No Fat Jokes Please

The slumbering dragon awakes and cringes every time he hears the auspicious greeting of Chinese New Year bastardized to highlight the one word that seems to have an English anchor:  fat.

But perhaps fat is a rather auspicious word:  may your new year be fat... with friends, laughter, learning, family and health.

Your belly and your ass?  Oh, they're going to get fat too with 15 days of obligatory, but nonetheless pleasurable, eating.

Here is our completion dinner...a feast to bridge the old and new years when the entire family gathers around the dinner table to gorge itself on food rich with symbolism.

 The Chinese word for fish, yu, sounds like abundance. 

"White-cut" Chicken lightly poached and served with a scallion ginger sauce. 

Shrimp...or "ha" for much laughter in the new year. 

 

Sesame balls that resemble laughing mouths agape;  savory crackers that  masquerade as coins; and sweet glutinous cakes or  "goh" that mimic the verb, to rise or grow.  

Go head, say the fat word...I'm too busy eating.  

Bone-in-the-Fire Beef Stock

Here is what I imagine to be the origins of this recipe.

Sometime long long ago, a particularly voluptuous (what can I say?  I like my women curvy, and this is my fantasy) cave woman was carrying the mammoth bones left over from the slaughter to the pit for boiling when she tripped over one of her children's hastily strewn toy clubs...again.  The bones slipped from her finger tips, arched across the sky and tumbled with a clatter into the fire.

She gave the boy a firm yet supportive reminder to put his toys away and proceeded to salvage the bones from the fire,  As she approached, she noticed the charred licking of the flames had somehow intensified the mammothiness of the bones.  On a whim, she threw the charred bones into the cooking pit along with some hot stones, and the roasted-bone broth was born.

And so, the course of human history was changed forever.  I've adapted the recipe below for modern cooks.

1-2 stalks of celery, each cut in half
1-2 carrots, each halved lengthwise
1 onion, quartered
2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
2-3 pounds of mammoth bones - in a bind, you can use beef bones but make an effort to find mammoth
2 pounds stewing mammoth, in chunks - beef is okay but nothing beats mammoth
1 onion, roughly chopped

3-4 tablespoons olive oil

1.  Place all the above ingredients in a shallow roasting pan or cookie sheet, drizzle with olive oil and toss to cover.  Arrange the bones and meat on top of the vegetables
2.  Roast at 410 degrees for about 40 minutes or until the bones/meat are browned and slightly charred.

3-4 bay leaves
stems from one bunch of Italian flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
20-30 whole peppercorns wrapped in cheese cloth

3.  Transfer the whole shebang into a large stock pot.
4. Place the roasting pan on a burner on low and pour in a cup of hot water and scrap every golden bit of awesome beefiness from the pan - this is what is going to make your stock gold.  Pour this sweet liquid into your stock pot.
5.  Add the bay leaves, parsley stems, peppercorns and hot water up to about 2 inches from the top of your stock pot.
5.  Simmer on medium low for at least 4 hours, adding more hot water as needed.
6.  Remove the solids with tongs or slotted spoon and strain the stock through cheese cloth drapped over a sieve into another pot. Put the cooked veggies into the dog pot but keep the meat.
7.  Allow the stock to chill overnight in the fridge.  Once it cools, the fat will solidify on top and can be easily scooped off.
8.  This beef stock can be stored in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 6 months.

Roasting the bones makes all the difference.  I recommend this stock be used for BFF Beef Barley Soup.

BFF Beef Barley Soup

This soup takes a bit of extra effort as it asks for homemade Bone-In-The-Fire stock, but it is worth the extra love. When I do make this soup, I make a vat to share with best friends.  As always, use happy beef and the soup will be happy too.  I suppose you could use stock from a carton, but make that soup  for  mediocre friends.

Warning:  if you dispense this beefiness without caution, you may end up with more BFFs than you want.  It's a bit disconcerting, really. Do they love me? Do they love my soup?  Do they love me?  Do they love my soup?

-all ingredient amounts are adjustable to personal taste.  If you like a chunkier soup, add more solids, if you like a liquidy soup, add fewer vegetables.  You get the idea...

5-6 carrots, cubed
5-6 stalks celery, chopped
3-4 bay leaves
1.5  cups barley
1 large can of diced tomatoes
2 zucchinis, cubed
12 cups or 3 quarts of bone-in-the-fire stock
1 bunch of Italian parsley leaves, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste

1.  Skim off the fat from the beef stock and bring to a gentle boil
2.  Add the vegetables, bay leaves, tomatoes and barley.
3.  Add more stock or water to within 2 inches from the top of the pot. If you need to, you can use two pots as the barley will swell.
4.  Simmer gently for about 30 minutes, adding more water as needed.  You want the vegetables to still have some crunch.
5.  Add salt and pepper to taste and stir in parsley and simmer for 2 minutes longer.
6.  Serve with a crusty loaf of bread.
7.  This soup gets better on day 2 but it will also thicken up. Add some water or stock and adjust seasoning.  It also freezes beautifully.

Rotten Green Thumb

English is my mother's fourth language; there was singsong Vietnamese, cacophonous Cantonese,  and vowel-laden French before the jagged English of her adopted Canada.  To a non-native speaker, English's idioms amuse at best but abuse more often.

When a casual acquaintance declared that my mother had a "green thumb,"  she was mightily offended at this Canadian insult.  How is it that her thumb could be called green, like some rotten and festering decay?

Oh, how I wish for that green thumb now, even rotten and festering...perhaps that organic decay would help my little garden grow.

My thumb is not verdant but rather brown and caked with my attempts to coax and cajole some sustenance from the soil.  I planted salad when it was too hot and beets when it was too cold; my arugula went to seed and the squash blossoms could never get their timing right to mate.  I even tried a bit of squash artificial insemination.  A little bulge did tease my excitement, only to be knocked to the dirt by an excited Australian Shepherd.

Despite my ineptitude, inexperience and neglect, the four raised boxes Glenn built did produce. Next year, next year, my thumb will be green.

Flight and foccacia

Family, teaching and food ground me.

I need grounding-lots of it.

If not for their reassuring downward pressure, my feet would surely pull upward until my toes skim the surface of the dirt, and I lose contact with a whispered gasp.

Some people are born with their feet rooted firmly in the soil; I have to work against the insistent  upward pull.  It has always been there.

My mother could not name us.  After all, she had borne three daughters; this regulated her into that in-between, that temporary...not quite part of the family and yet responsible to it.  Grandfather decided on Phoen, the celestial Phoenix of Chinese myth, that symbol of woman, those who are born only to be given away.  My name was his declaration and his judgement:  another girl.

Lifting.

When a Vietcong soldier moved into our house after the Communist North had marched into Saigon, my parents, two sisters and Grandfather left our home and climbed aboard a rusty cargo ship called the Tung-An, flying under the Panama flag.  In an instant, home and neighbourhood and knowing faded.  I strapped myself to my mother's arm on the boat and later in the refugee camp, sensing that she would inevitably be snatched away.

Lifting

Food is one counter weight and one constant.  

I eat it, and I cook it, not to feed my belly, but to anchor.  Food is permanent.  It is home and family and safety.  

Thus, I find it impossible to waste or throw it out.  It can be saved, transformed into something beautiful...more beautiful.

After returning from a weekend camping trip, I found four forlorn gala apples, forgotten and wrinkling, at the bottom of the refrigerator.  Coincidentally, I had also lost track of the proofing time of a big bowl of gurgling sourdough; its yeasty life was draining away.  The loaf would not rise, golden and dome-like.    I cradled the bruised apples and the sagging dough, unable to let them go.  Here's what I came up with.

Apple Rosemary Foccacia

1 pound of bread dough, limp and weak
4 gala apples, after youth has abandoned them, cut into thin wedges
1 tablespoon of rosemary, from the garden
3 tablespoons of honey
2 tablespoons of flour
2 tablespoons of butter, melted
2 tablespoons of raspberry jam, slightly diluted with water

Spritz a baking dish with some olive oil.
Spread the dough with fingertips to cover most of the pan.
Spritz top of dough with more olive oil.
Toss the apples with the flour.
Arrange apple wedges in a pretty pattern on the dough.
Paint with raspberry jam, drizzle with honey, and sprinkle with chopped rosemary.
Bake in a preheated 420 F oven for about 15 minutes.
Brush with melted butter and return to oven for 5 more minutes or until lightly golden brown.

Grounded.

when the dust settles

The fireplace has come down, brick by brick, and revealed the optical illusion that has duped the inhabitants of this house for over 40 years. Yes, a volume of bricks can inexplicably triple when demolished, only to lie in scattered disarray, smirking and dusty, on one's back patio for over 14 months.

I must admit Plywood has a certain Bohemian and rustic charm but only for 6 months.  Anything beyond may amount to... giving up.

Complaints about the lack of counters or  a stove is ever so bourgoise when there is that roaring camp stove and 1980's electric wok to keep the kitchen sizzling.  

I am not bitter; in fact, I am rather sweet, in a sour type of way.

The renos that started last summer have crossed the line from temporary to our new reality.  We haven't had a single dinner party (beyond the very good friends  who are too soft-hearted to judge us for our reno squalor) in over a year, so food blogging has been swept, with the rusty nails, dry wall dust and wood splinters into the corner.  

A martyr is noble; a whiner is annoying.  We have not wasted way.  We have moved beyond canned goods and microwave dinners to cooking in, around, and despite the detritus.

So I'm sweeping off the old blog with a duster in one hand and a spatula in the other.  Steel-toed boots are the hottest new kitchen gadget.  

Errrrrr...flight or bite?

Slip of the Tongue

Getting to know the man who raises the meat I eat has its perks.  In my weekly sojourn to the farmer's market this summer, a slip of the tongue about our efforts to eat nose to tail resulted in a gift of the gab...or, moo.

Barrie presented me the following week with a thick disembodied cow tongue...complete with taste buds and cow spots.  Not only did Barry slip me a tongue, he also gave me his heart - but that will be another post...

I carried my precious cargo home, excited to taste that tongue in my cheek.  The tongue was the size of my forearm and was shrouded in a thick skin.  I simmered in in a stockpot with:

two large onions, peeled and roughly sliced

one head of garlic, peeled and crushed

6-7 bay leaves

1 tbsp of peppercorns

2 tbsp of kosher salt

enough water to completely cover the tongue

1.  Bring to a rapid boil and then reduce heat and simmer for 3-4 hours or until the tongue is very tender.

2.  Cool slightly; remove the thick skin and the rough bits at the bottom of the tongue.

3.  Slice into 1/4 inch rounds and julienne.

4.  Pan-fry until golden brown in some olive oil.

5.  Serve with  warmed flour tortillas, fresh lettuce, tomatoes, salsa verde, cilantro, red onions avocados or other favourite taco toppings.

Verdict:  the meat was surprisingly rich and fatty and reminded me of the consistency of corn beef hash.  It was very beefy and was a perfect foil for the acidity of the salsa verde and fresh vegetables.  The girls gobbled their tacos up without batting an eye lash.  Jian even insisted on helping me to peel it.  It was delicious though Glenn was not as excited as the three of us.

Even the cat wanted in on the action; the cat got my.......nah!!!!!!!!!! See?  I held my tongue on the puns.

Turf on Surf

Sockeye with Parsley Pesto

My dear friend, Connie introduced me this to divine recipe - I believe Connie received this recipe from her dear friend, Hannah.  Everything Connie touches is magic. Food and the ties they reveal are magic too.

How does one make wild Pacific Sockeye even better?  Slather it in a green turf of crushed flat leaf parsley...my kind of turf and the freshest of surf.

4 ingredients and even the unrepentent landlubber will eat to the gills.

1 bunch of flat leaf parsley, stems discarded and roughly chopped
1/2 head of garlic, skinned, and finely minced
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tsp kosher salt
1 immaculately fresh sockeye fillet

1.  Mix the first three ingredients together.
2.  Spread a thin layer of olive oil in a dish and place fillet, skin side down and slosh around
3.  Smother the orange flesh with the pesto and let rest from 20 min to 4 hours in the fridge.

4.  Heat BBQ to high with lid closed.
5.  When grill is ripping hot, slide the fillet on and close the lid.
6.  Check flesh after 8 minutes and remove when the thickest part is still bright orange (medium rare)
7.  The skin will be crisp and blackened...for those of delicate disposition, the skin can stay on the platter at service.  For those with large ovaries, remove the skin immediately and eat it all before it softens.


***we served ours with brown rice (with butter and soy sauce) and a garden salad.

Fe Fie PHO Yum

It has been a glorious summer of beach days, road trips, mountain vistas, pristine lakes, and mosquito  bites.  In the haze of sunscreen and citronella, Glenn, the girls and I lived an organic life: we ate when we were hungry, often times from our little garden.  We packed the Delica and took off on a whim to see the flora and fauna of BC.  Having called this sweeping place home for 30 years, its forlorn forests and verdant foliage still leave me breathless.  

The summer started with a camping trip to Birkenhead Lake, just a little north of Whistler.  It's one of our favourite spots in the province - close enough to home for a quick dash but far enough off the beaten track to avoid those who drink Budweiser and rock to Nikelback.  We also spent a weekend in Victoria, exploring the inner harbour and the Provincial Museum.  We really did have a good time despite the fact that there were moments when hunger turned us into head-biting monsters.  Our friends, Mike and Leigh-Anne, invited us to join them at their family cabin on Salt Spring Island for four days of solid eating and beach-combing.  Mike's cinnamon scented lamb burgers made you forget for a while that you were biting into a cute lil' baby. 

And the big finale  was a spur of the moment road trip to Bella Coola.  The Caribou Chilcotin's vast landscape is dotted with rolling ranchlands, rainbow ranges, sand dunes, and azure rivers. It doesn't get more epic than 10 000 year old petroglyphs, grizzlies, alpine lakes and the sculpted beauty of hoodoos.

This is the first year of my teaching career (it only took 13 years) that I did not head into school for at least a couple of days to prepare for the beginning of the new school year.  I work hard, really hard, during the year and I like working hard.  No matter how much time I spend preparing in August, I always hit the ground panting in September anyhow.  I figured I might as well enjoy every moment of the summer and head into school on September 7, refreshed and rejunvenated.  As I pulled out from the driveway on the first day of school, it was with no regrets.  The summer had been full and I was ready for the year to be full too.  

It never fails that with the return to school also comes the crisp cool days of autumn.  When the weather turns, I want hot, steaming soup, and rich, deep flavours,  I want food that warms me from inside out and wards off the chill of the rain. 

You know my love affair with farmers.  That love was reignited once more when  I found a bag of soup bones in my freezer.  I can't help but feel a deep regret for all the glorious bones that are dismissed and disposed off as worthless.  If an animal's life is going to be taken, we have a responsibility to ensure it has lived a good life and to eat it nose-to-tail. 

Time is the most important ingredient for this Vietnamese beef noodle PHO recipe, pronounced "feur," rather than"fo." The intense dance of cinnamon, cloves, star anise and ginger turns the humble bag o' bones into gold.

Stock Ingredients
Soup bones, about 5 pounds (pre-boil for 5 minutes and rinse to remove impurities)
1 3-inch  knob of ginger, smashed and lightly charred over flame
2 yellow onion, halved and lightly charred over flame
1/4 cup fish sauce, to taste
3 tbsp sugar
20 cups of water
The following ingredients go into a bouquet garni
1 cinnamon stick
10 star anise, lightly toasted
10 whole cloves, lightly toasted
10 whole peppercorn, lightly toasted


1 package of rice vermicelli, cooked to package directions and drained


Garnishes - let guests add their own
cilantro leaves
green onions, sliced thinly on the bias
paper thin sweet onion
Thai basil leaves (must have - I went out into the garden in the pitch black and cut some basil like items)
bean sprouts (I didn't have any but you'll be more organized)
Thai chilies, sliced thinly
lime wedges
additional fish sauce
1. Add all the stock ingredients and bouquet garnet. Bring to a boil and simmer gently for a minimum of 2 hours or even overnight, add more water along the way.  
2.  Remove the bones and discard any fat.  Shred the meat and set aside.
3.  Taste and add more fish sauce if needed; the stock should be quite salty; this will be tempered once all the noodle and garnishes have been added.  Add one thinly sliced yellow onion to the stock and keep it hot.
3.  Wash and arrange garnish on a large platter, along with a small bowl of fish sauce.  
4.  Put about 1.5 cup of vermicelli into a large soup bowl:  top with some shredded beef and ladle enough stock over the noodles to just cover***
5.  Invite guests to garnish generously from the platter.  Don't forget to squeeze some fresh lime juice over top.  This adds an essential hit of fresh. 
6.  Using chopsticks or a fork, mix the whole glorious bowl together and chow down.  
7.  Wipe fogged-up glasses.
8.  Head out into the cold.  
***you can also slice a partially frozen beef tenderloin into paper thin slices and layer over the noodles.  The hot stock will cook the beef.  

Happy September!

Leap-into-the-Dark Lasagna

Today was clear-out-the-fridge day.  I had no vision of what I was going to make...just went with the flow and here is what I ended up with.  When I cook like this, it's all guts and instinct...but a hell of a lot of fun!

Chickpea Ragu

1/2 chopped red onion
4 carrots, 1/2 inch cubes
5 ribs celery, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
1 can of chick peas
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 sprig rosemary, chopped
4 bay leaves

1.  Heat oil over medium heat; add chopped vegetables and saute until onions are softend (5 minutes).
2.  Add chickpeas, tomatoes and herbs and cook for 10 minutes - salt and pepper to taste; The carrots should still be crisp and have some bite.
***this was delicious as a hearty stew, topped with some freshly shaved parmesan and sopped up with some crusty bread.
3.  Bang up the ragu a bit with a masher

Bechemel Sauce

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
1.5-2 cups milk
1 teaspoon nutmeg - adjust if nutmeg is not your scene - I LOVE nutmeg!
salt and pepper to taste

1.  Melt butter in saucepan; add flour and cook through (2 minutes)
2.  Whisk in milk - add enough for a yoghurt consistency
3.  S and P it

Putting it all together
10 lasagna noodles, out of the box
1 jar spinach cheese pasta sauce - go ahead, tell my nonna...
1/2 large yellow squash - zucchini would work too - seeded and sliced
1.5 C shredded mozzarella
1 tub of ricotta cheese

1.  Spoon some of the jarred sauce on the bottom of a 13X9 dish
2.  Lay out 5 lasagna sheets over the sauce
3.  Spoon on half of the chickpea ragu; top with ricotta and more sauce
4.  Layer on 5 more noodles, ragu, squash, bechemel sauce, rest of sauce
5.  Top with mozzarella cheese.
6.  Cook at 375 until cheese is golden brown - about 25-30 minutes

Verdict: this was surprisingly delicious; the vegetables were still al dente and the nutmeg added an earthy and robust dimension.  The chick peas provided the potent protein.  There was really a variety of textures, from the creaminess of the chickpeas to the smooth gluten of the noodles to the crisp veggies, that made this different from many of the vegetarian lasagnas I've had.

Leap into the Dark Lasagna...not for the weak-kneed.  Have you got the ovaries?

Super Grain

This quinoa salad has been the meal of the summer for us.  Bonus, it is the only grain that provides a complete source of protein.  Our quest to maintain a mostly vegetarian diet means that finding protein without a face is rather a difficult challenge.  So, yeah!

It's a rather mild tasting grain with cute little tendrils that emerge after cooking. Oh, this makes a rather big serving but it tastes even better the next day.

Dressing:
Zest of one lime, finely minced
Juice of 2 lime
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp dijon mustard
2 tsp anchovy paste

The Rest:
1 cup quinoa
1 can  black beans, drained
lots of sweet cherry or heirloom tomatoes (bite size pieces)
1/2 cucumber, small chunks
1 cup cilantro, chopped
4 green onions, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

1.  Mix ingredients for dressing together and set aside
2. Wash quinoa in a sieve very well.
3.  Add quinoa and 2 cups of water into pot; bring to boil; put a lid on and turn heat to lowest simmer for 20 minutes.  Fluff quinoa with a fork and cool.  Or...you can do the same in a rice cooker.
4.  Toss with dressing; add rest of the ingredients; salt and pepper to taste.

Verdict:  holy cow!  delicious, filling, proteiny, yummers!  Serves about 6-8 as a side.

Gnocchi - who's there

Gnocchi with Sage Butter

Even though we are trying to eliminating meat from the majority of our meals, I can not and will not give up luscious and hearty food. A foodie can not live by parsley salad alone. I love it when I find delicious meals where the meat is not missed or even welcomed.

Delicious meatless fare often has peasant roots, the product of a desire to create full bodied food from humble ingredients.

Gnocchi is as fun to eat as it is to say. Tiny pillows of potato and flour dumplings - delicate but with a little tooth.

2 large Russets

1 egg

1 1/2 cups flour

salt and pepper to taste

sage

1/4 cup butter

parmesan for garnish

1. Drop spuds into water and bring to boil - if you drop them into boiling water, the skin will burst and the glory inside will become waterlogged. Boil for about 20 min or until cooked through.

2. Use a tea towel to cradle the spuds while you disrobe them of their skin.

3. Mash and aerate - keep it fluffy

4. Add 1 cup flour and 1 egg, salt and pepper and work together with the hands - I also threw in some cottage cheese because I had a tad left. Do not over handle this sticky gloop.

5. Dump onto floured counter and knead in remaining flour until JUST no longer sticky, lest you want to make   chewing gum.

6. Roll into ropes and cut into segments - flour the dumplings generously to keeping the stickage down.

7. Drop into salted boiling water - give them a stir.

8. When they pop to the top, they're done.

9. Scoop into shallow tray and drizzle with oil and toss.

10. Brown the butter and add in a handful of chopped sage leaves.

11. Add gnocchi - I let them brown a bit.

12. Garnish with parmesan, salt and pepper to taste and yum.

Cooking in the Future Tense

We stopped going to Macdonald's 6 years ago after watching Super Size Me. We started our boycott ostensibly because of the Golden Arches' food and employment practices. The subtleties of social and environmental responsibility is difficult to explain. When Weijin and Jian were younger and asked, we answered in simple terms: we don't go to Macdonalds because it is not a good company. It does not treat people very well and it does not care about the world. Much to our horror (nah...it was blatant amusement!), we overhead Jian (who was 3 at the time) telling one of her playments that "we don't go to MacDonald's because they hit and they swear and they spit." It may not be entirely true but it isn't false either.

At the end of the day, we want the girls to know that there is a responsibility to eating and the choices we make. We want them to have a relationship with food and to see the magic of putting together a dish from beginning to end.

We are having friends over for dinner tonight and Jian and Weijin insisted on making dessert. What you see here are their efforts, with minimal moral and clean up support from their management team.

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 eggs

2 cups self rising flour

few drops red food colouring

3 tbsp cocoa power

1. Preheat oven to 35o F

2. Whip butter and sugar until light and fluffy

3. Add vanilla and eggs one at a time and beat well

4. Stir in flour until just blended

5. Divide into 3 bowls: add colouring to one bowl and cocoa to another, leaving one bowl white.

6. Grease pan

7. Spoon three mixtures into pan and swirl with chopstick

8. Bake 40 minutes until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Sexy Yeast

The crust bursting and crackling - sharp shards splinter in my eye. Steam wafting like some second rate ghost, hovering and dissipating but sensual and seductive. I want her. Want to sink my teeth into her like a lover and feel her pale soft flesh in the moistness of my mouth - to waver between her coying voluptuousness and the sharp prick of her lusty crust.

This summer, I set out to capture her or, if not, one of her sisters, but was beatened down by self-doubt. Could I have her? Could I fashion her form - from frail and loose powder into a dome, golden and snapping?

I captured the yeast from the air and sealed it into a mason jar, feeding and nursing it, never sure if I was breeding a colony of yeast or hissing bacteria. After ten days of tending to my aloof patient, I took the plunge, dipping the metal measuring cup into the sticky, clinging liquid that drapped and drooled on the sides of the bowl.

There is something incredibly seductive about a loaf of fresh, warm, crackling, luscious sourdough. The crust crackles and splinters, accompanied by the glorious crunch of the bite. The revealed centre is moist and gives up a bit of a fight before yielding to the pull.

Aside from the pure pleasure of eating, is the visceral reaction I have to my yeast colony. Breadmaking is tactile and vigorous and tempermental and alive. When I feel low, my starter languishes and my loaves struggle to rise. I've taken a proofing loaf on car rides and to a friend's house. I commune with it every morning and watch it wake up and dance. It's not an ingredient, it's a relationship.

Last summer's mission was to tame the mighty Coquitlam sourdough. To take what is hovering in the air and make it do some delicious work. Yeast lives all around us; the magic of sourdough is to capture these little lovelies, give them a warm pad to party in and feed the darlings some food everyday.

I captured and started my sourdough colony by mixing 1/2 cup warm tap water to 1/2 part unbleached white flour. Every 24 hours, I dumped half of this mixture away and replaced it with 1/4 cup water and 1/4 flour. The little yeasties toyed with me for the first three days - there was nary a sign of life. But...on the 4th day, I spied some bubbles. On I fed. After 10 days, I had a healthy, sour, living colony of my own Coquitlam Yeast - San Fran can suck it.

If you live in or near Coquitlam and would like to start baking sourdough, email me and I will be happy to share some of my starter with you.

I love farmers

...their bounty, that is.

Cattle farmers are kind of hot. What with their ropin' and hat tippin' and skin patina'd by the open sky...ahem....where was I?

There is a certain romanticism to the idea of a cowboy on the range raising honest food the old fashioned way. It is no wonder that meeting the people who produce my food also happens to make my food taste better because I know where it has come from and can ask questions about how it was raised and the conditions by which it was slaughtered.

I want to meet and know the people who produce what I eat. I want to know the hands that sow, harvest, and husband the food. Food is precious and so are the people who produce it.

It does not hurt, of course, that when we can look the person who produce our food in the eye, it also means that our food is fresher and travelled a shorter distance to reach our table

Coquitlam has a thriving little farmer's market that hops with fresh baked goods, organic greens, farm fresh eggs and a rugged cowboy.

Glenn and I picked up a 1/4 of a cow today from the market from Redl's Home-Grown Beef. Their commitment is to raise their "cattle in an environment that is respectful of the land and of the animal." The Redl family's business continues to run cattle "the old fashioned way: a cowboy, his horse and his dog." Their beef is free from growth promotants, pesticides, herbicides, hormones, antibioics, animal by-products and feed additives, and spend their time grazing on grasses.

Oh, and did I mention that it is deliciously beefy? It tastes...wait for it...like beef. The flavour is full-bodied and robust. We grilled our sirloin steaks naked and topped it with some salt and pepper when it came off the grill and that's it...beef heaven. The meat was sweeter because we know the animal had had a decent life and did not suffer needlessly to feed the industrial beef model.

As our girls dug into their meat, they thanked the animal more than once. Thanks to the animal and the people who help bring it to our table.

Our market fresh menu today:

Fresh fava beans (yum!), marinated sweet peppers and farm veg over our own harvest of rocket (a rocking, nutty, big flavoured green)