Food Trucks and Summer’s End

September 4, 2012May 4, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 5 Comments

The Labour Day weekend has just passed and for many of us, that signals summer’s end. Though summery weather around these parts (barring early torrential rains) seems to last into October some years, September usually marks the end of community celebrations and summer programs.

With that in mind, I decided to stop by the last day of one of my neighbourhood’s most popular events this summer – The Waldorf Hotel‘s Food Cart Festival, which has been taking over their parking lot every Sunday since the end of July. I took a few photos there and indulged in a double-decker cone from Earnest Ice Cream – their salted caramel was perfect and the strawberry-basil made me want to run home and roast some strawberries right away to recapture the flavour. But I digress…

The Food Truck Festival is a great example of the zeitgeist in Vancouver these day – a nice selection of local food (in those trendy trucks); pedestrian and bike friendly; a neighbourhood event that attracts folks from all over the city. Along with VIVA Vancouver and the community celebrations funded by Neighbourhood Small Grants, Vancouver’s summer street scene is becoming a lot more vibrant.

Speaking of Neighbourhood Small Grants, a group of neighbours planted this herb garden I passed today. I thought it was a lovely concept.

So tell me, does your community promote street-level interaction? What are the community events that define summer for you?

FFWD – Minted Zucchini Tagliatelle With Cucumbers and Lemon

August 31, 2012August 31, 2012 ~ Teresa ~ 28 Comments

I always find that summer’s reputation as the lazy, relaxing season is misleading. There’s so much going on – in the garden, in the community, among friends – that life can feel a little rushed.

So I was pleased that this month’s French Fridays recipes have been remarkably easy and just as impressive. Today’s dish is no exception – the title is long, but the prep time is short. Chopping onion and cucumbers, zesting and reaming a lemon, and slicing off long strips of zucchini with a vegetable peeler were the hardest steps. The rest is just picking and chopping some mint and making a lemony vinaigrette. (I deviated from the recipe and used olive oil in place of the pistachio oil called for. Splurging at Gourmet Warehouse wasn’t in the cards this month.) The salad marinates in the fridge for a couple of hours and then it’s ready to plate.

It’s another of those clever salads that are almost a quick pickle, too. This would do for a condiment or a picnic side, but I think it would really shine as the starter to a more elaborate meal. No one needs to know it was nearly effortless.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Minted Zucchini Tagliatelle With Cucumbers and Lemon

What We Have to Offer

August 28, 2012August 28, 2012 ~ Teresa ~ 1 Comment

Much is made of the internet’s ability to connect us and just as much is made of its ability to rend us apart. The reality is that it’s a medium that allows for both. Time spent on the internet can be a morass of LOLcat reposts and click-games, but it can also be used for communication, organizing, and creativity.

The challenge for most of us is being aware of all its potential and the tools that are available to us, if we know where to look. One such tool is Amara (or, Universal Subtitles), which enables users to caption any video on the net for translation purposes, or for deaf and hard-of-hearing folks.

If you’re like me, videos come across my Facebook page and Twitter stream regularly. If I like one, I’ll repost it and keep it moving. If it’s something that’s particularly resonant, it can become a cultural touchstone, like this video:

There’s a closed captioning option available, but if you turn it on, you’ll notice that it’s mostly nonsense. Being able to crowd-source accurate captioning for such videos makes them accessible across language and hearing barriers, allowing that cultural transmission to continue.

I decided to try my hand at captioning Eliot Rausch’s beautiful video of Charlie Kaufman‘s words. When I went to Amara, I found the video, which already had Brazilian Portuguese subtitles created for it. My task was English captions for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. The site made it easy – the hardest part was trying to capture the punctuation of spoken language. If I didn’t achieve that adequately enough, another Amara user can edit my subtitles and improve them. (In an ideal world, the author would stop by and create a definitive version.) Here’s the video, with captions:

What I Have to Offer

It’s not just these small moments of resonance that need this treatment; there are also larger projects in the works. Amara is looking for volunteers to help translate or caption movies, news programs, and more. I like the idea of crowd-sourcing transcription and translation talent to help widen the pool of people able to access all the video goodness floating around the interwebs.

Sounds like time well-spent, Mr. Kaufman’s caveats about entertainment aside.

FFWD – Peach Melba, or Our 100th Recipe

August 24, 2012March 14, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 53 Comments

We’re headed toward the second anniversary of French Fridays with Dorie, but today we’re celebrating another milestone – our 100th recipe together. I think that only Mardi of eat. live. travel. write. has managed to do all 100 so far, but a number of us have come close – my count is 91, currently.

Some of us joined at the beginning and others have joined in along the way. Most are food bloggers, but some of us just like the good food and community that these French Fridays have brought us. It’s the community I appreciate most – the introduction to interesting bloggers across the world who share their stories along with descriptions of their take on our weekly assignments.

That’s not to say that working our way through an entire cookbook, week by week, doesn’t have other advantages. I’ve stretched my culinary wings more than a few times so far and I’ve eaten very well, as have my trusty taste testers – my partner, family, friends, and even our housing co-op neighbours have all tasted a little bit of Dorie’s magic.

This week’s recipe is fittingly celebratory – Peach Melba is visually stunning, delicious, and surprisingly easy to put together. I was going to make ice cream, but didn’t manage to borrow an ice cream maker, so the ice cream is store-bought. I poached the peaches, though, whipped the cream by hand (that sort of makes up for store-bought ice cream, doesn’t it?), and pureed the raspberries. The rest was a matter of assembly. Who knew that giant brandy snifters could actually be useful?

So, consider this Peach Melba (in its giant glass) a toast to all Doristas, past and present. (Thanks, Trevor, for coining that term!) The site is a treasury, not just of great menu suggestions, but of great blogs, too – it’s worth looking through the early entries, as well as the latest ones, as there are some pretty cool bloggers who haven’t kept up with the group, for one reason or another. I’ve appreciated reading through all of them and I’ve especially enjoyed getting to know my fellow Doristas, a little, through their writing.

Thanks to Laurie for creating this group, Dorie Greenspan for her wonderful recipes, and also to Betsy and Mary for taking on admin duties on the site and on Facebook. We (literally) couldn’t do it without you.

I’m looking forward to the next 200+ recipes the group will tackle. I’m also looking forward to seeing the evolution of our little group over that time. I just hope my copy of Around My French Table holds up that long!

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Peach Melba

Food and Art

August 21, 2012August 22, 2012 ~ Teresa ~ 2 Comments

I saw this article today and it got me thinking about all the cooking and gardening I’ve been doing. I have mixed feelings about the author’s point of view. It’s true that Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own is still relevant (and not just for upper middle class, white, cisgendered women), but the food movement that’s happening now isn’t a retreat back into traditional gender roles. It’s coming out of a greater awareness of the health of the earth and its inhabitants.

I’m obviously going to have to ponder this more and write a longer post, but for now, here are my thoughts:

I’ve seen folks of all genders getting more involved in where their food comes from and how it’s preserved and processed;
Many of the younger folks that are getting involved are choosing farming and cooking as life paths, rather than getting bogged down by food-related tasks instead of making art;
Many artists do separate themselves (if they have that luxury) from daily tasks, though others find gardening or cooking a relaxing and contemplative activity that feeds their creativity.

FFWD – Cafe Style Grated Carrot Salad

August 17, 2012August 21, 2012 ~ Teresa ~ 38 Comments

There’s a restaurant on the west side of Vancouver called The Naam that’s open 24 hours. It’s a vegetarian restaurant that seems left over from the hippie era. When I was in University we’d drive across town to go there in the middle of the night, famished after late study sessions. The staff back then tended to be in a somewhat…altered…state and it could be quite a while before any of the servers noticed you. Once they did, they always got your order right, but it could be up to an hour before the food arrived at your table. Actually, it was a couple of hours more than once. At least there was never any lag between the order coming up and the food arriving at the table.

As long as I could flag someone down to bring me a cup of tea, I didn’t mind. It was that time of life when there was so much to say and hear that sleep seemed like a terrible waste of time. (Funnily, none of us seemed to feel that way about sleep in the mornings.)

The food there is good, in that granola way. In fact, their miso gravy is so good that they bottle it and sell it in stores now. It’s mostly healthy, too – with additions like shredded carrot and beet in their salads and as a garnish for many of their plates. I always enjoyed that, but I’ve recently learned that a friend of mine absolutely did not and as a result, was often frustrated when she went there. She would ask for it to be left off her plate, but the (aforementioned, less-than-fully-alert) staff would always bring her meal with carrot and beet. The hippie obsession with shredded veggies is not a universal taste, it seems.

This salad, though it’s a grated slaw rather than a shredded garnish, reminds me of those days, Even with its slightly sophisticated apple cider-Dijon vinaigrette, it still has the flavour of the sort of virtuously vegetarian fare that a hippie restaurant serves.

I didn’t stray from the recipe, really, though I left out the suggested raisins and toasted the chopped walnuts before I added them. It would make a nice side for a picnic or barbeque, wherever anyone would serve traditional coleslaw. It would make a nice addition to a salad, too. When I make it again, I think I’ll throw in a mixture of the sorts of seeds, nuts, and dried fruits I often add to salads. Another easy, versatile template recipe from Around My French Table to add to my repertoire.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Cafe Style Grated Carrot Salad

Dog Social

August 14, 2012August 14, 2012 ~ Teresa ~ 2 Comments

Having a dog in the city is an inherently social act. You don’t realize that until you suddenly start having conversations with folks around the neighbourhood that you’d never spoken to before, just because they like your dog. Going to the dog park leads to an acquaintance pool full of people you only know by their dog’s name. It’s something that helps me feel even more rooted in my neighbourhood.

Vancouver East Village and the neighbourhood business association there capitalized on this by hosting a pet social for neighbourhood folks and neighbourhood dog-related businesses. Full disclosure: I live on the edge of the next neighbourhood over, but I dropped by anyway. I’m glad I did, too, since I won the draw for a bag full of doggie goodies from Dog Country. I’m looking forward to picking it up later today.

I think events like this are smart. Neighbours get to connect with each other and local businesses, while dogs get to do what they love best – meet, greet, and play. (Best not to mention the rolling around on dubious patches of grass.)

While we were there, we also got to enjoy the beauty of Pandora Park’s community gardens. I’m lucky enough to have a back yard big and bright enough for vegetable beds, but a lot of urbanites don’t have that luxury and sign up for community garden patches, instead. They’re spreading across the city and it’s a wonderful way to enjoy gardening and grow your own food. I bet there’s as many connections being made in community gardens as there are in dog parks, too.

FFWD – Warm Scallop Salad with Corn, Nectarines, and Basil

August 10, 2012May 4, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 27 Comments

It’s about time we had another scallops recipe in the group – they’re probably my favourite seafood (though mussels run a close second). I also appreciate a recipe that makes use of height-of-summer produce. Chilliwack corn, farm-fresh tomatoes, and basil from my own garden are part of this salad and the taste is phenomenal.

This recipe is really about small parts coming together well. Lime dressing, basil coulis, chopped tomatoes, kernels of corn, all served with grilled or pan-fried scallops and nectarines. They worked together even better than I’d imagined. My presentation, however, was not as pretty as I’d imagined. No matter, we had a delicious dinner.

Every summer I try to make as much use as I can of the succession of fresh, local fruit and vegetables. Every year I feel like I’ve fallen a little short. A recipe like this certainly helps me feel like I’ve succeeded. A gourmet treat full of summer goodness – we’ll be having this again.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Warm Scallop Salad with Corn, Nectarines, and Basil

Yet another post about the garden

August 7, 2012 ~ Teresa ~ 2 Comments

Holy thunderstorm, Batman! It’s hard to believe that just yesterday (and this morning, for that matter), it was sunny. I’m hoping things don’t get too exciting out there – my eggplant and most of my tomatoes are quite little and fragile at the moment. I think my beans could survive just about anything, though. The photos I’m sharing aren’t the best I’ve ever taken, but they show how things are coming along.

Tonight, I’m making kale pesto (inspired by Cher), with some leaves I took to thin out the almost scary growth it’s been having – amazing what a little sun will do for the garden. Tomorrow, I’m going to make a Swiss chard quiche, I think, since those leaves are in need of picking next. There are radishes that need picking, too, and I think I’m going to leave off making pesto with the leaves so that I can make some furikake instead. I made that for the first time last year and loved it. My cucumbers and zucchini are taking forever to grow and I’m afraid that I won’t get any this year. We won’t starve, though, because there’s a ridiculous amount of beans on the way (five varieties, as I keep mentioning), along with beets, carrots, onions, leeks and a few other things besides.

What have you been growing this year? What keeps getting your attention at the market? What are the recipes you can’t get enough of this summer?

FFWD – Tomato-Cheese Tartlets

August 3, 2012 ~ Teresa ~ 19 Comments

I admit, I was prepared not to like these. I imagined they’d be one of those experiences that my partner describes as, “I’m a better person for having tried it, but I won’t be doing that again.” I was wrong.

The idea of preventing puff pastry from puffing was the thing that gave me pause. Why not use a regular flatbread, then? I dutifully rolled the dough out, cut it into six-inch circles, pricked it and gently laid it on a parchment-covered baking sheet, only to sandwich another baking sheet on top of the delicate dough. When they came out of the oven, I was still skeptical – all this work for…crackers?

When it came time to assemble the tart, though, I got a little more excited. I used some radish leaf-almond pesto (my go to pesto recipe this summer, it seems) and some leftover (grated) mozzarella. The tomatoes in my garden aren’t quite ready yet, but the ones at the store were perfectly ripe. I had some leftover bacon, too, so I diced it and added it between the pesto and tomato layers. The basil was fresh from the garden. I hoped the pastry was going to measure up to the rest of the ingredients.

As many of us have said before, trust in Dorie. These were delicious and very worth the unpuffing of some puff pastry. The pastry had a nice snap to it and was a great base for the toppings. In fact, I think I might even be willing to sacrifice some homemade gluten-free puff pastry for this recipe.