Snow Day Traditions

For those living in areas where you deal with snow on a regular basis, a snow storm inspires different reactions from different people. Growing up on the Canadian border, we had a lot of practice with snowstorms, and my mother's reaction was pretty much always the same: drive to the store and buy milk and eggs. Even if we had milk and eggs.

Now that I'm living in the urban half of the title of the blog, I don't really need to do anything to prepare, other than shovel the sidewalk. I can take a train anywhere I need to go, if I wanted to buy milk and eggs, I could walk to the corner store, I don't have to dig out the car. So what do I choose to do? Stay home and eat. (oh, and watch football).
Yesterday's slow roller (lots of light snow, all day) required something complicated, long simmering, and warm. I had read an article in Gourmet a while back about a family that owned an Italian restaurant in Long Island, and when their grandfather died, the family decided the best way to memorialize him was to publish his meatball recipe in Gourmet. The gentleman in question had a fantastic nickname: "Squatty". I found it hard to believe something entitled "Squatty's Meatballs" could be anything but fantastic, and I was right. I won't go into the details, and will instead let you read it for yourself here, but I will say this: any sauce and meatball recipe that requires 5 different forms of meat, including a beef shin bone, is alright in my book. Thanks, Squatty.

French Canadian Magic

If you've never experienced the wondrous creation that is Poutine, you are missing out. Served in roadside shacks, bars and ski lodges in Quebec, a basic description is cheese fries with gravy, but it's so much more. It's gotten pretty trendy in the last year or so, so you'll probably see it on a bar menu at some point, but it may not be authentic. Here's the real deal, in three acts:

I. Fries. Skinny, shoestring fries. No potato wedges.

II. Cheese curd. This is difficult to find outside of Wisconsin or Upstate New York. Cheese curd is a very mild, white cheese that "squeaks" as you chew it. The beauty of the curd is that it's quite mild and it melts well without dissolving. If you can't get it, queso fresco is a decent substitute, and if you can't get that, get the mildest white cheddar or Monterrey jack you can.

III. Gravy: Canned please. In Canada, it seems to be a beef gravy with a bit of a tomato taste, but any canned gravy will work.

You can imagine how to make this: cook the fries, add the cheese, pour the gravy.

If you're as fascinated as I think you might be, check out the mack-daddy of poutine restaurants:
Chez-Ashton in Quebec. (Note: The "Galvaude" version is not for the faint of heart).