Which fermented foods are in your pantry? Just about every serious cook or foodie has one or more fermented foods in their pantry. Whether it be kombucha, sourdough bread or a mason jar filled with sauerkraut burbling on top of the fridge. Fermented foods could not be more in the spotlight, inspiring today’s cooks to […]
The Extraordinary Italian Taste
The extraordinary Italian taste Have you ever returned home from the grocer only to discovered that the expensive bottle of what you thought was Italian olive oil is actually not Italian at all? The label sure looks Italian and the name sounds Italian, but what’s in the bottle has never set foot in Italy. It’s not […]
Tagliatelle con Zucchine e i Loro Fiori
West End farmers market The farmers market has finally started in the West End of Vancouver and we had our first walk through of the season a few weekends ago. It was a perfect day with the sun shining. A nice spread of veggies (organic and conventional), honey, preserves, farm fresh meat, even some tasty artisanal potato chips were […]
Sustainable Living: A Year of Practiculture
Food manipulated for your convenience Having worked in many kitchens, I’ve heard tons of infuriating stories of cheap food being transformed with an overwhelming degree of manipulation and over-packaging. To a point that when you finally do get the product unwrapped it often has the nutritional value of a newspaper. Masked with a label written by a magician, […]
The Antarctic Book of Cooking and Cleaning: a review
The Antarctic Book of Cooking and Cleaning The landscape of our cookbook collection has changed a little lately and we like it. The idea of living off the grid and being self-sufficient has never been so appealing and, in light of the looming US election, we are definitely not alone in yearning to escape society […]
Kombucha and the scoby
Making my own kombucha With my water kefir reliably producing two quarts every forty-eight hours now, I turned my attention to making my own kombucha. Kombucha is very similar to water kefir in that it is a fermented sweetened liquid but in this case, it also includes tea as its main source of food. The […]
The Complete Guide to Sushi and Sashimi
Making sushi and sashimi Talk to most people about making sushi and sashimi and you will hear tales of Samurai like chefs who train day in and day out whils honing their precision with repetition. Laser sharp knives slicing exact copies of pristine fish and fusing it to perfectly cooked rice with what seems like sleight […]
A late Thanksgiving and turducken
Quick change artists Like some kind of lifestyle quick change artists we slipped into Vancouver, exchanging our “slippahs” and board shorts for flannel and fly rods in our friend’s basement storage locker where she kindly made some space for our gear. Donning proper attire for the Pacific Northwest we were ready to head towards the […]