Norwegian to start, then...

So yes, I'm Norwegian. I learned lots in my mom's kitchen, she holds the award for best Norwegian waffles amongst all our friends and family, and she hated baking. I learned more than just cooking skills in her kitchen, whenever a cake would slip and fall, there would be colorful language to match her disappointment. My dad makes really good sour cream porridge, from scratch. He still has to teach me that.

Then I started moving around the world. Well, Europe and North America, if that qualifies as the world. Learned that a roast cooked in a full bottle of wine was the ultimate Sunday dinner while living in Germany, from a woman who cooked for 4 people as in the recipe book, no matter how many people, 2 or 8, were around her table. We went to bed hungry sometimes. Spaetzle is still my favourite German food though.

I studied in France for just over three months. So the end result unfortunately is not fluency in French, but it left me with an addiction to pain au chocolat aux amandes, which forces me to avoid bakeries at all costs. And don't get me started on buying bread in the grocery store! The last loaf of bread I picked up had three different sources of sweet, sugar, molasses and raisin pulp - so I bake my own breads now. They crumble too easily, so if anyone out there has tested and true recipes for good loaves or buns, please let me know. 

Estonia was different. I lived there for about a year and a half, and learned most of my Estonian language from the grocery store and the multilingual menus in restaurants. They have dairy products that I had never heard of in any other country, and one of the Tallinn tourist trap restaurants serves food as it would have been served way back in the Hanseatic times, around year 1400, with whole ancient grains instead of potatoes. They also serve bear. Not only beer, but bear. And boar. Growl!

I also lived in Scotland for four years. One of the years during university, I lived right above one of the many chippies in Edinburgh, which meant that every night at around 10pm, when they fried up a batch for tomorrow's customers, my room would stink. I'm not sure that the word 'stink' quite covers it, but it'll do, for now. They deep fry EVERYTHING in Scotland. Slices of pizza, black or white pudding, chocolate bars, cheese filled hamburger patties... But I do enjoy a good haggis, with neeps, tatties and gravy!

My summer interning in Michigan taught me about North American breakfast haunts, which is the inspiration behind my constant search for the best breakfast/brunch hidden gems. I'll share them with you, don't worry, just promise you won't tell anyone once I do. Michigan also told me that fresh seafood is to be served with a bucket full of melted butter. I politely declined and had the seafood as is instead.

Then in 2008, I finally moved to Canada, knock on wood, for good. No more country hopping. I'm here to stay. Poutines for the rest of my life - woohoo! And perogies. And ceasars, the liquid ones, not the salad ones. That's what I had for dinner on my 1 year anniversary as a Canadian resident, just in March. I woke up to this waiting that morning, red and white cupcakes and a whole array of buttons to wear to show off my Canadian pride:

And here comes the sad part... I can't have garlic. It hurts. I don't swell up and die, but it hurts and ruins the rest of my day. If you really want to be mean, serve me garlic for breakfast. Not being able to pick up most packaged foods from the store has made me a better cook though! I've been experimenting with spices and flavours for years, and I want to thank all the wonderful women who have been making me scratch made taco seasoned meat for taco salads from the bottom of my heart. It's still my go to comfort food, and cumin is my new best friend.

It's 2012 and I live in the West End of Vancouver, in beautiful British Columbia. I have a brisk walk to work at one of the best hotels in the city, and lots of temptations along the way. I have a favourite macaron joint, as all Vancouverites should have by now, and breakfast out a little too much. I live and cook with my boyfriend, who's ancestry is from Hong Kong, so we certainly have a favourite dim sum place too. My only problem when we go there, is that all the food is gone by the time I remember that we should have taken a picture... But I'll work on it, I promise!

So there you go, I think that about does it for background. I'll get writing about places you can go to eat now.