Fabulous!

Okay, so I have my new camera to use to capture my future cooking endeavours and any travel I may go on. I bought it from a local photog store here called Galaxy. They were super nice and helpful (and patient with my total lack of knowledge). I am a little nervous about breaking it, or not taking proper care of it, but it is super fab. Since I couldn't take a pic of the camera, I took one of the box (Nikon D40).


I also found my new fav cooking-baking store in the 'Wa: Grace In The Kitchen. Grace (it's nickname now) is on Bank in the Glebe-Ottawa South area, and it's fairly new. The first time I went in I was quite impressed with the stock, though less impressed with the pricing and inatentive staff. Turns out, they were just getting up and running ( and I think they have improved the wonky price or two I saw the first time - all very competitve with Domus, The Glebe Emporium, and J.D. Adam) and had very little staff. They got more staff, and these guys are good.

Tonight I went in to buy some swanky vanilla that I've been aching to try (Tahitian Vanilla from this great vanilla company, see bottle below). One of the guys seemed like a retiree who just started part time, but at one point he mentioned he had worked for a master pastry chef - he was so full of cool info. The other guy was a big foodie. Hearing him speak to other customers, I was willing to bet he'd tried most of the food stuffs in the store, but in speaking to him, it turned out he had a great deal of knowledge about cooking and baking techniques. Yay! They were super friendly. They even had a good discussion with me about the copper bowl for egg whites debate (Does the copper bowl technique used in traditional french baking really help egg whites to foam faster and fluffier? What about cream of tartar? Do you really need either to make the best meringues?). Oh, it was nice. Like one of those moments when you realize that there are others as obsessed with something as you are. I'll be dropping by at least once a month, I believe. They will be getting vanilla paste soon, could be fun to swap for the extract, eh?