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Issue No. 9
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September 15, 2008
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EAT: Tapas
keeping your food news fresh
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Check it out:
THE NEW EAT WEBSITE
with original articles, provincial and world news, recipes, and more...
www.eatmagazine.ca
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event
Saturna Island Winery Harvest Celebration
Oenophiles with little ones take heart: this festival is a totally family-friendly winetasting event. Partake in jello-eating contests, potato sack races, the much-loved tug-o-war, and famous grape stomp relay race. Watch the kids lurch through a three-legged race while sipping the winery's award-winning Vintner Select Chardonnay.
Drink in the lovely Saturna scenery and try the winery's Pinot Noir, Merlot, and the rest; samplings go on all day.
September 20, 12 to 5.
For more information call 250.539.5139 or click here.
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home entertaining
Chef and Father Instructional Cooking dvd
Chef and Father is the perfect gift for parents who want to make their own baby fo od at home. Seattle-based chef Greg Johnson admits he might not be a champion with the diapers, but when it comes to creating fresh, organic food for his little girls, he's in his element. "I have been a chef for sixteen years and cooked all over the world. But nothing has matched the joy and satisfaction I received when my daughter took that first bite of mashed yams I prepared and actually seemed to enjoy it. I was hooked," writes Johnson. Families bond at the table, Johnson believes, and his video hopes to make cooking easier for parents so they can enjoy time at the table with their kids.
To learn more about Chef and Father, click here and to watch a clip of the video, click here.
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local travel
Autumn at Hastings House on Salt Spring Island
The Hastings House guest's to-do list:1. Roll out of bed w henever you feel like it and find the 'wake-up hamper' with steaming coffee and freshly baked muffin outside your door. Follow at your leisure with a hearty English Breakfast delivered to your room.2. Stroll the kitchen gardens (you'll be tasting the green and herbs growing here later), and introduce yourself to the resident grazing sheep. 3. Take your pick of outdoor activities: kayaking, fishing, touring local vineyards, or chatting by the fire if it's a rainy day.4. Treat yourself to a massage or body wrap in the peaceful spa.5. Swing by the dining room for a gourmet picnic basket if you're getting peckish, but save room for dinner on the veranda from chef Marcel Kauer. With a talent for sourcing out the freshest ingredients from local waters, vineyards, and farms, Kauer's menu changes daily reflecting the harvest. 6. Watch the stars come out over the harbour sipping wine from Hasting House's award-winning (Wine Spectator Award of Excellence) wine list featuring some local organic Salt Spring vintages.7. After such a busy day you'll want to retire to your unique room in one of the guest cottages or the refurbished barn. 8. Write note to self: extend stay.
To reserve a room or learn more about Hastings House click here. (While you're on the website, be sure to check out their slideshow set to Vivaldi's Autumni and read about the inn's rich history.
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beer of the week
Cherry Wit, Wildwood Brewing
Last weekend I stood in line among men dressed in chaps and lederhosen at the Great Canadian Beer Festival held in Victoria. With a personal mission to try things that weren't local (I can try those anytime -and do), I wittled my favourites down to Wildwood Brewing of Calgary's Cherry Wit. It was one of few fruit-inspired beers to actually taste just like the fruit, not a syrupy simulation thereof. With a pure sour cherry tartness and a smooth, buttery finish, the Cherry Wit was perfect for sipping while sitting back and marveling at male fashion choices.
Visit the Wildwood Brewing website.
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book
A Stew or a Story, an Assortment of Short Works
by MFK Fisher
Elegant, acutely intelligent, and alive with joie de vivre, MFK Fisher's writing has warmed and charmed readers for decades. Born in 1908 with a life rooted in California and peppered by many years spent in Europe, Fisher's writing mostly leaned toward the gastronomic and appeared in Atlantic Monthly, Gourmet, Harper's Bazaar, The New Yorker, and Vogue.
A Stew or a Story is a fine collection of essays and articles including "In Nice, Snacking in the Flower Market," "The Midnight Egg and Other Revivers," and "Through a Glass Darkly." In "Made, With Love, By Hand" she writes "Perhaps the most basic form of preparing food for loved people, after breaking an egg, is to bake bread. It is also one of the most therapeutic in a culture increasingly mechanized...A telephone will seem relatively worth ignoring if it rings at the worst possible moment for scraping the soft dough off of fingers, wrists, arms." Fisher's prose has much the same affect; you'll find yourself wanting to savour it slowly, mull over her words, and ignore any interruptions.
A Stew or a Story is available at Plenty, and can be ordered through the Cadboro Bay Book Company, Blackberry Books, and Barbara Jo's Books for Cooks.
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in season
The Beet
"The beet," begins Tom Robbins' Jitterbug Perfume, "is the most intense of vegetables. The
radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a
cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty
enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity.
Beets are deadly serious..."
Going on to compare the beet to Rasputin, Robbins waxes poetic on the beet's powerful structure and hue. And it's true; what other vegetable stains your hands a deep purple when you try to grate it into a simple salad? But what other vegetable, when pickled and jarred glows like a ruby from the shelf? As the beet can be a somewhat intimidating cooking partner, below are a few simple rules for storage, handling, and flavour pairing; followed by a delicate recipe that employs baby beets (far less intimidating and a little less serious).
storage
- cut off the greens leaving an inch of stem, but leave rootlets (or 'tails') in tact
- keep greens unwashed and refrigerated in a closed plastic bag
- they'll keep for several weeks, but sweetness diminishes with time so try to use them within a week
handling
- scrub beets well just before cooking and remove any scraggly leaves or rootlets. If your recipe calls for raw beets, peel them with a knife or peeler, then grate or cut them according to your needs.
partners for beets
- allspice, basil, caraway, cilantro, coriander, cumin, curry, dill, fennel, ginger, horseradish, lemonbalm, mint, nutmeg, parsley, tarragon
- citrus juice, mustard oil, olive oil, prepared mustard, vinegar
- butter, cream, yogurt
Tips on cooking with beets from Farmer John's Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables. Find beets at your local farmers' market or at grocer's near you that carries local vegetables.
Jitterbug Perfume, by Tim Robbins, available at most used and new bookstores.
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recipe
Lemon-spiced goat cheese, Baby beets and Organic salad greens
f rom Hastings House Country Estate
½ cup plain soft goat cheese
2 tsp lemon zest
4 teaspoons olive oil
6 baby beets
1 cup fresh organic mixed salad greens
Chive oil (see below for recipe)
Edible flowers for garnish
In a small bowl, mix goat cheese, lemon zest and olive oil.
Boil baby beets for 10 - 15 minutes until tender and allow to cool. Using a small knife, peel the beets by gently scraping off the outside layer. Cut beets in half lengthways.
Toss mixed greens in a little olive oil and chive oil.
To serve:
For each plate, take one quarter of the goat cheese and with your hands shape into a round flat disc about 1 ½" high. On top, place three beet halves, salad greens and edible flowers. Drizzle with chive oil.
Makes 4 appetizer servings.
Chive oil
Handful of fresh chives
¼ cup canola oil
Blanch chives in salted boiling water. Remove and place in a bowl of ice water. Once cool, puree chives and oil in a blender. Strain through a very fine sieve and store in an airtight glass or ceramic container until ready to use.
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the Tapas bulletin board
Vancouver
At
Chef Meets Grape, some of Vancouver's most beloved chefs will create
miniature dishes to complement vintages from 35 of BC's eclectic
bouquet of wineries. Cast your vote for best pair in the People's
Choice Award and compare it to Judge's Choice. Sept. 18, Rocky
Mountaineer Station, 1755 Cottrell St., Vancouver. Click here for more details including a list of VQA's where you can purchase tickets.
On
Sept. 20, West, Gastropod, Cru, Fuel, Chow, and La Quercia will each
set a table for six and serve dinner on the house in honour of UBC
Farm's contribution to the city of Vancouver. Under threat of
development, you can help support the farm by chowing down at this
fundraiser organized by Farmstead Wines and Barbara Jo's Books for Cooks. Click here for more details.
Look
sharp at the Knife Skills class at Barbara Jo's Books for Cooks. On
Sept. 20 at 10:30 am, Chef Glenys Morgan will lead a hands-on workshop
on all the basic knife cuts plus valuable tips on wielding a knife like
a pro. Kitchen tool expert John Puddifoot will demonstrate proper
sharpening and care. Cost $165.
Vancouver Island
Share Organics, Food Roots, and LifeCycles are moving in together and
throwing a housewarming, Sept. 14 at their new place at 625 Hillside
Avenue, Victoria. These three groups have been planting schoolyard
gardens, delivering local produce, creating pocket markets, throwing
feasts, and using fallen fruit for years. They are a large part of the
foundation of Victoria's enlightened gastronomic scene. Show your
thanks and partake in cake and a corn-roasting with live music to boot.
Mela's
Tearoom in Victoria will be hosting a series of 'Autumal Soirees' with
an eclectic selection of culinary topics. The first, "Understanding
Original International Prints" will be held Sept. 25. Find the Tearoom
in the Winchester Galleries, 796 Humboldt St. Call 250.382.7750 for
more information.
Going to the ball? Choose an authentic Venetian mask from the Tuscan Kitchen for Victoria's Masquerade Ball on Sept. 27 at the Empress. 5% of all mask sales go to UNICEF. For more information on the masquerade ball, click here.
Haro's Restaurant and Bar pairs up with Kettle Valley Winery for a dinner of autumn's bounty and Kettle Valley's famously dark, intense red wines. Kettle Valley is a small, family-run, farm-based winery in the Naramata region. Haro's executive chef Gordon O'Neill will be sourcing from local farmers and producers for the event. Sept. 25 at Haro's.
With Chef Bill Jones of Deerholme Farm as your guide, forage for wild mushrooms and learn to cook an Italian Wild Mushroom Feast. On the menu: Wild mushroom soup with roasted squash gnocchi and Hunter-style red wine braised rabbit and chanterelle cannelloni with a white truffle and parmesan cream sauce. The first dinner is Sept. 20, call Bill at 250.748.7450 for registration.
Islands
Salt Spring Island Apple Festival. The apples are the stars of this show, with over 300 varieties out for tasting, including the jewel-toned red flesh fruits and heirlooms dating back to 1860. Theatrical performances by Johnny Appleseed, the Queen and Captain Apple give the festival a distinctly Salt Spring feel. For more information click here.
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EAT Magazine
Box 5225 Victoria, British Columbia V8R 6N4
www.eatmagazine.ca
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