Although they have a special name, there is no specific recipe for toshikoshi soba; you can make them the same way you make soba noodles the rest of the year. What counts is the long noodles, which represent long life. It’s important not to bite them off in the middle when you eat them!

This year, I decided to observe the Japanese tradition (as well as the mincemeat tradition, for good measure). I even made a special trip into Toronto for kamaboko and mitsuba. Unfortunately, I promptly forgot both of them in the fridge at a friend’s house. I went ahead with the noodles anyway, though not until New Year’s Day, which is technically one day late. I cooked the noodles then chilled them in ice water to firm them up, mixed up a simple broth of dashi, soy sauce, salt and sugar, and garnished the whole thing with some green onion curls, red pickled ginger, a 13-minute onsen egg, some simmered king oyster mushrooms, and a small sprig of cilantro in place of the forgotten mitsuba.

What food do you eat at New Year’s to ensure a year of happiness?

I’ve always loved mincemeat. When I was growing up, my mother always made mincemeat tarts at Christmas. She used store-bought mincemeat, but made her own pastry: the only time I can recall her doing so. She formed them in muffin tins, and I remember asking her one year whether they were hard to unmold. Naturally, that was the first year she ever had trouble with it!

But mincemeat – like fruitcake – is a divider, not a uniter. My husband’s family tradition of mincemeat comes in the form of mincemeat squares. Every year, we include them on the trays of Christmas cookies at our gatherings; every year, we get queried as to whether they are date squares; and every year, we find pieces of half-eaten mincemeat squares wrapped in paper napkins and tucked discreetly into corners. Conversely, the mincemeat fans will happily help themselves to several of them.

It would seem that mincemeat has had a bit of a hard reputation for a long time, even when it was enormously popular. Of course, back then it was still actually made with meat, an ingredient reflected only in the vestigial suet in modern recipes. (Some “mincemeat” blends omit even the suet!)

When I came across a recipe for mincemeat in Fergus Henderson’s Beyond Nose to Tail, I decided this would be the year I finally made it myself, not least because it included quinces, one of my favourite Christmastime fruits! The quinces first have to be poached, then the other ingredients mixed in and the whole allowed to rest for two days, before being slowly baked for 4-5 hours, so it’s not a quick proposition. (At least it doesn’t have to be closely monitored.) But if you have the time to do it, you will be rewarded with a wonderful, rich aroma that will take you straight back to Christmastimes of old.

When it comes to mincemeat, are you pro or anti?

There are a handful of others that I wasn’t aware of until they were released, but that I now want just as much, especially after reading reviews of them: VOLT ink., Momofuku Milk Bar, The Art of Living According to Joe Beef. They’ve all made it onto my Christmas list, too.

But there was one book that topped them all. I just couldn’t wait until Christmas to bring it home and pore over it: Eleven Madison Park. The reputation of this restaurant, and it’s recent elevation to the 3-Michelin-star level, made this book a must-have for me.

Let’s just say that I’ll be cooking out of it real soon.

What’s your most-anticipated or best-loved cookbook of the season?

Well I, for one, am happy to fly that flag, not least because these cuts, properly prepared, are in fact delicious. And where do I turn for advice on proper preparation? Mostly to Fergus Henderson, and his wonderful books The Whole Beast and Beyond Nose to Tail. I honestly believe these are some of the best-written cookbooks around: Henderson’s warmth and enthusiasm for his subject are purely infectious. Just reading them is a comfort.

One of the central preparations in Beyond Nose to Tail is “Trotter Gear,” a stock made from pig’s trotters – yes, feet – that serves as the foundation for an entire section of the book. I’ve cooked pig’s trotters before, stuffed with sausage; with their high gelatin content, they are the very definition of lip-smacking.

For Trotter Gear, you take six trotters (I had my butcher saw them in half), blanch them, then braise them in chicken stock and dry Madeira with aromatic vegetables until they are very, very soft. Then you pick the skin and what meat there is from the bones, mix it back into the strained stock and refrigerate. Once chilled, it has approximately the texture of a Super Ball, which probably explains why the recipes that call for it as an ingredient specify a weight rather than a volume.

As often happens, I approached this project backwards: the impetus behind my making a batch of Trotter Gear was that I had bought a jar of pickled walnuts. I needed to use them in something, and the “Beef and Pickled Walnut Stew” sounded like a good choice. But first, I had to make the Trotter Gear. It’s mixed with red wine and serves as the braising liquid for the beef (lacking the “flap off a fore rib” called for, I substituted brisket), onions, herbs and walnuts. Of course, when you add so much gelatin so early in the process, it gives the final sauce a wonderful texture. I’ve often wondered why I’ve never seen a sauce recipe that calls for pure gelatin, but this is pretty close.

The layers of flavour from a sauce built on Trotter Gear, which is in turn built on chicken stock and Madeira, are just fantastic. This was one of the deepest, earthiest braises I’ve ever tasted, with the piquancy of the walnuts to perk up your taste buds. Lucky for me, the Trotter Gear recipe makes plenty, so I’ll be able to stash some away in my freezer for future use.

Certainly Canada isn’t the only place it can be found, but pea soup is definitely part of the fabric of Canadian, and especially Québécois, cuisine. I mean, the brand I grew up with was called Habitant! It’s a great dish for a region with a long, hard winter, because it relies on ingredients that store well: dried peas, carrots, onions and salted pork.

With the weather getting colder around here, I’ve been making more and more soups lately. (Unfortunately, it’s tough to make photos of soup look interesting.) When I realized how long it had been since I last made pea soup, it quickly rose to the top of my “to-cook” list.

I picked up a smoked ham hock and some dried peas and, working from a recipe in Jehane Benoit’s New and Complete Encyclopedia of Cooking, simmered them for a couple of hours with some carrots, onions and salted herbs. I also added a pinch of baking soda, which helps dried legumes break down while they’re cooking; I like my pea soup to have a thick, pureed consistency. I mixed the shredded meat back in (and then coaxed it into a little pile for the photo above), but you could arrange a pile in the middle of the bowl and pour the soup around it for a slightly more elegant presentation. I almost always grind a little black pepper over top, too.

How to make Canadian pea soup

1 Tbsp. rendered bacon fat (or butter or vegetable oil)
2 medium onions, diced
1 medium carrot, diced
1 smoked, cured pork hock (about 1 pound)
1 pound dried split yellow peas, rinsed and drained
2 bay leaves
2 Tbsp. salted herbs (or substitute a mix of fresh celery leaves, parsley and savory)
1/4 tsp. baking soda

Melt the bacon fat or butter, or heat the vegetable oil, in a large soup pot, and sweat the onions and carrot until softened but not browned. Add the ham hock, split peas, bay leaves, salted herbs, baking soda and 2 litres of water (or enough to cover the peas and mostly cover the ham hock), and stir. Bring to a boil, skim, then cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for two hours, flipping the ham hock and stirring the peas occasionally. When the meat and peas are tender, remove the bay leaves and ham hock. Shred the meat, discarding the bones and skin. Puree the soup, if desired, adjusting the texture with more water as needed. Return the shredded meat to the soup, taste and adjust seasoning, and serve with freshly ground black pepper.

How do you like your pea soup?

I acquired this particular whisky last weekend while visiting the distillery, Kittling Ridge, for their “whisky weekend” event. Every fall for the past few years, they’ve released a new small-batch whisky under the Forty Creek label, and since the standard Forty Creek Barrel Select is one of my favourite Canadian whiskies, I figured it would be a good time to visit the distillery and try out the new product.

I’ve never taken a full distillery tour before, so this was a new experience for me. I knew much of the whisky’s history already, from reading it online. The whisky maker, John Hall, had been a winemaker, and in 1992 decided to apply those skills to whisky, by distilling separate barley, rye and corn whiskies, aging them separately, then blending them and marrying them in oak for a while longer before bottling. (They refer to this as a “Meritage” process, and apparently a number of people in the whisky industry counselled them against it at first.) In fact, the separate whiskies are even aged in barrels with different levels of char: light for the rye, medium for the barley, and heavy for the corn.

The copper still where Forty Creek is made

Knowing this is one thing, seeing where it actually happens is another. As a working distillery, it wasn’t the showiest tour: mostly it consisted of big rooms crammed with enormous stainless steel tanks. Even the still itself is sort of crammed into one corner (and some of the lights were out; not the best picture-taking conditions). But because it was a special event, we got to see part of the facility that isn’t on the usual tour: the barrel room. To get there, we had to pass through the warehouse where they keep pallets of the finished product, ready to ship, which is where we learned that they do the bottling for Appleton rum in Canada. (As if I needed another excuse to drink Appleton!) The barrel room itself contained 20,000 barrels of various kinds, and was one of three such facilities, as a “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” strategy. Let’s face it, it was a big warehouse filled with barrels and, as such, wouldn’t have had a lot of romance… were it not for the aroma. All-pervasive whisky and oak: can I get that as an air freshener?

The tour also gave me the opportunity to ask a few questions, such as how hard it was to acquire a distilling license in a market traditionally dominated by large corporate distillers. (It turns out the site already had a license from a previous owner, a German distiller who made fruit eaux-de-vie that, sadly, didn’t sell.) I also asked whether Forty Creek, like most Canadian whiskies, was made by mixing a “flavouring whisky” with neutral spirits. I was told that it is, in fact, a pure pot still whisky. I’m not sure why this surprised me; after all, Redbreast Irish whiskey is also in a lighter style, and is also pure pot still.

After the tour, we headed to the tasting bar for a sample of the new release, John’s Private Cask No. 1 (actually drawn from 23 different casks). There’s no way I could do justice to Davin de Kergommeaux’s tasting notes, but I agree with every word he says.

"Aged in Canadian Oak"

The whisky is clearly still in the light, sweet Canadian style – as required by law – but is wonderfully flavourful, especially with a drop of water. What really stood out for me, though, was the body. This is a whisky with a huge, very satisfying mouthfeel. I look forward to savouring my own bottle, which John kindly signed.

In addition to this small-batch whisky and the standard Barrel Select, Forty Creek also makes several other interesting whiskies, including one aged in Canadian oak barrels. (Sadly, their Three Grain is no longer produced.) With 2012 being the 20th anniversary of when John started making whisky, next year’s small batch release should be interesting!

My copy of the book arrived last Tuesday (thank you, Michael!), and I’ve been thoroughly enjoying it. Although I was involved in a small way in the making of the book, I have no stake in it now, except as a fan. It’s built around 20 ideas intended to help you become better, more efficient, and more independent in the kitchen. Some of them, like “Onion” are appreciations of wonderfully versatile ingredients, while others, like “Poach,” are more technique-driven. My favourite so far is “Think,” which is something we all forget to do sometimes when cooking.

This is not to say there are no points I disagree with. For example, in the chapter on “Water,” he talks about water’s role in flavour extraction, and observes that oil doesn’t extract flavours like water does. This may be true in a limited sense, but oil can also act as a powerful vehicle for flavour extraction in its own right. Hence the plethora of infused oils on the market, from lemon to garlic to chilli to truffle. But these are minor, technical quibbles compared to the book’s many strengths, and I wouldn’t want them to stop anyone from making good use of it.

Ruhlman’s Twenty is already available for order through Amazon in Canada, and will be released in the US on Sept. 14.

My horizons were broadened yet again this year, when I ate squid cooked sous vide at the Ideas in Food dinner at Atelier in Ottawa. It had been cooked at 59°C for 3 hours, and was beautifully tender, more akin to pasta than calamari. Later, that time and temperature was revised to 72°C for 10 minutes, which is an awful lot more convenient. It takes longer to get the water bath up to temperature than to cook dinner!

My own attempts at grilling cephalopods (both squid and octopus) have almost always yielded results more suited to bouncing than eating, so I figured sous vide would be a step up. I started by brining them for 10 minutes in a 5% brine, before putting them into the bath. Because I was working with slightly larger squid, I figured 15 minutes of cooking time would be appropriate, but checked them at 10 anyway. That was when I noticed the seal on my FoodSaver bag had failed. Not wanting to rebag them for such a short cooking time – and hey, squid grow up in water, right? – I decided to leave them for the extra 5 minutes anyway. Then I quickly marked them on the grill (largely for appearance) and, after taking a couple of pictures, dressed them lightly with some smoked salt, lemon juice and olive oil.

The texture was tender but remarkably meaty, especially since they were so thick, putting me in mind of “squid steak.” Two of these guys were almost too much for dinner, and they could definitely have taken a heavier sear (maybe with a blowtorch) and a heartier seasoning. I wonder if you can dry-rub squid?

What’s your favourite squid preparation?

Spruce tips are exactly what they sound like: the shoots of new growth on the branches of spruce trees. When picked young, they’re tender and have a lemony, piney flavour that’s a nice complement to rich foods and sauces. They make a great seasoning for mayo, for example.

Lucky for me, I have a large spruce tree in my yard, so it seemed fairly straightforward to go and relieve it of some of its fresh growth. What I’d failed to consider, though, was just how large it was: none of the branches were within reach of the ground. Fortunately, branches are flexible, and I was able to use a pole pruner to bring one limb close enough for a small harvest.

Since it was my first time “foraging” for spruce tips, I decided to handle them so that I would be able to spread out my experimentation. In other words, I needed to preserve them. The obvious solution was pickling: obvious, because I’ve seen them for sale as a commercial product. After poking around my cooking library for pickling advice, I settled on a 10% salt, 3% sugar brine made with cider vinegar, poured over the tips while still warm. I’m going to let them steep in the fridge for a couple of weeks, and then see what inspiration strikes.

What are your favourite foraged foods?

After watching the first episode, I think the results are impressive. What really stood out for me, beyond the obvious talent in the room – here’s hoping for a cross-border Top Chef faceoff at some point! – was the ineffable “Canadianness” of the dishes that were prepared. The elimination challenge was for each contestant to cook a dish that represented them, and most of the dishes resonated with me on a deep level, expressing something about this country that I love. It’s not necessarily something that can be put into words, but I thought I’d try and tease out some of the themes.

First, there was the necessary token appearance of maple syrup in Derek’s “maple syrup and pancakes” dish. It may be a cliché, but on a Canadian show, it would be disappointing if it weren’t included.

Although Atlantic Canadians seem to be underrepresented among the contestants, they were represented with pride through Todd’s seal flipper dish. When pressed, I have always said that Quebec and Newfoundland have the most distinctive culinary identities in Canada, and Todd’s dish very much proved my point. Beyond that, there was also the fact that lobster, which is strongly associated with the East Coast, was featured in three different dishes.

Among the other dishes, there were a few recurring ingredients that definitely said “home” to me: pork tenderloin, wild mushrooms, blueberries, halibut and salmon. While they may not be as strongly tied to individual regions as seal flipper or maple syrup are, they’re all ingredients that Canadian cooks instinctively understand and relate to.

Of course, it probably helps that we can lay equal claim to our “native” dishes and dishes that have clear roots in other cultures, thanks to Canada’s approach to multiculturalism. In that respect, Connie’s Portuguese linguiça, Steve’s “Latino street party”, Chris’s Shanghai bok choy and spicy Thai scallops and Andrea’s pierogi all say “Canada” just as much as Darryl’s “meat and potatoes,” but in a different way.

It may be hard to point to specific features of some of the dishes that signal “Canada,” as opposed to rooting them in any other place. This may be a sign that a distinctive, Canadian fine-dining style is still in its nascence. Nonetheless, there was one thought I kept having over and over while watching the episode that suggests, to me at least, that there’s a common thread linking all of these various dishes: This is the food I eat.