Keith Talent

It's not like I'm Mr. Greenjeans, but isn't it waaaayyyy too early to plant herbs outside, unless it's in a coldframe/hothouse? And I'd assume that if you were keen enough to have a coldframe, or even know what that means, as opposed to me that has only a vague idea that it's some kind garden thing that you need in the spring, you'd already know the appropriate time of year to begin killing plants, or maybe growing if you know what the hell you're doing.

To answer; 1) I think he take the slow service issues in stride, I do know for a fact he resents having everything he does compared to Sansur Lee though, I'd imagine that gets old. 2) For Christmas Auntie gives everyone in the family the same thing, a map of the world with both the prime meridian and the equator running through Bay & Bloor, as Auntie says it should be. I also got some snaps she took with her Motorola camera phone of Leah McLaren after one too many glasses of Bolli at the Globe Chrisrtmas party. I'd be happy to forward them. 3) I think she'd turn over the family business, but honestly we all know that A) I look stupid in hats, and B) I don't think Stadtlander or Kennedy are capital G Gods, and she has philsophical issues with encouraging an alternate bias.

You know, Joanne is my Aunt, and you're all being really unfair. She works hard as reviewer, she has for a long time too. She's responsible for alot of the trends in Canadian cuisne that you lot are benefiting from today. She's a great lady, and more importantly a real person, and you're being mean to someone you don't really know. I'm ashamed to associate with you all. I'm just hoping that Autie Joanne doesn't read this inaccurate vitriol. It'd really hurt her feelings.

I blame the Patagonian Toothfish for evolving so deliciously.

First we had them decide to give us local news, then their weekly entertainment insert, then unwrap the paper on Staurday morning, and what's splashed above the The Globe? Special style section on Vancouver. Giant headline on the front of the style section. It's getting weird. The Globe's recent infatuation with all things Vancouver is semi-creepy. It's alot like being back in high school, and having one of the popular pretty girls come and begin speaking with you for no apparent reason. Yeah, you're kinda flattered, you enjoy the attention of the cool kids, but in the back of your mind, you know there's an alterior motive. Does she want my notes from Biology class? Or have the in crowd finally decided I'm cool enough to hang with them? I'll be saying goodbye to the other gawky nerds of Calgary and Edmonton, I'll be out back having a smoke with Toronto and Monteal.

Eat my grits. or kiss, whatever. (edited to get my 70's pop culture refernce correct.)

I'm confused, you're anti-Globe YVR food coverage because the writer found Godivas stupid? Uhh, Godivas is stupid. It's horrible. I quit watching halfway into the third episode on Wednesday.

Tangentially related; do any of those new free papers have any food content? I'd think that there are now so many that I'm certain there's an individual paper for each and everyone of us, someone let me know if they spy a copy of "The Keith Talent Tribune" in a paper box around town. I'd like to read what I thought about where I ate last week. (Now competely unrelated; Why so many new M->F dailies when what this city desperately needs is a Sunday paper. More than two million people and no paper on Sunday, it's insane. I get the NY Times out of sheer desperation, but I'd switch in a second if there was another alternative, as the cost is more than enough to finace the foie gras supplement on prixe fixe menus I encounter through the year.)

Not inveneted, merely perfected the technique of encasing one starch inside another. And you know the greeks were jealous when they heard about it, they were like "damn, we've been slinging roast potatoes, rice and doughy pita for years, we have the inside track on starch abuse, then the ukrainians come and top us." I'll bet you right now, somewhere in Athens, teams of scientists are attempting to cram a roast potato into pita bread.

Uhhh, I think they call that RAVIOLI and Rob Feenie gets twelve bucks for three small ones. Seriously, what are the famouse Lumiere squash/marscapone/truffle oil ravioli if not potato/cheddar/fried onions perogies turned into haute cuisine?

No idea about the pois, but are French Lentil Du Puy not grown on the Prairies, exported in bulk, packaged in muslin bags, wrapped in raffia and re-exported back here, patina of Frenchiness firmly applied, at twenty tines the price? Same with mustard seed I beleive.

Absolutely the food has culinary merit. Outside of any nostalgia I legitimately like it. I'd far rather have a well made cabbage roll than another vertical tower of tuna tartar. It's not only our culinary history in Canada, but damn tasty too. Any culture that figured how to survive winters on the Steppes, and later on the prairies without a Safeway must be applauded as culinary geniuses. Ukrainians perservered in some of the most difficult climates on earth. No kidding the cuisine is not as refined or varied as Italian, do you have any idea of what the weather in Kiev is like in December? Can you imagine living in sod huts in freaking SASKATOON in February, ten people crammed into a tiny shack, minus fourty outside? It's amazing that any of them lived long enough to procreate. And procreate they did, developing the western half of Canada into what it is today. The Ukrainians along with the first nations are the backbone of the north western quadrant of the continent. So feel free to look at the starchy foods of the pioneers through filter of a modern perspective and question if boiled potatoes are as sophisticated as diver scallops naped in lemon grass beurre noisette, and then wonder if you should be at all embarrased even asking the question in light of the hardships endured to build this nation. Never mind the fact that the holiday meals were considerably more sophisticated than the everyday foods typically associated with the Ukrainians, wild mushrooms in creme, poached fresh fish and egg breads etc.

No one said they were as good, I said the were a close enough that the real deal wouldn't be a massive revelation, big difference in my opinion. So yeah, we agree it's ridiculous to suggest Cheemo are just as good as homemade, though no one made the suggestion, so it's kinda a moot point. And you're lucky I'm Ukrainian and not Italian, becuase based on my Italian friends behaviour, suggesting my great granmother wasn't a cook that made Thomas Keller look like a third string grill cook at McDonalds would be cause for a long running vendetta. Our families would war in a tiresome fashion like some north of the 49th version of the Hatfields and McCoys, whole generations would never know peace, it'd be boring and ugly. Fortuneatly this is avoided by the fact that I'm rubber and you're glue. Seriously though, you may want to chose your words more carefully if the topic is homemade vs. store bought cannoli.

Fruit perogies. Gak. No one liked them. Blueberries inside. Again with the Ukrainian lack of forethought, take fresh summer fruit in the peak of ripeness, encase in dough and boil the hell out of them. Yeah, I too am suprised the French didn't think of it first. The only think worse than fruit were the dry cottage cheese variety. Gak again, bone dry mealy cottage cheese encased in boiled dough. Why? And if you want to make Cheemo taste good, here's the secret. Get the cheese and potato, no other variety will do. No bacon, and certainly not the saeurkraut, they're of the devil. And if you see ANYONE walking through the store with those little faux-Italian abortion's, the turds of satan himself, PIZZA FLAVOUR, yoiu're duty bound as a wannbe bohunk to run them down with your shopping cart and proceed to stomp them to death, show no mercy to the heretics. Anyway I digress. You can see why a simple trip into Safeway takes me forever. Take one medium onion, dice finely. Add into a frying pan of oil, no idea what kind, but knowing Ukrainians, whatever is cheapest. Slowly, very slowly sautee the onion until it is a light mahogany, You should have approx. 1 cup of onion flavoured oil and one half cup of onion. Boil perogies, drain, arrange on plate let cool slightly before adding plenty of sour cream. More sour cream than a sensible person would add. More sour cream than someone who has even a vague idea of what a cardiologist does for a living would add. Then comes the onions, and onion oil. Again, do it like the term triple bypass relates to baseball and not open heart. Onion oil is the secret. It's the secret to all Ukrainian cooking. Nothing came out of Bobba's kitchen without a spoon of diced onion/onion oil on top. You'd be suprised how tasty tinned peas are when they have a couple tablespoons of fried onion/onion oil on top. (That's another secret of the Ukrainian kitchen, nothing and I mean NOTHING can't be improved through the scientific marvel of CANNING.)

Uhh, Canuklehead, I hate to break it to you, but your brother is a liar. Okay, that's a little harsh, maybe not a liar, lets say slightly overenthuiastic. I'm Ukurainian and Cheemo while not the real deal, certainly isn't so far off that to have the real thing would be a "revelation". This is based on a youth of eating Bobba's homemade pedahay on a weekly basis, lunch after church until I was sixteen. (And if anyone wants a very graphic demonstration of how dumb Ukrainians are, only a bohunk would name a food manufacturing company one repeated letter away from the most awful form of cancer therapy. It's like Mastectommy was already taken by an Edmonton cabbage roll concern.)

We need the same proviso that applies to almost every thread here. The motto should be changed from; "Eat, Chew, Discuss" to "The truth lies somewhere in the Middle." Some David Suzuki worshipping tree sitting hippy says *NEVER* eat farmed salmon/whatever, the government scientist/industry insider says *ALWAYS* eat farmed salmon/whatever. Truthfully, the real deal is somewhere between the extremsist's positions,as it is for almost everything in life. And I still haven't seen a plausible explanation for the Sablefish diachotomy. Plenty of waaaaayyy funkier fish are for sale, particularly to the asian community. Yet sablefish at retail is quite rare. There's probably a story there should some enterprisisng person care to uncover the truth. And smoked Alaskan Black Cod poached in milk, mashed potatoes on the side was a staple of my childhood, sadly I need to sell a few pints of blood to afford it today, and generally my BAC is too high to make my blood commercially viable.

When you read the list from top top bottom, you can generalize that it starts expensive, and gets progessively cheaper as you move down the list. Why is Sablefish relatively expensive / commercially rare (at retail) compared to other, less plentiful fish?

So Mrs. Talent has up and left me as anyone that's ever met me could guess (although to be honest, she is scheduled to return. We'll know tonight if she gets off her plane.) So anyway I loaded the ingrates in to the car on Friday evening, DaFrancescos our destination. We rushed becuase it was supposedly so busy, hell I even gulped back my drink after work rather than savouring it, and anyone that knows me will know that means I'm serious. Show up at quarter to six, the place is closed. Hang on, it's open, there's just no one inside. Spend a few minutes cursing you all for making me rush my Friday cocktail. Our pick of tables. Peruse the menu. Medium quattro stagionne and a chicken parmesano with noodles/meat sauce. 7-up for the monsters, couple galsses of red for me. 35 bucks. Very nice. Entree comes with salad & bread to start, kids ate both, total mark of quality. Chicken as tasty as a chicken cutlet with cheese can be , same with spaghetti and meat sauce, as good as can be expected. Pizza comes. Crust was very well made, but here's the hilarious part. They screwed up the sauce. The sauce is the easiest part, dumbasses. The crust is difficult. Hell, even Pizza Hut manages a pretty good sauce on the Big New Yorker, Dafrancescos, flaovourless thin sauce, nice thin crisp crust. Pizza was cheap, eight bucks or something like that for a medium. Not dissappointing, not quite as ethereal as discribed above either. If it was in my neighbourhood, it certainly would be the default pizza of choice. They certainly need a more experinced hand putting together the sauce for the pies.

Anytime, email me when you're heading out.

The cheap Halibut place on Vulcan is a driver and five iron from my office. I went there last week, becuase honestly, who here isn't intrigued by the concept of buying "fresh" fish out of the back of a freezer loaded into a rusty pickup? Suprise suprise, it's a real fish market, and a very good one at that. They're right behind the Home Depot, and call themselves a "fish club", which I suspect is a dodge around zoning regs, I don't think their location is zoned retail, ergo they're a "wholesale club" a al Costco. Two large live tanks, apparently going to be filled with crab/lobster. They told me crab would be 3.99/pound! If so, my kids will be spending alot of free time picking lump crab meat for their parents. A piece of very nice cleaned halibut was 6.99/pound. Whole fish are cleaned/fileted while you wait. If I had a freezer I'd definately buy a fish and have it filleted and throw it in for the rest of the Halibut free times. The loaction is right at the entrance to the Night Market, I suspect that factored in the choice of location, they'll do a brisk business this summer, assuming the city doesn't close them down.

I spend a minimum four weeks a year in southern California, I don't think I've ever seen a B or C. I assure you, if I ever did, I'd stop the car so quick the passengers would get whiplash, especially if it was some form of SE Asian. Lets all put A in the window and leave it at that. Some of the most disgusting Carl's Jr. in the world sport an A, these are places where you have to beat the samonella off with a stick while walking past the salad bar. (Realted, I'd think eating at a Crals Jr. salad bar and surviving would be a pretty damn effective innoculation against anything. "so, where are you going on holidays?" "Haiti, to sleep with hookers." "Be careful." "I don't need to, I've eaten at a Carls Jr. Salad bar.")

Screw anyone working within thirty feet of a paper cup with a smilie face on it and some idiotic saying about it being the staff recreation fund. Here's my rules. Takeout from a takeout place - no tip. The next time I tip at Starbuck'll be the first. Takeout from a non takeout place - the change, couple bucks Delivery - 15%

Hey Jamie - I beleive this has been mentioned before but bears repeating. I'd really like to see an Asian version of the Golden Plates (Golden Rice Bowls?) undertaken in conjunction with one of the local chinese languge daily papers. I'd be quite interested what the Chinese community thought from an insider perspective. Yeah you've got the surrname, and I live in the right area of town, but we're still not privvy to the real inside deal, I don't think. Anyone know if the Chinese language papers already do something similar?

It's very reasonable for the food quality/surroundings. Lets say dishes are 5-8 dollars. Ten dishes per couple is highly excessive/extravagant. Add couple drinks each and you're looking at a hundred bucks a couple. Less if you order a sensible quantity of food, rather than gluttonous. For how good the cooking is, and how fashionable the room is, it's quite a bargin.

Yeah, I've seen this before too, unfortunately it's not as fun as you expect it's going to be. I just returned from lunch at Prata-Man (good laksa, mediocre Tofu goring) anyway, while waiting for my order, I looked skyward. Big mistake. Do not, I repeat DO NOT ever look at the roof of Prata-Man. I'm pretty hardy, takes more than a stray hair to put me off a meal, I was close after obsering the lens of the flourescent lights on the drop t-bar celing. You know how at the end of summer you blow a light bulb outside your house, and you go to change it and the inside of the fixture is a moth mass grave, the moth version of Amnesty International brands you a psycho despot? Well that is the lens of the lights in Prata Man. Millions and millions of dead flies. And granted, dead flies are betrter than live, no doubt, but still. I almost told the staff, but then again figured they would ignore me, and I'd have to confront the fact that my prefered laksa purveyor willfully accepts fly carcasses in the restaurant as opposed to selectively not noticing them. Yeah, I know, playing psychological games with yourself is odd.