Pacific Palate - Cherry Blossom Festival

Tuesday morning on Pacific Palate I talked about the First Annual Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival.  Thanks to Paul Schellenberg, the festival's marketing director, for coming in and bringing in the special bento box picnic that is being offered for a great price of $10 during the celebrations.

Where there's a festival, there's food.  In Tokyo, where celebrating the cherry blossom is an ancient tradition, some vendors sell takoyaki, fried balls of octopus. Here is one vendor skilfully turning the takoyaki in their special cooking mold so that they cook evenly.

If you want to see how cherry blossoms can be used in restaurant meals, this time of year sushi master Tojo uses blossoms at his restaurant.

This is your last week to enter my 'What's the Strangest Food You've Ever Eaten?' contest, with copies of Taras Grescoe's 'The Devil's Picnic' up for grabs as prizes.  To view the contest page, click here.