Don Genova's Blog

Food For Thought - The Last Food For Thought

This is it.  After ten years on CBC Radio, my Food For Thought column has been canceled.  It's one of those 'CBC' things...where lots of shows across the country have used the program over the past ten years, and enjoy using it, but the department that syndicates the column says they're not really supposed to be funding me and it's time for them to develop new columns so something had to go.  That's me. If you have something to say about the cancellation you can email the CBC Radio Syndication department at radiosyndication@cbc.ca.

If you want to listen to my 'audio retrospective' of the column, please click here.   In the meantime, if you want to hear new food programming I produce, please go to my 'All You Can Eat' podcast page and subscribe by clicking on the 'Subscribe to My Feed' button beside any podcast you see listed there.  There are full instructions available once you click, and for the most ease, open the subscription link in Internet Explorer, and not Firefox.  Meanwhile, now that my regular relationship with CBC has come to an end, I'm seeking sponsors for my podcast, which reaches a wide audience across North America with thousands of downloads each month.  Email me at don at don genova dot com for details if you are interested.

Meanwhile, life goes on.  I have just inked an agreement with FoodTV.ca, the website of Food Network Canada.  I will be a guest blogger for the website, writing short bulletins about interesting West Coast restaurants and food happenings.  I'll post here when the Food Network posts my posts...gee, that's a lot of posting.  Curiously, the name of one of the FoodTV.ca blogs is 'Food For Thought'.  Well, I knew that name wasn't original when I started using it ten years ago!

Food For Thought - Clam Digging, Ebb and Flow

This week on Food For Thought, clam digging on Salt Spring Island with the author of a book about tides, Tom Koppel.  You can see more photos  on my Facebook photo album.  To listen to Tom mucking about with the shovel and explaining how important tides have been to his life, click here.

Tom's book is called Ebb and Flow, Tides and Life on Our Once and Future Planet. It's a fascinating look at tides from many different historical, scientific, and yes, food angles.  You can order it from amazon.ca and save 37% by clicking on the link above.

Food For Thought - Fruit Trees

This week, a visit to a fruit tree nursery called Fruit Trees and More, near Sidney, BC, where Bob and Verna Duncan grow more than 200 varieties of apples, along with almost any other kind of temperate fruit tree you can think of.  Then there are the sub-tropicals, such as the grapefruit you see here, lemons, limes, oranges, even pomelos. 

Did I forget to mention the olive trees?  Yes, in this part of Canada you can produce fruit from Mediterranean-origin trees.  To listen to our conversation and some tips about what you need to think about when planning to plant fruit trees, click here.

Food For Thought - Chef Expands Casual Empire

This week on Food For Thought, a brief profile of Wayne Martin, former executive chef at the Four Seasons Hotel in Vancouver.  He left that lofty position to open Crave, a casual restaurant on Vancouver's East Side.  It was a great success, and now he has a new venture called Fraiche, in the lofty heights of West Vancouver's British Properties neighbourhood.

Here is the audio file for your listening pleasure.

 

Photos reproduced here taken by Dean Sanderson.

 

Fraîche

2240 Chippendale Road

West Vancouver, BC

T: 604.925.7595

Directions:  Going north, take the West Vancouver exit off the Lion’s Gate Bridge and turn right onto Taylor Way up the hill to the Upper Levels Highway. Turn left at the highway going West and take the 21^st Street exit. Turn right onto 21^st Street (which is actually Westhill) and follow up Westhill through the residential area till Chippendale Road at the top. Turn left and drive approximately 4 to 5 blocks. 

Free underground parking below the restaurant or street parking

 

Food For Thought - Buying Local Food

This week on Food For Thought a visit to a Culinary Tourism Conference yielded some interesting info on companies and individuals trying to make it easier for consumers, chefs and other food service operators to get access to local produce and value-added products.

You can listen to the 6 minute documentary by clicking here.  At the end of the documentary I mentioned that now is the time of year to start contacting farmers or co-ops that offer Community Supported Agricultural programs, or CSAs.  Most of these programs match you up with a farmer who will deliver a box of goods from their gardens throughout their growing season.  For some general information about how CSAs work, you can visit this USDA website.

After the column aired today, I heard about one such program from a listener in Chase, BC.  It's called the Heartland Foods and Farm Tours Cooperative. There is also one at the UBC Farm.  In the Kootenays, click  here. For a listing of some Ontario programs click here.  You can find some biodynamic CSA programs across Canada at this site.

Don't forget farmers markets.  Some run year round, others will start in the spring.  Go to this Google Search page and you'll find lots of references to farmers markets across Canada.

Food For Thought - Healthy Books?

This week on Food For Thought, a gentle criticism of the many books out there that purport to get you thin, healthy or save your life.  I concentrate on two that I think offer fairly no-nonsense straight-ahead advice. They include Norene's Healthy Kitchen by Norene Gilletz and In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan.  A complete list of books and links coming soon, but in the meantime you can listen to the audio file by clicking here.

Food For Thought - Rob Feeenie Joins Cactus Club

This week on Food For Thought, the story of Vancouver chef Rob Feenie's career and how this one-time Iron Chef champion is now the 'food concept architect' for Cactus Club Cafes. Read the press release at the company website while you listen to the mp3 of the 5-minute documentary by clicking here .

Food For Thought - Big Leaf Maple Syrup

This week on Food For Thought, a taste of Big Leaf Maple Syrup,  produced mainly on Vancouver Island.  Here is an mp3 audio file for your listening pleasure.  Here is an article explaining some of the research being done in this area.

The first ever Big Leaf Maple Syrup Festival held near Duncan was a roaring success.  I got to try 15 different locally-produced syrups, and there were some real standouts, including the winner from Lawrence Lampson of Glenora Farms.  He sold out of everything he had brought to the festival, but you might want to check to see if he has any more for sale.  At left you can see one of the 'Sapsuckers', the local maple syrup producers' club, pouring sap into an evaporator.  Depending on the sugar content of the sap, it may take up to 70 litres of sap to create one litre of syrup.

Here is Paul Minvielle of Saltspring Island showing people how to tap maple trees to collect the sap.  If you are interested you can find supplies and more information at Atkinson Maple Syrup Supplies.

Food For Thought - Food Culture

This week on Food For Thought, a look at Canadian food culture through the eyes of three top Vancouver chefs, Rob Feenie, Greg Hook and Dennis Green.  Listen to the audio file here.  Funny, both Rob Feenie and Greg Hook listed Kraft Dinner as one of their favourable childhood food memories.  I also spoke about a unique theatre group in the interior of BC, Enderby, to be precise.  The Runaway Moon Theatre company has been working on a project for the past two years called 'Food For Thought'!  They don't think they stole the name from me...

Runaway Moon General Manager Jaci Metivier sent me an email about the project: 

It's a rather sprawling, mix of community art-making sessions, seasonal outdoor "spectacle" performances, fabulous food made by local artist/cooks and a catalogue/cookbook. We've had as our themes, squash, summer vegetables, corn, apples and potatoes, and community participants have made processional banners, huge vegetable ribbons that are woven into a tablecloth, potato print napkins, beaded apples, and corn "kernels of truth".

Now that's what I call 'food culture'.  Fantastic!

Food For Thought - Sake Making

Sorry for the late posting on last week's column, but here is the information at last.  Pictured at left is Masa Shiroki, who with the help of Cassandra Anderton, is serving guests a taste of freshly pressed sake, fermented rice wine that has been stewing away in a tank for 25 days.  Masa is Canada's only artisan sake maker, and just celebrated his first anniversary of operations at his small facility on Vancouver's Granville Island.  You can listen to the audio of my documentary by clicking here.

This is the press where sacks of the fermented rice are placed.  Then a heavy weight is placed on top to squeeze out the fresh sake.  The unfiltered sake is light and refreshing, not like the low-quality stuff I drank hot when I was in university!  This is best served chilled.

Visit Masa's website for much more information.