Molecular Gastronomy - Working with Liquid Nitrogen

So I found a source for liquid nitrogen and they offered a very reasonable price for 10 litres, rental of the container and delivery.

So now we are going to find a good Saturday for experimenting with it and then order it.  We are open to others coming to join us for the afternoon - evening and make foodie party of it.

I will let everyone know about the date and then report on what comes of it all.

Defending Our Backyard - 2010 ICC Local Food Festival

Sheila and I went out to the Island Chefs' Collaborative Local Food Festival at Fort Rodd Hill today.   We got there late and saw that there were long lines of cars all the way out to Fort Rodd Hill, they had a shuttle ferrying people back and forth.

The weather was turning and the crowds were thinning, which I suspect was good for us.   The rain never really started so we remained dry.

We ran into friends from the neighbourhood and the Tillicum Gorge Urban Farmers had a stand with Gabe Epstein there and Deb Heighway of the Donald Street Farm.   I will touch on what Deb is doing in detail on another day, she runs a small urban farm in the Tillicum Gorge neighbourhood using eight backyards.

Cliff was there with fol epi.   Bob Duncan of Fruit Trees and More was there.  

The festival was much more about booze than anything else we could see.   Though by coming late I believe some of the food stalls were already done.   We are also surprised that a number of the better known chefs and restaurants were not there.

On the food side Prima Strada was clearly the hit.   Even in the rain at the end they had long lines for their wood fired pizza.  This is the first I have had a chance to try their pizza and I was impressed.   With the new location open Bridge Street, I am much more likely to go.

On the booze side the three things that stood out. First the Saturna Island Winery 2008 Blanc de Noir.   This is a white wine made from Merlot grapes, the skins were removed right at the start of the crush.   The result was a very unique full bodied white wine.  I was finding I needed red wine words to describe it.   I would love to get some and I was told I could get it at Cascadia and Liquor Express in Tillicum Mall - this last one surprised me.

The beer that stood out for me was the Vancouver Island Brewery Sea Dog Amber Ale.   They have just come out this brew for the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Navy.   It was full bodied and refreshing, I can see drinking a lot of this over the summer.

The final booze was the Victoria Spirits aged gin.  I have never been a huge gin person, but Sheila as converted me to some extent, but I still drink more like I drink vodka than how I drink scotch.   This gin is aged in oak and it is much more like drinking a sipping brandy or a scotch.   It is not yet on the market, but when it is, I plan on buying it.

I would write some more, but I have to go for dinner, Sheila has made us pizza from scratch.

Shiki Sushi

Last night we ran way over on what we needed to do for the day and ended up missing dinner time.  Sheila has wanted to go to Shiki Sushi for sometime, especially since they moved around the corner, they are no longer on Fort, but at 1113 Blanshard Street, between View and Fort.

The look and feel inside is clean and modern, that sort of Swedish/Japanese sparse look, this is aesthetic that appeals to me.   There were no pretend Japanese accouterments.  The chairs are really comfortable, some of the best I have ever sat in for any meal, if they at all looked like they would fit in our dining room, I would consider going and buying some.  All in all, the decor makes it the sort of place I would love to sit, eat, drink and talk for hours.

We ordered two appetizers, neither of which did much for me.   The first was deep fried tofu in a consume like liquid.   The flavours were weak and the texture of the tofu left much to be desired.  The second was a beef tataki, Japanese carpaccio.   I was not impressed.  The beef was clearly good quality, but the pieces were not very thin and seemed to have little or no evidence of any pounding.   The sauce overwhelmed the meat, it was very heavy in soy and vinegar.  I am a fan of a good carpaccio, the best which I ever had was a pigeon one in this small town about an hour north of Munich in 1991.

We had some issues with the speed we were getting our food at, Max was with us and he was low on patience. If we had been on our own it would have been less of an issue, though still slow.   That said, the waitress made us feel comfortable having Max there and paid some special attention to him.

For the main we had four different rolls.   The first was a BC roll with bbq salmon skin, I happen to like salmon skin, especially when bbqed till crispy, though that is not what they did but it was good.   We also had the spicy scallop roll which was well done.   Both of these rolls had liberal amounts of roe on them, enough that I could lick some of it off and get a nice bit in my mouth.  I love the little bursts when bitting into roe.

The negitoro and yam rolls were decent enough, but nothing fancy, but then they are not intended to be fancy.

The big surprise came when we got the bill, we had only barely broken $38, a very good deal for the food we had.

We will go back, but not with Max.

Not Good Food

I was surprised to find out about Beer and More delivery.   I had thought delivering booze was illegal in BC, I can not find any evidence on the site that they have a liquor license of a business license.   The best I can find is that they seem to be linked to Omega Pizza on Gorge Road.   They even deliver cigarettes.

Cheap Apples at the James Bay Market Tomorrow

The BC Tree Fruit Growers are coming to the James Bay Farmer's Market to sell apples for $0.12 a pound.  I will be going down to buy some.

So why are they doing this?  

The cost of production of apples in BC is lower than the wholesale price they can get for the fruit.   This year they have been paid as little as $0.12 a pound for their fruit.

You can read more about it all on the facebook group and see their opinion piece in today's Times Colonist.

This is a big issue for me and has been so for many decades.

I grew up spending a lot time in the summers in the Okanagan.  I can remember as a young kid walking with my father through the orchard of Helmut von Hahn near Oliver.   My father and Helmut talked about what it took to run an orchard and how he was doing.   My father had wanted to be a farmer of some sort and I expect would have loved to have owned an orchard, but my mother had no interest in being a farmer's wife.

In my teens I spent four summers picking fruit in the Okanagan.   Two years for Brian Hardmann in Naramata and two years for the Hahns.   I asked a lot of questions about the economics of tree fruit growing and was trying to understand how it was possible to make a go of it when the costs seemed to be completely against you.

I remember in 1983 writing in the Hahns guestbook that I would try and solve the problem of why growers can not get a good return on their fruit.   27 years later and I have had a few chances to try and address the issue, but I have yet to see any big over arching answer for tree fruit growers in BC.

Organic production was a solution for some time, but the prices are not much better there any longer.   Selling retail to the public through farmer's markets is partial answer, but really only works on a small scale.  I really have no idea what the solution is.

If there was a solution, we could produce tonnes of apples on Vancouver Island on all that farm land that is sitting in hay or fallow.   The east coast of the island could easily produce as many apples as the Okanagan.

Take some time on Saturday to visit the Okanagan apple growers in James Bay and learn more about the issue.

This may be a useful online site

I am not sure if this will be helpful or not, but I am going to pay attention to it for the next bit.

Victoria Grocery Alerts

The site looks at all the flyers and then posts the information online.  I am not sure I like the interface at all.

Much of the flyer information for the latest week was posted at Vibrant Victoria, this format works better for me.

If anyone else uses this site, give me your thoughts on it.

BC Ferries - bad food for too much money

Eating on the ferry is something that we try to plan not to do, but it happens from time to time.

I tend to end up in the Pacific Buffet, but at $22 now, it is becoming unaffordable, especially given the institutional chaffing dish sort of meals you can get there.  Still it is better than the cafeteria.   We were coming back from the interior on Monday with the boys needing dinner.   If we had gone to the buffet, this would have cost more than the crossing.

We went to the Coastal Cafe.   $48 and four meals later we sat down to our very poor excuse for dinner.   The only good part were the BC burgers.  

The BC Burgers are supposed to be the White Spot ones, but they are not up to the same standard as White Spot.  The fries you get in the Coastal Cafe are I think the worst I have ever had anywhere.

I knew the fries were awful so I wanted to try something different.   I had the roast chicken.   I think it should be called Sahara roast chicken, it was drier than a desert.   It had obviously been roasted hours before and was sitting there drying out.  They had no veggies to go with the chicken, only salad or fries.   They did let me substitute rice.....

There has to be a better way to offer food on the ferries.  BC ferries should lease out the space to competing restaurants.   Imagine mall food fair in place of the Coastal Cafe and an Earl's or Milestone's in place of the Pacific Buffet.