Cooking With Angela

Cooking with Angela

You may recall reading about my Italian Haircut from the cruise to New Zealand. We met a wonderful Italian lady on this trip who volunteered to trim my beard and hair on our stateroom balcony, and have developed a friendship with her and her husband. They live in Toronto so we always try to visit when we are in the city.

Every time we visited her, she insisted on cooking a delicious Italian meal, so we knew that although she was a hair stylist by profession she easily could have switched to the food industry. After visiting them in Toronto a few times we convinced them that a trip to the maritimes would be a good idea and finally they agreed to come spend a week with us here in Dartmouth.

Tomato, Cheese & Basil - salad!

Angela loves to cook, so when we knew she was coming, we suggested we wanted her to cook some Italian food with us. She misunderstood and though we just wanted her to cook for us – I'm surprised she was willing to come visit thinking this, so you can see how much she enjoys cooking. She was a bit surprised to find that we insisted on cooking and learning how to cook Italian with her instead of just enjoying her delicious food.

She is used to preparing her meals in her small Toronto condo kitchen, so was pleased to have room to work with prep chefs and kitchen apprentices here in our large kitchen designed to accommodate multiple cooks.

We had some problems finding ingredients so Chinese eggplants had to fill in for the Italian variety, and the rapini just did not pass her inspection, so we did not get to sample her pizza. As well although her English is excellent, her request for a “Bigger” pot to simmer stuffed eggplant in took me a while to accommodate as I did not realize that our saute pan was a “Pot”, but when finally after no pot I

Pasta drying on the rack

pulled out was big enough and I pulled the saute pan out she was happy.

I made fresh pasta, she made a fresh pasta sauce, we worked together to make stuffed eggplant, and some of our delicious Nova Scotian Lamb was made “Italian”. Regis and her created authentic Italian osso bucco, and we learned how to create some delicious Italian Salads. We hope to work together to create some lasagna before they head back to Toronto, so I can use some of my home-made ricotta and demonstrate my pasta making skills . The food was delicious and our cooking skills have improved through cooking with Angela.

Stuffed Eggplant in sauce

Italian style Lamb