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Victoria

Hampers, hampered, hampering

Did my Christmas bit last Wednesday – enjoyed an afternoon hanging out in beautiful big Earle Clarke House

with Joyce and Peter, who every year host a gathering of 70-100 elves who come and go throughout the day bringing food and packing it into giant hampers for needy families in the area. This year the Salvation Army was seeking to provide some 1300 hampers in all, which come from local organisations and community groups as well as more informal groups like this one.

When I left, the turkey (and therefore hamper) count was a record-breaking 65; after I left the tally rose to an amazing 76. Not bad for word of mouth.

It’s a fiendishly simple idea: you just invite everyone you know, ask them to bring what they wish from the list – or raise cash donations to buy what’s needed – and then feed and water them while they work, and somehow it all comes together. It helps that Joyce is supremely well-organised and understands the power of good sign-posting.

She also makes a gorgeous Christmas cake, terrific pea soup and great eggnog,

and cranberry punch


for her grateful workers.

Joyce reports that three of the hampers went to the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder Community Circle’s “Moms Mentoring Moms,” which provides support services to mothers trying to raise families where addiction has been a problem. The other 73 hampers went to the Salvation Army, along with cases of extra carrots, brussels sprouts and potatoes. She says that it took seven burly Salvation Army volunteers and two big trucks to collect it all.

Scotland it ain’t

The company which provides my email has also decided to change my surname. So maybe you can understand why I dislike being in North America in general, and why I have a special hate on for the Beach Boys?

It is maybe not as specific and passionate a hatred as I have for Canada Post, that government agency which has the bare-faced cheek to charge tax when it sells us stamps, and who took my money for holding my mail and then sent a selection of it back to Italy. So now I can choose to enjoy playing a complicated long-distance game of hide and seek in Italian with Poste Italiane during the Christmas rush.

However. I did have an outstanding meal in London before I left, at La Trompette. Here’s the evidence:

A starter of mixed leaves – endive of two colours and rocket – with roquefort, walnuts and poached quince:

Followed by an exquisite piece of sea-bream, crunchy and melting, on a bed of pureed potatoes with a darling lettuce heart and perfectly roasted parsnips for company, in a chicken jus with capers.

We would not dare to call this delicious morsel Pineapple Fluff, but superficially, and passion fruit aside, the resemblance was striking…

And on my first visit to an Italian grocery in Vancouver, which shall remain nameless for the moment, I was able to spot my first instance of cheese fraud. They had vac-packed Grana Padano and were selling it as Parmigiano-Reggiano; you can tell by the markings on the rind, which are diamond-shaped for Grana, whereas Parmigiano-Reggiano simply has its name spelled out together with the production date (which makes it annoying not to get a specific answer when I asked the seller how old their Parmigiano-Reggiano was: basically you are looking for something in the 24-36 month range, but all she could tell me was the piece in my hand would be between 2 and 4 years… since the producers will have charged the wholesaler more for a 36 month wheel than for a 24, it does matter to me the consumer which I am buying).

Grana is a cheaper, industrial version of Parmigiano-Reggiano, so it is more than cheeky to try to pass it off as its higher-priced cousin. I told the clerk at the cheese counter that the cheese had been mislabelled; she looked confused but gamely started filling a basket to get the offending merchandise off the display. But when I looked again, most of it was still there. I will hold judgement and whistle-blowing until I have a chance to check them out again. I greatly fear that my year’s experience has only served to make me potentially unwelcome everywhere I go.

Final feast photos


Wickaninnish Inn’s gorgeous tomatoes.


Wonderful Feys & Hobbs caterers came up with these clever sweetcorn soup shots with mushroom tuille.


Camille’s Restaurant presents venison carpaccio.. assembly line seldom looks like this!

Feasting in Fields

By some miracle I was in a conscious state and near my radio on Friday morning when Paul Vasey offered a chance to win tickets to the sold-out foodie event of the season, Feast of Fields; and by some further miracle I was the lucky, the very very very lucky recipient of a pair of these. Thank you CBC!

So this afternoon Aurelie and I hustled over to join the shockingly long and surprisingly patient queue that had gathered at the Glendale Gardens and Woodland by 1:59 for the 2pm opening, accompanied by our finely honed appetites and a steady sprinkle of rain. But being rookies at this event, we had failed to accessorize with clever little plastic cocktail plates to hold our booty and wineglass and were thus obliged to consume our morsels on the run, one mouthful at a time, as we sprinted and then trailed and then wallowed from tent to tent, running out of adjectives and resorting to whimpering pleasure. How these stall-holders managed to cater for and be delightful to a mob of 700 starved gastronomes is food for thought indeed.

Interesting to see what was being presented (and it was all pretty amazing, and beautiful, and local). Not a huge amount on offer for vegetarians, but we omnivores were well served. Beef and chicken are out; duck, venison and the odd rabbit are in. Salmon never left; ostrich made an appearance, or five. Goat cheese is very big for sweets and savouries.

Some thank yous to… our municipal treasure Zambri’s, for the amazing risotto balls spiked with water buffalo meat; Smoken Bones Cookshack for proving we can find real ol’ barbecue way up here in the north; Butchart Gardens for providing mini cedar planks and edible flowers with their yummies; 2% Jazz Coffee for the life-affirming honey macchiato. And Dock 503, I worshipped all your offerings: the chanterelle mushroom cannelloni with tomato confiture was to die for, and the sparkling caesar soup with manila clams and spicy yellow beans had me weeping with gratitude. My big regret is being too full to try your smoked sable fish and soybean steamed bun with yuzu sauce. Next lifetime, eh?


A few of the tents sheltering 60 restaurants, wineries and other food producers: the view from the Glendale’s heather garden.


Choux Choux Charcuterie: Rhona recommends the rabbit rillettes.


Part of the Aerie’s offerings: duck liver lollipops in chopped hazelnuts — strange, silky and delicious.


Dock 503: Ohhhh that sparkling caesar soup… Hey look, that clam just dived right in!


Butchart’s pretty li’l planks. The round green items are spot prawn and smoked salmon purses: too cute!


My favourite flavour-fusion duck dish: duck leg confit with Tiger Blue cheese and bosc pear, from Lure seafood restaurant.

Black Stilting


Susan and the Angels


All kindsa poetry fans…

The official launch of Planet Earth Poetry last night brought forth a monster medley of poetry lovers — all shapes, sizes and ages — and some fine musical accompanyment by Flat Lightning (half of which is Rick Van Krugel of Mandolirium). Susan Stenson was on hand selling AIDS Angels to raise money for medical relief to Africa, in lieu of admission charges. And then there were the readings – 20? 30? of them? An alarming number anyway. I thought I might fall in a swoon under the coffee table by the end, but things moved along at a good clip, made merciful by the evening’s rules: one poem only, by someone else. Our new hero, Dave Crothal, the owner of the Black Stilt, even read a poem.

Wendy Morton closed the evening with one of my favourite all time poems, Forgetfulness – click that link to find a fabulous animated version by the author, Billy Collins (I understand this is also available as an iPod download – now there’s technology I can get behind!)

Market Envy

We have a lot of excellent markets and farm shops in Victoria, but reading a pair of articles in the Guardian about food markets made me pine and yearn all over again. Borough Market is one I try to visit every time I’m in London, and it seems to get better every time; the variety and quality are staggering, and the ambience incomparable. In the companion article about new vs traditional food markets the excellent point was made that marketeers offer human contact in an age where we’re removed not only from the source of our food itself but also from the people who raise, process and package it. And that small scale trading in food is not a bad way to make a living, for both sides of the barrow. Supermarkets are cheap, fast and impersonal, like so much of our world today; I’d rather give my money straight to the farmer if I can.

It’s not unlike buying discounted books: if you buy a cut-price read from Walmart or Costco or an online discounter, you are also cutting the royalties of the writer, which are slender enough. So too the farmer loses on the profit margin for retailing through supermarkets. So I don’t begrudge paying a supermarket price to a farmer any more than I do paying the retail book price to an author (who’s had to purchase the book from the publisher).

Something struck me in a recent interview with 87-year old Lawrence Ferlinghetti:

“My poetics are totally different to something like the Ginsberg school, which is based on the idea of ‘first thought, best thought’. It is a solid concept to get the most direct transcription of your consciousness, especially if the person doing it has an original mind. Allen Ginsberg had a fascinating and genius mind and so the poetry is fascinating and genius. But when this method is laid on to thousands of students, many of whom don’t have original minds, you get acres of boring poetry.”