A One of a Kind Bakery
All about the MEAT!
Details: CharCut is on 9th Avenue in Hotel Le Germain.
And to go with the wines....
Traditional Foods
Jamie Oliver's Speech at TED
Jamie Oliver is a man on a mission. His TED prize allowed him to speak to a room filled with America's top movers and shakers. His wish is to teach children about food. It's a powerful and extremely important message! It needs to be shared.
Coming Home!
Planted firmly in a snowbank beside my front door when I arrived late at night was a 6 foot reminder of how we are a winter nation. My neighbours have a sense of humour but the beauty of it made me smile as much as a bouquet of flowers. Think I'll decorate my front yard with giant icicles.
Toasting Our Team!
The new name for 'bartender' is 'mixologist' ... a person, in this case a engaging Aussie, who combines being a shrink with being a salesman / gastronome. Jacob Sweetapple tends his (s)willing flock at the swish Fairmont Pacific Rim's lobby bar. He sized us all up - we were all completely fried after our pre-games breakfast event, and suggested that he just make a flight of drinks. Bingo. Don't remember who had the signature cocktail named "O'Shaku" (we were told it's Japanese for 'one who pours' but it could've been Greek for "totally yummy"). It's based on pear vodka, Armagnac, peach bitters and so forth. He created a Scratched Sidecar for the gal who clearly had worked the hardest that day. But my fave was the Bramble...a concoction of good gin, plum liqueur, a splash of lemon and sugar with a couple of perfect raspberries balanced on raft of lemon peel. Apparently it's a classic (you can google it) and it's going to be one that I hope to make in largish quantities sometime next summer during G&T season and when the blackberries are ripe.
BTW...Try Victoria Gin from Victoria, B.C. -- it's a close second to the marvelous Myriad View brand from P.E.I. which is stellar but made in such small batches that you have to visit the distillery or one of the nearby Island liquor stores to buy it.
Bluebird Sky and Amazing Snow!
Mount Washington is a great alpine experience! The good news is that I survived! If you could look to the right of where I was standing at the peak, the Strait of Georgia is clearly visible and the slopes of Whistler are on the other side.
Got home to barbecue some venison while the neighbour dude cut his lawn. Beer in hand we toasted B .C. (and no broken bones or torn ligaments) and then hunkered down to watch the Games.
Local = Shellfish in C.R.
Like much of the rest of Canada, the great regional foods of Campbell River and environs have long been hidden in its home kitchens. A new, hopeful movement is afoot which began with a vital farmers market and has continued into this brand new shop, The Local Market, where you can begin to taste the area. As an old Arbee's franchise, it has all the trappings of of a fast food restaurant...take out window, large open kitchen called The River City Forest Cafe and a well lit retail area. They serve a really great shellfish chowder with lots of honey mussels from Quadra Island which are among the most sought after on the coast. Shop for fireweed honey and local beef/lamb/yummy-looking bacon, hand made furniture and locally grown vegetables, while the cook grills a bison burger for you.
Seeing is Believing!
Okay...so here we go. My son Mark just finished harvesting last year's broccoli from their garden! No shelter needed. We're having it for dinner! The sun's out, hence the rainbow.
REAL Wasabi and More!
Ahhhhh Spring! Made the mistake of phoning home today....Ontario's frozen stiff and bone-chilling. But here in Campbell River, spring green's returned and this gorgeous wasabi plant is flourishing. For all of us sushi and sashimi lovers who have had to put up with the powdered, pseudo-version, there really is hope. We transplanted a sweet cherry tree and picked a bit of broccoli that had over-wintered. An eagle sunned himself in the fir tree above the garden while out in Discovery Passage the chinook salmon are running.
Move Over P.E.I...here comes Pemberton
On both coasts this make such good sense but it may yet be up to some wise Ontario entrepreneur to come up with a REAL Canadian vodka using our very own Yukon Gold....or another one of the late Gary Johnston's varietals.
....finally....
A glass of dry B.C. cider, spread the spot prawns and let the garlic butter coat them gently...! Sweet and tasting of the sea!
Culinary Advice
He brought a kg or so to Salt Spring for our family feast, thawed them simply under cold running water....and then! Melted butter and LOTS of garlic.
The Taste of BC Spring!
Big Leaf maple...BEFORE!
Big Leaf maple ... AFTER!
VERY RARE AND VERY DELISH!
Another first!
My first dandelion of 2010! In the garden of Harbour House...beside a huge bed of well-sprouted garlic.
Took the picture then....um....made a salad!
Snow and Sails
The beauty of this coast astounds me every time I visit. It just smells so good! Woke this morning to an eagle calling!
Brilliant Vancouver Food!
Tojo's tuna is classic if not legendary! A culinary artist, Hidekazu Tojo has been seducing diners for decades and the food just gets better 'n better.
Add a flight of locally brewed sake...draft, classic and unfiltered.
Then let Tojo-san, or his cluster of talented apprentices, just feed you!
Vietnamese Penicillin
All this partying is really quite exhausting. So I headed to "The Drive" / a.k.a. Commercial -- where you can feast for next to nothing. Dampness evaporated with a huge, deep, steaming bowl of beef/noodle soup redolent with fresh basil. Just perfect. Check out their spring rolls and Vietnamese coffee.
www.eatatstix.com
Passing the Flame
The Olympic Torch was passed cheered on by crowds lining all sides of the Robson/Thurlow intersection. Big band leader Dal Richards, who received the flame from Walter Gretzky, passes it to Dmitry Chernyshenko, head of the 2014 games in Russia.
Canadian Flags Everywhere!
Celebrating the flag -- wrapped on buildings
and imprinted on apples
GO CANADA GO!
Vancouver 2010
Behind the Scenes
Remi Cousyn made a fabulous Bison Carpaccio with dried Carmine Jewel cherries from U of Saskatoon's research programme. A great new Prairie crop!
His bread pudding was laced with some wild and cultivated mushrooms. These beech mushrooms, grown in B.C., are particularly intense.
SAVOURING CANADA
The breakfast celebrating our great northern bounty began with apples and continued with an array of top flight food producers from across the nation cooking for the media. Watch CNN for their interview with Chef Michael Smith or look for images of the Minister of Agriculture & AgriFood cooking fabulous steak and eggs with Saskatoon's Remi Cousyn. FYI...that's cherry marinated bison on the skewer. But not just any cherry. These are Carmine Jewels perfected for Prairie agriculture by Dr Bob Bors, alumnus of the University of Guelph and now making some huge strides in fruit growing in the at-times harsh Prairie climate.
A Bit of History
Getting ready to head down to the Pan Pacific for a meeting with the Canada Brand team, I looked out the south window of the tower I'm bunking down in. The panorama of Vancouver sky scape was bathed in sun....as was this building. I watched the Snow Birds close the Expo 86 from these gardens on the roof of the Manhattan Apartments. These growing spaces were a first for Canada...a project by City Farmer and their dream-meister Leslie Scrimshaw. It was a huge struggle to convince people that food could be grown in non-traditional spaces. Now the new Convention Centre which has been turned into the Media Centre for the 2010 games has an enormous roof of greenery.
The gorgeous art deco building at the corner of Robson and Thurlow was a cooperative ... one of the first in the city, managed by the tenants. For me, it's an other one of the feel-good, culinary circles that occur so regularly on this coast!
COUNT DOWN!
Only 5 days before Agriculture and AgriFood Canada joins forces with some of Canada's top chefs in Vancouver to celebrate the extraordinary food of our nation. Great beef, the finest pork, spectacular seafood, grains from wheat, buckwheat and flax...not to mention canola oil and the best pulses on earth are all going to be framed at a special media breakfast where we're inviting the world to our table to Savour Canada! I'll be blogging and tweeting throughout the event when I'm not on stage emceeing it.
GO CANADA GO!
MAN LAND
Not that I mind the testosterone ... actually it's quite life-giving...but the Ontario Food Terminal is far more than a bunch of guys selling produce. It's the largest fresh produce distribution centre in Canada. In 2009, the team there, led by a government appointed board and managed on a day to day basis by a mere 38 people, handled 960,958 TONS of fresh fruit and veggies. The OFT's cold storage facility @ 80,00 square feet is the largest on the continent.
Glimpsing it from the QEW in Toronto's west end, it's easily identifiable as a parking lot for trucks...or so it seems. It's one of the most energy-charged, competitive places I've ever visited...where a handshake is a contract and where Ontario's growers assemble all year long to supply the restaurants and independent grocery retailers from Thunder Bay to the East Coast.
Winter's tough...the outdoor 550 stall, somewhat sheltered area, can be bitterly cold. But we, as consumers, hum the tune...'Good things grow ow ow ow, In Ontari-O' , these farmers feed us so well - from the sweetest carrots (note the new, very wise, regional designation on this image) to celeriac to cucumbers and masses upon masses of fresh flowers.
To listen to my broadcast on the OFT, head to www.cbc.ca/freshair.
Fish Foraging
He gathers teh marshmallow-sized scallops that are cultured in Passamquoddy Bay, just down the road from the inn and the VERY freshest herring (a.k.a. sardines) .
His menu looks like a fisherman's wish list.
Begin with sake-pickled fresh herring on a warm fingerling potato-radish vinaigrette and horseradish - caper cream.... then head to the vanilla butter poached 'naked' lobster ("it's easier to eat that way..." ) with melted leek-sour cream perogies, sweet potato-lobster jus, sweet pea coulis... finish with bee balm poached peaches and a small spoon ful of peach yogurt ice cream scattered with wild New Brunswick blueberries. FABULOUS!
Eating Canada at Stadtlanders' Farm
Registration closed early...there were just too
many people who wanted to go. Unlike the usual foodie gatherings, Michael and Nobuyo Stadtlander opened their free form farm to the professional food community of Canada. It was like opening Michael's personal Roladex.
Remi and Janis Cousyn from Saskatoon...JK from Toronto/PEC ... Pierre LePage from the NWT who I later saw at Gordon Bailey's new place in Charlottetown. Carson Schiffhorn from Inn on the Lake in the Yukon came as did the passionate, foraging New Brunwicker Chris Aerni of Rossmount Inn. His herring was THE hit of the entire event. Vij teamed up with Charles Baker who spent a good bit of time serving his fabulous wine and'resting' .
Only at Stadtlanders would one find ribs cooked on a manure spreader...!
And it ended with a rip roaring...bonfire that leaped high, high, high into the night sky.
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