Potato Champion (Food Cart) - Portland - Oregon

After ordering our pies at Whiffies Fried Pies (Food Cart) - Portland - Oregon I couldn't help but notice the crowd in front of Potato Champion. I had to go see why it was so popular.

Pate Chinois (Canadian "Chinese" Cottage Pie)

I've always loved English Cottage Pie. Who doesn't love baked mashed potatoes on a bed of ground beef and vegetables? I've usually stuck with peas and carrots, so when I saw Miss.Adventure @Home's variation of pate Chinois with corn, I was intrigued with the French Chinese name.

According to Wikipedia, the French Canadian dish may have originated with Chinese cooks during building of the North American railroads in the late 19th century. The Chinese cooks probably made it for their English railway bosses, substituting creamed corn for the gravy in a shepherd's/cottage pie. French Canadian railway workers brought the recipe back home and it spread throughout Quebec and the Northeast U.S.

Another possible explanation for the origins gives credit to Lionel Guimont, a linguistics student at Laval University. Guimont met someone from Maine, who was visiting Canada, and referred to the dish as "China pie." "China pie" could have been a popular dish in lumber camps and mills kitchens in China and South China, two towns in Maine with a large population of Quebecois forestry workers. Workers returning to Quebec translated it into French as pate Chinois, instead of pate de China.

Either way, I find both explanations give an intriguing glimpse into how food and its name have been adapted from its origins.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

This year with my brother and several cousins out of town, I ended up feeding only a dozen people. Haven't had a family gathering that small in quite a while.

Lil' sis and I started cooking around 1 p.m. for dinner at 6 p.m. I didn't even do the Salt Rub and Butter Turkey Dry Brine until 1 a.m. the night before and the turkey still came out perfect.

Going from the top of the table on down: lil' sis made pumpkin marbled cheesecake this year, along with the mashed potatoes and stuffing. She brought home leftover yams from her earlier Thanksgiving dinner with her friends. I told her best friend to bring the green bean casserole because I had a weird craving for it. My oldest uncle's wife sent over Cha Gio (Vietnamese Egg Rolls).