{"id":428,"date":"2006-02-22T03:05:35","date_gmt":"2006-02-22T03:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=428"},"modified":"2018-08-23T20:06:45","modified_gmt":"2018-08-24T00:06:45","slug":"wednesday-february-22-finding-good-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=428","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday, February 22, 2006 \u2014 Finding Good Food"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"06-02-22<\/a>Quite busy, late\u00adly. Work\u00ading on the set of cable tele\u00advi\u00adsion show, and also doing some don\u00adkey work for a for\u00adeign trade mis\u00adsion. The rent will be late, but it will be paid.<\/p>\n

\"06-02-22<\/a>One reflec\u00adtion on life in Toron\u00adto: No mat\u00adter how poor you are, there\u2019s no prob\u00adlem get\u00adting real\u00adly good food. I may have trou\u00adble mak\u00ading the rent, but I eat like an emper\u00ador. Eat\u00ading well is, as far as I can see, cheap\u00ader than eat\u00ading bad\u00adly. I can make a sup\u00adper of cur\u00adried chan\u00adna, steamed callaloo, and chick\u00aden, brazed in yogurt and spiced with cumin, sumac and blaz\u00ading mit\u00admi\u00adta, served on a fill\u00ading Ethiopi\u00adan njeera, for a total cost of $3.50. I can wash it down with thick, top qual\u00adi\u00adty gua\u00adva juice for three dol\u00adlars a litre. I can lunch on bagels and fresh salmon &<\/span> dill cream cheese for less than what it costs in a super\u00admar\u00adket, or find an aged herb gou\u00adda at one third the super\u00admar\u00adket price, if I keep my eyes open in Kens\u00ading\u00adton Market.<\/p>\n

\"06-02-22<\/a>The trick is to keep a good shelf of spices. I buy them fresh, by weight, at House of Spice, a store that is more enter\u00adtain\u00ading to walk into than any amuse\u00adment park. By keep\u00ading the pantry stocked with sta\u00adples (rice, pas\u00adta, pota\u00adtoes, frozen peas and corn, wakame, njeera, crushed toma\u00adtoes), one can come across a cut of meat on sale and trans\u00adform it into some\u00adthing spe\u00adcial. Soups are my per\u00adson\u00adal spe\u00adcial\u00adty. A hardy bor\u00adsht with sour cream, a spicy shrimp and lemon grass in coconut or tamarind broth, a stur\u00addy black bean and pota\u00adto, a refresh\u00ading cold gaz\u00adpa\u00adcho. Any\u00adone can make these in min\u00adutes. The skills involved are trivial.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"06-02-22<\/a>I most\u00adly shop in free mar\u00adket stores, not cor\u00adpo\u00adrate ones, which in this neigh\u00adbour\u00adhood means most\u00adly Tamil, Pilipino, Soma\u00adli, Ethiopi\u00adan, Kore\u00adan and Jamaican food shops. All of them are geared to feed\u00ading big fam\u00adi\u00adlies on small bud\u00adgets. Between them, I have a huge vari\u00adety with\u00adin a five minute walk. But with\u00adin a twen\u00adty minute walk, I can get to any\u00adthing con\u00adceiv\u00adable, in Kens\u00ading\u00adton Mar\u00adket (chaos and mys\u00adter\u00adies and bar\u00adgains), or in St. Lawrence Mar\u00adket (high\u00adest qual\u00adi\u00adty, rarest items, such as muskox steak and arc\u00adtic char flown in from Nunavut, an entire store devot\u00aded to caviar, and anoth\u00ader that sells only hot sauces and mus\u00adtards). Chi\u00adna\u00adtown, Lit\u00adtle India, and Greek\u00adtown, all with\u00adin walk\u00ading dis\u00adtance, each pro\u00advide their par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar delights. I prob\u00ada\u00adbly spend far less on food than the aver\u00adage per\u00adson, but nobody could call me deprived.<\/p>\n

\"06-02-22<\/a>City life, with all its noise, rush hour chaos and car\u00adbon monox\u00adide, does have some rec\u00adom\u00adpens\u00ades. Hen\u00adry David Thore\u00adau may have read the Mahab\u00adhara\u00adta<\/em> at Walden Pond, to fill his spir\u00adi\u00adtu\u00adal needs. But I find that a real\u00adly good chick\u00aden tik\u00adka fills mine. I won\u00adder, could I have lured Hen\u00adry away from the pond with a real\u00adly deli\u00adcious kylbasa?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quite busy, late\u00adly. Work\u00ading on the set of cable tele\u00advi\u00adsion show, and also doing some don\u00adkey work for a for\u00adeign trade mis\u00adsion. The rent will be late, but it will be paid. One reflec\u00adtion on life in Toron\u00adto: No mat\u00adter how \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-au-blog-2006"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=428"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9765,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions\/9765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}