Challah Hamburger Buns

Sandwiches range from really good to really bad. From chipotle chicken and juicy pineapple chunks smothered with tomato sauce and stuffed between two pieces of foccacia to, well, something far less exciting. The secret to a great sandwich is not as much the filling as the bread. Bread can make or break a sandwich. Bread shouldn’t just be a vehicle for tuna salad.  It should be a fully equipped sandwichmobile.

Homemade challah hamburger buns with butter and chives

Sandwiches are named after John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich. Although it’s debatable about how the sandwich was invented, most historians believe that the Earl would ask servents to bring him slices of meat inside two pieces of bread so that he could eat while playing cards with his friends. His friends often asked for the same snack and later served “sandwiches” themselves at their parties.

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Banana-Caramel Doughnuts

A few weeks ago K posted on my Facebook wall: “ILAN. CALL ME. QUICKLY.” This was pretty strange since I hadn’t spoken to K for months, since I moved to Toronto and switched high schools. Wondering what was so important, and sudden, I ran around searching for my cellphone. Once I finally found it, hidden under my pillow and connected to a tangled wire, I dialed K’s phone number and listened anxiously to the tones. “Hi Ilan,” she said calmly.

Banana-caramel yeast donuts

K told me that one of her family’s friends, Emanuela, was the host of a cooking show called Home Cookin’ (also known as Home Cooking) on Rogers Television (that’s a Canadian television station) and she showed her my blog. As I listened I wondered where the conversation was going. No, really, I had no idea where the conversation was going. I soon found out that Emanuela talked to her co-producer and they wanted me on the show!

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Pizza Margherita

The dough rises slowly under the transparent cling wrap staring at me with the impressions I made to test if it rose enough. It stares. It mocks. It laughs. I cry. I weep. I stay determined. As soon as I sprinkled yeast over the sugar-water the yeast began to hiss at me – quite literally. It called me a failure. Nevertheless, I stayed determined. I told myself I will succeed. It won’t be like the last three times when I failed making pizza even with store-bought dough. This time it will be better.

A finished pizza, a happy blogger

I combine flour, water, salt, and olive oil in a bowl and add the hissing yeast. I stir. My dough doesn’t look right… it doesn’t look like what I saw online. It’s probably that evil yeast. It’s known to cause problems.

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