Oh la la

It's nice how the readership of this blog has got a little bigger lately, but I'm still pretty sure I'm the only person involved in it who remains interested in what Materazzi said to Zidane on Sunday. The accusations of racism are flying. My personal hunch is that Materazzi called him a filthy sisterfucker or something; almost every Italian I've ever known would look at a Kabylie and see a generic white man and Materazzi doesn't look like the type to sit down with a couple of books about Algerian history and cultural dynamics before a match. Now I'm going to try really, really hard to stop caring. Although I would like to point out this obsession of mine has made clear that there's a 1984-esque problem with online news sources - yesterday the BBC kept erasing and updating the same article. Maybe tree-fucking print shouldn't die just yet.

As promised, I'll write about food. On Sunday I went out for brunch with Miss V.K. at Clafouti on Queen West. Brunch, hah. I just wanted a coffee and some fucking clafouti and didn't want to make it myself because I didn't have any wax paper. Clafouti is delectable, one of the greatest things ever, and not very difficult to make. It's as though the French saw the English cheerfully enjoying a nice rich bread pudding and decided to be not even nearly outdone (though I love me a moist buttery vanilla bread pudding), so they invented something that eats like a fluffy baked crêpe. Sounds impossible, I know, but what can I say . . . the French are arrogant for a reason. It's essentially a substantial baked custard, usually made with almonds and cherries.

I'm no longer allowed to eat almonds because they make me die, so part of the reason I went to Clafouti on Queen was to get some inspiration for non-deadly variations. What I ended up with was the last clafouti they had in stock that morning, made with lychee and caramel. Not the best clafouti I've ever had - too dense, too flan-ish (ever since I saw that shit-awful movie Envy on a Toronto-Ottawa Greyhound, I've had a thing against flan.) The caramel was kind of pre-fabricated and I think the lychees were canned, which shouldn't have been necessary as lychees are in season here now and the body of the clafouti should have been dryer than it was, which would have let it soak up fresh lychee juice. Miam miam miam. See, it could have been so good. And it was fine, actually, it wasn't bad or anything. If I'd never had clafouti before I would have been jizzing all over myself. It's just now I'll have to do it at home, and better.

So thumbs down-ish on the clafouti at Clafouti, but Miss V.K. says her pain au chocolat was amazing so don't write it off if you're in the market for French breakfast pastry in Toronto. It's fucking embarassingly hard to get a good pain au chocolat here.