jamiemaw

Meet tonight's dinner on the hoof: Wild Boar from North Okanagan Game Farms Chef Michael Allemeier is genuinely interested in what he does and what he can do for you. His resumé is thick with benchmark kitchens: lengthy executive chef stints at Bishop’s (an early champion of all things local, organic and sustainable in Vancouver), The Fairmont Chateau Whistler (where he collaborated closely with growers from the Pemberton Valley), Calgary’s elegant Teatro and now as executive chef at the Mission Hill Family Estate Winery. Mission Hill was developed from a fledgling winery 20 years ago by proprietor Anthony von Mandl, who six years ago began its redevelopment. Today, some $40 million later, Mission Hill is a destination all on its own. Below, there's some additional backround on the winery and its founder in an article called "Mission Accomplished." It’s the dead of winter and as you’ve seen the days are bright but cold. As the summer ticked over we ate Michael’s fruit-promoted dishes, especially his wonderful desserts and preserves. But the drop in temperature drops his procurements sights – not in quality – but quite literally: the soft fruits such as apricot, peaches, plums and prunes in early summer turned to pears and apples by October. By late November however, valley chefs have gone to ground, using squashes, and then underground, for the root vegetables that we will be eating tonight. They'll include red carrots from Green Crofts Farms and torpedo onions from Stoney Paradise. But the main event will be seared, then braised boar cheeks (from North Okanagan Game Farms) and a wonderful seasonal dessert – take a peek at the menu below. Earlier today we watched chef Allemeier and executive sous chef Tim Cuff prep the meal. We thought you would be interested in seeing some of the wonderful equipment they have in their reach including the remarkable La Grande Cuisine induction hob. Note the hand next to the boiling water. Tonight’s menu will encompass what the season has dealt Allemeier, with a nod backward to a few nods backward to summer . . . Spinach Cakes with Smoked Salmon Oysters on the Half Shell (Malpeques & Gigamotos) - Beet Mignonette Lior Gougeres Loimer Reisling 2003 2004 Five Vineyards Pinot Blanc Sunchoke and Leek Soup with Weathervane Scallop Sweet Garlic 2002 Reserve Shiraz Slow Braised Wild Boar Cheeks with Truffled Cauliflower Purée 1997 Grand Reserve Gewurztraminer Ice Wine Chestnut Soufflé with Gingered Quince Vanilla Bean Crème Anglais The dinner promises to be great fun. It will be hosted by Ingo Grady, the director of international marketing for Mission Hill. His fiancée Patti Tetrau runs a winery tour service that keeps our roads safer and visitors properly informed of local peccadilloes. Grant Stanley is the head winemaker from the adjacent Quail’s Gate winery and long ago used to run the floor at London’s Bibendum. Peggy Athans is the executive director of the BC Wine Institute. Later we’ll post some shots of chefs Allemeier and Cuff preparing tonight’s meal, and of course later, some of the meal itself. I expect the wine will be rather good as well. Mission Accomplished From an article in The Globe and Mail that I wrote about the visit of Wolf Blass to the Mission Hill Family Estate Winery this past summer As a kid obsessed with food, I soon sniffed out that there was no Betty Crocker. This was much worse than finding out that an aging milk-and-cookies gourmand called Santa Claus was a fraud. Turns out Aunt Jemima was a figment of Madison Avenue’s cynical eye as well. I began scowling at my pancakes, not knowing whom to trust, or whose apron to hide behind. A child’s innocence lost, I became a brand sceptic—for life. But wait, there’s less. Wine marketing agencies have gotten truly carried away as well. How about a glass of Marilyn Merlot, Scraping the Barrel, Cardinal Zin, K Syrah, or even Cat’s Pee on a Gooseberry Bush? Recently, each of these unpleasant memories of gimcrack Hollywood food and wine names was dredged up yet again. I was waiting at the airport to meet Wolf Blass. I was hoping that I would meet the man and not the brand. I did. For there, alighting from a heavy German automobile—without a handler in sight—was a nimble, 71-year old German leavened with forty years in Oz. His accent was just one tip to his provenance: Slow Australian vowels surfing over tight German consonants like foie gras hitting a hot steel pan. Another was his energy: for a little guy, Blass takes up a lot of room. Like most charismatic people he forsakes carbon dioxide completely and breathes oxygen back into rooms. Not so long ago, it was Wolf Blass who rocked the wine world and breathed that same oxygen back into a moribund industry. He put paid to the French by creating colourful (his yellow label series are international bestsellers), mnemonic wine labels on bottles that were ready to drink today. Voila! The complications of French labelling, where appellations, negotiants and other unnecessaries ruled an unwieldy web of wine fiefdoms, were upended forever. Blass didn’t outflank them, he ran over them and France’s global market share has never recovered. Today Blass brands sell some $50 million of wines around the world, about twice the entire VQA output of the Okanagan Valley. Blass sold his interest to Foster’s ten years ago, but now roams the world as an ambassador for the brand. He is a restless, kinetic man with the tightly wound inner tension of a golf ball, waiting to be released. Our ostensible mission: To Mission Hill, where Blass was to brief proprietor Anthony von Mandl. In November, Blass will turn over the presidency of the International Wine and Spirits Competition, convened in London each year. It’s one of the loftiest and most visible appointments in the wine world; their predecessors include Baroness Rothschild, Robert Mondavi, Miguel Torres and Piero Antinori. While a real honour for von Mandl personally, it’s also an international imprimatur for the Okanagan. After all, it was the IWSC award, called The Avery Trophy—that Mission Hill won in 1994 for best Chardonnay in the World—that first put the valley on the global wine map. This latest accolade will raise its profile higher. The visible investment at Mission Hill is imposing, but the real investment in the business is occurring now, and it’s indicative of a valley-wide theme. The business end of the winery—where the wines actually get made under winemaker John Simes—has undergone a dramatic change, with millions of dollars of stainless steel and oak tanks and other modern equipment being installed. In the vineyards, drip irrigation systems are replacing overhead sprinklers, dropping water consumption by as much as 75 per cent. But then there is the unkindest cut of all. With Okanagan vineyard-quality land now virtually fully planted, the only way left is up. Up as in increased bottle prices, promoted by rising quality, especially in red wines. And that means “dropping fruit”—pruning back vines to drive intensity into the bottle. That might delight winemakers, for they see the result first, but it’s a leap of faith for proprietors. Lunch taken at The Mission Hill Terrace is a short excursion into fine local ingredients; virtually everything except for citrus and coffee is sourced within a half hour radius. Terrace chefs Tim Cuff and Lee Cooper served us a menu that cooled a hot cadmium sun like a breeze, beginning with a terrine of sweet peas in a cucumber sauce. Morels were served with quail and mint, then an Enderby lamb chop, cooked on a panini press, was plated with nutty cauliflower purée. Dessert: apricot and mascarpone crumble, a pretty flourish to an afternoon idyll, suspended over the lake, listening to a German winemaker dispensing ‘g’days” and “bluudy oaths” to our party, which included Justin Trudeau and his lovely new wife Sophie. Back to those Hollywood food—or in this case, wine—names. The Okanagan is full of new wineries and brands: Therapy, Joie, Dirty Laundry, Star Galaxy and Tantalus are all new launches, following on the success of outré labels such as Blasted Church. There are other, “special project” wines in the offing too. From Mission Hill, expect to see their limited release brands called Fork in the Road, and B-3, named for the mother bear and her cubs who roam the winery’s Osoyoos vineyards. Some of these labels are available in Okanagan and Lower Mainland restaurants now; others will release this fall. I’ve tasted enough of them (and live next door to one of them) to suspend my brand cynicism. “You might almost call it divine madness,” Blass said after our tour of Mission Hill, that soaring place of near-monastic serenity and cleanly wrought lines. He was referring to the investment that von Mandl has made at the top of the hill. Blass shook his head, “Here you see art, history and legacy—the commercial enterprise is hidden away behind the curtains, architecturally and as a metaphor for what Anthony has accomplished.” Justin Trudeau, who knows something about charisma, responded for the group. “There’s nothing we like more than when someone sits down and says something very nice about us,” he said.

Mark me confused, Wendy. While on the one hand you refer to Kim's backside as a "tiny little blurp," in the very next breath you call it a "major bummer." Now that I think about it though, I guess I'd like to have it both ways too. More seriously, we'll be paying your section of the menu a good deal more attention shortly, beginning tonight with a chestnut souffle with gingered quince and vanilla bean creme anglais. And then next week, we'll be journeying to visit Thomas Haas. And in between, so that you realize that we don't give the final course short shrift, I promise even more dessert satisfaction.

This is 'P' and I love her so. See you on the morrow.

Lower morels are a good thing. I also find them at the Med Market, one of my favourites too. I also like to shop at Illichman's and I'll post some references to them this afternoon. Thanks IG, J.

Now a little background on how we review: For a feature review we try to visit the restaurant several times: Late in the week at the top of the slam to see both the service staff and the line under pressure—i.e. at 8:00; early in the week (on a one-turn night) at 6:30 to watch the restaurant fill; and again for a lunch, if available. Quite often other editors visit as well. But we rely on our own experience first and foremost, and in visiting the restaurant several times, attempt to fully navigate the menu. Quite often this means taking friends, which only partly explains my enormous popularity throughout beautiful downtown Kitsilano. We evaluate each restaurant that we review using a set template. We use a 20-point system to rate the food; service; and décor/ambience/cleanliness. We weight the marks 80 percent food and 20 percent for the latter two. But we leave upward leeway for pure magic, and we’ll mark down severely for attitude, pretension and anything short of clean premises. Using this system, we would rate top Canadian restaurants such as Lumière, Susur, and West at 17 to 18 out of 20. A restaurant such as Jean-Georges in NYC would merit 18 to 19; L’Arnsbourg ( afavourite because of its relaxed approach to three-star Michelin dining) in Alsace 19. Some big names that fell short in the last few years: Spago Beverly Hills at 13; Chaya (Los Angeles) 11; Café Boulud 14.5. Each September, we publish The Eating & Drinking Guide to British Columbia . . . EDG is a year-round project, and tonight we’ll be going to a restaurant in Kelowna to update our files, and to see if it measures up to or exceeds its previous scoring of 14, which qualified it for a one out of three star rating. We don’t expect every dining room, at every price point, to be elaborately decorated—in fact, just like the presentation on the plate, we prefer it otherwise. What we do expect, however, is that the décor of the room will reflect the food and that it will be intimate. We like a buzz too, but too much noise is our enemy. Careworn is alright, but dirty is not. And the food, let it be said again, is foremost. Many times we’ve rated inexpensive, plainly decorated dining rooms very highly. Why?—because the food sings, the owners are friendly and informative, and everyone has a great night. Examples: Phnom Penh (14.5) and Hapa (14), both in Vancouver, and The Swan Oyster Depot (14) in San Francisco. In using this methodology we make an honest attempt to view the owner’s restaurant as a business. One thing that I find desperately unfair is certain reviewers’ propensity to evaluate solely based on a single, shotgun, two-hour visit on the cusp of the Friday slam. A financial reporter would be held accountable for such disregard for due diligence, but many so-called restaurant critics (some in alarmingly high places with vast audiences) seem to get away with it. I’m sure you have seen this too. We use a template for each and every restaurant—it allows us to judge every place we visit on an even basis, and allows us to refer back objectively. I can’t share that, because its proprietary and has taken a while to develop, but here is the essence—now all we have to do is make it entertaining. The Telltales Service: • Was there a gracious, welcoming greeting, and a smooth and timely transition from reception to table? • How long was the transition from table seating to order-taking for wine or cocktails? A minute is good, more than three is a mark-down. More than five is poor. • Was the bread served immediately? A pet peeve: bread served only after the food order is taken. • Were the servers well-informed about the set menu, and the specials? Pet peeve: Not quoting the prices on oral specials. Was the wine server knowledgeable and budget-savvy? Did he/she try to up-sell unnecessarily? Were there wines on the list unavailable? Were the glasses properly sized for the wines selected? Did he/she open the Champagne as discreetly as a duchess breaking wind? • Is the server unobtrusive at table, removing spent dishes quickly and quietly, taking care not to interrupt carefully rehearsed punch lines or entreaties of seduction and never over-filling wineglasses? Is the water topped up? Do they oversell expensive bottled water? • Does the server walk past you empty-handed (a “walkaway”) when your table needs attention? • During a multi-course tasting menu, we expect the dishes to be served on 20-minute centres, or at least three per hour. We expect to see no more than five minutes between starter removal and entrée put-down on an à la carte menu, slightly longer is OK for dessert or cheese. • Is a corked bottle of wine received back graciously? • Did the server ask the QC gracefully? What you don’t want to hear: “Is everything all right?” or “Does everything meet or exceed your flavour expectations.” Better: “Is everything prepared to your liking?” or simply, “May I get anything more for you right now?” • We might make a minor adjustment to the service, such as ordering a sauce on the side, to see how the server and kitchen respond. • Is the pepper mill the size of an outdoor chess piece? Are the napkins stuck in your wine glass? Are they made of nylon? Cleanliness: • Is the restaurant clean, front- and back-of-house, washrooms too? Careworn and character can be good, dirty is very bad. Inexcusable, in fact. • Are there any tell-tale signals of food hazard: supplies in the back hall, dirty bussing containers, grimy silver or glasses, warm sushi, cold poultry centres, separated egg-based sauces, warm potato salad, loose-textured or ‘leaky’ fish, unkempt servers with dirty hands? Décor/Ambiance: • Does the room, no matter the design or budget, allow you to feel comfortable and relaxed, or do you feel either on show or just overwhelmed. Is it intimate at your table? The décor should not be at odds with what you’re about to eat, and if it’s a flamboyant theatre-like space with grim food—bye bye. Bigger marks for intimacy, achievable even in large rooms. Perfection: whether cosy or streamlined moderne, the ideal room is a rectangle of about 1.5 to 1, with extra marks for an attractive outdoor patio, a comfortable bar, subtle music if any, good chairs and snowy linen. But just as good: barbecue and lots of napkins and really good iced tea. The Food Generic: • Soup: So often an afterthought, soup is the food critic’s friend. Is it distinctively flavoured, with complex tastes that slowly change in the mouth, revealing ramps of flavour? Or is it ‘cream of cream’ or redolent of chicken stock, the two most common pitfalls of inexperienced or careless cooks. Is it an afterthought? After tasting the soup, you should be able to tell if the chef has fought with his girlfriend or just made love. In this case, chef didn't get lucky tonight. • Salad: Are the leaves absolutely fresh? Are the other items fresh and well-chosen? Is the dressing interesting, flavourful and properly seasoned? • Are the flavours ‘clean’ or muddy? Exciting, distinctive, and complementary on the plate? • Is there too much going on? Complication without complexity when we want the reverse? Is the presentation too elaborate or ridiculously vertical? Did the chef waste the life of an innocent branch of rosemary by skyscrapering it into a glop of mashed potatoes? • Absolute mark-down: the protein, especially steak, cantilevered over the starch, especially mashed potatoes—the steam will turn it to liver in half a minute and also turn its texture mealy. • Is there too much dependence on deep-frying, especially in a Chinese or casual restaurant? • Vegetables: Also the food critic’s friend because they too are often an afterthought. Telltales: grilled bell peppers and zucchini seeking maximum plate cover but minimal flavour impact. Beautifully sourced, appropriately prepared vegetables in season are a sure sign the chef is paying attention. • Are the sauces complex and deep, or sharp (or bland) and monotonous? • Desserts: Are they store-bought or made in-house? Are they interesting? Just asking, because I’d like to strangle that guy who invented tiramisu, death by choclate, flavoured crème brulee, and industrial lemon meringue pie. More summer cobblers, please. Chocolate disasters are always better when one improvises at home. Please excuse this modest Canadian experiment. [Thank you Kim] • Cheeses: well-managed and diverse. • Wine list: local, long-distance, no more than a 100% mark-up, useful pairings, good selection of crossover bottles (i.e. pinots that will pair with fish or beef.); good house wines (carafes) and half-bottles selection. Cuisine Specific: • Italian: Spaghettini (angel hair pasta) and the simplest tomato-based sauces on the menu, preferably marinara. Angel hair won’t hold and there’s no fudging the freshness of marinara: both of which prove that the simplest menu items are often the most difficult to prepare really well. I’ve had many a bad hair day. • French: Butter: is the chef using too much to bind his potatoes, coat his vegetables, enrich his proteins and gloss his sauces? Unfortunately, there’s only one way to tell—if your hair turns greasy before dessert or you get a coupon for a double-bypass discount with the bill. • Chinese: Noodle soups must have crystalline stocks. Greasy rolls. Indistinct dim sum. Unfettered, whole fish. Omami, that ebullient fifth taste. Crappy wine lists. • Indian: Flavours become one big muddy river after only two courses. Butter chicken sauce separates. Butter chicken. Wine lists that don’t support the spicing. Poor condiments. Mark-ups: Clean, fresh, distinct flavours; excellent chutneys—especially fresh mint-mango as a re-set button. • Japanese: Mark-downs for—slimy fish, thick tempura, heated sake, smelly room, impostor cut-men, jeroboams of cheap soy sauce. Mark-ups: reasonably priced, artisanal sakes; ancient, well-tended knives; seven-year apprenticeships in Kyoto; real wasabi, pale, house-pickled ginger. • Greek: Generic menus, cheap feta, overdone kabob meats, generic salads, lack of bottarga. "What the world needs now is fewer restaurant critics, and longer sausages." • Regional: Over-complication, over-presentation, out-of-season, esoteric. • Seafood: Anything commercially endangered or extirpated such as orange roughy, Chilean sea bass, rockfish, ling cod, coho salmon, Russian caviar etc. Overdone, gummable filets. Mark-ups: viable and tasty—sardines, pink salmon, halibut, salmon roe, etc. Whole fish grilled with oil, lemon and salt and pepper. • Steakhouse: Expensive sides, barbecue sauce, button mushrooms, bad potatoes, ‘red salt’ flavour enhancers, unripe tomatoes, ridiculous Cabernet mark-ups, stuffy décor, men in bad golf pants, running out of medium rare prime rib by eight o’clock. Mark-ups: For any well-made salad that isn’t Caesar or blue cheese, fresh horseradish, sautéed spinach, wild mushrooms.

Yes, Abra, we harvested many of the photos from the last six months of a year well spent. I truly wanted you to see this valley, in black and white, then in its true colours. Thanks so much for joining us on our wee tour, Jamie

Treetops - a place of re-creation. It's also one of my preferred places to write. Many culinary luminaries have stayed at Treetops, including Mr. Andy Lynes, the internationally acclaimed food and drinks journalist from Lower Solway Avenue, Brighton, England. Here's how the view changed - November to December. In keeping with Blighty’s longstanding policy of shipping criminals and petty thugs to the colonies, Mr. Lynes was dispatched here last summer and grew to like the place. Kelowna is the hub of the Okanagan Valley, a two hundred kilometre-long glacial valley rich in eluvial and volcanic soils. The name of the city means grizzly bear in the local indigenous dialect, although cougars and shaguars also run thick. Women fruit pickers in the Pridham orchards, ca. 1915. Photo courtesy of Kelowna Museum Archives. Smile when you eat this apple . . . the cheerful art of selling fruit: For the past 125 years or so, the Valley has been a rich agricultural area, renowned for its tree fruits—especially apples and peaches, plums, pears and apricots. Lord Aberdeen’s (he would later become the Governor General of Canada) famous Coldstream Ranch, located at the north end of the valley, was famous for his prizewinning apple crops. Beginning in the 1890’s, he took great delight in shipping prized specimen of his tree crops to Covent Garden in London to upstage his English countrymen. Group photo of Lord and Lady Aberdeen and their children eating apples on the porch of the Coldstream Ranch, ca. 1894. Note how they study the fruit of their (actually others') labours. Photo courtesy of Kelowna Museum Archives. Portrait of David Leckie, my great-grandfather, who left Edinburgh for Canada at the age of 16. Photo courtesy of Kelowna Museum Archives. Aberdeen's tenure in the valley barely intersected that of David Leckie, who arrived in Kelowna in the early 1900’s. David swiftly built a burgeoning hardware and lumber business; by 1912 he had built a large store and warehouse in downtown Kelowna. D. Leckie Hardware Store, 1904. Photo courtesy of Kelowna Museum Archives. In the past decade, as tree fruit crops have become less profitable, many orchards have been pulled (violin-makers rejoice when a pear orchard comes down) and replanted in grapes or housing developments. The Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) has protected the most fecund land though. There are now about 125 wineries dotted along the hillsides and benches of the valley. The three main lakes (from north to south: Kalamalka, Okanagan, Skaha) moderate the hot summer temperatures) and the two mountain ranges between the coast and the Okanagan means rainfall is about one-quarter that of Vancouver and the coastal rainforest areas. Due to the arid, warm climate, there are some plants that you might not normally associate with the word Canada, such as Palm trees . . . and black taro. It’s alright though, the season’s over—no poi for you! The big reds are grown in the far south, around the towns of Osoyoos and Oliver, where the Sonoran Desert reaches its hand over the international border (49th Parallel). Summer daytime temperatures average about 35˚ C and can spike above 40; the area receives more sunlight than the Napa, and very little precipitation. In the interest of water conservation, cost and quality control, in many vineyards irrigation is being converted from overhead sprinklers to drip. This is true desert, with rattlers, sage brush, tumbleweed and burrowing owls, whose name http://www.bovwine.ca/thewinery.htm was borrowed by a local winery of reputation. Clustered near the southern tip of Okanagan Lake, near Okanagan Falls, Penticton and Naramata, the vines begin to turn to pinot noir and white varietals. Closer to Kelowna, northern varietals such as gewurtztraminer and reisling are more prevalent. As the population has grown, and culinary and wine tourists seek it out, the valley has seen a tremendous growth in specialized farming. Just one example is our neighbour, Milan Djordjevich (aka The Tomato Man), who supplies 14 varieties of organic tomatoes and several of table grapes to the province’s restaurants and public markets. Types of tomatoes from left to right and where there are tomatoes below, top to bottom: Early Cascade, Green Zebra, Sungold (cherry tomato), Druzba (big cracked red), Striped German, Black Krim (purple), Wonderlight (yellow lemon), Black Prince, Striped Cavern (orange), Black Plum, Czech Excellent Yellow, Pink Beauty. The tomatoes simply wouldn’t taste as good if Aunty Prim didn’t supervise our basket. Basket of Milan's tomatoes and ‘French Tickler’ cauliflower Tomorrow we’ll be cooking with some of Milan’s late summer product, which has been canned for your viewing pleasure, and will be used in the braise of boar cheeks. And so to work. We're off to review a nearby restaurant. Back in a while then . . . Jamie

Betts, somewhat vexatiously, the Ice Wines of BC and Ontario are similar but different. On the whole, though, I'd have to say that we're a bit sweeter. I shouldn't comment on income or capital gains taxes, for fear of veering off-topic. What I can say is that the cost of dining in Vancouver is about 20% less than in Seattle, 25% less than San Francisco. Of course, that difference was significantly more two years ago; the Canadian dollar has gained a good deal of strength aginst yours - not so good for our tourism or film industries.

I am POSITIVE that you mean the climate in Vancouver not in British Columbia. Having almost lost both legs to frostbite in British Columbia (Fort Nelson), I would hate to mislead anyone about the climate. Great blog so far, Jamie. I will be following with interest. ← Yes, in the south Anna. It's been bitterly cold this past week in the north country, down to -35 degrees C with the wind chill. That's seriously cold, so that you leave your car running, and plan carefully to get from your front door into your front seat.

I forgot to ask you Jamie ... please be sure to query Michael on his experience in Lynchburg, TN at the JD BBQ Championships with Canadian Champ, Ron Shewchuck. I think Michael has been bitten by the BBQ bug, and it would be interesting to see if there's been any influence on his cuisine or the wine (Fume Blanc anyone?). A. ← Arne, Not only has Michael become a Q convert, he's become a prostelytizer, a zealot, absolutely hardcore. When we were designing the menu for tomorrow night, he seemed to be trying to introduce certain smoky elements. And his Q Classes at the winery are instant sell-outs.

All aboard our little caravan then. But first, allow me to put British Columbia (BC) in context. And because we’ll be following the money this week, here’s a handy reference guide: CDN $ USD 0.860067 GBP 0.497033 EUR 0.735162 AUD 1.15167 For the benefit of our American neighbours, the province of British Columbia, one of Canada’s thirteen provinces and territories http://canada.gc.ca/othergov/prov_e.html is slightly larger in area than California, Oregon and Washington states combined (or about one-and-a-half times the size of Texas), but our population—of only four million— is less than half that of New Jersey. Greater Vancouver has a population of two million, the city proper about 600,000. For our European friends, BC is about the size of Germany, France and the Netherlands combined, or about four times the size of Great Britain and Ireland, but with about one-fifteenth the population of the UK. We natives judge this just about an ideal passenger to acreage ratio, especially as most of us hug the 49th parallel, our southern boundary with the US. And that, of course, is because we are so terribly fond of its citizens. Unlike Canada’s prairie and eastern provinces our climate is mild but as precipitous as the terrain, especially in the winter months. Although it rains about the same in Vancouver as in, say New York City, it can get gloomy here in January. But the snow is usually well behaved and hangs up in the mountain resorts—the best known is Whistler-Blackcomb. Or in the Okanagan, where you may have noticed the designer dusting in the photos I’ve posted. Our prime growing season runs from mid-May to October. The average temperature in Vancouver during the summer is in the mid-20s C or upper 70s F; there is a refreshing lack of humidity as the dulcet westerly passes over us. It gets much warmer in the Okanagan. Living in the far west, our culinary culture has far more in common with the great states of Washington and Oregon than our countrymen to the east. That has a lot to do with our ingredients and wines but also with the way we lead our lives: rather relaxed. But, like eastern Canadians, we're industrious, and very much accepting of cultural differences—a meritocracy, I suppose. Which may - the industrious part, I mean - well make you ask how I came to be here. So a warm welcome. To British Columbia, where the fishers are still fishermen (a fissure is something you’re more likely to fall into on the way home from the pub), where the scenery is muscular and the mountains crash into the mighty Pacific without apology, where the citizenry is attractive and occasionally amusing, where the ancient firs and hemlocks bend to the temper of the trans-oceanic winds, and where the Asian drug gangs—for we are very much a port city—shoot a little straighter than, say, in L.A. Most people put this up to superior air quality. The attractive citizenry is occasionally amusing. This picture was taken at a wedding this past summer. My long-suffering fiancée, Eva, is pictured at the left, with restaurateurs Harry and Michelle Kambolis, owners of Vancouver’s Raincity Grill, C, and Nu restaurants. I note that they were drinking, so this picture was likely taken after breakfast. We'll be looking in on their new restaurant venture - Nu - next week.

Thank you, Joie. I should mention that once you hit Vancouver magazine, you need to click on archives, and then "Diner"in each issue.

No, actually I'm Scottish-Canadian on my mother's side. My maternal great-grandfather, David Leckie, arrived here in Kelowna about a century ago. You'll be reading more about him in a minute. But the name Maw is English and not at all unsuitable for a food writer. Had I been blessed with a son I would have no doubt called him Gaping. Or Yawning. In Chinese it means "stomach" or "fish bladder" (depending on who I ask) and you see it all the time on Chinese menus: "Fish Maw - $7.95". So my Chinese buddies call me Jimmy the Gut. Helpfully, the $7.95 accurately describes my net worth. The homonymic Chinese spellings of my surname are typically Ma or Mah. Or as I say to my Dutch friend when leaving the pub - "Look Hans, no Maw."

Thank you: out of the fire and into the Pan works for me too. Although I've commented ad nauseum on the issue of anonymity, I will be mentioning how we safeguard. But as you might recall, I have absolutely no opinion on the subject.

Jack, A group of us will be visiting London in early February for a Sustainability Dinner. I would be happy to bring some ice wines with me. And yes, there's an excellent guide: John Schreiner, who has written several books on the Wine Country. You'll find your namesake winery here. Mission Hill bought Paradise Ranch last year, and with it the remarkable chalk bench above Naramata at the southern tip of Okanagan Lake. Stunning.

IN THE BELLY OF THE FEAST: BRITISH COLUMBIA Belly Up . . . We’re going to return to the Okanagan Valley in a while folks, but first I thought I’d start in with some of the dangers of restaurant criticism and then speak to the culinary and dining culture of this province . . . “Bring me the head of Maw on a plate”, an irate chef once demanded. So I did. But he marked me down for my presentation. “Like the more conventional forms of oral sex, food writing is an acquired taste. It’s rife with pleasure, certainly, but also with fear and even latent danger. And after a decade, and several thousand restaurant reviews and dozens of longer essays that deigned to detail our culinary history and culture, with appetites only temporarily appeased I remain as randy for more as the day I began.” So began my recent column in Vancouver magazine that thanked my readers over the past 10 years for their forbearance in putting up with me. Even some of my most loyal readers liken my writing style to having a mild case of gallstones. No wait, that’s my editor. “His writing style is akin to having a mild gallstone attack,” even some of his most loyal readers protest. ”Or just after a very large man has broken wind in a telephone booth,” say others. I keep my man—Mr. King—handy whilst making public appearances. Rest-o-ranting comes at a price—no telling when a livid chef might wheel around the corner, ready to vent my spleen. Fortunately, that Super Bowl ring on his paw has yet to imprint itself on a chefly visage. * * Over that past decade there has been a sea change in British Columbia’s dining culture, both in restaurants and at home. How we approach the table looks different now: Relaxation in liquor legislation; small plates dining (which found its North American footing here); rapid fire roll-outs of Chinese both casual and not, izakaya, Korean, and many other Asian cuisines and formats (there are more than 400 Japanese restaurants in the City of Vancouver alone now); the extraordinary development of restaurants in Yaletown, the city’s born- again warehouse district. Behind the swinging doors there has also been massive change: the collaboration of chef, farmer and fisherman has seen a heady reinvestment in local, sustainable ingredients (including the 82 indigenous species in our coastal fishery that we like to eat), many now easily available in local markets and shops. Our wine industry, especially in the Okanagan Valley, has gained real structure too, and the international awards (LA County Fair for Best White; Avery Trophy [iWSC-London] for best Chardonnay in the World) amongst others, that go with it. Canadians require this kind of outside validation—it’s like stamping our passport of approval. Otherwise one of my favourite countrypersons, Pamela Anderson, would be watching our bay - English Bay - from Kits Beach at the bottom of our street . . . Kitsilano Beach, Vancouver, August, 2005 Perhaps because we live next door to a country with ten times our population (Canada and the US are the two largest trading partners in the world) we’re a curious breed: polite to a fault, and one that leaves little to chance . . . And remarkably helpful to visitors . . . We also believe in Truth in Packaging . . . Fortunately, Canada is a newish country with ample food reserves. For instance, we find these 25-kilo New York strips handy if friends drop over unexpectedly. Besides “The Only Thing That Can Hurt You Here Is Yourself,” there’s only one other rule in our house: In the interests of hygiene, no spitting on the floor please. English and French are the official languages of Canada. The unofficial ones are all the rest. In Kelowna, where you watched me eat my modest breakfast this morning, our circumstances are most delightful: Treetops is a lovely cottage high on the eyebrow of a tall hill above the lake. I commute here most weeks for our family business in property development. High in the Mission Hill vineyards. When the sun hits the lavender, it smells like grandmothers-going-to-church. Kelowna is 400 kilometres east of Vancouver and is the hub of the valley’s wine industry. It’s a four hour drive, but in the winter we commute on a WestJet 737 that takes just 35 minutes. Airplanes help a lot in getting around this big place. As I said upthread, this week we’ll be flying about the province, from Kelowna, over-nighting in Vancouver, then off to Tofino and, finally, back to Vancouver.

Breakfast was necessarily a simple affair this morning--it will be a busy business day. I do something quite different than food writing during the day, and nasty brutish men in hard hats will be visiting throughout the morning and afternoon. The croissants and raisin danish come from a lovely little pattiserie called La Boulangerie, where the proprietor, Pierre-Jean Martin, and his wife, Sandrine Raffault, insist on importing French flour-"but of course!" The soups are always piping hot, and their selection of breads, pastries (especially the pear tarte Tatin) and sandwiches (homemade gravlax) are compelling. The pattiserie is in a former taco shop with a drive-thru window, which raises interesting possibilities. Today we had mugs of Caffe Artigiano's espresso-blend beans. Artigiano is a chainlet of very good coffee shops in Vancouver. Vince Piccolo, the owner, used to use Intelligentsia product from Chicago. With enough retail outlets now to support integration, he opened his own roasting plant four months ago. The result--found in this blend especially--is robust but smooth. We used the drip this morning, because nasty, brutish men in hard hats don't drink latte, baby.

Interesting question, Irishgirl. George Rose standing in his Ellis area tobacco field which is ready for harvesting, 1910. Photo courtesy of Kelowna Museum Archives. The Early Tobacco Industry in Kelowna "First Nation peoples in the Kelowna area grew tobacco for their own use long before Louis Holman began growing it for commercial purposes in the 1890s. Holman, an American born tobacco expert, teamed up with an Englishman John Collins and began production on seven acres of land situated near the Pandosy Mission. In 1898, the Kelowna Shippers Union made a deal to purchase and manufacture the tobacco. The factory they opened adjacent to the Canadian Pacific Railway wharf downtown enjoyed initial success but by 1902 it was forced to close due to the lack of a sustainable market. Over the course of the next 25 years several factories opened and closed with the ups and downs of the industry. The quality of the tobacco was exceptional, yet a number of factors including high transportation costs, mismanagement, and large-scale production in the East prevented the industry from succeeding on a prolonged or consistent basis." So it seems the commercial production of tobacco (bout filtre in those days, I'm sure) stemmed from about the time that the commercial orchards were into high production. Especially Lord Aberdeen's Coldstream Ranch near Vernon which was very active in the last decade of the 19th Century. Lord Aberdeen (more on him later) took great joy in shipping his apples to the Covent Garden fruit competitions in London--and often upstaging his former countrymen. Thanks to Donna and Kim at the Kelowna Museum Archives for sharing this information so promptly.

We'll be trying again tonight, Arne!

Much like cookbooks, what the world needs now is many fewer restaurant critics. Over the next week, it’s my goal to ensure that you talk me out of my job, while I, meanwhile, try to talk you into it. So to speak. In other words, I want you to ask me lots of questions. My life doesn’t hang in the balance of my next review, something that I’ve been doing professionally for the past 15 years. But from writing about restaurants I’ve also come to know the food service business quite well, I suppose. And behind the swinging doors lie much bigger stories, especially of the collaboration of chef, farmer and fisherman; distribution; cross-cultural influences (Vancouver, where the culinary DNA is still knitting itself together, is a fine laboratory to observe that in); the collusion of wine with food; and more recently, the necessity of sustainability, especially as it relates to the global fishery. This week I’m going to eat my last Russian caviar. Ever. No, restaurant reviewing would be much less interesting if I couldn’t write about these bigger stories. So I hope that I can transmit to you how the research works, how the writing gets done, and ultimately, lend a sense as to how culinary cultures--born from diversity--emerge with a sense of their new locality. We’ll be covering a considerable amount of real estate across this big, raw-boned place: • We’ll begin today In British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley Wine Country and for the next two days and nights look in on some agricultural history (in an attempt to track the area's culinary evolution) and wineries, cook with chef Michael Allemeier of the Mission Hill Family Estate Winery (braised boar cheeks will be featured at a Friday night dinner party with some wine folks) and a revisit to a restaurant to demonstrate our review process and methodology. • On Saturday I’ll return to our home in Vancouver—where we have some friends joining us for a little seasonal cheer, ‘Seven Hour Sacrificial Lamb’ and ‘Cheesier-Than-Mariah Carey Scalloped Potatoes.’ • On Sunday morning we’ll be flying to the wild outside coast of Vancouver Island to the ecotourism town of Tofino, which is about an hour’s flight in a twin engine aircraft. Once there we’ll be looking in at coastal cuisine from the pans of chef Andrew Springett at The Wickaninnish Inn and, in a more casual vein, at the construction of excellent fish tacos at Sobo. • On Monday we’ll be returning to Vancouver to go behind the scenes at pastry chef Thomas Haas’s (he was the opening executive pastry chef at Daniel in Manhattan) lovely production facility, and observe John van der Liek at the Oyama Sausage Factory, which carefully produces more than 150 products. We'll aslo track the history of a new restaurant, from development menu to opening night and review. • Through the balance of the week we’ll look inside many more professional kitchens and markets, hopes and dreams. I’m sure we’ll find a few other things to do too. Once again, I very much encourage your questions. Last night, the Ice Wine harvest was supposed to start. In order to trigger that, Vintners' Quality Alliance reguations demand the temperature must stay at or below -8 degrees Centigrade through the entire pick, which can take a while. Anything else is just Late Harvest fruit. Alas, there was a slight inversion off the lake yesterday afternoon and it was called off. So we stoked the fire and rolled back into bed. But now I’m off to pick up some croissants down the hill at La Boulangerie. We baked some Irish soda bread yesterday as well. I’ll make some strong coffee when I’m back, and begin to tell you a little more about this disturbingly beautiful place . . . Welcome, Jamie Image: On the Beach - Okanagan Lake last afternoon, 1530 hours.

Sean Sherwood: The Harry Hammer of steaks.

Thanks for these very thoughful additions to this discussion identifiler, Venusia and ap jow--I found them very interesting. The original question "Are we going local?" might suggest something beyond the use of regional ingredients. As I mentioned upthread, the use of those unique ingredients can begin to inform, then define a unique regional cuisine. Do you see that happening? A cuisine where you can close your eyes and say: "Voila! I could only be eating here." Obviously, this development is promoted by the collaboration of farmer and chef. And then, when the new generation arrives, through the instigation of chefs actually born in the region. As a counterpoint, and despite the abundance of new restaurants that have opened in Toronto in the past five years, my colleagues there report no identifiable regional cuisine. The same can be said for many other Canadian centres, except for the late summer, when native product is more abundant. I look forward to your responses, Jamie

I was looking throuhg my photo gallery and thought that you might enjoy this picture of two very relaxed chefs taken in the middle of service. Now, about those bustles.

Baccarat Harmonie tumbler. Accept no substitutes. Wash by hand.

Good point, Stephen. Wouldn't we just love to have the Birk's Building back! Simultaneously, much of the neon was pulled down too--under a specific city ordinance. And the the Granville Mall, a groovy 70's experiment in urban planning, quickly sucked the life out of our main downtown thoroughfare. Shame on us.