Eat magazine september | october 2014

EAT Magazine September_Oct 2014_Victoria_56_Layout 1 8/25/14 2:15 PM Page 1

RESTAURANTS | RECIPES | WINES | FOOD | TRAVEL ®

Smart. Local. Delicious.

SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER

l 2014 | Issue 18-05 | FREE | eatmagazine.ca

easy as pie Bordelaise Sausage ‘n Bacon Pot Pies

CELEBRATING

15 YEARS OF GOOD FOOD & DRINK

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EAT MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

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Smart. Local. Delicious.

content Articles

Colin Hynes

Concierge Desk . . . . . . . 05 Get Fresh . . . . . . . . . . . .08

Behind the Scenes: Photographer Rebecca Wellman shoots an appetizer for the Dinner at the Farm spread. Pg. 28

Food Matters . . . . . . . . . .09 Good For You . . . . . . . . .10 Epicure At Large . . . . . . .11 Community . . . . . . . . . .12 Beer & a Bite . . . . . . . . . .13 Reporter . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Eating Well For Less . . . .18 Top 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24 Dinner at the Farm . . . . .28 Fermentation . . . . . . . . .36 Local Kitchen . . . . . . . . .38 Okanagan Wine . . . . . . .42 Vincabulary . . . . . . . . . .46 Wine + Terroir . . . . . . . .48 Wine & Food Pairing . . .50 Liquid Assets . . . . . . . . . .51 The Buzz . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 What the Pros Know . . .54

Founder and Editor in Chief Gary Hynes Contributing Editor Carolyn Bateman Vancouver Contributing Editor Julie Pegg DRINK Editor Treve Ring Assistant Editor Colin Hynes Senior Wine Writer Larry Arnold Art Director Gary Hynes Web Editors Cynthia Annett, Jon Johnson Advertising Sales: 250-384-9042, editor@eatmagazine.ca Regional Reporters Tofino | Ucluelet: Jen Dart, Vancouver: Tim Pawsey, Okanagan: Jeannette Montgomery, Victoria: Rebecca Baugniet | Cowichan Valley-Up Island: Kirsten Tyler Contributors Larry Arnold, Joseph Blake, Michelle Bouffard, Holly Brooke, Adam Cantor, Cinda Chavich, John Crawford, Jennifer Danter, Pam Durkin, Gillie Easdon, Jeremy Ferguson, Colin Hynes, Jon Johnson, Sol Kaufman, Tracey Kusiewicz, Sophie MacKenzie, Sherri Martin, Danika McDowell, Jeannette Montgomery, Elizabeth Monk, Michaela Morris, Simon Nattrass, Elizabeth Nyland, Tim Pawsey, Julie Pegg, Treve Ring, Kaitlyn Rosenburg, Michael Tourigny, Sylvia, Weinstock, Rebecca Wellman.

Publisher Pacific Island Gourmet | EAT ® is a registered trademark.

Advertising: 250.384.9042, editor@eatmagazine.ca Mailing address: Box 5225, Victoria, BC, V8R 6N4 Tel: 250.384.9042 Email: editor@eatmagazine.ca Website: eatmagazine.ca

Entertaining Al Fresco

Cheese Board 101 Number and styles of cheese to serve To create interest, serve at least five different types of cheese.

To ensure each cheese stands out, select those with different shapes, colours, textures and flavours.

As a guide, try to include: • a soft and creamy cheese, such as goat cheese • a semisoft cheese, such as Brie, Boursin, Chevrai or Bocconcini • firmer cheeses, such as aged Balderson • a rich and tangy blue cheese • a special flavoured cheese, such as Kaltbach Swiss Cave Aged Gruyere.

Setting up the cheese board

Since 1998 | EAT Magazine is published six times each year. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher. Although every effort is taken to ensure accuracy, Pacific Island Gourmet Publishing cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions that may occur.

All opinions expressed in the articles are those of the writers and not necessarily those of the publisher. Pacific Island Gourmet reserves the right to refuse any advertisement. All rights reserved.

Unwrap your cheeses and set on the board 90 minutes before serving. Warming them to room temperature will bring out their full flavours. During that process, cover the cheeses loosely; this will, like good wine, still allow the cheese to breathe, but not allow it to dry out.

Cover photography by Michael Tourigny

To prevent the intermingling of flavours, when setting the cheeses on the board, make sure there’s space between each type. Also have a different serving knife for each type of cheese.

Facebook/EatMagazine twitter.com/EatMagazine EAT is delivered to over 300 pick-up locations in BC including Victoria & Vancouver, Vancouver Island.

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Customer Care: 1.800.667.8280 • thriftyfoods.com www.eatmagazine.ca SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

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Globally Inspired.

Local Flavour.

Camille`s @ 45 Bastion Square Victoria, BC 250-381-3433 www.camillesrestaurant.com

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EAT MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

Saturday.

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CONCIERGE

By Rebecca Baugniet

September

TUESDAY NIGHT SUMMER BBQ AT THE SQUAMISH LIL'WAT CULTURAL CENTRE (SQUAMISH) Complete your trip to Whistler with a First Nations BBQ dinner & tour of the awardwinning Squamish Líl'wat Cultural Centre for a truly First Nations experience. Every Tuesday from 5-8pm until Sept 23. BBQ dinner includes: Fresh Baked Bannock; Cedar Plank West Coast Salmon Filet with Maple Glaze; Buffalo Smokies; Sage and Garlic Chicken; Seasonal Grain or Potato Salad; Mixed Baby Greens with Blueberry Maple Vinaigrette; Wild Rice & Barley Mushroom Pilaf; Mixed Berry Crumble; Coffee, Tea & Non-Alcohol Beverages. Some dates sold out. (www.slcc.ca) THE GREAT CANADIAN BEER FESTIVAL (VICTORIA) The Great Canadian Beer Festival has become one of the worlds' must-attend beer events. People from all over the globe seek out Victoria and the GCBF every year; the

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event attracts brewers from Australia, volunteers from England and beer lovers from

all over. In support of C-Fax Santa's Anonymous, the GCBF will be held Sept 5 – 6.

(www.gcbf.com) SAVOUR COWICHAN FESTIVAL (COWICHAN VALLEY) A delicious, delectable and exciting event with over forty artisan food and drink producers from the Cowichan Valley region, hosting more than fifty epicurean events over 10 days. Guests will have opportunities to explore and sample wines, ciders, spirits and beer of the region with barrel tastings, winery & cider tours and new releases. Participate behind the scenes; meet master winemakers, cider makers, brewmasters and the sommeliers that love them. Sept 26-Oct 5. (www.tourismcowichan.com/festivals-events/savourcowichan-festival/)

FEAST OF FIELDS (METRO VANCOUVER AND VANCOUVER ISLAND) Metro Vancouver’s Feast of Fields is taking place at Bremner’s Farm (Home of Wellbrook Winery) this year on Sept. 7. Vancouver Island’s Feast of Fields will be held at Kildara Farm, Sept. 14. The event highlights the connections between producer and chef, field and table, and farm folks and city folks. This is a gastronomic journey towards a sustainable, local food system. $95 or $15 for children’s tickets. www.feastoffields.com.

MADRONA FARM’S CHEF SURVIVAL CHALLENGE (VICTORIA & SHAWIGAN) The 7th Annual Chef Survival Challenge will take place at Madrona Farm on Sunday, Sept 7. Tickets are $40 per person/ $100 per family, and are now available on the website and at the Madrona Farm Vegetable Stand, 4217 Blenkinsop Road. Cheer on the region's finest chefs as they compete to find the best ingredients on the farm, then bid on the meals they create. Prizes and gift certificates from participating restaurants will be given away as well. This year, the Chef Survival Challenge will be heading to Shawnigan’s O.U.R. Ecovilllage on Oct 5. Visit the website for more info. (www.chefsurvivalchallenge.com) BEST CATCH SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD FESTIVAL (RICHMOND) The third annual Best Catch Sustainable Seafood Festival will be held Sept 14. Hosted by the Gulf of Georgia Cannery, this free community event promotes the value of making ocean-friendly seafood choices. The festival features live cooking demonstrations,

canning

workshops,

live

music,

children's

activities

and

more.

(www.bestcatchfestival.org) CONT’D TOP OF THE NEXT PAGE

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Editor’s Note I love the September light. It’s a clear but warm, golden coloured light – a photographer’s dream. I spent many Vancouver Island Feast of Fields wandering around the grounds with my old Nikon taking pictures of the chefs and all the wonderful food. The photos always looked so good, so appetizing.

It seemed you only had to aim the camera and the results were amazing. One year I was in the Okanagan at a chef’s potluck dinner set way up in a pinot noir vineyard overlooking the lake.

We ate, drank and talked for hours. The setting and view were spectacular. Again, that clear, golden fall light set the mood perfectly. I have the pictures to remind me of how beautiful it was it.

This year I’m looking forward to another gorgeous September when the days are sunny and still warm, and it’s once again festival season in BC. There are many new food events now. Of course, there’s still the venerable Feast of Fields, taking place this year at Kildara

HAND-CRAFTED BREAD MADE WITH FRESHLY STONE-MILLED FLOUR AND ONLY CERTIFIED ORGANIC OR SUSTAINABLY GROWN LOCAL INGREDIENTS .

NATURALLY LEAVENED AND BAKED TO CRUSTY PERFECTION IN WOOD-FIRED BRICK OVENS.

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EAT MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

Farm in Saanich and in Vancouver at Wellbrooke Winery. But there is also the wildly popular Brewery and Beast at Phillips Brewery, Sip and Savour Salt Spring Island, Flavour Gourmet Picnic in the Comox Valley, Savour Cowichan and in the Okanagan the Fall Wine Festival. In addition, there are many small food and wine events sprinkled around the province. We truly have it good here in BC. To celebrate the bounty and the fall season, EAT hosted our own al fresco dinner at Starling Lane, a farm and former winery. We invited EAT friends to cook and to share and our own Rebecca Wellman photographed the event in all its culinary glory. Check out the spread and try a few of the recipes.

I invite you to turn the pages of our fall issue and discover all the wonderful things going on around here. You might even bring along your own camera when you go to them, and create some amazing reminders yourself. If you do, send us your best food pics. We’ll create a page on our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/EATmagazine) to show off all the best ones. Send your photos to editor@eatmagazine.ca with the subject line EAT Fall Photos. —Gary Hynes, Editor.

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FEAST PORTLAND (PORTLAND, OREGON) Sept 18-21. At EAT HQ Feast Portland is one of the most talked about festivals we attend. Considered the “flagship food & drink of the Pacific Northwest” it’s a 4-day showcase for Portland’s food cumminity with large-scale tastings, intimate sit-down dinners, hands-on classes, live culinary demonstrations, thought-provoking speakers, and industry get-togethers. You gotta go. (feastportland.com) SIP AND SAVOUR SALT SPRING (SALT SPRING ISLAND) The 4th annual edition of this festival shines the spotlight on the natural abundance of Salt Spring Island. On Sept 19-21, Sip & Savour Salt Spring unites growers, food producers, chefs and vintners from Salt Spring Island and the Vancouver Island

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region with local and BC vintners in mélanges a trois of culinary magic.

(www.sipandsavoursaltspring.com) VICTORIA WINE FESTIVAL (VICTORIA) Over twenty wineries will be represented at the inaugural Victoria Wine Festival, taking place at the Parkside Hotel and Spa on Sep 26.

SEE PAGE 45 FOR MORE INFO.

2014 APPLE FESTIVAL (SALT SPRING) The Salt Spring Island Apple Festival is an incredible little community event, attracting about 1500 apple lovers, celebrating the apples (and food) of Salt Spring Island and connecting you with the farms and farmers that produce this very special diversity of tasty, healthy food. Spring's apple history dates back to 1860. Sept 28, 9am – 5pm. (www.saltspringapplefestival.com)

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October THE ART OF THE COCKTAIL (VICTORIA) The Art of the Cocktail is a special weekend-long event fundraiser for the Victoria Film Festival. The Grand Cocktail Tasting returns and public tastings and special events will be held from Oct 4-6. (www.artofthecocktail.ca).

BC WINE AWARDS RECEPTION & TASTING (FRASER VALLEY) A phenomenal way to launch the Fall Okanagan Wine Festival. Be the first to see who wins at the annual British Columbia Wine Awards and have the rare opportunity to taste the best of British Columbia wines first hand. There are only 100 tickets available so book early. Speak to winemakers, savour local foods, and sip your way through a great evening. This is a Get Home Safe event, sponsored by BC Liquor Stores and Valley First Insurance. Oct 1 (www.thewinefestivals.com) FALL OKANAGAN WINE FESTIVAL (OKANAGAN) With signature events happening at wineries and other venues across the Okanagan from Oct 3-13, this is a great way to get acquainted with the region USA Today just named the world’s second best wine region to visit. (thewinefestivals.com) 22nd ANNUAL BITE OF NANAIMO (NANAIMO) Oct. 17 from 4pm- 9pm at the Beban Park Auditorium. The Bite is TheatreOne's biggest annual fundraiser and Nanaimo's original gourmet food fair, featuring the city’s best local restaurants, pubs, bakeries and cafés. (www.theatreone.org).

GOLD MEDAL PLATES (VICTORIA) This celebration of Canadian Excellence in food, wine, entertainment and athletics is held in 11 Canadian cities and has raised over $7.4 million to date for Canada's Olympic athletes. This year’s event will be held this year on Oct 30 at the Victoria Conference Centre. Tickets are available now. (www.goldmedalplates.com)

ONGOING & UP AHEAD MOSS STREET MARKET (VICTORIA) The big news is that the market, now in its 23rd year, is going year round. The regular season goes from May through October, every Saturday, 10am to 2pm and the winter markets will be held November through April, every Saturday, 10am to noon, in the Garry Oak Room CORNUCOPIA (WHISTLER) Whistler's annual wine and food extravaganza, Nov 6-16 (www.whistlercornucopia.com)

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EAT SPECIAL PROMOTION

GET FRESH

The SoBo Cookbook: Recipes from the Tofino Restaurant at the End of the Canadian Road Author: Lisa Ahier

T

he iconic city of Tofino is

recognized up and down the west coast (and beyond) as

the ultimate surf destination. Its gorgeous beaches and myriad surf shops are what spring to mind when one first hears the name. But there’s more to be loved about Tofino than just the surfing.

Enter SoBo. What started out as a food truck, before food trucks had really exploded into the mainstream, hidden away behind—you guessed it—a surf shop, has since grown into its own full on restaurant. Chef Lisa Ahier hit on a taste that locals and tourists alike just couldn’t get enough of. Now, like Tofino itself, people recognize the name SoBo far and wide, and travel from all over just have take a bite themselves. In a natural next step for this west coast success story, Ahier has now published some of her best recipes in The SoBo Cookbook: Recipes from the Tofino Restaurant at the End of the Canadian Road. While there’s no reproducing the expert touch that Ahier puts into her work, or the charming atmosphere of SoBo restaurant’s home in central Tofino, SoBo lovers can now bring a little piece of SoBo flavour home with them. From Surfer Noodle Soup, to the Rhubarb Custard Pie (which Bolen Books’ own Colin Holt declares to be “worth the price of the book itself”), these unique and delicious dishes are sure to be instant favourites. And with recipes for breakfast, dessert, and everything in between, Ahier has made sure that this book covers all the bases.

Hubbard Squash

By Sylvia Weinstock

Winter Squash Winter squash is a fall fave for everything from curries to cupcakes.

AS I WRITE THIS in early July, the three types of winter squash I planted in late spring are burgeoning into healthy plants with beautiful yellow flowers and enormous green leaves. This is the first time I’ve grown squash, and watching these plants grow by leaps and bounds every day has been a delight. I planted each one in its own huge barrel, placed in the sunniest spots in my vegetable garden, and enriched their beds with compost and organic fertilizer. The Baby Blue Hubbard and Table Queen acorn squash plants (grown from West Coast Seeds’ seeds) have already filled their barrels to the brim. The Uchiki Red Kuri has run amok, overflowing its container and producing six-foot-long stems that jut out every which way.

While I wait for the harvest, I dream of dishes I’ll prepare with the succulent squash flesh. My squash reveries often centre on soup. I’ll give it a Thai twist with coconut milk, grated gingerroot for some sparkle, chilies to spice up the broth and balance the sweetness of the squash and coconut milk, and some homegrown garlic. Along with a mirepoix of carrots, celery and my homegrown Spanish onions, I may add a peeled, cored apple from my apple tree. After the soup has simmered, I’ll puree it to a silky smooth consistency.

I’ll make spicy West African squash peanut soup with onions caramelized in peanut oil, jalapeño peppers, peanuts, garlic, carrots, celery and numerous spices, including coriander, hot paprika, cumin, cinnamon and cloves. The scent is so divine, I’m thinking of dabbing some behind my ears as perfume.

When my pears, onions and acorn squash are ready, I’ll make Heidi Fink’s Golden Harvest Soup from Island Chefs’ Collaborative’s On the Flavour Trail (Touchwood Editions, 2013). The cookbook has several other enticing squash recipes.

Instead of the usual brown sugar/ butter combo, I’ll slather squash halves with peach butter (made with pureed cooked peaches, lemon juice and sugar) sprinkle them with nutmeg, salt and pepper, and bake them for 45 minutes at 400 F. The sweetness and moist texture of squash is ideal for cupcakes, tarts, custards, bread puddings, cakes and other desserts. Squash can be used to replace pumpkin or sweet potatoes in many recipes.

These versatile, nutritious vegetable-fruits, with their radiant autumnal yellow and orange colours, will brighten up your sweet and savoury fall dishes. E

She’s even included profiles of some of the producers responsible for the locally sourced ingredients that go into SoBo’s mouthwatering food.

On top of the fantastic recipes, The SoBo Cookbook includes a collection of

Butternut Squash and Black Bean Burritos

photography by local outdoor photographer Jeremy Koreski to help capture the Tofino spirit. After all, that spirit is an important part of what SoBo is, and it

Makes 4 burritos

comes through in every bite.

The SoBo Cookbook: Recipes from the Tofino Restaurant at the End of the Canadian Road is available at Bolen Books for $29.95.

111-1644 Hillside Ave., Victoria www.bolen.bc.ca (250) 595-4232

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EAT MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

1 medium butternut squash, peeled and cubed 1 1/2 cups cooked short grain brown rice 2 tsp olive oil 1 cup chopped Walla Walla onions 2 garlic cloves, minced 1 sweet red pepper, chopped 1 tsp kosher salt 2 tsp ground cumin 1/4 tsp cayenne 1 15-oz can black beans, drained and rinsed 3/4 cup cheese, grated 4 large tortilla wraps

Preheat oven to 425 F. Place squash on a baking sheet lined with tinfoil. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast for 45 minutes until tender. Remove from the oven.

In a large sauté pan over medium-low heat, add oil, onion, and garlic. Sauté for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add salt and spices and stir well. Stir in chopped red pepper, black beans and rice, and sauté 10 minutes on low heat. Add 1 ½ cups of squash to the pan and mash it with a fork to break it into smaller pieces. Stir to combine all ingredients. Add cheese and place a lid on the pan until it melts. Place filling in each tortilla. Top with avocado slices, salsa, sour cream and/or cilantro if desired. Wrap up slice in half, and serve.

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FOOD MATTERS

By Julie Pegg

Knowing Your Onions

HOTELGRANDPACIFIC.COM | 250.380.4458 |

FIND US ON

Julie Pegg delves into the types and uses of the humble onion.

THE INSPIRATION FOR THIS COLUMN came from a Walla Walla onion gently massaged with a scant teaspoon of fine olive oil, enclosed in tinfoil and placed in a 400-degree oven for 40 minutes. The onion, near collapse, had released a clear juice.

I spooned the liquid over the golden orb, added a dash of cracked pepper and a few crystals of salt. It was a sweet epiphany. A repeat performance was accompanied by marinated grilled and sliced flank steak (also economical) a few days later with equal gustatory pleasure.

I love onions but until recently didn’t give them much thought. It was a matter of choosing among yellow, red or white. The first I cooked; the second and third I used most often raw, in salsas and salads.

Lately though I had become curious about the odd shapes of onions I’ve spied at farmers’ markets in the past couple of years—the red “torpedoes” and those that looked like they’ve been squashed with a back of a frying pan. And what made that Walla Walla so sweetly different?

A snoop into Wikipedia disclosed that the Walla Walla’s original seed hailed from Corsica and its gentle sweetness is due to its low sulfur content. (The same applies to the Vidalia.) Further investigation into The Complete Book of Fruits and Vegetables (Crown Publishers 1976) revealed much more. Treated as a vegetable, the bulb is, botanically, an herb, genus Allium and a member of the lily family. The red “torpedo” onion is actually the “Florence long.” Flavourful yet mild, I found it delightful raw or gently cooked (believe me red onions can be as eye-watering to cut into as their yellow cousins.) Deborah Madison (The Savory Way, Bantam 1990) recommends using the torpedo in her Red Onion Tian recipe. The onion far outweighs the tomatoes, peppers, thyme, even the six cloves of garlic called for. Slow-baked, the mixture is served either warm or cold, piled on top of grilled polenta or on grilled bread lathered with garlic mayonnaise. The “flat” onions are cippolini (borrettane) whose original roots lie in Emilia-Romagna. Not surprisingly, they suit being pickled in balsamic vinegar, also native to the region.

It seems the common cooking onion, also of Italian heritage is close relative of, the Milan coppery and remains my go-to onion. In this case it’s a matter of knowing what to do with your onions. As long as the bulb is firm and fresh it is perfectly fine for cooking or pickling. (I seek out small round onions for pickling—or peel away a few layers of a larger bulb) The onion for me has always gone hand in hand with cheese. (As a kid I used to smother cheesy casseroles with French’s French Fried Onions.)

Nowadays I love a cauliflower gratin smothered with caramelized onions, which, since I’m on the subject, also do wonders for a pizza. My favourite grilled cheese? Slices of granary bread stuffed with English farmhouse cheese and lots of caramelized onion jam. Onion jam is simply a whack of sliced onions slowly sweated over low heat in vinegar or wine or (my preference) sherry, maybe some stock with a smatter of thyme and sugar until the whole lot becomes golden brown, soft and sticky.

Rarely seen about these parts and utterly delicious is egg, bacon and onion pie—a sort of chunky Anglo quiche. Salt and peppered eggs, barely whisked, are poured over thick slices of fried bacon and onion. I, of course, like to toss in a handful of cheddar.

Hands down, though, the French have the ayes for the best cheese/onion combo— onion soup. What’s not to like about digging through layers of melted Gruyere cheese and toasted bread to get to a savoury broth filled with dark sweet onion? I make a rich stock from roasted beef bones, to which I add a few sprigs of fresh rosemary (or thyme) and red wine (some pundits swear by chicken stock and white wine). The onions, (admittedly the large, mildly sweet Spanish onion is best but not vital) browned ohso-slowly in a well-seasoned cast-iron pan, need only a little assistance from butter. I opt for quality Gruyere, but on the rare occasion I make onion soup on a whim with commercial broth, I’ll resort to grating whatever I have about—Swiss, Gouda, Fontina… because really, it’s all about getting to know my onions. E

WWW.OUGHTRED.COM www.eatmagazine.ca SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

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GOOD FOR YOU

By Pam Durkin

Going to Seed

For those not yet seed-savvy, here are Pam Durkin’s top five “good-for-you” seeds, guaranteed to enhance both your health and your culinary creations.

THEY MAY BE TINY IN SIZE, but they’re making a big splash on the culinary scene.

“Super-seeds” are becoming increasingly popular and are frequently the star ingredient in everything from breads to smoothies and desserts. And there’s good reason—super-seeds offer enormous nutritional benefits and a wealth of delicious tastes and textures.

CHIA Once a staple in the diets of the Mayans, chia seeds are now enjoying a renaissance thanks to their amazing nutritional profile. The diminutive seeds are teeming with essential nutrients like protein, calcium, iron, omega-3 fatty acids and diseasefighting antioxidants. A mere ounce contains 42 percent of the recommended daily intake (RDI) for fibre, more omega-3s than an ounce of salmon and 18 percent of the RDI for calcium. Studies indicate chia’s powerhouse mix of nutrients can help stabilize blood sugar and lower cholesterol, making them a potential weapon in the battle against heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. Try adding chia to salads, grain dishes, cereals—or to thicken yogurt or juice into a pudding.

FLAX Once used only to make paint, flax has enjoyed newfound fame as a “health food.” The moniker is fitting. Flax is the plant world’s richest source of a group of cancer-fighting compounds called lignans. In addition, they are chock-full of omega3 fatty acids, which can help stave off heart disease and improve cognitive function.

Furthermore, recent research suggests flax seeds may help reverse kidney damage and fight bacterial and fungal infections. One important factor to consider before using flax—the seeds must be ground to release their nutrients. The ground seeds add a nutty taste and texture to all sorts of baked goods and are scrumptious mixed into cereal or yogurt!

HEMP You won’t get high chowing down on hemp seeds, but you certainly will enhance your health. These mildly flavoured seeds are loaded with vitamin E, calcium, iron, phosphorous and zinc. In addition, they have a perfect 3:1 omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acid ratio. What’s more, one of the dominant omega-6 fats in hemp is GLA—a fatty acid renowned for reducing inflammation and improving skin texture.

Another unique characteristic of hemp seeds is that they contain all essential amino acids, making them a valuable protein source for vegetarians. Their “pine-nut-like” flavour makes them an excellent addition to pestos, salads, smoothies, energy bars and even desserts.

PUMPKIN Pumpkin seeds have been a popular snack in many countries for centuries. However, only recently have scientists discovered the bevy of nutrients— some in unrivalled amounts—that the jade-coloured seeds contain. These truly “super” seeds are an excellent source of antioxidants, B vitamins, iron, magnesium, zinc, protein and heart-healthy monounsaturated fats. In fact, just one ounce of pumpkin seeds contains more protein than an ounce of meat, 30 percent of the RDI for iron and a host of free-radical-fighting antioxidants, including carotenoids, polyphenols and plant sterols. Their slightly smoky flavour renders them super in the kitchen too. In Africa, the ground seeds are commonly used to thicken soups and stews, but they’re also a delight in pasta dishes, pestos and as a coating for various filets.

SESAME Eastern cultures have touted the benefits of sesame seeds for thousands of years. Modern science has now confirmed this ancient wisdom. Research reveals the oval-shaped seeds are abundant in health-enhancing Vitamin B1, copper, manganese, calcium, phosphorous, magnesium, iron, selenium and zinc. In addition, they contain more phytosterols than any other seed or nut and play host to two unique lignans— sesamin and sesamolin. These two astounding compounds can help lower blood pressure and cholesterol, increase serum Vitamin E levels and knockout cancer cells.

Thankfully, all this nutrition comes in a delicious package. Sesame seeds elevate the flavour of rice dishes, breads, stir-fries, baked goods and more. Their distinct flavour also shines in the seed butter called tahini or in the Middle Eastern treat halvah. E

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EPICURE AT LARGE

By Jeremy Ferguson

Octopi Victoria

The cephalopods octopus and squid make for delicious smart food.

IMAGINE (BUT WE CAN’T, CAN WE?) the evolutionary cirque about 550 million years ago: primordial crustaceans—worms, not oysters and scallops—were being eliminated. But one branch of the family learned to survive and grow by liberating itself from its shell. Its contemporary descendents are the cephalopods, most notably the octopus and squid.

Of all the mollusks in all the seas, none are more intelligent than these two, with their large heads, muscular tentacles and capacity to unleash an ink sac in repulsing predators.

But there’s still more to this wondrous evolution, especially in the case of the littleunderstood octopus: it can change both colour and texture, camouflaging itself in less than a second. Its ink contains tyrosinase, a compound that impairs a predator’s senses.

It can taste and possibly see with its tentacles, and its eyes are almost identical to ours.

It also shares such human characteristics as emotions and individual personalities.

With its eight “arms” or tentacles, an octopus can kick-start your sense of wonder with any one of them.

Our local is the giant Pacific octopus. The largest on record weighed 272 kilograms and measured 9.1 metres across. According to the Seattle Aquarium, it can use its hard beak so forcefully, a full-grown octopus can squeeze through a hole the size of a lemon.

Smart food.

So at every sitting we question the ethics of consuming a creature so intelligent, so mysterious. But then come the aromas, and it’s c’est la vie, baby.

Koreans eat their octopus raw (squirm at National Geographic’s video at http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/skorea-liveoctopus-pp). Southeast Asians eat it with fish sauce and lime. The Japanese serve it as sashimi, often with the texture of a soccer ball. Greeks and Italians prefer it grilled over charcoal, the happiest of marriages. Canadians usually run away from it.

Happily, Victoria celebrates cephalopod royalty: from day one, local chef Peter Zambri has offered an “octopus of the day,” showcasing the versatility of the species.

The Globe and Mail fell hard for Zambri’s octopus marinated in vegetable broth, dredged in cornstarch and flash-fried to astonishing tenderness and delicacy.

Both Foo Asian Street Food and Ulla are noted for their imaginative octopus salads.

And if what’s happening south of the border inevitably comes our way, look forward to octopus terrine, confit and risotto.

Want to give it a whirl? FAS in James Bay almost always has it. It’s a by-catch, explains spokesperson Carmel Curtis. It gets into the company’s prawn traps, is frozen at sea and sells for about $9 a pound in the Victoria store.

Google turns up recipes to tickle every palate. It calls for tenderizing: slow cooking for an hour or so seems to do the trick. Just don’t overcook or it’ll be tougher than a Tibetan yak.

Squid is a different story. It’s been a gastro-fave on this continent ever since it took on the Italian “calamari” and arrived as an excuse to eat batter, grease and salt (yer ’umble scribe has been known to succumb, too).

But not all squid flies out of the deep-fryer: I’ve eaten boiled squid intestines for breakfast in Japan; it was like chewing a garden rake. The best squid I’ve ever encountered was in Spain’s Basque country, where a chef named Jesus produced a miracle of minced baby squids huddled in a swell of ink sauce black as tar.

Why don’t we see fresh squid here? “Our waters are too cold,” says Ken Norbury, owner of Sidney’s excellent Satellite Fish Co. “There’s just not enough for a commercial industry. What comes in is used for halibut bait.”

To try squid at its freshest and best, you’ll have to go to Seattle, to the super Vietnamese restaurant Monsoon, run by Vietnam-born, Edmonton-raised Eric Banh.

A signature dish is fresh baby squid from Monterey Bay. Bahn stuffs the toddlers with minced duck, grills them over charcoal and accents with five-spice, basil and shiitake mushrooms. It’s so good you want to return before you’ve left. E

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1528 Whiffen Spit Road, Sooke, BC Tel: 250-642-3421 www.eatmagazine.ca SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

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The whole beast

COMMUNITY

Growing Chefs

The Vancouver-based program is connecting school kids with local chefs and food growers for a transformative classroom experience.

I.C.C

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EAT MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

By Rebecca Baugniet

A few summers ago, I was visiting my sister and her family in Vancouver. When dinnertime rolled around, her nine-year-old son came into the kitchen and offered to make a salad. My eyes widened and I looked at my sister in bewilderment—my nephew was, at the time, known for his highly selective eating habits. As far as I knew, salad did not feature in his diet. As the mother of Growing Chefs! volunteer Ceri Barlow some rather selective eaters myself, I was desperate to know what could possibly have brought about such a dramatic change. Salad? I pondered, as though it was the final frontier. Later, in hushed tones so as not to jinx anything, my sister explained. A program called Growing Chefs! had come into my nephew’s Grade 3 classroom that year. Over the course of several months, they had learned about growing food, preparing food, knife skills‌. The classes were all taught by local chefs, she said, and then her tone grew serious. “It was completely transformative,â€? she told me. “He tried a bunch of new foods he never would have tried at home, he learned how to chop carrots and cucumbers, he makes us salad.â€? I listened enviously to her glowing review, hoping the program might make it over to the Island some time in the near future.

Growing Chefs! Chefs for Children’s Urban Agriculture is a registered charity whose main aim is to get kids excited about good, healthy food. And, as countless lucky parents like my sister will attest, the program is succeeding. When you take all the dinner-table politics out of the equation, kids are far more open and receptive to trying new things.

The program was founded in Vancouver in 2005 when pastry chef Merri Schwartz wanted to see the knowledge housed in professional kitchens about food sustainability, nutrition and local agriculture exported beyond the kitchen walls. Her goal in founding Growing Chefs was to connect chefs and growers to their communities through a fun and empowering educational program. Since 2006, it has grown from a pilot project with four chefs in two schools to implementation in more than 30 elementary school classrooms across British Columbia, with the involvement of 120 volunteer chefs. Earlier this year it launched its first program in Victoria, offering lessons at Vic West Elementary from March to June.

Ceri Barlow, Island Chefs Collaborative vice president and volunteer chef was eager to get involved and help implement the program in Victoria because she believes wholeheartedly in supporting local, sustainable food, and because she has observed the disconnect between children and food sources first-hand. “I had to send my son to school with lunches filled with packaged foods because he would get teased if he brought in fresh vegetables. There’s a whole generation of kids who are growing up not knowing where food comes from, and we can do something about that.� She describes her experience in the classroom as being thoroughly rewarding and the response from students and their families overwhelmingly positive. One of her favourite memories involves introducing a class to a new vegetable. “Andrew Paumier [ICC member, chef at Malahat Chalet and fellow Growing Chefs volunteer] brought in the most beautiful jicama I had ever seen. None of the kids in the class knew what it was, but they all tried it, and at the end of the year, 11 out of the 18 students named jicama as their favourite vegetable!� E Growing Chefs! is in need of more volunteers and funding to be able to bring this worthwhile program to even more children. To learn more, visit www.growingchefs.ca.

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A Beer and a Bite

By Colin Hynes

Colin Hynes

Royal Porter and Double Pork Chop with Hazelnuts and Butter Carmelized Apple & Spicy Radish The Beer:

Nómada Royal Porter A La Taza (Barcelona, Spain) This is an excellent example of a porter, maybe one of the best we have had. It has that warming sensation that you crave in a fall drink, while still remaining smooth and very drinkable. It is strong, but the alcohol doesn’t overpower (even though it hits 10.5%). It’s fullbodied and slightly sweet with roasted caramel and dried fruit flavours. It also has a massive foaming quality, we poured not even 2 cm and the foam filled the glass. The colour? Think A&W root beer.

ABV: 10.5%, nomadabrewing.com The Bite: Pan-fried Double Pork* with Apple and Onions Pork and crisp new season apples scream fall. Once the onion and apple slices start to caramelize in butter and the smell wafts through your home you can’t help but look outside and expect to see leaves changing colour and falling. * This dish lends itself well to that autumn transition period, since you can start the pork on the barbecue if it is warm (and dry) enough or cook inside on the stove if you're on the winter side of fall.

The Conclusion: We loved it.

It’s always nice once the weather begins to turn cool to have a darker, heavier beer that can pair with many of the meaty dishes of fall. Together, these two selections work great. The sweetness of the porter plays off the onions, crisp acidity of the apples and the spicy heat from the radishes perfectly. The roasted flavours in the porter and grilled flavour of pork mingle in the best way possible. We think this just may be the perfect combo for the job. E

“Never underestimate how much assistance, how much satisfaction, how much comfort, how much soul and transcendence there might be in a well-made taco and a cold bottle of beer.” — Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume 13

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REPORTER

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The Great Victoria Pub Revolution Words by Joseph Blake Photography by Rebecca Wellman

I

n the mid-1980s, Spinnakers Gastro Brewpub launched a revolution. The waterfront public house with views of the Victoria skyline and busy harbour is the oldest brewpub in Canada and arguably the oldest gastropub in the world.

A gastropub that opened in London, England, in 1991 is often cited incorrectly as the world’s old-

est.

Thirty-five local farmers and producers provide farm-totable fresh ingredients for breakfast, lunch and dinner menus at Spinnakers featuring traditional fish and chips, Nut Brown Ale pork bangers and mash, thin-crust pizzas, outstanding salmon filet sandwiches, the Spinnakers’ Brew Pub burger, and a beet and lentil burger for vegetarians.

A dozen year-round brews (my faves are Spinnakers’ IPA and hoppy German Kölsch.), plus a bevy of special seasonal brews, a well-curated wine list and cocktail

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offerings are the heart of this pub’s liquid assets. With a convivial, family setting and more serious libation study in the cozy room upstairs, Spinnakers is a cherished local institution.

Traced back to Roman taverns, Anglo-Saxon alehouses and 19th-century tied houses attached to a single brewery, pubs have evolved but remain primarily neighbourhood hangouts. My neighbourhood pub is the Penny Farthing Old English Pub. It’s a favourite despite my UpstairsDownstairs Anglophobia, a cozy, relaxed reflection of Oak Bay’s roots and old world image.

There’s a nice selection of local favourites (Phillips, Lighthouse, Vancouver Island, Driftwood, Hoyne) and a dozen European beers with lots of Irish offerings.

Monday’s two-for-one fish and chips special, Tuesday’s lamb and beef shepherd’s pie and Sunday’s prime rib roast with mashed potatoes and Yorkshire pudding keep the Tweed Curtain myth alive and kicking, as does the English

EAT MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

breakfast served all day Saturday and Sunday.

The Irish Times downtown is another theme pub with live Celtic music every night (people like Jeremy Walsh and the Grapes of Wrath’s Tom Hooper), as well as a Gaelic menu featuring Irish stew with dumplings and Irish soda bread. I like the corned beef and cabbage, the mussels-and-fries nod to local cuisine and the current UK pub fare, such as champ (creamy mashed potatoes and chopped spring onions) and vindaloo chicken curry with naan and jasmine rice.

Moon Under Water’s brewery in Rock Bay offers a 100seat café, including a private function room off the entrance with a mosaic floor tiled in 65,000 pennies. Six small-lot, unfiltered offerings include a German/West Coast-inspired pilsner (Potts Pils), Light Side of the Moon (a light lager made with 20 percent rice malt), a dry and dark lager (Creepy Uncle Dunkel), a very hoppy IPA and a 60-percent wheat Hefeweizen.

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Menu portions are very generous. The Fanny Bay oyster burger is a crispy and juicy mouthful, as is the Moroccan chicken club sandwich (grilled chicken breast with mixedfruit chutney, curried onions and Swiss cheese on thick sourdough bread.) In addition to the six in-house brews, Moon offers a well-curated selection of suds from Oregon, Quebec, Belgium, Barkerville and neighbouring Phillips.

B.C. wines too.

Swans Pub is worth a visit just for the nightly live music and the late Michael Williams’s phenomenal collection of gallery-quality, local art on the walls. Pub staples such as yam fries, seafood chowder and quesadillas are the best things on the menu with nine Swans brews on tap. I like the oatmeal stout, Riley’s Scotch ale and the extra IPA. You can order a sampler and find your own favourites.

Ross Bay Pub is a short walk from my house, where I can try more than a dozen local and imported beers on tap.

On Saturday, you get $5 off any bottle of VQA wine, and there are lots of drink specials during the week. Brunch on Saturday and Sunday is a good deal as is Monday night’s $2 soft taco special and Wednesday’s $5 plate of chicken wings.

The Bard and Banker is a Government Street Scottish cousin of Matt McNeil’s Penny Farthing and Irish Times.

They’ve got 30 beers on tap and live music nightly by The Riverside, Electric Timber, Lola Parks and others. The bank building was founded in 1862 and employed writer Robert Service in 1903. It’s rumoured he slept in the bank’s vault at night, hence the pub’s name.

The classy, 320-seat pub grows its own herbs and microgreens and dumped their traditional pub menu in July in favour of a more modern, West Coast style with almost everything prepared from scratch. Lunch and dinner highlights include warm goat cheese appetizer, several creative salads, fresh oysters, Salt Spring mussels, ale-battered Haida Gwaii halibut and chips, rotisserie chicken and the Bard beef burger. The room is open to families with kids until 9 p.m.

Also worthy of honourable mention from a long list of local establishments are Central Saanich’s venerable Prairie Inn, the Strathcona Hotel’s UK-inspired Sticky Wicket and Canoe Brewpub featuring live music Thursday-Saturday and chef Gabe Miller’s small plates of local charcuterie, mussels, wings and crispy squid. Recently, Garrick’s Head in the Bedford Regency has opened The Churchill next door. Between them they have over 100 beers on tap.

Spinnakers has led the local trend in gastropubs with their focus on farm-to-table relationships with farmers and producers, a trend followed by Bard and Banker's new menu. We've got a handful of great craft breweries, and now they're beginning to offer pub food that equals their brewing craft.

VICTORIA’S TOP PUBS

Spinnakers: West Coast Fish Plate - house smoked salmon, tuna tartar, bacon wrapped smoked oysters, kelp crackers and Wilbury Farm's Hazelnut Pate, Beetroot hummus, pickled onions & island grown greens with crostini.

Bard and Banker, 1022 Government St.

Moon Under Water Brewpub, 350 Bay St.

Canoe Brewpub, 450 Swift St.

Ross Bay Pub, 1516 Fairfield Rd.

Garrick's Head Pub, 1140 Government St,

Spinnakers Gastro Brewpub, 308 Catherine St. Sticky Wicket Pub, 919 Douglas St.

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Swans: Swan Song Burger - house made beef patty, mushrooms, cheddar cheese, crispy fried banana peppers, Swans beer braised onions.

3

Strathcona: Tuna Tacos – fresh fennel and coriander seared albacore tuna on flour tortilla with miso orange aioli & pickled sea asparagus.

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Bard: Marinated Grilled Flank Steak & Frites - with buttermilk battered crispy onion rings, dressed arugula salad and Chimichurri Sauce.

Penny Farthing Old English Pub, 2228 Oak Bay Ave.

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Moon Under Water: Moon Burger - house ground beef, bacon, Dunkel braised onion patty, preserved lemon aioli, sundried tomato. ketchup.

Prairie Inn, 7806 East Saanich Rd.

Irish Times, 1200 Government St.

Swans Brewpub, 506 Pandora Ave., 250-361-3310

www.eatmagazine.ca SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

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stonewall kitchen Entertain in style

Distributed by Dovre Import & Export Ltd. | p : 13931 Bridgeport Road

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800.370.3850

| e : sales@dovreimport.com | www.dovreimport.com

| Richmond, BC V6V 1J6 | m ade in m aine | stonewallkitchen.com

EAT MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

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Fishhook 805 Fort St. | 250-477-0470 | fishhookvic.com

EAT Presents from Australia

JANE FERRARI Hosted by

EAT Wine Editor Treve Ring

In an exclusive comparative tasting of Yalumba Wines

Rebecca Wellman

Friday, September 26th 2:30pm $25 (SOLD ONLINE ONLY)

Fishhook is the latest quick-serve eatery to enter the hot-spot arena at Fort and Blanshard streets. left: Chef & co-owner Kunal Ghose. right: 'The Belly' - Broiled-seared wild salmon belly dog and smoked tuna belly. 'The Deviled Egg' - Free range hard boiled egg, harrisa emulsion, candied salmon tapenade, lox, micro greens.

Fishhook’s lure is wild, sustainable and smoked seafood with a menu of tartines (open-faced sandwiches), salads, chowders and a daily curry. At the helm is chef Kunal Ghose, the mastermind behind Red Fish Blue Fish. Having left his post at the deep fryer there (he is still a shareholder), Ghose joined forces with Steve Kerr of Hook Fine Foods, a Qualicum Beach-based smoked fish business that was the original tenant of the Fort Street space. Both share a love of local and sustainable ingredients, especially seafood. Ghose needed a new project, and Kerr needed someone to herald his quality product.

After two months of kitchen renovations, and a few tweaks to the interior, Fishhook was hatched. Dark slate walls are enhanced by blond live-edge wood tables (made by Ghose and a friend) and a few decorative driftwood elements for that West Coast feeling. The space seats 10, with an additional long communal table to accommodate stand-around eating.

After seven years cooking out of a recycled shipping container and speaking to people through a porthole, the 650-square-foot space seems palatial to Ghose. “We have an air-conditioned space now,” he says, “and we can talk to customers! I feel much more part of the community.”

Why the tartines? “I was inspired by the foods of my childhood—tuna melts, cheese on toast and sardines on toast,” Ghose explains. There are nine tartines to choose from at Fishhook, from the inspirational tuna melt with Hook smoked cheddar to a po boy of smoked oysters to the devilled egg creatively and deliciously served with a harissa emulsion alongside candied salmon tapenade and micro greens. The only non-fish tartine is a riff on the Greek salad featuring local goat-feta-olive tapenade, pickled shallots and a flavourful herb pistou with sliced tomato and cucumber.

One of the salads is a seasonal pickle plate, a colourful celebration of organic baby carrots, golden beets, heirloom tomatoes, French breakfast radishes and Japanese turnip. Lightly pickled, with a delightful smoked tuna tonatta sauce for dipping, it is beautiful to behold and a joy to consume.

It’s not just the quality of the ingredients that shine through at Fishhook but Ghose’s talent as a chef.

He clearly understands how to marry flavours with restraint to achieve a harmonized finish. The Pondicherry fish curry, for example, balances cumin and cardamom with halibut, tomato and spinach, while red chile provides a pleasurable, even heat. Served over fragrant basmati rice, a topping of crispy shallots adds a textural note, and freshly chopped cilantro a note of bright green herbaceousness. The chowder is a luscious balance of thyme-chili roasted potatoes with coconut milk and lightly smoked fish broth with chunks of halibut and salmon.

Hook’s smoked fish is also available for take home. And for a sweet finish, Fishhook offers luscious frozen dessert selections from paleta artisans Kid Sister. My advice: get there before you’re caught at the end of the line.

Monday to Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

BY SHELORA SHELDAN

VICTORIA WINE FESTIVAL Tickets are limited. Available at www.vicwf.com

www.eatmagazine.ca SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

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EATING WELL FOR LESS

By Elizabeth Monk

Pie and the Sky Three diffeerent venues with one thing in common: creative and affordable food.

Aura Waterfront Restaurant and Patio 680 Montreal St. | Inn at Laurel Point | 250-414-6739 | www.aurarestaurant.ca

Elizabeth Nyland

Lunch at the beautiful restaurant at the Inn at Laurel Point, sitting oceanside and enjoying the view of the Inner Harbour? Yes, please. There are ways to enjoy the luxurious atmosphere at Aura for a bit less at lunch.

For delicate beauty and intricate flavours, the Deep-fried Sushi from the appetizer menu for $13 is thrilling to look at and to eat. It is a deconstructed sushi roll with a long rectangle of rice at the base, crisped up on the exterior. It is decorated with torched albacore tuna, sidestripe shrimp, spicy scallops and sweet onion salad. Finishing touches are bright orange-red tobiko (flying fish roe) and shiso leaf (a herb from the mint family). If one conventional sushi roll is enough for lunch for you, then this can be a light lunch, especially considering that the bread of the day is also served ahead of time. The day I went, this was a tender and appetizing Dijon and cheddar scone. For people searching for heartier fare, the Hot Pork Katsu Dog for $14 is the way to go. But don’t be expecting a cylindrical item of obscure provenance. This is basically a Japanese pork schnitzel bursting out of a bun made of sweet, eggy challah bread. It’s drizzled with a vegetable sauce called tonkatsu and topped with shredded nori and shiso. On the side is a newspaper cone of fries. Considering the top-notch real estate you’re inhabiting as you enjoy your lunch, this is a really fair price. Last but not least is the controversial Ploughman’s Lunch for $21—controversial because my server says people sometimes share it, making it well within my column’s spending range, but I personally could eat it all while being stubbornly resistant to sharing any of it. Meaty duck rillettes? Mine.

La Sauvagine cheese from Quebec, with the same creamy mouth-feel of a great crème brûlée? All for me.

Several other meats, baguette, pickled vegetables and edible flowers complete this dish. And what really completes this dish—once again, the amazing view.

Deep Fried Sushi: torched albacore tuna, side stripe shrimp, spicy scallops, sweet onion salad, shiso leaf, tobiko, wasabi mayo

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EAT MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

Elizabeth Nyland

Elizabeth Nyland

Hot Pork Katsu Dog - skewered breaded pork & red onion, tonkatsu aioli, shiso, coleslaw, nori julienne, challah bun, pomme frites

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Elizabeth Nyland

LOCAL FOOD, BEER, WINE & LIVE MUSIC AT 2 GREAT NEIGHBOURHOOD BISTROS! Vegan brownies and the Prosciutto kale salad

Palate Jubilee (soon-to-be Forbes) Pharmacy | 851 Johnson St. at Quadra | 778-433-1471 Many changes are afoot at this pharmacy-cum-café-cum-health food store. Currently, there’s a soup and sandwich counter there called Palate. Depending on the day, the soup could be carrot-lentil, of the stand-your-fork-up-in-it variety. This pureed soup comes with some crackers from the store—mine were cheese crackers—and some fantastic, buttery, garlicky croutons. You can also get classic grilled sandwiches for $5.50 with ingredients of your choice. The meat is from Market on Yates, and they have a good quality grill. The sandwich comes out looking like a giant Ruffles potato chip, which I absolutely think is a good thing, and looks even more enticing served as it is on a rough-hewn, rustic wood plate.

The dessert case is intriguing with many of the options coming from Crust Bakery. As one example, the Raw Vegan Rolos have good chewiness, and the chocolate exterior is almost savoury. Meantime, in September and October a friendly transition will be happening, and chef Joseph Blake, with Empress and Wolfgang Puck credentials, will be gradually taking over. He’ll be keeping the juice and coffee bar, and will be introducing the “IdealMe” concept. In this, meals are presented that are nutrient-rich, high protein, low carb, and as organic and local as possible. Examples I tried are Tomato and Poblano Chili Soup, Yam and Shallot Breakfast Quiche, and Gluten-free Banana Pancakes, all simple, wholesome, and tasty. These are packed up in Mason jars for busy but health-conscious buyers on the go; they can even be ordered for a week’s worth of meals. They will also be available at the deli counter for counter service. Whenever you visit in the evolution of this café, you will find something interesting. E

250-383-1545

CORNER OF CROFT & SIMCOE IN JAMES BAY WWW.HERONROCKBISTRO.CA

250-590-4556

4136 WILKINSON RD WWW.CROOKEDGOOSEBISTRO.CA

www.eatmagazine.ca SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

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Elizabeth Nyland

Chicken Pot Pie

The Victoria Pie Company Hudson Market, 1701 Douglas St. at Fisgard | 250-885-5220 | www.victoriapieco.com Two years ago, Robyn Larocque was a policy analyst with the Ministry of Children and Family Development and doing her MBA part-time. Last year, she was experiencing the wake-up call of her life as she fought cervical cancer. This year, she is the successful producer of succulent pies at The Victoria Pie Company at the Hudson Market. It was clear to her that life can be unpredictable, and you need to follow your dream. She parlayed her love of baking and did research, which showed her a gap in the market. I suppose you could say she has shut Victoria’s pie hole. Let’s start with the Chicken Pot Pie for $7 five-inch pie, the house bestseller. This circus-top pie is stuffed to bursting with delicious ingredients— Cowichan Valley free-range chicken, potatoes, carrots, celery, onions, garlic and crushed tarragon, all in a house-made butter and cream sauce. For a more grab-and-go, eat-on-the-fly option, there are “Hand Pies” for $5 such as the sausage, white cheddar and mashed potato one I tried. The pastry had the texture of buttery, crumbly cheddar biscuits that I associate with Christmas, and the filling was generously cheesy. Vegetarian options abound; I’ve tried the Mushroom Gruyère Quiche for $6.50 a slice or $18 for the whole pie. This quiche was pleasantly firm thanks to a base of potato, and the mushrooms and cheese were accented with white wine, garlic and thyme. You can add a side salad to any of these dishes for a bit more. These pies are now a key component of my take-home dinner arsenal, thanks to their fair prices and general likeability—I have seriously never met anyone who doesn’t love a good pie.

And, lately of great importance, she can do gluten-free pies on special order.

9 web writers, 40 new articles/month = the best food coverage in Victoria. www.eatmagazine.ca

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www.eatmagazine.ca SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

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NEWS

Cook Culture Goes to Town

The community-minded cookware store purchases Cookworks to take on Vancouver. —By Sol Kaufman

Jed & Regan Grieve

Kaitlyn Rosenburg

Get on our Turkey List!

Avoid dismay, sign up today for your local, ethically raised turkey.

HAPPY HAR VEST

The high-quality cookware industry is small—so small that when Dave Werner, owner of Vancouver’s Cookworks, decided to sell his business, his Victoria competitor Jed Grieve of Cook Culture was his first call. “We were looking to grow,” says Grieve, “but more looking at the island because Vancouver is a big nut to crack. But as soon as this opportunity came up we said yeah, no problem.” The merger means a tripling in size for Cook Culture, new product lines for Vancouver and lower prices for Victoria. But most important, it will bring Grieve’s ethos of community involvement to Vancouver’s food scene.

A strong food culture begins at home, and patrons of the Victoria store know that Grieve and his staff are an amazing resource for cooking techniques and overall knowhow. This concerted effort on behalf of the store fosters and strengthens Victoria’s community of home cooks and foodies, and Vancouverites have the same to look forward to as Grieve and his staff pass on their experience to the ready and willing employees at Cookworks. “It’s huge for me to get a staff that are so excited about growing the business,” he says. “They want to be the very best kitchen store there is, and they’re excited about doing it.”

Grieve’s focus on community involvement also extends into the realm of professional cooking through hiring local chefs as educators as well as supporting groups like the Island Chefs Collaborative as a sustaining sponsor. He plans to build a full demo kitchen into the Cookworks on Broadway and is looking to collaborate with Vancouver chefs through his friend Ned Bell, board member of the Chef’s Table Society of BC and executive chef of YEW Seafood in Vancouver’s west end. “We’ve been talking about some chefs who are really engaged in the city and want to see the culture thrive,” says Grieve. “I want to be able to continue the mission we do in Victoria, and guys like Ned will make that job pretty easy.

Though the allure of Cook Culture is in more than its inventory, it all started with the fundamentals of a good cookware store. In the past 20 years, Jed Grieve has gone from his mother’s housewares store to opening his own in 2010. His vision was for a sleek, modern shop far different from the gadget-filled menagerie of kitchen stores past. “A lot of us now want real hardware,” he says. “You want a store you can take seriously, where you feel like you’re getting the right information and the right gear.”

Cook Culture features products like Miyabi knives, Bamix stick blenders and Staub cookware, with many products offered only under a single, hand-picked brand. The Vancouver stores will follow suit. “We’re evolving the inventory towards more of a Cook Culture style,” says Grieve. “We want to take it to what people are looking for now, more specialty.”

Though the purchase is putting a lot on his plate, Grieve’s excitement about Vancouver is infectious. “It’s such an electric city,” he says. “It’s crazy how plugged in people are to food. The energy over there is just awesome.”

Cook Culture, cookculture.com 1317 Blanshard St., Victoria

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Cookworks, cookworks.ca 1548 W. Broadway, Vancouver 377 Howe St., Vancouver

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IN STORE

North Van Small Batch Energy Bars Dried pineapple, croissants, fruit tarts, bananas… This is what fuels French professional cyclists, and when nutritionist and semi-pro Dave Vukets rode with the national team in 2008, their snacks put his energy gels to shame. “They don’t use any sport nutrition products, it’s really weird,” he says. Later, he began working on recipes for cycle-centric Musette Caffe in Vancouver, and his all-natural energy bars really took off.

Dave now plans to take them nationwide through his new company, Prima Foods, which focuses on creating fresh, real and delicious food for athletes — without compromises. “You know, I could replace the dates with some syrup, make the bars cheaper and buy some new carbon wheels…” We’re pretty sure he’s joking. Read more on Dave’s Prima bars online at eatprima.com.

—Sol Kaufman

"VÌ LiÀÊ{ ÈÊUÊÓä£{Ê Sponsored by

COMMUNITY

Hester Creek Garlic Festival If you happen to find yourself in Oliver, British Columbia on Saturday, October 4th head on over to Hester Creek Estate Winery. They’re holding their 3rd Annual Garlic Festival in support of the Oliver Elementary School Farm-to-Table Lunch Program.

This program feeds the school a local, healthy lunch twice a week for the majority of the year. Entrance to the festival is free but guests are asked for a donation to go to the program. Last year over 1,500 guests donated $2,200.

There will be food carts, local artisans including local bread, gelato, jams and jellies as well as local art; photography, pottery, etc.

As for garlic there will be lots of that! Generally half of the vendors will have local, fresh bulbs harvested that morning.

The wine shop is open all day and will feature tastings and food and wine pairings with a focus on garlic.

Hester Creek Estate Winery 877 Road 8, Oliver, BC TollFree: 1 (866) 498-4435 hestercreek.com

O

Eat well.

Have fun.

www. cavavictoria.com 250.590.7982

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Top 5

Victoria’s premier farmers market

Now open year-round!

Regular Season Saturdays 10am-2pm May-Oct

(outdoors at Sir James Douglas school)

Winter Market Saturdays 10am-noon Nov-Apr

(indoors in the Garry Oak Room)

Moss St. Market

MossStreetMarket.com

Text & photos by Holly Brooke

Victoria’s Top Five (+1) Salad Rolls

Ten years ago, Victoria had less than a handful of Vietnamese restaurants, today there are more than ten.

Gỏi cuốn (or Vietnamese salad rolls) are the quintessential summer food, perfect for picnics and eating light. Salad rolls are typically filled with meat such as pork, chicken, shrimp and or tofu and fresh veggies such as carrots, cucumbers and lettuce then wrapped in rice paper sheets.

They are neither fried nor fattening and usually gluten free. It’s Kims Vietnamese Tofu Salad Roll the perfect handheld snack and one is never enough. Though, if we’re being honest, it’s really the dipping sauce that really makes these rolls so darn good; enjoy them with either a hoisin peanut sauce, or a traditional nước chấm (fish sauce) and you are set.

Salad rolls are fairly common nowadays and most people will have either seen them, eaten them or might even make them at home. But as a traditional Vietnamese snackfood we decided to see which local restaurants are serving up the best.

Some restaurants however, (those we’ve included) are doing that little something extra, with their salad rolls that make them noteworthy. And it’s not just Vietnamese restaurants either that are adding their spin on this delicious little morsel. Here are our Top Five locations to enjoy fresh salad rolls:

Kims Vietnamese 748 Johnson St. (250) 385-0455 You can’t go wrong with Kims. They’ve been a staple in Victoria for over 20 years and they do a good solid salad roll. In fact, when I was there, several large orders both in house and to go were placed. Kims offers two choices: Gỏi Cuốn (3 rolls): Shrimp, sliced pork, lettuce and rice noodles. The rolls are served with a warm peanut sauce and sirracha. $8.95. Gỏi Cuốn Chay (Vegetarian, 3 rolls): Rice noodles, tofu, and lettuce.

Simple, firm, sweet and tasty. $8.25

Pho Vuong Salad Roll

Pho Vuong 622 Fisgard St. (250) 590-6787 This hidden little gem of a restaurant is serving some of the best salad rolls I’ve ever had. They offer two rolls: Gỏi Cuốn (Summer Roll): Shrimp, thinly sliced steamed pork, lettuce, cucumbers and carrots served with a house made peanut sauce. $3.50. And, Gỏi Cuốn Chay (Vegetarian): Tofu is optional but much better with it. $3.15

The Marina Restaurant (marinarestaurant.com) 1327 Beach Drive (250) 598-8555 Shrimp Salad Rolls: A combined creation of chef Jeff Keenliside and sous chef Gabriel Fayerman-Hansen, these rolls are as beautiful on the plate as they are in taste. Loaded with Ocean Wise Oregon side-stripe shrimp, whole leaves of Thai basil, cilantro, pea sprouts, potato starch noodles, carrots and toasted cashews. The roll is accompanied with a traditional nuoc cham sauce and a nuoc cham aioli. Enjoy this as a light snack or a starter to your main. Fresh, light and incredibly flavourful. $14

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(3 rolls per order, $7.75) Gỏi Cuốn Tom– Pan fried pork, steamed shrimp and rice noodles Gỏi Cuốn Tom Ga - shrimp, chicken and rice noodles Gỏi Cuốn Tom– shrimp and rice noodles Bi Cuon– pork and rice noodles Gỏi Cuốn Chay– tofu, lettuce, carrots, rice noodles

Oak Bay Marina Salad Roll

Saigon Night Shrimp Salad Roll

Noodle Cart (noodlecart.com) 1018 Blanshard St. (250) 477-3883 The Jungle Roll (3 pieces, $9.00) What make’s this roll is definitely the Green Jungle Sauce, and it’s top secret!

All I can say is that it’s green and it’s good! I was told that it is made from a mix of Thai herbs and fish sauce with mint being a dominant flavour. The roll is made with broad rice noodles, fresh basil, lettuce, mint, carrot, ground pork and shitake mushrooms. Vegetarian is also an option with tofu.

Surprise! We’ve included a sixth favorite in our list.

Noodle Cart Jungle Roll

Noodle Box Shrimp Lettuce Wrap

Saigon Night 915 Fort St. (250) 384-2971 One of the longest operating Vietnamese restaurants in Victoria is run by the lovely Thuy. She is so sweet and generous and the salad rolls are always consistent; fresh, made to order and very reasonably priced. Saigon Night offers five different varieties:

Noodle Box (noodlebox.net) 818 Douglas St. (250) 384-1314 and 626 Fisgard St. (250) 360-1312 While this next mention is essentially a lettuce wrap but so juicy good, we decided it was definitely worth the nod. If you’re looking for a low carb salad roll/wrap then we’ve found the place to go.

Shrimp Lettuce Wrap $8.00 - Ocean wise shrimp, Asian slaw; a mix of carrots, cabbage, kale and bok choi tossed in a house made fish sauce and served with a Korean style dipping sauce and several crisp romaine leaves. Try adding a side of the Satay Peanut sauce (gluten free and vegan) and you won’t be disappointed. E

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EAT SPECIAL PROMOTION

MAKING IT NEW AGAIN Swans Hotel & Brewpub Celebrates Its 25th Anniversary. By Jon Johnson

ave you heard? We’re in the midst of a Golden Age — we’re in the Golden Age of craft beer. It’s amazing, and Victoria, in particular, is chock-full of some really excellent breweries. However, like all trends worth paying attention to, there’s always someone who is years ahead of the curve. In Victoria, that “someone” is undoubtedly Swans. Have you heard of it? Of course you have. What you might not know is that Swans has been brewing beer since 1989. You know those memes, Buzzfeeds, or “click bait” links demonstrating how “your parents were hipster before hipster was even hipster?” In some ways, that’s a useful way to think about this Lower Johnson classic — Swans was “craft” before craft beer was even a thing.

2014 marks the 25th anniversary of Swans, and along with the celebration comes international hotelier turned Swans General Manager Theresa Dickinson. Theresa is keen to draw on her expertize and experiences to help Swans meet its full potential as an internationally recognized brewery and hotel, while — and this is important — retaining the qualities that make Swans work: “It’s about breathing new life into Swans.”

While many things work really well at Swans — the food, the service, the nightly live music, that stunning totem pole by local artist Godfrey Stephens — what particularly stands out is the beer. “For us it’s all about the beer—this is what we’re the best at,” Theresa describes. The beer, of course, begins with the Brewmaster, and Swans undoubtedly has one of the best around. Andrew Tessier has been brewing with Swans since 2003, and he’s been brewing for over 20 years. “Andrew brings innovation and experience,” Theresa describes — “He really understands the truth and tradition of what great beer is, but he’s happy to play with that — to a point.” If, like me, you’ve had your fair (and I mean fair) share of Swans brewed beer, you’ll recognize that with Andrew there’s a real commitment to making beer “right”: he’s been using the same top drawer hops, malts, and yeast ordered straight from the UK since 2003. As craft as Swans might be, with Swans you’re not going to find those gimmicky beers which —ahem — seem to have been hopping up lately. You know the beers I mean: severely overhopped concoctions that taste of nothing but hops floating in water, or donut flavored beers that creepily taste like Lucky Charms cereal.

What’s important is that Andrew’s approach works, and this commitment to quality and attention to detail hasn’t gone unnoticed: in just eleven years Andrew’s brewing efforts have yielded 31 awards (including brewpub of the year in 2006), and just this year — for the third year in a row — the Swans Arctic Kölsch was awarded a medal at the 2014 CPAs. The awards don’t stop there: admittedly not an “official” award, the Swans DSP (Double Shot Porter—made lovingly with espresso from Victoria coffee pros Café Fantastico) is a personal favorite of both myself and, more importantly, former We Are the City guitarist turned Snoqualmie frontman Blake Enemark, who enthusiastically touts himself as “a big fan” of the DSP. I have vague recollections of a serious DSP session with Blake way back in 2011, but I digress.

While, yes, Swans is a brewery committed to developing and refining a tried and true formula for top-tier beers, they’re not afraid of experimentation and creativity. The DSP, as mentioned, is truly a modern classic, the Berry Ale is prepared with real raspberries (and you can really taste them), while the Coconut Porter (the brewery’s best selling seasonal) is a refreshing and unique deviation from the eternal onslaught of chocolate and espresso porters (of course, in the words of Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza,“not that there’s anything wrong with that”).

So what’s new at Swans for their 25th anniversary? As an anniversary gift to themselves, Swans has completely redesigned the Swans beer labels for 2014. While the new labels pop — the colors are pretty much amazing — the labels’ carefully considered and striking design sustain the identity and character of Swans that has made this pub a Victoria fixture. Outside of this, you can expect a subtle revamp of the already

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To mark 25 years of brewing excellence, Swans completely redesigned their beer labels for 2014.

left: Beer might be the foundation for Swans' success, but it's not the only reason to go. Expect creative interpretations on pub-grub classics, like the Oven Baked Chorizo Mac & Cheese. right: Swans General Manager Theresa Dickinson (left) and Brewmaster Andrew Tessier (right).

"Andrew is absolutely outstanding. I worked a full day in the brewery with Andrew—we made IPA together. It was totally rewarding, but back breaking work!" General Manager Theresa Dickinson explains. stunning (and fun as hell) physical space, and monthly seasonal beer releases—each accompanied by “a proper launch.”

Much to my girlfriend’s dismay, I’m not much of a dancer. We used to frequent Swans along with friends for that very reason — dancing. Despite my inability to cut a rug, I still enthusiastically agreed to head to Swans whenever it was suggested because, well, the beer. But that’s not the only reason I’ve always been drawn to Swans. When taking a look around the place on a Friday around 10pm, you kind of see everything: a group of friends furiously dancing to Michael Jackson covers, a couple sharing an intimate dinner on the patio, or two weirdos refusing to dance and instead drinking (and really enjoying) too many DSPs. There really isn’t anywhere like it in all of Victoria, and it’s hard not to agree with Theresa in her suggestion that the magic of Swans stems from a lovingly crafted combination of hops, malts, and yeasts: “The heart and soul of this property is the beer, and it’s the best in Victoria.”

Swans Hotel & Brewpub, 506 Pandora Ave, Victoria, BC, (250) 361-3310 www.swanshotel.com

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BOOK REVIEW By Rebecca Baugniet

THE DEERHOLME FORAGING BOOK

by Bill Jones Touchwood Editions, April 2014 ($29.95) One of the first things that hits you when you meet Bill Jones is his unassuming generosity. Whether he is doing a cooking demonstration at a market, volunteering his time at the seafood festival or a fundraiser for Providence Farm, telling a story about his great friend and mentor the late James Barber (the “Urban Peasant”), or inviting you to share a field-to-table feast at his home, Deerholme Farm in the Cowichan Valley, Jones is eager to share his time, expertise and passion for all our edible natural resources.

This generosity is on full display in his eleventh cookbook, The Deerholme Foraging Book, in which the French-trained chef, mycologist, expert forager and award-winning author offers us an essential compendium that is sure to inspire readers to rediscover, as Jones puts it, “the lost close connections and rhythms with the seasons we all used to share.” Jones has been hosting foraging excursions and other culinary events at Deerholme Farm for the past nine years and draws on this extensive experience to fill his latest book with helpful tips, his own colour photographs, and tempting, approachable recipes, each one showcasing wild foods. The Deerholme Foraging Book could sit comfortably on a coffee table, kitchen cookbook shelf or even the bedside table, as Jones’s writing is equal parts informative, entertaining and philosophical, with passages reminiscent of Thoreau’s nature writing and approach to observing climate and terrain.

Divided into four main sections, the book is flawlessly organized and user friendly. The first of these sections, Pathway to

Foraging, arms us with basic foraging survival skills, a wealth of useful information for harvesting in the wild as well as potential hazards. This part could perhaps have used a few more guidelines or resources on how to identify or avoid pollutants, though Jones is clear from the outset that the book “is not designed to be a field guide to foraging” (and his advice to get “as far away as possible from civilization” is certainly a good starting point). The second section, Building a Wild Foods Pantry, shares techniques for preserving wild foods and enjoying them year round: dried, powdered, preserved or canned; infused in alcohol, oils and vinegars; or in salts. In the third section—A Wild Foods Primer—Jones offers an overview of many of the wild foods found in the Pacific Northwest, covering berries, greens, mushrooms, seaweed, shellfish and crustaceans.

The fourth and largest section includes more than a hundred recipes featuring foraged ingredients and demonstrates Jones’s intimate knowledge and deep respect for the traditional ways these ingredients have been used. As he writes in his introduction, “Here on Vancouver Island, one can easily imagine the local First Nations villages were a beehive of foraging activity. They were probably following their favourite food source over the Bering Strait (then bridged by ice) to settle on the fertile shores and valleys of the coast. Here, food was abundant and rich in nutrients. Large seasonal harvests of berries, shellfish and salmon could be preserved and stockpiled, allowing time to develop a complex culture.” Try the Wild Berry Bannock or Smoked Salmon with Honey and Grand Fir Needles to see how Jones employs and riffs on traditional First Nations’ techniques and flavours.

Asian influences also play an important role, as visible in recipes like Warm Wild Sushi and Foraged Greens with Spot Prawns. When asked about this aspect of his cooking, Jones explains that his “first culinary love was Chinese cooking,” and indeed his first cookbook was New World Noodles written with Stephen Wong in 1997. He has worked in Hong Kong and Guangzhou, China, and his “interests have expanded now to include Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean and Malaysian cooking.”

Foraging will serve you well through all seasons, but fall is peak time for mushrooms, and the recipes included here, such as Wild Mushroom Velouté, Chanterelle Tomato Sauce or Grilled Flank Steak with Wild Mushroom Rub will definitely inspire you to get outdoors and take advantage of what is readily available in our forests. If you’d like to visit Deerholme Farm yourself, Jones is hosting several foraging excursions and mushroom dinners throughout October and November. If you can’t visit Deerholme in person, The Deerholme Foraging Book is without a doubt the very next best thing. www.deerholme.com

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Dinner at the Farm

Stilton, Pumpkin Flan with Poached Pears 28

EAT MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

Bouillabaisse with Musse

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th Mussels, Clams and Crab Legs

Apple Tart Tatin

Photography REBECCA WELLMAN Art Direction GARY HYNES and COLIN HYNES Table Design CYNTHIA ANNETT 29 www.eatmagazine.ca JULY | AUGUST 2014

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Menu & Recipes by JP GREEN and JENA STEWART of Truffles Catering

On a warm, early fall evening, EAT loaded up the car with supplies and headed to a heritage farm for dinner. We invited friends, chefs from a local caterer, a winery, and a brewery to help us celebrate the end of a great summer and enjoy an amazing outdoor feast.

We ate salmon, pork belly with kimchi, and halloumi skewers. We dined on salads and a great big pot of Island shellfish bouillabaisse, served familystyle. Then, we finished with upside-down apple tart tatin and fresh local figs, spiced fritters, and caramel ice cream.

THE APPETIZERS Austin’s Citrus Pork Belly with Kimchi Yield 18 canapes Note: start the kimchi one week prior to serving or purchase pre-prepared kimchi.

Pork Belly 3 lbs pork belly… ask your butcher ½ cup kosher salt 2 star anise 1 cup soy sauce 1 cup sherry vinegar 1 cup cilantro, chopped , 1 thai chili chopped 2 zested oranges plus the juice 2 zested lemon plus the juice 4 cups pork or chicken stock Heat the oven to 300 degrees.Cover pork belly with a mixture of the salt, zests, star anise, juices, cilantro and chili. Cover with foil and place in oven for several hours until tender.

Take the lid off and crank the heat for the last ½ hour to render the skin.

Cool down and slice into small strips.

Guests walk through the farm to the table set-up in a plum orchard

Kimchi 2 lbs napa cabbage, shredded ½ cups kosher salt 12 cups cold water 2 cups daikon radish, shredded 1/3 cup Korean red pepper powder ¼ cup fish sauce ½ cup minced ginger 1 tble minced garlic 2 tble Korean salted shrimp 1 1/2 tble white sugar Place in air tight container and stir all together and then put on lid and let ferment. It is best to let ferment for 1 week. Open the lid and release the gases every few days.

Potato Latka 4 yukon potato, peeled 4 small carrot, peeled 4 tb chives, chopped

Grilled Halloumi Skewers with Caponata 30

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With a mandoline (like a Benriner) julienne the vegetables and press together to get the starch to release. Keeping the vegetables together, press into canapé mold and place on baking sheets. Bake for several minutes. Once ready to use deep fry until golden brown and delicious.

To Serve: Use the latka as the base for canapé, layering the kimchi and the warm sliced pork belly on top.

Recipes cont’d on page 32

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The table is filled with salads, beer, wine and the first course—Sesame Seed Salmon Tartare in cosmo glasses—there’s no question everyone is having a great time.

Austin’s Citrus Pork Belly with Kimchi

Brûlée Fresh Fig, Five Spice Apple Fritter, & Caramel Ice Cream

The Drinks pictured above: Italian Sodas - Pink Peppercorn, Thyme and Ginger & Lavender and Babe’s Honey. below left: Blue Grouse Oretega, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir & Quill Red. below right: Canoe Brewpub Amber Artifact Lager growler.

Island Shellfish Bouillabaisse with Rouille & Baguette

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TWO RIVERS SPECIALTY MEATS DIRECT TO CONSUMER PROGRAM

Stilton, Pumpkin Flan with Poached Pears Yield 6/ 3 flans

MEATS

Meating www www.tworiversmeats.com .tworiversmeats.com 60 604.990.5288 4.990.5288 inf info@ o@tw tworiversmeats.com oriversmeats.com

Equipment 3 x 2 inch flan molds pastry dough A) 2 cups all purpose flour ¼ lb unsalted butter, softened 1 tb white sugar Pinch of salt 1 tb fresh-picked thyme, chopped Cold water B) 1 cup pumpkin, pureed 4 egg yolks ½ cup whip cream 1 tsp. nutmeg, grated 1 tsp. salt 4 Tble stilton cheese, crumbled 1 Tb chives, finely sliced In stainless steel bowl add the flour and sugar, salt and thyme and mix with your hands. Add the butter into flour mixture.

Make a well in the centre add cold water and start to knead it together. You do not want it too tough so be gentle. Place the dough in the fridge for several hours.

Take out the dough from the fridge and cut into 3. Flour your surface and roll out to place in ring molds. Overlap edges and gently push down into the creases. Using a rolling pin gently run over the edges of the mold until it breaks away. Place in fridge.

In stainless steel bowl with a whisk start blending the pumpkin with all of the B) ingredients.

Place some cheese in the centre of the chilled dough rings, ladle the pumpkin mixture into centre of the mold just until the edge. Garnish with chopped chives and cracked black pepper Gently place inside 350 degree oven and bake for 30 mins. or until centre is firm To serve place on passing trays and cut into small bite size portions with a sliver of poached pear

Experience the Harvest, Gourmet Style.

Sponsored by

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Sunday, September 14, 2014 Kildara Farms, North Saanich Tickets $95 | www.feastoffields.com

EAT MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

Heading home

MAINS Bouillabaisse with Mussels, Clams and Crab Legs with Rouille on Baguette Serves 6 Bouillabaise Stock 2 large leeks, white part only 2 yellow onion, large dice 2 large carrots, large dice 2 cloves, peeled and smashed 1 fennel head, large dice Spicy sausage trim 12 strands of saffron 6 cups fish stock 1 cup dry white wine 2 cups plum tomatoes In large stock pot, splash canola oil and add the leeks, onions, carrots, garlic, fennel, sausage and saffron. Sauté until slightly browned, deglaze with wine and then add the fish stock and tomatoes.

Simmer for 1 hour to develop flavour, adding salt as needed. Strain out the vegetables into another pot and place on a boil.

Reserve until you have the seafood prepared.

Seafood & Sausage 2 lbs mussels, washed and de-bearded 2 lbs local clams, cleaned 6 Dungeness crab legs, portioned and cracked 1 lb spicy sausage (like chorizo or Italian), cooked and sliced Any additional fish you want to add. (depending on the season we use halibut or salmon) Fresh tarragon to taste, chopped Add the mussels and clams to the heated stock and steam to open. Add the sausage and the crab claws. Taste for seasoning and add the tarragon.

Rouille (can be made ahead) 4 egg yolks 1 tb Dijon mustard 1 clove garlic ½ tsp cayenne pepper 4 saffron strains 2 cups canola oil Juice of 1 lemon Salt Using a food processor, add garlic, egg yolks, Dijon and saffron start blending, slowly adding the oil in steady stream until thick. Adding the lemon juice,

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cayenne and salt at end.

To serve: Place slices of baguette in big pre-warmed bowls, fill with the bouillibasse stock and the seafood. Top with rouille. Have plenty of fresh tarragon on hand to top the bowls

DESSERT 5 Spice Apple Fritter, Bruleed Fresh Fig and Caramel Ice Cream Serves 6 Figs Equipment a culinary blowtorch 6 halved fresh figs White sugar Dip the figs into sugar and start to caramelize using the blwotorch, gently turning the torch around so the figs do not burn.

Apple Fritter 2 gala apples, peeled and cut in thick rings, core and seeds removed. canola oil or safflower oil, for deep frying Batter 1 cup flour 1 tb cornstarch 1 ½ cup soda water ½ tsp salt ½ tsp sugar 5 Spice Sugar 1 tb star anise, ground 1 tb cloves, ground 1 tb Sichuan peppercorns, ground 1 Tb fennel seeds, ground 1 tb Chinese cinnamon powder 1 cup white sugar Mix the batter together and dip the apple rings.

In deep fryer, wok or wide saucepan, heat about 2 inches (5 cm) oil until deepfry thermometer reads 350°F. Drop

battered apple into the oil. It will rise to the top. Turn when one side is golden brown. When both sides are brown remove and toss in the 5 spice sugar mixture.

Salted Caramel Ice Cream 1 ¼ cup sugar 2 ¼ cup heavy cream ½ tsp flaky sea salt ½ vanilla pod 1 cup whole milk 3 large eggs In a heavy bottomed skillet heat 1 cup of sugar over medium heat until the sugar starts to turn dark amber colour (if the sugar gets too dark it will be bitter tasting). Turn off heat. Add 1¼ cup heavy cream stirring continuously until all the sugar is disolved .

In a new pot bring the milk, remaining cream and sugar to a boil with vanilla pod. Stir occasionally.

Lightly whisk eggs in a bowl, than temper the eggs with a slow, steady stream of the hot milk and cream mixture. Stir constantly.

Pour the whisked mixture back into the pot pot over medium heat and thicken the custard, stirring with a wooden spoon. Cook the mixture until it reaches 170 degree, then chill in the fridge for 36 hours. Place the mixture in an ice cream maker and freeze. Once finished place in an air tight container and put it into the freezer until hard.

To serve: In a bowl or a small jar, place an apple fritter on top of a scoop of the caramel ice cream and then place a bruléed fig on top of the fritter.

P E R FFEE C T D O U B L E C U E R RVO VO M A R RGA G A R I TTA A O N SPECIA L E VERY T H U RSDA AY Y W W W.C A C T U S C L U B C A F E .C O M

You can find the complete collection of recipes at eatmagazine.ca under the title “Dinner at the Farm”. E

OUR FRIENDS CREDITS: Shot on location at Starling Lane Vineyard (starlinglanevineyard.com).

Food: Truffles Catering - Executive Chef JP Green, Chef Jena Stewart and Taryn Stewart (trufflescatering.net) Wine: Blue Grouse Estate Winery (bluegrouse.ca).

Beer: CANOE Brewpub (canoebrewpub.com). Cookware: Staub Cast Iron French Oven for the Bouillabaisse courtesy of Cook Culture (cookculture.com).

GUESTS: A big thank-you to our guests for taking time off from their busy lives to join us for the EAT farm feast. Ryan Clarke, Claire Clarke, Megan Larson, Cameron Northover, Jeff Sparling and Pico Whittier.

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EAT SPECIAL PROMOTION

Sidney, The Perfect Date Sidney may not yet be known as the most romantic town in Canada; however, with all of its unique offerings, beautiful oceanfront setting and charming qualities, it’s quite surprising that it isn’t!

F

or a romantic day-date in Sidney, what could be more romantic than a picnic on the ocean? Pick up items for your picnic from the many local cafes, grocery stores, or restaurants in Sidney. As there are so many parks and beaches in Sidney, you will be assured a nice quiet spot to relax and enjoy the views. After your lunch take a leisurely walk along the waterfront and take in the breathtaking views of Mount Baker and enjoy watching the active sea life along the way. The seawall in Sidney stretches 2.5 KM from downtown Sidney featuring the Sculpture Walk, which includes over 25 original works of art, each with its own story. Impress your date and try your luck at fishing from the Sidney Pier. If the fish are not biting there, check out all the freshly caught ones for sale at the Satellite Fish Co. located in the iconic and historic blue building on the Sidney Pier.

For an adventurous date on the water, visit the Sidney Whale Watching desk in the Cannery Building located just off the waterfront and rent a kayak for a half or full day adventure. If you’ve never kayaked, plan to take some lessons or a three or eight hour guided paddle.

After your date on the water, nourish and rejuvenate at The Love Café, a vegan and gluten free café and juice bar which serves creative dishes packed with nutrients, flavour and of course lots of love! The Buddha Bowl

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includes a little taste of everything on their menu and does not disappoint.

It's not hard to make the connection between romance, great food and music, so if you're looking for a way to spend a romancefilled evening with your sweetheart, Haro’s Restaurant & Bar located at the Sidney Pier Hotel, offers entertainment every Thursday and Friday night in September and on Thursday nights in October.

If a more casual date is what you had in mind, perhaps go with the tried and tested dinner and a movie option. If you have not been to Woodshed Pizza in Sidney, you are truly missing out! The talented kitchen staff not only create amazing dishes but they do so with an audience. The open-concept kitchen with its wood-fired oven, allows the entire room to see the most traditional, authentic and delicious way to make a pizza. Sidney also serves up an array of international restaurants to choose from including Swiss, Thai, Japanese, Mexican, Chinese, Greek and Italian. If you want to tuck away in a quaint neighbourhood pub, Sidney has a wide selection of those too. For the movie portion of your night, Sidney has its own great movie theatre with two screens showing all of the new releases at affordable ticket prices. The best thing about the Star Cinema is that all of its seats can be converted in to a single love seat! That’s pretty romantic, right?

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Impress your date with a different take on dinner and a movie by taking them to a theatrical performance or live concert at the Mary Winspear Centre. Locals love coming here for the impressive line up of concerts, art shows and theatre, but they do not come only for these reasons, but to relax during a show in the Charlie White Theatre in the plush, red velvet seats! A couple of upcoming shows not to miss include the Johnny Cash tribute on September 19th and a Buddy Holly and Beatles tribute on October 9th.

Did you know that Sidney has it’s own five-pin bowling alley? Ultra retro and offering up rock and glow bowling at its finest Miracle Lanes is a great addition to your date night in Sidney!

For more information and contact details for all of the businesses in this article and many more ideas of things to do in Sidney visit: www.DistinctlySidney.ca —by Donna Petrie, Executive Director, Sidney BIA

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kraut, kimchi, pickles, & living drinks Fermenting is fomenting a probiotic revolution.

By Cinda Chavich

Chang it’s koji, the fungus that ferments grains to create soy sauce and miso.

Things are bubbling away closer to home, too. North Van’s Ethical Kitchen has its own house-fermented sodas and sauerkraut, while David Gunawan’s vegetable-forward menu at Farmer’s Apprentice on Vancouver’s westside includes tasty ferments like his own kimchi. Lunch at Victoria’s Nourish Bistro is a feast of fermentation, with something freshly pickled on nearly every plate, from the addictive cashew cheese, pickled radishes and rhubarb flavoured with turmeric and ginger, to the fuchsia ribbons of turnip fermented in beet brine and stacked atop the kale Caesar salad.

There’s literally a pickle in every pot.

Fermentation 101

A kombucha scoby (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast) resting on a plate, with a jar of kombucha tea in the background.

Time was most people had a little fermented food in their everyday diets, whether it was a sour dill pickle from a barrel at the local grocer or a side of sauerkraut from a bubbling crock of cabbage in the cellar.

This stuff was created with very little fanfare—the excess harvest combined with salt and left in a cool place to do its thing, the salt drawing the moisture from the vegetables and the friendly probiotic bacteria in the air turning the whole thing into a sharp, vinegary pickle, the classic foil for hearty winter meals.

Fast-forward 75 years and pickled foods had fallen out of favour, at least in North America, deemed too salty for a healthy diet and industrialized to the point that natural fermentation is not even part of the process.

But old-fashioned sauerkraut is sexy again. And in today’s shoot-to-root world of locally minded cooks, a pickle is not just a pickle—it’s a way to preserve the organic harvest and develop a powerhouse of probiotics, functional foods that can be an antidote to our overmedicated, sugar-addled, antibiotic-resistant world.

Sexy Sauerkraut

Since Sandor Katz penned The Art of Fermentation in 2012, arguably the bible of these bubbling brews, it seems everyone is getting into the act—from Noma’s celebrity chef René Redzepi in Copenhagen to Momofuku’s David Chang in New York. In Redzepi’s Nordic Food Lab, they play with Lactobaccillus to create Finnish viili, kefir and lacto-fermented plums, while for

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Recipes for DIY-fermented grape soda, lacto-fermented pickles and kimchi are popping up in magazines like Bon Appetit and Saveur, and all over the Web. In Victoria, Alexandra Pony and her partner, Olympic rower Will Dean, are hosting fermentation workshops at Nourish and other spots around town.

If anyone can make sauerkraut sexy, it’s this glamorous young couple. When Dean isn’t training or competing on Canada’s rowing team, they’re in their kitchen creating fizzy kombucha, kefir water and naturally fermented radish, carrot and beet pickles, soon to be sold at local markets through their nutritional consulting company, Lifeology.

“This is the scoby,” explains Pony, scooping out a slimy disk that looks a bit like a waterlogged Portobello mushroom from her jar of fermenting kombucha tea.

A celiac who turned to fermented food to help her digestion, Pony says kombucha was her “gateway” to the world of fermentation. “I started brewing it when I was living in San Francisco,” says the California native, “and I just felt so much better.”

Unlike pickles made with “dead” commercial vinegar, her pickled carrots, beets and radishes are alive with the microbes plucked from the air in her Saanich home, tiny bubbles rising to the surface like champagne in the bubbly brine.

“The longer you wait, the more it ferments, eventually turning to vinegar,” she says, offering a lightly pickled carrot that has effervescence alongside the crunch.

While many foods will spontaneously ferment in a salted brine when exposed to air (think cucumber pickles and sauerkraut), some require the addition of living bacterial cultures like the kombucha scoby, the milk kefir grains that ferment milk products or the water kefir grains that work in sweetened water. It’s merely a matter of feeding the starter a sugar of some kind, and soon it will be working away, creating acidity, CO2 and those healthy probiotic by-products.

EAT MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

Some, like sauerkraut, simply require salt. Salt draws the moisture from the shredded cabbage and, once submerged in the salty liquid, acidifying bacteria in the air turn the water into vinegar and the cabbage into kraut in just a few weeks. Add daikon radish, garlic, ginger, green onions, chilies, fish sauce or powdered kelp to your ferment, and you have kimchi.

“I like to tell people that many ferments are considerably easier than baking cookies,” adds Dean. “You don’t need to be a scientist to make sauerkraut.”

Fuelled By Fermented Food

I’ve always said I can survive on fermented foods—beer, wine, bread, cheese. Add kraut and kimchi and you have all of the essential food groups.

As it turns out, these really are essential. Adding living fermented food to your diet populates your gut with the kind of flora that helps your digestive and immune systems run smoothly. Kombucha fans claim its glucoronic acid binds with toxins to detoxify the body, while lactic acid increases oxygen in the blood and acetic acid balances the body’s pH. Olympic athlete Dean says: “I believe fermented foods give me extra support when my body is under stress, and there’s strong evidence to support the role that probiotics can play in immune function.”

During the fermentation process, sugars and carbohydrates break down, converted to the unique acidity you’ll find in naturally fermented vegetables or even meats like salami, and making some foods easier to digest.

Historically, fermented foods kept people alive. The vitamin C in sauerkraut kept Captain Cook’s crew healthy on their long voyages.

There are all kinds of health claims attached to probiotics. Though there’s not a lot of science to back them up, the popularity of probiotic products continues to boom.

Many processed foods advertise their probiotics, but you need to look for labels that list “live active cultures” to derive any heath benefits. Once pasteurized, cooked or dried, it’s unlikely you’ll find any useful probiotics. Look for live cultures in yogurt, apple cider vinegar, kefir and other fermented foods.

And if you’re worried about food safety, don’t, says Pony.

“We’re trying to demystify the scary world of fermented foods,” she says.

When fermenting at home, make sure food is fresh and fermentation vessels are clean. Vegetables that are sealed in a jar, submerged in a brine of salted water (1-3 teaspoons of sea salt per litre) will ferment slowly in two to three days, she says. Lactic acid fermentation actually inhibits the growth of many pathogens. But molds can be toxic.

“It there’s a white film on top, it’s gone off. You can tell.”

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Living Drinks

Cinda Chavich

I first encountered a cafe devoted to kombucha tea in Maui. The Maui Kombucha Brewery produced its sparkling sour tea in Haiku, a hippy surfer community far from the major resort areas. Along with juice cleanses and yoga retreats, it’s the place to try “booch,” served in a variety of fizzy flavours alongside their raw vegan menu.

Kombucha has roots in ancient China but is now bottled across North America, sold as a natural alternative to soft drinks. Tonica Kombucha in Toronto got a boost from CBC’s Dragon’s Den and is now distributed across Canada, in flavours from ginger to green tea, mango and blueberry. It’s the same story with Montreal’s Rise Kombucha, Alexandra Pony with an array or her fermented foods sold in major supermarkets.

They even sell their Kombucha Mama starter kits for fermenting the drink at home.

Kefir, the fizzy fermented and drinkable yogurt, is also easy to spot in the supermarket—and you can buy the grains in most health food stores to turn milk into kefir on your counter in a couple of days.

But it was at Nourish that I first encountered kefir water. It requires a different kefir grain, the addition of cane sugar to start the ferment and can be flavoured with herbs, spices and fruit. Their latest is infused with lavender and lime.

When I ran into Mandolyn Jonasson of Island Sodaworks at the Comox Farmer’s Market, I tasted a totally different probiotic drink. Jonasson ferments her sodas on a farm near Errington and bottles them in stubby brown bottles. She also sells her sodas by the keg — it’s available on draught at her Brewtopia lunch café and at Comox restaurants, including Twisted Dishes, Union Street Grill and the new White Whale Public House.

Jonasson doesn’t make any health claims for her “living botanical sodas” but says they’re loaded with probiotics and, unlike kefir water or kombucha, are almost sugarfree.

“We ferment in salinity—it’s basically like a sauerkraut brine,” says Jonasson, who creates her seasonal sodas with fruits and vegetables like organic limes and cucumbers, along with herbs and wild-crafted plants from dandelion flowers to salal.

“I first learned to make lacto-fermented ginger beer, so I called upon those old traditions,” she says. “No one else is doing it this way—I don’t use an inoculant and I don’t add sugar.” This means her sodas are safe for diabetics and people with compromised immune systems, she says.

Jonasson’s bubbly and endlessly curious personality is reflected in her seasonal flavour combinations, from her refreshing cucumber, lime and mint “Mojioto” soda, to Blackberry Rosemary, Sweet Cicely and Pear or Rhubarb and Rose. Raw, unpasteurized and unfiltered, there’s a shelf life to these natural sodas, but they’re definitely delicious.

When she’s not manipulating microbes, foraging for wild nettles or selling her sodas, this busy single mom is building a community around her business, hosting outdoor movie nights at Island Soda Works Brewtopia (free popcorn and healthy soda) or making sprouted corn tacos with Tree Island yogurt cheese for lunch.

It’s all part of the culturing culture that seems to be growing here on the island as fast as the wild lactobacillus that’s fuelling these fizzy foods and drinks. Cheers to that!

award-winning, innovative, island-sourced cuisine fisgard str eet, victoria 509 fisgard street, ulla.ca

250.590.8795

www.savourcowichan.com www.eatmagazine.ca SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

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LOCAL KITCHEN

keep calm and pie on Those deep, rich fall flavours shine in this gastro-pub-style meal. Big bold herby sausages packed with red wine are bundled with smoky streaky bacon and sweet squash under a blanket of flaky pastry. Dish up with Bubble ‘n Squeak – fried mashed potato cakes laced with Brussels sprouts to soak up all of the saucy bits and plenty of red wine.

Bordelaise Sausage ‘n Bacon Pot Pies recipe on pg 40

Text, recipes and food styling by JENNIFER DANTER Photography by MICHAEL TOURIGNY Art Direction by JENNIFER DANTER & GARY HYNES 38

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A coating of salted caramel turns eating an autumn apple into the ultimate pleasure

Brandied Sea Salt Caramel Apples Remove stems from 6 apples* and insert 6 twigs. Place apples on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. In heavy, large deep saucepan, stir 1 cup whipping cream with 1½ cups sugar, ½ cup corn syrup and ¼ cup brandy. Bring to a boil, stirring often. Once mixture starts to bubble, reduce heat to medium. Cook until deep amber, 15 to 18 minutes. Mixture will be very bubbly. Remove from heat and swirl in 2 Tbsp butter.

Working quickly, dip an apple in caramel, and then liberally sprinkle with salt (the caramel hardens quickly).

Place back on baking sheet and repeat with remaining apples. If caramel hardens, reheat, stirring often, over medium heat. *Try using a variety of heritage apples. Visit the apple festival this fall on Salt Spring Island.

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Cont’d from the previous page

Bordelaise Sausage ‘n Bacon Pot Pies Choux Choux’s hand crafted sausages are the definition of artisanal awesomeness. Their bordelaise ones are wine-packed flavour bombs, making them a clever cheat for potpies.

Makes 4 medium or 6 small pies

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EAT MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

4 bordelaise sausages 2 strips smoky bacon, chopped 15 pearl onions, peeled * 3 garlic cloves, minced 1 heaping Tbsp flour 1 cup robust red wine 2 cups beef broth 6 cups chopped squash (try banana or buttercup) 3 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley 1 recipe for pie dough Coat the bottom of a large wide saucepan or Dutch oven with oil and set over medium-high heat.

When hot, add sausages. Cook, turning often, until browned.

Remove to a cutting board.

Add bacon to pan and reduce heat to medium. Once fat starts to render, stir in onions and garlic.

Cook until garlic is golden and fragrant, 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, chop sausages into small pieces, then return to pan.

Sprinkle with flour and stir to mix.

Increase heat and pour in wine.

Using a wooden spoon, scrape up and stir in brown bits from pan bottom. Simmer until wine has reduced by half, and then stir in broth. Bring to a boil, and then add squash. Reduce to a simmer and cook until squash is tender and starts to fall apart, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in parsley. Cool mixture completely before preparing pies.

Divide mixture between 4 individual pie plates. Cut pie dough into 4 to 6 pieces. Using a rolling pin, roll into circles larger than the pie plates, then place over each pie plate, covering filling.

Using a fork, crimp edges to seal.

Cut a few air vents in each pie,

then brush crusts with milk or egg wash. Place on a baking sheet.

Bake in preheated 400F oven for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 375 and continue baking until crusts are deep golden and filling is hot, about 20 to 25 more minutes. *To easily peel onions, blanche in boiling water for 30 to 40 secs. Cool in ice water, then trim root end. Give a gently squeeze and it should “pop” right out.

Bubble & Squeak Cakes Maybe it’s the quirky name, but a fry up of mashed potatoes laden with buttery leeks and punchy Brussels sprouts is irresistible. A good pairing with saucy pot pies.

Makes 8 to 10 cakes 2 to 21/2 cups leftover mashed potatoes 2 to 3 Tbsp butter 1 leek, thinly sliced 1 garlic clove, minced 10 Brussels sprouts, chopped or 1 cup shredded cabbage Pinches of sea salt, ground black pepper and nutmeg Flour, for coating Melt 1 Tbsp butter in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Add leeks and garlic. Stir until leeks are soft, 1 to 2 min. Add sliced sprouts and cabbage and stir often, until lightly golden, about 5 to 6 minutes. Add a splash of water, if needed, to soften sprouts.

Stir into potato mixture. Taste and generously season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Form into small balls, then flatten into cakes, Refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes or overnight.

Lightly dredge cakes in flour.

Heat remaining butter in frying over medium-high heat. When bubbly, add a few cakes. Pan fry until deep golden on both sides.

Place on a baking and keep warm in 350F oven. Repeat with remaining cakes. Reduce heat to medium, as needed. Serve with dollops of herbed crème fraiche.

THE LOCAL LIST

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EAT’s where to find it guide

EAT Magazine is available thanks to the support of our advertisers. Please support them whenever you can

DOWNTOWN DUNCAN

RESTAURANTS

THE MINT

HUDSON’S ON FIRST

Stop in for a casual bite at street level and experience our cozy Lunch restaurant, or join us downstairs for dinner, drinks and our unique take on South Asian cuisine.

1414 Douglas St., Victoria, BC (250) 386-6468 themintvictoria.com

Fine dining in a beautifully restored heritage home. Local ingredients, classic techniques and modern presentation are just a few reasons Chef Dan Hudson is creating a buzz.

Celebrate Lunch, Brunch and Dinner.

163 First St. Duncan 250-597-0066 www.hudsonsonfirst.ca

SALT SPRING ISLAND FERNWOOD ROAD CAFE A fun, relaxed and welcoming place to hang out, enjoy the waterfront view and soak in the North Salt Spring Island vibe. Oh yeah, and have a pretty darn good coffee as well.

325 Fernwood Rd. Salt Spring Island, BC, V8K 1C3 250-931-2233 www.fernwoodcafe.com

HASTINGS HOUSE Dining Room West coast cuisine meets continental preparation in our cozy dining room on the water. Our three-course menu changes daily, featuring fresh cuts from our on-site garden and fresh catch from local fishermen.

160 Upper Ganges Rd. Salt Spring Island, BC V8K 2S2 250-537-2362 www.hastingshouse.com

Vegetarian & Gluten Wise Options

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VICTORIA PUBLIC MARKET PRESERVATION FOODS CHOCOLATE PROJECT Canada's finest selection of artisanal bean-to-bar chocolate. Taste and explore over 180 bars from the top chocolate makers on Earth with local chef David Mincey as your guide.

Victoria Public Market at the Hudson preservationchocolate@gmail.com Friday, Saturday & Sunday from 11 to 5

THE APPLE BOX Frozen Meals with a Local Emphasis - The Apple Box' Seasonal Menu or Food Box consists of Frozen Dinners, Appetizers & Desserts made with Local hormone free pasture raised meatsLocal produce & Organic Ingredients.

Available In Store 1725 Cook St www.theapplebox.ca 250-590-6257

THE CHOCOLATE PROJECT

www.eatmagazine.ca SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

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15th Anniversary Feature

fifteen years of

Okanagan wine

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story by JULIE PEGG illustration by LAURA PRPICH

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m

y initial foray into the Okanagan was in the mid-’90s.

There were fewer than 50 wineries then, nearly all of them in or around Kelowna. I was a B.C. Liquor Board product consultant and was sent to “help” with the harvest. My billet was at Gray Monk Estate Winery with owners/winegrowers George and Trudy Heiss whose B.C. wine roots hearken back to the ’70s. Thanks to the couple, and fellow industry pioneers Adolph Kruger (Wild Goose Vineyards), Walter and Gordon Gehringer (Gehringer Brothers Estate Winery) and Gunther Lang of Lang Vineyards, coolclimate, aromatic whites—Riesling, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and Gewürztraminer—had found a firm footing in the vineyards and on the table.

For me the trick was to get down and dirty in the vineyard and really get to know B.C.’s wine grapes. I did a lousy job. (Trudy teases me still about my vineyard skills, or lack of them.)

The Heisses “suggested” I might like to jump in the truck and tootle “down south” with them to Oliver and Osoyoos They were going red grape shopping. I recall heady aromas of ripe juice, sagebrush, dirt—and an air of brisk business. Forklifts hurried the purple clusters from vineyard to crush pad as quickly as expert pickers tossed grapes into bins. Winery dogs bounced about the vineyards and barked at the dust-covered pick-ups that whipped in and out of driveways. Growers and buyers were bent head to head in discussion.

“Red grapes passed the climate test in 1999,” says Trudy Heiss on this most recent visit. “Frost hit the vineyards that year but red grapes, especially merlot, weathered through. It was then that we [the industry] knew red grapes could and would make it.”

In 1993, Sumac Ridge Estate winery founder Harry McWatters, never one to let grass grow beneath his feet, had planted Bordeaux varieties on fallow land off Black Sage Road, behind Oliver on the valley’s east side. This was received with skepticism by more than a few folks, the Heisses included. But things ticked along rather nicely.

Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc were settled in their sandy, arid soils around Osoyoos and Oliver, in particular on Black Sage Bench.

I never thought about B.C. wine folks thinking outside the Schloss Laderheim 3-litre box. Back at the wine shop, “Slosh,” as the German knock-off was coined, was flying off the shelves. But in the Okanagan I saw that wine times—they were a changin’! And folks there were tickled pink.

Bench Warmers Stoneboat Vineyards’ Lanny Martiniuk was an old-hand grape grower before he launched the winery in 2005. Son Tim takes care of the winery’s marketing. Over a sip of Pinotage (a rare treat) in the winery’s lush grounds, Tim tells me, “Dad bought our vineyard before the wine rush.

During the ’90s, real estate prices were soaring but that didn’t stop folks from running to the party.”

The “party” included Burrowing Owl Winery’s fanfare launch in 1998. Nearly 16 years on, the wines have yet to lose momentum. Owner Jim Wyse, a forerunner in pushing winegrowing toward agro-tourism, expanded the winery to include Sonora Room Restaurant and the 10-room Guest House. Blackhills Estate Winery took off with Nota Bene in 1999 and continues to sell out every vintage. Howard Soon didn’t have to hightail it to the shindig. The veteran winemaker for Calona Winery (now Peller Estates) simply looked south toward the Black Sage area to begin the successful Sandhill brand of wines, also in the late ’90s. Today, Sandhill Small Lots wines gleaned

we are not ashamed of acidity. I think that goes for a good many Naramata wines.

The stunningly beautiful 15-kilometre bench now clusters together two dozen or so smallish wineries.

Today winemaker Jeff Martin proudly shows me the number of shiny medals he’s garnered since opening La Frenz Winery in 2000. Lake Breeze’s South African winemaker Garron Elmes hung his hat not on Chenin Blanc (that country’s signature white grape) but on Pinot Blanc, one of the better in B.C, when he emigrated with the original owners in 1995. Laughing Stock (opened 2005) and Poplar Grove (a breathtaking new facility that replaces the 1997 shoe-box original) clock in with lush Pinot Gris and sophisticated red blends. Michael Dinn and Heidi Noble, since opening Joie Farm, have hit the jackpot with their aptly named and Alsace-inspired Noble Blend. Much of the province’s grape fanfare may happen along or near the Black Sage vineyard area in the South Okanagan, but the Naramata Bench plays an equally lively tune—just a little quieter.

What I am certain about is that B.C. wines will continue to evolve with panache, and with a fresh juicy style that display a sense of place—with that hint of local sagebrush many folks swear they detect in the wines. from tiny vineyard parcels include such unlikely grape candidates as Malbec, Barbera and Sangiovese. (At this writing, I just attended the long awaited opening of an actual Sandhill Winery. Guests represented the past and the future of the Okanagan—and an enormous amount of respect was shown to Soon.) Tinhorn Creek’s Sandra Oldfield trucks across the road from the winery’s Golden Mile location to source “bench” Cabernet Franc and Merlot. In 2012, she knocked Cab Franc out of the park.

As for Harry McWatters, he left Sumac Ridge six years ago (staying on as the winery’s CEO after it was sold to the large Vincor corporation) to start his big-and-bold Time Estate Winery and McWatters Collection. I tasted an impressive line-up at Locals Restaurant, managed by his daughter Christa-Lee. The grapes came from, where else?

McWatters’s holding of the twenty-year-plus Black Sage Vineyard, which he christened Sundial Vineyard Syrahs soon joined the red brigade. Over the years I find this grape has come splendidly into its own in the province. For me it eclipses Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Deep berry and distinct pepper and dried herb notes hallmark South Okanagan Syrah. Case(s) in point?

The well-crafted Syrah from Le Vieux Pin, Nk’Mip Cellars and particularly Painted Rock. But they come with a price.

Perhaps my favourite (and more affordable) Syrah is from Nichol Vineyards and not from grapes grown on the Black Sage or anywhere else in the South Okanagan. The wine owes its hints of smoky roasted meat, distinct black olive and zesty fruit—all the elements of a good Rhône wine—to vines that cling to the winery’s steep rocky estate high above Skaha Lake on the Naramata Bench. Matt Sherlock, director of sales and operations, gives input into the production too. The strict use of oak is gone. “We’re looking to celebrate cool climate growing, bright fruit and

A View of the Falls Of the dozen or so wineries that twist their way from the southern tip of Skaha Lake to the northern tip of Black Sage Road, only three wineries—Wild Goose, Blue Mountain and Stag’s Hollow—existed before 2000 in the tiny Okanagan Falls community or “the heart of the wine country,” as the region has recently coined itself.

“Riesling is still my favourite drink,” chuckles Wild Goose Vineyards founder Adolph Kruger, another B.C. wine industry forerunner. The German-born and -raised Kruger immigrated to Canada to start Wild Goose Vineyards. The winery opened in 1990. Son Hagen took over the winemaking reins in 1998 amid the craze for heavyhitting Chardonnay. The Krugers survived Riesling’s ups and downs to much benefit. Wild Goose Rieslings are top drawer. My favourite is Stoney Slope Riesling from the old vine site that lies, sun-drenched and pebbly, right outside the new tasting room.

Grape growers Ian and Jane Mavety didn’t exactly throw open the doors with the launch of Blue Mountain in 1992. “We don’t do T-shirts or baseball caps. What we do is make wine,” I recall Jane saying some years ago in an interview. You could visit only by appointment. Now Blue Mountain’s tasting room is open from May to October.

Although Blue Mountain is noted for Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir, I’m partial to the Gamay and Pinot Blanc. Son Matt pretty much grew up in the vineyard. He heads up the winemaking while daughter Christie handles the marketing. The winery offers very good tasting and vineyard tours. (Things have moved on!)

Stag’s Hollow opened in 1996 with a signature Sauvignon Blanc and fine red blends. More interesting these days, though, is the winery’s foray into Tempranillo

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and Dolcetto.

Blasted Church Winery greeted 2000 with solid wines, particularly white blends, and crazy labels. Painted Rock (2009) and Meyer Family Vineyards (2008) launched with premium wines at premium prices. Painted Rock reds are noteworthy as are all of Meyer Family’s Chardonnays. Kraze Legz Vineyard and Winery is a first for the small historic community of Kaleden, south of Penticton. I’m keeping a keen eye on this lovely back roads area.

Similkameen: A Valley on the Rise Similkameen Valley, noted more for farm stands than fine wines, has emerged with a few unique wineries. John and Virginia Weber’s straw bale winery in Cawston, constructed in 2004 by volunteers wanting to learn the craft, is Orofino Vineyards calling card. But there’s no faulting the winemaking craft either. Acid freak that I am, I gear toward the slate-and-citrus Riesling 2012 from Orofino’s Hendsbee Vineyard, one of three Orofino Rieslings. “It would be all Riesling all the time if it were up to me” says John. “I love working with the grape.” Orofino’s gently sparkling Moscato Frizzante, now in its second vintage, scores a hit on the bubble chart.

Seven Stones Winery opened in 2007. The modest grey-frame structure above ground belies what is below—a series of recently built concrete caves (for cellaring and to hold wine events). Master of Wine Rhys Pender, also a garagiste winemaker, produces stellar organically grown Riesling, Chardonnay and rosé in, well, a newly constructed red barn.

(Contact winery for a visit.) Clos du Soleil opened—sort of—a year later in the South Similkameen Valley Upper Bench. Spencer Massie’s Bordeaux-style white wines can be tasted only by appointment and, I believe, on summer weekends. The also tiny barn of a tasting room can barely handle a couple that roll up in a Smart Car let alone a van or busload. If you do get to squeeze through the door, try the delicious Capella Sauvignon Blanc.

The award-winning fruit wines at Rustic Roots Winery, in Cawston hearkens from fourth generation owners, Nancy and Bruce Harker’s organic orchards

Back to the Future

ORDER DIRECT

WWW.SUMMERHILL.BC.CA Free shipping on orders of 12 bottles or more.

4870 CHUTE LAKE RD, KELOWNA 1-800-667-3538 • INFO@SUMMERHILL.BC.CA

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EAT MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

So what of North Okanagan, where it all began? Well, here are just a few highlights.

Since owner Anthony Von Mandl unveiled Mission Hill Winery’s stunning bell-towered digs in 1999, expert wine staff welcome busloads of visitors to tasting room, restaurant and concerts. Von Mandl also, to everyone’s astonishment, purchased Cedar Creek earlier this year. We can surmise that this is a good thing given Mission Hill’s track record. Winemaker/vine grower Eric Von Krosigk returned like the prodigal son in 2006 after a considerable hiatus to Summerhill Pyramid Winery, which he helped found in 1991. The whiz of a sparkling winemaker keeps things moving in organic fashion. Summerhill’s cellar earned organic status in 2007, and its Cipes Brut continues to reign as one of B.C.’s more popular bubbles. Fished out of financial doldrums in 2004, Pinot Reach became Tantalus Winery. Racy fruit frames Tantalus Old Vines Riesling grown on a tiny block of 35-year-old vines. It’s now the gold standard for B.C. Riesling. The winery’s very fine Pinot Noir also hails from older vines.

Summerland’s Okanagan Crush Pad may very well indicate the future of the B.C.’s wine industry. It is not only home to its own wines but a production facility for hopeful winery owners. Encouraged to keep production small, they coddle grapes from vine to wine via huge, breathable, concrete fermenters that look like Humpty-Dumpty eggs—the first to be used in Canada.

My final visit last September was to Culmina Family Estate Winery in Oliver. I bumped along the dusty furrows of Golden Mile Bench in a 4x4 with another of the old guard, Don Triggs (yes, the same Triggs associated with but no longer involved with Jackson-Triggs wines) and winemaker Pascal Madevon. Triggs came out of retirement to establish Culmina Family Estate Winery, which opened last summer. The two wave fingers at soils, slopes and grapes and about future plans. They are as cheerful as a couple of kids in the sandbox.

“Life is about changing and learning”, says Triggs. “I had to return to wine. Wine is in my bones.” His bones serve him well. Culmina wines are damn good right out of the gate.

Triggs’s words seem to sum up the big picture for B.C.’s Okanagan wine industry.

Changing and learning. But to predict precisely the next fifteen years would require a ball made of very clear crystal. What I am certain about is that B.C. wines will continue to evolve with panache, and with a fresh juicy style that display a sense of place—with that hint of local sagebrush many folks swear they detect in the wines. E

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WINE FESTIVALS

By Rebecca Baugniet

A New Wine Festival for Victoria ritish Columbia’s vibrant wine industry continues to spoil West Coast residents with an abundance of sipping choices. While Victoria continues to embrace a brewery culture, it’s fitting (and high-time) that the capital city had an internationally-focussed wine festival to call its own.

The Victoria Wine Festival (vicwf.com) hosts a one-day event September 26, offering two public and one trade tasting. With a focus on diverse, international wines that are also affordable—eighty per cent of the vino comes in under $22 a bottle—organizer David Bain wants the event to educate consumers.

“We want the average consumer, like myself, to walk out of the event and not shop by labels at the liquor store.

That’s the gap we’re trying to fill,” says Bain, who doesn’t consider himself a wine expert, purely an appreciator of wine.

A pair of local sommeliers, Josh Clark from Il Terrazzo and Jacques LaCoste from Lure , are tasked with selecting the 200 wines for the event, the majority coming from international wineries.

“We’re proud of what we do in BC, but we want to take people out of their comfort zone. You like a BC pinot noir? Here’s a variety from France or Oregon you might enjoy,” says Clark, who observes his diners are often reluctant to try a new wine, ordering what they know again and again.

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LaCoste would also like to see the festival inspire consumers to try something different. “How about I feed you only chicken for the next two weeks? It’s the same idea. That’s the beauty of international wine, so many different tastes,” says LaCoste.

In additon to the public and trade tasting seminars are planned for the day. Sponsored by EAT Magazine Australia’s Yalumba winery will hold a sit down tasting that will feature a number of Yalumba’s top wines. In attendance will be prominent winemaker and communicator Jane Ferrari to lead the tasting. EAT wine editor Treve Ring will host. (2:30pm, Sept 26, $25) With just under a month until the festival, Clark and LaCoste have been tasting and selecting the wineries for showcase. So far, they haven’t disagreed on a single decision. Already, they’ve given the green light to a Kettle Valley chardonnay, a Bird in Hand shiraz from Australia and a Tedeschi amarone from Italy. Devil’s Liar Winery from Australia and Painted Wolf from South Africa are also confirmed.

“We want to focus on affordable wines that everyone can buy. Wine is all about the mood and meal. You want a good balance of sweet and dry. Good fruitiness and acidity that cleans the palate,” says LaCoste.

A focus on international and affordable allows consumers to sample a wider variety of wine over the course of the tasting. Bain and the sommeliers emphasize

By Kaitlyn Rosenburg

this will be a traditional wine tasting, not a food and wine pairing event. Guests can expect local meats, cheeses and bread for nibbles in-between their sips.

Music from Jon Middleton (one half of local duo Jon and Roy) and a pop-up liquor store round out the indoor and outdoor venue at the Parkside Hotel & Spa. Ticket prices include all-inclusive access to eighty per cent of the wines, plus two silver tokens for varieties in the $22-$35 range and one gold token for pours over $35.

Additional silver and gold tokens will be available for purchase the day of the event, which Bain hopes to keep under $5.

Tickets are $75 after September 1 until the day of the event. Tickets can be purchased in-person at any Discovery Coffee location and online through Ticketzone.

Victoria Wine Festival September 26, 2014 Parkside Hotel, 810 Humboldt Street, Victoria BC Trade: 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Public Tastings: (1) 3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. (2) 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. www.vicwf.com The VWF will benefit the BC Hospitality Foundation.

Perfectly placed to make fine wine and good friends. tinhorn.com

www.eatmagazine.ca SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

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VINCABULARY By Treve Ring

Gewürztraminer {geh VAIRTZ trah mee ner} Not familiar with gewürztraminer? The name itself quite literally tells you what to expect. Gewürz translates as spice, and refers to the fact that the grape, originating from Alsace, is a spicy mutation of the traminer grape. The scion has eclipsed the parent; though traminer today is not well known, gewürztraminer (or gewurz, or gew) has proven itself a popular white aromatic wine, grown successfully across numerous regions a nd climates. The pink skinned grape has high natural sugar and therefore alcohol, and lower acidity. Though most gew are offdry, styles range from rich and sweet to bone dry and taut. All well-made gewürztraminer characteristically carry a spicy note, that can range from a tickle to a full on Moroccan market. Other notes to look for in the glass include rose petals, lychee, cold cream and perfume.

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FRUITY Summerhill Pyramid Winery Organic Gewürztraminer 2013 Okanagan Valley, BC *$20 +446468 This mid-sweet gew is positively glowing with peach nectar, blossoms, mandarin, tangerine peel, dried herbs and apricot fuzz before ending on a dusty froot loops note. Certified organic.

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Zind Humbrecht Gewürztraminer 2012 Alsace, France $30 +510693 Impressive and serious, this wine changes with the temperature and grows with each day opened. Savoury stone, dry rasped spice, delicate wild flower blossoms, lime pith and bitter melon.

Fantastic oily concentration on the palate before a very long finish.

FRESH Bicicleta Gewürztraminer 2013 Chile $10.99 + 494708 This spring-fresh wine is just off-dry, with white and pink flowers, ripe peach, pink grapefruit juiciness and baby powder perfume. A nice ribbon of concentrated spice throughout. Fantastic value for textbook gewürztraminer.

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EAT MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

Terroir trumps grape here, in this aged example of gew from the mountains of northeast Italy. Oxidized notes work between lean orchard fruit, green apple, pear peel and dusty stone. The oily palate carries heaps of stony spice through to the bone dry finish.

RIPE PJ Valckenberg Gewürztraminer 2012 Pfalz, Germany $19.95 +541573 Great example of the generously cushioned, balanced wines characteristic of Germany’s warmer Pfalz region.

Cinnamon and peach fuzz lead into a mid-sweet, round gew with heady blossom, ripe white peach and juicy pear. Enough pink grapefruit acidity to carry.

ORCHARD JoieFarm A Noble Blend 2013 Okanagan Valley, BC $24 +138263 45% gewürztraminer joins friends riesling, pinot auxerois, pinot blanc, muscat and schoenberger in this very popular orchard basket blend. Crafted in the spirit of Edelzwicker, the traditional blend of Alsace, this off-dry mediumbodied aromatic is teeming with lime pulp, granny smith apple, lychee and baked spiced apples on the finish.

Alois Lageder Gewürztraminer 2010 Sudtirol Alto Adige, Italy *30 +366765 *Asterisks denote wines that are only available at the winery or select private liquor stores.

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ES ESTATE TATE WIN E R RY Y & V IN E Y YA R D

A New Beginning New Ne wo owners wners Brenda Brenda Hetman-Cr Hetman-Craig and Layne La yne Craig Craig ha have ve brought brought their pas passion for land, wine wine,, and air tto o the 40 Kno Knots ts W Winery. inery.

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TERROIR

By Michelle Bouffard and Michaela Morris

Comfort Food with Wine

Matching high-quality wines to food for fun, low-pressure entertaining.

,

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EAT MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

THAT SUDDEN NIP IN THE AIR has us mourning the long lazy days of summer. We miss hanging out in the backyard at impromptu barbecues with whichever friends happened to drop by. With back-to-school season, socializing becomes complicated.

The busier days and cooler nights shouldn’t be an excuse to cease last-minute gatherings, though. And there is no shame in inviting over the gang to share your favourite takeout or do-it-yourself meal. For inspiration, we look to cultures that have mastered cozy, fun, low-pressure dining. Four of them get our vote: Mexican, Italian, Japanese and Swiss. To relax fully, spice up familiar dishes with a wine you have not tried before.

Mexican food immediately suggests a fiesta. Conveniently, many of the specialties are easy to prep. Who doesn’t like nachos? A more imperative question is what to drink with that pile of tortilla chips smothered in melted cheese, spicy salsa, tangy sour cream and rich guacamole. Margaritas and beer are the obvious choice, but the oenophile in us believes there’s a wine that works. A Sauvignon Blanc will cut though the cheesy richness but also stand up to the aggressive raw vegetables in the salsa. For off-the-beaten-track alternatives, Verdejo from Spain or Assyrtiko from Greece will have a similar effect.

Throwing a taco party requires a bit more planning, but it’s still fairly simple. You just need to provide the fixings and let your friends assemble their own. Spice factor alert: avoid high-tannin, high-alcohol (13%+) wine if you like your tacos piquante.

With fish tacos, try an Albariño from Rías Baixas. For tacos al pastor (slow-cooked pork topped with onion, cilantro and pineapple), serve a fruity Garnacha. And with lamb tacos, go for a full-bodied Shiraz or juicy Tempranillo. For a large crowd, whip up a big batch of chili. The classic con carne always satisfies, especially when paired with a hearty, fruit-forward red like Zinfandel or a Monastrell from southern Spain.

Vegetarian chili requires a lighter red or a zesty white from Spain’s Rueda region. For Mexican food in general, Argentine winemaker Susana Balbo tipped us off to an intriguing union. After tasting multiple wines with a variety of Mexican fare, she and her Mexican friends agreed that the winning pairing was Argentina’s flagship white: Torrontés. Tropical yet fresh with an invigorating lime-zest quality, you could call Torrontés the margarita of wine. Test it out with her delicious Crios Torrontés.

Italians have nailed informal and convivial feasting. Their alla famiglia approach involves large plates of food to share with loved ones. Even the humble pizza can be divvied up. Pie joints continue to pop up all over B.C. (we aren’t complaining). Check out the newest spot near you and grab a few pizzas to go. The more people you have over for dinner, the more kinds you can try. It’s a good occasion to sample all those weird and wonderful Italian grapes you’ve been curious to discover. Try a quality Soave with a pesto pizza or a zippy Verdicchio with a pizza bianca. For a classic marriage, open a Chianti with the traditional—and in our minds the finest pizza—the Margherita. The bright acidity in this Sangiovese-based wine creates a bridge with the tomato sauce and refreshes the palate between cheesy bites. The list goes on: a juicy Barbera or earthy Nebbiolo will complement a pizza topped with funghi (mushroom), affable Montepulciano d’Abruzzo charms with pepperoni pie while a bold red Negroamaro stands up to spicy sausage. The very un-Italian ham and pineapple combo calls for an unorthodox pick. Why not try an off-dry Riesling from Germany or B.C.?

Above all, remember that a pizza party is anything but highbrow. So mix, match and don’t overthink it.

With a steady diet of California rolls, B.C.’s top takeout must be sushi. It’s so easy to order a few party trays when the invitation list has gotten out of control. As for finding a wine partner, Japanese food can be deceiving. While intrinsically light, it has big punchy flavours like wasabi, ginger, soy sauce and green onion. These intense ingredients require an equally assertive wine to stand up to them. Moreover, the vinegary, citrusy nature of the cuisine calls for high-acid wines. With plenty of both aromas and acid, Riesling is a classic match. Australia and Austria’s versions tend to be *Asterisks denote wines that are only available at the winery or select private liquor stores. Some may be in limited quantities. All other wines are available through BC Liquor Stores. Prices may vary.

EAT Magazine September_Oct 2014_Victoria_56_Layout 1 8/25/14 2:17 PM Page 49

dry while Germany and B.C. offer both dry and off-dry examples. For deep-fried treats like tempura, Vinho Verde from Portugal is another great pick. With pure and simple sashimi, opt for a discreet wine such as Muscadet Sur Lie or a minerally Chablis.

Sparkling wine works well with all of the above, and we’ve been known to splurge on Champagne with takeout sushi.

We will forever be in debt to the Swiss for their formidable contributions to the culinary world. Yes, we are referring to cheese fondue and raclette. They may seem like a throwback to the 1970s, but there’s a reason they were so avidly embraced in North America. Simply put, lingering around a communal cooking vessel provides the perfect setting for a laid-back social evening. The Swiss generally enjoy cheese fondue with their local whites, especially Chasselas, but good luck finding any here in B.C. Whether you choose white or red, the key is to pick a crisp, high-acid wine that cuts through all that cheese. In lieu of Swiss wine, we look to the French region of Savoie, which borders Switzerland. It offers fascinating options, and there is a slightly better chance of finding a bottle from Savoie than Switzerland on our shelves. Try the Domaine la Rosière Jongieux, made from the obscure Jacquère grape. More readily available and equally suitable is Austria’s lively Grüner Veltliner varietal.

When it comes to raclette, we worship our Stelvio. This modern raclette cooker is ideal for a dinner party of eight. Each person gets a paddle upon which to place potatoes piled with cheese and sliced ham for cooking under the grill. Make sure you have plenty of mustard and cornichon as condiments. A local Pinot Blanc or Loire Valley Chenin Blanc will have the weight to stand up to the decadent morsels and at the same time counter the richness. For reds, something light-bodied and vibrant is the way to go. Pinot Noir, Gamay/Beaujolais and Cabernet Franc from the Loire Valley work like a charm (look for the appellations Chinon, Saumur, Bourgeuil).

The reality is that darker, rainy days lie ahead. Rather than hibernating, seek comfort with good friends, social food and new wine discoveries. Spontaneous social gatherings will re-energize you while allowing you to expand your wine horizon. E

Tasting Notes WHITE 2012 Pezoules, Sauvignon Blanc Assyrtiko, Greece $14-16 (SKU #790519) Greece’s assertive citrusy and refreshing Assyrtiko grape is given an herbal lift from Sauvignon Blanc. Plan a rendezvous with nachos.

2011 Heitlinger, ‘Smooth Leaf’ Pinot Blanc, Baden, Germany $18-20 (SKU #223487) Luscious Asian pear and peach against a minerally and steely backbone. Try this with raclette.

2013 Domaine la Rosière, Jongieux, Savoie AOC France $19-21 (SKU #493593) Delicate apple blossoms on the nose. Brilliantly lively on the palate with hints of pine honey and wet stone.

Simply made for cheese fondue.

2011 Réné Muré, Signature Riesling, Alsace AOC, France $24-27 (SKU #354381) A dry Riesling with pronounced flinty and floral aromas and spine-tingling lemony acidity. Bring on the sushi.

2010 Salomon Undhof, Grüner Veltliner, Weiden Kremstal DAC, Austria $27-30 (SKU# 843045) White grapefruit pith, hints of peach and white pepper notes with bright acidity. Another worthy candidate for cheese fondue.

RED 2012 Emiliana, ‘Novas’ Garnacha/Syrah, Cachapoal, Chile $18-20 (SKU #879635) A succulent mouthful of juicy wild raspberries, cherry pits and fragrant dried herbs. A friendly choice for taco night.

2011 Barone di Valforte Montepulciano d’Abruzzo DOP, Italy $20-23 (SKU #887430) Earthy and robust with luscious flavours of black plum. Pepperoni pizza pie please!

2010 Volpetto, Chianti Riserva DOCG, Italy $20-23 (SKU #525535) Red berries, savoury herbs, bright acid and assertive but ripe tannin. It simply begs for a Margherita pizza topped with fresh basil.

2012 Jean Maurice Raffault, Chinon AOC, France $22-25 (SKU #75440) Mouth-watering red currants, mineral and tobacco stimulate the appetite. Serve with a slight chill to wash down your raclette feast.

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2012 Rodney Strong, ‘Knotty Vines’ Zinfandel, Northern Sonoma, California $24-27 (SKU #264739) Rich soft fruit with smoky, peppery and blueberry bramble flavours. A crowd- pleaser, especially with chili con carne (don’t overdo it on the spice though!).

2012 Meyer Family Vineyard, Pinot Noir, Okanagan Valley, BC $28-32* Bing cherries and crunchy acidity. This local gem is a great foil for raclette.

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DRINK editor Treve Ring asks local wine experts how they would approach pairing dishes and flavours.

What to drink with that!

—By Treve Ring

A Visit to the Gastropub T H I S

M O N T H ’ S

E X P E RT S

Sally Campa (SC) General Manager - Vino Volo, Vancouver International Airport Sally Campa is both a trained chef from the celebrated Dubrulle International Culinary and Hotel Institute of Canada and an ISG certified Sommelier. Sally spent 15 years as a personal chef and caterer before turning to wine full-time in 2007. Following three years in wine retail in Vancouver, she returned to the restaurant industry in 2012 to open the Vino Volo locations at YVR, where she is the General Manager and Sommelier.

Andy Johnston (AJ) Owner, Averill Creek Vineyards In 2002 Andy established Averill Creek Vineyard on the south slope of Mt Prevost. with the sole goal to become one of the premium Pinot Noir producers in Canada.

Over the past 15 years Andy has worked to identify and develop the best varieties for this cool climate oenological area of Cowichan Valley, helped to establish new techniques of viticulture for this area in order to improve the fruit quality and establish the Cowichan Valley as the best area in Canada to grow Pinot Noir.

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Corned Beef Terrine with Brown Ale Jelly SC. Corned beef terrine has a wonderful texture with rich condensed flavors. It will require a wine that can align with its weightiness. I would head straight to the region of Alsace for this dish, and reach for an aged Grand Cru Pinot Gris.

The opulence from the age and quality of wine, combined with complex notes of spice, honey and hints of exotic fruit, will offer a lively roundness to the dish. Pinot Gris from this

Jowl of Tamworth pork with black pudding and smoked parsnip SC. This entree is packed full of rich unctuous character.

Pairing it with a Sonoma County Syrah will result in a marriage of perfection. Syrah from this region is remarkably powerful and intensely aromatic. With savory notes, black pepper and wild berry profiles, these wines are stacked and layered just as this dish. The deep clove and nutmeg hints from the black pudding will stand to the meaty, smoky, chewy aspects from Syrah. I gravitated towards a Sonoma

EAT MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014

climate retains enough natural acidity to balance the succulence of the terrine. The developing flavors of an aged Pinot Gris will lend mushroom and gingerbread notes, which will truly bring it home with the accompanied Brown Ale Jelly.

AJ. These are big strong flavors and requires a similar wine to match. For a local flavour, Marechal Foch/Cab-Foch from Vancouver Island would be ideal. The blackcurrant, dark plum, smoky, cedar box aromas will marry well with this dish.

Syrah here, as these are typically leaner in demeanor then those of Northern Rhone. The mineral character and bright acidity will break through the succulence of the Pork Jowl.

Sonoma Syrah can show incredible finesse in its youth, along with textural brilliance, just as the components of this mouth watering entrée.

AJ. Another very rich plate with powerful flavors, the black pudding and parsnip predominating. Syrah/Grenach/ Cinsault from Languedoc / Southern Rhone valley would be my choice. A little acidity combined with big fruit would go a long way to complementing this dish and cutting through the lardo in the pork jowl.

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Liquid Assets

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n Ita

so Focu

By Larry Arnold

ITALY Carpano Punt E Mes Vermouth Rosso Italy *$30.00-33.00 Forgive me if you have read this review before but it is worth sharing. There is nothing more satisfying then a tumbler of Punta E Mes on the rocks with a squeeze of orange while waiting for the charcoals to take on a hot August evening. Vermouth, as it is known today, was invented by either the Germans or the Italians sometime in the sixteenth century. The original was known in German as wermutwein and was a local wine infused with the bitter herb wermut or wormwood and used as a curative for parasites. Punt E Mes is considered by many to be the greatest red vermouth made today. The recipe for this magic elixir was invented by bartender Antonino Carpano, in 1870, during a slow couple of hours at his bar in a blue collar neighbourhood in the heart of Piedmont, Italy. The 15 herb recipe is still a family secret but I can tell you this: It is slightly sweet, slightly bitter and absolutely delicious.

Villa Sandi Il Fresco Treviso Prosecco NV Italy *$18.00-20.00 This charming little spumante from the hills of Triviso is soft and fruity with a fine mousse and ripe apple and citrus flavours. Very fresh with lovely balance and a gentle finish.

Masciarelli Trebbiano D’Abruzzo 2012 Italy *$16.00-18.00 This is the perfect summer sipper. It is light, it has moderate alcohol (12.5%), it is delicious and it is affordable. I reviewed the previous vintage last fall, it was very good then, it may be even better now! Somewhat austere on the nose but the aromatics build across the palate with green apple, spring flower and mineral notes. It is a simple wine with a tight, dry structure. It is a joy to drink.

Santa Cristina Pinot Grigio Terre Siciliane 2012 Italy $17.00-19.00 Crisp and refreshing with peaches, citrus and ripe apples on the nose. Clean and bright with soft acidity, simple fruit flavours that linger through the finish.

Giorgio & Gianni Nero Negroamaro Salento 2010 Italy *$13.00-14.00 This hearty Negroamaro from the hot flat dusty plains of Puglia is a rustic mélange of concentrated black currant, spice and toasty oak flavours. Dry and full-bodied, with a soft tannic punch and a firm persistent finish.

S E A F O O D

H O U S E

Harvest 2014 celebrating the bounty of the season

Marchesi Mazzei Poggio Badiola Toscana 2011 Italy *$21.00-23.00 This blend of Sangiovese and Merlot has a lot going for it, with layers of black cherry, spice and cocoa on the nose. Medium-bodied, with ripe berry flavours nicely balanced with firm acidity and a rasp of fine-grained tannins.

Renzo Masi Erta e China Rosso Di Toscana 2011 Italy *$20.00-22.00 Erta e China is a blend of Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon. Perfectly balanced and very ripe with dried cherry, blackberry and earth aromas that virtually jump out of the glass. Full-bodied and concentrated with rich fruit flavours, fine tannins and a long supple finish.

Masciarelli Montepulciano D’Abruzzo 2011 Italy *$19.00-21.00 Masciarelli is the largest organically farmed estate in Italy. They don’t tell you on the label but it is true nonetheless. Stylistically it rides the wave between the old and new world. There is an earthy fecundity but this hearty red is oozing with enough bright fruit flavours to please just about everybody. Delicious with dried cherry, blackberry and chocolate on the palate perfectly balanced with a soft tannic structure. A real cracker!

OTHER Pascal Jolivet Attitude Sauvignon Blanc Touraine 2012 France *$25.00-27.00 Very fresh and clean with citrus and apple aromas, delicate fruit flavours and a bright, tangy finish that just keeps going! Refreshing, to say the least.

Calliope Sauvignon Blanc Okanagan VQA 2012 British Columbia *$16.0018.00 Crisp and refreshing with intense citrus, peach and passion fruit nuances, nicely balanced with good acidity and a long clean finish.

Adegas Valminor Rias Baixas Albarino 2010 Spain *$16.00-18.00 There is absolutely nothing reserved about this gripping Spanish white. It is very refreshing with a saline intensity and a beguiling nose of spring flowers, green apple and lime leaf. Very smooth and easy to enjoy with fresh fruit flavours, supple acidity and a long minerally finish.

Delas Cotes Du Ventoux 2012 France $17.00-19.00 A blend of Grenache (80%) and Syrah Delas Ventoux is soft and juicy with delicious raspberry, cherry and earth flavours, medium to full bodied with a blush of fine grained tannins and a long tasty finish. E DRINKing Guide: How to use our purchasing information. *Asterisks denote wines that are only available at the winery or select private liquor stores. All other wines are available through BC Liquor Stores. The price is suggested retail price, and may fluctuate depending on source.

Join us to savour nature’s abundance with dishes featuring local produce and HA RV protein from land, sea and streams. Discover Chef’s farm to table creations 2 0 14EST from local purveyors like JC Herb Farms, Saanich Farms, Galey Farms and Salt Spring Island.

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The Buzz

WHO’S DOING WHAT IN VICTORIA, VANCOUVER, THE OKANAGAN, TOFINO, THE COWICHAN & NANAIMO

VICTORIA: Fall has always been my favourite season. Crisp apples, sweet pears, tart blackberries and all things pumpkin are just a few of the edible reasons why I count down the days to autumn. When I lived back east I couldn’t wait for the fall foliage, but in my adopted hometown I look forward to the annual meandering food events that occupy my weekends, like the ever-entertaining Chef Survival Challenge at Madrona Farm on Sept 7 (chefsurvivalchallenge.com) or Feast of Fields, this year taking place at Kildara Farm on Sept 14 (feastoffields.com). Both events are great ways to support sustainable, local food systems and hang out with our region’s best chefs in a beautiful setting. It’s also a great time to hop a ferry over to Salt Spring Island, for the 4th annual Sip and Savour Salt Spring Festival, running Sept 19-21 (sipandsavoursaltspring.com) or the Apple Festival held Sept 28 at various orchards across the island (saltspringapplefestival.com).

In the city, we look forward to quieter streets as the cruise ship season winds down and the kids head back to school (hopefully). This year, we’ve got an impressive lineup of beer, wine and cocktail festivals to keep us going until we hit holiday season, starting with the annual Great Canadian Beer Festival Sept 6-7 (gcbf.com). If you haven’t yet heard, 2014 will be the inaugural year for the new Victoria Wine Festival, taking place Sept 26 at the Parkside Hotel and Spa, and featuring trade and public tastings, as well as a seminar with Jane Ferrari of Yalumba, Australia’s oldest family owned winery, sponsored

by EAT Magazine and hosted by our own Treve Ring (vicwf.com). The Art of the Cocktail festival returns Oct 4-6 with perennial favourites such as the Grand Cocktail Tasting, workshops and other special events (artofthecocktail.ca). Victoria is set to host its second Gold Medal Plates competition at the Victoria Conference Centre on Oct 30. This celebration of Canadian excellence in food, wine, entertainment and athletics is held in 11 Canadian cities and has raised over $7.4 million to date for Canada's Olympic athletes. (goldmedalplates.com) Victoria has a beautiful harvest of new eateries in the downtown area this year, with The Churchill - an offshoot of Garrick’s Head in the Bedford Regency Hotel, described by the Local Beer Museum website (victoriabeers.com) as “a cozy, yet spacious beer hall that has an old world charm to it and a superlative selection of beers on tap.” The Drake Eatery and Craft Beer Parlour, on Pandora in Market Square, had their soft opening in early August and is named after the old Victoria Saloon that used to stand nearby. The focus is on Pacific Northwest beers, also serving a few select wines and local food. (facebook.com/thedrakeeatery) The Tapa Bar on Trounce Alley is expanding, taking over the corner unit to accommodate a new Spanish food destination; La Bodegas. Sen Zushi has spent the summer in the former Kaz location on Store St.. Sen Zushi will be leasing the space for another 10 months until their Fort Street location has recovered from the fire damage (senzushi.com). Johnson St. gets a new coffee shop called Hey Happy (heyhappycoffee.com) and Yates St. is awaiting a fall opening for a new eastern European restaurant called Sult Pierogi Bar, not to mention the highly anticipated arrival of Meat and Bread (meatandbread.ca). After several unoccupied months, the little fish shop on Fort St just above Blanshard formerly known as Hook has been reinvented as Fish Hook. Former “Top Chef Canada” contender and Red Fish Blue Fish mastermind Kunal Ghose has joined forces with Hook Fine Foods entrepreneur Steve Kerr to offer downtown Victoria a unique take on the tartine. Serving both sit down and take away customers, Fish Hook offers tartines, as well as a wide selection of salads, soups (including a brand new signature chowder!) and daily-produced pickles, all featuring a variety of sustainable, locally sourced and farm fresh ingredients. (fishhookvic.com) Local industry news includes an exciting new venture for Cook Culture, which recently bought Cookworks in Vancouver (find the full press release on the EAT website) (www.cookculture.com), and a beautiful new product for Silk Road, which introduced a line of teabags this summer. The teabags are made from compostable plant material, brew two-cup servings of tea and use innovative, ultra-gentle packaging equipment that doesn’t crush or damage tea leaves so they retain maximum nutrient value and taste. (silkroadteastore.com) —REBECCA BAUGNIET COWICHAN VALLEY | UP ISLAND: I’m lucky enough to reap the rewards of living where most things grow well and it's not often that I'm unable to locate produce I wish for. One exception is the iconic Italian San Marzano tomato. (Of course not the 'authentic' ones because like true French champagne they must be grown in Italy). But this summer I stumbled upon a basket and marveled at the scope of what our farmers and purveyors are growing here. Since fall is the best time to take advantage of special harvest time foods, enjoy them at your favorite festivals, restaurants and markets such as these.

The much anticipated Savour Cowichan Wine Festival runs from September 26th to October 5th hosting more than 50 epicurean and wine events. A full celebration of local wines, ciders, spirits and artisan foods of the region. Drink, eat, and enjoy! (tourismcowichan.com) September 28th kicks off the 2-day Salmon & Mushroom Festival at Cowichan Lake, featuring cooking demonstrations, mushroom field trips, identification and of course fresh caught salmon. (salmonmushroomfestival.com)

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Sip & Savour Salt Spring arrives with a flourish September 19th-21st; the gourmet food and beverage extravaganza offers a large selection of winemakers dinners on Friday, a Saturday morning market tour, the grazing event Saturday afternoon - featuring an amazing array of locally prepared goodies and libations - and finishes with Bubbles and Brunch Sunday morning. One of my favorite events of the year. (sipandsavoursaltspring.com) October 18th brings us the Harvest Grape Stomp and Oysterfest at Salt Spring Vineyards; stomp just - picked grapes, sample fresh shucked Cortez Island Oysters, and special tastings of award winning local wines. (saltspringvineyards.com) Downtown Nanaimo's Harvest Festival on September 20th includes a 'fresh food fair' featuring local chefs and food trucks cooking tasty dishes as well as a fresh produce market. (You never know where you'll find that vegetable you've been craving!) (facebook.com/downtown.nanaimo.bia) On September 21st, find your way to Costal Black Estate Winery in Black Creek for the 3rd annual Flavour Festival. The finest chefs, vintners and farmers show off their talents as you meander through the estate sampling everything all in support of culinary culture in the community. (gourmetpicnic.ca) There have been some changes of late in the restaurant scene. In Nanaimo, at what used to be David Wong's Jar on Applecross Rd., Sushi Ryu has opened to an appreciative audience. The new owners offer perfectly presented, fresh sushi at a reasonable price. In Comox, the beautifully situated Monte Cristo's on the river has become The White Whale and is gradually adding an enticing menu of local fare. Gigi's on Comox Ave will once again meta morph - watch for a new Indian restaurant and in Courtenay the Guerrilla Food Company opened, offering homemade, ready to go comfort food to take on the fly or stock up your freezer with for those dark rainy nights you can't think what to cook.

This harvest will be gone before you know it so don't wait to feast on the best of the season and enjoy the bounty - next spring is a whole winter away! —KIRSTEN TYLER TOFINO: The Ice House Oyster Bar is in full swing on the waterfront in Tofino this summer. This new venture by resident Allan Beesley is housed in a former fish plant located on one of Tofino’s original working docks. Though not processing fish the plant is still producing ice for your catch of the day, hence the name. When I visited, the patio was the place to be with live music and stunning views of Clayoquot Sound. The menu has plenty of local seafood and shellfish, including fresh oysters, scallops, tuna, salmon, halibut and more. It also features Common Loaf Bake Shop focaccia, Pemberton Meadows beef, and a solid cocktail and drinks menu. The Ice House, located at 81 West St., is serving lunch and dinner, as well as drinks and dessert. (icehousetofino.ca or call (250) 725-4239).

Marina West Resort is gearing up for another fall Beer Fest on Saturday, Sept. 27th. This annual event takes place dockside outside Jack’s Pub and the Greenroom Diner, rain or shine. This year they are expecting as many as 20 breweries and cideries from all over the Pacific Northwest. Best to get your tickets early, as the event normally draws around 400 people. (marinawest.com).

Rhino Coffee House is now offering pizza from 5:30pm daily until chef Ron Weeks’ dough runs out.

Like Rhino’s housemade donuts, wraps and sandwiches Rhino’s pizza comes in a variety of inventive choices, including the Pear Pecan Pesto. In collaboration with Picnic Charcuterie, there is a Tofino Picnic pizza featuring Tina Windsor’s bacon, fennel sausage and pepperoni. (rhinocoffeehouse.com).

Picnic Charcuterie has also expanded its offerings with a variety of variety of artisan cheeses and Julie Lomenda’s 600 Hundred Degrees bread. French, Quebec and Vancouver Island cheeses dominate the new cooler so you can put together the ultimate Tofino picnic. (picniccharcuterie.com) Tofino Brewing Company has added a tasting room to the brewery space at 681 Industrial Way (Units C & D). You can now stop in for a flight of beer or a glass while filling up your growler or grabbing bottles. For more information and a list of locations where the brews are available on the Island and the Lower Mainland. (tofinobrewingco.com) Jamie’s Rainforest Inn has live music in the lounge and restaurant every Tuesday night. Not only can you catch local talent, but you can also catch a free ride on their shuttle bus back into town. (tofinorainforestinn.com) A nod goes to the Wickaninnish Inn and Pointe Restaurant team for being named the top resort in Canada by Travel and Leisure magazine. The Wickaninnish has consistently been on the top 10 list over the years, but this is the first time it has reached top spot. The awards focus on guests’ experience and determined by readers of the magazine. Congratulations to Charles McDiarmid and staff. (wickinn.com).

Look for a special section on Ucluelet in an upcoming edition of the Tofino Buzz, as well as details on fun and exciting events coming up this fall and winter.

—JEN DART

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VANCOUVER: The curious thing about Montri Rattanaraj is that, while he may have “retired” from his formidable Montri’s Thai some eight years ago, it seems like he’s never really left. Even when he was shuttling for a while between here and Thailand, Montri kept popping up at tastings where, with a coy smile, he’d just say he was busy. Up to something. And he’d “let us know.”

Now that ‘something’ has evolved into reality as, no doubt to the delight of many, Montri has resurfaced in his old neighbourhood, in the space, very briefly occupied by the short-lived Kitsilano outpost of Salt Tasting Room. (Thai Cuisine by Montri, 2585 West Broadway, 604-221-9599.)

Chef Alex Tung has covered a lot of ground since he left Steveston’s Tapenade, opened Burnaby’s successful Cotto Enoteca, and launched his own Yowza! Culinary Concepts. Along the way he’s also taken on the role of Corporate Chef at La Grotta Del Formaggio, on whose behalf he recently triumphed at a major international culinary contest in Italy. Tung scooped top spot at the Rustichella d'Abruzzo 2014 Primo Grano Pasta International Competition. The ever humble Chung says he was “fortunate enough to win Best Dish (Spaghettoni primoGrano with seafood, sausage meat and chili pepper) as well as Best Overall. I was very honoured to represent Canada and am very proud of today's accomplishment.”

If new restaurant openings can be construed to signal a resurgent economy, then judging by the slew of new arrivals, maybe things are looking up. Either that or the City of Vancouver finally found its misplaced Occupancy Permit stamp.

Chambar (chambar.com) has re-emerged in positively palatial digs, just up the street. The heritage interior (still refurbished red brick) is greatly expanded, with extended long bar, greatly increased lounge space (with custom Italian overstuffed sofas and chairs) and a late night bar menu, until midnight, to go along. All day service includes breakfast with Café Medina faves, lunch and dinner. (Medina has decamped to The Hermitage—780 Richards St.—in the ever-capable hands of chef Jonathan Chovanchek medinacafe.com).

In addition, you can sip fancy sodas on the new patio (beside the public mini-park and steps to Stadium Skytrain), or pull out the Gold Card to rent the exclusive rooftop patio or a new private wine room. No need to add, but chef and co-owner Nico Schuermans’ kitchen is also considerably expanded.

Over at Left Bank (formerly Le Parisien), owner John Blakeley is reaping the benefits of the West End’s first lane way patio (and likely not the last) leftbankvancouver.com. Right around the corner on ‘lower’ Robson, the original team behind La Brasserie have launched Pizza Fabrika—a no nonsense pie parlour that keeps it simple (just eight 12-inchers) using specialised ingredients, such as only DOP San Marzano tomatoes, kosher salt and more. Early facourites include the duck prosciutto and pea shoots, while smart wine picks (glass and carafes) and local craft brews (pizzafabrika.ca). Still on the pizza express, James Iranzad and Josh Pape’s Neapolitan inclined Bufala has arrived at 5395 West Boulvard (bufala.ca).

Last but not least, the wraps are finally off Boulevard Kitchen and Oyster Bar (boulevardvancouver.ca), the stylin’ and long overdue remake of the Sutton Place dining room. The new kitchen, under chef Alex Chen, with a distinguished team that includes Director of Operations Steve Edwards (ex Cibo, Bearfoot Bistro, Araxi) and “Oyster Bob” Skinner (ex-Joe Fortes) looks set to become the kind of destination hotel seafood hotspot not seen since the days of legendary “The Dev”, at the Devonshire Hotel, demolished to make way for Cathedral Place. No doubt soon-to-be hallmark offerings include an all-sustainable seafood tower, tableside Ahi tuna tartare, Pacific Provider wild salmon with pomme purée and truffle vinaigrette, as well as the now de rigueur ‘signature burger. Come to think of it, we’re thinking it’s only a matter of time before White Spot has a ‘signature’ seafood tower...

—TIM PAWSEY OKANAGAN: A visit to the Okanagan in September or October often means less traffic, fewer lineups, and ample room to picnic at the beach or park. Wineries are gearing up for harvest and chefs rejoice in the abundance of fresh everything; there’s a good chance you get a table more quickly, too. Whether it’s a day of urban exploring or an evening of wine events, tomorrow’s memories await.

Kelowna & Area Organic growers Sunshine Farm host a Tomato Festival on Sept 7 with heirloom tomato tastings, farm tours, and wood fired pizza made from wheat grown on site – tickets are $50 and available online.

Bacaro Kitchen & Drink opened at 231 Bernard Avenue in early August, offering tapas bites and tasty cocktails and adding to a new Okanagan cocktail movement. Open soon (or by publication time) at 281 Lawrence Ave is Krafty Kitchen + Bar, where farm-to-table and grape-to-glass is their mantra and a focus on local prevails. Dine out, and dig in.

Penticton & Area Get to know wine and cheese making duo Gavin and Shana of Upper Bench Winery & Creamery with a guided tour of their joint on Oct 5; email or phone for tickets ($35 plus tax). Soak up the view from atop Peach Cliff Bluff in Okanagan Falls on Oct 11 with Jak and Janice of Meyer Family cont’d on page 55

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TALK By Rebecca Baugniet

What the Pros Know For this issue, EAT asked local beekeepers and pollination experts to tell us a bit about the situation facing BC’s honeybees and other local pollinators.

Here’s what they had to say.

Bob Liptrot and Dana LeComte, Tugwell Creek Honey Farm and Meadery, www.tugwellcreekfarm.com Island bees are in a state of decline. Over 40 % losses are average this year according to provincial statistics. The main reasons for this are pests and pathogens, the continued use of insecticides (both in and outside the hive), weak genetics due to the importation of off shore bees, and a large increase in new beekeepers. We are having some success (losses were 5-7%) by breeding for pest and pathogen resistance over the last 10 years. We avoid putting bees in areas where pesticides are in use and are trying to increase the knowledge of beginner beekeepers by teaching courses (at Royal Roads), holding field days, and hosting a Honeybee Awarenesss Day at our farm and tasting room for non-beekeepers.

Matt Tooley, Cottlestone Apiary, www.cottlestone.com I do believe that it's getting more difficult to keep bees alive, especially over the winter here. There are success stories but even some professionals are seeing and coming to accept losses that a decade or two ago would have been completely unacceptable, or at the very least worrying. I'm not certain if this is related to our changing weather patterns, pesticides, people failing to recognize and treat diseases, mites...the list of challenges is long. This is no longer the simple hobby of a few generations ago when you put a hive out the in yard and got honey four months later.

Barry Denluck, Bee Master, President of BC Bee Breeders Association, www.barrysbees.ca All bees are important for pollination, which is the critical process that plants require to produce their seeds for the next generation. Although honeybees are not indigenous to North America, bumblebees are, they both have well-established populations in the Victoria area. As the ban on cosmetic use of pesticides grows in our area, there appears to be a resurgence of these feral colonies. Today, these local populations appear healthy enough to be sustainable regardless of the natural pests and diseases attacking them. To report a feral colony of honeybees for monitoring or to have a bumblebee colony that may be a hazard relocated, please visit www.BarrysBees.ca.

Gord Hutchings, Hutchings Bee Service, www.sites.google.gom/site/hutchingsbeeservice/ I shudder to speculate how many resources have been invested over hundreds of years on one species of non-native bee to perform the pollination service we require for food production. Such heavy reliance on a single exotic species greatly risks a foodproduction crisis should this species suffer its sudden demise as a result of disease or some other calamity. Fortunately, a solution exists: more reliance on our native bee species. Many of us are unaware that British Columbia is home to more than 450 species of native bees—a significant share of the world’s total diversity, which is estimated to be around 25,000 different species. Many people are also unaware that maintaining the high diversity of our native plant species—sentinels of a healthy ecosystem—requires maintaining a high diversity of our native pollinators.

Marika Smith, Compost Education Centre, www.compost.bc.ca We tend to focus our education on local pollinators such as the orchard mason bee as these native bees are highly efficient pollinators and there is a school of thought that they may be hardier then their imported cousins, the conventional honey bee. There is still much research to be done and we at the Centre are not experts but we do host education days and workshops to bring expert facilitators in to share their knowledge 54

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and skills with our community. Some ways in which you can help our local pollinators include planting local native plants in your garden, choosing several colours of flowers and flowers of different shapes, planting flowers in clumps, and planting a diversity of plants flowering in all seasons.

Melissa Cartwright, Mellifera Bees, www.melliferabees.com The bright side of the challenges currently facing honey bees is increased awareness of their integral value. I see this reflected in the public support for local honey from small producers, an interest in learning about these insects through activities like hive tours, plus enthusiasm for planting bee friendly plants. I especially encourage folks to plant early spring and later fall blooms so the bees have a greater time span of nectar sources.

IN THE NEWS

International Cheese Guild Inductees Last June a group of Vancouver Island cheesemongers gathered at Ottavio - Italian Bakery & Delicatessen in Victoria where, with great ceremony, big medallions and long robes, they were inducted into the BC Chapter and the hallowed fraternity of gourmets, restauranteurs, cheese makers and cheese purveyors around the world.

Chairman Roland Barthelmy (pictured bottom center) led the ceremony. The Guild was created in 1969 by Pierre Androuet, considered the ‘pope of cheese’.

Congratulations to all the inductees: Peter Kouris, Kosta Kouris, Andrew Moyer, Sandy Burt, Andrew McCarthy, Kirsten Webster, Colin Johnson, Debbie Hamill, Frank Trozzo, Karen Boughton and Eric McLean. cont’d from page 53

Culinary Arts: Baking & Pastry Arts

Vineyards – BYO snacks and water to hike the trail, and be rewarded with brunch and wine. Tickets are $30. Dine al fresco with Joy Road Catering at God’s Mountain Estate (4898 Eastside Road) at one of their almost-all-sold-out dinners, through early October. Tickets for these go quick.

Special Events September/October means Fall Okanagan Wine Festival and hundreds of events. Opening Oct 1 with the BC Wine Awards & Reception at the Laurel Heritage Packinghouse ($50), the festival spans 10 days. Go to a signature tasting event, take a wine cruise, or sample new wine releases at the winery. Tickets and schedules available at thewinefestivals.com. Salut!

—JEANNETTE MONTGOMERY

Researching your options?

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Contact: debbie.shore@viu.ca

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Oliver, Osoyoos, & The Similkameen Celebrate the bounty at Covert Farms’ Final Harvest Dinner on September 13 with a multi-course dinner, and be surrounded by nature – tickets are $85, online. Visit Miradoro Restaurant at Tinhorn Creek on Oct 2 for Chef Jeff’s “Hops, Grapes, & Grub” 3-course wine and craft beer (Firehall Brewery) paired dinner, communal table style; tickets are $65 and seating is limited. The BC Wine Institute partners with VISA for a special VISA Infinite customer dinner at Burrowing Owl on Sept 5.

Executive chef Brock Bowes shares his kitchen with chef Derek Dammann (Maison Publique), chef Lee Cooper (L’Abattoir), chef Justin Leboe (Model Milk), and chef Geoff Rogers (Fable Kitchen); tickets are $175 per person.

Skills Canada winners Thalia Austin (left) and Toshi Akama (right) with VIU Culinary Arts instructor Joerg Gabler (centre).

viu.ca/culinary

Food, wine and culture field school in Italy. For more information visit viu.ca/educationabroad Follow the blog at sites.viu.ca/italy2014

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