Don Tai (Canada) Blog

Hallowed Eve, or Halloween is an interesting tradition in North America, where kids of all ages dress up in scary costumes, and knock on neighbour’s doors for candy and treats. The kids will exclaim “Trick or Treat” and will expect some kind of treat. Halloween is a North American farming tradition where ghosts and other scary monsters call on your house. They will leave you in peace and allow you a good harvest season if you give them a treat. Here are some guidelines to follow for Toronto, Canada for parents of Chinese kids.

Intriguing, this. If there ever was an oxymoron, haute cuisine french fries is it. Still, I remain open minded. Our family loves home cut french fries, which gives us a warm and friendly feeling in our house. There’s nothing “haute” cuisine about them; maybe “moyennes” but not “haute”. Still, when Jamie Kennedy, whom I now know is a chef, serves his french fries at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, I wanted to learn more. I think the ACC is where they have sporting events such as baseball, and hockey. The skinny: organically grown yellow potatoes from Ontario fried in sunflower oil, with two types of sea salt and a dash of thyme. Cider or chili mayonnaise sauce on the side. $6.50CAD a serving.

This hardy Chinese herb seems to grow everywhere near our house in Toronto, Canada, self seeding without assistance. Jiucai is also called garlic chives. Put it into soup, stews, omelets, and jiaozi. You chop it down but leave the roots and it will grow back, multiple times in a season. Somehow this dainty little plant has moved to many sections of our backyard and have proliferated, but the most convenient is a clump near our front door. So handy yet tasty.

If you have not heard about a Doju, this is unsurprising. This small creature roams through China and Asia, aimlessly walking in no certain direction, and getting into trouble as he goes. The Doju walks at different speeds, contemplating life as he goes. Small and hairless, people and other animals, for some reason, do not bother it and certainly would not try to eat it. This is a good thing for the defencless Doju is actually quite tasty.

As a long time Canadian I consider it a tradition to shop at Canadian Tire. Unlike Walfart, Crappy Tire is, after all, Canadian. When I need a tool or something for the house I think of Canadian Tire first. This year, I am finding that the products I need are no longer advertised in the CT weekly flyer, and all the stuff I don’t need has taken its place. This has the result of me not visiting the local Crappy Tire as much as I used to, and therefore I am not spending the family’s cash in their stores. Going to the epitome of insanity, CT’s weekly food specials now gets attached to the weekly flyer. As my daughter often says, this is an EPIC FAIL.

Fear not the monster Shrek, for he is not to blame. But if not Shrek then whom? The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) warned consumers early Friday to immediately stop using the glasses available for purchase from McDonalds, on concerns about toxic levels of cadmium. Twelve million glasses are recalled. Who is to blame? There are at least three parties involved: McDonalds, ARC International, of Millville, NJ, and presumably the Chinese factory that produced the glasses. So common is the fact that China makes most of our products and the fact that so many toxic products have been traced back to China in the past makes this a very good educated guess.