Wontons

My father taught me how to make wontons as a child. I may have learned as young as five or six. We sat at the kitchen table with ground pork (mixed with oyster sauce, salt and corn starch), square wonton wrappers and a bowl of water. He held a wrapper in his left palm with one corner pointing to the wrist. After dolloping pork in the center, he wet the border of two perpendicular sides with his right hand's index finger. He folded the wet borders on to the dry ones to create a triangle, pressing edges together, the pork safely enveloped. Then he tucked the right corner underneath the left one to complete the parcel. The simple yet elegant process infatuated me.

I started making wontons myself in my post-secondary years. In the first summer of my 20s, I made a turkey version for friends because one, as a Hindu, ate no meat except poultry. My buddies devoured the turkey dumplings. In fourth-year university when I lived on my own, a classmate requested I prepare the original recipe with him because, I think, it reminded him of his mother who passed away. More recently, I taught the man I love how to wrap wontons for one of the first dinners we shared at home together. Just two weekends ago, my eldest sister served me her wontons for dinner. About her five-year-old son, she remarked, "You know Raja helped me make some?"

Iron Cupcake Toronto

I'm not a huge fan of cupcakes but one of my closest friends, Stephanie, is. (In fact, there's a crazy personalized NYC cupcake tour posting that still needs to be written...) So when I heard the Liberty Village cupcake shop, For the Love of Cake, was hosting Toronto's first Iron Cupcake competition, and that the secret ingredient was going to be beer in honour of St. Patrick's Day, I decided we should go.

It was chaotic and packed but we somehow wound up relatively close to the front of the line when they started handing out the mini cupcakes. This is how it worked:

• Each person had a ticket with 4 of 16 numbers on it, and so you were judging four of sixteen cupcakes.
• The other side of your ticket listed all 16 numbers, and you judged visually who you thought had the most aesthetically pleasing cupcake display, aligned with the St. Patty's Day theme of green.

Cover was $5, and it included the four mini cupcakes plus tea was being given out for free. I felt a little jipped because apparently No. 4 had some sort of accident. My friend heard "baking accident"; I heard car. I hope it wasn't car.

The one in the upper left-hand corner was No. 15 and the ultimate judges' winner. It was also the one Steph chose as her favourite -- I think mainly because the cream cheese topping really pushed that particular cupcake to a higher state of deliciousness. The one in the upper right-hand corner, No. 16, was People's Choice and had my favourite visual presentation.

The baker called it "Morning After St. Patty's Day." As you can see, there are little Guinness "cans" spread around the bed and even a mini Advil box on the nightstand. Now that is some serious creativity and theme dedication.

We also liked this cheese spread one, though it's difficult to make out the cupcake in this shot. (It's underneath the pretzel sticks.)

For the most part, all the cupcakes we sampled were very good. It was funny to sit on a floor, at a little table, swapping these mini baked goods and trying to debate the finer points of why one may be better than the other. Except for one of Steph's cupcakes, I couldn't really taste the beer component in any of them. But I think it would be fun to experiment next time I whip up my own batch.

Gio Rana's Really Really Nice Restaurant

The first time I may have heard of Gio Rana's was way back when Christine Cushing Live still existed on the Food Network as a new show. But then again, it could've been when I was 16 and read Toronto Life's little red restaurant review book before I went to sleep at night, as if it were the best page-turning thriller novel of my life.

No matter because I will always remember the first time I actually visited and, more importantly, ate at Gio Rana's: this past Saturday night with three great, food-loving university girlfriends.

I love eating, but the experience of eating is so wonderfully enhanced when the people you're with love to share food, drink wine, talk loudly, laugh inappropriately, and don't fuss over how to split the bill when it arrives.

For appetizers, we went for grilled calamari (how could we not? $7.95), prosciutto with fig and goat cheese (so simple but tasty $6.95), and the mother of all meatballs (easily bigger than my fist yet somehow perfectly cooked inside-through-out $7.95). For main, I had bites of osso buco (sticky, sweet, warm and comforting $15.95), veal parm (saucy, meaty, hearty $??) and ordered a whole grilled seabass ($19.95) all to myself. I'm greedy, I know.

I love whole fish. This seabass was paper-thin crispy (like Korean fried chicken!) on the outside, and flaky and moist on the inside. There were some parts that were a little dry but for $20, it's hard to go wrong; especially considering the other whole fish I've had were more in the $30 range (Vertical and my regular Italian spot, Sapori at Yonge&Lawrence).

I drank a merlot and had a great cappaccino -- it's been a long time since I've had great coffee. We ended it all with a chocolate brownie in caramel sauce and berries ($7.95?), and a goat cheese cheesecake with a keylime sauce ($7.95?). I've grown away from chocolate desserts (although I still love them) and am so drawn to citrusy flavours now. So I pretty much devoured the cheesecake. I wasn't sure how I would like the goat-cheesiness, and I loved.

Service was amicable and attentive enough (except with the bill, but we were okay to linger). Place was busy, loud, conversational, dim with candlelight and all woods. Table too small for all of our foodiness.

I'm still having dreams about the meal.

I taste home.

It needs to be established upfront that I'm Chinese. I'm not exactly sure what I mean by this though. I was born and raised in Toronto. I've never visited China and I don't have any close relatives who live there. My parents and their siblings were born in Calcutta, India. They were part of a Chinese diaspora who speak a different dialect, Hakka. But my father never calls himself "Indian" the way I call myself "Canadian." It doesn't matter that he lived there till he was 21, the age I am now. It doesn't matter that he can understand and speak Hindi. It doesn't matter that he half-seriously claims he's going to retire there. It doesn't matter that some of the best dishes he cooks are distinctly Indian. He's Chinese, and that's final.

My father is the indisputable cook of our household. I grew up on his food. He came home from nine hours of manual labour at a nails and screws factory, and made dinner for his wife and four kids for what felt like every day of my childhood, and for most of my adolescence. As far as I was concerned, he could cook everything from seafood stir-fries to yan-yan (meatball) soup to spaghetti to stewed beef. But above and beyond everything else, he could cook Indian food. Curries, homemade bahnas (a thicker, doughier and greasier version of a tortilla), biryani, tandoori, masala ahloo (potato in Hindi). He did it all and I loved every last bite. So when it comes to food, what resonates the most for me is not the clean, delicate tastes of Chinese cooking. Bold, aromatic Indian flavours bring me home.

Last Sunday, one of my closest girlfriends from high school said she wanted to take me out to eat for my 21st birthday. Coincidentally, Toronto Life came out with its "Best New Restaurants" issue the same week. And an even luckier coincidence, Amaya, a new Indian restaurant at Bayview and Eglinton, was listed as one of the top ten. I read James Chatto's review on the place a few months earlier and this was a reminder that I still needed to try it out. Stephanie never really had Indian food before. I felt Amaya was going to be the best place to start.

I instantly like the place as soon as I walk through the door. It's a small, casual space that comfortably fits about 40 people. The tones of the decor remind me of the warmth of beef curry--golden yellows and chestnut browns, accented with clean white linen tablecloths and hints of red lighting. On the walls are huge, framed photographs of India, astonishing in its cultural quietness of two men pushing a boat in Goa, women harvesting food, children scattered in streets. A tall, brown-skinned gentleman dressed in black kindly hangs our coats and shows us to a table. His voice is as smooth as almond butter, without any smugness. Steph and I are easily the youngest patrons.

To start, instead of bread, we are served pappadums--a thin, crisp, Indian-spiced flat bread. It comes with a mango mint sauce. As soon as I bite into it, everything inside wakes up yet I dreamily close my eyes.
"Oh my god," I drawl. "This is pure nostalgia." Steph, on the other hand, doesn't have the exact same enthusiasm.
"It won't feel the same for you, I know," I rush to explain. I hate getting people's expectations up and then they get disappointed. "But for me, this is my childhood."
She laughs. "It's OK. When Brian asked me why an Indian place, I told him it's because you're Hakka and he was surprised," she says in reference to her boyfriend.
"Really? Why?"
"Because he says you don't look Hakka. But I don't know what that's supposed to mean." And quite frankly, neither do I.

Our waiter comes by to explain Amaya also serves a tasting menu for $50 each, along with its a la carte. I am giddy at the thought. As soon as the waiter walks away, Steph says, "Order whatever you want. It doesn't matter to me."
"Are you serious? Because if you're serious, I'm going to go crazy and insist we both do the tasting menu." (I'm practically foaming at the mouth because I'm so deliriously happy.)
So we order the tasting menu. In the meantime, Steph orders a mango mint mojito that actually disappoints me. I can't really taste mango or that much mint. But it's OK, because I'm here for the food.

For anyone who doesn't know, a "classic" tasting menu is often five to seven small experimental courses where the chef showcases ingredients and plays with different flavour ideas. I'm surprised to hear Amaya offers one because Indian fare is a communal experience. It lends itself to cooking in large quantities. I shouldn't have been surprised when the food turned out to be just that.

A large appetizer course is set down. It looks like a tower of rice, almost risotto-like in its sauce mixture, jewelled with pomegranate seeds. The first bite reveals that the "rice" actually has a texture similar to rice krispies--airy, light and crackly. It's sweet, salty and has a kick of spice to it. Something that quickly becomes a theme for the rest of the meal.

The second appetizer is chicken liver paté served with toasted pita. I fell in love with liver after my first experience with foie gras and milk-fed veal liver at Thuet two winters ago. This paté is sensational. It's dense but spreadable, and the Indian spices tickle my senses. It's making my heart, my soul, my body say, "More, more, more!" And sometimes you get exactly what you wish for. The appetizers are already fairly big. When the mains come, there's hardly any room left on the table.

We first try venison served on a bed of steamed julienned carrots, green string beans, and roasted potatoes in a dark, biryani-like sauce. I eat it with saffron-tinged basmati rice but take the first bite of meat separately. Cooked at perfect medium-rare, it practically melts in my mouth. Steph, who doesn't even know what venison is, relishes in it. I can tell she is starting to fall in love with Indian cooking. Next I try cauliflower curry with naan. Normally I dislike cauliflower so I'm taken aback when I eat it. There is definitely a hot spiciness but it's beautifully juxtaposed with a honey-like sweetness that elevates everything to a flavour dimension I've never experienced before. Even the little bursts of fresh, diced tomatoes add a subtle but distinct cooling feeling. Our final main course is shrimps and scallops in a butter sauce. These too are perfectly cooked. Both are big, plump, tender, moist and juicy. The sauce is velvety but light, and I am more than impressed that this is by far the best Indian food I've ever had. Stephanie is happily surprised as well with how delicious the meal is, but I suspect for reasons different than mine. Equally pleased with the experience, she genuinely oo's, aw's, and yum's at everything. And we have enough food to doggy-bag for a hearty lunch the next day.

Our meal ends with a dessert sampler of a white chocolate shortbread cookie, a dark chocolate truffle with Indian spices, and a caramel brittle with cashews, pistachios and cardamom. I love them all for their varying textures and tastes but the brittle stands out as my favourite. Normally I am a chocolate-fiend but combining nuts and cardamom? That is signature Indian with a spectacular modern twist.

As we head home, I cannot thank Stephanie enough for treating me to such an amazing dinner. The food may have been more original, inventive and even cooked better than anything my dad has ever made, but in its essence, it is the food of my father. The food of my family. Yet at the same time, while the meal was definitely a pleasure, it was the experience of sharing something so close to my heart with someone who is so close to my heart. I consider Steph to be like a sister. Introducing Indian food to her at a place like Amaya... It transforms what it means for me to return home.

How much and how little we've grown.

Museums and galleries have always fascinated me. I love how they can be a place of history, beauty, delicate intricacies, fantastic spaces and an adventure of my choosing. I don't think I've realized it until this moment but the Royal Ontario Museum holds many special memories for me. And a light, bubbly, happy one was created Saturday night.

"You look so hot! You are my hot girl!" squeals my friend Annette as she rushes over to us in the lounge of C5, the new restaurant atop the Crystal addition of the ROM that opened in July 2007. Annette is referring to our friend Jamie who I'm with. We went ahead early to make sure we kept our reservation, while Annette picked up Wina and Camille. It's a bit of a high school reunion. I'm closer with Jamie and Annette than I am with Wina and Camille. But we all used to hang out in the same, much larger group of friends so every once in awhile there's always an overlap. Lives diverge and come together again, and I find myself in situations that are familiar and comfortable yet awkward and distant.

For the record, Jamie does look hot. So do the rest of them, I might add. I don't think I've ever felt "hot" myself when I'm around them. But it's no insult to me. It's just a feeling I have. But I am quite happy to be friends with such beautiful girls. More so, I am lucky to be friends with such beautifully-minded people.

We are seated and we are definitely like silly schoolgirls around one another. I'm a touch too loud for public. Annette is in her infectiously giggly mood. Jamie is calm and serene while making faces. Wina is angelic. Camille has a matured but beaten air to her. Of all the girls, it's Camille who I'm most unfamiliar with.

"I am so tired from working all day. I'm supposed to go to a club after and I didn't bring a change of clothes for dinner or partying. These are my work clothes," she remarks. Nonetheless she is stylish and stunning in vintage jewellery and a Posh Spice-esque messy haircut. Throughout the night, I have these wonderful moments where I see women who have learned to be so aware of the world that surrounds them. At the same time, I see girls who love to indulge in laughter, food and talk, and fall into a self-created bubble.

It's around 9:30 p.m. when our orders are taken and bread arrives. We were half an hour late for our 8:45 reservation and it takes some time for giggly girls to calm down. The bread is soft and wonderful. I try so hard to pinpoint the exact flavours. While they stir the senses of my tongue, my memory can't seem to be jiggled enough. Plus I'm starved. I haven't eaten since noon so I can't be bothered to pay too much attention. It's enough that the bread is delicious. The butter is perfectly spreadable and adds a sweetness.

"Why are you such a bread Nazi?" Annette calls over.

The CN Tower is to the left of me, framed by the jagged open shapes of the building. Toronto's cityscape always gives me great pleasure. I marvel at the ingenuity of man-made structures.

I love thick, creamy, hearty soups. It's Winterlicious. This is why we can (sort of) afford C5 tonight. I debate between a salad and a soup. When I hear the butternut squash bisque is made with lobster stalk, I am sold. It arrives as a lovely orange square pool of steaming aromas. The first sip is intoxicating. A perky, Indian-like spice tantalizes my tongue while the undertones of hearty lobster and squash fill the rest of my mouth. "Jamie, you have to be my date tonight. Try this," I say to her as I offer her a spoonful. I demand that more than one person recognizes the amazement of this bisque. Her eyes stare straight ahead and as she pristinely slurps, her wide eyes go wider in delight. "Oh my god. That is sooooo good," she sincerely comments. I take a bite of her deconstructed salad. The textures are interesting and play together nicely. Creamy avocado with grainy black olive-infused couscous and tiny pieces of slippery, tender calamari.

Because I love when my food has a theme, for main, fish is the obvious choice. A butter-poached grouper in a spicy tomato shitake sauce blows me away. The grouper is meaty and flaky and tender and smoky all at once. The sauce is punchy and tangy and fruity and warm all at once. It's garnished with pea shoots. Delicate yet filled with an amazing amount of fresh, zippy flavour to contrast the heartiness of the dish. I couldn't be more pleased. I try a bit of Wina's 72-hour sous vide beef short ribs. The chef of C5 is supposed to be notorious for his sous vide preparations. The beef is outstanding. It's a fall-apart-in-your-mouth experience and the richness of the beef is so well-rounded.

For dessert, I veer off course. The chocolate bread pudding isn't exactly a pudding. It's more like a slightly less dense brownie. The more exquisite part is probably the orange and vanilla foams that are airy and light yet surprisingly intense. I find the pecorina cheesecake much more innovative and yummy. The sweet cream cheese and the salty percorina are brilliant together. Sugar crystals crackle happily in the mouth against the smoothness of the cake, and a raspberry sauce melds all the flavours.

"Food makes me happy," I exclaim.

The night starts to wind down after we've engaged one another in definitive stories about the men of our lives and share strong opinions on the debate about black-focused schools. We snap some photos and gather our jackets. Off the elevator, our banter echoes out into the emptiness of the museum. "Jamie lost her shoe in the holes in the vent and didn't even notice!" I burst, and we all burst into giggles.

As we part ways and shiver in the cold, I'm exhausted but sad to see the night end. It's been almost three years since high school has passed. It feels like a long time ago. I've always had a tendency to leave the past in the past but I've learned to savour these moments. These are friends who've known me since early teenagehood. To be able to venture out into the world on your own and return to simpler, sweeter days is an unexpectedly precious gift. Often, I feel like I have to protect and shield myself from reality's harms. It can be a difficult challenge to take on your own.

I realize later on that despite everything, when friends come together and create their own world, no one but ourselves could ever possibly burst the bubble.

Everything feels like it's moving fast, slow and standing still all at the same time.

I want to catch my breath. But it seems locked inside my lungs. Breathing. It's something so natural that we forget it's even there until it's gone.

I have mood shifts. Different places, different circumstances make me act a certain way, think a certain way, feel a certain way. I've often felt like my head is full of truthful contradictory thoughts. I'm on my way to school like any normal day. I've parred down my travelling time now to exactly the length necessary for me to walk outside of my front door to arrive in my seat in class. But I still hurry along. I still beat past people in a whirlwind. Eyes, my walking, even my breathing seems focused at the task at hand. I relax myself on the bus or the subway. I try not to check my watch because on a bus or the subway train, I cannot control the speed. I cannot control the direction. But walking. I'm in control when I'm walking. So I walk fast.

From the bus to the subway cart, I weave and dodge through the crowd. I quicken my pace accordingly and I sometimes feel like I'm jumping ahead, skipping ahead. I sometimes catch the eye of a stranger walking toward me but for the most part, I couldn't possibly care less. I'm only concerned about my destination, about what I'm in control of - getting to that subway cart.

"Shit," I say with disdain. I squeeze through the doors past a meandering young woman just as the bell chimes. I swear a lot these days. I'm trying to cut down but it's so easy to lapse into profanities when my mind seems to be racing and no one seems to notice how intense everything is inside. I stalk through the cart to the end and plop down in a seat. I'm ready to relax, read my Chatelaine and forget the world. But my eyes flicker up. Even if I want to forget the world, it still exists so I scan it anyway. And a shock goes through me. Actually, it's more like a sudden pinch. Quick and stinging but innocent and playful. It's my cheeky friend Mike. Mike is definitely like a pinch.

He's sitting across the aisle from me. I realize it's him in a second but it feels so sudden and unexpected, like I've tumbled into a fairy tale. I get up and plop myself into the seat next to him.
"What's wrong?" he sincerely asks. I exhale loudly, take off my hat and tousle my hair.
"I guess it's just one of those days where everything's wrong," he answers his own question.
"No! No, that's not it. I'm just...Nothing's wrong," I rush to reply. I don't like it when people make up my thoughts in their head. At least, not when the thoughts are wrong. I think I want to say exasperated but words aren't exactly forming in my mind. I'm still trying to catch my breath.
"Actually, you know what, it does feel like things have been going wrong this morning. I completely wiped out on my stairs," I explain. My voice is coming alive. I feel my lungs expanding. "I need to leave my house at 9:15 the latest to get to class in time and it was 9:11 when I was coming down the stairs. I was rushing and I just completely wiped out. And now I think I have a bruise on my arm that will go along perfectly with the huge bruise I have on my knee when I wiped out on Friday night in a parking lot because I was tipsy and wearing 3-inch-heels."
"Ohh. That sucks. That really sucks. I can't remember the last time I wiped out but I think girls do more than guys because girls are just generally more clumsy," Mike responds casually. I know he means nothing by it but I feel the need to defend women against this callous generalization. Instead I shift the focus back to me.
"I don't know about most girls, but I know I'm really, really clumsy."

We arrive at Dundas station and I glance at my watch. It's 10:07 a.m. Ryerson standard time is every class starts 10 minutes after the hour. "I should have known I was going to be slightly late because you're always slightly late and if I'm with you then I'm going to be slightly late," I comment to Mike as we walk out of the darkness of the subway and up into the snowy darkness of downtown Toronto.
"And you're going to be even more late because I bet you walk fast and I walk slow," he retorts. We round the corner of the stairs on to the street and I'm at least already eight paces ahead of him. I glance back, grab him by the arm and drag him across the street.
"It's almost a yellow light! You're not on the pedestrian walk! Ah! And you're going the other way!" he yells at me. "I'm serious about the last one, you know? Don't you think this way takes longer?"

I'm breathing quickly again. I'm in control of my walk again and I refuse to let Mike slow me down.

There is something about breathing that seems so mysterious to me, particularly during the times when my breath is escaping me. Not when I'm exhaling. No; it's when I'm gasping, panting, trying to arrive somewhere, be somewhere, go to a place to feel settled.

"See? We're not late," Mike remarks as we walk through the classroom doors.

I'm still at a loss. I'm still feeling out of control because I'm unsure where I'm supposed to sit. Where do I anchor myself? I realize I should sit with Mike even though we both know enough people in the class of all 3rd-year journalism students. I find a few empty seats, tell Mike to sit with me but still, I'm scattered. I may seem like an extroverted character. I chat fairly easily with most people. I love to laugh. I'm good with names and I try my best to be cordial to everyone I meet. I have a few good friends in journalism who I really get along with but journalism students are funny. We all seem to run in overlapping circles. And sometimes you fit in and sometimes you don't, and sometimes all it takes is one additional person to be thrown into the mix for you to feel thrown out. I inhale and exhale but everything still feels slightly out of place. Something is missing and I know exactly what it is.

My best friend Jessica walks through the door. As Jessica smiles and sits in the empty seat next to me, I finally catch my breath.