stovetop

CFL pigskin is older then the NFL pigskin, CFL and football and the Canadian Thanksgiving are a Can landmark, Canadian Harvest varies just as much as this huge country, In BC we have a huge Harvest this year, pumpkins so big you can Canoe in them across the Nanaimo Harbor. The Cowichan valley is a oasis this year of things Bountiful, so much great food being cooked up, so many Can multi cultural interpretations of the harvest with their own interpretations of the seasons to come, fall comes fast after Thanksgiving, Halloween stumbles out of the block very soon after our Canadian holiday, but for now the turkey is warming the kitchens of Canada, or some Pheasant, wild turkey, Grouse or even some awesome ham, pork fat rules in my books, I am watching the game, it is a tradition, I am not spending time with family at this moment but watching the game, I can remember many Alberta Thanks-Giving’s were the food was plentiful, the snow is not on the ground yet, sometimes Indian summer was blessing or homes with spectacular fall weather, family and friends celebrating the arrival of fall and the beginning of school and the work load at work just always seems to pick up in time for fall, no more summer girls and liquid lunches on the patio, it is time to get back to work and get ready for winter, a truly Canadian thing, cutting fire wood, closing the cottage, putting up the ghosts and goblins and the storm windows, winter she is coming, this year I am ready for Her, bring it on! HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERY ONE GO ESK GO!!

Ya, what is the big deal, whatever happened to freedom of expression, I was just giving reference points for people to see different opinions on Edmonton, are we all so full of ourselves that we are afraid of someone else’s opinion, that is the best aspect of the internet, is the access to information, it is not controlled by the media; Yet! Although, the media does not seem to grasp the scope and the depth of the internet, the whole idea of interactive media scares the big corporations, they do not know how to isolate the audience, it is such a infinite market, but where do you track your audience and where do you pay, and who do you pay?? The Food media business is huge and the Canadian media companies have a hard time with such infinite markets and all the resources to cover that market, they have to start recycling content like American media and learn how to use the internet to connect to their audience, like children, let go and let the market move within the Nets scope, the advertisers and supporters will line up and we will benefit finally from the Content we will have access to, build it they will come. They just do not have a clue on what to build, they can not get by the stumbling block on how will they make money, so many papers are free and how does a free paper make Money???? steve

What makes a good restaurant? ; Why do some restaurants last for years and why do some restaurants go out of business within the first year. My trip to Edmonton once again showed me some of those answers, the Edmonton restaurant scene is a very healthy and a viable business environment, many restaurants in Edmonton have been in business for many years, the economy in Edmonton has stabilized over the last few years so there is a very vibrant dinning scene in the Edmonton market. One restaurant that I went to in Edmonton has been around for 27 years and is one of the only business left in the downtown core of Edmonton which has seen a complete name face change over the last ten years, every tower in downtown has a new tenant, it is hard to find many business that existed in the 80’s let alone the 90’s. BISTRO PRAHA is an Oasis in Edmonton, it is a very unique and comfortable space, back in the 80’s, it was a late night stomping ground fro many of us in the food business, we would meet up and have a few drinks and some chow after work. Every trip over the years in my reentry to Edmonton, I always stop at Bistro Praha, this time around was my first place I went to in Edmonton, just getting off the bus from Calgary, I needed a place to get my bearings together and get some good food in me, walking around downtown I realized very soon how so many things had changed since I was last there which was in 2000, four years had produced a very different landscape for downtown, so I ducked into the Praha and had a very familiar space to chill out in, “Ah a beer”, that was the first priority in order, tomato salad, and a couple of open faced sandwiches which I love so much, a desperately needed fuel stop from the bus ride from Calgary. The Bistro space has not changed much in 20 years; it has a varied selection of wooden tables spread out evenly, each having its own space, not infringing open each other, it is a true bistro, very good service and a menu that has much Eastern European foods on it. I enjoyed my visit very much to the bistro and remembered the many occasions that I visited with friends and work mates on days past, it has a history in the city and I enjoy that aspect of the restaurant very much. I went to the bistro one more time before I left Edmonton, the second time I had the smoked hock, the pickled herring, and a pate platter, it was a nice compliment to a couple of beers and some nice conversation with a friends. It to me is a great restaurant to socialize and catch up on life events with friends or family, a must visit for a restaurant in Edmonton and touch a piece of living history in the Edmonton dinning scene. Another long time downtown restaurant is café select, which I did not get to go to, but hear it is still around but seems it is not up to the standards it once lived up to, the husband and wife team I hear are no longer together so I could see that affecting the restaurants style. Another long time place that is still around is the Russian Tea Room, it is also a Eastern European place, in this day and age it is hard to find long term food establishments, each of this places have been around for over twenty years, for me if you can last that long you must be doing something right http://www.ualberta.ca/EDMONTON/RESTAURANT...ta/rest.76.html http://www.chowhound.com/canada/boards/can...sages/9493.html http://www.chowhound.com/canada/boards/can...sages/9152.html Bistro Praha Gourmet Café (780) 424-4218 10168 100A St NW Edmonton, AB CAFÉ SELECT Reservations recommended. Lunch Mon to Fri 11:30 am; dinner Sun to Wed 5 pm to 12 am; Thu to Sat 5 pm to 2 am. 10018-106 St. Edmonton, Alberta RUSSIAN TEA ROOM 11 am - 10 pm. Open daily 9 am to 11 pm. Address: 10312 Jasper Ave Edmonton Alberta

Well, breakfast is my specialty, I am partial to the West Side, cause I lived there, I did not have a car so in all the years living in Van, I pretty much stayed on the West Side and parts of East Van. Sophie’s Cosmic Cafe; if you want to be entertained, have a few hours to kill, and be part of a fun time; but if you are in a hurry swing over to Joes Grill and get a great eggs any style that rocks and is cheaper then Sophie’s, quite and speedy service is what Joes is known for, it is all the things that Sophie’s is not, the two restaurants complement each other in the area they occupy in Kits. Another great long time breakfast joint is Zen cafe, it has been a kits Institution for a long time, down on Yew street in the Heart of Kitsilano right beside Kits beach, what a location, have breaky and go for a walk on the beach, what more could you ask for in life. In the old days just around the begining of the previous mentioned restaurants the Fringe Cafe was the closet place for me at the time, I lived at West Fourth and Collingwood, so all the way up to Arbutus is a long walk, so I was always in the lookout for a closer restaurant, the Fringe over time opened later and later every day, now I think they are opened like no earlier then three in the afternoon, but I used to really like their omelet’s, the space was always quite and the tunes where assume, have a beer after breakfast, it was my day off, they had Big Rock Pale Ale, which was assume, nobody else had it, they sold it as their Ugly Boy beer, which was a feature beer, it was given the Name as Ugly boy, most of the time it was Big Rock, they were a big supporter of big rock beer, hey I am from Alberta so I love big rock beer. Cafe Barney up on Granville and 14th?, what a great place, it is just another consistent breakfast place, cross the street and cruise into the Ouisi bistro, maybe some cool jazz, dig into some Creole or Cajun Magic. Van is breakfast Capital of Canada so many cool places to eat, or if you have money burning a hole in you pocket there are a few places that can help lighten your money for you. steve

Part Two of Tale One Calgary Who is going to fill the hole left by two great Calgary chefs? I was a little late in catching two Vancouver imports to Calgary; Michael Allemeier, Michael Noble, both it seems have moved on to other projects, Michael Allemeier has a great gig as Winery Chef at British Columbia’s Mission Hill Family Estate, I am not sure what Michael Noble is up to; both will be very missed in the Calgary scene, it is going to be hard to replace chefs of that calibar. These two chefs had a huge influence on the Calgary dinning scene, they both moved the bar up a few notches,and we shall see which cooks will fill in the huge gaps both these chefs left when they moved on. Fat guy eats Alberta Mountain biking in Canmore

Part Two of Tale One Calgary After a great day of biking, we washed off the bikes and put them in storage, on the way out of town we dropped by a cafe and I grabbed a great blueberry and peach muffin and a double espresso, I was having dinner in Calgary at a birthday party so I did not want to stuff my face. I have to say the drive from Canmore to Calgary is very beautiful, on this day it had to be the warmest and sunniest day of the week in Alberta. The other thing about Calgary is that it is a city of freeways, so little time is spent in traffic; I really like this about Calgary. Calgary is really picking up in the food scene as well, there are some great restaurants and bakeries and some great nebourhood are developing into some great drives with so many cool stores, it beats the hell out of suburban malls, they are getting so bad all over Alberta suburbs, almost as bad as Nanaimo, mall land. There are so many great restaurants such as Catch, Teatro and Centini all of which are on Stephens’s ave which in itself is a great nebourhood. Just this one area has so many good places, I found it to be a great nebourhood with lots of character and a far cry from mall land.

Yen Brothers---> Vancouver, 604-255-6522 (general stuff) Central Foods ---> Vancouver, 604-271-8380 (produce) Snow Cap---> 604-278-4870 ( Bakery Ingredient Supplier) Hills Foods--->Vancouver, 604-421-3100 (speacilty meats) Deluxe Seafood--->vancouver, 604-662-7999 Albion Seafood---> vancouver, 604-875-9411 Russel Food equipment--->vancouver Genesis Food equipment--->vancouver Puddifoot---> Housewares, Vancouver, 604-263-0971 Konings Sysco ( big Daddy)( USA) Gordon Douglas, Neptune foods ( big daddy) ( Can) steve

BC Tourism is a very fractured industry, it is all the small operators working their buts off with out much help of the government, we need to get our shit together here in BC, we have to start harmonizing our industry, stop fighting and become one industry, spend some money on marketing and get the Tourist back. The Olympics must be more then just Whistler and the profit off of real-estate, it must be about the long term sustainability of the facilities and how the lower mainland can work together not fight and all those self interested &^&&*% people who are running things, Tourism is the # 1 Industry in BC, we Must start behaving like we are.

Canmore Restaurants Sage Bistro--> Bow Valley Trail, Chef Jason Rennie 1-403-678-4778 Quarry Bistro and Wine Bar --> 718 Main Street, Chef David Wyse 1-250-6786088 The Quarry web site Murrieta's West coast Grill--> 200- 737 Main Street Murrieta's Web Site Musashi Japanese Restaurant--> 1306-Bow Valley Trail Vic’s Steakhouse & Bar--> Radisson Hotel, Chef Don Tomie, Renzo’s at the Sheraton--> Chef Peter McDiarmid Renzo's Web Site Copper Door--> 729 9th street ,1-403-678-5233 Des Alpes--> 702 10 Street, Chef Xavier Schurtenberger, fine Swiss cuisine Chez Francois--> Best Western Green Gables Inn, Chef Jean Francoise Gouin, 1604 Bow Valley Tr. Mélange--> 721 main streets, The Georgetown Inn Melange web site Crazyweed Kitchen-->Main Street, 1-403-609-2530, Chef: Jan Hrabec The Village Bistro The French Quarter Café --> #4 - 102 Boulder Crescent French Quarter Web Site The Grizzly Paw Brew Pub and Restaurant Luna Blue The Valbella Deli The Drake Inn Gasthaus Alphorn Bow Valley Catering

A TALE OF THREE CITIES Part one of Tale One Canmore I just finished a week in Alberta, I flew into Calgary from Comox on Vancouver Island, I was picked up from a friend of mine from Calgary, we immediately went to Canmore, he had gotten a place there recently, we got our bike gear together and then we went mountain biking, I had forgotten how beautiful Alberta Rockies are, not the over log out forest that BC has, the beauty of the Canmore Valley is breathtaking, the Three Sisters mountain range rips out from the earth and juts into the sky with such fury and energy, the ride was amazing, the whole valley bellow us the whole time, hard to keep the eyes on the trail, I found it to be very distracting, but this is a site about food, but the ride was the highlight of my whole trip. Canmore food scene is quit amazing, it can stand up to Whistler in a heart beat, it has about four really good high end dinning places and from what press I read they all seem to be good places, it is a well laid out town site with old and new character weaved together with great planning; to me Whistler has just become Disney Land and a place for the rich and elite, Whistlers whole life was spent in planning not to become Vail, but for me the more it tried not to become Vail the closer it become Vail, Whistler is so lucky that it has some amazing ski terrain, because if it did not it would not be at the level it is on the world ski market, Whistler really needs to evaluate its whole development if it wants to keep competing on the world market, Canmore in years to come is going to be a very accessible place, at the moment it is cheaper then Whistler and the whole ski package can compare to whistler but the beauty is ten time better then any terrain that the Interwest site( Whistler –Blackcomb) has to offer. The restaurants and cafes are very good and Banff is so close that you can go and dine there as well, between the two towns it is soon to compete with Whistlers somewhat Non Changing and boring dinning Scene

CanadianBakin' I am on Holidays right now in Alberta, when I get back I will get you everything you need. steve

Tiramisu A classic Itilian dessert made with mascarpone cheese Tiramisu

CPR CUISINE 1925 Menu for the Princess steam ships service between Victoria- Vancouver-Seattle Leave daily in each direction throughout the year Dinner Hors D’oeuvres Varies Cheese Straws Oyster Cocktail Ripe olives Celery en Branche Puree of Asparagus Consommé royal Steamed Salmon with Cucumber Sauce Brevette Crimped halibut with Potatoes Parisienne Calves’ Head a la Poulette Cumberland Ham with fried sweet potatoes Golden Buck pineapple fritter with custard sauce To order –10 minutes “Marguerite” Mixed Grill Prime ribs Beef, Yorkshire Pudding Roast Island turkey with cranberry sauce Stuffed tomatoes Demidoff Salad Mashed and brown Potatoes Macedoine of vegetables Apple pie Boston Pudding with Maple Sauce strawberry tartlets French Pancake Compote of Peaches Princess Ice cream MacLaren’s Imperial, Roquefort and Stilton cheese Fresh Fruit walnuts Assorted cake Demi Tasse

A Server (waiter) is a professional sales person, they have knowledge of two product lists, the food menu and the liquor menu; they have knowledge of service, to be seen and not heard, or to be the entertainer, it all depends on the client, each customer has different needs, Waiters (male and female) work their buts off, if they are the one selling and serving the client they should get their just reward. What they do with it is their decision, yes it should be taxed, it should all be accounted for and added to the waiter’s income. chefs and Cooks should not be subsidized by the tips, pay us the money we deserve, we should get a slice of a tip if we do a incredible job for a client and the waiter gets a good tip, but it is always the discretion of the server, we can always developed good relationships with waiters but there is a thin line, favors!! Be careful once you cross that line it can become a criminal offense, it is stealing and besides not very professional, if we in the food business want to become professional we have to act like ones.

I am not a English teacher, but does not the word vegetarian mean a person who lives on a meatless diet, are we loosing or minds to create new words like flexitarian, wow it was probably created by a marketing firm to target the confused world of trendy eaters, I do not think they know what the hell they want. Also you have the Macro-Biotic world which allows this trend to occur, humans have different dietary needs depending on the season or health reasons; this system allows you adapt to what the body needs and allows for adjustments depending on the person, all our needs are different so is our diets.

What the hell were you looking for?...; I am getting tired myself of Medias stereotypical View of the Canadian psyche, it is so white bread and out of date, the RCMP mascot is so tired, the beaver is so tired, White bread is so tired, look around what is going, we are more the sum of our parts and way more of a Country then we want to let on, we just have our head up our ass so far that we suffering from affixation, all we want to be is not American, to me that is boring; Yawn!!!! Quebec has passion, the French have passion, they are not so white bread, not a diet of wonder bread and Twinkies; passion breeds good food, good food leads to a good cuisine; thus Culture, but they are passionate about, proud!! Not boring!!! I say stand up and be counted and look around the West Coast environment, how many generations do you need before you can call something Canadian, I am also sick of the Ghost of Escoffier; I am not from France, I was born in Canada and trained by Chefs born in Canada, they worked for CP and CN, their food was diverse as the landscape they traveled, they worked in Hotels and Ships and were the beginning to the Modern Canadian Cuisine. West Coast food culture is like what happened in Vietnam and Indonesia; Both these countries were colonies, over time the colonist left but they left behind there culture which was integrated into there cuisine, Vietnamese food is heavily influenced by French cuisine, but they call it Vietnamese cooking and are proud and have taken on the imperialist cooking as there own, so what the hell is your problem?? Vancouver is a Jambalaya, a masala, and a blend of spices from every where, in time you will not be able to judge the food, let alone guess the point in the line where it starts and stops, let go of Escoffier and embrace the New West Coast cuisine. What do you get when kids from varying Cultural background marry, start their own families, two very different cultural influences mixed with a Canadian Identity, and proud to be Canadian, to me that is more Canadian then white Bread. And their food is as Canadian as you get, not fish and chips from England. steve

Yes!, that is it, sorry for being so vague thanks

Ah!!....; Well it's Canadian food, what else would it be, Canadian born kids, born and raised in south Van, with kids from a ethnic variety as in a Gap commercial, a rainbow of sorts, who have been eating each others food their whole life, they are as Van as you can get, they open a funky place on main, cooking all the foods their friends and themselves eat, the music they like, and create a very funky and eclectic place, sometimes very retro and the food to go with it, fussed with a ethnic flare varied as the rainbow in the sky, using all the food in the valley, which is available, almost all year round. Then swing down to Chinatown, Granville island, or Main, or Normand’s on Commercial, there is no shortage of great food in van all year round, many places have local food, when it is feb and not much local fresh produce is around they source out some great ethnic vegies that would remind them of their food mom or family would make. There is so many ethnic groups now in Vancouver and many start their lives in the food business sharing their cultural foods with the Canadian public, you can not get more Canadian then that. Canada is not about Mother England any more, especially Vancouver. That is just my view of things steve

Canadian Cuisne is when a Canadian chef uses local ingrediants and developes a menu that reflects their enviroment and cultures. steve

Our Cuisine can developed and is developing as we speak, new cooks are arriving everyday and there is a whole new breed of Canadian cooks coming through the ranks ready to interpret their own interpretation of Canadian cuisine. It is hard to pigeonhole OUR style of food, there is no strict style of interpretation like in French Cuisine, it can be a freestyle movement of interpretation of the foods around us, taking out experiences and market demands and putting a menu together that can make us a living. Art for Art sake, yes this can happen, but it is hard to survive on a interpretive style of restaurant in the Vancouver region, Restaurateurs are very conservative and stay very straight and narrow, the market is very small in the region and because of the spread out population in the region each market is relatively small, and not that amount of movement occurs from region to region. The Tourism industry is very important to the region, it brings the people to the Cities and they are eating out, so are very important to the customer mix, the Chef- Artist restaurant relies heavily on this sector for their living without this business they would not exist. The big City of New York has so much population that each market can exist on its own, very specialized styles of restaurants can always find a market niche for whatever extreme style that it is trying to interpret, this happening can not exist in the Van market, cause the population does not warrant the same effects population can have on the market. Vancouver is just too small of a market to have very specialized restaurants without the assistance of the Tourist Market. It is the key to existence of every restaurant that competes in this marketplace.

As a professional I do not find Cooks Illustrated that boring, we even as professional do not know everything, Cooks has some great concepts and pictures that give a great explanation of what they are cooking, for me it is about interest, or a particular dish or idea, that I look for. I find all food magazines follow the same boring seasonal flows of food, not just Cooks, I mean, if you have not figured out how to cook turkey after 30 years, no magazine will teach you that if you have not figured it out. I like Food arts and Saveur and moments for food and wine and gourmet both can be great periodicals, but they too can be repeating. There is a great opportunity for a local food publication here on the Coast, I like the Pacific Northwest??, this publications covers Seattle, Portland and Vancouver, at the moment Portland seems to be doing many things that interest me, The Restaurant and Pub business seem to be doing well, Great chefs doing interesting things, this region needs more coverage, the wine, the micro beer industry, and regional agriculture are all flourishing and are doing great things

It is hard for restaurants to find the good stuff too, most good stuff is Exported, as a chef you have to do some good food sourcing and deal with a lot of suppliers to find good stuff, it is out there you just have to search.

Tofini is "Tofu-no" Kits is "Skitzsilano" Main street is becoming a great local food -drink spot, great ideas and great food, gourmet it is not, but to me high end is to unatenanble to the mases, you go to one once a year, a local establishment you are there 3-5 times a week, now that is Canadian.

Tofino is part of the Pacific Rim, Alberni vallely, Uclulet, Tofino, Barkely Sound, Ect Over a hundred white man years of history, but 1000 years of native and others history. steve