The map below shows AggData’s map of the continental United States visualizing distances to the nearest McDonald’s. The closer a place is to a McDonald’s, the more brightly it is illuminated. Click the map to see it at a larger size:

This recipe is worth it for the combination of the words “bacon” and “dreamcatcher”. I don’t recommend actually making this unless you’re on Michael Phelps’ daily physical regime:

[Photo series courtesy of spingo.]

The scene: one of the tables at the teppanyaki restaurant Kobe in downtown Vancouver. We’d just wrapped up running the TechDays Vancouver conference and were having a celebratory dinner.

Here’s a classic bit of teppanyaki stagecraft, the onion volcano, getting put together:

Here’s chef Eric filling it with cooking oil as my co-worker Rick Claus looks on:

We have ignition…

…and banzai! I love Rick’s expression in the background. That’s an IT pro’s reaction to illumination from natural sources: “The light! It burns!”

The Ginger Ninja and I went back to the Canadian National Exhibition yesterday to catch the Superdogs, see the sights and sample some more so-bad-it’s-good food. One item on our list was Taco in a Bag, which many people speak of only in hushed tones.

Taco in a Bag is made by taking a bag of Doritos and giving it a couple of whacks to break the chips into smaller pieces. The bag is sliced open along one of its long sides and then the taco filling is added: ground beef, grated cheese, salsa, sour cream, guacamole and lettuce. You eat it right out of the bag with a fork. It’s like a Frito pie, but you can pretend it’s healthier because it has some lettuce.

It’s just one of the deliciously unhealthy items that the poutine place in the corner of the CNE’s Food Building serves. They also serve a number of different types of poutine. Here’s the left half of their menu:

The first two poutine items on the menu are:

• The Lumberjack: French fries covered with gravy and cheese curds, sausages and a fried egg. I need to try this sometime.
• The Canadian: French fries covered with gravy and cheese curds, topped with two strips of bacon.

Here’s the right half of the menu:

The poutine items on the right side of the menu are:

• The Mexican: French fries covered in gravy and cheese curds, ground beef, salsa, guacamole, sour cream and jalapeno peppers.
• The Traditional: Good ol’ fashioned poutine – just french fries covered in gravy, cheese curds and nothing else.

Getting back to Taco in a Bag – here’s what it looks like when you get it:

It just needs to be stirred up. Here’s what the first bite looks like:

It’s so dirtylicious. If you get the chance, try it. The CNE’s open until next Monday, so keep in mind that time’s running out.

Now this is what I call a Caesar:

For you non-Canadian drinkers, a Caesar (a.k.a. Bloody Caesar) is a variant of the Bloody Mary in which Clamato — a mix of tomato juice and clam broth – is used instead of plain ol’ tomato juice. It’s a great way to start a hearty dinner. This was a particularly well-dressed Caesar, going beyond the standard celery stalk and featuring a couple of giant snow crab legs.

Chef Chuck Hughes’ Facebook profile photo.

The Caesar shown is the large snow crab Caesar served at Garde Manger, a bistro in Old Montreal whose kitchen is run by chef Chuck Hughes, who hosts a great show on Food Network Canada called Chuck’s Day Off. Chuck has kindly shared the recipe on his show’s site.

Here’s a recent photo of the menu at Garde Manger. Foodies and francophones shouldn’t have any trouble reading it, but if you have any questions, let me know in the comments:

 Photo courtesy of Eat Well Montreal.

While many restaurants in Old Montreal are content to simply look like Parisian bistros and let their quaint settings rather than their pretentious food dazzle their visitors, Garde Manger takes the opposite tack. They serve comfort food done very, very well in a setting where you could just as easily show up in jeans and t-shirt as a suit (for the record, I wore a fancy-pants dress shirt with French cuffs and cufflinks that I bought for my wedding and black jeans). Some of the crowd in attendance were fancy, but the place isn’t stuff – the DJ at the bar was spinning tunes that could’ve come straight from my MP3 collection: Bob Marley’s Jammin’, Faith No More’s We Care a Lot and one of those mash-up numbers by Girl Talk.

I took the Ginger Ninja there a couple of weekends ago. I had the lobster poutine as an appetizer, magret de canard, foie gras et sauce a l’orange and the deep-fried Mars bar with ice cream for dessert. She had the salmon tartare, beef short ribs and brownie with ice cream (it was a large brownie and I had to help). Because we were there for the end of service, the staff invited us to join them in celebrating it by sharing shots that were equal parts espresso and Galliano.

If you’re in Montreal and you love good food, make sure you pay a visit to Garde Manger. It’s at 408 Rue St François Xavier in a building with no markings save for this metal panel on the exterior wall:

Saw this stuff for the first time last night at the grocery store — “Spicy Szechwan Kraft Dinner”:

(For readers in the United States, what gets sold as “Kraft Macaroni and Cheese” where you’re from is sold as “Kraft Dinner” in Canada.)

I can’t imagine it being any good, but I feel compelled to give it a try, just once. Maybe at my next grocery run.

This is what ten dollars got you at Thursday’s Pride Week barbecue at University of Toronto’s Hart House:

It was quite a meal: one beef kebab, one piece of chicken, 4 pork ribs, a slice of bread, roast potatoes, steamed vegetables and salad, all prepared quite well. The Ginger Ninja and I enjoyed it.

Click the table below to get a closer look at the table that tells you when it’s time to throw out those condiments. And yes, Hollandaise sauce doesn’t last terribly long.

For the past little while, Monday has meant a good evening of Gordon Ramsay on TV. First, the American edition of Hell’s Kitchen, which has become a little too cartoonish, followed by the British edition of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, which gives you a better idea of Ramsay’s skill as both a chef and a restaurateur. The latest season of Hell’s Kitchen ended a couple of weeks ago, and so few Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares have been made that I’ve seen them all already.

Until the American edition of Kitchen Nightmares airs (it premieres on Wednesday, September 19th at 9pm on Fox), here’s a little Ramsay fix for you in the form of YouTube videos…

Sublime Scrambled Eggs

These are pretty rich scrambled eggs (he stirs in some creme fraiche), but they do look tasty. A pity my wife hates scrambled eggs…

Broccoli Soup

This soup looks pretty good, considering it has only two ingredients: broccoli and water.

Teaching Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson How to Cook a Lobster Lunch

This is from an episode of his cooking show The F Word in which he teaches one of the hosts of Top Gear (probably the best TV show about cars and driving out there) how to cook a lobster lunch. Gordon and family visit Jeremy and his family at Jeremy’s “decidedly penis-shaped house” on the Isle of Man.

Gordon Ramsay’s Real Kitchen Nightmares

What are Ramsay’s real nightmares like? The people at the BBC sketch comedy show Dead Ringers take a stab at it.