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Travelling Through… London

Travelling Through BookshopLast Wednesday’s reading at Travelling Through Bookshop went well. A cosy crowd gathered in the downstairs cafe of this newly opened shop on Lower Marsh to hear poetry of place & travel from three poets. I was reading with Sue Rose and Tamar Yoseloff, poetry pals from way back. Sue and Tammy have small and lovely collections from Hercules Editions. Sue’s is called Heart Archives, poetic responses to Christian Boltanski’s Les Archives du Cœur audio installation and gorgeously assembled with her own photos. Tammy read from Formerly, which features her poems responding to Vici MacDonald‘s photographs of disappearing London. And I of course read from Ex-ville, which is perfectly suited to the reading theme, bristling with travel poems of many kinds. Thanks perhaps to Tammy’s apt observation that the book was not otherwise available in the UK, I enjoyed brisk sales: thanks to all my book-buyers!

Lower Marsh is a rather special little street tucked away behind Waterloo Station. I was very pleased to happen upon Greensmith‘s, a very different kind of supermarket, made up of a kind of accretion of different independent businesses – butcher, baker, greengrocer, coffee specialist, and wine merchant – and together able to provide just about anything an urbanite might need to keep a small household going. In a pleasing patchwork of adjoining rooms where visitors find a happy surprise on every floor.

GreensmithsGreensmiths CheeseGreensmiths Produce

 

 

Hercules Editions takes its name from William Blake’s last home and printing works in Hercules Road, Lambeth. I had a wander down this road and happened upon some ceramic reminders of Blake’s time there. More about the mosaic project here.

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Another wander down memory lane took me to Daquise, a Polish restaurant that’s been around since 1947, clinging on in South Kensington through an era of fast food and chains. They’ve updated the decor since my last visit and now have their cooks serve at the table, which is quite fun. The menu has been upgraded too: almost sorry to find the borscht is not what it was (used to be thick with grated beetroot and other delights) but is tasty and elegant nonetheless.

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Palestinian food, Vancouver smokehouse and the Salt Spring abattoir

Chickens grazing at Bellingham b&b

I love the random and unusual places my food interests take me. But then, as we learned at food school, gastronomy touches every aspect of life; and food being life-giving, its universal reach should not surprise us.

So last week I returned from beautiful Bellingham and stopped briefly in vivacious Vancouver, where I was whistled off for a delectable Palestinian lunch at Tamam on East Hastings. All the food is made from scratch, and tastes fresh and

Tamam's hummus
authentic. We had a selection of treats, opting for the vegetarian menu – hummus, mutabbal (the Palestinian version of baba ganoush), mujadarah
Tamam's Kunafah
(rice & lentils with caramelized onion) with a lemony red cabbage salad, some house-made flatbread with za’atar and another with yogurt, followed by the very pretty kunafah dessert – spun pastry enfolding a couple of different kinds of cheese. I took away an order of Palestinian cabbage rolls (the cabbage is fermented, and stuffed with rice and vegetables) with a side of green salad, fuel for the ferry ride home. And it was a welcome respite from the indignities of BC Ferries’ franchised fast food offerings.

We stopped in at the Woodland Smokehouse & Commissary after that, and emerged with assorted house-smoked sausages, a salad of potato, bacon and mushrooms, and a long and wistful memory of the freezer cabinet and its load of Earnest Ice Cream, which is sold in reusable glass jars.

Once home I unpacked and readied myself for a trip to Salt Spring Island, where the CRFAIR roundtable meeting was treated to a tour of the newly/nearly finished community abattoir. Our guide and president of the abattoir society, Jean Brouard, made clear he was not the only vegetarian on the committee, and added that there were several vegans aboard as well.

After all, he told us, the foremost aim of this facility was to improve animal welfare. The draconian changes to farmgate meat processing several years ago had made it illegal for farmers to slaughter their own animals. Aimed at making large scale meat processing safer, the changes were devastating to small farm operations, particularly ones in remote locations. The financial and logistical repercussions of taking a small flock of chickens or a couple of lambs on the ferry for slaughter meant that meat production on Salt Spring dropped by nearly 50%. Local farmers and food activists were worried by the island’s corresponding drop in food security: having to import so much of the island’s protein put them at the mercy of steadily increasing ferry fares and put the few animals under production under considerable stress. Fundraising ensued and the island put plans together to build Canada’s first dual (red and white meat) abattoir.

Poultry cones

The community decided it wanted the facility to be a mobile abattoir, to share services with nearby Pender Island, and raised enough money in cash and grants to start building in January last year. Unfortunately, in the process of meeting the multiple and often contradictory requirements of the regulating agencies (municipal and provincial health authorities, CCDC and CFIA as well as building standards) the mobility dropped out of the picture. So did the first building inspector they’d worked with and his successor deemed it necessary that the building meet stringent seismic standards, adding nearly a third again to the not inconsiderable building costs. A new round of fundraising will soon begin to clear the debts incurred. The abattoir opened for bird business in late September, just in time for Canadian thanksgiving, and recently processed its first lambs. Adjustments and adaptations were in progress with carpenters and electricians fine-tuning reinforced boards and the new chiller equipment.

The abattoir is, like all those large and small, subject to rigorous inspection, with every animal checked by a federal meat inspector. It’s anyone’s guess what will happen if the federal government makes good on its promise to hand inspection over to the provinces – a move slowed by the recent Excel Meats disaster in Alberta, which showed that even the current system is fatally flawed.

 

London farewells: Food, film and the future of work

My last week in London was a whirl of farewells and final thises and thats before I hopped into my minicab back to Heathrow and leapt skyward in unexpected luxury – bumped up to business class by my friends at British Airways thank you thank you – and landed in calm clear weather in Vancouver, which held off on the rain, sleet and snow until I was tucked up into bed.

It was a week of nice food in London too. Still buzzing after the Copenhagen jaunt and the pleasures of the poetry workshop in Cambridge, I joined dear friends to tuck into a most excellent Sunday lunch at Great Queen Street in Holborn.

The pot roasted pheasant with poached quince looked (and tasted) wonderful but oh dear I’d just had pheasant (how often do I have the chance to say that?) so after a few reversals I opted for baked cod and spinach, which was studded with garlic and chili and was a delight, although I did think it was just barely overcooked, by a fish’s whisker. I was  afforded a morsel of the chicken pot pie on the other side of the table that satisfied my curiosity on that score (chervil in the crust we thought? very nice touch).

But there was much excitement to follow on the dessert menu: each item more delicious than the next. I had the prune and almond tart, which was soft and nutty and chewy where it should be and had a fine crunchy and slightly caramelly crust. Even so my envious fork went round and round the table. The salt creme caramel was exquisite: a silky yellow custard standing softly within its warm and salty caramel pashmina; the baked cheesecake light and lemony with a surprising and effective fruit confit alongside, and the beignets… ah the beignets. Featherlight and warm, faintly crunchy on the outside, tender on the inside. Why would anyone waste their money on donuts when they can have beignets with raspberry coulis here?

 

 

 

 

 

So all in all it was a great introduction for me to this restaurant – and an exceptional waiter who doted knowledgeably without being intrusive, and who had some friendly insights on the opera my dining companions were off to see. Manly yes, but I like it too.

Monday was spent mostly packing and trying out my new toy, a suitcase scale, which will be invaluable on my future travels.

Monday evening I went to The School of Life where I promptly undid all my careful work packing and weighing by losing my head in the gift/book shop. My new treasures include a beautiful hardcover copy of The Flavour Thesaurus: Pairings, recipes and ideas for the creative cook, entertainingly written by Niki Segnit, which is arranged by ingredient and offers, well, just what it says on the label. But I was there for a class – the only one I could fit into my schedule – called How to Find a Job You Love. At my stage of life I had thought through a lot of what was covered, and suspect I may have my perfect job (though I have yet to work out how to make it pay!) but this topic is a winner and the subsequent offerings are selling like hotcakes in these risky times. There were a fair number of people present who’d been made redundant, and some who were stuck in unrewarding jobs, as well as a few who were looking to round out their part time positions with something meaningful. I liked the historical and sociological context that David Baker brought to the session, the exercises were useful and we were well fed and watered as well.

Tuesday I went to see The Iron Lady, which was as I’d expected well acted and cast (except for Jim Broadbent who never convinced me he was Denis) but I thought disappointing from its current day setting and the brevity of the flashbacks into Thatcher’s time. I didn’t feel I got much more insight into those years – and the trump card had already been played a few days before when 1981 cabinet papers were released that cast new light on old questions.

Anyway we mulled all this over a few Irish rock oysters at Pescatori, followed in my case by a nice octopus salad (which did make me pine for Parma, but was good in a different way, a kind of spin on salade nicoise, with potatoes and green beans rounding it out). I confess that the treat of the day for me was a glass of Passito di Panterellia, which is quite simply heaven in a glass, and I savoured every drop.

Wednesday was another lunch with dear friends and former neighbours, and a bit more folding, rolling, shoving, kneeling, sweating and swearing over suitcases. Thursday yet another lunch with dear friends and poets and a final poetry workshop. And Friday the sun shone on the parrots, the Mahonia japonica (not to be confused with the Mahonia aquifolium – Oregon Grape) shared its wintry perfume as we passed by on our way to a farewell lunch at Tarantella where the Melanzane parmigiana and Spaghetti alla vongole were both excellent. And all too soon, the cab driver was there and my Euro-time was over… for now.

High security meals & some curious uses for oregano

The Clink is an interesting restaurant in Britain which is run by inmates of HM Prison High Down (this article about it by an expert in prison food is worth reading too). Envisioned by its Michelin-starred chef-founder as a way to train chefs and restaurant staff, it took seven years to get off the ground, but now produces both good food and employable inmates. It’s not open to all diners – you have to have a good reason for going there and/or be employed by a government or prison office, or with a nonprofit (presumably one with compatible aims to the program which is also a registered charity). I suspect the project may have taken some inspiration from another such ristorante in Italia: the maximum security prison at Volterra in Tuscany.

Another odd and slightly Italian-flavoured item that has crossed my inbox is news of this study that’s found another use for oregano: when cows eat it, it keeps them from burping methane (apparently it is burps rather than farts which emit the greenhouse gas) and ups their milk yields. The study doesn’t say whether the milk picks up any flavour from the herb – but if it does, it might make for some interesting cheeses. And perhaps offer some other health benefits for humans. I have been plied with oregano oil at various points in recent years, by persons neither belching nor lactating, who swear by its curative powers, particularly for preventing colds. Definitely something to plant in my garden this year.

Black Moss in Spice City

It was a Black Moss kind of night last night. Heard Paul Vasey and Marty Gervais at Mocambo, and had a chance to wave my new book around. Paul had just recovered from laryngitis and a wicked cold but he read well from his novel Last Labour of the Heart, published by Marty’s Black Moss Press of Windsor, whence hails our new favourite CBC morning show host. Marty showed off his design and photography skills with his letterpress book Taking My Blood, and read from his new collection Wait for Me, also published by Black Moss.

A couple of nice ‘n spicy lunches with ladies this week. We were going to attempt a novelty lunch at the Provincial legislature restaurant, but we were a little late since they close it to the public at 11:30 when the house is in session, and there were a couple of bus tours downstairs taking up space, so we wandered off in search of something else.

Our sure-footed local expert Aurelie took us by the noses and led us to Santiago’s, a bright happy Thai, Mexican and tapas place; lively in the evenings and fills up for lunch. It’s only a block or so from the legislature, tucked away on Belleville. We got to perch up above the crowd in a booth, while the spring daylight streamed in through the conservatory-like front of the restaurant.The menu includes tapas items which actually seemed large enough for main courses: Thai red curry with shredded squash looked and was confirmed to be amazing; chicken quesadilla is said to be a reliably good standby; and my beef burger with jalapeno relish was very good indeed.

I’ve walked past The Reef a zillion times, as it’s next door to the Yates Street parkade where I often park when visiting Ferris’ Oyster Bar directly opposite. I discovered the room is deceptively deep inside and equipped with several comfy booths, each with their own mechanical fish tanks which grind a little strangely in your ear as you read the menu. I’d never had roti, and wondered what it was like, so had one filled with Jerk Chicken, a dark spicy mixture that soaked nicely into the flatbread wrapper. (So the answer is, it’s like spicy stuff in a flat bread, and it works!) It came with a fairly bland coleslaw – which was ok given the spice in the roti. I allowed myself to be talked into a noontime Mojito which went a little too well with everything else. We had some plantain chips to start with and enjoyed dabbling them lightly in the spicy Caribbean hot sauce.

Back home, in milder mood, I made a rhubarb custard pie the other night… yum… My recipe also called for a tablespoon of orange peel and a quarter tsp of cloves. You can cover it with a lattice if you like, but it is fine as a single crust.