Bannock and sausage dinner

So after a brief stop by at Cow's ice cream, nothing notable, we continued on back to New Brunswick. We stopped again at Mitch's place for the night, but got home before he did, and so commenced our test oven. We had this idea, as I've mentioned before, and which may come to fruition soon, to cook a leg of lamb in a ground oven, maori-style. The oven is called a Hangi, and this first attempt was a blind stumble towards what we wanted to do. We dug a hole in the beach, the very rocky beach, and filled it with a big fire. We would have to wait for it to burn down to coals in order to start filling and covering it. In the mean time, we decided we should accomplish another longstanding goal, the mythical bannock sausage. Some of you may know of our obsession with bannock, which borders on a diagnosable condition. We frequently make test batches of bannock of all different kinds. Some work out, some not at all. The most successful by far was the BBQ pizza bannock south of Calgary with the South Africans, part of the notorious feedlot dilemma.
This was another resounding success.
Over the open fire pit, we cooked bannock wrapped sausages, smoked frankfurters, and even veggie burgers for Mitch(who only eats seafood). I personally think that is the future of burgers, but we shall see. I almost forgot, but we also did some firetop eel Kabiaki, with the soy glaze. Twas of quality, but unfortunately by the time we got inside after finishing the sausages, was cold. Nevertheless a pleasure.

The bannock dough is so simple to make, and so heartwarmingly rustic, that it suits the sausages perfectly. I can almost say it's like taking corndogs and upping the ante. The best part? You could put anything inside, including cheese, spices,vegetables, anything. So that was done whilst the fire roared down, then we wrapped a whole pumpkin in tin foil, just to see if it would cook through in the oven. The basic procedure involves a hot pit, full of tasty food, then covered with something wet that you don't care about much, before leaving it for a couple hours. Unfortunately for us and our ambition, the pit wasn't nearly hot enough, the cover not nearly thorough enough, and the pumpkin just too damn big. It cooked a bit, like the bottom three inches of a 10 inch pumpking were entirely edible, but the rest was varying degrees of rawness. The reason was research. Research, my friends, coupled with logic, is the way forward. Stupidity is to be left somewhere else. Hopefully somewhere tricky and difficult to find.

Upon actually doing some research on the ancient practice, it became clear that the heat source was never actually the flame. Though we lined the bottom of the pit with rocks, the maori use only rocks as their heat source. Hence why the bottom of our pumpking was cooked and the rest raw. It's like geothermal on the smallest scale possible. What the tradition entails is superheating lavastones, which reach massive heats without cracking, and quickly filling the pit with first stones all around, then a protected basket of food, followed by more heat and a damp burlap sack or other non porous wet thing, covered in dirt. This ensures steam, heat retention, and even cooking. Our pit basically consisted of one big hot rock on the bottom, our food, sticks and wet leaves to cover, and dirt filled on that. Not likely to work it appears. Well, I'll just have to try it again. Soon. In any case, the bannock and sausages were quality, and we topped it off with a little tomato salad. Nice meal, but the pumpkin would have been epic. In case you were wondering, I fed it to the sea. Not the only thing I fed to the sea in those couple days either, read on.

Toronto Round 2

So Toronto deserved a second round, which we happily gave it. After touring Niagara for a couple days, hitting the wineries, seeing the sites, and living the life of luxury, it was time to get back to the city. Toronto is massive, for those of you who don't know, and you basically start getting into 'Toronto' thirty minutes before you get anywhere close to 'Toronto'. I hope that makes sense. There were a couple people we had missed on our first run through the city, and it was time to get social. On day one we did got our beach spot back, and it was a little later than we intended, so we showered, relaxed a bit and hit china town for some cheap eats. I contacted my cousins in town, and also a friend of mine I haven't seen in a good long time. No sooner had we talked than me and ze German entered a fabulous dumpling house. This place was authentic, a little bit dirty, but seriously rolling and stuffing dumplings to order. I was suitably excited about what we would get. I feel it pertinent to mention that upon going to the restroom, I did have to stand next to several full garbage bags in order to urinate, not the most pleasant thing in history. Nevertheless, we had a great seaweed and sesame salad to start and followed it with pork dumplings. I don't want to say the dumplings were amazing, because the stuffing tasted of nothing in particular. That being said, the dumpling dough was amazing, the dumplings and stuffed and formed to order, and boiled right before serving. The dough was perfect, like a recipe I would like to thieve and have my way with. And by my way I mean stuffing some dumplings. And by stuffing some dumplings I mean with food products. Just thought I'd attempt dispel our societies collective dirty mind. I'm sure I failed. In any case, no sooner had we left the dumpling house than we saw a sign for "the best bbq pork in north america", a boast which we could not leave untested. We entered a small chinese restaurant which locals affectionately term Kum Jugs, because it's real name is Kom Jug Yuen. My cousin Matt met us there because he knew exactly where it was. He's also a cook, currently toiling behind the stoves at a spot known as 1800, for it's 1800 degree stove. We ordered a big platter of BBQ pork and chewed the fat awhile whilst waiting for my friend Allison to get there. Upon her arrival and refusal to eat some overcooked chinese broccoli in oyster sauce despite hunger pangs, we decided our purposes would be better served elsewhere. I really think Chinatown in Toronto is a special place, and one day I'm going to go there with like 300$ and a couple of friends and just eat one or two dishes at a bunch of different spots. It will be a festival of magnificence, and in all likelihood will result in at least one of us getting sick.

After Kum Jug's, our crew slowly meandered down Spadina towards my other cousins place, never knowing what was in store. My other cousin is Alistair, he's big, fun, intelligent and just won the Independant music award for Acoustic artist of the year. His band's name is Donalyn, and no girls and music agents(so many of which follow my blog I know), I will not give you his contact information. His house is right downtown in a wicked locale with a wicked patio, I was jacked. He even has a ping pong table. I'm starting to think I should almost dislike him on principle, because he's rocking out so hard. Anyways, it was great to see him because it's been a couple years and he was so shocked by my beard only one person has topped his reaction so far. We proceeded up to his patio and drank til members of our party slowly got knocked off one by one. We then went to a bar and billiards and played some pool before calling it a night. I slept at my cousin Matt's that evening, which is right near chinatown. This worked out well, as the next day I met with a friend of mine from childhood who is living nearby as well. Before meeting with my friend I took a quick run around Kensington and stopped in on Luis, the chef of Torito restaurant, who I'd met at the farmer's market last week. His restaurant is deceptively small-looking from the front, but it opens up into a large room, has a good sized patio, and a whole other dining room downstairs. He works with a lot of producers, uses parts not commonly used in north america, grows his own sprouts upstairs, and keeps a wicked latin vibe to the place, complete with gorgeous and attentive waitstaff. He also has a prep kitchen and office space upstairs, helping to keep the pressure off during the day. It's a really great place, well branded, with an interesting idea behind it. He has had to evolve it over time, and is currently planning some big changes, but it runs smooth. He told me that I was welcome for dinner anytime, and I should eat there before I leave Toronto. It was to be, as later the opportunity would arise for dinner, and what place should I choose but Torito?

Alex and I decided we should go rasta for lunch, and as such visited "The Ackee Tree", an all-Jamaican eatery in the heart of Chinatown. Sounds strange I know. It was relatively good, the sandwich I had was tasty, and Alex dined on BBQ chicken, which was decent as well. Alongside his chicken he got beans and rice, which was hilarious because he has recently traveled to Belize to spread awareness about AIDS and sexual education. That sounds incongruous but he assures me that almost all he ate while in Belize was rice and beans. We also had ginger beer with our lunch, which was so sugar laden it covered the spice of the ginger up. I was pissed. I love good ginger beer, I hate bad ginger beer. While dining on a late lunch I was also setting up a dinner date with Suresh and Nina, from Spotlight Toronto, who we had met at the Slow Food Pork Roast. He was really enthusiastic about Torito, and Luis had earlier invited us to dine there, so that was the spot to be. I do not regret it at all. The only regret is that I didn't return to the van before going to dinner, so I lacked proper clothing, hygiene and the camera to take pictures of the food. Also, I lacked Fabian, which turned out to be an issue, because he couldn't find the place, got lost downtown, and got angry. It was also raining cats and dogs, which I'm certain didn't help his mood at all.

In any case, the meal was most incredible, and the company was excellent as well. Luis really pulled out the stops, and we got course after course of delicious goods. Starting with serrano grissini with figs and olives, homemade bison salami, moving through smoked trout salad, stuffed poblano peppers, crab cakes,a duo of ceviche;one smoked one traditional, seared flying fish, braised lamb tamales, braised beef tongue and cheek, and finishing with churros and an amazing cacao flan of textural perfection. I was really impressed with the quality of food. The braised cheeks were a particular delight, the jus they were served in not too heavy and fat laden. The smoked trout was also amazing, barely smoked, still juicy and plump. Third highlight on the reel for me would be the ceviches. They provided a wicked contrast to each other, and the traditional was exactly what I was in the mood for that day. Again, the flan was also amazing, like phenomenal in texture and taste. All in all a great experience, and afterwards Luis came and sat at our table to have conversation and get in on what we were talking about. Topics varied, but always close to food. I loved the company that evening and really had a great dinner. Toronto is close enough to home that I will have to visit frequently and keep in touch with everyone I met there. After dinner that night I was as stuffed as I've been all trip, and retired, but not before getting some alfajores for Fabian from Luis. They remind me of Argentina, and that's awesome.

The next morning we'd arranged to meet Suresh and Nina again for Dim Sum. Dim Sum is an awesome sunday morning breakfast, and is a great tradition in general. Though Vancouver is supposed to boast great Dim Sum, there is also great stuff in Toronto. I know this to be true, even if I don't really eat enough Dim Sum to be a connoisseur or anything. It's just a matter of demographics and product availability. Either way, the place we were originally to go was shut down, so we asked a janitor if there was a good Dim Sum house around. This small, wrinkled dude pointed us to his favorite place, a block down and upstairs. We were one of two tables comprised of ethnicities other than East Asians, which is always a good sign. The dim sum was generally of good quality, and cart service is always nice. We were plagued by the perennial problem of overordering. What often happens in Dim Sum is that they send their first carts around, and then a second round with other different things. Now if you load up too much on the first round, you either don't have room, haven't finished what you have already, or are too full to order from the second round. It's a dilemma, and to circumvent it is to really know Dim Sum, because you know what you like and don't take chances on stuff that looks weird or just getting chicken's feet for shock value. I think there should be an Art of War for tactical ordering of Dim Sum. Volume two or something maybe. I'm sure it exists. Either way, the quality was good, I was satiated, and round two of meeting Suresh and Nina was as good as round 1. We got to know a little more about how they started up their enterprise and what brought them to the point they are at now, and exchanged some opinions on the best format for blogs/websites. After breakfast it was time for us to hit the road, but we said our fond goodbyes and I'm certain I'll see them again. A definite pleasure to share the table with. We were now to leave Toronto and visit another wine-laden region of madness, also known as Prince Edward County. Bacchus would be proud of this area of the world.

Winnipeg Proper

Winnipeg is a mildly charming city. It smacks of history, but also has a rough around the edges appeal that either gets you going or doesn't. It's all about how much you like feeling more muggable than average. We had a couple orders of business there. One was Ukranian food, another was the farmer's market, and yet another was getting our hands on the local fish delicacies. Lake Manitoba is massive, almost a great lake sized lake, in my humble opinion. Inside it's murky mysterious depths hide many delicious fish. One in particular is [ickerel, and another in particular is goldeye. Goldeye is most often served smoked, so we decided we should get fresh pickerel and smoked goldeye. There was a good fish market around the farmers market, so we decided instead of getting the fish and finding somewhere sketchy to eat them, we would invest in their deliciousness on our way out of the city, and find a more suitable arena for their consumption. We decided to visit the perogy house for lunch the first day, then split up and 'experience' the city before rejoining and playing frisbee on government property. Alycia's is "the most authentic" perogy house in Winnipeg. Authentic means a lot of things to a lot of people, in this case specifically that it was slightly shabby and dirty but had uncompromisingly amazing perogies. They were damn good. I also had cabbage rolls, which were less good, but still edible, which, judging by the interior of this place, was a feat in itself. They also keep a deli on the side, where you can buy most of the products they sell in the restaurant for home consumption. As Fabian took to the streets to absorb the culture of Winnipeg, of which there is lots, I was feeling more lazy and relaxed, and thus took to the library to read, listen to music, and catch up a little bit on this platform of communication that seems to avoid my catching up like the plague.

I went downtown after a short while, to catch up on the culture. Did a quick run around of 'The Forks', a port area re-designed for gullible tourists. It was pretty weak in a really general sense, without too much specific hate garnered towards any exact location, so I left. Rolled down to the governmental district and rocked out some serious frisbee on their preciously kept grass. We then visited a hostel staffed by the Australian bearded phenom, and showered for cheap because we got along. We also saw him the next day at the market. For dinner we did some research, and discovered that Winnipeg's best burger was nearby and supposedly quite delicious. Not so, but it was above par, and the guys had been doing it the same way for 25 years, so kudos to VJ's drive in for perseverance and generally keeping it real.

Furthermore, that evening we decided that nightlife in Winnipeg, though not a priority or, as it turns out, remotely close to as good as it looks, was something we should explore in the name of Canadian culture. After a run on sentence like that I generally like a short punchy one, like the following. Don't go out in Winnipeg. It looks like fun, like there are tons of people out there carousing and degenerating the fabric of our society. This is not so. It's mostly teenagers who needed better parenting. I was more than dissappointed, and actually decided to neglect further poisoning of self in order to get some sleep. Not a position I generally find myself in. I believe to this day it was the proper decision. Moving on.

Enthralling though Winnipeg is, we needed a change of pace, something like a drive across miles of nowhere seemed suited to us at the moment, so we followed instinct. Visiting the farmer's market and the fish market to ensure proper stocks, we pursued the quest of traveling across country in fine form. The Winnipeg farmer's market was relatively large and impressive, but had a whole wack of farmers who clearly order from sysco and repack into their own cases. It's depressing to see. However, there were a lot of good local products from good local people as well, so I can't hate too much. We picked up a few choice items, got there too late for the local chanterelles, and got on our way. We stopped on a beautiful plateau over Lake Superior, where we proceeded with an ambitious meal. Seared Pickerel fillets with yellow bean salad and tempura vegetables, along with some mini apples Fabian took from a mennonite village we visited. Don't think of it as stealing, because noone actually lives there, so it's all good. In any case, the pickerel was damn delicious, and a revelation, because it means you in fact can have good fish in the prairies. Thats news. We dolled the fish up with a basil and cucumber relish as well, just to round things out. Around this point we crossed into Ontario and therefore rendered any blog post about Winnipeg or Manitoba in general obsolete. I'd also like to mention that being in Ontario feels nice, which feels strange. Logically, one must asuume that Ontario is strangely nice. I think it fits. Either way, the future is big cities, bright lights, and cheese, so stay tuned for more adventures.

Route to Winnipeg

Though we circumnavigated Regina due to poor weather and no information, Winnipeg and it's surrounding area were a different story. On the westside of things, we visited a farmer we were set up with by Malcolm, of cow-slaughtering fame. Malcolm's brother, Tom, also runs a cattle ranch nearby to Lake Manitoba, where he pastures cattle in between birth and finishing. He has really interesting ideas, some sound opinions, and superb cattle vs. grass rotational system. It's something I've read about briefly in Omnivore's Dilemma, when describing Polyface Farms. He rotates his cattle according to the levels of grass going on, so that the grass always has the optimal chance to regrow as fast as possible. It's a traditional technique, but I know nothing about the traditions of farming, so it was nice to see in action. Tom also offered us delicious muffins and even lunch sandwiches. Highly appreciated. It was nice to meet with him and his wife Michelle and sit and talk with people about their business and what interests them most. Lucky for us it rained that morning and bailing hay wasn't an option, otherwise he would be out there wrapping things up with no time for strangers. Thanks to Tom and Michelle for their hospitality and baking skills.


After Tom's ranch, we thought hey, lets gear for a change of pace, maybe something along the lines of a viking village. So we went to Gimli. Gimli is the largest Icelandic community in Canada, and does it well. The weekend before we arrived was the Icelandic festival, which meant we arrived during wind-down, slightly disappointing. However, Gimli was still a great time. We tried Icelandic bread, baked for 13 hours and still moist as sin. We even got free pastries because the bakery was going to close soon. We also tried Brennevin, which is an Icelandic eau-de-vie, heavily spiced with caraway. Its good with iced tea. Long Iceland Ice Tea. Take that, Bobby Flay and your cocktails with dinner. We also had Pickerel and smoked Goldeye to take with us, and prepare as we saw fit. O yeah, and some white wine pickled herring, of which I'm not a big fan, but would maybe eat if it was an issue of survival. I guess that once upon a time it was. So we missed the festival, but still had the fun. Walked the beaches, went swimming and generally enjoyed what there was to enjoy. To round out the Icelandic experience, we ate a warm green bean salad with pickled herring, Icelandic Rye and pickles, helped down by a generous pour of Brennevin on ice. The day was still young however, and we made it to Winnipeg Beach by nightfall.

Winnipeg beach is a very touristed spot, providing the holiday vacation for hundreds of Manitobans who get tired of the city. Thankfully it wasn't very busy upon our arrival, and we swam, relaxed, cooked and even used the wireless from a hotel on the beach for free. Oh the glories of piracy. For dinner we decided that foreign was needed, as the beach has no real Culinary specialties outside of what we had in Gimli. We made a kind of sloppy joe burger thing with corned mayonnaise.

It was almost as good as it's description is useful. Basically we bought some wicked local plums, and cooked them into some ground beef with soy sauce and a couple other flavourful fixings. Spicy mayo with corn somehow reared it's head, which was promptly bitten off. After what was definitely not a health concious feast, we played a couple hours of frisbee, our on the road game, at which I have begun to excel. Post frisbee we took to the beach and showers to get nice and clean before getting to sleep. A small child said "Wassup fools!?" very loud, and that pretty well capped off our Winnipeg beach experience. On the road again, to Winnipeg.

Road to Calgary

So after many goodbyes and a final squeal out of Whitehorse, our long journey back down into the world of telephones that function and free wireless internet began. Just before hitting the road, we visited the deli in town. We had met one of the butchers there at the chicken slaughter a week previous. He was nice enough to show us around, the facility is monstrous, like phenomenally so. For whatever reason, the guy who built it decided he needed a facility that borders on a production only butchery. They do a lot of the meat for the hunters in the area, so it was explained to us that when season is open, moose and deer are coming in so often that the facility serves it's purpose. The Alaska highway was at least as beautiful on the way down as it was coming up. Stunning scenery and a really simple drive. We stopped in Dawson creek to have the car checked over, before buying provisions for lunching and dinner. Moving on, we drove over the border to Alberta, that is where the trouble began. We pulled up in a provincial park to cook caribou patties with a Chateau Lafite red wine glaze. We drove into the park, and pulled up off the road into what looked like parking spots, but alas, were we ever wrong. We had apparently driven "off highway in a provincial park" aka worthy of a 287$ fine. The gentleman who served us the ticket was lovely enough to give us no warning or just tell us to move the vehicle, which was so clearly pulled up just to unload it blows my mind. Regardless, we disputed the ticket and I've officially complained to both his superiors and the Alberta parks department, so hopefully his life is made more difficult because of his immature decision with us. I was astonished by his conduct. In any case, we cooked our dinner, which was amazing, for the record. And just for the safety of my neck and the continued respect of anyone here who likes wine, the Chateau Lafite was corked and good for nothing but cooking. Our trip had it's first bump in the road, which was annoying, but not the worst thing that could have happened. We moved on the Hinton afterward, where we found the travelers dream. Public library that has free wireless and plugs on the outside of the building. That's where I went on a blogging spree and relaxed for a day. Ate goat chops with sauerkraut. Surprisingly goat chops taste exactly like goat. Some people must love the flavour, for me it was definitely worth the experience, but they were so extraordinarily goaty I'm unsure if I would love a second round. The sauerkraut, also generously donated by Tom and Simone, was amazing and rustic and awesome. We got water from the local church, and moved on after Hinton. We maneuvered our way through the Rockies to Jasper. Fabian got hilariously angry about the park fees, because you have to pay just to enter, and it was 40$ for two people for two days. We hit Jasper, I swam in a glacial lake, then we made curry and slept. Bright and early in the morning, we did a huge hike, a little larger than we intended due to poor signage. Post-hike showers were in order, so we went to a local laundry with pay showers. Since we had such a healthy morning, it was fitting to have a few pints. We caught the World Cup final in a bar much divided between the impassioned Spaniards up front and the Dutch folks getting deeper and deeper into beers as the game went on. Spain won of course, but not without a good fight. We moved on to Banff post game, saw lake Louise and the many restaurants of the Fairmont there, then slept in a parking lot of a aboriginal museum by the river. Banff is an interesting enough town, but feels entirely soulless a bit. Reminiscent of Whistler, Tremblant or any other town built expressly for a ski village. From Banff we went to Canmore, visited a microbrewery called Grizzly Paw, hung around with the brew master for a while, and moseyed down the road to Calgary to start some good wholesome Stampeding.

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.

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".

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.