The Okanagan Pt.1

Just so you all know, I'm writing from the Yukon. I'm not going to tell you anything about it yet, because that would ruin the mystique. I'd just like to let you know that I'm in the Yukon, and your not.

As another sly side note before the Okanagan saga beings, we did take a quick pit stop in Agassiz to check out a massize hazelnut orchard and a cheesemaker. Agassiz hazelnuts are pretty well known in food circles in Vancouver, and are pretty quality. Sadly the first batch of the year wasn't ready yet, so instead we sampled last years crop, which, though good, were surely not as good as hazelnuts off the tree. I'm not sure if that's a scientifically viable statement, but I stand by the fact that the ambiance of food makes a massive difference, and even fresh hazelnuts would excite me more than last years crop, regardless of it there is no taste difference. The cheesemaker is farmstead cheeses, known by me because of their fresh cheese, which we used to use on a dish. In a nutshell, we saw the goat milking facility and talked to a worker there for a while, met some sheep who they let wander around, got complained to by cows, Fabian got zapped by an electric fence,
and then we bought Quark cheese. Quark is a fresh cheese made from sour milk, and has a tangy flavour. Quality stuff. After that we got back on route to the Okanagan. It's a bit of a drive, so we stopped to cook on a campsite on the way. We made Quark, salmon and asparagus royales. Almost like a souffle, only without the souffle part. No rising, just setting. I don't know exactly what to call it. It was awesome, and we did some silly tricks with the molds and the asparagus, which was fun. We kept going afterwards to a town called Keremeos, which is a little west of our destination.

So a little east of Keremeos, there is this place called the okanagan valley, it's a pretty wild scene, some of you might have heard of it. It's been called "the Napa valley of Canada" by one too many people who are short on metaphors. I'd call it something much more original, like..."land of purple lips". Something catchy like that. Its a wine-soaked area, basically filled to the brim with fermenting grapes and big casks of heady concoctions. We started from the south, as close to the U.S. as can be. But not too close. Osooyoos is the only real desert in Canada, the second one is sort of this fake wanna be desert up here in the Yukon. I'm talking sand deserts here, because I'm well aware that the arctic is largely a desert by precipitation standards, and don't need any smarmy intelligent people looking down their noses at me for neglecting to mention that. Now that I've finished with that run on sentence, back to Osooyoos. The desert itself is pretty interesting, and has a huge variety of wildlife, like rattlesnakes and other small things that are more or less fatal to step on. I think I've decided to do more small posts about the wineries that include them all in one huge one, so the alcoholics among you will have to wait. Osooyoos is also home to the Nk'Mip tribe (pronounced enkameep) who are Canada's most economically successful band. It's no wonder, they clearly have someone really business savvy doing work for them. They own a golf course, resort, winery and are partners in most of the larger downtown businesses. Everything is pretty well groomed here and you can see that the city has some money. We decided to slowly crawl our way out, getting sunburnt and sipping vino along the way. Osooyoos to Penticton I didn't have to drive, so I decided to imbibe some serious wine. It was good.

On the way to Penticton there is also a town called Oliver, which was a landmark, but was full of nothing but wineries. It was like a metaphor for reality at this point, when the desert heat and frequent tastings were starting to take their toll. I took a couple shots in front of the sign and we moved on.

By nightfall we were in Penticton, and as it turns out, had perfect timing. There was not one, but two festivals on. Not only the intensity of the Elvis Impersonators festival was shaking the town, but also the engines of hundreds of hot rods for the "Peach City Beach Cruise". Needless to say things were getting out of hand. Add to that that it was Penticton Prom night, and you have trouble indeed. Surprisingly, we reined it in rather early and decided that if we were doing more winery tours the next day, heavily intoxicating ourselves might upset our delicate palettes. We did, however, wander around downtown and watch all the hot rod drivers burn their wheels out and get drunk at the beachside motels. It was something entirely too reminiscent of a movie, something in the genre of "grease" meets "gone in 60 seconds". The next day we boogied on the Naramata bench, visited a couple wineries there. Another happy coincidence occured before that, when we woke up not a block away from the Penticton farmer's market, which we happily attended. High notes include cool garlic and more morels than you can shake a stick at. We got some garlic and some really pungent parsley there. Sadly, though we asked, those secretive morel foragers wouldn't take us out. The actual reason was that it was their day off, and we weren't going to be there again when they were active. We grabbed a couple pretzels off a Swiss bakery truck, and some really nice tomatoes as well.


After the market went up to Summerland and ate lunch before heading to Kelowna by nightfall. Kelowna was a quest to find somewhere to watch the soccer ("Germany vs. England") the next day at 7AM. We ran around asking everyone we met until finally we decided to go into the Delta hotel to ask if they knew anywhere. Whitespot. Whitespot was the answer. I never thought I would mention the name Whitespot on a food blog, but there I go. Whitespot plays the world cup at 7AM. For those of you not so in the know about totally soulless corporate restaurants, Whitespot is probably the best of them. By the best I mean they do the best to attempt to have a soul. They do lots of work with convicts(read cheap labour with no options), big name chefs(sell outs) and wage enslavement. All jokes aside, they do a lot better than most chains with their size. They buy somewhat responsibly and at least act like they are trying to do the right thing. A step up from some. Anyways, the guy at the Delta called like 12 locations, and managed to eek out Whitespot. After that we had a pint at a local bar, local bree called Tree Brewing, and called it a night.