Thursday, November 13, 2008
Insider's Report marks 25 years of revolutionary food
My driver’s license gave me my personal freedom, but the Insider’s Report rocked the world of the staid (or quite frankly boring) grocery industry with much greater impact. Marketing genius Dave Nichol turned “no name” private label products into innovative, must-try grocery items. He and his team travelled the world to find new tastes and sold them to Canadians by telling stories about their travels and explaining why they were must-try products.
I can only assume in the early days there were a few dissenters from corporate accounting, making snide remarks about Nichol and his band of foodies as they racked up Air Miles at their expense. Maybe they didn’t believe that good stories sell product. Nobody doubts now the power of the much-copied Insider’s Report.
The 25th Anniversary Insider’s Report was launched November 11th in Toronto. Martin Jamieson, Executive Vice President, Loblaws Brands, introduced the Report and 145 products were showcased.
We sampled the delectable wild Pacific salmon wellingtons made with Alaskan Pacific salmon certified by the Marine Stewardship Council. The salmon was tasty but the proportion of salmon to flaky pastry was a little off in my opinion.
The Insider's Report has introduced 18 lasagnas over the years but now they think they have perfected the dish with the PC Our Best Ever Meat Lasagna. Chock-a-block with a combination of beef and spicy sausage, a béchamel and then a garlic rapini layer I thought it sounded pretty standard, except for the unusual rapini. But the thing that brought it up to amazing, was the super thin sheets of pasta.
I don't have an aversion to carbs, but in some of the past President's Choice (and other) lasagnas, the sheets of pasta were so thick you needed a steak knife to cut them. With this one, that was not the case. And when product developer Sita Kacker waxed poetically about her lasagna, I was convinced it must contain an entire day’s worth of calories, but not so. At 440 calories, it is not outrageous and worth it.
If you are a fan of the PC Dulce de Leche in the jar, you're in luck: just for the holidays you can get it on top of a cheesecake. PC took their creamy New York-style cheesecake topped it off with tantalizing Dulce de Leche caramel crème sauce. I love the Dulce de Leche on other things but cheesecake just isn’t my bag. It was good and everyone was raving so if you like cheesecake, stock up before it is gone.
We also tasted the Veneto Pumpkin Triangoli that was served with brown butter and sage on a stick for easy eating. The sweet pumpkin filling is combined with crushed ameretti cookies which really cranks up the sweetness but when combined with a savoury sauce they are a knock out. Buy and try, your guests will love them.
And finally, if you take one thing from this years Insider’s Report and run with it, hands down, it has to be the Dark Chocolate Covered Caramels with Sea Salt.
They have Dave Nichol’s stamp all over them. Here's the Insider story: “We happened into a sweet shop or confetteria last December (ok, so I am so there already with them…) and we were surprised to find salted chocolates were the “in” gift.”
And now they will be your “in” gift one year later thanks to the Insider’s Report - that is, if you can stop yourself from eating these dangerously delicious caramels yourself. I am warning you, they are that good and at $5.99, a small indulgence that you can only get at stores that carry President’s Choice products.
Chalk up one more revolutionary year for the Insider's Report. As for me? I still have my driver's license, but 25 years later I've got wrinkles to boot!
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Eebee's Adventures Winner

Elmo says Ellyn!
Shoot me an e-mail with your address Ellyn and I'll get the folks at eebee to send out your books. Thanks to everyone who entered!
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Amazing baby
The next time your little one struggles to master a milestone, look past the adorableness of their efforts and really consider the finer details of the science behind how the mind and body are developing.
Amazing, isn't it?
I have written before about how I am spellbound by the technical perfection I see evidenced in my son's growth. I find the complex systems that come together with such precision to allow him to master speech and movement and a million other things both incredibly moving and endlessly enthralling.
And I think that's why I have been similarly enthralled by Amazing Baby by Desmond Morris, a new book that explains the scientific side of a baby's development and illustrates its explanations with more than 250 photos of such heartbreaking beauty, I was left fully convinced of the miraculous nature of life.
Dr. Desmond Morris is an internationally acclaimed zoologist who published The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal in 1967. In Amazing Baby he explains how biology, physics, genes and other factors come together to produce a baby and then goes on to chronicle each stage of its development from in the womb to the first two years of life.
Amazing Baby is an extraordinary book, so rich and full and satisfying you could lose yourself in it for hours. I was desperately torn on whether to keep my copy or give it away to a friend who is about to have her first child.
* This review of Amazing Baby was done for the Parent Bloggers Network*
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Eebee's Adventure Series
He didn't really. I know he enjoyed our time together but I think any enthusiasm he showed was a reaction to the sound of my voice or our closeness and the attention being paid him, as opposed to any of the wide array of books that we worked our way through.
When he reached the age of one or so it became difficult to continue reading together. There was no way Graham was sitting still unless I could hold his attention, and words on a page were not cutting it. Anxious to keep on reading I tried out a ton of big, clunky, interactive books designed for young toddlers, but none of them held his interest.
It's too bad I wasn't asked to review books from eebee's adventures series back then.
A few months ago the folks at eebee's asked me to take a look at their series of interactive cloth books which are designed to help babies and young toddlers explore words, sounds, textures and imaginative play, as well as exercise their fine motor skills.
That might sound like a tall order for a series of books but eebee's adventure series are actually books and toys all rolled into one.
For example, eebee's Laundry Time, which recently won a National Parenting Publications Award, has activities for the young reader on every page, including taking towels out of the laundry bag and putting them into the washer, spinning the peek-a-boo washing-machine wheel, hanging eebee’s pajamas on the line and putting them away in the drawers.

All of the books in the series are similarly cool and much more interesting and carefully designed than any of the books I tried to interest Graham in when he was at that in-between age... too young to appreciate a story or characters, too old to be content sitting still and listening to my voice. I really think any parent with an older baby or young toddler will enjoy reading and playing with them together.
You can learn more about eebee's adventure series of books and other eebee products at www.eebee.com. You can also win a series of books just by leaving a comment below - I'll have Graham pick the winner's name out of a hat next weekend.
Good luck!
Monday, October 27, 2008
Kicking it old school with Moo and Beans
And by good I mean slick. A part of me feels nervous about carefully crafted dialogue, seamless pacing and flashy production values. I'm not sure if it's because I fear Graham's developing brain doesn't stand a chance against the onslaught or if I'm simply nostalgic for the bumpy charm and hokeyness of some of the productions I remember loving in the 1970s.
Whatever the reason, when I agreed to review the DVD My Baby A to Z - Come Explore Shapes With Me I fell hard for a couple of guys named Moo and Beans and immediately hoped their homespun antics would strike a chord with Graham.

Thursday, October 9, 2008
Creamy, dairy-free salmon chowder
In September I started my annual empty-out-the-freezer project and hauled out the skeleton of a giant Pacific salmon I had filleted it after it had a starring role in a photo shoot I was working on. The beast was 11 pounds so you can imagine the size of its carcass occupying my freezer.
I threw in some shrimp shells, carrot, celery and onions in a pot with the chopped fish bones and covered with water. As a testament to my lacking fish filleting skills, there was quite a bit of salmon still around the bones. About 10 minutes into the simmer, I pulled the salmon meat from the bones and set it aside. I thought I would make some sort of soup, maybe salmon chowder.
Last weekend we had my in-laws over for dinner. In addition to being celiac, my mother-in-law is also lactose intolerant. My plan for using the stock in creamy fish chowder now seemed a little cruel until I remembered a recipe I created for September’s Canadian Family magazine.
In a moment of culinary genius (I think!) I added instant potato flakes to a corn chowder to thicken it up quickly. Voila! It seems it is possible make creamy chowder and still keep my mother-in-law's tummy happy.
Check it out!
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 carrots, peeled and diced
1 head fennel, trimmed and diced, reserve fonds for garnish
2 celery stalks, chopped
6 cups fish stock
1 cup potato flakes
1 cup salmon pulled from bones, optional
salt and pepper
a splash of Pernod, optional
1. Sauté vegetables in large pot until softened.
2. Add fish stock and stir in potato flakes. Bring to a boil then cover and reduce heat to a simmer. Add reserved salmon.
3. Season with salt and pepper as needed. Add Pernod if using.
4. Serve sprinkled with chopped fennel fonds.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Very chocolatey dairy, wheat and egg-free cupcakes
It just sounds so negative - like glass-half-empty thinking. What would be a more positive recipe title be? Full of Delicious Chocolatey Flavour Cupcakes? Or maybe Chocolate Bursts of Flavour Cupcakes?
At any rate, Saturday was my dear friend’s son's second birthday. For something different, the little guy blew out candles that sat in a giant cupcake cake, consisting of cupcakes set on a 5-tier cake stand! It was spectacular!
Well, for almost everyone.
One little girl stared longingly at the cupcakes knowing that she couldn't eat even one. Not only was she gluten intolerant, she couldn’t tolerate diary.
So this recipe is for her. And you can enjoy it too.
I did ice the cupcakes with butter cream which, as its name suggests, has butter in it, but you can substitute margarine combined with a bit of vegetable shortening to add body to the icing.
This recipe makes two dozen mini cupcakes or 12 regular sized beauties.
1/2 cup each: vegetable oil, honey, applesauce and water
3/4 cup garfava bean flour
1/4 cup each: potato starch and arrowroot
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp each: baking soda and xantham gum
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp vanilla
1. Preheat oven to 325 F.
2. In a bowl stir oil, honey, applesauce, vanilla and water together.
3. In another bowl combine remaining ingredients together.
4. Add dry ingredients to wet and stir until combined.
5. Spoon batter into greased or lined pans. If you want to make small mini cupcakes, you will need to prepare a third pan.
6. Bake 12 minutes for mini cupcakes and 20 minutes for regular sized or until a tester comes clean.
7. Cool on a rack and ice if desired.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Eat Well Save More
There are back to school expenses and fall wardrobe upgrades and, at least in my case, increased food costs as I begin my annual cold weather bulk-up.
Luckily this year I got a little help in that department from the generous folks at Loblaws who sent me over a food basket featuring some of the grocery items they slashed prices on as part of the recent Eat Well Save More promotion at their family of stores.
You may have noticed the Eat Well Save More logo throughout September on items such as Ocean Spray Cranberry Cocktail, Tostitos, Diana's BBQ Sauce, Kraft Salad Dressings and Jello. Graham and I certainly enjoyed the basket - only minutes after it arrived he was scarfing down chips and chugging cranberry cocktail like it was practically free.
And luckily for me, the prices remained reduced for several weeks as Graham has developed a serious addiction to cranberry cocktail.
Either that or he's just joining mommy in her annual cold weather bulk up.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Helping you fight big oil
Yuck! These muffins are moist but not full of fat. Better yet, they are completely dairy free. Turn these into to gluten-free muffins by replacing flour with equal parts of Bette Hagman’s 4-Bean Mix and adding 1 tsp xanthan gum.
These delicious muffins turned out square 'cause I used my amazing Calphalon dessert bar pan that makes single serving desserts like cheese cakes or petit fours. I'll make sure to put up another recipe showcasing this versatile pan, so you can wow your friends at your next “girl’s night in”.
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1 tsp each: baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 1/2 cups flour
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a 12 muffin tin lightly with oil.
2. Combine eggs, sugar, oil, applesauce and bananas together in a large bowl.
3. In a separate bowl stir dry ingredients together. Add dry ingredients to banana mixture and mix until combined.
4. Divide batter between muffin cups.
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
Bette Hagman’s 4-Bean Mix (Makes 9 cups)
2 cups Garfava bean flour
1 cup sorghum flour
3 cups cornstarch
3 cups tapioca flour
Thursday, September 18, 2008
A cub bear tries to prettify herself: fails
But it's also a fact that the age at which I need to spend more time on my appearance - uh, NOW! - just happens to coincide with an incredibly busy time in my life.
So it's no wonder I'm always looking for a quick beauty fix and was instantly intrigued when the folks at Whitening Listerine Quick Dissolveing Strips contacted me and asked to review their product.
What could be easier than tooth-whitening strips you just put on and leave? No timing the removal, no messy clean-up afterwards. I could just pop them on before I went to bed and wake up with gorgeous, whiter teeth.
Easy as pie, right?
Yeah, not so much.
I did use the whitening strips as directed for two weeks and at the end of that time period my teeth did appear to be slightly whiter and brighter than when I started.
But the problem was getting the darn things on my teeth in first place. The very thing that makes these whitening strips so appealing - they dissolve! - makes them very difficult to deal with. If your fingers are even just a little moist they will get sticky and be rendered useless before you can get them positioned properly.
I ruined several strips just trying to get them out of the packaging and several more trying to get them on - imagine placing tiny pieces on saran wrap on your teeth and you start to get the idea.
This was the resulting debris from my very first attempt to use the strips:

It's not a pretty sight.
The folks at Whitening Listerine Quick Dissolving Strips very generously provided me with lots of samples, so the wasted ones didn't constitute a financial loss for me, but if had paid for them I would have been pissed.
In a nutshell: I think dissolving whitening strips are fantastic idea, but the execution and the packaging needs some work.
In either case, more information and fantastic money-saving coupons for Whitening Listerine Quick Dissolving Strips are available on this web site.
