Deep Fried Curried Perogies

I recently saw a play called Deep Fried Curried Perogies. It’s a one woman show that’s travelling the Fringe Festival circuit right now. An Edmonton writer and actor named Michelle Todd stars in the play. It was fun. Deep Fried Curried Perogies focused on defining a person’s cultural identity -- one of my favourite topics. Apparently, Todd wrote the play while she was pregnant with her son. She’s said in past interviews that one day -- while in a pregnant hormonal state -- she freaked out over how her soon-to-be-born child would define his cultural heritage. Michelle Todd is Filapino-Jamaican. Her partner is Ukranian-British. She phoned her partner in hysterics about what food their child would bring to his school heritage day.... a deep fried curried perogy? That’s how the play was born.
Todd says she grew up with her father and mother’s culinary customs practiced. Rice was big in the household. So were rotis. One of her comfort foods growing up was congee. She never had deep fried curried perogies growing up. But her partner encouraged her to try making them before taking the play on the road. So Michelle Todd devised her own way to make deep fried curried perogies. Actually, her version is pan-friend curried perogies. Michelle melts some butter in a pan on medium high heat. She takes a few perogies (can be store-bought or made from scratch) and fries the perogies in the buttered pan. Then he adds some spices -- tumeric chilli powder, cumin, salt, pepper -- with some sour cream. She then coats the perogies with the mixture and fries them longer. I’d like to try the recipe the next time I fold perogies. They sound delicious.

Outdoor eating

One of the writers I read growing up was Enid Blyton. She was a British author most famous for a series of books she wrote in the 1950s about five children who travelled the English countryside solving mysteries. They called trucks lorries. Garbage was rubbish. And canned goods were tins. What I remember most about the books was when the children would stop their caravan and go on a picnics. Enid Blyton gave detailed descriptions of what the kids would eat on these picnics. Two things were common at the meals: tongue sandwiches were always served, and someone at some point would remark that everything tastes better outdoors.
It’s so true. And that might explain why I gorge myself when I go away to a cabin. Maybe it's also because I'm lazing around on a hammock and have little else to worry about than what to graze. Went to the lake this past weekend. Here’s what was served:

3pm snacks: carrot sticks, rye bread, spinach dip, grapes, hummus, baguette, cheddar cheese, potato chips, tortilla chips, bowl of cherries, chocolate chip cookies, salsa and more cheese.

7pm dinner: spinach and strawberry salad, tomato and feta salad, mango salsa, mashed potatoes, potato salad, cucumber and avocado salad, portabello mushroom burger, veggie dog, cedar-plank grilled salmon, and wild rice salad.

8pm dessert: raspberry strudel, carrot cake with cream cheese icing, strawberries, angel food cake with custard, and apple strudel.

9am breakfast: pancakes, fruit salad, bacon, and sausage.

Skipped lunch when I got back into town today. I’m planning to have soda crackers and water for dinner tonight. I brought a mango salsa to the cabin this weekend, which I think was a good call. It can be used as a dip for chips or something to accompany fish or chicken.

Mango Salsa
2 ripe mangos, lightly chopped
2 plum tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1/4 of a Spanish onion, finely chopped
1/2 c corn niblets
1 jalepeno pepper
fistful of chopped cilantro
drizzle of olive oil
pinch of cumin
squeeze of lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
The cilantro and cumin are key. All you have to do is mix ingredients together and serve. I had some pineapple in the fridge so I threw some of that in the salsa as well. Beats salsa from a jar.

Breakfast of Champions

This is the meal Jill had after running the half marathon for the Ottawa Race Weekend: two eggs over easy, bacon, toast, home fries, a little bit of melon, banana and extra bacon. It was her first half-marathon. She did great. (If you look carefully, you can see the ribbon attached to Jill’s half-marathon medal.) We ate at the Arrow and the Loon in the Glebe because we thought most of the breakfast places downtown would be packed by voraciously hungry runners. The eggs at the Arrow and the Loon are pretty standard. My poached eggs were a bit overcooked. The best breakfast eggs for me are the heuveros rancheros at Azteca. It’s true that runners have an amazing ability to pack food into their bodies. I spoke to one of the chefs at the hotel that hosts a pasta dinner for runners before the race and he said that for a dinner where the kitchen expects 300 to 400 runners, they’ll cook enough to feed 600 people. They ordered something like 80 kg of pasta for the meal. The neat thing this year is that the hotel leared how to make special Kenyan dishes for the elite Kenyan runners who come to Ottawa to compete in the marathon. The Ottawa Race Weekend is a qualifier for the Boston Marathon. There's a specific dish made with white corn flour that the Kenyan runners apparently prefer to eat. The chef I spoke with described it as a cross between mashed potatoes and polenta. Apparently, Western food upset the stomachs of some of the Kenyan runners last year.