Club Club & Booze Booze

Cross-posted from Calgary is Awesome.

Hey, remember that cookbook launch and epic potluck I told you about a couple months ago? It was epic and I hope you went.

    


  
If not, recreate your own potluck by buying the cookbook! There are only a few copies left, and the girls aren't planning a reprint, so run over to these locations and get your hot little hands on one now!

Of course, the Club Club girls already have another project up their sleeve. It's called Booze Booze, and it's a community cocktail cookbook. Submit up to three *original* drink recipes to club club [at] hotmail [dot] com by January of next year, and the book is set to hit the streets in the spring! I am totally uncreative when it comes to booze, so I'm looking forward to this one... and the epic (drunken) potluck that will probably come with it!

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2011 Goals Check-Up: October

It's getting cold out there...

It's November! The month that Canadians seem to forget as after Halloween people fast forward to Christmas. I'm slightly jealous that Americans have Thanksgiving to keep all the holiday "cheer" at bay. Of course, I would never forget about November because it's my birth month! Here is my monthly check-up of goals I should be working on:

7.5 hours of sleep per night - I continue to fail at this and I have no excuse other than a sheer lack of self discipline. I've gotten into the bad habit of telling myself that the goal is to "get to bed before midnight" and "get to bed earlier than you did the previous night" and that is helping a little, but I'm still tired most days. :S

Drink at least 1 L (one water bottle) of water per day - On most days I usually have a cup or so leftover in my water bottle, and I've been bad about drinking from my water bottle on my weekends. However, there are some other days where I drink more than 1 L... work in progress!

Read at least 12 books this year - This technically happened in November, but I finished The Power of Social Networking (My fifth book this year!) Next up: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

Win a kickboxing/Muay Thai fight - There were no fights this month and for some reason I feel myself becoming increasingly lazy! Don't think I will achieve this goal by the end of the year, but we'll see.

Cook at least one recipe from every cookbook I own - According to my photos, apparently the only things I cooked this month were Thanksgiving dinner (based on Thanksgiving dinners of years past), Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Maple Spiced Pecans and chicken soup for the November newsletter at work. I still have twocookbooksto cook from, plusfourmorethatI've cooked from before, but not this year.

Put my savings/RRSP somewhere where I can make more money - Again, this happened in November, but I finally met up with my bank and invested in some mutual funds! Also, the meeting has convinced me to move all of my banking back to one bank (thanks to having an account since I was a young child and having been upgraded by my parents), which will happen later on in November.

Set aside one weekend every month with no commitments - Thanksgiving long weekend was kind of like this as I did get some blogging done, and it was pretty amusing having the family (my siblings, my brother's girlfriend, B.) around watching Chopped! together :)

Rewards
To reward myself for finishing a book, I'm buying another book, and to reward myself for my [could-be] hard[er] work that I've been doing with training B. and I are going to NYC for my birthday! Hoping this will help meet some of my other goals, like setting aside time every month without commitments, time to read and getting more sleep.

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Manuel Latruwe

Cross-posted from Calgary is Awesome.

I recently reconnected with someone I met at a conference two years ago who recently moved to Calgary. Yen Yi had been reading my blog and making some of the recipes (!) and wanted to meet and find out more about the local food scene. She mentioned that she liked pastries, so I suggested Manuel Latruwe, a Belgian patisserie on McLeod Trail that I had always been meaning to try.

Upon entering the cozy shop - named for its eponymous Belgian-born owner and head patissier - we were greeted by rows and rows of elaborate-looking pastries behind the glass counter, with shelves of golden-crusted fresh-baked breads overlooking the scene. In addition to its sweet treats, Manuel Latruwe also offers savoury sandwiches, soups and quiches. We arrived at around 2 PM last Saturday, therefore just missing lunch, and the shelves were starting to dwindle as regulars came in for their weekly loaves and business began to wind down for the day.

Yen Yi had already eaten lunch before, so she settled for a coffee and a Merveilleux ($6.50), which had whipped cream sandwiched between two layers of meringue and coated with chocolate shavings.

The Merveilleux (prounounced "Mair-vay-euh", not "mervelloo", for you non-French speakers) was creamy throughout, but not too sweet and not too rich. The meringue was so cold it reminded us a bit of ice cream. Yen Yi was impressed by the little flecks of vanilla bean throughout, but wished that the cream was a little smoother.

I had just come from the gym, so decided to get something savoury as well as a small dessert (I was in a patisserie, after all.) Since there were no more ham and cheese croissants (again, end of the day!), I grabbed a spinach and tomato quiche ($11.50 for a small), a lemon tart ($6.50) and a pot of Earl Grey.



I really enjoyed the quiche - the flavours were very mild, the egg was soft and the crust was light and flaky. I hadn't planned to eat it all, but I did. The lemon tart was a great little treat - I loved the texture of the shortcrust, the soft, caramelized, marshmallowy meringue and the thin wedge of chocolate on top. I think I would've preferred the lemon custard to have a little more zing, and that my pot of Earl Grey would've lasted a little longer! We ended up chatting for two hours, and was thankful that we never felt rushed to leave the store.

I was naive in not expecting it to be so pricey - I ended up paying a total of $24.50! Because of this, unfortunately Manuel Latruwe probably won't be on my regular rotation of places to go, but I will keep it in mind when I'm looking for something a little more special!

Manuel Latruwe
1333 1 St SE
Calgary AB T2G 5L1
(403) 261-1092
Open Tues-Wed 7:30 AM-5 PM; Thu-Fri 7:30 AM-6 PM; Sat 7:30 AM-5 PM. Closed Sundays and Mondays. Parking available.

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