Posts Tagged ‘British Columbia’

Last January, I was lucky enough to be in Vancouver during their famous Dine Out Vancouver restaurant festival. One word: yum.

The 2012 festival (this coming year is the 10th!) will take place over 17 days from Monday, January 20 to Sunday, February 5. Reservations open January 9.

If you're anywhere near the Vancouver area (or plan to be), get yourself to this festival. Last year's highlights — for me — were about the street food. For example, trying several different interesting hotdogs from Japadog, (made famous during the Vancouver 2010 winter Olympics):

From front to back: the terimayo, the yakisoba and the okinomi - all fantastic!

... and eating The Re-Up Addictive BBQ's giant pulled pork sandwich, laden with tangy, creamy coleslaw:

I know what "re-up" means from watching HBO's, The Wire. So, basically, what I'm saying is that I'm very hip.

What's even more exciting for street food lovers like me is that this year, the festival will include something called Street Food City – a 3-day-long lunchtime event featuring the city’s top food carts.

But even if street food isn't your thing, this is the country's largest restaurant festival, people! It has over 225 participating restaurants. So you're bound to find something that tickles your fancy.

For more info, check out Tourism Vancouver's website.

It's hard to beat the food in Vancouver, but this country has so much to offer. Where is YOUR favourite place in Canada to dine out?

I'm picky about tea. I love it and it's so good for you, but I'm picky. I'm basically a tea diva.

Things I DON'T like to happen to my tea:

• the tea bag is left in for 3 nanoseconds too long
• the already steeped tea has sat for any length of time
• the water was too hot
• the water wasn't hot enough
• the tea is too sweet
• too much milk
• milk is too cold
• etc. etc. etc.!!!

See? Tea diva. A tea-va, if you will.

I basically have to brew it myself, watch it like a hawk, set 18 timers, then drink it scalding hot, right away, before it gets a chance to bitter-ize. Yep, new word. Stick with me, here.

All of these crazy aversions become a bit of a problem where iced tea is concerned because it's sort of written into the instructions to over-brew it, then add ice to cool it off. And I'm sorry, but that's just going to be a horrible, bitter disaster.

UNLESS!

You cold brew it. Yep, cold brewing -- the answer to any tea-va's needs.

Cold brewing means lower tannin levels and therefore, less astringency and bitterness.

I just cover the tea (loose leaf tea in little DIY tea filters, or just regular tea bags) with cold water in a pitcher and let it stand, covered, for a day.

I mostly use the absolutely delicious oolong tea that I got at Silk Road Tea in Victoria, back in January -- but you can use any tea you like.

Silk Road Tea and Spa in Victoria, BC. Utter bliss for a tea-va like me.

I use the same proportion of tea to water as I would for a nice strong cup of hot tea -- about 1 heaping teaspoon of tea leaves to 1 cup water. I cold-brew at room temperature, as fridge space is always a premium, both at home and in the Test Kitchen!

Perfectly brewed tea.

Once the tea has steeped, remove the bags or filters, then sweeten with honey, if desired. You can also add lemon or orange slices, or just plop in some ice and drink it straight up.

Crystal clear, totally un-bitter, delicious straight-up tea!

So come clean... are you a tea-va, too? Please don't let me be the only one.

I'm happy to report that hardly any recipes in our July issue went without an accompanying photo, so today's post will be a shorty.

In Easy Weekend Eats:

Scoop and Freeze Double-Chocolate Cookies -- p. 106

Whether you're at home or at the cottage, it's so easy to bake off a fresh batch of these chewy-crisp cookies in minutes when you have a stash of dough balls in the freezer.

From A Taste of British Columbia (a kick-off to our 13-month-long cross-country feature!):

Glory Bowl -- p. 134

This savoury and hearty rice bowl, provided by chef Shelley Adams, is named after a ski bowl at Whitewater Ski Resort in Nelson, British Columbia. The perfect après-ski meal.

Make sure you pick up a copy of the July issue -- if you haven't already -- to see all our other fantastic summer recipes. And be sure to let us know what you think. Do you like seeing what you've missed in the magazine?

It was a moment I had waited 32 years for.

BC spot prawns delicately perched atop local Pemberton valley snap peas and wild sockeye salmon.

To kick off the Pemberton Slow Food Cycle - which happens every August in Pemberton, BC - I was invited to the Pemberton Slow Food Cycle Dinner Event where Chefs James Walt & Grant Cousar served up the best local menu I have ever known.

And like something from a dream, the appetizer - seen above - floated down in front of me.

Two BC spot prawns were perched like still ballerinas on top of Pemberton sugar snap peas and wild sockeye salmon. oh! I couldn't believe my eyes. There they were, after years and years of pining, yearning, and helplessly listening to spot prawn season come and go every spring.

The taste? Let's get this out of the way - I hate shrimp. BC spot prawns taste nothing like shrimp or any other garish, trucked-in seafood I've choked down my gullet in landlocked Ontario. The first thing I noticed was the texture. Firm, but yielding meat. Once I bit down, the juices released were nectar-sweet with the faintest hint of sea. I was right to pine for this wondrous Canadian delicacy all these years. Oh so right.

And guess what - the 6- to 8-week spot prawn season is ON NOW in beautiful British Columbia! If you live close to the west coast, you won't want to miss these remaining spot prawn festivals where you can taste them fresh from the ocean:

• Kelowna, Saturday June 4th from 1 – 4pm at the Manteo Resort, 3762 Lakeshore Road;
• Osoyoos, Sunday, June 5th from 1 - 4pm at the Watermark Beach Resort, 15 Park Place

What's so great about BC spot prawns? Why are you so crazed, Colleen?
This species of spot prawns caught in BC - Pandalus platyceros - is the poster child of sustainable seafood in addition to being unbelievably delicious.

• They are caught using a longline trap which has minimal impact on the ocean
• There are a limited amount of fishing licenses, and only so many traps per license
• Harvest is strictly logged so authorities can keep a close eye on the health of the population
• Females carrying eggs are released back into the ocean
• and more!

I hope to make it out to BC next year. Sigh.

And just in case I piqued your interest about the Pemberton Slow Food Cycle, you get to do this:

Riding through Pemberton valley, BC

And visit places like this:

<--Food; Chicken & Pigs --> Lambrecht Surfboards -->

And eat a barn burger by the mountain, like this:

Barn burgers make the best burgers.

Yum. Are you in the "I've tried a BC spot prawn" club? Have you ever eaten one?

Cameron Bogue's fine martini - a classic!

“Vancouver is an awesome city”, said Cameron Bogue. Awesome, I agree, for many reasons, but for the engaging bar manager at the chic DB Bistro Moderne, the appeal is Vancouver’s strong cocktail culture. “Vancouver has cocktails you won’t find anywhere else in Canada. It’s light years ahead of any other city in in the county.” If anyone knows, it’s Cameron who’s travelled the chic cocktail cities of the world looking for new trends and ideas.
    But how so? Why Vancouver and cocktail culture? Standing in front of a sparkling array of a good hundred bottles and behind the real zinc bar that gives authenticity to the word “bistro” in the restaurant’s name, Cameron went on to explain that Vancouver’s one of the young west coast cities where fresh ingredients are a given and where there’s no lack of unusual (“crazy” is the word he used) ingredients. Like the city’s history, the crowd’s young, curious and hip, up on the latest trends in ingredients like bitters, tequila, glasses and syrups. Cocktails are a way of getting together with friends, “avant et apres”.
    But what sets DB (the initials from chef proprietor Daniel Boulud) apart from other bars is its meticulous attention to details. Cameron is very specific about glasses (he likes Riedel): utensils (strains martinis with a julep strainer, shaken drinks with a finer screened hawthorn strainer): ice (likes slow-frozen that doesn’t melt quickly diluting drinks and leaving shards floating on top): juices (freshly squeezed) and syrups (personal creations). And he chooses liquor for its quality and value, not for being the “it” brand of the moment, or simply the most expensive.

Bottles of house-made syrups

    So when Cameron sets out to make a martini, you know you’re in the hands of an expert. First, a bit of martini heritage. At its creation well over a century ago, a martini was sweeter because both gin and vermouth were then sweeter. (The "dry" in martini, I've learned, was to specify the newly available dry vermouth.)

“A martini”, Cameron said as he arranged ingredients behind the bar, “is the quintessential cocktail and  should be made with gin, vermouth and bitters.” For gin, it’s Beefeater because it is made with the original 7 botanicals, and he matches the gin with Noilly Prat dry white vermouth, also for its botanicals. 

    The correct ratio is 5 parts gin to 1 vermouth, and the secret of a superb martini every time, is measuring. There’s no eyeballing, or sloppy free pours when Cameron or his staff are behind the bar. Using bar jiggers, Cameron measured out 2-1/2 oz gin and 1/2 oz vermouth with a touch of Angostura Bitters into a 16-oz cocktail mixing glass, added some serious cubes of ice. Then he took a Riedel martini glass out of the freezer, used a neatly trimmed strip of lemon peel (sans bitter pith) to quickly rub the inside of the glass and the outside along the rim – where lips would touch the glass, gave the soon-to-be-martini a good stir, capped the mixing glass with a julep strainer and poured the prefect martini into the aromatized martini glass."Never shaken", added Cameron, "it dilutes the martini."  One sip, and...so crisp, a perfect martini.No wonder a classic martini is a cocktail icon.

    Cameron is the master of many drinks, other well made classics like the Mojito and Margarita and new creations, the Garden Daisy, for example, that incorporates carrot juice and fresh basil leaves for a refreshing vodka drink, or the Fong named for a Vancouver man-about-food-and-cocktails, Nathan Fong.

Straining the Garden Daisy

The Garden Daisy in a Riedel martini glass. The slight flair on the top makes for elegant sipping.

To make one of Cameron’s cocktails, the recipe for the Mojito is below. The Mojito, he claims is responsible for creating the cocktail craze, so strong in Vancouver, and, elsewhere, doing its best to catch up to Vancouver's awesome reputation.

Mojito

12 mint leaves
1-1/2 oz white rum
3/4 oz fresh lime juice
1 oz simple syrup (1 part granulated sugar to 1 part water, boiled, cooled and refrigerated)
soda water
. Place mint and rum in the bottom of a tall glass and gently bruise the mint with a wooden muddler. Add the lime juice, simple syrup and crushed ice. Stir. Top up with crushed ice and a splash of soda water. 

Satisfies one.