jcarroll42

Thanks for your thoughts - I too was a little worried about the heat. We'll be without the kids, so traveling will be a little easier - though cute babies are good for breaking down the language barrier, so we'll miss that. Work circumstances have dictated that we'll probably end up in Orvieto - or at least in that neighborhood. I've looked at several guide books which don't look so useful for food. Every time I pick up a guide book I flip to the food section and am turned off. Luckily, I have Egullet! The replies have been helpful, and I've gotten into some older threads on Umbrian travel, which make me excited. Thanks to the reply down thread, I'll be sure to grab a copy of Osteri d'Italia. jeff

Hi All, Thanks for the suggestions. I had considered Piedmont as well, because I can't afford to drink Piedmontese wine here, but am leaning towards somewhere more central. Umbria is a great idea - I'll do some research on this area now. Has anyone had any good/bad experiences on food adventures in Umbria? Thanks again, jeff

Hi All, My wife and I have about 10 days vacation in July, which we plan to spend in Italy. I have a conference in Tuscany, and since we'll be flying there anyway, it seemed like a great excuse. It's also our first vacation without our 19-month old twins - so we need to have some fun! Our main goal is to try and find good food and wine. Also, we'd like to stay out of the cities, mostly. We've both spent some limited time in Florence and Rome, and love them, but would like to stay somewhere more rural, hopefully with good access to towns big enough to have good restaurants and markets (we'll have a car). My original plan was to spend the time in a rural hotel in Emilia-Romagna, we picked out a fancy castle type place about 40 minutes north-west of Parma. But now I'm wondering if we'd be missing out by skipping Tuscany, or whether there'd be somewhere else to go where we could have more good food and wine experiences. I'm thinking that I really want to drink good wine, and Emilia-Romagna isn't really known for wine. Having said that, I'm sure good Italian wine is all over the place and so maybe we should be directed by the food? Does anyone have suggestions/fantasy trips? If you had ten days to eat and drink and relax in Italy (north of Rome), where would you do it? Any specific places people have stayed that were rural and relaxing, but accessible for good food adventures? - jeff

Hi All, I wanted to report my first trial trying to use a natural starter. I have a firm starter that I've made from northwest sourdough (http://www.northwestsourdough.com/). I'm keeping this in the fridge, and am trying to work out how to go from starter in the fridge to bread as efficiently as possible. Basically, here's my plan: Day 1: remove small bit of starter, refresh to ~1/3 cup overnight. Day 2: refresh overnight starter to ~1 cup (morning) Day 2: make dough using master formula (3C water, 6.5C flour), 1.5 tbl salt, 1 cup starter. allow to rise ~6 hours, until more than doubled. Refrigerate. Day 3: remove dough, shape, proof for ~3 hours and bake. Baking: heat cast iron dutch oven to 450. Put shaped loaf in closed pan for 20 minutes, remove from loaf and place directly on rack, remove when crust done and inside temperature ~205-210. So. I did all that, and first of all I had a hydration problem with my flour. I weighed my flour and water and came up with a hydration of ~65% (grams flour/grams water, correct?). I think that's very low, and it was certainly very firm. Not like what I've done with the no knead before. Rather than try to play with this, I decided to just drive on and make the first batch and see how it came out. The crust was great - the dutch oven thing is great. I was watching a movie with my wife and brought the loaf in the room with us to cool - it was crackling throughout the movie. Oh, and my wife is now convinced that I'm a freak. The flavor was great, even on day 2 in the fridge. Obviously, a lot of this is due to the starter, which did really well considering how little time I gave it to refresh. The problem was the texture - obviously it was under hydrated to begin with and the crumb structure didn't develop well. It was also doughy and un-done even with the 210 on the thermometer. So, for next time, increase the hydration. Suggestions? Also, I'll do a long proof - possibly in the fridge overnight. Is that working for people? I think I'll also drop the oven temperature as soon as I close the dutch oven - I'm thinking to 350-375, so that when the loaf gets on the rack by itself it'll cook a little slower. Here's some pics. First, the thick ass dough: Then, even though it was thick it rose nicely: Here's the loaf, straight out of the oven, and before we went off to a movie together: Here's the cut loaf showing the not-good texture: First eGullet images - how'd it work? - jeff

Hi All, Really enjoying the thread. I've gotten a nice sourdough starter going recently, which I've been using with more traditional methods. 18 month old twins are, however, really ruining the 'spend all evening in the kitchen' thing. So I'm wondering if anyone has tried omitting the commercial yeast in the 5-minute method and replacing it with a (firm) sourdough starter? I'm thinking it wouldn't be hard, just dissolve a portion of refreshed starter in the water used, but has anyone tried this? Rough measurements? Would it add appreciable flavor given the short rising times? How would it effect rising times? Thanks jeff

Been back to Railspur Bistro again since my first (very positive) visit. I had a pizza (the one with chorizo) which was pretty disappointing. Sort of swimming in melted mozzarella, though the crust was quite nice. My wife had a Caesar salad which was pretty tame with croutons that tasted like they were out of a bag. So - mixed. I had a great burger the first night, and the fries were excellent too. But other things on the menu have been hit and miss. Maybe different kitchen staff? - jeff

It's the Railspur Alley Café and Bistro. I dropped by one Friday morning to check it out, but service was excruciatingly slow and I ended up seeking caffeine at JJBean. Will try again another day. ← Hi guys. My wife and I have been to the railspur alley bistro twice now. They were originally planning on staying open late, but now they close ~7ish because it's slow in the evening (if I got the story straight). Which is a shame, because I had an absolutely amazing burger there a few days back. They grind their own sirloin, and the quality is way way higher than other GI options (and only ~$11). The meat was flavorful and *juicy*. Storm IPA was ~$3.50/pint (Wednesday night special). And nice fries on the side as well. We had almost gone to Cat's Meow to grab a quick bite, and I'm really glad we didn't The other night I had a really nice spicy merguez panini w/ salad. Also really nice, and cheap. They have pizzas on the menu as well, which look good but I've not had. There's a small wine list, some bar seats, and plenty of seating. And free WiFi! So I'm pleased to see the addition to the neighborhood. I'm only sad that the railspur area is a total dead zone for foot traffic, so I don't think it'll last long... - jeff

So I stopped by Sunday for some drinks and appetizers. We had the prawn appetizer, which I think was called "salt and pepper". At any rate, the prawns are done in what we were told is an "authentic Malaysian" way. Basically, the shells are left on. They're surprisingly easy to eat, but don't add anything to the dish. For about two hours afterwards you keep struggling with little pieces of shrimp shell in your teeth (think popcorn). The batter was spicy and nice enough, but 10% more effort (cleaning the shrimp) would have made the dish 100% better. I guess that's not "authentic", but what the hell. I had the Dungeness salad. There was an iceberg lettuce leaf, an endive spear and a (largish) pile of Dungeness meat on the plate. The advertised basalmic/marscapone were drizzles on the plate - which were decorative but didn't contribute to the dish much. There were honeydew and cantaloupe balls, along with a few lychees. Basically, a bunch of Dungeness meat (w/ no dressing) and some fruit. It was nice and refreshing, and not badly priced, but not super exciting either. We then tried the tempura fried smelt. I'm a big fan of Spanish style deep fried whole fish (small anchovies etc.). These are not small. The fish that came were about 4-5 inches long, and quite thick. They are fried heads on, and meant to be eaten this way. They were full of eggs, which may be a good thing, but the anatomical detail was a little much for my tastes. The fish were large enough that you couldn't just chew up the bones without noticing (as you do with anchovies, for example). I was pulling little bits of skull/spine out of my mouth as I ate. Not great. The batter was thick and more bread like than tempura. My father was visiting from Seattle, and was keen to try some local beers. They only had two Okanagan Springs beers on tap - 1516 and .... the other one I can't remember the name of. My Dad, being from Seattle, was explaining what kind of beer he liked. The waiter then recommended the 1516, which he had (10 seconds before) told me was "nothing to shake a stick at". Weird. Why open a restaurant with such a great bar and have two beers on tap?? The mains might be great. But the service was a little hit and miss, and the appetizers I had were poor choices for the space/customer base. Hopefully all of these things will improve as they get more experience. - jeff

Sam - I could probably call, but where are these guys? The contact info is just a phone #... thanks. jeff

First post... My wife and I tried the early dinner the other night. Not the same menu as on the web - which I took to reflect them actually changing the menu with the "normal" one. The restaurant was dead empty until we were on dessert. Not that we minded having the space to ourselves, but we did feel a bit like staff doing prep work. Pre-Appetizer was mushroom broth with truffle oil and root vegetables. Nice, not super exciting. Came with their great bread - which was served with "hand churned butter" (would I be able to tell the difference?) and some really nice olive oil. I had a marinated salmon appetizer. Very interesting - not smoked but somehow cured with a marinade. Much better than the Vancouver standby smoked salmon appetizer in my opinion, much more delicate and tender. My main was braised lamb shoulder. Ridiculously tender/flavorful. I don't think I looked up while I had it in front of me. I wiped my plate with bread. Is that allowed in West? Who cares. It came with some sort of carrot puree, but that's not what I was after. Mmmmm... Meat juice... My wifes main was the risotto (sage/squash). She loved it, the rice was that perfect tender-but-still-together that's so hard to do at home. Desserts were unbelievable. I had a (meyer?) lemon tart. It had slices of candied whole lemon in it. It was like someone squishing a whole lemon tree in your mouth every bite. It came with some lemon sorbet and cream - also really nice. My wife had some complicated configuration of chocolate (ice cream + tart). She looked like she was going to stab me with her fork when I asked for a bite - be careful gentlemen.... Wine was Alibi by Black Hills. I've enjoyed the Nota Bene (sometimes) and the Sequentia (always). This was nice - good BC version of white Bordeaux. It would have been better very cold, it came from the cellar a bit warm for my taste. Maybe it was just that wine. Anyway - full dinner for two with a bottle of BC wine (~$60 wine). Tax/Tip etc. grand total of about $160. I'd sit in the kitchen for that deal.