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Don Genova Shops & Noshes In Vancouver
Noted B.C. food journalist Don Genova shops, slurps and noshs his way around Vancouver.
Don Genova is a food journalist and educator who splits his time between Vancouver and an acreage in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island. His work is heard regularly on CBC Radio and seen in Aqua magazine with a column called Pacific Palate. Don teaches food and travel writing at UBC with in-person and online courses and offers sustainable eating courses at the University of Victoria. You may also catch him teaching cooking classes at Thrifty Foods or the French Mint cooking school in Victoria. You can follow Don’s adventures in eating on his blog, blog.dongenova.com, and get information on his classes on his website, www.dongenova.com. He also tweets @dongenova.
Don Genova’s 5 free, cheap or worth it things to see, do or buy in Vancouver Read more
Why Buy Perrier? Fizzy Water Is Easy To Make
If tapwater leaves you flat, home carbonation devices will add fizz to your drink and loonies to your pocket.
WASTE NOT | Last summer I had dinner at the home of a stylish and gracious friend whose table setting included a tall glass pitcher filled with tapwater, ice cubes and slices of lime. It was refreshing in every way: simple, elegant and thirst-quenching. For a more casual presentation, another friend recycles the rubber-stoppered bottles from French lemonade, filling them with tapwater that she keeps chilled in the fridge. You can buy similar stoppered bottles without the lemonade (Bella Vita in Park Royal has attractive ones in green or blue from Maxwell & Williams for $5.95).
The advantages of tapwater are well known—better regulated and better for you than bottled water, better for the environment, really really local—yet having imported bottled water on the table has become almost as essential as knowing what wine to serve. Perhaps it’s the bubbles. I’m not a fan of fizz myself, but many of those who are have been turning to home carbonation devices. Read more
The F Spot!
What’s With The Costco Oil, Olive?
The turn on: Foodies will tell you that the subtleties of olive oil in a dish can make a good meal exquisite. Kirkland Signature Extra Virgin Olive Oil is made from fresh-picked, cold-pressed olives grown in Tuscany. The description on the bottle reads like a wine label with harvest year and an analysis of the colour, overtones and bouquet.
What’s the deal: Kirkland Signature Extra Virgin Olive Oil, which comes in an attractive one-litre bottle, is only $12.69 at Costco.
Why we’re excited: The olive oil aficionados at www.onlyoliveoils.com give Kirkland Signature Extra Virgin Olive oil a five-star rating, a much higher ranking than they give other boutique brands that easily go for triple the price per ounce.
How long will the pleasure last: As long as Kirkland and Tuscany keep Costco supplied.
Where’s the F Spot: All Costco locations in the Lower Mainland.
—Submitted by Natasha Irvine
The F Spot!
Meinhardt Fine Foods sells gourmet sandwiches for a song.
THE TURN ON: Nothing says summer like a picnic outdoors, but with the hot languid days we’ve been experiencing lately who has the energy to put together any kind of repast, let alone produce one and then cart it off to the beach or park or wherever. What we want is gourmet takeaway, clever sandwiches wrapped and ready for consumption, and we’d like it at a giveaway price.
WHAT’S THE DEAL: Every day, Meinhardt Fine Foods, Vancouver’s gourmet grocery store, makes a dozen or so different kinds of gourmet sandwich fillings served up on ciabatta buns or sourdough bread. Every evening at 7 p.m. (an insider tells us the selloff can start as early as 6 p.m.) whatever sandwiches remain unsold go on sale for half price. The goal is no sandwich (or pastry) left behind. And it works.
WHY WE’RE EXCITED: Quality and convenience get us going; so does price: after 7 p.m., their most expensive sandwich sells for $3.50 a pop.
HOW LONG WITH THE PLEASURE LAST: It’s ongoing. Meinhardt’s sandwiches are made fresh every day, and everyday they must replace the previous day’s stock.
WHERE’S THE F SPOT: In Vancouver, Meinhardt Fine Foods is located at 3002 Granville St. (604-732-4405), and 3151 Arbutus St. (604-732-4405). For more about Meinhardt Fine Foods visit www.meinhardt.com
Eat, Read, Swim—Ms. McIntosh Does YVR
Culinary personality Barbara-jo McIntosh shares her favourite “free, cheap or worth it” things to see, do or buy in Vancouver.
The owner of Barbara-Jo’s Books to Cooks, Barbara-jo McIntosh has served on the prestigious James Beard Awards cookbook selection committee and received a Vancouver magazine lifetime achievement award for her many contributions to the local culinary scene. McIntosh reveals a softer side in her recently published third book, Cooking for Me and Sometimes You: A Parisienne Romance with Recipes. It’s a tale of “cooking with tenderness in Paris,” says fellow food writer Mia Stainsby in The Vancouver Sun, who thinks its sweet words and delightful recipes will inspire readers to cook more mindfully—and with love. Read more
Try These Easy-Grow Perennial Vegetables
It’s crazy not to cultivate tasty sunchokes—and these other easy-grow perennial vegetables.
GROW YOUR OWN | Anyone who has tended a vegetable garden knows it can be hard work. That said, are there easy-grow edible crops that offer an exceptional return for a minimum amount of labour? That’s the question I put to my good friend and neighbour Mark Johnston, an amazing gardener dedicated to growing as much of his family’s food supply as he can on the large, attractive and highly productive organic farm-style plot he tends in the wilds of West Vancouver. Read more
One Of These Tunas Is Not Like The Others
Which of these tuna brands sends chef Glenys Morgan fishin’ in the back of the cupboard: Rio Mare, Western Family Solid Yellowfin Tuna in Olive Oil, Cloverleaf Flaked Light Tuna in Vegetable Broth and Oil?
What’s The Deal With Spices Prices?
Exploring the (better-priced) outer reaches of the spice aisles.
CHEAP + GOOD | Shopping for spices recently at the Superstore at Main and Marine Drive in Vancouver, I felt like the victim of a bait and switch con game. Little identical glass jars of McCormick Gourmet spices were being sold for identical prices even though the weight of their contents was vastly different—a 7-gram jar of bay leaves cost the same as a 43-gram jar of ground cumin—$6.69. A few feet away, Club House was selling a 13-gram bottle of bay leaves for $3.49.
On closer inspection, I was surprised to learn that McCormick Gourmet and Club House are owned by McCormick Canada, which means if you buy their “gourmet” product, you are paying almost twice as much buck for half as much bay, or, put another way, you are paying a whopping $4.87 for that little glass jar. Read more
