Victoria Pt.2

So after an exquisitely fast tour of the island, we're back in Victoria, this time with a serious purpose. We want to catch the biggest, most badass salmon the world has seen, then promptly make it taste like heaven. We split from Comox down to Victoria to jump at a chance to do this without paying a 600$ charter. My 2nd cousins father happens to now be a sport fisherman and general maniac. He's at least 10x as active as I currently am, and more than double my age. Seriously, it's inspiring. On the day we were leaving he was pretty relaxed about the borderline bicycle marathon he was about to undertake. Allow me to remind you that Victoria isn't flat either, so it's not just distance. Despite our comparative sloth, he and his wife were extremely welcoming and let us stay with them in exchange for the promise of dinner to come. We arrived late monday night, and scheduled to go fishing early the next day with no delay.

Fishing was almost exactly as much work as I thought it would be. It's not extreme, but there is some serious thought, planning and work that goes into it. The reason we left so early was because the currents are extreme, and the fish go with them. So we go to fish in between tidal moves. The actual set-up, provided you own and operate a boat(which is a big setup) is not too difficult. They have outriggers, which are basically mechanisms that hold the rods high and tight, and sink the lures to a desired depth. Its really an ingenious system. We went our to the "trap shack" which is an area of ocean just off the coast of Sooke, and typically yields a good amount of fish. Sadly, we hit an off day, and barely anybody out caught a fish. Another area was biting, but the salmon just weren't in the trap shack. We must have changed lures and depths a dozen times each, but still no luck. Not too serious a bump, as my uncle has tons of chinook salmon hanging out in his house already. However, it would have been really nice to catch the fish that was going on the table. Romantic in a way. Another thing I should likely mention is that I got sea-sick for the first time in my life. This has never before happened to me, and I've been boating before a handful of times. It was really nauseating this time out. Not too bad though.


So after that debaucle, we decided to drop the crab trap in the bay outside my dad's cousin's (I still don't know exactly what to call him)house. Crabs are trusty and reliable animals. We got about 20. It was pretty epic. We used chicken in the trap this time, which apparently they go bananas for. We had to thrown most back, as they were either female or too small. But we got three dungeness of proper size and one big ol' red rock crab. So now we had fresh crab, salmon, and a dinner to make. We decided upon canapes and two courses. Canape of crab, salmon in two courses.
Happily, their daughter had recently sent home some produce from Salt Spring, so we got to relive our little experience there. We had crab croustini with apples, sour cream and mint. On the side we made some crab bisque for them to enjoy when we were gone. For first course, we did Sesame crusted salmon with a beet green salad from foxglove, orange vinagrette, orange segments and a wasabi paste. Also had some sliced radishes from salt spring in the salad. I really enjoyed this course. The interplay between ingredients was perfect. Beets and oranges are a great combo, and the wasabi added heat without taking away from anything. The salmon was barely touched, and silky raw all the way through. It was like western sushi.

For second course we did pan seared salmon with sauteed spinach, yam fritters and blueberry sauce. My uncle had a bunch of frozen blueberries, so we cooked down a quick red wine sauce, tossed in the blueberries, seasoned and reduced. Really simple, but still delicious. The pieces of salmon we used were monstrous. I thought the fish must have been at least 40 lbs. The fillets were the thickest I've ever seen, and I've worked with some large fish before. Seared in the pan and finished in the oven, the width of the fish kept beautifully moist all the way through. It was really an incredible flesh to work with.

So we enjoyed a great dinner, the first fine dining style food we've done for company. It was a great success, and hopefully we can do lots more manoeuvers like it in the future. A huge thanks to Guy and Trish for being such wicked hosts. Even without knowing which one of us was related to them until Fabian started speaking with an accent. We had an amazing time and thanks so much for welcoming us into your home and letting us cook good food on a proper stovetop! Next stop is the Okanagan, stay tuned for wining and dining.

Comox Valley Pt.2

Ahh...something I forgot to mention. On our way INTO cumberland/comox/courtenay area (hereafter to be referred to as "the CCC"), we not only saw the outdoor shellfish warehouses for the largest producers of shellfish on this coast, but also bought some. 5lbs of fresh, unshucked scallops. So fresh they can almost bite you. We cooked those after the farmer's market and made scallops 2 ways, which was one of the more extravagant projects we've made thus far. We're getting more and more off the chain with this on the road cooking thing. Some real gourmet stuff been going on recently, keep checking back to see.(My first baited sentence!)
Anyways, scallop spaghettini, white wine cream sauce, au classique. Twas pretty good stuff. But before that we did scallop carpaccio with wasabi, toasted sesame, soy sauce, zests and green onion. It was amazing to eat scallops that had barely finished twitching, raw and silky.

My chronology for this area is all messy, because I just remembered we also went to Little Qualicum Cheese, which is a family friendly cheesemonger in Qualicum. They have a 3km farm loop you can walk and see all the animals, a goat petting zoo and also a fruit winery. We hung around for a bit, fed the goats some cedar(read crack cocaine) and decided we should hightail it. Qualicum was alright, by far the coolest part was the outdoor shellfish warehouses. Basically the three shellfish purveyors in the area lay out their catch on the beach when the tide is out, so that the mussels, clams and oysters can "have a drink" as they put it. It's a pretty ingenious system without using any complicated equipment or walls at all.


So I'm now jumping ahead past my last post into the day before the Comox shellfish festival. We decided to scope the area where the festival would be held. While we were down there, we asked directions to the brewery, turns out we asked the right person. He was born in Germany(the island is infested) and moved here when he was really young. Now he works on a nearby cattle farm. Needless to say we were going to visit him later the next day. For dinner we picked up some of the buffalo mozzarella from Natural pastures cheese, made from the milk of the buffalo I had been petting last week. We made a simple red pepper and mixed greens salad, a little green onion and thick slices of the buffalo mozz. It tasted a lot like buffalo milk, which seems logical, but most bufala mozz cheeses don't. Pretty nice little lunch meal. After that the farm working fella decided he would be the most helpful poster boy for comox possible and not only drove us to our car, but also had us follow him to the brewery before departing to finish his afternoon duties. Awesome guy and really helpful beyond the call of duty.


Now for the brewery. When we pulled up there was a bit of a scramble, as all the staff were lounging on the front lawn and just having a bit of relaxation. We talked to a lady there for a while, but there were no tours, because they generally do groups and booked in advance tours. Thankfully we got to chatting with the owner on the front lawn and he hooked us up a wicked private tour, full of all the beer you can drink and answers to all the questions you can ask. I was jealous of Fabian because I was driving and he got to get loaded for free with the owner of a kickass brewery. I'm not saying I didn't partake in beers at all, just that I had to monitor my consumption most carefully, while he just rang in beer after beer. Either way it was awesome, and Bob Surgenor is the man. He explained everything really well, made references to things we understand, and let us taste or see every step in the beer production. It was really educational and alcoholic, even if that sounds oxymoronic.
We probably should have retired for the day after that, but no such laziness is allowed for our ambitious voyage of food. Instead, we visited Mitch on his cattle ranch. His boss was hesitant at first, but after we discussed our aim and the fact that we weren't journalists, just people, he opened up great and was pretty welcoming. We got to see the milking parlour in action, and found out that cows produce waaaaay more milk than we thought. Its an issue how deluded even we are about food. Now think about yourself! After a quick visit to the baby cows and heifers, we said our goodbyes and took off. The next day was the shellfish festival, but somehow that didn't deter our idiocy and we decided to go have some pints again. Ended up at a house party deep in some random forest. Played a dirty dice game, did jello shooters, and took a cab back to our car at 5:30am. Awoke bright and early, went back to see if the showers at the farmer's market were open(they weren't) and then dragged ourselves to the shellfish festival.

The festival was bustling by the time we got there, and there were even people we knew there. Mike McDermitt from Oceanwise was holding down his booth, letting people know about the sustainability tip. If you don't know about it and you work in a restaurant, get into it, or I'll do my best to damage your business prospects. It's a really wicked program, and will only get more intense over time. Right now you don't even have to be 100% oceanwise to use it, but I'm hoping that'll change in the near future. It's expanded across Canada in 5 years, and hopefully will hit international shores soon. It also happens to have the restaurant I worked in as a founding partner. It was the reason I went to work at C, so I have a lot of respect for Mike and his team for preaching the message they do in the face of all the bad news about the ocean. Also there was Adera and the cameraman from west coast escapes, holding down yet another shoot on the shellfish. I got to meet the organizer of the festival and time the oyster shucking competition, which was great. I would have come third, in my approximation. The organizer, Matt, is also going to be out of the east coast for the PEI shellfish festivities, so we'll be crossing paths with him again in the near future.

Another cool thing we got educated about at the shellfish fest was that the vast majority of pacific oysters are only one species, and that it isn't a native species at all. Japanese oysters are what is predominantly farmed, because the local variety isn't as strong or variable. What was really interesting is when we were bestowed with the wisdom that all the different oysters, which look and taste vastly different, are all the same species. The variation comes from the "merroir"(play on terroir, a french word the basically amounts to 'regional traits bestowed upon product by the land') in which the oysters grow in. Deeper oysters have a sharper, flakier shell. Shallower, warmer water oysters can grow huge. Kusshi oysters (by far the best seller on the west coast) are actually produced by tumbling the oyster occasionally through it's lifetime, thus smoothing the surface and rounding out the edges. It was amazing to learn that so many different characteristics can sprout from the same organism.

On a recommendation from the oyster girls at Pacific Kiss oysters, we headed to Kye Bay to have dinner, get some sand dollars, and possibly sleep. We went out there, had dinner, drinks, sunset fire and good company, and then went to sleep. It's a really beautiful beach, has a crazy tide flat, and a nice picnic area. In the morning we hightailed it to all the way south the Victoria again for a day of fishing with my Father's cousin, the father of my 2nd cousin who I met again on Salt Spring Island.

Comox Valley Pt.1

Back at it again. Hard to top that salt spring island madness, especially since right now I'm still living the fruits of that labour. But that's a story for another post. O Comox valley, how do I describe thee. Comparatively I suppose. Comox is much like the Cowichan valley, only farther north and with a huge farmer's market. Comox the city is sort of a tri-city set up of Comox, Courtenay, and Cumberland. Cumberland has the artisans and the music, Courtenay the population and the hip stores, and Comox the farms and seafood. Its a pretty solid arrangement. We went out everyday and all night most nights here. At a bar that reminded me distinctly of Hull. It was hilarious and fantastic.


Now Comox valley, though a place of funk and revelry, was also a really varied place. Odd topography, population demographics and a semi-metropolitan mentality lend it a lot of charm. Cumberland was the first visit we did, after being told there was a bar there with soccer and live music every night. We drove down, found a sweet parking spot near the lake, ate a quick dinner of curry with udon noodles, and bounced to the city for a night out. Sadly, the Waverley, a hugely popular music destination and our intended drinking hole, had lost it's liquor license for serving minors and being over capacity. Instead we went to the Cumberland hotel, where I got drunk and sang "fight for your right to party" karaoke with some local males. It was fun. The next day I awoke being baked alive and hung over, as we had unwisely and against some maternal advice, parked in a shadeless space. Happily I got to cure this with a quick swim in what must have been a lake just above freezing point. Comox lake is deep, and in the morning, so cold I had to insult my own manhood in various ways to make myself go in. That being said, it was a most invigorating experience that started the day off awesome. This trend continued.

After that kind of wake up, we partied through to Cumberland listening to some wacky German house music, and decided to take a march through town and check out the local scene. We ate at a cafe, where we met some locals who we would see again later at the bars. I got a haircut in the wildest possible place, pretty out of control. This woman was pushing 60, mad tan leather skin, tattoos, rotten teeth, all of which indicated the filthy mouth below the nose. She was really sweet, but crazy. Her shop was attached to a tattoo parlor, painted lime green, and seemed to be decorated with her life's accumulated useless trinkets, of which there are many. It was insane in the best possible way. She had suicide blond hair, two harley davidsons, and a tank top that said proudly "I only like boys with tattoos and motorbikes". There were two young guys hanging around, three old church ladies, and one random awkward gentleman, all seated on assorted zebra skin chairs, polka dot sofas or the occasional lazy-boy. These chairs, or course, strewn around the room in no particular order. She was awesome.

After I got my top cropped and Fabian successfully traded his Mexican artwork tequila bottle for a book called "edible, incredible", we left and wandered the town. A couple bakeries and a coffee roaster, some hip little shops, an interesting you-vintner, and then a trip to the coast later, we were in Courtenay. Courtenay has a cool enough main drag, a couple wicked little bars and coffee houses, and a nice area around it. We had picked up a copy of the local organic farm listings, and decided to go to a place called "Nature's Way Farm". This place is also a fruit wine vineyard, a culinary studio and a madhouse of cool people. We met first a former picker turned wine taster, who was awesome to us and said we could probably scoot around the farm for a laugh or two, the llamas are at the back. We walked outside then and met Kathy, who runs the culinary studio, called tria culinary studio. She was super busy and about to leave, but really welcoming regardless and interested in what we were doing. We moseyed on into the garden, which is impeccably organized and right in front of their blueberry vineyard. There we met George, the owner, who welcomed us to check out the property and see what's going on. They have a different way of growing strawberries, which was (I thought) practical and interesting, as well as light on the labour. They also have a greenhouse just for micro-lettuces(think botany meets "honey I shrunk the kids)and a pet llama pen. Random I'm aware, but no weird pet/animal could surprise me on this goofy island anymore. After we'd walked around a bit, George and his wife invited us in for some geoduck(pronounced gooey-duck). Shortly thereafter, George had to leave, but his wife, Marla, was more than happy to pamper us a little longer. She helped us out, talked to us, exchanged ideas, and ate geoduck too. All in all this was an awesome place that I highly recommend to anyone who happens through the area, they are one of the nicest groups of people we've come across. Can't say enough good stuff.





That day we also briefly visited "natural pastures cheese" and were denied a tour because we didn't book. That wasn't to stop us, as when we went out to the bars, we met a bunch of Swiss guys who turned out to be the cheese-makers. Funny how life works out sometimes. We also met some people from the local brewery "Surgenor", whose brews we shrewdly sampled the day before, and thoroughly enjoyed. After the bar we chilled out for a half hour with the security team in the parking lot, messed around and accidentally slept in a safeway parking lot. This sounds like it's kinda funny, but it's one of my biggest regrets so far this trip. Not only does safeway light their parking lots altogether too well(even for our tinted beast), the car is tantamount to an oven at 10 in the morning on hot asphalt. I have never felt so nasty waking up. It was truly an experience I would wish upon no one but everyone who isn't me. Hungover, dehydrated and possibly with a liquefied interior, I opened all the windows, croaked "water!" and promptly drank like three liters of uncomfortable warm water. I then spotted an exploitable light on the horizon. Starbucks. The water from their bathroom taps, which I drank in utterly unthinkable quantities, was almost raised to the level of a gourmet meal by my desperation for hydration. I'm done now with the hungover bit, but you get the picture, it sucked. We had a scheduled meeting at the farmer's market at 9am, so we slowly gathered our wits, which amounted almost to as much as somehow who's really not funny at all's wits, and drove off. Happily, by the time I got to the market my life was a little less painful, though that proved short-termed as I forgot sunblock. As we talked with Gaetane from "Island Gourmet Trails", I felt again like a small section of the sahara had opened up under my feet. Gaetane was extremely nice and helpful, and introduced us to a lot of the farmers who were selling things at market. We also met Adera from "west coast escapes", a TV show airing this September on what to do in the west coast or North America. Seems like a pretty wicked show, and Adera had some really good ideas for our own trip and was going to be at the same festival as we were the next day. At this point I was burnt and probably delirious, so we bought some 2 lb loaves of rye, some tamales, talked to a three fingered bison farmer, and then immediately ran to the van to get sunblock. At this point we saw the public showers. I knew there was a reason I liked Comox so much. Those showers felt like the were washing off the hungover idiocy that was consuming my life. I shaved, sang, and generally acted like it was my apartment. It was good. I know this sounds immature, but geoduck looks like a penis. Everybody was thinking it. I just had to let you know I know what your thinking when you see geoduck.

Salt Spring Island Chpt. 2

The highly anticipated sequel to chapter one has arrived. So as I've said before, this island rules. I'm gonna re-cap the cheese place with fresh photos and fun stuff here, so brace yourself. Salt spring island cheese does mainly goat's milk cheese, and dominate that niche in BC. They sell all across Canada, and make some really delicious product. David Wood is the owner, and used to farm the goats and sheep he used for cheese himself. Since the cheesemaking exploded, he has since dropped the farming aspect and concentrated on the brand.



He now phones in all the milk, but only from the mainland and Vancouver Island, so that's okay. Goat, on a rock, savouring cedar.

We also visited AppleLuscious farms. The name is really silly, but the type of farming they are doing here is amazing. It's just one gentleman and his wife, but they are rocking out the most hilarious chaos in the world. They just have shit EVERYWHERE, but somehow keep track of it. Most of the farm is impassable, and there is plenty of wild growth, which they actually encourage. They only cut back the most voracious of weeds, preferring to let their own plants toughen up by themselves. The orchard has a single winding path through it, with plants towering over both sides. Fennel 7 feet tall, blossoming roses, thistles and heart-stopping digitalis are all common sights. He does have more controlled areas for potatoes, tomatoes, and apple tree seedlings. His wife also keeps the front year of their house under a tight rein, though the variety is still astonishing. There was cilantro, wasabi, about 12 different sages, thyme, kale, chard, lemon balm and about a thousand other interesting and edible plants there. Getting back to the orchard, Harry can navigate and name almost every plant in there. The orchard trees are almost all of a different species from one another, and there is a duck who lives in their chicken coop because it thinks its a chicken. Really cool place, going in a totally different direction than I was expecting.

After those excursions, we decided to go visit the lovely folks at Foxglove for a couple days. I kid you not when I say they welcomed us like a family. This is sort of ironic because it turned out one of them was a member of my family. Not my direct family of course, but the story remains a strange one. So on the second day we were there, the weekly drive to town shopping excursion was taking place. Basically everyone goes into town and gets what they need for lunch and dinner, and hangs for a while at the internet cafe. Whilst exchanging names for facebook, I found out I shared my last name with one of the apprentices. There are only like a dozen people in Canada with my last name, so after a little question session we discovered we were second cousins. We've actually been to each other's houses and had family visits and such. Another great irony is that she is from the small family of my two parents. It seems quite likely I'll meet on of my 50 cousins of a bazillion second cousins from my mom's side, but much less likely that my father's dozen would have someone hiding up in Salt spring just hanging out and waiting for a relative to come along. Odd thing to have happen


Anyways, basically we had a blast at this farm, the crew was super eclectic, but everyone was cool in their own right and seemed to get along fine so all was groovy. Everyone was so welcoming and helpful and tolerant of our terrible farm work it was pretty terrific. We got to weed fields, thin beets, pick strawberries, thrown strawberries at each other, chase deer around in a Japanese micro-van, and generally raise a ruckus. I haven't laughed as much as I did up here for a long while. Michael himself is a really knowledgeable and interesting guy. He has lots of stories, a couple books, and a massive library in his head of different farming methods. I don't think he's doing everything he'd like to be right now, but he's clearly working towards a goal at a pace that is comfortable but progressive. He's been farming for around 30 years, the vast majority in California, and has slowly progressed into a bit of an icon for organic, ethical and positive foods. Quite a character as well, good sense of humour, if a little offbeat, but that's what it's all about.

Back to the crew who I can't say enough good shit about. They were awesome, and I hope to meet a lot more people like them on the trip. If not then I guess I'll just move to the Island and set up shop. Could be a plan. So we spent two and half days with them, cooked a bunch, learned the smallest modicum of a percent about what goes on in farms, and then left happy. It was a really fun and invigorating experience and so far I think my favorite part of the trip, though the competition is stiff. I really could write a lot more, but I think I'll stop there and take pity on anyone who didn't happen to go there, re-unite some extended family and get along really well with everyone.

Oh yeah, another bonus is that because I met my 2nd cuz again, I get to go Salmon fishing tomorrow with her dad(my dad's cousin), who runs a little salmon enterprise in Victoria. This just gets better and better.

Salt Spring Island Chpt. 1 (9$ Nosh #3)

So this is a hard one to put into words. Salt Spring Island is like paradise for food, with all the right ethical considerations and practices in place. Its pretty similar to Cowichan valley, only a different climate and it's an island off an island, which makes it a lot more isolated. That's a blessing and a curse for certain. Things are more expensive on Salt Spring, but there's less issue with the crazy tourist throngs and losing integrity. We pulled in on Friday before the famous Saturday morning Ganges farm and artisan market. Pretty wicked little town kicking it, and right on the main strip I stumbled on an Ottawa cook who used to work for my dad back in the day. I knew he was on Salt Spring, but had no idea he had his own spot there and was right outside the market place. It's called Bruce's kitchen, and like most of the community there, he's supporting only island producers and rolling a small menu out, mainly for lunches. We had a quick chat and then me and the German decided it was time to drink. We headed out to Garry Oaks winery and Salt Spring Island Vineyards. Had a couple tastings and a run around the Garry Oaks winery and then popped right next door to sample some blackberry port and a couple others from Salt Spring. We had a pretty good talk with the owner's daughter at Salt Spring, she recommended some stuff to do and places to visit on the Island and got pretty excited about surfing. After the wineries we got hungry, so we took a trip south to Ruckle Park, which I think it the biggest park in Salt Spring, and acted both as our dinner area and crash pad for the evening. It's a really nice park, right on the south-eastern tip of the island, and provides wicked views over the water. We jumped around for a while, invented a way to play chess with playing cards, and then decided it was time for dins. This one was a certified 9$ Nosh. Beet salad with it's greens and feta cheese, grape vinagrette. Pretty simple, but it was good fresh local ingredient and kicked ass.


This is also a crafty and highly recommendable way to shower if your in the woods.

After our little Ruckle adventure, we woke early to get to the farmer's market early, because apparently at this time of year there isn't enough supply for demand and things go fast. We also decided to get our lunch there, which was awesome. The farmer's market was really cool, lots of really interesting farmers and producers, bakers, tons of quirky artisans and their oddball creations as well, if your into that kinda thing. We also met up with Michael Ableman, who is a Californian raised farmer/author who now resides on a farm on salt spring. We'd been bouncing e-mails back and forth and he'd somehow convinced me to do a couple days of free labour on his farm. That was to begin Monday, so we had a day and a half to jam in as much of salt spring as possible before our internment at Foxglove farms. We ran around quite a bit, visited some really cool farms/cheesemakers and then decided we'd try the town nightlife on for size. For the record, goats love cedar. Like crack for goats=cedar, only with none of the recorded negative side effects. Moonstruck cheeses was kind of disappointing because they only have a farmgate shop, and no one was around to answer our questions. That's what we get for not phoning ahead I suppose. Salt spring Island cheese was pretty incredible, really a nicely streamlined place. That's where the goats appeared, and there was a chicken who looked distinctly like Donald Trump. Nightlife was nowhere to be seen, until we headed to this oyster bar called Moby's, where we met some industry folks, got invited to a party, and drank altogether too much to be in social contact with other human beings. It was a good and strange evening. I know this post might seem to end quickly but the next one is going to be awesome and the place I'm in is closing soon.

Ucluelet

Arite. Going on another binge here. I'm already a week behind, but we're gonna play a game of rapid catch up. You excited? I am. So we start.....

Ucluelet is just south of tofino on the same peninsula-ish weird thing. Sacha's place is kind of in between and off to the side. For those of you looking for a more precise explanation, read a map out loud and pretend it's me.

Ukee, as it's to be referred to from now on, is a pretty amazing spot. Its like Tofino, only less touristed and expensive. We nabbed a spot on the Wild Pacific Trail and slept there a couple nights whilst we traveled the surrounding area. We walked the trail once after we got our fishing licenses, trying to catch fish and crab, with no success. The trail thereafter became the spot for our morning run and our home base for culinary experiments.
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We did a lot around the area, but the definite highlights include oysters and crab. The shellfish out here is stupid, and when you catch it yourself, super fresh. Oysters we bought from the wonderful folks at Fishfull Thinking, a wacky little fish processing plant, small scale but super amazing people and super welcoming even though we came by almost at close. The largest dungeness crab I've ever seen in my life garaunteed. 5 lbs. Ridiculous, this this dwarfed it's buddies in the tank. Other crabs included in this production were the 6 we caught off the government dock downtown. 6 in one hour. Insanity and the easiest meal I've ever purveyed for myself. We made bisque with the shells, busted out the meat and made a crab and gooseneck barnacle spaghetti. It was pretty phenomenal, and the local bear population thought so too. Not only did this guy come a-snoopin' once, but I woke up the next morning watching him saunter around the parking lot nonchalantly like it was no big deal he was a bear who could kill me in my immediate vicinity. To be perfectly honest he was terrified of us, understandably I know, we are some fearsome dudes. I almost ate him.



Cool having a bear experience I guess. We also had an oyster experience. The lady at Fishfull gave us a dozen of the biggest freshest monstrosities that call themselves bivalves. They were huge and so fresh the stood out of the shell. I opened 10 of them with my beater chef's knife, and broke about an inch off the tip on the eleventh. I recommend investing in a shucker for all those who plan to do their own pacific bay oysters. I invested in a screwdriver because I'm crafty like that and can use it to fix our van door, which has been uppity of late.

We also skipped over the bay to port albion, which is a native reserve and has a wild pack of seal-hating dogs. Or just life hating dogs, I couldn't really tell, but they chase everything. Almost caught an otter. We just hit the dock to do some unsuccessful fishing, and basically these dogs were sprinting around and jumping in the water whenever they saw a seal. The seals, for what I'm sure was good entertainment and nothing else, would pop up and bark and dive right when the dogs almost had them, thus keeping both parties relatively occupied. I didn't take pictures, but I wish I had. We got joined by this little native guy named Robert who promptly announced to us that his dad was in jail and that he liked fishing. He showed us a few pretty useful tricks.

After port albion we broke camp and bounced inland, tearing back across to the east coast just as the weather started to turn. Quote of the day goes to the BC liquor store cashier in Ukee who told us that "ukee isn't a fishing town with a drinking problem, its a drinking town with a fishing problem".

Fire Oranges

On a recommendation from Cynthia, we tried these things....
Brownies baked in oranges. Pretty frickin' phenomenal. Just hollow out, use the pulp in your salad, then put these puppies in the fire forever. They won't dry out because the skin keeps them from losing moisture. The brownie gets wickedly incensed with orange. Fabian insisted on eating half of it the next morning in order to try it both hot and cold. Quality dessert. Take notes Jen. Ha!

Tofino

Though I'm still in Ucluelet, I feel it a good idea to pop something down about this area is general. It's been more than fantastic, and it also means I'll be totally caught up. So we drive across a couple nights back, stopping to eat our buffalo sausages and salad along the way. The drive was longer than expected, and we got caught driving at night. People who drive this often know its windy, high, seaside roads. Thankfully I was behind a psychopath in a budget rental truck, so I could just play follow the leader, and he was going fast for his size, but comfortable for our burgundy baby. Anyways, we got to Tofino safely. Slept, awoke, made the breakfast of champions in a seaside park, and hung out at the local market for a bit. Market was cool enough, but only one food stall, which was locally made bread. Good stuff.
We boogied on the double down the coast to some beaches. We went to Incinerator rock, but the parking lot was jammed, so I figured I didn't want anything to do with the beach itself, full of overweight tourists. We decided instead to head down the coast and see what's available. We found a brand new parking lot, empty as my soul, called, Comber's beach. It was amazing. literally empty for about a km, and flat sand. We played a little frisbee, ran around, stood in the water, tried to bolo each other with bull kelp, and generally got sunburnt. Sacha came and met us, then we went to Wick beach and I tried surfing for the first time. Its difficult, but even in failing, fun as hell. We then went to Sacha's sweet pad. Its pretty small and amazing and really far away from anything else and difficult to get to and that's what I like about it. The cabin is about 10x10, but it's in an area that people will probably regret not having purchased land on or around in 30 years. Sacha and her man have pretty admirable plans for their plot, it's gonna be really cool. They are also fanatical about surfing, so it's an amazing area for them. Sacha actually gets noticeably more relaxed once she's gone surfing that day. Then again, everyone else does too, because they don't have any more energy. I don't want to say my arms still hurt, but they almost might a little bit. For the record, wetsuits either make you feel like a cat burglar or a ninja, depending on your gender, creed, upbringing and mindstate.

9$ Nosh # 2 (Breakfast of Champions)

Duck eggs, hash browns, bacon ends and green onion. Farmer style breakfast. So good.

Camping Stove Highlights #1

Buffalo Sausages( fairburn farms ) with onion marmalade and mixed greens salad( alderlea ) and the view, or course, courtesy of my intuition and the province of British Columbia.

Cowichan Valley

So from sooke we moved on to the Cowichan valley. I don't know what you know about Cowichan, or what you think you know about Cowichan, but it is fucking amazing. On the drive up I was skeptical, but it is literally the best farm-filled area I've ever been to. All people who care so much about the product they put out, and also who have created a real community of interesting individuals. The people we met there were the nicest we've met so far on the trip. They kindly showed us around their farms, recommended the farms of others, and thoroughly made the experience way better than it could otherwise have been. It was pretty humbling in a way. But only sorta. Onto the farms themselves.....

The first farm we visited was Cowichan Bay farms. This place reminded me of my grandparents farm in a way. Lots of really interesting stuff hanging about, and all sorts of fun things to see around every corner. This is a shot of the shop fridge. Basically, there is no one on this farm, and the ducks pack their own eggs and put them in here. Slight exaggeration perhaps, but there was literally no people here, and the shop just had a cash box and slips on which you write the product your buying. There was a chalkboard with prices. Needless to say, we bought a dozen HUGE duck eggs and partied on. Just finished them yesterday actually. They were so fresh they still had fecal matter on them. Sounds delightful I know, but most of you probably have no idea what it's like to see an egg like that. These were a day old at the most, if not put in that morning. When we cooked them, the yolks were standing so high in the pan it was out of control. Also the yellowest colour on them, like a setting sun just burst in your pan. Fucking amazing. Sorry about the language,and to all you who are offended by it, think but this : I don't care.

After Cowichan Bay farms we went to the small seaside town of Cowichan Bay itself. This is basically the sweetest place on earth. So there's about to be some shameless plugs for local businesses, but fuck you I think it's cool. So this bakery called True Grain breads supplied us with some sweet rye. They mill all their own bread, meaning literally crush all their own grain on premises, and make their own flour. Then their baker makes, shapes and bakes the bread. I know, insane right? Well, it gets better. It also happens to be attached the the coolest cheese shop on the island so far. Carrying a lot of local and international cheeses, Hilary's cheese is not only an awesome cheese shop, but wouldn't you know it, Hilary is the name of the local cheese producer, whose farm is about one km away. He doesn't take visits, because he's such a raving badass that he does everything himself, so he has no time for savage and uncouth folks such as us, but the lady in the cheese shop chatted us up for a good 15 min. And gave us cheese, which was really good. She then pointed us in the direction of a couple farms and off we went.


So after visiting these two kick ass locations, we maneuvered our way around to Fairburn Farms, which is not only a farm, but also has a wicked cool cooking school/culinary retreat. Needless to say it was pretty awesome. But before all that, I had an impulsive moment. On the winding back road to Fairburn, I saw a sign for an alpaca farm. I was confused too. But Islanders are like that, they just get a kooky idea like hey, lets raise alpaca and water buffalo on our picturesque little slice of land because it's beautiful and we should make it quirky too. So yeah. There's an alpaca farm on Vancouver Island. It's actually a pretty large herd apparently. Like 65 head. We visited. We saw. It reminded me of my trip to south America, except that apparently the groomer had been having too much fun here. Some had booties of fur, others punk rock mops, and still others were unshorn long haired alpaca, rocking what amounts to a body full of dreadlocks. I wasn't too surprised when they starting popping off their alpaca noises with Jamaican accents. From the Island, boiieee......(don't judge me, the quality of jokes so far this trip has been sooooooo intolerably bad that they were good). Moving on from those masticating rock hoppers, we continued to Fairburn farms.

Now, Fairburn is kind of an odd spot. The culinary retreat and guesthouse beckons first, and we sort of just sauntered in, checking for someone to let us know just what is going on. Thankfully noone like that was there, so we just walked into the staff area and hung out with another two Germans (the island is swarming with them) who were WWOOFing there. That word means "Willing Workers On Organic Farms" and basically entails free room and board for labour on the farm. Pretty sweet arrangement. After not long Mara arrived, she runs the guesthouse. She was looking a little stressed and hurried, as she is leaving to Sweden soon for a Slow Food international conference. We chatted briefly and then we decided to wander up to the actual farm portion. Here they raise water buffalo. Remember that throwback? Anyways, this farm is a little more practical then those silly alpacas. Basically here they raise water buffalo for their milk and meat, and make awesome sausages and buffalo mozzarella. The mozzarella is actually made up north on the island, not on the farm itself, but we're going to see that place later so it's all good. Anthea, the principal lady of the farm, was the nicest farmer we met. Like so nice. A guy from the BC government was there, and she kindly ignored him for a couple minutes to check what was happening with us. Then, while she dealt with him, she told us "just hop over the electric fence and go hang with the buffalo". Sounds kind of daunting right? Well, I'm not so easily deterred by the idea of getting into an electrified cage with a bunch of nervous animals who don't know me and are well known in certain regions of the planet for their penchant for angrily crushing whole villages. So I hopped in. Good thing I did, these buffalo are super awesome and clearly have been treated so well they're chemical glands have been permanently altered into two states: "curious and apprehensive" and "your cool, pet me". So we jammed with them a while. After that we returned to Anthea, who was just finishing up with the BC guy. We talked for a little while, about her first herd, which was killed by the government for really, really mindless reasons. They had these buffalo two years, imported from norway. Then a normal cow from Norway was found to have mad cow, and all beef and beef related products from there were to be killed. Just to be clear, it was a Holstein cow that had BSE, and there has never been a recorded case of BSE in water buffalo. So they killed 16 of her animals. Pretty shite thing to do. She still gets pretty incensed about it, which is good to see. Anyways, she's doing well now, and was awesome enough to donate 12 buffalo sausages to our cause, which were delicious. That's a story for another post. I'll let you in on what we did with them later. For now, this is over, because it's far too long and I'm eating a really good muffin.