Don Genova's Blog

January 5, 2006  Wow, hard to believe I haven’t posted anything since last December, despite intentions to the contrary.

The holiday season was busy, even though I managed to spend most of it at our ‘country retreat’ on Vancouver Island.  I started thinking about my ‘resolutions’ for 2006 over the holidays, and even started implementing some of them before Jan. 01.

My wife and I are planning to go to Italy this spring, and although I am of Italian heritage, I often call myself a ‘failed Italian’, because I don’t speak Italian (other than a few basics of ‘hello, pleased to meet you, and ‘no more food!’.  My culinary skills in Italian are also lacking, so it’s time to remedy my shortcomings in 2006. 

I started with a traditional Italian Christmas Eve feast, which means seafood and lots of it. I started with research, spending a couple of hours on the Internet, and then poring over my Italian cookbooks.  An unexpected bonus was an old issue of Gourmet magazine.  I recently was given 20 years worth of back issues of Gourmet. (thank you, Ann!)  December, 1996 featured an entire Christmas Eve menu….so I used some recipes from that magazine, including a delicious canned tuna spread that is jazzed up with anchovies and capers.  Two other delicious courses included clams baked with an aromatic topping of breadcrumbs and herbs. The clams were actually easier to shuck than oysters, and I didn’t bother loosening them completely from the shells, as I figured everyone would be using a fork to eat them anyway.  They were delicious, farmed BC Manila clams by the way.  Another recipe from the magazine was for a fennel and orange salad. Fennel has been showing up in so many recipes and restaurant dishes lately I named it one of my ‘trend vegetables’ in a story I wrote for this month’s edition of Small Farm Canada.  The fennel is thinly sliced, covered with sliced oranges and chopped celery, and dressed simply with salt and olive oil.  The recipe called for some of the oranges to be the beautiful blood oranges, but I wasn’t able to find any at my local grocery stores then, although I have since seen them in my neighbourhood Chinese grocer in Vancouver.  Another dish I really enjoyed was a Sicilian preparation of mussels steamed with tomato puree and fresh orange juice along with a fiery hot pepper. We were lacking pasta, so I added some spaghetti noodles to the bottom of the bowl and we slurped away to our heart’s content.  The Italian vegetable rapini is served in many Christmas Eve feasts, but again, could not be found in any local grocery stores, so our main course consisted of salt cod cakes, which involved soaking dried, salt cod for 24 hours, a cauliflower, caper and caperberry salad and broccoli stems and florettes cut to kind of look like rapini.  This is where I think the recipes let me down, as I was less than impressed with the salad and the cod cakes.  Oh well, taste and learn!  I won’t bore you with any more details of food experienced over the holidays, with the exception of a delicious meal at Sooke Harbour House, where we spent our birthdays (my wife Ramona and I share the same birthday) relaxing and enjoying mild weather and ocean views.  The meals at Sooke are always an adventure and this meal was no exception.  Highlights?  The smoked sablefish, the crusted flounder, and the chicken breast stuffed with lamb sausage.  Kudos to chef Edward Tuson.

Looking Ahead:  On to the next year, and my attempts to become more Italian.  One of Ramona’s friends gave her a great birthday gift of a visual Italian/English dictionary, a guidebook to Florence and Tuscany, and the Oxford ‘Take Off In Italian’ language learning kit, complete with 6 hours worth of audio instruction on CD.  Now we have a way to spend our time while driving back and forth on the ferries between Vancouver and Vancouver Island.

Inspector Montalbano:  This guy is my latest detective hero.  He is the central character in a series of books written by Sicilian author Andrea Camilleri.  Montalbano is Sicilian through and through, and pursues good food with the same zeal he employs when pursuing criminals.  I have read two books in the series, The Snack Thief and the Terra Cotta Dog, and have the first in the series, The Shape of Water, on order.  I highly recommend them.

The other book I’m enjoying right now is called ‘It Must Have Been Something I Ate’, by Jeffrey Steingarten, esteemed food columnist for Vogue magazine. This is his second book of collected columns. (The first one is ‘The Man Who Ate Everything’)  People tell me that they want to have my job…well, I’d love to have Jeffrey Steingarten’s job.  Although I can’t complain.  I think my adventures in the world of food will be book-worthy one of these days.

One last note…my webmaster is away for the next month or so, but all the content you’re used to finding on my website will be available here on my blog, photos, recipes, links, etc.

December 6, 2005.  Congratulations to Dan Thompson and James Mourad.  They are the winners of the America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook contest.  Thanks to everyone who entered.  Be sure to listen to my Pacific Palate and Food For Thought programs next week for this year’s Gadget Gift Suggestions, and check my website for all the details.

***This contest is now closed to entries, winners will be notified in a couple of days.*****   

With the advent of food television filling our screens these days, more and more people are getting back into their kitchens to cook.  Sometimes they want to replicate the magic they see on TV, sometimes they just want to get something quick on the table after a long day at work.  What ALL cooks need is good information to make dishes they can rely on. This is a cookbook that can help you!  From the same people behind Cook’s Illustrated Magazine and America’s Test Kitchen on PBS, comes this huge family cookbook.

The man behind all this is Christopher Kimball.  I recently toured a cookware shop with him to get his hints and recommendations on the essential tools for cooking.  I have two of these books to give away.  To enter just click on the Comments section below and tell me about your most indispensable kitchen tool. Contest closes December 2nd.

Here are some of my favourites: 

Microplane graters:  I have two, one long thin one and a box grater with different size holes.  They make the shortest work out of grating cheese, citrus zesting, nutmeg, ginger and garlic.  Love them!

OXO peeler:  A nice, big rubber handle to grasp, and a sharp blade that peels anything.  A similar one is made by Messermeister and has serrated blades, great for knobbly vegetables like potatoes or ginger root, even kiwi fruit or ripe tomatoes.

My Global vegetable knife:  Stays very sharp, thin blade, all-metal design, excellent for working with onions, garlic, smaller jobs.

And before anything gets done in the day, my big splurge kitchen gadget:  A Saeco Vienna automatic espresso machine.  Fill it with water and beans, touch a button, it grinds the beans, tamps the coffee, brews it, and then ejects the spent grounds into an easy to empty container.  Then I steam the milk with the wand attachment and cafe lattes have never been easier, especially when I stumble into the kitchen first thing in the morning.  Expensive, but pays for itself when you add up all the large lattes you’re NOT buying anymore at Starbucks.

Nov. 22/05 – Vancouver

Last night I was honoured to be a guest at Rob Feenie’s Lumiere restaurant.  As part of his ten-year anniversary celebrations, Rob hosted a dinner celebrating this year’s winners of BC’s Lieutenant Governor’s wine awards.

Before the dinner, the Lieutenant-Governor herself, the Honourable Iona Campagnolo arrived and swept through a casual receiving line.  As I introduced myself she said to me, ‘Don Genova!  I’ve shared many a breakfast with you!’

I was very flattered to realize she is a regular listener to Pacific Palate on CBC’s The Early Edition.

The only downside to the evening is that I have a wicked headcold and could not smell or taste any of the excellent wines served!

Watch this space for news of another cookbook contest coming up tomorrow.

Congratulations to Joanne Harris and Vivien Steele!  They are the winners of new Chef at Home cookbooks.

Thanks to everyone who entered.  Please take some time to look over some of the ideas for meals made without a recipe.  Although I guess now that they’re written down on the blog they are recipes!

In case you are wondering how I select the winners, I count up the number of entries, then use a random number generator on the internet to select two numbers, then I apply those numbers to the entries in the order they were received.

Watch this space for future contests!

Cheers,

Don