DINER'S DISH

Easter. Another holiday filled with an enormous assortment of food, which some tend to regret indulging in come Easter Monday. This year my Easter started three days early. Matt and Kate, two of my friends, returned home from a six-month teaching stint at a Canadian International School in Japan. Their trip was abruptly cut short by the devastating earthquakes and tsunami.

As a result, it was the first time we have all been home together in over three years. Once again, my friend Adam took the lead on organizing an Easter-food get together. The mission: we each take a course. Adam of course took his specialty--mains; Matt side dishes and I claimed dessert (not really my specialty, but really working on it). Two of Adam's friends from college, Brian and Tammy, joined us last minute. They came with food in-hand, fuelling us with their short-notice wraps while we waited for Matt to show up.

MAIN: For Adam's main, he pulled a recipe from one of my all-time favourite chefs--Jamie Oliver. The recipe is found in Jamie Oliver's

 cookbook. For those that don't yet own the cookbook, I highly recommend it. It is one of the favourites in my collection. Not only does it contain incredibly simple, tasty dishes but also breaks down the basics when it comes to different cuts of meat, how to prepare seafood, as well as various cutting techniques explained. 

espresso

 .What you want to do is mix some sugar with the egg yolks till smooth. Then add the mascarpone cheese until you get a nice creamy texture. Add any additional sugar to taste. Beat the egg whites until peaks are formed. Fold the egg whites into the yolk/cheese mixture. If you find it too thick, you can add a touch of espresso just to thin it out a bit. Next step is by far the easiest (and a lot more fun than trying to fluff up egg whites*). Lay out a thinnish layer of the cream in a container. Next take the savoiardi cookies, and quickly dip them into the cooled espresso. Layer the espresso-dipped cookies into the container. Spread another layer of the cream on top. Follow this with another layer of espresso-dipped cookies. Then another layer of the cream. Continue until you get your preferred cake height or you run out of cookies. You want your last layer to be the cream. Garnish with a bit of fair-trade organic

. Put in fridge until ready to serve, the longer you let it rest the more the layers incorporate into each other and the better the tiramisu tastes. Everyone seemed to enjoy the Tiramisu, some even digging in for seconds :)