Happy New Year, everyone! I had promised to put some photos of our Christmas dinner on the blog…but I have to admit, the results were less than spectacular! Just a mismatch of flavours and some bungled cooking technique. We had a good laugh about it and moved on…to New Year’s Eve!
Sooke Harbour House, was putting on a special meal and even a mini-fireworks show at midnight. If you’ve never been there, it’s worth a trip, even if it’s just for dinner and a stroll around the remarkable gardens on the property, which all yield edible plants used in the kitchen by talented chef Edward Tuson.
New Year’s Eve featured a ten-course sampling menu which left us full, but not bursting, in a well-paced meal with many tasty BC wines and excellent service led by Benjamin Philip, son of owners Sinclair and Frederique Philip.
Are you ready for this? (check out the Happy New Year Photo Gallery to see what these all looked like!)
1. Burdock and bok choy-stuffed sablefish, with edamame(soy beans) and manila clams, surrounded by an broth infused with spiced BC spot prawns and lemon eucalyptus.
2. A ravioli made with giant neon flying squid and stuffed with Dungeness crab, lemon thyme and celery, surrounded by horseradish foam and carrot oil.
3. Albacore tuna served on a hot beach stone with a ginger emulsion, pickled nasturtium tubers and a frozen sweet cicely root and parsnip parfait. (this dish was remarkable, in that the beach stones with incredibly hot, and arrived with the tuna sizzling on top. You let it sizzle until the tuna reached the desired doneness.)
4. Smoked salmon pasta, potato, blue cheese and leek roll with a Bosc pear, leek and Grand Fir puree, garnished with chickweed.
5. Garden Kale and garlic-crusted scallop with braised, smoked pork belly, a pickled egg sauce and creeping rosemary oil.
6. Cedar Glenn Farm capon leg and smoked goose breast terrine with a scented geranium and black currant jelly, scallion-cilantro puree and a Jerusalem artichoke croquette. (affectionately referred to by Edward as a ‘tater tot’)
7. Maple Wood Farm Lamb Loin and pine mushroom patty, with a turnip-wrapped butternut squash flan, a savoury herb fritter, meat stock and red wine reduction, pumpkin see and marjoram puree, and a beet and balsamic vinegar syrup.
8. Sooke Harbour House edible greens and blossoms tossed in a red gooseberry and lavender vinaigrette.
9. Green apple, Japanese plum wine and wild rose petal sorbet. (the flavour of the wild rose petals, collected and dried over the summer, was as fragrant and fresh as if you stuck your nose in a living rosebud.)
10. Finally, dessert. A bittersweet chocolate terrine rolled in crushed meringue, with walnut praline, chilled blueberry and sweet bay leaf foam, along with a pear and lemon eucalyptus puree.
The wines we enjoyed the most were the Cedar Creek 2002 Ehrenfelser, Quail’s Gate Family Reserve 2002 Fume Blanc, and a Mission Hill 2001 Shiraz. Not all of these wines are available through the BC Liquor Stores, you might try some of the private wine shops, especially the VQA shops, or contact the wineries directly.
The next day Sinclair Philip was off to Vancouver to buy more wine for his 30 thousand bottle cellar, but his wife Frederique did her usual Polar Bear dip the next day, joined by dozens of others at Whiffin Spit, just below Sooke Harbour House. Thanks to Sinclair, Frederique and Edward for making our stay at Sooke one of our most memorable New Year’s!
Over the weekend we also had our first substantial snowfall of the year in Cobble Hill, and while I was waiting for the plows to go by so I can get out and grab my Saturday edition of the Globe and Mail, I snapped a couple of shots of how wonderful our trees look with a blanketing of snow. The birds on our feeders were especially active today, and we put out extra peanuts so they wouldn’t have to scrabble in the snow. In addition to our regular juncos, nuthatches and chickadees, we’ve been delighting in the visits from varied thrushes, woodpeckers, flickers, blue jays and towhees.
We are NOT delighting in the visits from our very fat and greedy squirrels, who busted open the suet cage a few times before I smartened up and used extra fasteners to keep it closed. They also gobble up as many of the peanuts as they can, seeming undisturbed by the cayenne pepper I liberally spread over the peanuts. I read somewhere that birds lack the receptors necessary to feel the heat in cayenne. Our squirrels apparently are lacking the receptors as well! If anyone has any surefire methods of keeping squirrels away from feeders, I’d love to hear them.
I wonder what squirrel tastes like, anyway?
