As a child I often lingered around the outskirts of my family home’s tiny kitchen, careful not to exceed the imaginary boundaries my mother had defined. I watched quietly as she bustled in the kitchen, chopping and stirring ingredients for several dishes at once, in what seemed like a random and complicated series of motions.
As I grew older, my mother lifted her boundaries and invited me into her space. She tried to teach me, but it didn’t take long for me to come to the realization that I simply wasn’t good at cooking.
My mother never strictly adhered to recipes but our dinner table was graced with delicious dishes, whereas I relentlessly relied on calculated measurements and somehow managed to make pasta barely edible.
I never explored with ingredients or improvised, partly due to my inability to reach the spice shelf for most of my life, but mostly because I was stubborn. I had to learn to try new things, make mistakes, follow some rules and mix others up to finally make a dish I was proud of.
Along the way I also learned to embrace my heritage and native land. I often find myself adding olive oil to everything, a nod towards the olive trees that make up Palestine’s landscapes and my grandmother’s homemade extractions.
Every recipe I am sharing is inspired by my mother’s traditional cooking, with my own twists to make them easier to prepare and incorporate the kinds of flavours I love. I encourage you to try one out, improvise and make it your own.
I like to call this a Middle Eastern pizza that can be enjoyed at any point in the day.
This dish is inspired by my mother’s ‘Kebab Hindi’ recipe. It’s a meatball and tomato sauce dish that can be served over rice or bread.
A salad that’s high in protein, flavourful and easy to improvise with.
or
TwelvEighty Bar & Grill has a fresh new café and study space complete with exposed brick, espresso goodness and plenty of outlets. The grand opening will be after the reading week.
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Over on 225 John Street South, these two different concepts are located in the same place with the same chefs with a similar emphasis on fast, healthy food served in bowls. All the ingredients are locally supplied. All the bowls are light on your stomach. The most surprising part is that all promise to be well-priced, high quality options with plenty of quantity without any of these attributes lacking.
Little Big Bowl, open from 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., focuses on breakfast options with yogurt and fruit bases. These can include things like pomegranate, toasted coconut, starfruit, coco nib and espresso granola. Simple, well-crafted bowls that are a step above what you would expect first thing in the day. It is described as the little-brother of Eatwell.
Eatwell, open from 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., focuses on lunch and dinner time with different vegetarian and meat options. This also includes the ability to tailor your meal the way you want it with selectable options like semolina noodles, char grilled peppers with aged vinegar, steamed shrimp salad with lemon and pink pepper and a classic demi-glace sauce with Madeira wine.
"... it doesn’t have to be your run of the mill food. It can be using fresh, seasonal ingredients, ever evolving and that’s really good for you, really healthy and full of flavour.”
Josh Wortley
Restaurant Chef
Little Big Bowl/Eatwell
With both of these concepts, there is a large deal of confidence when it comes to finding the balance between speed, quantity and quality.
“You end up getting about a litres worth of food for the price. So where we want them to get that fast, casual brand style of food, it doesn’t have to be your run of the mill food. It can be using fresh, seasonal ingredients, ever evolving and that’s really good for you, really healthy and full of flavour,” said Josh Wortley, the Restaurant Chef for the location.
Wortley previously worked as an Executive Chef at the Hair of the Dog Pub and Beerbistro, which are both located in downtown Toronto.
Despite this Toronto background, he is excited about making his mark on the Hamilton food scene.
“The amount of restaurants that have opened up, and the quality as well of the restaurants that have opened up, it’s starting to put Toronto to shame, almost. ... It’s great to be a part of that, and it’s great to starting something that hopefully will be a cornerstone of the food scene to come.”
Josh Wortley will be working with the Executive Chef Mark Andrew Brown, best known for his work in Waterloo winning awards for Best Food at the 2015 Kitchener-Waterloo Food and Wine Show and Top Restaurant at the Waterloo Region Iron Chef Competition, on both of the concepts.
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There are few reasons to stop and look around on Walnut St. between Main and King. The short stretch of street is mainly taken up by the windowless sides of mid-rise office buildings.
However, a closer look reveals a hidden gem, and one of my favourite places to sit down for an all-you-can-eat feast: Liu Liu Hotpot.
Established in 2002, Liu Liu’s hole-in-the-wall exterior gives way to a spacious interior once one passes through the door.
Twinkle lights hang from the ceiling, and a chalk mural just past the door advertises the $20 flat rate for hotpot. The black and white floor tiles contrast with the wooden benches and tables that fill the room, adding to the cozy vibe of the place.
Despite its long history in Hamilton, I first went to Liu Liu during Supercrawl this year.
My friends and I were looking for a dinner spot that wouldn’t be crowded with people attending the festival.
Liu Liu seemed like an obvious choice; it was further east than the festivities and it definitely wasn’t the kind of grab-and-go place most people favour during street events.
When you sit down at the restaurant, a server brings over a list of all the hotpot options. Items range from standard beef and chicken to taro chunks and pig blood.
One of the great features of Liu Liu is that you can afford to try an item out of your comfort zone; there is no fee for unfinished plates.
After placing your order for as many meats, veggies, noodles and tofu as you wish, the raw food is brought to the table, along with a broth, customized to the level of spiciness you want.
Served with a bowl of (delicious) cold noodles and a variety of sauces, patrons then cook the pieces of food in the broth.
Liu Liu is definitely a restaurant for when you’re hungry. There are so many items to try that you want to be able to taste everything and still have room to return to your favourites.
While chances are you can’t go wrong with any of the options at Liu Liu, the sticky rice cakes are a must-have.
They take a while to cook in the broth, but they develop a wonderful chewy texture and complement every sauce perfectly, the peanut sauce in particular.
Fish fillet is another, much faster cooking staple, along with both fried and frozen tofu. Beef and chicken taste wonderful with the noodles, especially when the hot and cold components mix together.
No dinner is complete without dessert of course, and as part of Liu Liu’s all-you-can-eat deal, an agar dish called “glass pudding” is served after the meal.
Similar to Jell-O but with less pronounced flavour, glass pudding is the perfect palate cleanser after a hearty meal. The brown sugar flavour in particular is an absolute treat.
Whether you’re looking for a restaurant to celebrate with friends or enjoy an evening off from studying, Liu Liu is the perfect off-campus mini adventure.
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By: Sohana Farhin/ SHEC
Celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Oprah, Salma Hayek, Megan Fox, the clan of Kardashians, Jared Leto and Beyonce, have claimed to use detox diets to lose weight. The most popular celebrity detox diet is known as the Master Cleanse.
The Master Cleanse was created by Stanley Bourroughs, a man arrested for practicing medicine without a proper license. The detox diet promises to “cleanse the body of toxins and obliterate cravings for juices, alcohol, tobacco and junk food.” The diet plan consists of drinking a glass of salt water in the morning, 6-10 glasses of a concoction consisting of water, lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper throughout the day and drinking a laxative tea at night for 10 days. For these 10 days, you do not consume any solid foods.
First and foremost, what does it mean to detox your body? “De-tox” literally means eliminating toxins — harmful agents that are found in the environment, including mercury and bisphenol A. Detoxification is a natural process that occurs in your body in which organs such as your liver, your kidneys, your lungs, or your skin excrete toxins to eliminate them from your body. Despite being “based on a natural bodily process,” there is no scientific evidence that proves that certain detox diets actually help the organs in our body in the process of detoxification. Detox is becoming a buzzword widely used by celebrities, and it is essentially a sales pitch with no evidence-based research to back it up.
At the end of the day, losing weight can be attributed to creating a calorie deficit, which means burning more calories in a day than you are eating. Celebrities have used the Master Cleanse to lose weight, but the reason they are losing weight is not because the concoctions they drink throughout the day have magical detoxifying properties, but rather because of the large calorie deficit that these diets promote. Although you will consume very few calories while on a “detox” diet, you will be deprived of macro and micronutrients, vitamins and minerals that your body needs to function optimally. This will stress your body, with particularly intense effects on the digestive tract, and may have negative long-term health effects. Additionally, it can lead to a cycle of dieting followed by binging. This process, popularly referred to as “yo-yo dieting,” can lead to weight gain as well as physical and mental health complications. Ultimately, it is advisable to always consult a healthcare professional to make dietary restrictions that will work for you and your health long-term.
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On Saturday I decided I was going to bake bread. Lately I have been buried under my workload, and my time in the kitchen has suffered. As someone who tries her hardest to eat wholesome food, being faced with the prospect of pizza and takeout during my essay writing extravaganza is a personal tragedy. The solution? I was going to do some therapeutic baking.
Well — spoilers — my bread was crap. I lacked patience and time. “So much for home cooked food this week,” I said sadly, staring at a pita bread that could be utilized as a hockey puck. All I wanted were ready-made cheap and nutritional meals. According to a Facebook ad, the apparent solution to my problem was Soylent.
Soylent is marketed as a complete meal in a bottle. Nutritionally balanced, and tasting relatively inoffensive, it only costs $2.42 a portion. The website describes it as the “ultimate” food, with tips on how to incorporate Soylent into your lifestyle (“Soylentini” anyone?). The creator has apparently survived months on exclusively his product. If you hate cooking but also hate junk food, this looks like the best option for you.
The name should have been my first clue that not all is as it seems. For those who don’t know, it comes from a 1973 film where — actual spoilers here — “Soylent Green” is the only food available to the masses, and it is made out of people. Concerned, I looked up Soylent’s ingredients, which are thankfully human-free. While I am now less worried about accidental cannibalism, I am concerned about Soylent’s “stable shelf life.” A bottle of the stuff remains unchanged for an entire year. This product is supposed to offer me complete nutrition, how does it do that without having a single fresh ingredient?
Following some research, I have come to a melodramatic conclusion: Soylent represents everything that is wrong with 21st century food. It entirely strips what little communal food culture we have left by making mealtime a solitary activity (despite the pictures on the website of people laughing while enjoying their Soylent sitting side by side. Fun.) It is part of a disturbing trend towards a loss of cooking expertise, which has been the most important skill we have obtained throughout human history. Soylent is produced out of cheap ingredients — hello soy! — which, along with all other processed foods, has increased our dependence on monocultures such as corn and wheat. Growing a whole bunch of one crop has proven to be devastating to our ecosystems and our health, but hey, may I remind you that one bottle of Soylent is only a little over two bucks?
Speaking of ingredients, out of Soylent’s 40 or so, none of them are actually that good for you, certainly not regularly. My food hero, Michael Pollan, argues that you should not buy any meal that has more than five ingredients, and they should all be things your grandmother could recognize. My grandma is a very smart lady, but she does not know what isomaltooligosaccharide is. I asked.
That Soylent can contain only one ingredient I can consume with confidence (water) and still be labeled as a health product is part of our larger misunderstanding about nutrition. Unfortunately, nutritional science is nowhere near as comprehensive as we would like to believe. Pollan has compared modern day nutritionism to Medieval surgery. Sure, it is on the right track, new discoveries are constantly being made and one day it will do great things, but would I let ye olde doctor perform a lobotomy on me? Absolutely not. For example, let’s think about babies. We have developed formula that has doubtlessly saved countless infant lives and helped those unable to breast feed, however, despite the money and engineering that has gone into development, we have been unable to produce something that can nourish a child the same way that breast milk does. We have hardly come close.
My grandma is a very smart lady, but she does not know what isomaltool-igosaccharide is. I asked.
Soylent is what would happen if nutritional science and engineering had a baby: the current formula is named “Soylent 2.0,” and is described as a “diet inspired by an open-source operating system.” I don’t want my dinner to upgrade like my iPhone and I don’t want Linux to be the inspiration for my next meal. Reverse engineering food has so far been a nutritional failure, but for some reason we are still comfortable outsourcing our cooking. We need slow food, not fast food, and when it comes to eating and health we should be listening to our grandparents, not our engineers. I will take my burnt and disappointing baking failures over a bottle of suspiciously flavourless liquid any day, because when I make something myself, at least I know what’s in it.
Photo Credit: Lee Hutchinson
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By: Bina Patel
Living in Hamilton comes with many perks. Last month, having a delicious piece of cake delivered right to your door became one of them. Calvin Smith, a computer engineering student from the University of Sheffield in England, began delivering slices of cake to doorsteps all over the McMaster Area. “I only launched a week ago so if you can imagine me cycling around in my bike in minus 20 degrees, delivering cake to peoples door. That’s kind of how it all started,” he said.
The idea was born out of a conversation between Smith and his friends about circulating baked goods to students around McMaster University. Among the many options were brownies and cookies, but they ultimately agreed on a slice of cake.
“There’s not that many things around the Mac area that do this kind of thing so it would be great to offer it,” he explained.
The process is incredibly simple. A customer texts the phone number found on their website, between the hours of 4 p.m. and 11 p.m. on Saturdays and describe which slice of cake they want along with an address for delivery. Within a half hour, a slice of apple pie with cream, chocolate truffle or red velvet cake provided by a local bakery, will be delivered outside of your home.
The time range in which to place an order is small at the moment, but Smith hopes to expand to Thursdays and Fridays and to improve the efficiency of the service. “There are loads more things we want to put on the menu, with the amount of requests we’ve had for gluten-free cakes and vegan cakes and maybe even things like brownies.”
The personal touch of hand-delivered dessert has certainly had an effect, as the response from the public has been positive. Last week, Smith found himself biking around for four hours in the bitter cold delivering cakes, and business is expected to pick up as word continues to spread. Over 300 people have already shown interest on Facebook.
“There are loads more things we want to put on the menu, with the amount of requests we’ve had for gluten-free cakes and vegan cakes and maybe even things like brownies."
It remains to be seen whether expanding the service will be a piece of cake after all.
Photo Credit: Kareem Baassiri/ Photo Contributor
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Once spread solely by word of mouth or reviews on Yelp, food culture is now built upon a foundation of hashtags and Instagram posts. Restaurant-goers discover new places through geotags on Instagram, making up their minds based on the way their friends post photos of their food. In the past, many paused before meals to be thankful for what is in front of them – today, we use that time to take pictures of these meals.
Food is perhaps one of the few things on earth that is universal. Since the beginning of time, the consumption of food has been social, and today’s trend of posting photos of our food on Instagram reflects this very human desire to share our meals with other people. To many, the practice may seem useless and silly: what’s the point of making a fool of yourself at a restaurant or taking any time at all to take a picture of food when you can just eat it?
Whether you partake in food photography or not, it’s important to recognize that this is an interest that has been integrated into our technologically-advanced and media-driven society. You may be someone with this hobby, you may be someone who despises it or you may fall in between as someone who does not participate but appreciates nice photos of delicious food (that’s me). Opinions aside, most of us would be compelled to double-tap an expertly crafted photo – food or otherwise – on the ‘gram.
Natural lighting
Good lighting makes a photo. People who over-do their food snaps are the ones who apply various filters to the original photo in attempt to salvage a dull, lifeless shot that was captured under bad lighting. When done correctly, natural light is the only filter you need. And remember – no flash, ever.
Find the angle
You can add a lot of interest to your photo solely by the angle from which you take it. Certain dishes would look striking when photographed from a birds-eye view, while others (like a detailed, tiered cake) may look best as a close up. Don’t hesitate to take a couple shots from various angles to see what works best.
Subtle edits
If nice, natural light is nowhere to be found, consider downloading editing softwares like VSCO cam and Afterlight. These apps allow you to mess with variables like exposure, saturation and enhancing or reducing shadows or highlights. Nobody wants to see a picture of your burger drenched in the Valencia filter on Instagram; customizing your photo with subtle edits will enhance it rather than make it tacky.
Bold colours
Play around with colours. The best food pictures are ones that feature an interesting contrast of different hues. Try pairing duller and brighter tones, or incorporate bright colours that pop out. Place orange wedges next to resplendent red pomegranate seeds. Throw some lime-green edamame beans over a bed of purple kale. It’s difficult to make a piece of brown, charcoaled steak look enticing.
Resist perfection
If you’re taking a slice from a cake and a few crumbs fall onto the tabletop, don’t clean it up! Some disorder and mess adds charm and can make the photo more lively, just like the berries scattered across the table in this photo. Meticulously arranged photos can end up looking unsettling, lifeless and even sterile.
Eat your food
The most important tip, and one that people often forget, is to not wait too long before eating. It may be enticing to position and re-position your plate over and over again in order to get “the perfect shot.” However, no shot is worth it if the dish in front of you ends up melting or getting cold! While food photography can be an interesting hobby, food should ultimately be a feast for your tastebuds.
Photo Credit: Desserts for Breakfast
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A new bistro at the St. Joseph’s Hospital is hoping to bring some colour to the monotony of hospital life. The bistro is an expansion of the services of Colours Café which has been serving St Joe’s for two and a half years. The café, located on the second floor of the West Fifth campus of the hospital, is a brightly lit space surrounded by artwork and high tables. In-patients say that café is a haven. In the early morning, the steaming coffee pot and the sunlight filtering in through the large windows provides a warm wake up call to patients and visitors alike.
The café is administered by Rainbow’s End, a social enterprise looking to provide employment opportunities for people who have struggled with mental health issues and addiction. When St. Joe’s approached Rainbow’s End to see if they would run a store out of their building, Rainbow’s End saw it as the perfect opportunity to open up jobs and train employees. At first, the café opened with just coffee and cold counters, but it didn’t take long for sales to pick up.
“It’s gone from success to success,” said David Williams, the Executive Director of Rainbow’s End.
The café currently employs 11 people and is also open on weekends, when most places have closed their doors.
As of early February, Rainbow’s End was able to expand into a full kitchen in the first floor cafeteria, made possible by donations from the recent MSU Charity Ball. Workers at the new bistro have access to full commercial equipment that allows for expanded food prep training. Costumers are lining up for the hot breakfast and lunch plates, capitalizing on the opportunity for warm food in a building that serves most food in cold counters.
Williams hopes that the great food and service produced by his employees will contribute towards breaking the stigma of mental health.
Maribeth Chabot, the food services and manager chef for Rainbow’s End, said that she hopes Colours Café will provide the employees with skills to succeed in other jobs as well.
“Hopefully when I am done, these guys can move on and be a line cook in someone else’s restaurant. They will know all the things that a line cook needs to know, and the procedures of how a restaurant is run. You get a crowd of 50 people lining up for lunch. That kind of demand is reality. It gives them really good exposure to that and good skills in today’s market. And we laugh, we have too much fun.”
Williams hopes that the great food and service produced by his employees will contribute towards breaking the stigma of mental health.
“What excites me most is really the opportunity to offer training and a real job to people that would like to get back to work and have to face certain hurdles such as mental health and addiction. The most important thing for us was to get it open, employ the right people and establish the business and credibility. I think we have done that,” says Williams.
Expectations for people working at the café or bistro are no different from other restaurants. In fact, employees are expected to already have or be planning to get their food handling certification.
As for the physical layout of the space, the bistro has a similarly airy feel as the café. The food is prepared right in front of the customers, with the stoves in plain sight of the cash register. The employees are not only learning to prepare food, but they are doing so in an environment where the people they are hoping to please are watching them work. So far the challenge has been met with enthusiasm.
Williams knows this may not be the most comfortable of situations for staff. “It’s challenging. It would be challenging for anybody to prepare food that way.”
He also recognizes that perhaps his employees also have an edge others may not.
“We actually like to think that many of our team members, because they have experienced mental health challenges, have a lot of empathy with people who do have the same conditions. We feel that there is a degree of communication there that they can establish with other team members, with patients in hospital, with friends of patients who are coming to visit them.”
“I have a brother who has problems; I have a nephew I lost to suicide. I have been a chef all my life, I have made good money. I owned a restaurant. At this point in my life it’s time to give back.”
Chabot has nothing but praise for Rainbow’s End and their work at St. Joe’s. “I can tell you that working for Rainbows End has been one of the most rewarding jobs of my career. I mean, we can’t have a meeting where I don’t cry. They are a fabulous organization with people who care and with huge hearts. I am privileged to be a part of it and I get choked up. I have a brother who has problems; I have a nephew I lost to suicide. I have been a chef all my life, I have made good money. I owned a restaurant. At this point in my life it’s time to give back.”
Photo Credit: Alex Florescu
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