Bare Cupboard Antipasti and Cross Canada Beer Sampler

I guess I am working in a general backwards direction blogging my Ontario tour. First, another reunion story. The night we got back our good friend, neighbour and housesitter Maja came over to see us for the first time in a month (for B) and a week (for me).

I am particularly proud of last night's spread, since we had nothing, having been away and completely unstocked with fresh things.

Brian made a gorgeous focaccia with rosemary:



My Bare Cupboard Antipasti:



Basically this recipe deconstructed to go with B's lovely "flatbread", plus some dressed up artichoke hearts.

1. Bean dip with roasted garlic pictured above centre (can of mixed beans) (see recipe link).
2. caramelized onions (onions had awaited our return faithfully)
3. my dirty secret in-a-pinch lifesaver - frozen shrimp (I promise I will give this up if I get some generous PhD funding!). I marinated the shrimp in a Corsican herb mix, fresh grated peppercorns, sea salt, olive oil and minced garlic tossed on high heat.
4. That can of artichoke hearts bought on a whim at Giant Tiger came through for me - dressed up in a lemon (from the corner store) and olive oil.

The next treat was a Cross Canada Beer Sampler courtesy of B:



We sampled from right to left, light to dark, each bottle split among three glasses:
1. Steam Donkey Lager from British Columbia (B's cousin got married there).
2. Wild Rose Velvet Fog, a wheat beer from Calgary, Alberta (B nannied for three nephews there).
3. Pump House S. O. B. (Special Old Bitter) from Moncton, New Brunswick (B had a family reunion and attended another wedding there).

Not everyday you get to imbibe someone's travel route! My favourite was the middle one (I am usually a fan of middle beers).

Other refreshments for the night were also travel locale-based:

Another wine from my Beamsville Bench tour: Hidden Bench Roman's Block Riesling (2007). They were so classy they emailed me the tasting notes (not sure how to host PDFs on blogger? Help?) for the wines I bought when I got home.

An Armenian pomegranate dessert wine, Ijevan Factory Grenade 2002, from our friend, Gino, as a thank you gift to Maja for cat-sitting while he was away in Eastern Europe.

The rest of the night was spent in general silliness...



... and rocking out to Heart.