bite-sized baked treats.

I asked her what was up, and she said, “I have a business called Gentle Grains, and I bake things that are all gluten, dairy and nut-free.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say at right that moment because I was so in awe. Gluten-free AND nut-free? The exact combination of allergies in my family?

She told me that she had taken baking at Red River College and then had stayed home to raise her children. Now they’re in school, so she’s giving this business a try. From the brochure:

The Gentle Grains story starts in the early ’80s when, as children, growing numbers of our friends and family were being diagnosed with celiac disease. Unable to eat the gluten in wheat, barley, ry, most oats or any of their derivatives, we were sorry to see people we love turn down birthday cake or a slice on pizza night. We were nearly as anxious as they were when eating out, imploring a restaurant’s waitstaff to keep their meals gluten-free, only to return home with them that evening, bed-ridden sick with gluten contamination.

Here’s Gentle Grains’ current menu:

• Bagels
• Artisanal bread
• Pizza crust
• Yeast-free buns
• Breadsticks
• Cinnamon buns
• Muffins (Pumpkin, blueberry-lemon and apple-cranberry)
• Cookies (Choco chip, gingerbead, oatmeal raisin)
• Cakes (Vanilla and chocolate)
• Tortes/squares (Mint chocolate and butterscotch)

Gentle Grains is currently retailing at VitaHealth stores; it’s bakery is in a rented community centre kitchen! No website yet, you can email j.lawrence  (at)  live  (dot) ca or call 204-998-3683.

I purchased one of the GG pizza crusts, which the VitaHealth guy enthusiastically described as not the “best gluten-free pizza crust,” but the “best pizza crust ever!” I also picked up a half-dozen of the yeast-free buns, which are delicious (the pizza crust is in the freezer, being saved for later!). Now, the price point on these items is high — $7.99 for the crust, $8.99 for the buns. But people who shop for GF products know that there is a higher cost to these things (unfortunately). Most of us are used to buying frozen products, and these are fresh, too.

Anyway, I’m going to do my part to buy lots of GG products at VitaHealth, so they’ll have no choice to stock her entire line of delicious baked goods!

Last Friday my mom hosted a dinner party where half the guests were children under 12. For dessert, she made it interactive — and not just for the kids! She baked sugar cookies and got everyone to get wild with icing and candy.

Now that I think about it, it’s kind of her thing to throw parties with a craft-related activity. It really does make things more fun.

Here’s a sampling of the evening’s creative output. The kids overwhelmingly chose the large snowman cookies as opposed to the smaller teddy bear and gingerbread men .

It often happens that, when reading celebrated music blog Said the Gramophone, I will have my brain slightly wrinkled by the image chosen to accompany the post. It might be Leonard Nimoy-in-costume-as-Spock leaning against a late-model Chevy. It might be a cake that looks exactly like a piece of furniture:

Ceci n'est pas un sofa

The occasion was an art show/tasting put on by the Tate (London) and Kreemart, “an organization that lets artists explore desserts as a medium” (according to Cakehead Loves Evil).

Sweeeeeet

Demolition

You can see lots more photos from the event at ArtInfo (NB: you will also see boobies, so keep that in mind before you click).

What makes this creation so fascinating is that it is simultaneously realistic (I mean, looking at the first picture, would you guess it were a cake without being told?) AND absolutely scrumptious-looking. Look at the photo above and tell me you don’t want those people to cut you a slice. I enjoy watching Ace of Cakes and those other cake-design shows on food TV networks, or the lovely works in the Sunday Sweets feature at Cake Wrecks. The cakes you see there are definitely beautiful and amazing, but they don’t look particularly edible. Looking at this sofa-cake, I have a deep desire to plunge face-first into it.

Speaking of cake, Jezebel is a women’s interest blog, but it doesn’t really do recipes. But yesterday, contributing editor Sadie Stein posted a family recipe of hers (on the occasion of American Thanksgiving) for something called Wine Cake (the photo at left accompanied the post; I’m not sure if it’s an actual photo of Wine Cake or simply a Wine Cake-like cake).

Like many of the best mid-20th-century recipes, this one has only five (well, six) ingredients: yellow cake mix, vanilla pudding, oil, eggs and cooking sherry (the additional ingredient, icing sugar, is combined with sherry for the glaze).

Now, “cake mix” doesn’t exactly count as an “ingredient” by today’s epicurian standards — and often rightfully so. For instance, last year I made a couple batches of Bakerella’s Cake Balls for festive use and, on the recipe’s suggestion, used pre-pepared mixes and frosting. The result was something that people praised but in which I was disappointed. Prepared foods always have that inescapable chemical aftertaste, you know? This year, I plan to make the Cake Balls with from-scratch cake and icing. And I might make it gluten-free, too. I think the Wine Cake would lend itself to gluten-freeing as well — vanilla pudding is often found in GF baking for its binding and texture-enchancing qualities.

This morning I came across a new-to-me blog called Pictures of Cake. As you might be able to tell, it is relevant to my interests. The most recent post might also be relevant to Sadie Stein’s — it included this image:

Too bad we missed the big day!

My favourite sushi spot in Osborne Village has changed its name, and while I’m not sure why, I don’t care, because it’s better than ever! Naru (formerly Miyabi) serves up consistently excellent sushi and accompanying Japanese cuisine. The service is fast and friendly and they have an impressive selection of vegetarian options, which I appreciate even though I’m not vegetarian.

Here was my tray; left to right you see a vegetarian caterpillar roll, vegetarian sunomono roll and your classic California roll. Each of these is absolutely delicious, the rice soft and perfectly seasoned, the fillings fresh and tasty (can you tell I like avocado in my sushi?). But of course the finishing touch is the tealight holder fashioned out of a daikon radish — everyone’s tray had this personal and elegant touch.

Here’s Maya’s tray, with a cucumber-votive and a caterpillar roll, shrimp tempura roll, and vegetarian bakudan roll (not sure what the shrimp-covered one in the back is).

This dinner party was to celebrate the temporary return to Winnipeg of my friend Laurie, who is in town for the annual Núna (Now) festival. I also took some fun video which will feature in my May video scrapbook, which is well on its way (See the April version here). I like to upload and start cutting together the footage shortly after I capture it; this is mostly born out of impatience rather than good time-management skills. Once I select the song that will underlie the video collage, it’s easy and irresistable to put the various visual tableaux together. Stay tuned!

This past weekend I made homemade pizza crust for the first time! My first attempt of the recipe failed, I confess, though that was due more to my following the letter of the recipe rather than trusting my own instinct and experience (seriously, in what world do you make yeast dough with “hot” water? “Warm” is a much better descriptor of the temperature needed for yeast activation. Too high and it kills the yeast; too low and it the yeast will fail to activate. I haven’t done much yeast baking in recent years but these are aspects of the process I know. I was just thrown by the recipe. Also, the first time I used the food processor method to make the dough, which is really unnecessary. Firstly, it creates a mound of harder-to-clean dishes and secondly it robs you of the joy of kneading dough to elasticity with your hands!

Anyhow, I thought I’d share the recipe with you in case you, like me, have never been in the habit of making your own pizza dough. I never realized it was so easy and so quick, though to some the hour-long rising time might not count as “quick.” To me, it’s easy enoug to mix together four ingredients and set the thing aside for an hour, during which time you can putter around getting everything else ready for the meal. Also, the pizza only takes 10 minutes in the oven to cook, so it’s not really that long after all.

Here is the recipe:

Handmade Pizza Dough
from The Complete Canadian Living Cookbook by Elizabeth Baird

2 cups	all-purpose flour	500 ml
1 1/2 tsp	quick-rising (instant) dry yeast	7 ml
3/4 tsp	salt	4 ml
3/4 cup	warm water (50C/120F)	175 ml
2 tsp	olive oil	10 ml

In bowl, combine flour, yeast and salt. With wooden spoon, gradually stir in water and oil until dough forms, using hands if necessary.

Turn out onto lightly-floured surface; knead for 8 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Shape into smooth ball. Place in greased bowl, turning to grease all over. Cover with plastic wrap; let rise in warm draft-free place for about 1 hour or until doubled in bulk.

(Make-ahead version: Refrigerate unrisen dough to rise for 24 hours. Or freeze in plastic bag for up to 1 month; let thaw and rise in refrigerator overnight.)

Once dough has risen, turn out dough onto lightly floured surface. Form into a 12-inch pizza base. Let rest for 15 minutes.

Cover with sauce and toppings. Bake at 500F (260C) for 10 minutes or until cheese is bubbly and crust is golden and slightly puffed.

As you can see in the photo above, I used a pizza stone, which apparently improves the quality of homemade pizza crusts to the Nth degree, so I don’t know how it would turn out using a pizza pan or whatever. Also, when I made this, I neglected to let the dough sit for 15 minutes after I formed it into a disc; the crust was still delicious, thick and chewy, but who knows how much better it could have been!

The toppings I put on were: red peppers, fresh mushrooms, chicken, tomatoes, black olives, mozarella cheese.