In the small German town of Bad Hersfeld, thieves made off with $21 000 (CAD) worth of Nutella. For those keeping score thats about 6 875 large jars or 27 000 000 calories worth. With climbing food costs, large scale food theft has been on the rise. There have been many high profile incidents, including $18 million dollars … Continue Reading →
Category Archives: Lessons
Paleo diet – Week 2
Two weeks into the Paleo diet and we feel great. Some weight has been lost but most importantly we’ve survived the first (and hardest) half of this diet. Our energy levels have returned to normal and we’re definitely not as “hungry” all the time. We’ve even taken to talking about regular food with only slight … Continue Reading →
A few upcoming changes
Just want to give all our readers a little heads up that our site will be undergoing some annual maintenance and a slight make-over. If things are a little strange for a little bit please bear with us and we promise to try to make this process as painless as possible. Keep reading and remember … Continue Reading →
New Year’s Resolution
Since it’s January and the holidays were exactly as expected, gluttonous when it came to food, it is time for our weight loss resolution of 2013. I researched all sorts of diets and really struggled with deciding what goodies I actually wanted to give up. Luckily, in the middle of my procrastinated search, our new … Continue Reading →
Gordon Ramsay’s Desserts
“Pastry chefs occupy a very special place in the pecking order of a high flying restaurant kitchen, so…I take my dessert skills as seriously as I do all my cooking” – Gordon Ramsay Desserts by Gordon Ramsay is not a new book by any means, but definitely one that needs to be a part of … Continue Reading →
A journey around Toronto’s pastry world (1)
So it’s Saturday afternoon, the sky is grey and depressing, our stomachs are growling so what are we to do?!?! Well, most people would make lunch, but here at Notes On a Meal, we don’t find that to be enough so we embark on a French pastry shop journey. Equipped with a sneaky camera (well, … Continue Reading →
Sugar, part 3
From a culinary perspective, sugar is a very important ingredient so understanding how it reacts while being heated, melted, dissolved, etc is very crucial. One of the most integral parts of this is an understanding of what happens in a simple sugar and water solution. In this case, the sugar molecules have a tendency to … Continue Reading →
Sugar, part 2
There are several different types of sugars, all with various qualities and sweetness levels. Different sugars give different impressions of sweetness with sucrose being the longest to be detected on the tongue and the most lingering of the bunch. By comparison, fructose registers quickly and strongly but it also fades very quickly. But before we … Continue Reading →
Sugar week, Part 1
I thought it would be neat to explore a new topic every week and learn something new, so this week we’re going to talk about sugar. We’ll get into history, uses, the nature of sugars and its varieties. Sugar is the generalised term used for a class of sweet flavoured substances composed of carbon, hydrogen … Continue Reading →
History of the macaron
Their name comes from the Italian word “maccherone” which means to beat or crush, used here in reference to the nut (predominantly almond) flour that these desserts are made with. Although the history of the macaron is a little foggy, most sources agree that they date back to the early 1500′s when Caterine de Medici’s … Continue Reading →