A Very Interesting Local Blog

I was looking through blogs in the Victoria area and came across this very interesting foodie one. She is doing what I want to be doing with this blog, but have not had time to do. Dinner in the Yellow House

She also has backyard chickens, I look forward to getting my own soon enough. Though I think her error was getting chickens in the winter and not waiting till the spring. I will post details about the annual chicken run of backyard chicken set ups in greater Victoria.

Rob Feenie to Work For Cactus Club

Last fall Rob Feenie and his financial backers came to a parting of ways. I had been hoping to hear about a new and better high class food experience from Canada's Iron Chef. Instead I read something stunning - Rob Feenie is to be the food concept architect - do not ask me what that title means.

I thought he had done his thing for casual eating in his ads for White Spot, but no.

Cactus Club....... All it brings to my mind is a bunch of people in their 20s more interested in the beer than the food. If he were to go for casual dining, I think it would have been a better fit to work with Milestones.

I am trying to imagine the chicken wing crowd being happy with the unique food that Feenie is capable of. Cactus club is also spread over BC and Alberta - the idea of local ingredients can not be done consistently across the chain.

I think that this is a waste of his skills. I can only hope it leaves him with a lot of spare time to do other interesting projects.

I would love to see more of him on TV. I liked his battle with Moromoto on Iron Chef America. I liked the episode of Heat that he was on when he and Mark MacEwan cooked for a charity event in Toronto.

Yogurt Cheese

I was inspired by Alton Brown on Good Eats about making cheese from yogurt. I have done this before to some reasonable success so I bought some plain yogurt and started the process.

Problem one: I did not have cheese cloth. I strained it through some nylons and too much yogurt was getting through. I then put another layer around it using a jam straining bag. Still too much yogurt getting through.

Problem two: Flavour - the flavour was just too acidic and strong for my liking.

I would like to try this again and set up a proper press for cheese making. I also would like to work with kefir.

For a few months in 2005 I had a good kefir culture going. I was producing too much yogurt and started to make cheese and it worked well. I unfortunately killed the kefir culture and need new grains to get things going again.

Shocking, good raspberries!

We were out at Costco today and bought some raspberries. Normally I am loath to buy raspberries in the store even when they are in season locally. The only way I can properly control the quality is to pick my own. But today we saw a rather amazing batch of them at Costco.

Costco is a place I rarely buy any produce. Their stuff is not local, it is not cheap, and it is typically the worst sort of bland flavour one can think of. But there they were, 375 grams of what looked and smelled like good raspberries. We risked the $4.69 and bought them.

Low and behold, they actually are as good as they look.

Changes in diet

Given that Sheila is expecting, there have been some changes to the diet around here. First and foremost this means no alcohol and very little caffeine.

The dropping of alcohol has been easy, I was drinking very little lately. I will miss doing anything with the Beaujolais Nouveau this year.

Dropping caffeine is a bigger issue. I have become addicted again. Sunday and Monday had problems due to my lack of caffeine. I get headaches. I hope that I am beyond this now, but I am not certain. I will be even more sensitive to the effects of caffeine on my body now.

Sheila now needs to eat numerous small meals during the day and is not happy with meals where there are too many flavours and smells. I made a very good goulash on Sunday but Sheila really could not eat it.

Squash Season

Sheila reminded me that it will be squash season shortly and that we should be getting some. My problem is that I am reasonably indifferent to the squash as something to eat.

Soups are one thing I do like to make with squash and I was thinking of trying to recreate my bacon squash soup. I made it about five years ago in Lillooet.

1. Bake any winter squash - I prefer the flavour of baked because of the caramelizing of the sugars.
2. Fry up bacon - a fair amount, for a large squash I used about a pound of bacon
3. Take out the fried bacon
4. Fry some onion and garlic in the bacon fat.
5. Put everything into a food processor with some stock and puree
6. Add salt and pepper as needed.

It is a great simple but hearty soup.

Coffee

I am wondering what to do about coffee? I am finding that the typical price for a good coffee is about $15 to $17 per pound. Meanwhile the lower end arabica coffee can be bought for about $5 per pound.

I bought some Melita coffee this week for a much lower price than the beans we have been getting at Starbucks. But the coffee has a bitter aftertaste. It really is not a workable option.

I have trouble spending so much for coffee. I can not understand why the price difference is so high. I can understand the difference between arabica and robusta beans, but within the world of the arabicas I can not see the reason for the huge difference.

I would be willing to pay a premium for good coffee, but a 200% premium seems out of line.

What are the good coffees out there that do not cost a fortune?