First Nation’s Fare
I travel with my stomach. I just love experiencing other cultures through their food. Living in Vancouver I’m pretty lucky to be able to travel around the world…
Meditations - Enlightened gastronomic insights
Food Culture Series: Provenance
Where does your food come? More importantly, why should you care? With labels being greenwashed more than ever, it’s hard to wade through the sea of information and…
What’s the strangest thing you have witnessed during dinner?
My wife and I were having lunch the other day at a Greek restaurant in Burnaby. One thing that caught our attention was the brand new Ferrari parked outside. As we arrived…
All Ducks go to Heaven
After 18 years as a vegetarian, I’ve started eating meat again. Why? Mostly, it’s because I love food – I love eating, I love cooking, I love…
New Coffee Routine
Sometimes a little change can make things exciting again! Mark and I used to go to one of the many great coffee shops along Commercial Drive in East Vancouver every…
Bathroom matters. Bathrooms matter!
Bathrooms matter. Well for me anyway. Whenever I’m in a restaurant for the first time I make a trip to the bathroom to check it out. And as a mild germaphobe,…
One Meal To Save The Planet
If we celebrated Earth Meal – one meal to save the planet – instead of Earth Hour, what would you eat? Would you pick local, organic, raw, vegan? What…
Men in the kitchen
Here’s an interesting article about an all-male dinner club in Napa called “Men Who Cook” who know how to do it up right in the kitchen. The article…
Cheese glory
Amazing news from Les Amis du Fromage and Au Petit Chavignol. Owners Alice Spurrell, Allison Spurrell and Joe Chaput will be inducted into The “Guilde des…
Honey Mustard Gold
Our friends Rockin’ Ronnie Shewchuk and Denzel Sandberg of Ronnie & Denzel’s all natural bbq sauces have been making waves with their line of sauces,…
Guidance - Recipes & tips that will convert you
Making Quince Jam
We’re welcoming a new contributor to In The Kitchen: Andrea Bellamy. Andrea runs Heavy Petal, a blog devoted to “Gardening: from a west coast urban organic…
White Truffle Gnocchi; or, Perfect Pillows of Pure Pleasure from Piedmont
Ah, white truffles. The season will be soon over, but you can still enjoy that intense, indescribably earthy, pungent flavour year-round with this recipe for white truffle…
Is Anything More Soothing Than Bacon Corn Chowder?
This weekend was cold, wet and lazy as hell. Having a cold with a cough didn’t help. By Saturday afternoon I was totally stir crazy and hungry for something warm and…
Fettucine with Prawns in a Tequilla & Tarragon Cream Sauce
So before we get going on this dish, it should probably be noted that there is some serious heat going into it. But it is a big all-encompassing furnace type of heat that…
Bourdain On Being Treated Well When Dining Out
Always good for a laugh, everybody’s favourite celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain gives us his advice on how to avoid being treated like leftovers the next time you are…
Black Squid Ink Pasta? Yup!
I’ve never understood those who refuse to sample unfamiliar cuisine. I love trying new things—especially with food. So when I first saw black pasta made from squid…
From scrapbook to cookbook
Last holiday season my wife received a wonderful and very personal gift from her mother; a binder filled with all the recipes she enjoyed from her childhood right up to…
Elevating Snack Time
On a recent weekend jaunt to Hornby Island just off the east coast of Vancouver Island, my wife and I were wandering around inside the single small store on the island. We…
Red Curry with Roasted Duck and Lychees
I haven’t been to Thailand yet, so I can only pretend that I know what I’m talking about when I say, “This dish is my favourite Thai dish!” Mark…
The Grains of the Danes
In Denmark there is a lot of great food, but more often than not when the clock strikes noon, Danish people sit down to enjoy some Smørrebrød. Smørrebrød is a…
Worship - Feasting at the temples of others
r.TL
A read through the comments on the Foodists post To Review or Not Review will reveal an interesting discourse on the notion that today’s restaurant cannot afford to…
‘Eat Me’ The food and philosophy of Kenny Shopsin
A librarian friend of mine turned me on to this book. The alternate title could have easily been Zen And The Art Of Owning A Small Restaurant, for its unconventional…
Harrison: the Circle Farm Tour
As more and more people live in cities, the knowledge gap between where food comes from and how it gets to your table widens. It’s easy enough to live downtown and…
Chandi Restaurant – Bali
Wow. The Discovery Channel uses the slogan ‘The World is Just Awesome’. If I could describe my two dinners in a row recently, I would rework that slogan for…
Refined Retreat on Granville Street
Once, when I first moved back to Vancouver, I went on a date to the Sugar Refinery. A boy and I sat on a purple couch and talked about rap music while hipsters posed…
Salt Spring Island Foodist Tour
In trying to narrow down destinations for a recent city break, my only real requirements were that there had to be something good to eat. That meant Chilliwack was out…
Market Restaurant by Jean-Georges at the Shangri-la
This past weekend I went to Market Restaurant at the Shangri-La hotel. This was quite the highly anticipated dinner for me for a couple of reasons. One, I had to wait a…
Takumi Japanese Restaurant
Takumi Japanese restaurant is a great little Japanese restaurant in West Vancouver. It’s in a bit of an isolated area near Thunderbird Marina on Marine Drive. It…
Notes from the Underground – 12B
We have all heard those urban myths, of bathtubs filled with ice and missing kidneys and crocodiles the size of Civics swimming through our sewer systems. Such tales are…
Mozaic, Bali
Not so long ago, I had the pleasure of taking a workshop overseas at the wonderful restaurant Mozaic in Bali, Indonesia. A rare treat. Mozaic is one of the few places…