A SPOT PRAWN TREAT – By Stefan Posthuma
Spot prawn season is here! These succulent and sweet treats are yet another BC delicacy that we are fortunate to enjoy here. Speaking of fortunate, I was lucky enough to get drawn for a spot at the bar at Fuel for their very first Spot Prawn Boil.
Chef Robert Belcham had been given access to some of the very first spot prawns of this season and decided to have a little fun with them. 12 people were seated around the bar that had been transformed into a giant prawn plate, the cooked prawns were simply scattered along the bar for the diners to dig into. They were cooked in a rich chorizo broth with fingerling potatoes, fresh peas and beans. A keg of R&B ale was tapped as well and the rest of the evening was spent cracking open prawns and sipping freshly poured beer. I can’t think of a better way to hail the arrival of the spot prawns!
Fuel is doing his every Saturday evening until the end of the spot prawn season about six weeks from now. Part of the proceeds will be donated to the False Creek Restoration fund. It is events like this that remind me again and again how vibrant the Vancouver culinary scene really is.
COOKING WITH BC’S BEST MARKET DINNER: WEST – By Stefan Posthuma
When I first heard that David Hawksworth was leaving West my immediate thought was that whoever was going to replace him had some seriously large shoes to fill. I have been eating at West since the days it was still called ‘Ouest’ and have always held it in the highest regard. Some of the more memorable meals of my life were had at West.
When Warren Geraghty took over in the kitchen, I went to West with some friends for dinner and I was impressed by the quality of the food and relieved that the overall dining experience at West hadn’t changed which was a very good thing! I also imagined that a chef from the UK would need some time to get used to the no doubt different ingredients and seasonal availability here in BC. Warren has been at West for a year now and seems to have adapted just fine given the food that we were served during the dinner at Granville Island that was held on the evening of January 14.
We started off with a gin and tonic served cocktail style. I was surprised to find out the gin came from Victoria, it was remarkably smooth and hit the spot very well. I just got off work and this was an excellent start of the evening!
We listened to Warren explain the first dish, a tart made with Porcini mushroom paste and caramelized apples. I’d never had that combination before and it worked well, puff pastry, a layer of finely chopped Porcinis with walnuts, covered with sautéed Porcinis and caramelized apples. This was garnished with an apple and walnut salad with preserved lemon and a bit of Porcini dust to finish it off. The Summerhill Cipes Brut provided a clean and crisp pairing to this lovely tart that was full of earthy flavours.
Next up was a Tian of Dungeness crab, this was a roll made with couscous and crab, served in a smoked tomato gazpacho. It is impressive how much work goes into making these dishes, looking at the recipe, I count 29 ingredients in this dish alone! The wine pairing for this dish was a Mission Hill reserve Pinot Gris.
More seafood was prepared, scallops this time. They were simply seared in a hot pan and served with some butternut squash puree, a little shredded butternut squash salad and butternut squash foam. Some delicious Burrowing Owl chardonnay was poured along with this delectable dish. The plate was bursting with sweet flavours from the scallops as well as the squash and was an interesting contrast to the previous dish that was far more savoury and spiced.
The last course was a risotto, Warren has a very specific way of making risotto, every chef seems to have their own method. The amusing thing is always the finish where large amounts of cheese and butter are unceremoniously dumped into the pot, much to the horror of any dieters in the room He added some celeriac puree as well as little cubes of roasted celeriac. The final touch was something called ‘acid butter’ which is a mixture of butter and vinegar, this is his secret flavour enhancing ingredient. Talk about flavour enhancing, Warren then grabbed some Périgord truffles and added a very generous shaving of these to the plates before serving them. Needless to say this dish was fantastic. It was paired with a Nk’Mip Q2 Merlot.
Dessert followed, Rhonda Viani is one of the better pastry chefs in Vancouver. I sometimes go to West just to sit at the bar for a couple of cocktails and dessert…the petit fours and the Grey Monk Odyssey Port were a perfect way to end a sumptuous meal.
Warren turned out to be a very amicable Brit who’s cooking is simple yet intricate. Ingredients get the royal treatment and are presented on the plate in various ways to showcase them. It is safe to say that West is in good hands.
COOKING WITH BC’S BEST – A NIGHT WITH THOMAS HAAS – by Stefan Posthuma
I am one of those people who always have a spot for dessert no matter how much they have eaten already. Imagine a dinner that consists of desserts only, paired with champagne and ice wine. Now imagine this dessert being prepared by Thomas Haas for you and 19 other lucky people. Well, this happened last night at the Edible British Columbia store in Granville Island and I had the good fortune to be one of the guests.
Anyone who knows Thomas Haas knows he is a very amicable and chatty fellow. He was at his best on Friday, he started giving us pretty much his life story as a pastry chef, starting as an apprentice at the age of 14 at his father’s pastry shop in a small town in Germany. While he talked he prepared his dishes while the EBC staff was handing out glasses of Gray Monk Odyssey Brut until we sat down for the first course. This was a savoury starter, some smoked salmon on Thomas’ own brioche bread followed by a small tart with Asiago cheese and heirloom tomatoes from the oven.
I think dessert making is the most demanding and exacting discipline in cooking, the amount of time involved in making the small plates of petit fours or chocolate creations you will find on your plate after a fine dinner can be astonishing. Thomas said he needed to get up the next day at 4am to start his double baked croissants for example.
The next dish was a pineapple Carpaccio with coriander sugar, fresh raspberries and some syrup.
He told us about his early days as a pastry chef in Europe while preparing these deliciously refreshing plates. It was a very classic story with Thomas living above a busy shop and working pretty much every waking hour for board and lodging. As the stories unfolded, he tackled a large batch of apples, peeling and slicing them, then piling them high onto rounds of puff pastry covered in almond cream. These went into the oven and came out some time later, the apples meltingly tender on top of the crispy pastry with a center of almond goodness. This dish was paired with Raven Ridge 2007 Ambrosia Apple Ice Wine, which was something I tasted for the first time and was very interesting. Eric said they are working on pear ice wine that is supposed to be even better.
After the apple galettes it was time for some serious chocolate. By then, Thomas had moved on to a lively account of his life in North America where he quickly gained fame as the pastry chef at Daniel, the legendary restaurant in New York City. It was shortly after that when he decided to move to Vancouver much to the benefit of all of us here J
The chocolate dish in question was a chocolate soufflé made with 70% dark chocolate, lots of egg yolks and a very generous amount of butter. This raised some questions about skinny chefs (Thomas is one of those!) and he then mentioned his personal record of 32 minutes and 17 seconds on the Grouse Grind. Here is a guy who gets up at 4am to make croissants, has a family with young children and Vancouver`s busiest chocolate shop. How he manages to then also be fit enough to achieve a near-record time on the Grouse Grind is beyond me.
The chocolate soufflé was divine, it was paired with Sandhill Small Lots Three. While we were devouring the soufflés, Thomas started rolling Kirsch-infused marzipan around small booze-soaked cherries and dipping the resulting balls in sliced almonds before baking them off in the oven. These were served with some chilli-chocolates as the final dish of the evening.
This was one of my favourite “best of BC“ events at EBC so far. Thomas is a true entertainer who will make you laugh with his stories while casually preparing exquisite desserts. I am once again in awe of his talents.
CHEFS FOR LIFE 2008 – by Stefan Posthuma
The Vancouver Friends for Life Society is a charitable organization that provides services for people living with life threatening illness. They have an annual fundraiser called ‘Chefs for Life’ which is one of the most exquisite culinary events in Vancouver, featuring all of the top chefs of the city. I have been going to this event every year for a number of years now and it never disappoints. It is hosted by a different chef each year, this year it was held at Goldfish Pacific Kitchen, hosted by William Tse. The evening always starts with champagne and appetisers, Moet and Chandon provided the champagne while Don Letendre from Elixir, James Walt from Araxi, Ernst Dorfler from the Five Sails and Frank Pabst from Blue Water Cafe provided the canapés. Ernst’s seared Ahi tuna topped with Foie Gras bites were very delectable and judging from the steady line-up at his station I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Now this dinner features 8 seated courses all paired with wine so you really have pace yourself both on the starters as well on the freely flowing champagne. I made the mistake of indulging in champagne before dinner at a previous Chefs for Life and I really regretted that the next day!
Dinner started off with a perfect little parcel of Dungeness crab with smoked salmon caviar from David Hawksworth. I have always held David in the highest regard as a chef and he confirms that every time I eat his food. Next up was a fanny bay scallop with a spot prawn and some vegetables in a miso and yuzu sauce from Tojo. Chefs for Life 2007 was held at his then brand new restaurant. Tojo is legendary and delivered the goods as usual.
Melissa Craig from the Bearfoot Bistro in Whistler is making quite a name for herself, her truffle Brillat-Savarin cheese Carpaccio with a baby chanterelle and Iberico ham salad was an unusual but delicious dish. One of the best dishes of the evening came from the host chef, William Tse. It was a sake-thyme marinated piece of sablefish with a ginger prawn cake in some lemongrass clove broth, garnished with a dried tomato and some edamame beans. It was amazing and paired very well with the 2007 Coldstream Pinot Noir that was poured along with it. Vancouver Magazine chef of the year Pino Posterato was up next and presented a maple-soy glazed Fraser valley duck breast with confit leg ravioli in a chocolate espresso sauce. This was the first meat course of the evening and went down very well with the 2004 Tinhorn Creek Merlot that was selected as the pairing.
A well timed break was held for the live auction. Chefs for Life attracts celebs like Sarah McLachlan and Trevor Linden. There is always an impressive display of fundraising when the auctioneer starts doing his thing and private dinners and luxury getaways start bidding wars that go into the many thousands of dollars. My friends and I always place modest bids on some of the silent auction items, there usually are very interesting bottles of wine and port there. We never actually manage to win any of them, some expensive looking person will swoop in and double our bid without blinking. But hey it is for a good cause and the food is amazing so we take it in stride.
Dinner continued after the auction with a plate of braised pork cheeks with chanterelles, bacon and celeriac puree. This one came from Scott Jaeger from the Pear Tree. Warren Geraghty, West’s new chef provided the final dish before dessert, a tournedos of veal together with veal sweetbread wrapped in smoked veal tongue on some rosemary polenta with a blackberry and apple puree. It was one of those dishes where all you hear are ‘hhmms’ and ‘oohhs’ when people are eating it.
My favourite food personality hands down is Thomas Haas. The guy is a dessert genius and an extremely nice person to boot. He always provides dessert for Chefs for Life, the menu simply said ‘chocolate, figs and port’. I’ll leave it at that, anyone familiar with Thomas’s creations will know the nirvana that awaited at the end of dinner.
Chefs for Life has become a yearly tradition for our little band of foodie friends. Tickets are not cheap (usually around $350) but it is for a very good cause and given the line-up of star chefs, wine pairings and the experience of it all, it is very much worth it.
A FAMILY TRIP TO THE OKANAGAN – by Stefan Posthuma
My absolute favourite place for a summer break is BC’s own Okanagan. The combination of scenery, lakes, sunshine and wineries is hard to beat. Last week the three of us (my wife Connie, 4 year old Kai and myself) headed out there for a 5 day trip.
We stayed at a bed and breakfast called La Punta Norte, a very nice Spanish colonial style building perched on a cliff overlooking Lake Okanagan, just north of Summerland. You stay in a room that has a hot tub outside the door and there is a pool on the patio as well. Add to that the fabulous breakfasts that you can enjoy on their patio overlooking the lake and you have a perfect place to stay really. I stayed there before when doing one of Edible BC’s Audi drive weekends and knew I wanted to come back with my family.
There is plenty of good food to be had in the Okanagan these days. There are some very good bistros and restaurants at various wineries and Kelowna sports some great restaurants as well. The first night we dined at the Cellar Door Bistro at the Sumac Ridge winery, just up the road from the B&B. They have a nice patio where we had our dinner. A charcuterie plate with some Steller’s Jay followed by grilled tuna were very good. There are also plenty of small cafés and coffee houses to grab lunch at while you are on the beach. We did just that on our first day when we spent lots of time in Summerland, lazing on the beach while Kai built some very ambitious sand castles. I dropped by The Beanery in Summerland for some iced Mochas and sandwiches for lunch. Later in the afternoon we headed to Kelowna where we had reservations at the Waterfront Wines. It turns out that place is considered a bar so Kai wasn’t allowed in L. Fortunately, Bouchons next door had a table available on their patio so we had dinner there instead. Drinking some Pastis while enjoying the sunshine was pure joy, the chilled Jamaican banana curry soup was delicious, their fries eagerly gobbled up by Kai. They prepared a ½ order of ribeye for Kai, it is always great to see your son dig into a piece of steak! I had a leg of duck confit while Connie enjoyed a smoked duck salad. The feature wine was a French Pinot Noir that was very suitable for our duck dishes.Kelowna was very lively on that warm summer evening so we enjoyed strolling around after dinner until well past a certain small person’s bed time. He was very happy about that J
The next day we stopped by the Poplar Grove winery where we picked up some cheese and crackers (Poplar Grove makes cheese as well as wine) that we enjoyed later on the beach in Naramata. This turned out to be quite the beach, we spent the entire day there. When I made a quick iced Mocha run to the Village Grounds café I discovered they featured local, free-run medication free chicken dinners with great salads like curried chickpea and a spiced shredded carrot salad. On the way back to our B&B we stopped by, picked up some of their chicken and salads and enjoyed these (a lot!) on the patio of La Punta Norte with some more Steller’s Jay from Sumac Ridge (is it obvious I like sparkling wine?). I find it remarkable that you can find this kind of quality in a tiny café tucked away in a small town. This speaks to the overall quality of the region for sure.
Our last day was spent in Penticton, on yet another beach. We rented a boat in the morning and spent time racing around the lake, much to Kai’s enjoyment. After that we grabbed lunch from Il Vecchio delicatessen, a small European style deli in the downtown area. Great sandwiches and all sorts of treats like cookies and chocolate to be had there. At the end of the day we had dinner at Theo’s, a Greek restaurant. I am not the biggest Greek food fan but Connie is so we headed there. I must say it was great, the Dolmathes (grape leaves stuffed with rice and ground beef) were good and the Moussaka was the best I have ever tasted. They add orange to their Bechamel sauce which gives it a wonderful flavour.The next morning, after a final dip in the pool at La Punta Norte we headed south, stopped at a few wineries (Dirty Laundry has great Riesling and Gewürtztraminer) for our wine fix and headed back to Vancouver via the Crow’s Nest highway. For those with Dutch roots like myself, Keremeos has a great roadside stand just past downtown where they have Dutch treats like Boterkoek and black liquorice. I always make sure I stop there while on my way in or out of the Okanagan.
I will be going back to Kelowna soon, this time with some friends for more of a driving adventure. I am already looking forward to it!
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