Random Reflections VI: What I Took For Granted in Australia

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I went to the local supermarket Loblaws (10 to 12 minutes' walk from Wilbrod House) today to do some last-minute grocery shopping.

Here are two photos of the winter landscape, as I trudge through the snow on my way to the supermarket:

I am on Wilbrod Street, looking east towards Charlotte Street (not visible in this photo)


Looking west towards the University of Ottawa, as I stand outside Australia House

As you can see, it is simply easier to walk in the middle of the road, where the snow has been cleared. Just as well Wilbrod Street is a one-way street.

I realised how much we take for granted in Australia. The footpaths are generally well-maintained, and we don't have to worry about snow (except if you live in a very cold place in Australia). Not that I'm complaining about the snow here in Ottawa (it's still a novelty to me).

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At Wilbrod House, we are doing a cooking challenge for Christmas Eve: Everyone has to make a dish that is not from their country/region of origin and that they have not ever made before. I decided to make a mushroom strudel (with filo/phyllo pastry) for the cooking challenge. That's why I went shopping for groceries today.

When I was walking home, it suddenly occurred to me that the herbs and vegetables that I had bought might be frostbitten by the time I get back to Wilbrod House... It is so different from Australia, where I used to take an esky to the supermarket, to make sure meat and dairy products I buy are kept cold.

Anyway, the herbs and vegetables were fine, because they were outside in the icy (-17 degrees Celsius) conditions for only a short time.

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Speaking of dairy products, I am still shocked by how expensive dairy products are here in Ottawa, compared to what I can get in major cities in Australia. The two blocks of unsalted butter (454g each, or 1 lb. each) you see in the photo below cost me about CAD$10. It's the same with milk and cream. I reckon they are about twice as expensive as in Australia. It's another thing I took granted when I was in Australia -- cheap dairy products. /sigh/



As a pastry student here at Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa, I use a lot of butter, milk and cream in baking, and that means I have to spend quite a bit of money on ingredients when I am practising my baking at home (in Wilbrod House)... That's something to think about if you are coming to Ottawa to study at Le Cordon Bleu.

And one other thing: It could be because I am used to the dairy products in Australia, but I think the butter, milk and cream in Australia taste better (or rather, they have a stronger flavour) too.

Oh, I miss Australia!!!

Australia House in Ottawa

On my way to the local supermarket Loblaws this morning, I took the opportunity to take a couple of photos of Australia House in Ottawa (407 Wilbrod Street), which is about a block from Wilbrod House.

Australia House is the residence of the Australian High Commissioner to Canada.





I walk by Australia House almost every time I go to Loblaws for my groceries, but today was the first time I could get a good view of the house AND I had my camera with me.

It was approximately -17 degrees Celsius when I took the photos. It was like walking around in a huge freezer. :D

Just seeing the Australian flag outside Australia House made me a little homesick. I'm imagining how warm it is in Australia right now...

Chef N's Lovely Chocolate Showpiece

I had the pleasure of assisting Chef N with his chocolate bonbons demo (for a private group dining at the Signatures restaurant) yesterday, and I watched him construct this lovely chocolate showpiece prior to the demo. The entire piece is made of chocolate (white and dark) and colored cocoa butter (red, yellow and green). It took Chef N a few hours to put it all together. Such a magnificent piece of food art! (Click on the photo if you want to see the finer details.)

Unfortunately, the showpiece simply broke and fell apart right after the demo due to the heat in the demo kitchen. What a pity! :-(

Fortunately, I had taken a couple of photos of it while it was still intact, and that's how I will remember this chocolate showpiece.

Anyway, as the French say, "C'est la vie!"

Chef A's Amazing Ice Sculptures

As I have mentioned before, Chef A is a master carver at Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa. I've seen him carve fruit and vegetables, and all I can do is gasp in amazement at how skilfully and quickly he does them. The carvings are so beautiful, and they certainly inspire us students to have a go.

Not only does Chef A carve fruits, vegetables, cheese and chocolates, he does ice carvings too. Just a couple of days ago, Chef A completed a series of Christmas ice carvings (santa, elf and reindeers) at the front entrance of Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa. Below are some photos. I have included one set of photos that was taken during the day, and another set in the evening. Enjoy!













Just imagine how much work and skills are required to turn a few large blocks of ice into the sculptures you see in the photos above... Amazing, isn't it?

I heard that Chef A has won a number of ice carving competitions, so I went online to see if I could find more information about that. Check out these websites, if you would like to know more:

"Master chef puts his art on ice" (Capital Arts Online)
http://www.carleton.ca/sjc/capitalarts/2005/a14.html

"Armando V. Baisas" (Commission on Filipinos Overseas)
http://www.cfo.gov.ph/presidential/Armando%20V.%20Baisas.htm

Random Reflections V: Production Kitchen (Photos)

Here are some pictures of the production kitchen at Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa. The production kitchen is one of my favourite places; I can work calmly and quietly here.

Homemade Danish Pastry

Well, this is the first lot of Danish pastry I'd ever made. I used the croissant dough that I had made from scratch (and completely by hand) a few days ago. Note: it does take a couple of days to make the croissant dough because you have to do about 3 turns for it, while relaxing the dough in between the turns.

Here's what I did with the prepared dough. First, I roll out the dough, and I egg-wash it before rolling it like a Swiss roll, then I slice it so that I get disc-like scrolls. Next, I proof the scrolls in a warm oven. After that, I put some canned peaches (which I had pat dry on a paper towel before using) on the scrolls. Finally, I egg-wash the scrolls and bake them. After they come out of the oven and are cool to touch, I brush on the glaze (= apricot jam + water, heated on the stove). These are basically the main steps for making Danishes.

I am so glad they turned out well.


Close-up of one of the Danishes. You can see the shiny apricot glaze on it.

Now, to find someone to help me eat the Danishes...

"Is it edible?"

That is the most frequently asked question my housemates and I get, when people see the gingerbread houses (or photos of them). Even my friends outside of Canada ask me this question when they see the photos I send them.

The answer is: Yes, for the most part. If you really want to, you can eat the gingerbread pieces, the marzipan (with food coloring, mind you), the royal icing (with food coloring too), the sugar paste, the pretzels, the candies (e.g. jelly beans), and so on. I wouldn't recommend eating the Christmas lights, the battery pack, and the wires though. ;)

Frankly, the gingerbread houses we built weren't really meant for eating. They are works of art! When they are dry, the gingerbread houses are rock hard and can be preserved in an airtight container (or encased in perspex) for years.

Here is a recap:
Our First Gingerbread House: based on The Nightmare before Christmas
This gingerbread house won first prize at the CMHC 7th Annual Gingerbread House Competition on 21 November 2008 (the day we had our Le Cordon Bleu graduation ceremony).

Halloween Town (photo courtesy of the project leader)


Christmas Town

Our Second Gingerbread House: based on Shrek the Halls
This gingerbread house was delivered to the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's residence on 4 December 2008 (the day the Governor General agreed to suspend parliament).

The outside of the gingerbread house (photo courtesy of the project leader; photo taken at Salle Cointreau, at Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa)


The inside of the gingerbread house

Our Third Gingerbread House: Wilbrod Tree House
This gingerbread house was featured on a local radio program All in a Day (CBC 91.5FM, 12 December 2008) when they were doing a live broadcast at Carlingwood Mall. It is now back in Wilbrod House.

Front view of the tree house


Side view of the tree house. Note that you can see what is inside the house from this side of the house. (both photos courtesy of the project leader and designer of the gingerbread tree house)

So, to the person who bid on and won our first gingerbread house, to the Canadian Prime Minister's family (who have the second gingerbread house), to all who live (and will live) in Wilbrod House (where the third gingerbread house will stay), please, please preserve our works of art!!! Thank you!

My First Fruit Carving

Yesterday a couple of my housemates decided to carve some fruits for fun (perhaps they were inspired by Chef A's masterpieces at School), and I happen to see them doing that in the dining room, so I pulled out my knife kit and joined in. I chose to carve an orange because that's what I had in my fridge. Here's my effort with a paring knife:





I found that it is not that hard to carve a fruit (assuming you have really sharp knives), once you have the hang of what to cut out and what to leave behind. However, it is quite a skill to get the carving to look clean and neat. That's where practice makes perfect. It was the same with the two pumpkins I carved for Halloween.

I guess that means my housemates and I will be practising more fruit carving in the future, seeing as it is one of the components in Superior Pastry.

Random Reflections IV: The Pastry Chefs at Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa

I've been in Ottawa for over 3 months now, and as I reflect on how much I have learnt in that short time, I am grateful for all the things the LCB pastry (and a few cuisine) chefs have taught us.

At LCB Ottawa, there are basically 4 pastry chefs (Chef H, CF, N and T) who teach the pastry courses, plus Chefs CP and A from production kitchen, who teach some components in the pastry courses (e.g. Chef CP teaches the Bread Workshop in Intermediate Pastry and Chef A teaches Fruit Carving and so on in Superior Pastry).

Although I know Chefs CP and A from production kitchen, I have not been in any of their classes yet, so in this post, I will just focus on the four pastry chefs (all of whom are French) whose classes I have attended.

Chef H is basically in charge of the Basic Pastry course. I think most, if not all, of my classmates will agree with this: Chef H is an excellent teacher. He always begins each lesson with a lesson plan on the whiteboard, and tells us what he plans to cover in the 3-hour demo class. He also writes down what he expects us to do in the practical class, to help us organise our time in the practical kitchen.


Chef H in a demo class.


I find Chef H scary because he is so strict and does not tolerate any nonsense from anyone, but I really respect him. He maintains discipline in all his classes. If a student is 15 minutes late to class, they don't get to come into the classroom -- he's locked the doors by then, and no amount of pleading works. No one gets away with falling asleep in his demo classes either (you have to be in his class to know what he does to students who fall asleep; I won't discuss it here). The thing is, most of our Basic Pastry demo classes started at 8:15am, and you can imagine a few sleepy heads dozing off every now and then -- even I nodded off briefly in one class, after a particularly late night studying for an upcoming written exam. While Chef H did not punish me during class, I got the feeling he asked me to cut up the demo cake for everyone at the end of class as a way to indicate to me he knew I had nodded off and that I had to make amends for that "sin" (he'd never asked me to cut up any demo cakes before that day, or after that day, for that matter -- he usually goes with the two students he'd unofficially "appointed" as cake servers from day one).

Throughout the term, Chef H gave me encouragement when he thought I needed it (to overcome my fears and disappointments), but he also pushed me to try harder on certain things, and he didn't beat around the bush about it. I think it's his uncanny ability to help all of us develop as pastry students (i.e. his ability to reinforce desirable behaviours and eliminate undesirable behaviours in the pastry kitchen) that makes Chef H a much-loved chef instructor. He has his little idiosyncrasies: he often says things like "I'm a little allergic to X" (in his French accent), where X is the behaviour he does not want to see in the kitchen. It is a most unusual way of warning students not to do something, but I always remember his warnings because of the peculiar way he phrases them. :D

In contrast, Chef CF is not a strict disciplinarian. His classes are highly entertaining because he talks a lot about what he's encountered in real-life kitchens. And he often ends his classes with a Q&A session, where we can ask him all kinds of questions about what we have learnt so far and how to avoid certain pitfalls. What I like about Chef CF is his sharing of the little tricks of the trade for doing certain things or fixing certain mistakes. These are valuable skills that took him years to learn/discover, but he happily shares them with us. I have also found him to be quite patient with students, or at least, with me anyway.

Chef N is one of the younger members of the pastry teaching team. He is not much older than me, I think. There is no doubt he is an extremely talented and creative individual. I've always appreciated how pretty his demo cakes and chocolate showpieces looked, even though there were a couple of demo cakes that didn't turn out as well as he'd like them to be because of (1) lack of time (too many things to cover in a 3-hour class), and/or (2) what looked to me like his nervousness due to the lack of experience with coordinating his demo and baking at the same time.

One of my housemates told me Chef N only started teaching at LCB Ottawa six to nine months ago, so he is a little inexperienced in that area. However, over the course of a term, I have seen him develop as an instructor, and he is improving all the time. He will be the chef in charge of Intermediate Pastry next term (where we will be doing a lot of chocolate work and mousse cakes), so it will be interesting to watch his development as a teacher.

Anyway, I personally think Chef N is the most artistic of the four pastry chefs when it comes to chocolate work. He is also very good at explaining things to you if you have a one-on-one situation. His spoken English fluency is probably the best of the four pastry chefs.

Chef T is one of my favourite chef instructors. Like the other chefs, he is extremely talented, and produces really beautiful cakes/pastries. As I have mentioned before, he speaks very little English, therefore many of us have difficulty communicating with him. We often rely on a few francophone classmates to translate for us. However, Chef T is such a lovely and easy-going person. He is always encouraging -- when he shows you a technique, he does it with a big smile, to make you feel that even the impossible is possible. And he is always teaching us easier or smarter techniques for doing things. He does not actually teach the demo classes, but he does supervise some of the practical classes, where he can give one-on-one help. And it is in the practical classes that I learnt a lot from him. Because he doesn't know how to explain the techniques in English, he simply does a slow-mo demo while you watch, and I find I can pick up the techniques quickly from that.

What LCB Ottawa has is an impressive team of pastry chef instructors, with complementary personalities and teaching styles. I have no regrets in deciding to travel such a long distance to learn from them.

Snowman

This is the snowman a friend and I made yesterday outside Wilbrod House. It's the first snowman I'd ever made. Took us about 3 hours. I think it is not too bad for a first-time effort.



By the way, the housemate who made the gingerbread tree house is currently working on a new project -- an igloo in the backyard of Wilbrod House. It is work-in-progress at the moment. I helped him out when he was making the first course of snow bricks two days ago... I'll post photos when the igloo is finished, which is expected to take quite a few days.

It snowed lightly yesterday, but it is raining at the moment. Hmm... I hope the igloo and the snowman are still around by tomorrow.

Anyway, I love being outside in the snow and doing silly things like running through the thick snow or rolling around on the soft, powdery snow. It's like being a child again. :)

Many of my housemates are away on vacation, and all of them are in warmer places (e.g. the tropics). Lucky b*st*rds!!! :) The rest of us left in Wilbrod House figured we might as well enjoy the snow while we can, and have fun making snow-related things. All this time, we continue to cook and bake (trying out new recipes), of course -- a good way to keep warm after being outside in the snow. :D

Gingerbread Tree House: How It was Made

Here are photos of the third gingerbread house one of my housemates built. It is a tree house. I only helped with a couple of items, the rest of it was made by my housemate in about 5 days.

My housemate was interviewed by a local radio station. He was asked by the radio station to build a gingerbread house in front of a live audience in a local shopping mall, using a gingerbread house kit. He bought the gingerbread house kit and then proceeded to turn it into a tree house.


Gingerbread house kit from the local supermarket (Loblaws)


The semi-finished tree house displayed at the local shopping mall, where the radio station was doing its live broadcast.


This was what local shoppers who walked past the gingerbread house saw. Many were children, and they were fascinated by it.


Some of the handmade marzipan characters.

The following photos show what you can achieve if you pay attention to details. Little things are added or piped onto the house to make it more interesting.










Top view of the tree house. You can see stylized coloured leaves on the tree.


Below you can see how the bits and pieces were created before the whole gingerbread house was assembled:


The tree trunk was made using gingerbread pieces that have been cut out with cookie cutters, baked and stacked up. A layer of marzipan went around the stacked gingerbread pieces, and food colouring was used to paint the marzipan.


Miniature paintings that are inside the house.


Details added around the tree trunk.


Gingerbread pieces from a kit have been modified to look like panels on a tree house. My housemate scored the gingerbread pieces with a serrated knife, and painted them with a dark brown food colouring (to give it a wood-grain finish). Looks realistic, doesn't it?


A dining table that fits inside the tree house. It is actually two battery-operated Christmas lights stuck together, and covered with white sugar paste, then decorated to look like a dining table.


Anyway, we hope the children who saw the gingerbread tree house at the local shopping mall were inspired to create something wonderful with the gingerbread house kits their parents got them.

Production Kitchen: 11 Weekdays of Fun and Learning

I was volunteering in production kitchen for the last 11 weekdays in a row, hence I didn't have as much time or energy to tend to this blog. Now I am making up for it.

The last 11 weekdays in production kitchen have been fun. The American chefs were in town for training by LCB Ottawa chef instructors (cuisine), and I was one of those who volunteered to prepare the demo boxes for that. I am getting much more efficient at assembling the demo boxes now, because I know where to go to get the different types of ingredients, how much to include, and how to prepare things. I consider it good practice for keeping up MEP (mise en place) skills.

I still got to help out with some pastry stuff early in the morning, as per usual. The last few days, instead of making cinnamon twists for staff breakfast, I asked if I could make papillions out of the puff pastry (just for a change), and Chef CP said OK. Chef N had shown us how to make papillions (butterflies) in the puff pastry lesson in Basic Pastry, and I'd always wanted to try making that. Well, the papillions I made sort of look more like bow-ties, but that's ok. They're cute enough!

I also learnt to make some chocolate truffles in production kitchen. The ganache was flavored with orange zest, cognac and grand marnier, cayenne powder, and finely-chopped prunes (for texture). It was a really nice flavour. I'd always loved orange flavored chocolates, but this one had a twist - you can taste a spicy aftertaste in it (because of the cayenne). I loved it so much that I came home and made something similar.

The last couple of days, I volunteered for Bistro, because things were quieter in production kitchen (as it is almost holiday time for the chefs now). At Bistro, I had the chance to learn many new techniques from various chefs, just by watching them, talking to them and also by practising the techniques when the opportunity arose. For instance, I now know a fast way to peel an apple in a few seconds. Chef M (from cuisine) showed me the technique, and I was grateful for that, because I had to peel lots of apples in a hurry for Bistro on Thursday. The way I was taught to peel an apple by Chef T (from pastry) was good (because it makes the apples look nice and presentable), but it was not as useful a technique in this situation.

(Aside: "Bistro" refers to "Bistro Cordon Bleu", a "new application restaurant which is the school's full-service, fine-dining restaurant, run and staffed by students". This is the official description of Bistro Cordon Bleu from the LCB Ottawa website.

Since I volunteered for the pastry station, Chef CF came and talked me through how to make the dessert on the day's menu Prunes with Armagnac in Crispy Phyllo, served with Vanilla Ice Cream. I had learnt how to make creme anglaise (to make ice cream) in Basic Pastry, but when asked to make 2 litres of it, I suddenly had a mental block. So Chef CF patiently took me through the whole process again. Now I won't forget how to make vanilla ice cream from scratch.

[FYI: Creme Anglaise for Vanilla Ice Cream --> Boil 2 litres of milk in a pot, with 2 vanilla beans. Prepare 24 egg yolks in a bowl, and then mix 300g of sugar into the egg yolks. When the milk is boiling, sacrifice some milk into the egg mixture, stirring the mixture to homogenise everything, then pour all of the homogenised egg mixture into the remainder of the boiling milk. Cook (stirring with a wooden spoon the whole time) the mixture for a couple of minutes over medium heat until "a la nappe", to pasteurise the mixture and to get the right consistency. Pour the cooked creme anglaise into a chinois to sieve it (eliminating any lumps in the mixture). Take out the vanilla beans, cut them open and scrape the seeds into the creme anglaise mixture. Then pour the finished creme anglaise into the ice cream machine. Churn for 15 minutes. Done!]

Chef M was most patient when he showed me how to plate up the dessert for the lunch service. I'd never ever worked in a restaurant kitchen before, so I had to ask how to do this and that - I took nothing for granted. He showed me how to pipe the sauce and garnish the dessert, how to place the plated dessert on the pass for the servers...

I enjoyed myself so much that I volunteered for next week's Bistro, which is the last one for the year.

Yesterday afternoon I went with my housemate to Carlingwood Mall, to help him with the third gingerbread house. He was being interviewed by a local radio station's afternoon program (All in A Day, with host Adrian Harewood, CBC 91.5FM), and they'd asked him to demonstrate to a live audience (of shoppers) how he would build a gingerbread house. He was able to turn an ordinary gingerbread house kit into something extraordinary. I was just there as his assistant, helping out with a few things when required. It was lovely to see how well all the elements of the gingerbread house came together. So many kids (and their parents) came over to the table to look at it and we hope they were all inspired by it. I will post some pictures of the third gingerbread house soon.

"Welcome to Canada!"

That's what Chef CP said to me when I told him what I thought of the snowy weather.

The snow was indeed knee-deep this morning, when I "waded" through the powdery, soft snow in the dark at 6am to get to production kitchen.

By afternoon, the weather was sunny again. It's freezing cold (between -7 and -10 degrees Celsius), but at least it was sunny!!! :)

Here are some photos of the snow we ended up getting overnight:


A cheeky squirrel on a tree on the fenceline of LCB Ottawa. Seeing the squirrel really made my day.


View of Strathcona Park from the Cuisine Practical Kitchen


View of the neighbours from the Cuisine Practical Kitchen


View from the Student Entrance Area, LCB Ottawa


View of the Student Entrance Area from the front fence of LCB Ottawa



Front fence of LCB Ottawa


Corner of Charlotte Street and Laurier Avenue East


Charlotte Street, as you turn the corner from Laurier Avenue East


The vacant lot near Wilbrod House, which is used for dumping snow

There was traffic chaos today, because of the bus strike and the heavy snow. People had to drive/walk to work in the snow, or catch a taxi. Many of the side streets around Wilbrod House were reduced to single lanes, because there was just so much snow around, and the snow ploughs basically just push the snow to the side of the road, but that can take up part of the road.

The worse thing about this sort of weather is: The snow doesn't melt, it just hangs around, and the snow ploughs simply create a lot of "snow hills" (for want of a better expression) by the side of the roads or on the vacant part of people's gardens...

I'm just waiting for fine weather this weekend before making a snowman on the front lawn.

Random Reflections III: Shawarma

When I first got to Ottawa, I heard my housemates mention the word "shawarma" many times. Eventually, I learnt that it was Lebanese food, and that one of the best shawarma restaurants in Ottawa -- Shawarma Palace (on Rideau Street) -- was just a couple of blocks away from Wilbrod House.

[Aside: There are many, many shawarma places in Ottawa. One of my housemates joked that Ottawa must have the highest concentration of shawarma restaurants in any Canadian city. And I suspect she might be right. :-)]

In Australia, a place selling shawarma would be better known as a doner kebab shop/restaurant. I had always liked doner kebabs when I was in Australia, so naturally, I was keen to try the food at Shawarma Palace. The few times I had walked past the restaurant in the evenings, it's been packed (there were long queues for takeaways too), so that told me that the food must be excellent or, at least, consistently good.

Anyway, I have been there a couple of times since early October -- a couple of times with my housemates, and a few times on my own. I found the food there to be quite fresh and really delicious. I like the chicken shawarma and the flavorful side dish of rice. The hommus is especially good, but the tabbouli was a little "sandy" (the taste was fine, but somebody should have rinsed the parsley thoroughly)... Still, I can see myself going back there for more hommus and chicken shawarma in the future.

Winter Storm Warning (9 December 2008)

I just read the following notice issued by Environment Canada's weather office (http://weatheroffice.gc.ca/warnings/report_e.html?onrm104).

I have to say I don't really know what most of it mean or even what to expect (I'll have to find out what "freezing rain" is), because I haven't lived through an Ottawa winter before. The fact that Environment Canada issued a warning probably means it is quite a serious situation, even for the locals. I cannot imagine what 20cm of snowfall would look like...

I did walk home from production kitchen in ankle-deep snow this afternoon. And it was snowing steadily. It is an interesting sensation to have snowflakes on your eye lashes and face.

As for the storm warning, if I look on the bright side, it probably means I get to make a snowman and snow angels before Christmas. :)

The winter storm warning from Environment Canada:

Ottawa North - Kanata - Orléans
4:13 PM EST Tuesday 9 December 2008
Winter storm warning for
Ottawa North - Kanata - Orléans continued

Heavy snow followed by some freezing rain this evening then back to snow.

This is a warning that dangerous winter weather conditions are imminent or occurring in these regions. Monitor weather conditions.Listen for updated statements.

The storm system is currently moving across southeast Michigan and is expected to track just north of lakes Erie and Ontario this evening and just south of Ottawa overnight. Snow heavy at times is affecting regions north of the track of the low including most of ski country and eastern Ontario. Total snowfall amounts of 20 to 30 centimetres are expected in many districts before the snow begins to wind down overnight in the west or Wednesday morning in the east.

In addition..Some freezing rain is likely this evening just north of the track of the low..Where a winter storm warning is in effect. This includes portions of the Ottawa Valley and parts of far eastern Ontario. The national Capital region is now expected to be on the edge of freezing rain, but some is likely this evening before a changeover back to heavy snow. The snow will taper off Wednesday morning in Ottawa with storm totals close to 20 to 30 cm with some freezing rain as well.

Environment Canada will continue to watch this winter storm and adjust warnings as needed.

Motorists should exercise extreme caution. Dangerous winter driving conditions are expected. Untreated surfaces may be icy and very slippery especially in areas receiving heavy snow or freezing rain. Please refer to the latest public forecasts for further details.

-----------------------------------------------------

My update (10:30pm): The snow is still coming down steadily. It is just a very thick layer of snow outside on the front lawn. By the time I walk to production kitchen at 6am tomorrow morning, I bet the snow will be knee-deep.

Fortunately, it is only -7 degrees Celsius now, as opposed to -21 degrees a couple of nights ago.