Sheryl Kirby

Food, Life and the World at Large

Category : candy

Peelings… whoa, whoa, whoa, peelings

November 23rd 2006 - Posted in candy, Food
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The problem with making really tasty and delicious holiday treats is that once you start making the things, people expect you to make them every year. This is how I’ve found myself roped into making the fruitcake, truffles, cookies and particularly the candied orange peel every Christmas.

Candied orange peel isn’t at all difficult to make, but it is incredibly time consuming. To make enough to send even a small amount to family at Christmas, I need to use at least a dozen oranges, and pithing all that peel out can take at least an hour, before I even get to cooking the things.

Then there’s the dilemma of what to do with all the juice. I use the juice for breakfast rice bowls, where I create a donburi-style rice bowl with stewed tropical fruit instead of a savoury topping. Dried fruit, marinated in juice, is cooked with coconut milk and tofu and served over brown rice. This usually leaves me with lots of orange skins to throw away, so it’s a great time to make the candied peel.

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Bug Juice

September 20th 2006 - Posted in allergies, candy, Food, health and nutrition, what's in your food?
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We’ve known for years that the term “natural” when it comes to food is a dubious one. Technically, everything is “natural”, even chemical additives – hey, they started as something found in nature. Any savvy food shopper knows that “natural” as a marketing term is meaningless.

But what about when it comes to the ingredient list? “Natural” flavours and colours don’t necessarily mean that they’ve come naturally from the product at hand, and synthetic colors haven’t necessarily been cooked up in a lab – strawberry candies don’t contain any actual strawberries. But what makes those candy strawberries red?

Bugs. Pretty little red bugs. C’mon. Bugs are natural. Although on ingredients lists, you’ll often find cochineal extract listed simply as “synthetic color”, the product itself is made from dried female cochineal beetles, a tiny insect that lives on cactus plants in Central and South America.

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Sheryl & the Chocolate Factory

May 28th 2006 - Posted in candy, chocolate, Food, toronto, wtf?
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Every year, Toronto holds a city-wide festival during the last weekend in May called Doors Open where the public gets to go on free mini-tours of places they might not otherwise have the opportunity to see. Many of these buildings are ones that the public can get into if they have a reason to be there, either because they’re on a paid tour, or because they have business of some sort in the place. Few people have reason or opportunity to wander through a chocolate factory, though, so when the news came out that Cadbury was going to open the doors of its Toronto factory as part of Doors Open, people were excited. Unfortunately, while the concept of Doors Open is a good one, designed to encourage an appreciation for historical and architecturally unique buildings, what we got at the Cadbury’s factory doesn’t really even count as a “tour”.

Now I didn’t go expecting to see Oompa-Loompas. I didn’t expect to be greeted by Johnny Depp in a top hat. I didn’t figure there would be a river of chocolate. But on a “tour” of a chocolate factory, I do kind of expect to see some chocolate getting made.

At least put in a nice plate-glass window so we can watch the bars of chocolate whizzing by.

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Packages From India

May 21st 2006 - Posted in candy, Food, toronto
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The gold box. In India, or Indian culture, this comes bearing a sweet gift. For us, it was a gift to ourselves. The small pink packets are one of our main reasons for a venture across town to Little India. The packaged cakes were just an added bonus.

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How Sweet It Is

May 14th 2006 - Posted in candy, chocolate, events and festivals, Food, toronto
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At first, we weren’t sure we had read it right. Scrolling across the screen on the 24-hour news channel was information about a Sweets Expo at the Toronto Convention Centre. It took some investigating to finally find the website: http://www.sweetsexpo.ca. No, Beavis and Butthead, not “sweet sex po”, get your minds out of the gutter. Sweets Expo, aka, a room full of candy.

Bright and early, there we were, headed into the convention centre, the smell of sugar surrounding us. However, had it not been for two things, the Sweets Expo would have left a rather sour taste in my mouth.

First of all, it hadn’t been especially well-promoted, as far as we could tell. That fast-moving news scroll was the only mention we had seen of the thing, and judging by the turnout, not many other people knew about it either. And apparently, the same amount of effort that went into promotion went into attracting exhibitors. It was considerably smaller than we expected, and with a couple of exceptions the calibre of product wasn’t that great. None of the many Toronto area chocolatiers were present; Stubbs, Soma and JS BonBon were not to be found. There were also none of the chain, or indie, candy stores – no Sugar Mountain, Tutti Frutti, Nutty Chocolatier or Candy Island. Also, no big brand names – no Nestle, no Cadbury.

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