Gift Guide: World Sleep Day

Because there are no big holidays until Easter and Passover, this year I’m mashing up St. Patrick’s Day (March 17th) with World Sleep Day (March 18th.) Translation: I will bake and then demolish a round of Irish soda bread (recipe below) and then hopefully have a good night’s sleep.

It’s funny that World Sleep day comes the week we’ve all had our slumber thrown into disarray thanks to daylight savings time. According to the Canadian Research Chair, up to 25% of Canadians suffer from a sleep disorder. I would argue that by a certain age (ahem) that number hovers around 100%. Does anyone our age sleep through the night unassisted?

Here is the Oldish sleep pack:

Madge and Mercer’s La Calma is a high 50 mg dose of CBD with a micro 2 mg dose of THC for anxiety reduction and sleep assistance. And the subtle ginger and lemongrass flavour handily mask that ‘singular’ pot smell and taste. It cracks me up that so many of us who did not partake when we were younger are all over this stuff now.

The Belif Aqua Bomb sleep mask, $45, Sephora, a cousin to the truly stellar Aqua Bomb moisturizer soothes and hydrates your poor, winter-dried-out face overnight, with anti-oxidant-rich Lady’s Mantle and Scottish heather to calm irritation and redness. So even if you don’t sleep properly (oy), at least the face in the mirror the next morning will look dewy and rested.

A great big, body-wracking O is still the best soporific. Dame Products is a woman-owned company so you get cleverly designed tools that are cringe-factor free, much more aesthetically pleasing than a standard issue vibrator and ‘face meltingly’ (not my words, but such good words) effective. The Aer, $120, doesn’t vibrate, instead using puffs of air to work its magic.

30 minutes before bed, open the window (cold rooms equal better sleep) and lightly spray your pillow with Bleu Lavande’s calming lavender room spray, on sale for only $13.88, Shoppers Drug Mart. When you walk into the gently scented, cold room at bedtime, it will feel like some kind soul (you, a half an hour ago) prepared the room for a good night’s sleep.

Keep Ilia Lip Wrap Hydrating mask, 434, Sephora, on your nightstand as a reminder to use it before bed. Papaya enzyme gently exfoliates while mango butter and a host of nourishing oils bring moisture back to chapped lips. You might argue that a lip product isn’t a sedative, but it’s these bedtime rituals that tell your brain it’s time to sleep.

We’re supposed to turn off our screens and read a book before bed, but that’s difficult when our phones are virtually soldered to our hands. A bath prevents this, unless you are a true cowboy who puts their laptop or iPad on a bath tray, in which case I cannot help you.

My favourite Canadian bath company, Bathorium, has stellar scent blends like Sea Kelp Serenity bath crush, $30, The Detox Market, a Dead Sea salts bath soak with lavender and bergamot that will relax you down to your bones so completely that you’ll have to crawl to your bed.

This stunner of a soda bread is not mine, but with this recipe and a cast iron pan, it can be yours.

And finally, I want to leave you with a recipe for soda bread. It comes together quickly, requires no kneading and by baking it in a cast iron pan you ensure a satisfyingly crunchy crust.

Soda Bread

Makes one round, serves 2-4.

For a savoury version, omit the sugar and add three chopped green onions and a cup of coarsely grated cheddar to the dry ingredients and butter mixture before adding the buttermilk.

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups buttermilk (no substitutions)

1 egg (optional, for added richness. So yeah, do it.)

4 1/2 cups all purpose flour (spooned into a measuring cup to ensure an accurate amount. Dragging the cup through the flour and then levelling it off packs too much flour into each cup.)

3 T granulated sugar

1 t baking soda

1 t kosher salt (Diamond Crystal if possible. It really is the best.)

5 T cold, cubed unsalted butter.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F and lightly grease a 10 inch cast iron skillet.

Whisk together the cold buttermilk and the egg.

Combine the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.

Add the cold cubes of butter to the flour mixture and incorporate it with a pastry cutter until it all resembles cornmeal (as if you were making a pie crust.)

Pour in the buttermilk/egg mix and stir until combined. When you have a unified (albeit crumbly) mass, turn it onto a floured board and barely knead for only half a minute until the flour is incorporated.

Shape into a round and place in your cast iron pan. Cut a cross into it almost all the way through, as this will help it bake evenly, place on the middle rack and bake for about 40 minutes. (Start checking at the 30 minute mark. You might want to drape it with foil if it browns too quickly.)

Remove when done and cool it on a wire rack and then happily consume it all in one sitting.

***

And finally, here’s something to be proud of: the government of Canada reached their $30 million match ceiling for the Red Cross by March fourth, but the Red Cross is still a great place to donate to help Ukraine.

Cheese Fondue Makes Your Hair Shiny

Have you ever seen such shiny, perfect hair? (Surreptitious photo taken in Zürich by me.)

I’ve never seen as much beautiful hair as I did in Zürich. Just look at this gloss, the perfect variegated colour. I believe with all my heart that the Swiss have such gorgeous hair because of their high per capita cheese consumption. Canadians put away a respectable 13.3 kilos of cheese each year, but the Swiss trounce us with their 21.73 annual kilos eaten.

Sadly, my theory may be flawed. An American makeup artist I know who once lived there told me that all the beautiful hair was because excellent hair colourists gravitate to Zürich, a global banking centre, to serve the very wealthy population.

But I still think it’s the cheese.

In that spirit, please make cheese fondue for dinner this week. See below for the best, authentically Swiss recipe. I posted it last year, but will not rest until everyone has tried it.

Outdoor fondue dining would be a perfect Covid activity, wouldn’t it? (Photo from that same Zürich trip.)

Authentic Cheese Fondue for two

Try this cheese fondue recipe instead of defaulting to those pre-mixed foil cheese packets from the grocery store. This version only takes minutes to pull together and is so worth it. The only challenge may be in finding the perfect cheeses, (see note below.)

400 grams total of grated Gruyère and Vacherin Fribourgeois cheese (see Note, below)

150 ml white wine, like a nice dry Riesling

2 tsp cornstarch

2 tsp kirsch (Kirsch is a colourless brandy made from fermented cherries. It is not a sweet liqueur. Don’t skip this ingredient as it adds a lot of essential flavour. Buy a bottle and it will last forever.)

A round or loaf of sourdough or country bread with a deep crust, cut into bite-sized cubes

A plump clove of garlic

Method

Cut a garlic clove in half lengthwise and rub the cut side all over the interior of your fondue pot (caquelon) releasing the garlic juice. Leave the little garlic bits in the pot.

Whisk the cornstarch into the wine in a measuring cup. Pour this into your fondue pot with the bits of garlic still there.  

Place the pot on the stove and heat the liquid over low-to-medium heat until hot but not boiling and then add all the cheese. Whisk constantly allowing the cheese to melt, paying special attention to scraping up the bits on the bottom of the pot and not letting the heat go too high. 

Once the cheese has melted, add the kirsch. Remove the pot from the stove, light the heating element on your fondue stand (the ‘rechaud’) and place the pot on the stand. Adjust the heat so your cheese is hot enough but not furiously bubbling. Add a tiny bit more wine if it’s too thick. 

Skewer your bread cubes on your fondue forks, dip and twist to remove excess cheese and enjoy. Tradition has it that anyone who loses a bread cube has to pay for the next bottle of wine.

As you eat and the amount of cheese in the pot goes down, turn down the heat so as not to burn what’s left. If there is a caramelized circle of cheese at the bottom of the pot when you are finished, carefully pry it off with a wooden spoon (not metal because it will scratch the finish) and enjoy. 

This recipe increases easily. Add 200 grams of cheese and 75 ml of wine for each additional serving.

Note: a classic Swiss mix of cheeses for fondue can be as simple as the above half Gruyère and half Vacherin Fribourgeois version, but you can also add small (or larger) amounts of Emmentaler, Appenzeller and Challerhocker as well.

Let’s Keep Chanel Cuir de Russie Our Secret

Chanel Cuir de Russie, photographed against a sweater because it is the most luxurious #sweaterweatherperfume ever.

With all this (social) distance, some of us have been ‘free pouring’ our perfume to make a big olfactory statement. Forget that ‘your fragrance should only be detectable by your lover in your arms’ nonsense. We need scent that can be smelled across a room and through a mask, and perfume houses have obliged with ever-bigger smoky, leathery fragrances (Tom Ford’s new Ebène Fumé is selling out everywhere) that are as brash and aggressive as a banker bro loudly ordering ‘top shelf’ vodka shots in a noisy bar.

But the perfect bold leather-and-woods scent already exists and surprise - it’s from 1927.

Les Exclusifs de Chanel Cuir de Russie, (75 ml, edp $250 CAN) is a velvety, smoky dream created by Ernest Beaux to sate Madame Chanel’s obsession with all things Russian. In addition to birch tar (that ‘Russian leather’ note) it packs in musks, woods and smoke all encircling a very Chanel-esque rose and jasmine heart. (Ernest Beaux, after all, created Chanel No 5 six years earlier.)

If you’re going to spring for one Verdura Maltese cross, you might as well get two. (This pair actually belonged to Mme. Chanel herself.)

It’s arguably a men’s fragrance for women, although what does ‘unisex’ even mean anymore? Cuir de Russie would be equally at home on a gentleman in a Charvet shirt or a woman who pushes up the sleeves of her Chanel jacket to show off twin Verdura Maltese cross bracelets. But you can just wear it with your athleisure and marvel as it makes you unconsciously put your shoulders back and stand straighter than any Pilates class ever could.

And unlike formerly niche scents (remember when Le Labo Santal 33 went from cool to over-exposed?) you still don’t smell Cuir de Russie everywhere. It has maintained its ‘deep cut’ status. So if you buy it and someone asks what you’re wearing, just fib, ok?

Valentine’s Day Gift Guide 2022

This Valentine’s day please give yourself a reward (large or small) for having made it this far.

And let’s go wider with our gift-giving. Galentine’s Day (great idea, terrible name) was just the beginning. Let’s include family members, friends, even pets. If you love someone, give them a treat.

The All-Clad 4 quart slow cooker, ($175) is a great gift to buy yourself. It doesn’t look too aggressively large on the kitchen counter, but is still big enough for make meals for four. It is less about getting yet another appliance and more about the irrefutable fact that waking up to a hot breakfast is life-changing.

Overnight Hot Steel Cut Breakfast Oats

Before bed, butter the inside of the ceramic liner with a teaspoon of softened butter to prevent sticking (do not skip this step.) Add one cup of dry steel cut oats (not the quick cooking version and definitely not rolled oats) a diced apple (don’t bother peeling it,) some walnut pieces, a quarter cup of golden raisins, several shakes of ground cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice and 4 1/2 cups of liquid (water, milk, nut milk or any combination of the three) and set the slow cooker on ‘low’ for 8 hours and hit the start button.

Then tidy the counter and lay out nice bowls, spoons, napkins and a non-scratch serving spoon (I like this silicone one from Muji, $12.90) and when you wake up you will have a hot breakfast waiting (the machine will switch to warm after the eight hour cycle is complete) and you will think ‘How lovely. My staff prepared breakfast for me,’ and your day will be off to the best possible start.

The Kosta Boda Snowball votive holder, $49, WilliamAshley.com, is a 1973 Scandi design classic from Sweden that is still in production. Just one (they’re three inches tall) adds a warm, refractive glow to your mantle or coffee table in these later winter months. It’s wintery, but not Christmassy.

Zara Vetiver Pamplemousse eau de parfum, $39.90, Zara.com, created by Jo Malone no less, is not a complicated scent. It’s actually pretty linear, just vetiver and grapefruit. But what it lacks in nuance, it makes up for in eye-opening, happy-making grapefruity zest and rain-soaked, humid jungle vetiver. It is so wonderfully alive and invigorating and because it is (relatively) inexpensive, you can use it liberally. Spray a giant cloud and walk through it? Sure. Bring life back to a stuffy a stuffy room? Absolutely. It’s not a classically ‘romantic’ rich or floral Valentine’s scent, but it is the promise of spring.

Did you read The Thorn Birds (Indigo.ca) when it came out in 1977? How about Scruples, Princess Daisy, Flowers in the Attic or Judy Blume’s Forever? A nostalgic dive into the books we read right under our parents’ noses is calming in a way that a new book just isn’t. This is the perfect gift for an old friend to remind them of just how long you’ve known each other.

I am totally charmed (sorry) by the idea of wearing a loved one’s (spouse, child or pet) diamond-studded initial around your neck. These wee 8mm high letters (not including the ‘bail’) are from Canadian-owned Mejuri.com, $265.

Toronto’s Soma Chocolatemaker should get a medal for making sophisticated high quality chocolates that include all the fun and mouth fizz of pop rocks. Their new Wild Berry Pop bar, $12, somachocolate.com of white chocolate with fruit and pop rocks is as if the gods somehow made fruity cereal milk into a creamy, melty solid that also fizzes. And how beautiful is this packaging?

Worth It: Biologique Recherche Masque Vernix

When it’s minus 10 degrees outside and the air inside is as dry as a space station airlock you have to bring out the big skincare guns. I wouldn’t waste an expensive gem like Biologique Recherche Creme Masque Vernix, $210, (biologique-recherche.com for stockists) on my face when it’s warm out, but come endless January, you do what you gotta do.

The name is something of a metaphor. Masque Vernix is meant to mimic the vernix caseosa, the waxy protective layer coating the skin of newborns. This mask takes your winter-beaten, sad, ashy face and replaces it with the glowy untroubled visage of someone who just returned from a month at a beach shack in Trancoso.

The ingredients are a greatest hits package of nurturing elements like ceramides (the fatty ‘grout’ between the tiles that are your skin cells) cholesterol (bad for the blood vessels, excellent for your skin) and ‘amniotic fluid’, an extract that replicates the protein and lipid-rich amniotic fluid bathing fetuses in the womb, because they need cosseting and protecting and so do we.

Skip this if you are squeamish: A colleague once whispered to me that her former surgical nurse-slash-crazy aunt, now in her 80s, claimed that back in the day she and her fellow nurses would save the vernix from c-section newborns to use as skin cream. I am pretty certain this is wildly unethical and breaks any number of rules and probably not even true, so you did’t it from me.

#sweaterweatherperfume Moroccanoil Brumes du Maroc

There’s a house-cleaning cheat where you only do the bare minimum of wiping down the stove and sink with your most heavily-scented cleaning product to make the whole house smell like you deep-cleaned even when you didn’t.

Moroccanoil Brumes du Maroc hair and body fragrance mist, $36, Sephora.ca, operates from the same principle. Spray your dry hair and body with that signature Moroccanoil amber, floral, earthy scent to trick you into thinking you just did a hair mask. And because Brumes du Maroc contains argan (aka Moroccan) oil, vitamin E and glycerin, your winter-parched skin and hair will even get some immediate and always welcome moisture. Spray liberally when you emerge from the shower and then wrap your beautifully scented self in your favourite sweater. It’s a perfect lift when we’re smack in the middle of winter.

And if you spray your hair after washing and then twist it into a top knot, when you release it after a time, not only will you get summery waves, but also that wonderful scent which will have somehow amplified in the intervening hours. And while I would never endorse getting an actual sun tan, this fragrance is also perfect to wear after using self-tanner, both as a complement to your ‘faux’ bronzed skin and also to hide that, uh, ‘singular’ self-tanner smell.

Weekend Baking: Panettone Bread Pudding

A sprinkling of turbinado sugar on top of your pudding creates crunch to contrast with the soft, squidgy centre.

I always think that if I get past Christmas without gorging myself, I’ll be ok. But then comes endless January and I start baking.

A giant panettone recently sat on our kitchen counter for a few days: rich, eggy and studded with craggy chocolate chunks. And even though we kept shaving off slices throughout the day, it was so large that it appeared relatively undiminished until it got semi-stale and I got tired of looking at it.

The panettone bread pudding I made with it is a tweaked version of Nigella Lawson’s ginger jam bread pudding and it was, all modesty aside, absolutely perfect and what the British call ‘moreish’ in that you can’t stop eating it. Please try it as there is still so much winter left.

Panettone Bread Pudding

1/2 stick of butter

4 eggs

3 T granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup Sultana raisins

1/2 cup rum

Enough leftover panettone to slice and fill a 1 /12 litre casserole or baking dish (approx 10 slices)

700 ml total of milk and cream (I used 500 ml of 10% table cream with 200 ml of skim milk because that’s what we had)

1 Tbs turbinado sugar for sprinkling over top

Method

Preheat the oven to 375º F.

Gently heat up a quarter cup of raisins covered in rum on a medium low stove or microwave for a minute.

Butter a 1 1/2 quart casserole (I used an old cornflower pattern Corningware dish because it retains heat perfectly and it is a scientifically proven fact that using your mother’s old Corningware dishes makes everything taste better) and then slice a quarter of a large panettone into 1 inch thick triangular slices. You can thinly butter each slice as well to add to the richness. Don’t butter too lavishly as you can easily go overboard and you will be dotting the whole affair with butter anyway before it goes into the oven.

Into a bowl, place your cream/milk mixture along with four beaten eggs, the vanilla extract and three tablespoons of sugar and set aside.

Start placing your panettone slices standing up into your buttered baking dish. You can alternate pointy end down with pointy end up to give some texture to the top of your assembly. (If you quartered your panettone vertically before slicing you get pointy slices and if I could draw I would draw an illustration for you, but just picture cutting your panettone into giant wedges like it’s a cake.)

At this point remove your raisins from the stove where hopefully they have plumped up nicely in all that rum. Scatter them between your bread slices and on top. You want raisins all the way through this dish, not just on top.

You can also pack in any stray chunks of panettone throughout the final mix. It doesn’t have to look too tidy. It’s going to soon be drowned by the milk and egg mixture anyway. Just fill in any large gaps if you feel so inclined. This is a very loose ‘do it however you like’ recipe.

Pour the milk/cream/egg mixture over top making sure to soak ever area and then allow it a few minutes to absorb into the panettone. You can push the panettone down a bit with a clean hand to submerge it a bit if you need to.

Dot the top with a divided tablespoon of butter if you choose and then sprinkle your turbinado sugar evenly across the surface. This will add a wonderfully crunchy top to contrast with your pudding’s soft and yielding interior.

Put your (uncovered!) casserole or pudding dish on a cookie sheet, place on the centre rack of the oven and bake for 45 minutes, but do peek in starting at the 35 minute mark. If your oven heats unevenly, give your dish a 180 degree rotation after 20 minutes or so but it’s not really necessary. This is a sturdy pudding, not delicate piecrust.

Remove from the oven after 45 minutes by which time it should be nicely browned and puffed up. (Sadly though, it will sink in the centre as it cools.) I would say wait until it does cool before serving, but why? If you are only sharing it with family, then to heck with societal norms and just stand over the stove with a giant spoon and dig in while it’s still hot. Melted chocolate is the best chocolate.

Glowing Skin For the Super Lazy

With most things in life, you have to put in the work to see results. You can’t eat Twizzlers at four p.m. every day and expect to lose weight. This is tiresome and unfair.

Dermalogica Age Smart Skin Resurfacing Cleanser, $63, dermalogica.ca, is made for anyone who finds multi-step skincare routines needlessly complex and time-consuming. Made with easily-tolerated lactic acid (the greatest exfoliant for older skin because it also moisturizes) Dermalogica’s Age Smart Resurfacing Cleanser is a two-for-one hero.

Use it as a regular daily cleanser (no more than once a day) but then twice a week turn it into a mask. Massage it in and instead of immediately rinsing it off, leave it on for a minute (start slowly) and then rinse and note how the gentle-but-mighty lactic acid handily lifts off dead skin cells, speeding their turnover and leaving your skin noticeably smoother and glowing. And just like that, you’ve just given yourself a fuss-free exfoliating mask.

Follow up with Dermalogica’s Biolumin-C Vitamin C Gel moisturizer, $89, Sephora.com, for even more brightening (gràce à vitamin C) and you will have just done good things for your skin with practically no effort. And don’t forget to use sunscreen afterwards to protect your newly peeled skin. You wouldn’t want sun damage to ruin all that effort.

Tom Ford White Suede: #sweaterweatherperfume for bitterly cold days

Tom Ford’s White Suede eau de parfum should have been a superstar.

Launched in 2009, White Suede (50 ml, $335, The Bay) has been quietly earning fans as a smoky-into-powdery, musk skin scent. Beloved but always under the radar, it never reached the front ranks. Maybe it was too subtle to be a huge, noisy hit?

Back then, Tom Ford was best known for his room-filling, attention-grabbing Black Orchid, so it’s easy to see how White Suede slipped by unnoticed. Unlike Black Orchid, which smells like seduction or the promise of a party, White Suede is what you want on ‘big sweater and undone hair’ days, which are most days to a lot of us. Maybe this stealth allure resonates more now?

White Suede is quiet. Even though it is rich and layered, courtesy of rose, oud, saffron and frankincense, with unexpected brightness from thyme and lily of the valley, it never shouts. It’s a powdery, soft musk, in a quietly smoky leathery frame.

It’s perfect when you want something singular and not easily identified. And it will never turn sweet or overly floral as it dries down. Which is the kind of integrity and steadfastness we need going forward.

Baby, It's Cold Outside: Bengal Spice Tea

It hurts my delicate minimalist sensibilities to post a photo of this colourful box, but Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice is crucial to getting through the chill of winter. It also keeps me from rooting through the remaining Christmas chocolate come late afternoon, but this is not a diet post. I hate New Year’s diet posts.

Bengal Spice herbal tea is my secret shame. It doesn’t taste at all like tea, but rather like high school-era Dentyne cinnamon gum. It’s that strong. It was first served to me by a friend who takes her tea very seriously, so I was surprised that she was drinking something you can buy at the grocery store. But I instantly became a Bengal Spice true believer and I haven’t been without a box since.

I soon found out that other friends love it as well. We’re members of a secret society that has no meetings but is united by a love of this intense, ‘spice forward’ tea. Bengal Spice contains no sugar, but maybe our brains read the full-on cinnamon assault as sugar? I don’t know. And I stockpile it this time of year because I will drink many cups over these next few months, while all sorts of weather rage outside my window.

One tip: I do transfer the tea bags to a white enamel tin because the scent is pretty potent and it will permeate other items in your pantry if you let it. But I mainly do it because lord, that box is ugly.