Pacific Palate – More Mexican Food

Posted on March 20, 2006 by Don Genova

A while ago on Pacific Palate I featured some young women who cook the foods of their central Mexican home town in Vancouver because they couldn’t find a restaurant serving such foods in the city.

Holachurro Now a relatively new restaurant on West Broadway is featuring traditional central Mexico dishes…but the story has a twist.  The owner is an orthopedic surgeon from Mexico who has so far been denied the opportunity to practice in B.C.

The restaurant, at 3066 West Broadway, is called Hola Churro!  The website is still under construction but has some basic details along with the history of the churro and the spicy hot chocolate so many Mexicans enjoy.

Img_1417 Img_1412 They make two kinds of churros at Hola Churro!  The traditional narrow churro, which is extruded, deep-fried then rolled in sugar and cinnamon.  Yummy!  By changing the extruder, they can make a larger, hollow churro that can be stuffed with either sweet or savory fillings.  The machine used to make the churros is a specialty device that fries the churros at just the right temperature so that they don’t get too greasy.  Img_1413 Img_1416 They have a fairly wide-ranging menu at the restaurant, featuring freshly made salsas, many of which I had never tasted before.  The pulled pork for their ‘torta’ sandwiches takes 36 hours to prepare and uses a spice unique to the Mayan Riviera.  There are no soda pops for sale there, instead, owners Edgardo Gonzalez and Adriana Braniff prefer to serve healthier beverages such as fresh lemonade, freshly squeezed orange juice, hot chocolate made from cocoa beans they grind themselves, a refreshing hibiscus drink and a unique beverage made from rice called horchata.  The restaurant is very kid-friendly, with a separate play area monitored by video camera, where you can let your children play or watch a DVD while you eat.  Img_1418 Edgardo and Adriana have designed the interior of the restaurant to look as if you are sitting in the main plaza of a colonial town in Mexico in the 1600’s, complete with fountain fed by an aqueduct.  Their aim is to serve fresh, healthy food, so don’t expect the fast Mexican food you get at places like Taco Bell!

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All You Can Eat Nominated for James Beard Award!

Posted on March 16, 2006 by Don Genova

If you’re looking for the ‘Strangest Food You’ve Ever Eaten Contest’, click here.

Beard But more importantly, read this!  My podcast, All You Can Eat, has been nominated for a James Beard Foundation Broadcast Media Award.  This is my third nomination…maybe I will actually win this time!  This is the first year that the Foundation is recognizing excellence in webcasts about food.  I submitted Volume 2 of All You Can Eat to the Awards Committee, which featured an in-depth interview with Anthony BourdainBourdain when he was touring Vancouver promoting the Les_halles Les Halles cookbook and a documentary from my archives that profiled James Barber, who has always been an inspiration to me, on the occasion of the re-release of a series of his earlier cookbooks. Barber  You can read the complete press release on the James Beard Foundation website.  The awards ceremony takes place in New York City on May 8th.

The news today is welcome, as I received the notification after I flubbed my first cooking demo at the Chilliwack Humdinger RV Show.  I tried to do to much in one hour, and ended up making a mess of things.  Still, I managed to turn out two plates of a mixed grill, and the two guys who won the opportunity to eat polished off every scrap on their plate with much appreciation.  Tomorrow I will have more time to prepare and do more talking and cooking than struggling with opening packages and burning quesadillas!

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Food For Thought – The Devil’s Picnic

Posted on March 14, 2006 by Don Genova

March 15th, 2006: This week on Food For Thought I featured an interview with Taras Grescoe, author of ‘The Devil’s Picnic – Around the World in Pursuit of Forbidden Fruit’. Follow the link to purchase this book at amazon.ca and save 34% off the cover price.  Click Here to listen to this week’s program.Book_picnic However, you can win one of 3 copies of the book courtesy of Harper Collins Canada. Scroll down to the comments box and tell me about the strangest food you’ve ever eaten.  For me it was live, tiny fish doused in soy sauce that were purchased at the seafood market in Tokyo.  For Taras Grescoe, one of the strangest foods he managed to choke down when doing research for his book was deep-fried lamb intestines. Img_0173 They get wrapped around a grape vine before they are deep-fried and are served with a wedge of lemon.  Taras was also seeking to sample a serving of criadillas, or bull testicles.  He had a tough time finding them in a restaurant, although did spot them at a market stall. Img_0182

Hats off to Taras for being bold! Taras_grescoe

Now, if you are determined to know everything there is about strange foods and forbidden foods, I have two other books to recommend as well as the Devil’s Picnic.  One has a similar name:  In The Devil’s Garden: A Sinful History of Forbidden Food. Garden  Follow the link to order the book from Amazon.ca and save 24% off the cover price.  Another book that I’ve had in my collection for quite some time is Jerry Hopkins’ Strange Foods:  Bush Meat, Bats, and Butterflies, an epicurean adventure around the world.

Strange This one was published in 1999, so you might have a hard time tracking it down in a bookstore.  That’s right, click on the link above to find it at Amazon.ca.

Looking forward to reading your entries to the contest, which closes on Friday, March 31st.

Photo credits:  Lamb intestines and Criadillas, Taras Grescoe.

Photo of Taras Grescoe: Rene De Carufel

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Pacific Palate – Ebesse Zozo Hot Sauce

Posted on March 13, 2006 by Don Genova

Awassilogo3This morning I tried to render Early Edition host Rick Cluff speechless by plying him with hot sauces made from a traditional family recipe originating in Togo, West Africa.  They are made by Edmond Segbeaya in Nelson.  He came to Canada a few years ago after escaping political persecution in Togo. 

Img_1362 You can visit the Ebesse Zozo website here.  You will find more about Edmund’s family history and the story of how he came to make this award-winning hot sauce.  In Vancouver, you can find his sauces for sale at Whole Foods and Capers Community Markets.

These sauces are hot, but they also have a lot of flavour.

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Food For Thought – New Appliances

Posted on March 7, 2006 by Don Genova

This week I spoke with eager salespeople at the Spring Home and Garden Show in Vancouver.  They were all there to show off the latest and greatest in kitchen appliances, cabinets, countertops, flooring, and almost anything else to do with your kitchen.

Img_1391 In a first, Sharp has developed a microwave oven in a drawer.  This oven can be placed under your countertop, and opens and closes with the push of a button.  Cool.  Costs about $900.  Also hot right now are fridges that come in drawers you put under the counter.  A pair will cost you about $4000 dollars.

Img_1389 If you have $3500 to drop, and a spot under your cupboards, how about this stainless steel entertainment unit from Dacor?  This has everything: Internet ready, cable-ready, plays DVDs, CDs, FM Radio, can even receive a signal from a camera at your front door so you can see who’s ringing the bell.

Img_1387 Andrew MacDonald of Saeco showed me his new ‘Easy’ espresso machine.  $850, but it does everything from grinding the beans to brewing the coffee to kicking out the spent grounds.  I have a slightly less fancy model at home, and I absolutely love it.  Yes, it cost a lot of money, but think of all the money you save every morning by just pushing one button to make your espresso and steaming your own milk.

In this item I also spoke with Daniela Hammond of Valley Countertops in Abbotsford, BC.  We talked about Silestone, a quartz-based countertop material that can take almost anything you can throw at it.  But you know what?  If you can’t afford a new countertop, check out The Counter Guy resurfacing specialists.  They can make your old countertops look like new again by applying an acrylic coating.  And if you think that this whole idea of spending thousands and thousands of dollars on fancy kitchen gear is a crock, I highly recommend an article in this winter’s on-line edition of The New Atlantis. Christine Rosen has written a well-researched article called Are We Worthy of Our Kitchens?

And never forget…a good cook can cook in any kitchen.

If you want to listen to this week’s show, click here .  And if you want to listen to a more in-depth version of this item, check out my latest All You Can Eat podcast.

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Pacific Palate – The Return of the Slow Cooker

Posted on March 5, 2006 by Don Genova

Today I talked about the resurgence of Slow Cookers as a method of cooking and featured recipes from a book by Judith Finlayson called The Healthy Slow Cooker. (Click on the link to purchase from Amazon.ca and save 34%!)

Cooker I haven’t used a slow cooker in ages, but I’ve made 3 recipes from the book, all with great results.  Here’s the one for Apple Oatmeal with Wheat Berries, a great way to wake up in the morning, with breakfast already made!

Ingredients:

1 and 1/2 cups steel-cut oats

1/2 cup wheat berries

2 apples, peeled, cored and chopped

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp vanilla

3 1/2 cups water

1 cup cranberry or apple juice

This works well in a small, slow cooker, but I used my large one and just cut the cooking time by a couple of hours.  First, grease the slow cooker stoneware with butter, margarine or oil.  In the cooker, combine the steel-cut oats, wheat berries, apples, cinnamon and vanilla.  Add water and juice.  Cover and cook on High for 4 hours or on Low for 8 hours or overnight.  When ready to serve, stir well, spoon into bowls and top with fruit, nuts or sugar of your choice.

My new slow cooker is from Breville. The company is from Australia, and features excellent design along with sturdy construction. Breville I already have an excellent electric grill/griddle combination I use for steaks, breakfasts, whatever!  Anyway, the slow cooker is finished in brushed stainless steel and looks so good you won’t be embarassed to have it sit on your countertop, unlike the ‘flowery’ designs of the past.  That is, unless you’re into retro.  This one retails for about 50-60 dollars, with a 5.3 quart capacity.  Now here’s kind of a fun site from the original Crock-Pot company, Rival.  The link goes to a history of Crock-Pots, and guess what?  You can even order a slow cooker with your favourite NASCAR driver featured on the exterior!!!

Patty_250250_

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