Balut and a blogiversary

Today this blog is two years old. And to celebrate I tried something new to me. Something very, very new.

Balut. The sound of that word will either bring you great pleasure, true horror, or utter confusion.

First, a little education for you. What is balut, you may ask? Well, it is a fertilized duck or chicken egg with a nearly-developed embryo. You boil it, peel the shell, and gobble it down. This Filipino delicacy can also be found in Vietnam where it is called Hột vịt lộn. It is also considered to be an aphrodisiac and a high source of protein.

When I asked a friend of mine if she knew where I could track down some balut, she got very excited and said she’d find some for me. Ironically — or logically depending on your opinion of balut — each egg was stamped with the word “treat.”

Treat? Or trick!

They are already cooked, but need to be warmed prior to eating so the eggs were popped into some boiling water.

reheating the eggs

Once hot, the next step is to crack the bottom of the egg (the wide part), and carefully peel away part of the shell. Inside the egg is a lot of “soup” that you drink prior to peeling the remainder of the shell. The liquid, also known as embryonic fluid, made peeling the eggs a bit of a messy business as it was quite easy to spill some out of the shell. It tasted, surprisingly, like chicken broth. Slurp up that sucker (I downed it like a shot) and peel away the rest of the shell.

soup, a.k.a. the embryonic fluid

South St. Burger Co., Balzac (Calgary)

During my visit to CrossIron Mills I also stopped for a meal at South St. Burger Co. Owned by the same company that owns New York Fries, this location is the first to appear outside of Ontario.

South St. Burger Co.

I wasn’t terribly hungry, so I a small burger with monterey pepper jack cheese and onion rings. The beef patties at this location are made with Spring Creek Ranch beef. There are four cheese to choose from – cheddar, swiss, the jack I had, and goat cheese. You could also get free toppings for your burger – everything from guacamole and mango chutney to cucumbers and jalapeno peppers.

South St. Burger Co. burger and onion rings

Their onion rings are made with fresh cut red onions, and you can also order New York Fries’ fries and poutine if you so desire. The red onions gave the rings a pleasant bite and I would happily eat these again. My small burger was tiny; their normal burger has 1/3 lb of beef and in contrast my burger looked like an oversized slider. The taste was good and the meat was cooked nicely, although I would have liked a greater ratio of patty to bun. I think the onion rings made a greater impression on me though.

Is it worth going all the way to this mall just to have these burgers? Probably not. But if you’re stuck in there, the South St. Burger Co. is a good option where you can to rest your feet and fill your stomach.

South St. Burger Co.
CrossIron Mills Mall, Balzac – just outside of Calgary next to Highway 2
www.southstburger.com

Buttercream Bake Shoppe, Balzac (Calgary)

Just outside of Calgary sits a small town called Balzac. And in this town, right on the highway leading to and from Calgary, is a relatively new giant shopping mall called CrossIron Mills. I met up with a friend there, and I also went because I wanted to walk around (was hoping to find a lot of good outlet stores, but came away relatively disappointed because this place is mostly just a regular shopping mall).

Inside the mall, in the middle of a hallway, is an outlet of Calgary’s Buttercream Bake Shoppe. There were plenty of mouth-watering displays of cupcakes and cookies.

Buttercream Bake Shoppe

I didn’t want a whole cupcake, so my friend and I opted for two mini cupcakes. One was a vanilla cupcake with a passion fruit frosting, and the other was a chocolate cupcake with vanilla frosting. The cupcake itself was just ok – the cake was moist but not as flavourful as I’d like. I think I prefer the cake from Crave. The frosting on the passion fruit frosting was very fruity, and both it and the vanilla frosting were almost too sweet. (I think this is why I don’t eat cupcakes very often. They’re just too darned sweet for me!) The texture of the frosting was excellent though. Creamy, but not so rich that you feel like you’re sticking a piece of fat in your mouth. I think I like their frosting better than Crave’s.

mini cupcake

Buttercream Bake Shoppe
CrossIron Mills Mall, Balzac – just outside of Calgary next to Highway 2
Two other locations in Calgary
www.buttercreambakeshoppe.com

Fun Friday

Chocolate cake made me late

More Anthony Bourdain

Some photos that I took of the talk. You can read about the event over here.

Anthony Bourdain's podium notes

Anthony Bourdain and Julie Van Rosendaal

The excited crowd

Anthony Bourdain – slightly crude and infinitely entertaining

Yes I drove over 3 hours so I could watch Anthony Bourdain talk. Yes I am slightly crazy.

In my defence, I did use the time to visit with some friends as well, and to go on a mini-food vacation in Calgary (more posts to come).

Julie van Rosendaal introduced Bourdain and recently wrote about the experience on her blog. She’s gotten some flack for the way she introduced him and for the clothes she was wearing. All I have to say about that is grow up people. Julie did a fine job – albeit not with the practiced prattle of most hosts. She was nervous, slightly awkward, self-deprecating, and charmingly REAL. And I thought she did a really great job helping direct the Q&A at the end. I will take her kind of hosting over a plastic person’s hosting efforts any day.

The talk went longer than I thought it would. According to Julie, he spoke for an extra half an hour and extended the Q&A from 20 minutes to 50.

Anthony Bourdain was everything that I expected him to be. Funny, well-spoken and passionate. He did swear, but if you know anything about Anthony Bourdain then you expect that. Apparently there was some grumbling afterwards about the swearing that he did, but to be honest I frankly expected him to swear a lot more than he did.

He had a lot of nervous energy and hardly stood still the whole time he was on stage. There was a lot of pacing back and forth. And unfortunately for me, he spent quite a bit of time facing stage right, and I was sitting stage left. But it was still worth it.

The VIP reception was held after the talk, and I unfortunately didn’t have tickets to that as well or I would have gotten my books signed. There was a nice treat for all of the attendees though – free fancy cheese and wine from Janice Beaton Fine Cheese and Willow Park Wines & Spirits! Everyone was surprised because we had thought that it was only supposed to be served at the VIP reception.

There might be more food talks coming soon so keep an eye out for more announcements. There was a survey at the event that asked people who they’d like to see next. The names on the list ranged from Jamie Oliver and Rachael Ray, to Ruth Reichl and Ferran Adrià. When Julie asked the crowd who they’d like to see, many people yelled out Thomas Keller’s name, which was not on the survey.

I took a bunch of photos of the event (but most of them were blurry because the man wouldn’t stand still). So instead, please enjoy these couple of videos. (At least until some lawyer sends me a notice to take them down.)

Anthony Bourdain talks about Sandra Lee

Anthony Bourdain talks about Top Chef

Edited to add: found another blog with a short entry about the evening

News and links

First, a few administrative details. I’ve moved a few things around on my website – links to other food blogs and websites can be found on a page of it’s own, accessible from the sidebar or from a link at the top of any web page. I added a few new links in there, so I encourage you to have a look and see if there’s anything that’s new to you. Also, if you have a look at the sidebar, you can also now sign up for e-mail updates.

Okay, enough blabbing. Let’s get to the news and links.

• Free Kashi Cereal sample (Canadians only)
• Get a $25 gift voucher for signing up for the Ric’s Grill/Copper Pot newsletter. (Edmonton and surrounding area)
• Kraft buys Cadbury for $19.6 billion
• US Customs is cracking down on those people who try to sneak meat into the country – no more chefs hiding Iberico ham and salumi!
• Foodie Suz has gone on hiatus.
• Two local food bloggers have changed their URLs and redesigned their sites: A Canadian Foodie and eating is the hard part.
• Just added MomofukuAtHome to my blog reading list – I got the Momofuku cookbook as a surprise Christmas present and I need to sit down and go through it all. I already know there are some recipes that I want to try.
• Is agave nectar bad for you? It’s not natural. It’s actually refined and contains more concentrated
  fructose than high fructose corn syrup. Kinda wish I hadn’t bought that bottle to try.
• Poutine making culinary inroads in the US
• Giant Tuna Fetches $177, 000 at Japanese Auction
• Is the tv show The Biggest Loser all it’s promoted to be? The real story behind the rapid weight loss.
• I guess you really can freeze butter! Century-old butter found in Antarctic explorer’s hut.
• New documentary puts Coca-Cola on alert.
• And lastly, two photos of the dessert served at the Golden Globes. One from Glee’s @MsAmberRiley (http://tweetphoto.com/8970522) and one from musician @amandapalmer (http://twitpic.com/ykv1t).

Adieu Le Gnome

Word has been going around the city about the closing of Le Gnome, one of Edmonton’s long-standing specialty kitchenware stores. They apparently couldn’t come to a new rental agreement, and will be closing at the end of the month. (West Edmonton Mall has been notorious for years for having high rental fees.)

On Friday I had to be at the mall for another reason, so I swung by Le Gnome to see if there were any deals and to say goodbye. This place was one of the first stores I went to when I started to explore cooking. It’s where I bought my garlic press (based on their recommendation), and it’s where I bought my beloved pepper mill. They were often one of the most expensive places in town, and sometimes I felt like they were being a bit condescending when I asked questions, but the range of their selection was always good and their advice was usually right.

Le Gnome

Clearance sale signs pepper the windows. Lots and lots of people were inside. It was like Boxing Day shopping all over again. The entire store is on sale at 30% off, and shelves were rapidly emptying as people looked for deals. I picked up another Peugeot pepper mill – this time as part of a birthday present for my mother. I also picked up a few gadgets here and there including a couple of dishes. I seriously thought about buying a Le Creuset 6.75 qt or a Staub, but ultimately decided that the discount wasn’t big enough for me to justify it to myself right now. The line up to pay was long and it took about 15 minutes just to reach the cashier.

If you are planning to pick up anything at the sale, I highly recommend going as soon as humanly possible. They were almost out of pepper and salt mills, and whole sets of china were quickly disappearing.

Goodbye Le Gnome. Thanks for everything.

Fun Friday

Have pesky roommates or co-workers who like to steal your food out of the fridge? Then consider getting one of these fridge lockers to protect your tasty goodies. Perfect for storing your leftover New Year’s Eve booze!

Fridge Locker

Welch’s Chocolate Shop, Banff

This place is a kid’s dream and a dentist’s nightmare.  Welch’s Chocolate Shop lures you in with the jars and jars of hard candy on display in their shop window, and keeps you there with the many different kinds of candy available on their shelves.

Welch's Chocolate Shop

European and American imported candy sits next to maple syrup candy and fake teeth made of marzipan. The kids I was with went crazy and even I couldn’t leave without buying a small bag of pear drops for myself.

One section of Welch's Chocolate Shop

Welch’s Chocolate Shop
126 Banff Avenue, Banff
www.banffcandy.com
(Second location in Waterton for part of the year.)