JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

"Mirror of Your Mind" appears to have been a syndicated piece of filler that tackled the tough social (and social perception) issues of the day. Source: Weston Times , January 3, 1969 - JB

When you have nine-to-five schedules, making a tasty, healthy homemade dinner can feel like the worst chore in the world, especially if it's been a rocky day at the office or a busy night looms ahead. The eating out option is fine occasionally, but your waistline and wallet will complain if you do it too often. You want something speedy yet nourishing. That's when cookbooks like Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express have come to our rescue. After successfully testing a few recipes while we borrowed it from the library, we knew we had to have our own copy...which would up under the Christmas tree. Organized by season (a structure we've ignored), the cover promises that any of the four hundred plus recipes inside take twenty minutes or less to whip up. Of the dishes we have tried, Bittman's Lemony Red Lentil Soup with Cilantro has made the most return appearances on our table. Cook a chopped onion in olive oil in a saucepan until soft; add one cup of red lentils and f

Note that the meal pictured, a footlong sub loaded with lettuce, tomato and cheese, is not accompanied by a recipes on these pages. Perhaps a hearty sub was considered a manlier dish in 1970 than a cold vegetable soup favoured by the likes of Lisa Simpson ? Also impressive: that the sub does not appear to have been crushed while stuffed in the businessman's suitcase. Maybe subs were all he carried in that particular suitcase (the papers on the side were coupons for his favourite sub shops)...which reminds me of a story I read the other night. During the first decades of the 20th Century, the president of the Cincinnati Reds baseball team was a colourful local politician named August "Garry" Herrmann . According to Donald Dewey and Nicholas Acocella's book The Ball Clubs : Even for a business renowned for its outsized personages, the new Cincinnati boss seemed like a character out of Dick Tracy . Called a "walking delicatessen" by some, he seldom ventur

Photo taken on Augusta Avenue, March 20, 2011. - JB

Found on King-Vaughan Road a week ago, these signs would have been leftover from the Vaughan federal by-election back in November. Given the reaction of the opposition parties to today's federal budget, this supporter of the current Minister of State for Seniors may as well leave them up. Though not officially declared, it's all-but-certain now that Canada is heading into a full federal election campaign by the end of this week. Picture taken March 14, 2011 - JB

No illustrations to accompany today's first batch of recipes. Though stroganoff has many elements I like in a dish (saucy beef, mushrooms, a bed of egg noodles), it's never been a dish that's tempted me to order it in a restaurant or make it on my own. Possible reasons: 1) One of my favourite dishes as a kind was Mom's sauerbraten (aka "steak and noodles"), which is a distant cousin. Main differences: instead of mushrooms and sour cream, brown sugar and worcestershire sauce were key ingredients. 2) Any Noodle Roni/ Lipton Noodles & Sauce sidedish marketed as stroganoff tended to be crappy (Romanoff noodles on the other hand...). 3) Seeing students down mass quantities of stroganoff at Creelman Hall during my university daze. Blue cheese dressing? Back in the early 1980s, Malibu's Le Grand Cochon restaurant served up a tasty, extra-creamy version...and plenty of it! Sample some chocolate cake prepared by the chefs of Crowded House.

One of the highlights of going to the Elora Festival's book sale every spring is surfing through the tables of formerly-loved (or never-used-despite-all-good-intentions) cookbooks. For as little as a quarter, dedicated browsers will find flip past every Better Homes & Gardens cooking guide ever published to find recipe books ranging from local women's institutes to collections of Len Deighton's swingin' Sixties cookstrips . It was at one Elora sale that I discovered Betty Crocker's vision of the diet a North American male should enjoy, complete with the cutesy illustration style beloved of book designers and board game makers circa 1970. It's interesting to contrast the cartoony style used by artist Murray Tinkelman in this book and the work he has done for clients like the New York Times . We'll keep the table of contents under wraps, so that every dish comes as a surprise (this series needs an element of suspense to keep readers coming ba