Couple weeks ago my friend Anh had her “Breakfast in Brooklyn” get together where she made breakfast for everyone. I was pretty excited because she promised to make a Vietnamese omelette! What’s a Vietnamese omelette? It’s an omelette with diced onions, chicken liver pate and pork roll! Genius! Its everything I love in 1 dish. I had tried to make this couple nights before but I wasn’t sure about the proportions. Also the recipe she gave me didn’t include the pork roll, what da? Anyways, this was a really yummy omelette, I wanna eat it all the time.

Texas omelette, home fries, baked eggs and Vietnamese coffee were also on the menu. I brought the St-Viateur bagels and others brought biscuits and pastries from Ladybird Bakery.

I’m not really keeping up with my food news. I had no idea Mile End, a Montreal Jewish Delicatessen on Hoyt St, was even there AND I live so close to it! So last week I bumped into a friend at Union Hall while at the Via Audio show and he told me he had just reserved a dozen Montreal bagels from Mile End for $20. I asked him…”Huh? Where?” He told me where and that I have till noon on Friday to get them.

Now I know next to nothing about bagels from Montreal except there are big debates on the web comparing bagels from NYC and Montreal. I do know that a fresh baked bagel with veggie cream cheese is a pretty damn good thing. But a not so fresh bagel tires my jaw so quickly.

On Saturday after lazily waking up and got dressed, I walked over to Mile End to pick up my dozen bagels, half poppy seed and half sesame seed. At 10:30am the place was packed, though the place was tiny. I would like to go there, grab a seat at the counter and have a proper meal there.

Anyways back to the bagels. People from Montreal rave about how good their bagels are. I do agree with them on some points. The St-Viateur bagels were denser which made it very easy to slice in half. Plus. The bagels were smaller and thinner which meant less room for cream cheese. But here’s the 1 reason why I still prefer NYC bagels over Montreal bagels, taste. After having eaten 2 on Saturday and 1 on Sunday I have concluded that there was no flavors in the Montreal bagels at all. I can’t even say it was bland, it had no flavors whatsoever. Even after toasting it a bit, there was just nothing. The sesame seeds had no flavors in them as well! WTF? Both Mo and Matt agreed that these bagels weren’t that great, so it wasn’t just me. BUT my friend that told me about these bagels loved them and found the bagels to have great flavors. So…..I don’t know.

I’m not gonna give up on these bagels just yet, not until I had a proper 1 from Montreal in Montreal.

But if you REALLY want a dozen St-Viateur bagels go and order from Mile End.

- Mile End 97 Hoyt Street Brooklyn

I have seen tiny spots of blood in eggs before but this was TOO CRAZY!

I can hear you out there, reader, complaining. The first Market Watch column in over a month, and I give you eggs? Indeed I do. Two weeks ago I picked up a dozen eggs from Bradley Farm, and they were the best eggs I’ve ever had. Rich, vibrant yolks, and clear whites that whipped up into meringue in no time flat.

I saved the ribs that came with the 9lb pork belly I bought for our 2 year party so that I could use it later. This is probably not the way to cook ribs but I first boiled it then roasted it in the oven. The liquid that I used to boil the ribs in was tea! and star anise. Yes tea. Think it was 2 cups of tea and 8 star anise. Boiled it for about an hour. Then I took the ribs out placed it in the roasting tray, seasoned it and cooked it in the oven at 350 degrees for an hour then cranked it up to 500 degrees.

The end result was pretty good. A little on the dry side but I could really taste the tea and that extra salt I added before roasting was super nice!

Yes Jamie At Home is the name of Jamie Oliver’s cookbook and also one of this cooking show. But this is me cooking a Jamie Oliver recipe at my own home. I know this idea of cooking through a cookbook and blogging about isn’t new but in my attempt to cook more and actually use the cookbooks I need to document it. Sorta like homework. I’m less lazy if its homework. Also I’m not cooking through 1 book, I’m merely just cooking any of his recipes from books, magazines and website.

So here is my first attempt of this Jamie at Home weekly post (lets see how long this goes eh?) Pasta Peperonata, found here on his website. Oh man this one was so simple to make but I really hate cleaning and slicing bell peppers. In the recipe, creme fraiche or mascarpone cheese is optional but if you ask me it should be a must. I just love a good creamy pasta sauce. Basically you just slice everything, saute everything, stir in the creme fraiche and add pasta and parsley, done! This was really good! The bell peppers were sweet and tasty though my apartment smelled like peppers for few days.