Lunch box

Now here's something you don't see every day - a stylish pink lunch box! Building on the pink theme of my previous post (I must be getting excited for Valentine's Day!) I now present "Exhibit B" - a zippered lunch box, adorned with florid pink blossoms, enclosing an assortment of inventive pink food containers. Brilliant!

For my birthday this summer, a friend gave me a gift certificate to Chapters bookstore. Looking to spend it one summer day, I visited the Chapters at Pinecrest (which intersects with Carling Ave!). I planned to buy something for my son (virtuous mother that I am), but instead my eye bespied this cute bag.

This delightful invention goes by the moniker of "Laptop Lunches" (their website can be found here ). The point of the Laptop Lunch is to reduce garbage resulting from packed/bought lunches. Think about it - little plastic baggies, plastic wrap, paper napkins, plastic yoghurt cups, spoons, etc - and that's just from a packed lunch! And then consider the garbage associated with bought fast food lunches: styrofoam containers, glass/plastic bottles, plastic cutlery, paper bags and wrap...the list just goes on and on. And so, in my sporadic attempt to be a responsible consumer, I decided to try this fancy lunch box (okay, I wanted to show off at work too!).

Why "Laptop" lunch? Well, that comes from the nifty zippered case. It's insulated, has a rubber label (in the shape a flower, naturally) and a carrying strap, so it looks like a slim computer carrying case.

Check it out packed with food, in all its glory:

A gourmet summer's lunch: vegetable briyani, salad with yellow tomatoes, watermelon cubes, apple compote. Lucky me!

It was pricey - $45 - but I rationalized it by thinking of all the money I'd save by not buying my lunch (I can rationalize buying anything, especially if it's pink!). Plus, by packing lots of fruits and vegetables in, I'd lose weight and become so healthy!

Uh, well, that last bit didn't happen, and I do keep buying lunches often, so the first bit didn't exactly either, but I'm sure I made my lunch a few more times than I would have ordinarily, so I'm sure I've got my money back, at least.

Plus it's so cute!

Salt

No, this isn't an entry about Angelina's new movie, which apparently just wrapped up filming in New York. This is about that much more plebeian substance, essential for life, overused in food processing, and elevated to an art by the Victoria Gourmet company of Woburn, Massachusetts. What did Woburn ever contribute to fine dining? Well, this salt apparently!

Sourced from the Murry River, "fed by the Australian Alps,", I must say this is the first pink salt I have ever seen! I love pink in all forms (mainly clothes and cupcakes) but never thought I'd be able to enjoy my predilection for pink via a jar of salt. Wrong!

I came across this pretty morsel at Winner's, a high end discount clothing store that sells gourmet odds and ends as well. "Finishing salt" I mused, when I saw it. I didn't know what that meant, but one can always use salt (the same can't be said for some of my other foodie finds) and it was, after all, pink, so I felt I couldn't go wrong.

Well, I was right!

The stuff can't be used the same as regular salt. No, it really is best sprinkled on foods, for a "subtle, fleeting crunch" as the label boasts. My favourite way to use it is on pan-fried Rainbow trout (from Loblaws on Richmond Rd, which intersects with Carling Ave, so there's the tie in to my blog's theme!). The tender flesh of the trout, the "subtle fleeting crunch" of the salt, offset by some meaty mushrooms in the rice pilaf and a few juicy asparagus spears...mm, there's a lunch worthy of a queen. Victoria would be proud!