tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831328702453859922026-01-11T09:50:21.566-06:00So Long and Thanks for all the Fish SauceMinhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-26048173599352665762014-12-02T11:03:00.000-06:002015-01-20T09:52:00.431-06:00

Three  years have passed since I judged the first ever Great Greely Fishcake competition in Ottawa. You can read about year 1 and year 2 if you like before we move on. After missing the third year, I returned in year four as a competitor...finally! At first I thought it wouldn't be a big deal because it really is a friendly competition between a group of

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-54980551082483158372014-10-24T14:02:00.000-05:002014-10-24T14:02:08.587-05:00

 This comes from a long time ago...but the recipe is still good. I might make one of these for Christmas dinner this year. Gordon Ramsay’s F Word gets me in the Kitchen A few years ago, the summer after I finished my teaching degree, I moved to Montréal to be with my wife. Prior to this, I had only known Gordon Ramsay as the tyrant from Hell’s Kitchen. (I really do enjoy him now on

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-67230527098201922622014-09-04T13:31:00.000-05:002014-09-04T13:31:20.347-05:00

I think this will be more of a monthly revival using food articles that I wrote for my uncle's Vietnamese newspaper Thoi Bao in the past couple years. I recently moved and after having a super crazy teaching/extra curricular schedule for the past few years which sent blogging to the back burner. Though now  I'm looking at trying out something new now that I'm in a province that is

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-7643213655648263652012-11-13T18:30:00.002-06:002012-11-13T19:20:09.092-06:00

I recently held a meeting for my cooking club, at a nearby restaurant, to decide what our menu would be this week. A couple of my students mentioned they couldn’t come to the restaurant because they were on a health food kick. Inquiry into what they were eating resulted in no answers so in response to this, I decided to help them expand their knowledge of healthy food in this unhealthy world.Kale

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-67462683835866732882012-10-27T21:45:00.004-05:002012-10-27T21:49:53.806-05:00

The gloves were off at the second Annual Great Greely Fishcake Throwdown and these multitude of bare hands were moulding together delicious fish patties. This year there were eight entrants, about half of which were returning competitors along with the reigning champion. As the guests came round, I greeted the two judges from last year and we proceeded to sit down at the bar to begin

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-27230647758373308042012-10-21T18:27:00.000-05:002012-10-23T18:29:31.820-05:00

Look, I'm still alive but barely! This year I’m teaching a full load of classes and I decided to take on a few more extra curriculars than before which isn’t the most logical step. Get more work, make more work, right? One of the clubs that I’ve been begged to start was the school cooking club. Most of these pictures will be brought to you by some of the great students I have the pleasure of

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-26366677118955586532012-06-15T20:28:00.000-05:002012-10-27T21:51:11.230-05:00

Awesome student food blogger banned from blogging. Being awesome gets her unbanned. Inspires me to enact my plan for cafeteria food revolution.  Despite never reading the news, I sometimes manage to stumble across links that take me to websites that have news on them. Recently, a food blogger, VEG, was banned from continuing her blog, NeverSeconds. This food blogger is a nine year old

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-77120278104056312892012-05-09T22:12:00.000-05:002012-10-27T21:51:33.012-05:00

She's done it again. She did it before. The suspense... So what did she make this time? It all began with our student council deciding to have a Kells' Kitchen Dessert bake off. It actually all began when I decided to put a twist on one of the suggestions for a new 'Kraft Dinner eating competition' (ugh) which was spun into a cooking competition. Students would submit their bestest desserts

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-57436233111928153152012-05-08T22:04:00.000-05:002012-07-15T10:54:35.582-05:00

A few years ago while undertaking my Education degree, I lived in a small bachelor apartment with a mini-fridge, a little hot plate, my toaster oven and no stove. Needless to say this slightly limited the food I cooked although it was more so the fact that I lived alone and I'm not terribly interested in cooking for myself.  Lucky for me, I had a lot of family living in the same city

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-63229819057029972362012-04-17T21:49:00.002-05:002012-04-17T21:49:37.759-05:00

Restaurant Amaranto 5974 De Monkland Av. Montreal, QC H4A 1G8 (514) 510-1225 Tacos al Pastor It is time for a long overdue mention of one of my favourite restaurants ever. EVER.  Restaurant Amaranto is a lovely Mexican restaurant just down the street from where I live. It is a small, cute restaurant with five tables, an open kitchen and a friendly, lovely couple that

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-61355051806982416702012-04-17T21:04:00.001-05:002012-04-17T21:50:09.312-05:00

I've been baking a lot. What does that mean? Maybe it's because I keep looking at the pictures on www.joyofbaking.com and I get inspired.  My wife's favourite dessert EVER is the Nanaimo Bar. I saw a recipe on joyofbaking.com and figured that they couldn't be that hard to make and it turns out they merely require a lot of waiting in between steps which makes the process seem longer

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-24946970346401728742012-04-16T19:56:00.000-05:002012-04-23T18:27:08.958-05:00

My family recently compiled a digital cookbook with some of their very best recipes, some of which are Vietnamese dishes (surprise!). We are fairly open-minded when it comes to food and I think the book actually features more non-Vietnamese dishes but they all look quite good. Of course I submitted a few recipes, most of which I've written about here. Speaking of family, one of my aunts

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-74298391401823560642012-04-04T21:34:00.001-05:002017-10-14T12:29:01.659-05:00

A few years ago when I dabbled in baking, I somehow managed to make a batch of white chocolate brownies (or blondies) that tasted really, really good. The recipe I found online used hazelnuts and had a raspberry sauce that I never bothered to try and make. I'm fairly certain I undercooked the blondies and they ended up being amazing. It happened twice!  Recently I decided to make them

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-79841246788477620682012-03-03T11:55:00.001-06:002012-03-03T11:55:57.014-06:00

I am off for ten days on a school trip to Europe! Hopefully I will survive to regale with tales of food I may have eaten? More importantly, we are nearing the anniversary of when I started this journey of food. I did not do as much as I had hoped to have done by the end of a year but it was fun and relevating all in the same! Here's to another good year!

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-78424690755290277542012-02-28T21:45:00.003-06:002012-02-28T21:51:01.942-06:00

The baking rivalry heated up at school when my baking rival, Eunji, threatened to bring baked goods in for student council to finally prove that she is the better baker. She had me try one early on in the day before the meeting and then e-mailed me three pictures of the cookies. What can I say? They were delicious! A kind of perfect amount of sweetness, a little crunch on the outside, nice

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-53041503147329186992012-02-15T21:23:00.001-06:002012-02-23T08:07:36.619-06:00

Valentine's has never been a big deal for my wife and I. There has never been any pressure to do, or more importantly buy, anything. However, during my daily skim of my Facebook newsfeed, I saw an intriguing post from one of my friends. Before we confirm the obvious fact that this post is indeed the recipe for today, I must tell you about my friend! She's a fantastic cook and baker (not to

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-78549770808629780912012-02-08T21:59:00.000-06:002012-02-08T21:59:05.454-06:00

Back in November, the student council (of which I am one of the faculty advisors) at our school had a PJ & pancake day. They cooked up a couple hundred pancakes and had toppings of all kinds for students to pile on their pancakes. In the end, they sold a lot of pancakes and the cafeteria was a sticky mess. However, they raised a lot of money maybe for a charity, I can't remember but they are

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-6511663972909907032012-01-30T22:30:00.002-06:002012-01-30T22:33:50.929-06:00

I have survived exams week and finished all of my report card work. I must now tell you about my attempts at making Gigi's Ginger Tofu. Who's Gigi? No, she's not family but someone I took a cooking class from once. She is a flavourist, someone that experiments with flavours to make food taste amazing, which I will confirm that she's pretty darn good at. So if you have already browsed the

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-74633169112204952862012-01-30T18:45:00.000-06:002012-02-29T15:01:28.595-06:00

Happy New Year everyone! This is a dish that I have only eaten once a year, since moving out on my own. Once a year on New Year’s Eve, during our family’s party we have a late night snack of nibbles and a big pot of seafood congee or cháo. This happens only a few hours after we have dinner at an all you can eat buffet but it’s such a treat that we manage to somehow find room for it.

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-34359561556301842162012-01-06T06:09:00.000-06:002012-01-30T22:32:08.876-06:00

We attended an awesome cooking class in December. In part it was awesome because of the food there but the other half of awesome-ness comes from the fact that it was taught by the mom of the girl who runs a delicious vegan, kosher foods place, Cafe Juicy Lotus, that I like to frequent. Her mom, Gigi Cohen has her own Harvard Cafe that is equally as kosher, more so vegetarian and great, though

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-65539032767615512392011-12-07T20:13:00.001-06:002012-01-06T06:31:33.903-06:00

It doesn't feel right to end the year with an entry about lemon cake. Not that I have anything against lemon cake, but somehow it doesn't feel as meaningful as I would like it to be. I started really writing about cooking in March of 2011. I've always been into the whole food thing, I just never wrote about it. At the time I got super into it, cooking and writing about something Vietnamese

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-55011862838399840272011-12-05T18:34:00.001-06:002012-01-06T06:31:39.583-06:00

Aside from spending very little time writing nowadays, I also hardly keep up with reading other blogs which means I miss out on reading awesome things like this: Hot Chocolate on a Stick! What is there to do when your wife is out on a Friday night? The only answer I could think of is sit at home with a glass of wine, a chocolate caramel bar and write about the late night cake baking that

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-54618827569070752842011-12-04T14:36:00.001-06:002012-04-16T19:56:48.704-05:00

Hi, I’m Gillian, Minh’s wife and co-taster of most of the things he eats. (Very) occasionally I get creative in the kitchen as well, and today I wanted to share a baking story with you all. This is a story about two failures. This entry was originally meant to 1) show you all how to make the ‘IKEA cake’ (as my friends call it), and 2) help Minh out by writing in his blog so that there

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-76559078594910657482011-11-24T19:36:00.001-06:002011-11-24T22:38:58.891-06:00

My wife makes the best gingerbread cookies. As the legend goes, one day she googled 'best gingerbread cookies' and ever since then, anyone who has tried these cookies has asked for the recipe. I just tried this and it is in the top 20 of gingerbread cookies though I think they are in no particular order. The new school that I'm teaching at has a pretty great group of teachers and they do a

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3583132870245385992.post-19562219682761812412011-11-02T21:42:00.000-05:002011-11-21T09:27:46.149-06:00

Near the end of August we made our way back home to Nova Scotia before school kicked into gear for both of us. Before we get on with the Bánh Bèo, let's talk about a little something special from Halifax, Nova Scotia. As soon as we got home from the airport, my Mẹ asked me if I was hungry and asked me if I wanted a donair. Understand that the only place to get a true donair is indeed in Halifax,

Minhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11937996021902021208noreply@blogger.com