Good Food

Expansion of Urban Farmers in Victoria

2012-01-27T10:36:00.000-08:00

In an email from Gave Epstein of the Gorge Tillicum Urban Farmers, I have found there are some other organizations like this in the region.

HUFFS - Hillside Urban Farmers For Sustainability - I can not find any links for them but they will be at Seedy Saturday, as will the other groups as well.
JUF - Jubilee Urban Farmers
VWUF - Vic West Urban Farmers - I can not find any links to them either

Urban farming is very much the flavour of the month, it concerns me how much it can be tied up with political agendas. For it to to work well it has embrace the growing of food and not the politics and economics of agriculture.

As those of you that read this blog know, I do try to grow some of my own food. Most people with single family homes have the space that they could be growing some of their own food. I think it is important for most people to feel some personal connection to their food and nothing is more personal than growing it. It is the linking of this to an anti-capitalist or anti-globalist agenda that will cause the movement to falter.

The 10 Types of Foodies

2012-01-18T10:26:00.000-08:00

Anna Brones wrote an interesting post at the Huff Post Canada call "The 10 Types of Foodies".

The types:

Made it myself - Martha Stewart cooking
The Organivore - all local, all organic
The Europhile - all good thing come from Europe
The One Upper
The Snob - complains that everything is not good enough
The Anti-Snob - rebels against the rest of the foodies
The Avoider - avoids something or all of things like meat, dairy, wheat, corn, soy etc
The Blogging Food Pornographer - I wish I could this, but it is not my style or ability
The Bacon Lover - all bacon, all the time, and this is not Kevin Bacon
The DIYer - if you read this blog, you know this is me.

My ex-wife alerted me to the posting and pointed out how I am the definition of the DIYer.

Senegalese Food In Victoria!

2012-01-18T10:06:00.000-08:00

One of my complaints about Victoria is the very narrow set of food options we have available. It is getting better as time goes by but we are still limited. We may have Iraqi, Saudi and Afghani food, but we have no Russian, Brazilian or Malaysian food.

When it comes to African food we have only had three options to chose from, Ethiopian food, Zanzibarian food, or Morrocan food. All three are heavily influenced by the Arabic world and are closer to various Middle Eastern cuisines than sub-Saharan food.

We have nothing from most of the continent - no west African cuisine, no central African cuisine, and the closest thing we have to South African cuisine are the specialty goods you can buy at Aubergine Specialty Foods in Fernwood.

We now have Le Petit Dakar in one of the storefronts of the Old Crystal Pool building on Douglas. They offer Senegalese food.

I ran across it yesterday on my way from the Legislature to catch the bus back home. I had never noticed that they existed. The woman inside told me they have been open for four months now.

I had already had lunch and I was in a rush to get to my bus, so I had no time to stop for a meal. From what I could smell and see, the food looked very good. I had a chance to eat a lot of French west African cuisine in 1986 when I traveled to Togo, Niger and Burkina Faso. From what I could see, the food looked like what I had seen in Africa.

I did not have time to stop for a meal, but they were nice enough to offer me a free madeline.

The menu includes stews and ragouts as I would expect with a focus on the fish, meats, beans and vegetables I would also expect. Many of the meals are served on a bed of rice. When I traveled in west Africa I had a lot of the street food and it was all a bowl of rice with some sort of spicy savory stew on top. I really want to try the Mafe, Domoda, and Yassa au Poulet. I wonder how it will compare to my memory of sitting on a plank bench on the side of red dirt street in a place like Ouagadougou? One of the best meals I ever had my life was in small courtyard restaurant in the southeast part of the Niamey - it was a Yassa au Poulet that blew my mind.

I am going to try and go there ASAP.

Salmon, cannelini beans, and squash - what do I make?

2012-01-16T12:31:00.000-08:00

I thought I would make use of some of the food I have preserved and chose three ingredients to make dinner with for tonight. I grabbed salmon and squash that I canned myself and have just finished putting some cannelini beans through the pressure cooker. So what do I make with this?

Thoughts that come to mind:

A salmon/squash ravioli
Some sort of casserole
A bean salad

None of the ideas are inspiring me a the moment. I am interested in hearing what people think might be interesting

Learning more about processing raw chocolate

2012-01-04T11:39:00.000-08:00

So it seems that it is more or less impossible for me to be able to grind the nibs fine enough to make chocolate at home. I may try one more time when I get some more beans from the Mexican House of Spice and see how fine I can grind them.

I looking around the web, it seems that I would need a champion juicer to have any chance of grinding the nibs fine enough.

I found some suggestions on what can be done with raw or roasted chocolate nibs, though none of them on this page appeal to me.

The difficulty of grinding the nibs also explains to me why some small scale artisan chocolate makers end up with a slightly chalky product.

Some Restaurants I would like to go to in 2012

2012-01-03T09:39:00.000-08:00

Three in Vancouver
L'Abattoir at 217 Carrall Street in Gastown.
Hawksworth at 801 W Georgia St
ensemble Tap at 990 Smithe Street

Five in Greater Victoria
Sooke Harbour House
AURA - 680 Montreal Street
Devour - 762 Broughton Street
Copper Rock Grill - Bear Mountain
Dunlop House - Camosun College Landsdowne

Two in Seattle
Agua Verde Cafe - 1303 NE Boat Street
Rovers - 2808 E Madison

One in Portland
The Beast

Denny's, what was I expecting?

2012-01-02T13:06:00.000-08:00

Yes it is Denny's and I should not have expected that much, but Denny's is not far from my home and is open on New Year's Day, I have gone a couple of times on January 1st.

The coffee is worse than awful, I have not had something that bad that I can remember. It was burned and it was old. I had to make a Tim Horton's coffee to get it down. I can not over emphasis how bad the coffee was.

My meal was decent enough, I had the Southwestern Steak Burrito with hash browns. I have had worse and I did eat it, certainly it was better than the awful omelet I had at Shine the week before. It was also big, more than twice the size of what I wanted. I also thought I would order something that was lighter than the Slams, turns out this is not true at all. Online you can read the nutrition facts about their meals. Mine came in at 1120 calories with 63 grams of fat! I can not freaking believe the amount of calories or the amount of fat.

Daniel had the Lumberjack Slam - this comes on THREE plates. Who the fuck needs three plates for their breakfast? His meal came in at 1440 calories and 75 grams of fat! This is utterly insane and is enough to feed three people for breakfast, even then the fat content is high. Daniel did not finish all of it.

Sheila built her own slam and it came in at only 510 calories and 27 grams of fat. She had the turkey bacon, which you would think would be fewer calories and leaner than regular bacon, wrong. The turkey bacon is 90 calories (+20), 5 grams of fat (+-0) and 360 mg of sodium (+130) - the bracketed numbers are how much higher the turkey bacon was than the regular bacon. The turkey bacon also sucked, it was awful. Sheila did not eat all of her food because there was too much, but also because it was not appetizing.

Max's meal was the pancakes with the chocolate chips, he is three, so it is hard to judge if he liked it or not. His meal came in at 450 calories and 18 grams of fat. Those are more than enough calories for an adult breakfast and the fat is too high for anyone.

The high calories and fat would almost be ok if the food was stellar, but it is much worse than what I make at home.

I am not going to go back, ever.

Shine Cafe in the Stadacona Centre

2012-01-02T13:04:00.000-08:00

January 19th 2012 See the bottom of the post for new information
~~I have been to Shine a few times and it has never really wowed me. Recently Sheila and I went and we were completely underwhelmed. We were hungry but we did not finish our food.~~

~~Sheila's main problem was that her potatoes were cold and clearly had been out of the oven for awhile - they looked shriveled up in that way that comes from sitting out for some length of time.~~

~~In my case the problem was the omelet. I expect an omelet to be light and fluffy with a small amount of fillings that accentuate the flavour of the eggs. This is not what I got.~~

I got something that was closer to a fritata than omelet. I was also cooked in a pan that was just as wide as the eggs, actually not wide enough as it is the reason the omelet was thick, there was no space for the egg to flow. An omelet pan should allow at least an inch between the egg and the sides.

The filling was cooked separately and then added to the "omelet" in such a way as if it was supposed to be a wrap. There were too much filling and it was greasy. No omelet should every be greasy.

~~Even if their definition of an omelet was something unique, the concept it a bad one and the execution of this meal was badly done. I was hungry but I could not finish this "omelet".~~

Finally, the coffee, not the worst I have had, but forgettable is really the only term that covers it. If you are doing a breakfast place in the Pacific Northwest, stellar coffee has to be your starting point.

~~Can I do better than this at home? Yes, everyday and every time. Worst of all I even had to wait to be seated to eat this crap. I highly doubt that we will ever go back.~~

January 19th 2012

The owner Barry Thompson has contacted me and offered to have me come in and try the restaurant again, I am going to take him up on it.

I hope it is better than before. If that experience is better I will erase this post and replace it with a new one.

For the moment it is on hold

Moto Chefs Homaro Cantu and Ben Roche give a TED talk

2012-01-02T12:26:00.000-08:00

I find molecular gastronomy vastly interesting and wish I had the time to really play around with these sort of things myself.

Moto is a restaurant in Chicago focused on playing with concepts of food. The executive chef is Homaro Cantu and has some very interesting ideas. Ben Roche seems to be inspired by a cruel streak of giving his staff very hard challenges, though is listed as the executive pastry chef

Speaking of the team, two chefs working for Moto are on Top Chef season 9, Richie Farina and Chris Jones.

Watch this and enjoy.

I dream of having someone with this sort of vision open a restaurant here in the Pacific Northwest.

Good Fortune in Sidney

2011-12-29T14:52:00.001-08:00

A week of so ago we ended in Sidney at dinner time and were looking for somewhere to eat

We used Urbanspoon to see what there was in Sidney and ended up at the Good Fortune Chinese restaurant. The rating made us consider it.

The place is clearly a busy restaurant as it was not yet 6 and it was filling up. Though this may have something to do with being in Sidney and the average age there.....

We had dinner for six as that is the easiest and fastest when we have all the boys with us. The food was decent but not worth the drive to Sidney to go there. It is no better than Royal Palace or Jacks. The ginger fried beef was good but not as good as many of the people that have reviewed on Urbanspoon. The war wonton was acceptable.

The price was more than I would expect for this quality of and style of Chinese food. Good and interesting Chinese food is something I miss from Vancouver. I know of no decent seafood oriented ones here in Victoria. I would love to have a Buddhist one - I miss being able to get sweet and sour sticky delight. The regions are not represented well at all, almost all of it is is a variation on Canadian Chinese cuisine. The lettuce wraps we had were the most adventurous thing Golden Fortune offered, thought it is in part out fault for not choosing ala cart.

This is one more example of people in Victoria accepting mediocre food as reasonable. There is no way this restaurant would get an 84% rating in the lower mainland.

Not Food....

2011-12-16T12:16:00.000-08:00

This is Anthony Sanna of the Ambrosia Event Centre. Is a passionate local foodie and supporter of local agriculture

Making my own chocolate

2011-12-12T14:02:00.000-08:00

I got the cacao beans last week and I winnowed the beans so that I was left with the nibs. How hard could it be to grind up the nibs into a liquid? I managed to make peanut butter at home in the food processor, chocolate should not be much harder, right?

I ran the food processor for some time, a lot longer than I expected, and all I ended up with was something of the consistency of coffee grounds for drip coffee with a bit of espresso grind mixed in. I put this stuff into a propeller type coffee grinder and thought I reduced down fine enough.

Ground chocolate nibs being melted, sort of

I had not expected to end up with the chocolate liquor at this point as I knew the melting temperature of cacao fat is higher than that of peanut oil. I put the dust into a pot and put it on the stove. Initially I thought there was some success as very quickly some fat was released and all of the dust was looking as if it was damp.

Unfortunately this was as good as it got. It did not melt into the chocolate liquor I thought it would.

I added some milk and sugar to it to see if the addition of this would aid the melting. Not really. I ended up with a fairly solid grainy mass that tasted like chocolate but had a bitter grit within it. The underlying flavour is actually pretty good.

Turns out grinding your cacao nibs small enough is the single biggest problem with trying to make your own chocolate at home. I am not the only one that has had this problem. I also now understand why in the history of chocolate it took so long to get to the chocolate bar, it takes industrial equipment to grind the stuff fine enough. The first chocolate bar only comes about in 1847 even thought chocolate drinking came to Europe in the 17th century.

I am going to try and see if I can rescue what I have. I am also going to buy some more cacao beans and experiment some more.

Cacao Beans from the Mexican House of Spice

2011-12-08T14:25:00.000-08:00

The Mexican House of Spice, 2220 Douglas Street, has many interesting things available for purchase, one of them we found the last time we were in were cacao beans. For $3.25, how could I resist?

bowl of roasted cacao beans

I have read about how chocolate is produced, but the closest I have come to the raw product is either cacao powder of large slabs of bakers chocolate. Seeing them in the store piqued my interest right away. I have no idea what I am going to do with them, but it is always fun to play around with a less processed ingredient. Better understanding of my food can only lead to more respect for the product and more options of what I can do with it.

bowl of cacao nibs

The beans, about 60 of them, are dried and roasted but have not had their papery skin removed. They sort of look a bit like misshapen almonds. They range in size from the size of peanut to the size of a large almond.

They do not have strong smell at this point.

At lunch today I removed the skins from a bunch of the beans to expose the nib. The nib is actually a whole bunch of segments and fall apart fairly easily into smaller pieces.

I tried some of the nibs. I scrapped the nib over my teeth. It has a very interesting texture, I am not sure how to describe it. I would not call it chalky, but it certainly grinds off very fine. I assume the texture comes from them being more than half fat. the flavour was very mild at first but finished with a very interesting bitter chocolate flavour at the end. I can see how this could work as a spice, it would go very well with things like nutmeg, cardamon, and cinnamon, especially cinnamonum verum or Ceylon cinnamon (which the Mexican House of Spice carries as Mexican cinnamon).

The next step will be to grind the beans to make cacao paste and then melt it to make chocolate liquor. I might do that tonight or over the weekend.

cacao nib

The Whole Beast - Artisan Salumeria

2011-12-06T09:53:00.000-08:00

I have been meaning to write about the amazing new charcuterie on Oak Bay Avenue, the Whole Beast. I am very much impressed with the product and even more so at how reasonable the prices. Cory Pelan is doing something amazing at his shop.

The space was previously the bakery/coffeeshop Kadalima, a decent enough place but not one I would cross the city for. The Whole Beast shares the space with the Village Butcher, to which there is a natural synergy.

The whole foodie movement going on is creating a lot of new decent suppliers of all manner products, but I find most of them very expensive for what you get and often the quality of the product is only slightly better than existing products. The Whole Beast is not like that at all. The product is very good and the prices are very reasonable.

So far I have had some of the salami, the chorizo, some other sausages, and bacon. I have yet to have anything that was not of a superior quality.

The one thing I should note is that their salami is nothing like the commercial varieties. It is not a fat and evenly round tube of meat. Cory's salami is much thinner and not uniformly round. He also uses a much coarser grind/chop of the meat. This means his salami is not really well designed to be a sandwich meat. This does not mean it is a bad salami, it just means it is a different product which has different uses.

My single big problem with the Whole Beast is the location, and this is my problem and not something that is the fault of the shop. Being on Oak Bay Avenue means it is not close to where I live and actually not close to any other place I shop at. Getting there is something I do at most once every few months. I am certain that over the next three weeks I will get there to buy cured meats for Christmas but after that it is likely to be months before I get back.

That said, there is an increasing number of suppliers located over in Oak Bay that I do like - Slater's Meats, Octavio and now the Whole Beast.

Here is their list of products:

Our rotating product list:
SALAMI TOSCANA
SALAMI FINOCCHIONA
SALAMI BASTARDO
SALAMI “THE BEAST”
LAMB SALAMI WITH SUMAC AND LEMON
LARDO SALAMI
FAIRBURN FARM WATER BUFFALO SALAMI
SALAMI VENETA
SALAMI LIMONE E FINOCCHIONA
COPPA
LONZINO
PROSCIUTTO (about six months away)
WATER BUFFALO BRESAOLA
GUANCIALE (smoked or non-smoked)
PANCETTA
SMOKED PANCETTA
COPPA DI TESTA
MORTADELLA
LARDO
MAPLE ROSEMARY BACON
SOY AND 5 SPICE BACON
BUCKBOARD BACON
SMOKED GUANCIALE
SMOKED PANCETTA
DOUBLE SMOKE BACON
POLISH HAM SAUSAGE
GARLIC COIL
WATER BUFFALO PEPPERONI
BEEF AND PORK PEPPERONI
ANDOUILLE SAUSAGE
CHORIZO
BBQ SMOKIES
EUROPEAN WEINERS
KABANOSI
SMOKED WATER BUFFALO SAUSAGE
HEAD CHEESE or COPPA DI TESTA
TROTTER BRAWN
KISZKA (liver and heart)
SMOKED CORNED BEEF
CORNED BEEF

Kefir Grains For Sale

2011-11-26T12:18:00.001-08:00

The grains I have are multiplying like crazy, enough so that I have excess I need to sell. What I am offering is 200 grams of grains in a 500ml jar filled with 1% milk for $10.

A different kind of cooking....

2011-11-16T10:11:00.000-08:00

In my work world I have been learning about and playing with aromatherapy products since my student days. I have often found essential oils and products derived from them to be effective, gentle, natural and affordable options for health and beauty uses. This may seem a strange addition to a food blog but I find when I work with the oils the process is much the same as cooking. I use many of the same tools and much the same premise. I take good ingredients, pick ones that suit my purpose and that should mix well and then I work to create a product that is appealing to the senses.

Recently I decided to turn aromatherapy into more of a business than a hobby. I have created a line of prod ucts fo r sale in my office and am selling some baby products at the Mothering Touch. I have also been welcoming custom orders for products and providing access to direct order essential oils from my supplier.

For Christmas I have decided to put together a few small gift packages and welcome custom orders of the same. I am also happy to discuss putting together products for corporate giving or fundraisers.

Follow the links throughout this post to learn more and then contact me to order or to ask more questions.

The London Chef

2011-11-16T09:39:00.000-08:00

I had waited with anticipation the opening of The London Chef, at 953 Fort Street. The concept of this space is of a foodie's haven of cooking classes and food parties. Despite my curiosity I didn't get into the shop until late in the summer as I just wasn't in that part of town often. Since I began teaching infant massage next door at the Mothering Touch (975 Fort) though I have weekly opportunities to be in the shop.

My first visit was actually my job interview for the teaching gig when I was surprised to discover that a small cafe and retail area was attached to the shop, something I hadn't known. This cafe is where I will start. Selling coffee, pastries and lunches the cafe is an expanded breezeway really but it is filled with things to intrigue every foodie.

On the retail front the fridge is stuffed with house made sausage from Stage restaurant and there are frozen stocks and sauces too. The shelves to the left of the sales counter are filled with cookbooks from some of the most prominent chef's of today (Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck caught my eye especially). There are also vinegars, reductions and flavoured salts (coffee?!?!?) to tempt you too.

In terms of the actual cafe items I have tried a selection. The coffee and espresso is definitely up to standard and the soup I had one day was delicious. Some of the baked goods though haven't been so overwhelming. I have had one of the savory open tarts (leek and goat cheese) and though tasty enough the puff pastry was quite pale and, as a result, lacked the crisp flakiness I prefer. Same can be said of the "breadsticks", which are actually puff pastry sticks with a small sprinkling of cheese and caraway seeds (Bernard was pretty pleased with the caraway) but that didn't compensate for the slightly limp pastry. I have tried some of the sweet pastries to and the same applies. Nothing bad, but I am still waiting to be dazzled.

The bulk of the space is set up in a squared "u" of work stations with a larger teaching station in the open side of the "u". There is also a large (like sit 30 large) beautiful wooden table to the side for dining. There is selection of cooking classes taught here and you can book private cook and eat events in the evenings.

Tuesday at noon is the event I have been most intrigued by. Called "lunch and learn" and running from noon to one this event allows you to come in and get a lunch that you get to watch being made. The menu shifts and focuses sometimes on a culture (i.e. Arabian) or a food (ie. the hamburger). There are munchies for you when you arrive and you then get an interactive demo by the chef and his assistant that culminates in the delivery of your main course (usually around twenty or quarter to one to give you some time for eating). I haven't actually attended but I am often in the cafe during the classes and the atmosphere seems fun and friendly. Judging by the papers the audience are generally clutching I am guessing you get recipes too. At a cost of $25 it is an expensive lunch - but a pretty good deal for an hour long cooking class/entertainment.

Lasagna and the new ricotta

2011-11-16T09:28:00.000-08:00

My brother-in-law recently gifted us with a copy of Air Canada's en Route magazine's annual food trends issue. An interesting read and I was tickled to discover that several of BC's best restaurants are on my "I've been there" list. Part of the interest was the discovery that one of the new restaurant trends this year is "house-made ricotta". I found this interesting because on a recent trip to one of our friendly neighbourhood warehouse stores I saw, for the first time ever, a ricotta that didn't come in a tub. Intriguing, even the warehouse stores are getting trendy! This ricotta came shrink wrapped in plastic and looked closer to mozzarella in texture.

Of course the real interest for foodies is - what did I do with this new item? Answer - I made lasagna.

I made the pasta dough, made the meat sauce, and finally cracked the ricotta. I wasn't sure what to expect. Would I be able to slice this new ricotta? Would it mix well with the spinach, egg and cheese or would I have to use it separately?

When I opened it I discovered that it would slice, and dice well enough, but that it also crumbled into a much drier version of the tub ricotta's small pieces. I was able to mix my ricotta/spinach layer easily though I came out with a drier result - not a bad thing from my point of view. I dislike runny lasagna.

After assembly and baking we ended up with a lovely lasagna that was not runny at all. I can not say I noted any flavour difference, but it was nice to created a drier ricotta mix. Thicker sauce and drier ricotta made for a nicely cohesive and stable lasagna. The bit of lemon zest I put into the ricotta mixture though came through beautifully.

Working with the kefir

2011-11-11T18:01:00.000-08:00

I do not have pictures of the kefir, when I get a chance I will post some. So how is it going with the kefir making? Very well.

I am working the kefir heavily and this means my grains have more than doubled since I got my grains. I have grains to spare now and if you want some, drop me a line and I can give you some.

Many people drink it kefir, but this does not appeal to me, it might work as part of a smoothie, but on its own it does not do it. I like the tang of the kefir better than the normal yogurt flavour and I am trying to eat 250 grams of kefir yogurt per day.

I am letting it get quite firm and then I separate out the grains. Once the grains are out, I strain it through a jelly bag to get it to a fairly thick consistency. There are two consistencies a I aim for, one about the consistency of yogurt or sour cream, the second the thickness of ricotta.

I process between 1.5 and 1.8 litres of milk every 24 to 48 hours. The jars I use can hold up to 2 litres but the grains take some space and I leave some space at the top. For the yogurt consistency I get about 50% of the volume of the milk I started with. For the ricotta consistency it get about 35-40% of the volume of the milk I started with.

The kefir has more or less replaced all of our yogurt, sour cream and soft fresh cheese uses in the house. It works very well as a replacement for sour cream, and has a much lower fat content. I work with 1% milk, which means my sour cream consistency kefir has about a 2% milk fat content.

The ricotta consistency kefir is about 3% milk fat, making it a very low fat fresh cheese. I could make it firmer still by pressing out more of the whey. Adding a bit of salt and herbs and you have a very nice cream cheese.

Meanwhile, I am getting all this whey, what do I do with it? I am throwing it out because I have no idea what I can use it for. In a quick internet search, I have some interesting uses for it. I guess I will not longer be throwing it out.

Cost of yogurt consistency is about $2.30 a litre, for the fresh cheese consistency it costs about $3.40 a kilogram. This is dramatically cheaper than what it costs in the store and it is better for me.

Why did no one tell me about this place?

2011-10-06T15:40:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the bad photos as my smart phone camera sucks

I was walking down Johnson Street and thinking I needed to do something about lunch when I stumbled on Skinny Tato. I saw that it was Polish food and given my background as a Baltic German, Polish cuisine is a cousin of the food I grew up with.

I have been dreaming of having a Russian restaurant in this city, the Baltic German food experience is most heavily influenced by the Russians. In the absence of Russian food, Estonian, Finnish, Swedish or Polish is the next tier of home cooking for me. To suddenly find a Polish restaurant made me stop and walk in.

The owner is a friendly woman originally from Poland 25 years ago. She spent 24 years in Edmonton and has been here for the last year and opened the restaurant seven months ago. The space is nothing fancy but that does not matter where there is good food. There are only seven tables and total seating for just over 20 people. My fear is we will be seeing lineups soon enough here.

The menu was short but what I expected. Potato pancakes, cabbage rolls, perogies, and goulash were all there on the menu. I happen to love a good potato pancake and I will never get bored of goulash, so I ordered the goulash filled pancake. It came with a cup of soup to start which was wonderful, though I can not remember exactly what it was now! It was a tomato soup with orange in it, sounds a bit off, but works really well. I am going to have to consider the orange/tomato combo in cooking.

The funny thing is I just made potato pancakes and goulash for dinner on Sunday night so ordering it for lunch today allowed me a very good comparison. The meal is a single large pancake with the goulash inside it. It reminded me of the look and feel of meals I have eaten in Poland, Finland, and Estonia.

The pancake was light and crispy, better than most of the ones I made on Sunday. The goulash was mildly spicy but reminded me that a good goulash has a bite to it and I have been keeping mine too mild. The goulash was also light, though that is the wrong. My goulash on Sunday was bordering on stodgy, this was the opposite.

The potato pancake with goulash came with two small salads out of a choice of four on the menu. I chose the potato salad and the Skinny Tato salad, which is a light white cabbage based slaw.

The potato salad was the best I have ever had in my life, period. It has all the stuff I would put in a potato salad, but the results are amazing. Light and refreshing are words I would never connect with a potato salad, but that is what comes to mind when I think of it.

I am not a fan of cabbage based slaws. Whenever I get them I simply give them to Sheila but since I was alone I ate it. It was light and refreshing (yes I am repeating myself) and I could have eaten a whole bowl of it for lunch. It was the perfect rendition of a Polish style cabbage salad/slaw.

Sharlotka Cake

I had to have the desert as it was a Sharlotka cake. It is very reminiscent of the sort of cakes my Tante Nata used to make. It was good and not overly sweet and something I do not think I could make

Once again to my question of every restaurant, could I do better at home or would it be easier? No. I might be able to equal the pancake and goulash, but the soup, salads and cake are beyond what I could do.

Kefir grains

2011-09-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

I am looking for kefir grains so that I can start marking kefir yogurt again. For a couple of years I had an active kefir culture going and I enjoyed the resulting product. I even made some cheese from it.

The process is easy enough, you take the grains. put them into a canning jar with milk filled to the 3/4 mark and leave it out but not in the light. After 24 hours you have your kefir yogurt. You then strain out the grains and save them for your next batch. The stuff you just made you store in the fridge and it will keep for a few days.

The resulting product is a runny yogurt that has a strong tang to it. It works really well in any sort of drink you want to make with it or on top of things like granola. The stuff is also supposed to be wicked good for you, but that does not interest me as much as I like to eat it and work with it in my cooking.

The grains are small rubbery nodules, they are also a living bacterial culture. When you make kefir yogurt the amount of kefir grains you have increases over time, this means you have grains you can share with others. You can also kill your grains if you do not look after them properly. This is what I did and that was the end of my kefir days.

So, this is my request, if anyone out there knows of a source of kefir grains here in Victoria, please let me know so that I can go back to making kefir.

Apple Festival on Saltspring

2011-09-28T13:04:00.000-07:00

This year's Saltspring Island Organic Apple Festival is this coming Sunday and you should start at the Fulford Harbour Hall. Last year they had 296 varieties at the hall.

There are orchards opening their gates elsewhere on the island, details at the Fulford Harbour Hall.

Panel talk on Food Security

2011-09-28T11:59:00.000-07:00

This should be an interesting talk, the people involved are certainly broadminded and open to thoughts and ideas. I do find that some parts of the Food Security Movement are close minded and see this is the latest campaign to attack the "System"

A Transition Victoria Food Group Networking Event / Panel Discussion:

This will be an opportunity to network with others in Food Security, to learn about and get involved with Transition Food Group Projects, Upcoming Events and Happening .

The panel discussion theme is: "What steps can we take to be food secure?"

What are the actions to increase food security short, medium and long run that we can take?
How can we connect the groups and organizations actively promoting food security and connect to them?
What public policies do we need to support greater food security?

Panelists:

Carolyn Herriot, The Garden Path
Philippe Lucas, City of Victoria Councillor, and Victoria Downtown Public Market Society (VDPMS)
Gabe Epstein, Gorge Tillicum Urban Farmers (GTUF)
Linda Geggie, Capital Region Food and Agriculture Initiative Roundtable (CR-Fair)

Moderator: Anthony Sanna, VIVA-Raw and Ambrosia Conference and Events Centre.

Admission by donation. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Panel discussion starts at 7:15 p.m. Come early to network. Refreshments will be provided. Limited seating.

To volunteer or offer your assistance in the planning of this event, please contact Food Group Coordinator Linda Chan at 250 380 6383 or lindaschan@shaw.ca

Please feel free to offer suggestions on the types of activities and topics etc that you would like the Food Group to do in the future.

Delicious - a local Victoria TV show on Shaw

2011-09-20T18:28:00.000-07:00

Since I do not get cable, I never see local cable TV, ever. This is particularly odd for me as I am often one of the people asking questions on Voice of BC.

It was only the other day that I heard about the show from the host Aaron Hall. I know Aaron from his interest in local governance issues.

The show is called Delicious and is short episodes focusing on the food scene in this city.

Here are some of the episodes

Gluten Free Bagels

Delicious presents Gluten-free Bagels from John Quick on Vimeo.

Fernwood Bites

Delicious presents Fernwood Bites 2011 from John Quick on Vimeo.

Wannawafel

Zucchini Madness

2011-09-15T11:19:00.000-07:00

So finally the freaking zucchini plants are taking off! Now comes the age old question, what do I do with them all?

We have eaten in stews, we have grilled them, we have made them into noodles, we have eaten them raw (well Stephen has, not me). Where to now?

I could go out and give them away anonymously - drop on your drop step in the middle of the night. Sort of a drive by zucchining.

To the more serious take on all this, how can I store or preserve them for the winter? For a few years now I have been trying to come up with ways to preserve the excess zucchini but I am not having much luck in that.

I have shredded and frozen them with the intent of using the zucchini in the winter in zucchini bread, but ultimately it just sits there at the bottom of the freezer aging long enough that I end up throwing it out. I have tried drying them, but the resulting chip is bland dry and does not seem to re-hydrate well.

I have tried looking online but very little has come out of that other than what I have already done. Pickles do come up, but I am not a pickle person and zucchini pickles really do not appeal to me.

Ideas?