running on the backstreets
a summer galette and heat wave salads with substance
I hope all my local queers had a lovely Pride weekend, and emerged sunburn-free. I hadn’t made any plans, but Liang treated me to brunch at Jam Cafe downtown. I’d been to the original location in Victoria before, and can honestly say it’s one of only a handful of brunch places that is actually worth the typical hour-long wait. Thankfully we only waited about 25 minutes this time, though. I appreciate that they do half orders of all the bennies; then I don’t have to decide whether I’m going to sacrifice some of my hash browns or some of the benny because I can never finish both halves plus the side dish. We also treated ourselves to mimosas, because brunch is at least partially about having as many beverages on the table as possible.
On the extremely hot walk from downtown to an event off Clark Drive that we were considering, we stopped for ice cream at La Casa Gelato. It’s maybe not the highest quality gelato (I think Bella takes that prize), but the sheer novelty of 238 flavours is enticing, and the hectic buzz of the place is pure summer. I was sorely tempted by lemon poppyseed but in the end I got stracciatella— even with over 200 flavours, I know what I like.
We ended up skipping the event, instead heading to Strange Fellows for a cold beer. Lots of other queers had clearly made it a stopover between their afternoon plans and their evening plans too, so it was nice to still be able to feel that sense of community without spending $30 on cover. We made one last stop at Superflux for another round and a hot dog— they changed their food menu somewhat recently and as much as I loved all the hot dogs they had before, it’s fun to try something new. I got the Choripán, which is a chorizo sausage with chimichurri, provolone, and crispy fried onions, and it was outstanding.
I also went to the Alibi Room to meet a friend after work midweek, which is nice because it’s a bit more chill (on a weekend night the wait is always long and the echoey upstairs room means you sometimes need to shout to be heard over the clamour). I love the extensive beer list, but even if you’re not a beer fan they have great wines and ciders on tap too, and the shoestring fries are everything you want a skinny fry to be. We got two orders because we couldn’t get enough of the garlic-infused vinegar, curried ketchup, and spicy mayo they serve them with. I got drenched in the rain on the bike ride home, and it felt like such a novelty to be cool again after last week’s heat wave that I wasn’t even mad about it.
I had a quiet day at home taking care of some chores on the holiday Monday, and welcomed the opportunity for a bit of a project dinner: this tomato galette with corn and zucchini. Galette dough is less fiddly to work with than pie crust since it has more moisture, so even if you consider yourself a pastry novice, I encourage you to give it a try! The filling comes together quickly in a frying pan while the dough is chilling, and starting it right away once you put the dough in the fridge will give it plenty of time to cool down for assembly.
I only had whole tomatoes, not grape or cherry, so I took the seeds out of most of them and then cut them into large dice. The tomatoes break down a bit more this way, but I didn’t mind the more saucy texture at all. I swapped in a shallot for the green onions (cooking it first with the tomatoes), and added some thyme and oregano from the garden, plus a handful of chopped kalamata olives. I only occasionally go back for seconds at dinner, but I just had to have another slice of this— the filling was so perfectly seasoned and summery, and the crisp edges of the crust with browned bits of parmesan complemented it perfectly. I bet this would be amazing with grilled corn; it’s just starting to come into season here and I need to get my hands on some of the fresh stuff.
Jeff got an enormous cauliflower off the dollar rack at the produce store, so I roasted the whole thing before it got too agèd to still be good. I used half in a lovely pasta with two kinds of pesto from the freezer: stinging nettle with basil, and arugula. I make this often with traditional basil pesto, and this combo was a little more earthy and verdant. Just parmesan on top would have been fine, but a couple slices of salami crisped up in the pan added a lot of flavour.
We made a couple interesting salads when it was too hot for more involved cooking. I sliced most of a green cabbage thinly on the mandoline and added some shelled English peas my sister got at the farmers’ market, some radishes, and the last of a jar of homemade Caesar dressing. Some crumbled crisp prosciutto on the top wasn’t totally necessary (toasted breadcrumbs or fried capers would do as well), but it was delicious.
I needed to use up the rest of the cauliflower I’d roasted for the pasta, and in an almost fugue state of not wanting to cook, I made a salad (loosely inspired by shawarma) out of it and some chickpeas and kale from the garden in a spicy tahini dressing. Crisp up the chickpeas in a few tablespoons of oil in a cast iron, and when they look done, toss in a mix of smoked paprika, ground cumin, and garlic powder. Once it’s sizzled for a minute or so, take them out of the pan and toss with lemon zest and salt. Reheat the cauliflower in the pan with a bit more of the spice mix.
I kept sneaking little tastes of the dressing while I was making it because it was so good: tahini, garlic, sriracha, a splash of seasoned rice vinegar, lots of lemon juice, and some cold water to thin it out. (I didn’t use a recipe, but you could try something like the one here if you don’t want to wing it.) Don’t toss the chickpeas with the rest of the ingredients; scatter them over the salad afterwards and drizzle more of the dressing overtop so they stay crispy longer. Dill and parsley for garnish finished this off nicely.
Jeff also made a couple of really excellent pizzas while I wasn’t home to cook, one with pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms, and castelvetrano olives; the other with tomato sauce, Genoa salami, and pineapple. Maybe it was the heat wave’s effect on the dough proofing, but the crusts came out perfectly crispy outside and soft inside, and they were both so satisfying to eat for a few days as leftovers reheated in the toaster oven.
Media:
One for grilling season: Jaya Saxena on how veggie burgers made from vegetables have become the exception rather than the rule as faux meats take over as the current norm. As a vegetarian-leaning omnivore I would rather eat a Beyond patty than either a beef burger or that dusty, flavourless mushroom thing A&W used to sell as their veggie patty, but fake meats aren’t for everyone, and aren’t even really created with vegetarians or vegans in mind. In fact, Impossible and Beyond specifically state that their products are for people who eat meat:
“[meatless meat] is engineered to resemble beef as closely as possible to entice carnivores to cut more beef from their diets because of its destructive impact on the environment.”
While lessening the impacts of the beef industry is itself a worthy goal, the issue with this framing is that for a portion of people who don’t eat meat, something that feels like meat is not necessarily the endgame, and can even be offputting due to its similarity. But because these products are an easy way to offer something that is technically vegan (even though they are often cooked on the same grill as meat in many restaurants), there is little incentive to offer any other options for vegetarians and vegans. And it’s a shame, because when people are willing to put in a little work to make them, veggie patties can be so interesting and delicious. If I’m craving a burger, that is almost always what I’m really after, not a ubiquitous meat-like experience.
Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please smash that like button below, or share it with someone new! I like providing this to you for free, but it does still involve time and effort, so donations I can use towards cookbooks or future treats are much appreciated. Anyway, the discourse has been especially haunted this week, so please enjoy this frankly majestic photo of a bodega cat.