jamiemaw
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Posts posted by jamiemaw
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Katie,
I'm sure that you have studied the Okanagan and Vancouver threads, however there are more OK Valley nuggets buried here.
Quail's Gate would be an elegant venue both for your wedding and reception. Mission Hill (you'll find a link above in the blog) offers a number of different on-site venues, both indoors and out, however they do not 'do' wedding ceremonies on site - great reception facilities though.
Cheers,
Jamie
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Based on Maxmillan's excellent suggestion, here are the proposed categories. May I also propose a Gold, Silver, and Bronze in each? Let the impassioned discussion begin . . .
First Annual British Columbia Paper Plates Awards
Sommelier of the Year Award
Premier Crew Awards – Best Service - Five Awardees
Best Bartender
Best New – Informal in 2005
Best New - Fine Dining in 2005
Best New Restaurant Design
Best Producer/Supplier of the Year
Food/Wine Book of the Year
Best Casual Chain
Best Bar/Lounge
Best Hotel Dining Room
Lifetime Culinary Achievement Award
Best of the Americas
Best South East Asian
Best Indian
Best Casual Chinese
Best Chinese Fine Dining
Best Casual Japanese
Best Japanese
Best Bistro or Brasserie
Best Formal French
Best Casual Italian
Best Italian
Best Other European
Editor’s Choice - Wildcard
Best North Shore
Best of the 'Burbs
Best Whistler
Best of Vancouver Island
Best of the Okanagan Valley
Best Barbecue
Best Steakhouse
Best Small Plates
Best Last Course
Best Regional
Best Seafood Restaurant
Chef of the Year
Restaurant of the Year
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Given the Straight's supposed hipness quotient and investigative, vox populi political writing, do you think it might seem to some observers an abbrogation of integrity? Or merely - like most found art - just a funny kind of self-exposure? They're far from the only guilty party though in this egg and chicken exercise; I can assure you that any self-respecting editor holds his nose while the ad department cracks the yolks.
Well actually I am surprised at how many people see the Straight as anything more than an entertainment weekly, but that is a reflection on me, I suppose. I would guess that the vast majority who pick up the Straight are looking for the reviews and entertainment listings (surely not the ads for the sweetest transexual in the West End).
The juxtaposition of advertising with content in many Vancouver periodicals is chuckle inducing - found art indeed.
That might have something to do with my age. Once upon a time, the Straight was the default alt-voice in this city. Ir contained a lot of deeply probing investigative reporting, and famously fomented the Tom Campbell/Gastown riot. It also broke a lot of environmental stories 0 remeber Bob Hunter? Is the front end just token lip service now?
As far as food writing is concerned, I think Angela Murrills is one of the most literate culinary journalists in the country. That being said, I wouldn'y envy anyone having to ride shotgun with a readers' poll.
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The Golden Plates don't seem all that bad to me. They are what they say they are - the places that Georgia Straight readers cast their ballots for. The opportunity for ballot stuffing aside, by their nature they will reflect businesses that are well known and/or have lots of outlets. Clearly lots of people buy Cobs bread and McDonald's fries - you don't need Golden Plates to tell you so any more than you need them to tell you that Starbucks sells lots of lattes.
I can't disagree that having so very many categories seems to serve the selling of ads, but it also seems that restaurants benefit from the recognition - many of them post their awards in their windows and on their websites. After all, they are businesses and it never hurts to be given a public thumbs up by the people who actually come in to spend their money.
Even if places like Lumiere and Tojo's are recognized for their reputation rather than the voters' dining experience, that in itself tells us that those are the places the voters likely will choose when they get that promotion or celebrate an anniversary. And the chefs and owners have evidence that their reputation remains intact.
And after all, it provides evidence to those who see themselves as more savvy that they are, in fact, staying ahead of the crowd.
As for what is "independent", well there's lots of other categories, aside from coffee, where you could make the same distinction and argument - just more awards to hand out and more ads to sell.
The West Ender and Vancouver Magazine also have People's Choice awards, it seems like a relatively harmless practice to me.
A balanced overview, barolo.
Perhaps (in addition to the guffaw factor) what interested observers find most offensive about some readers' polls is the pre-selling of self-congratulatory ('Thanks Vancouver for Voting Us No. 1!') advertising to 'award winners' before they are announced to the public. Given the Straight's supposed hipness quotient and investigative, vox populi political writing, do you think it might seem to some observers an abbrogation of integrity? Or merely - like most found art - just a funny kind of self-exposure? They're far from the only guilty party though in this egg and chicken exercise; I can assure you that any self-respecting editor holds his nose while the ad department cracks the yolks.
I was reminded of this a couple of weeks ago when a friend pointed out an incisive cover feature in the Straight that spoke to the unaffordability of Vancouver real estate. No big news there. But he made a cryptic remark about how helpful the article was - it prevented the colourful condo ads from bumping into each other. (He also pointed out that the Straight's slick new West Broadway offices look every bit as attractive as those aspirational ads.)
Readers' polls--which might well reflect a periodical's demographic--are notoriously unhelpful because of their small sample size: note the number of 'ties'. Also note that periodicals rarely announce the number of total ballots counted, or votes within each category.
They might also be prone to ballot stuffing; a few years ago a downtown French restaurant nearly won 'Best Chinese' in our own readers' poll. Thank a proprietor who got a little overzealous with the photocopier. I don't like most readers' polls for many reasons - not least being that you'd have to offer up one of those condos as a prize in order to harvest an appropriately large sample size. Otherwise, aren't they just a recycling problem? Kinda makes you wish the Colbert Report did food.
Just to be clear, this isn't something just the Straight dreamt up - we do it, the West Ender does too. In fact readers' polls are extant all over this continent; often they tend to dig down to a denominator that might not be as food-savvy as the more silent majority, the one a little too busy to fill out forms enabled to sell someone else's ads back to them.
This year the Straight buffed up their coverage with some credible food and wine commentators discussing their opinions over lunch - and achieving a consensus. The winners seemed interesting choices, but some might wonder about the credibilty-seep of intermingling the two polls. Perhaps ironically, the lunch was convened at a bistro called Shanghai.
Amazing what Macdonald's french fries can do to your hip.
Jamie
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Nothing like a convivial morning banger. Although, as you pointed out, they can lead to false nocturnal alarms.
But yes, I believe I visited. Not entirely sure as I was unconcious most of the time: biltong-hard rugby pitches, harder men, hardest of all - the boozers. I'm pretty sure that I (involuntarily) donated blood, though. Go 'Boks.
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I've taken the liberty of suggesting some local twists:
Thanks Jamie. I like this approach - no possibility of it being taken seriously!
But here's a recipe for Gloria's Irish Soda Bread [photos on Post 80] well-suited to the morning meal. Even I haven't figured out how to make a complete bollocks of it quite yet:Into the file straightaway. Thanks.
No worries - I haven't been taken seriously since I was three. Looking forward to the printed version - and the reaction of the combined 2% of Swedes and Canadians attending breakfast. Better add a starter of Wors'doeuvres, though.
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Last year, on the 1st April, I prepared two printed menus, one intended as an April fool's joke. It had, for example, as the chef's choice, "Thinly sliced Elephant testicles, pan-fried, and served with a concasse of mopanie worms, tomato and basil". About half the guests took it seriously! I'm not sure whether to repeat it this year, so I'll be grateful for suggestions.
Greetings from the far side of the Commonwealth, Gerhard.
Innkeeper's Monthly suggests that these April 1st dishes are "guaranteed to ensure repeat trade". I've taken the liberty of suggesting some local twists:
• Blackened Group (in the style of Basil Fawlty) - a certifiable morning classic and nifty homage to the iconic innkeeper
• Regional Haggis complemented with Mrs. H. S. Ball's
• Seasonal Meat Leathers with Wilderness Sea Foam
• Neap Tide Chef's Surprise - today only: Fermented Whale
• Sandbars
• Pickled Guest (Yup - thank the honour bar)
• Braised Limb of Strandloper
I too am not much of a baker; best left to people who measure and that sort of thing.
But here's a recipe for Gloria's Irish Soda Bread [photos on Post 80] well-suited to the morning meal. Even I haven't figured out how to make a complete bollocks of it quite yet:
In a large mixing bowl, combine
5 cups graham flour
2 cups white flour
½ cup wheat germ
½ cup sugar
5 tsp baking soda
5 tsp salt
1 litre buttermilk
Up to half ½ litre milk
Blend dry ingredients thoroughly.
Add buttermilk and mix with a rubber spatula, adding additional milk until dry spots have disappeared and dough takes on a mud-like consistency.
Add dates or other dried fruit such as cranberries or currants to one loaf.
Place dough in loaf in lightly buttered loaf pans.
Place in a pre-heated 350 degree oven. Bake for 65 minutes in a convected oven, about 10 minutes longer in a standard oven, or until a wooden skewer comes out cleanly.
Cool on a wire rack for one hour.
Makes two loaves and great toast.
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I have two loin of warthog.
Rather more comfortable than the reverse, I'm sure.
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Boy rescued, burger postponed.
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Tomorrow night they threaten the city's most expensive burger. Encore une fois?
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Since I was taught, while working for the Cree nation, that potlatch was a war game, "the war without swords", I guess that would go along with culinary one upsmanship, of which I can certainly be accused.
Uh, is my own weird-food collection ripe for such entertainment? I can mail all that stuff to the first person who sends me a valid postal address, and then, I win! Oh no, I lose, because where will those candlenuts be when I need them?
You may want to [note: language pack not required] light the way to your Potlatch with oolichan candles, Abra.
Potlatch was an early form of aspirational dining - there was a definite connotation of keeping up with the Jones or in this case with the orcas, ravens and spirit bears.
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And furthermore, regarding the Potlatch in Manhattan Salmon recipe, I aspire to eventually live someplace closer to fish!!!
Shhh. People in Manhattan aspire to as well.
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In my role as wine critic, I will taste every wine that comes my way, no matter what the closure and will write about that wine in an unbiased manner. When it comes to my personal pleasure, however, I have repeated nightmares of dining at the Louis XV in Monte Carlo, of ordering a bottle of Chateau Cheval Blanc and having the sommelier approach my table ceremoniously and then with no ceremony whatever unscrewng the bottle. At that point I will, for the first and last time in my life commit homicide, that to be quickly followed by suicide.
In the name of being a bit provocative, I do exaggerate..........but believe me, only a little.
I share your pain, Daniel. On the other hand I no longer lay the buggy whip on the carriage horses, preferring life's new twists.
At a seminar recently, I asked a group of night-time whinies (business nabobs by day) what they would think if they knew in advance that one-in-twenty decisions they made tomorrow would be dead wrong.
"A good day?" replied one.
In closing, I can only add that it's time to dispense with both the effete and wine that smells like them.
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Did you check out the barbequed salmon recipe? Dammit, I hate living so far inland!
Check out this Potlatch in Manhattan Salmon Recipe. [Menu - Scroll]
Anthro 401; afterward I will surely aspire to stand.
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I don't look that hot in Blahniks anymore; I find them quite slippery on the rugby pitch, especially during the inclement months, even if an attractive pair of sling-backs makes for a useful swinging weapon in the scrum. My well-sculpted muffin top does no favours for my low-cut Diesels, either.
I can, however, recognize a BoBo at 50 paces. Ina qualifies. But Giada has a more attractive forehead.
Not incidentally, while a BoBo might be caught dead in a Whole Foods, he would never be taken alive.
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The rice and grains are my Target gaucho pants and the oils and fresh meat and produce are my Marc Jacobs jean jacket and shoe collection. Once you put them together, everything looks and feels luxurious.
Shannon
Want a job? Outstanding. May you long luxe simply.
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Interesting fashion analogies upthread.
Just as Ralph and Calvin have cashed in on the aspirations of redesigning the lives of the chattering classes, and only then clothing them in offshore cotton, I was wondering who their gastronimic equivalent mught be. Certainly the New Martha is spinning a more accessible web post her prison break.
But which purveyors really understand both the needs and aspitations of the BMW-Bourgeoisie? Who has applied their public brand most cleverly?
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It's important to realize that this event, which currently numbers a coalition of Friends for Life and Loving Spoonful, and has also coalesced 193 restaurants, is a volunteer organization. Loving Spoonful receives alsmost 10% of its annual income from this source.
It behooves anyone with an interest in the needs of the societies involved, and the food service industry, to volunteer their time and invite more restaurants to the party.
Now we all have a whole year, less a day, to do precisely that.
PS: Remember that $1 from each pour of Stella goes to the collective today!
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Here’s the flip side of the little Le Cirque story, up thread.
I’d just finished writing a column about Casual Fine Dining concept chains such as Earls and Cactus Club. Many of them have been incubated in Western Canada and are done well: Value-laden wine lists, organic ingredients, well – if simply – prepared food, and outstanding service training. My angle was that several of these concepts had recently hired some of the top chefs in Canada as their development heads.
For many of us, especially for families, these concepts represent a cheerful default with relatively healthy food - and they are sound value. The newer stores are decorated within an inch of their wives.
But it had never occurred to me that these restaurants, which are high-revenue chains after all, might represent an aspirational target for certain diners.
Behold. A couple of relatively new eG members, who declared themselves as younger Chinese-Canadians, registered long and thoughtful posts about how one chain, Cactus Club, represented an aspiration, because of the modulated Caucasian menu (albeit now with Asian references), the attractive young crowd and servers, the colourful cocktails and the attractive décor.
For them, the experience was a step away (and perhaps up) from some of the things that we aspire to: round eights of family bent over steamed whole fish with black bean sauce, or weekend dim sum. There was in their posts, if I’m not mistaken, a plea to escape their own traditions if just for a few hours, into this new but accepting environment that refracted who they wanted to become.
For several reasons - not least the seeming cross-over of our aspirations - I was touched by the honesty of their collective message; unfortunately, for reasons I don’t understand ('wandering' - hardly), in a kind of misinterpreted ethnic cleansing, those wonderful posts were, without discussion, taken down.
I did not sanction this event.
I do, however, hope that those same members find this thread, and regift their thoughts as they'd be inarguably salient here.
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I've come here and tried to write something for you twice already, Jamie, but I'm at a loss as to what to say! I know, I know, 'the unexamined life', etc... but this isn't easy for me, being 1000 different people rolled into Rebecca. I love life, in all it's incarnations, and I love the process of shopping and cooking. I could spend thousands every week on food and drink, easily! I spend less than a hundred, though.
My daughter is the focus of my every day existence right now, I'm raising her and I take that job very seriously. Yes, yes, I know, frivolous Rebecca, how can that be? Well, I'm so proud of my child, she is bright, yes, but along with her Mensan brains she has a HUGE heart, and I feel a thrill at her every breath in this world. Also, I'm ill, and I haven't got a career, so we're very, um, frugal.
Kiddle is impossibly sweet and unassuming, and also impossibly spoiled. I can't help it, I spoil everyone, it makes me feel good! So, I shop accordingly. Kiddle likes artichokes? We have 'em as soon as they're in season, and for the duration, until they're awful again. Strawberries? Ditto, and we grow her favorite tomatoes. I make the foods that she loves, and she eats and her friends eat, and we're all happy.
We plan for meals out, because of budget, but we eat only good food, whether it is honest barbeque, pho, Pacific Time, Muriel's or SamVera. Very few chains, and even less Sysco pass our lips.
Now, when a guest is here for a visit, my shopping adjusts. We had a young learning disabled guest just after Christmas, and he loves the idea of what he thinks of as 'gourmet' foods, i.e. anything that he thinks is expensive, and I shopped accordingly, buying him a duck (his first cooked at home!) and genuine Prosciutto di Parma too. When one of my boys comes for a visit, I add their favorites to the mix. Of course, we are regaled with meals cooked by said boys, and paid for by said boys, as well.
So, who do I aspire to be? I think that I want to be who I am, but in my own home, with more books, lipsticks, shoes and undies, and with a career for safety. Plus, I live in the cold to be near my family, and I'd like to settle in with someone who would live in the warm with me. What is your analysis of my aspirations?
Only that you are impossibly sweet and unassuming, and that you spoil us with your thoughts.
Thank you.
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A Lada it is then!
I will not be going to Morimoto any time soon - too much of a manufactured scene for me, as is most of the Meatpacking District. I'm more of a Hearth kind of gal...(quiet) casual luxury.After that big 1* (or is it a single-Starr?) review today, perhaps you'll be in good company. Anyway, that whole scene reminds that validation remains the dark side of aspiration.
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Western Canada is unique in the world for the number and high quality of CFD concepts incubated right here. It's been largely overlooked by the food media, and last month CFD ARTICLE I took it upon myself to see just how they got so good.
The short answer: Superlative service training, outstanding development chefs, cleanliness and design, and value. Now industry executives from around the world visit frequently to see the phenomenon first-hand.
What are your dining or actual work experiences at these concept chains, whether Earls, Cactus Club, Milestone's The Keg, Moxie's, Joey's, Saltlik et al?
Jamie, I caught the tail end of a show that you might like to watch. What I saw was very interesting, and relative to postings you have made. Cost/loss/profit factor enlightening.
Thanks cayenne! Amazing coincidence in that Michael and I scrummed on some story ideas one warm summer night, and his earlier CC show and this one with Michael Noble were amongst them.
I appreciate the heads up,
Jamie
'You Get What You Pay For' with repeats on FNC this Saturday and Sunday, 6:30pm and noon repectively.
IIRC, Spectra Group's 
The Georgia Straight Golden Plate Awards
in Western Canada: Dining
Posted
Biodegradable. A sustainable choice.