September 11th, 2011 by Dawn Becker

September is always a busy time for me with the start of conference season and the boys back to school. While most other parents are ecstatic about the return of school, I find the regimen of the school hours, making lunches and homework duties a hard adjustment for all of us. Add to this that Cole’s birthday is on September 5th and the guilt I have in knowing I can never pull it together to organize a birthday party with his friends until October can be overwhelming. The cobbler’s kids have no shoes and the event planner’s kid has belated birthday parties.

Along with having a busy schedule, my writing outlet also suffers and I’ve been finding it harder and harder to take precious moments to post here. Having read a number of blogs, it seems that most non-professional bloggers have ebbs and flows in their writing as I’m experiencing and this is normal. I still enjoy writing even though my posts are more intermittent as this is a valuable outlet.

Trust me also that my food experiences have not been reduced. In fact, we just got back from a road trip to Cleveland, Ohio, where our sole purpose was to dine at Iron Chef Michael Symon’s restaurant, Lola Bistro. We did tack on a couple of fun days at Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio, which got me in the good books with the kids. And they were looking forward to our dinner at Lola Bistro as much as I was. The service at Lola Bistro was sincere and friendly. We all walked away feeling like we were kings. We ordered nearly every appetizer on the menu and split two entrees between the three of us. I would describe the food but I wonder if I can do it any justice to write about perfection. Let me just say that Cleveland is worth a visit, if only just to eat at Lola Bistro or anyone of Chef Symon’s other restaurants in the area. Plus it’s a 5 hour drive from Toronto, closer than Montreal.

Ah Montreal, another destination I enjoyed with Casey this summer. We booked last minute reservations at Chef Martin Picard’s restaurant, Au Pied de Cochon (or PDC as the insiders tell me) and got an 11PM seating. Their last of the night. Hopped into the car and drove like madness. It was a sumptuous meal and we left bloated and giddy. This is another place I would happily drive to for dinner. And I must mention that the special we had of veal bone marrow topped with sevruga caviar was mind blowing.

Today I did enjoy a few minutes of down time which I used to get into the articles in a new magazine, Lucky Peach, brain child of David Chang, chef of the famous Momofuku restaurants in New York, with two exciting new locations planned for Toronto in 2012.

This inaugural issues focuses on ramen, one of my favourite food subjects, and sadly it just rubs it in how little physical research one can do in Toronto with the severe lack of ramen restaurants that truly honour this dish. I won’t even go into how mediocre the ramen places are here having broken my ramen cherry in Tokyo so many years ago. It’s like your first taste of meat was kobe steak and then only being able to get top sirloin after that. No comparison.

Back to the topic at hand, Lucky Peach. I recommend this magazine as a must read for anyone who loves to delve into a topic. Not simple visual porn, this is more like erotica for foodies. Lucky Peach feels like an art house magazine that will surely be a keeper. Make room on your shelf because you’ll want to save this one to read again and again, or just to say you have if you’re more about collecting trophies than actually digesting the articles.