I bought two pounds of octopus from The Daily Catch on Commercial Drive (took about 20 minutes to defrost) and it served 8 guests.
I just happened to have a pomegranate on hand and a few sprigs or arugula in the garden. My dinner guests loved it (or so they said) so I thought you might too. Two packages of octopus only cost $20.
Cool the tentacles, brush with a little olive oil, and chuck them on the BBQ for a few minutes.
After cooking for a living and running a busy film catering company for a few decades I figured I knew every tip and trick in the book-- until I took my first cooking class. I’m not talking about cooking classes where “culinebrities” lecture and demo a few recipes from their latest cookbook. Or where chefs intimidate and impress with recipes you’ll never replicate, let alone spell, like they do on some Food Network shows. I am referring to the hands-on cooking schools, where you don an apron, roll up your sleeves and do the work.
Well, not quite all the work. There are kitchen fairies. At every cooking class I attended, the ingredients were measured and laid out at your cooking station beforehand, and your hands never entered the dishpit. Regardless, it’s so rewarding when your next dinner guests are impressed by your culinary prowess. Learning in a hands-on class sticks to you like flour to melted butter.
Of course you need a certain amount of charisma to keep a group of people engaged for several hours and at the same time safe around sharp instruments and boiling cauldrons, and the following chefs have it---without any screaming and yelling or kitchen nightmares.
A Vancouver gastropub lets you eat and drink for free (but, yes, there’s a catch)
THE GLOBE AND MAIL: Come for the food, stay for the banter.
Fifty hungry diners take their seats at a 12-metre-long community table, eager to see what chef Paul Haldane has in-store. But before they can dig in, they roll up their sleeves – and pit about 450 kilograms of fruit.
It’s all part of the Irish Heather’s Pit for Your Supper series, which gives patrons a free dinner and beer in exchange for manual labour.
“It’s been a runaway success – and it’s my cheapness coming out in me,” owner Sean Heather says with a laugh.
Like most restaurants, the Gastown gastropub buys fruit from wholesalers. To buy directly from an orchard, say, would be costprohibitive – unless free labour is involved. But Heather listens to his customers: They want to eat local and know where their food is from. So he came up with a compromise.
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After a two-hour taxi ride south (and a pit stop at Border for extremely tasty jerk chicken and requisite Red Stripe) along a two-lane road with scenery becoming more jungle-like, I arrived at Treasure Beach and Jakes Resort, a colony of 30 artsy-funky “cottages” dotted about spacious grounds that includes a salt-water pool, two restaurants and dare I say, wireless internet access. (I’d vowed not to go there.) Miss Yvonne, the manager, welcomed with ice-cold towels and fresh-squeezed watermelon juice. I noticed a sign in the lobby: “Support your local farmer.” This was my kind of place.
Scotchies, Montego Bay
I’d worked up an appetite after all that fluttering so we pulled into Scotchies, arguably serving up the best jerk chicken in the world. Half a chicken with a side of festival—deep fried dough--will set you back $7.50. “The chicken is so fresh and the balance of spices, just the right amount of Scotch bonnet, is perfect,” said Shaun Verespej, a chef from Austen,Texas. The chicken is pink inside, something no chef here could get away with.
Everything comes wrapped in tin foil, on styro plates and plastic cutlery. “I ‘m going to put this on my menu; I knew about jerk chicken but didn’t know how to do it, until now.”Continue Reading
Pack lightly and bring a GPS unit to fully explore this offbeat trail.
Move over West Coast Trail, the Sunshine Coast Trail (SCT) has way more to offer to hikers. For starters, it’s twice as long (188 km, compared to 77 km) so you won’t be jockeying for trail space. And unlike Vancouver Island’s West Coast Trail (which was established in 1907 to help rescue shipwrecked sailors whose vessels sank off the coastline) you don’t have to apply and pay for a permit to hike it—you can go whenever and wherever you want.
Powell River is the stepping-off point to the SCT. With the exception of downhill skiing, “Powell Riviera” (as it’s fondly called by residents) seems to have it all, and the town is drenched in history—from the Patricia Theatre that opened its doors in 1913 to the nearly 400 heritage buildings neighboring the paper mill.
THE TRAILS
Waterfall thru new lens
On my first visit to Powell River, I took a four-hour outdoor photography course with resident Darren Robinson. We hiked the Appleton Creek Trail and shot one waterfall after another.
When someone shows you how to look at something in a different light, from another angle, it's amazing what you can see. And I finally figured out how to shoot on the manual setting. Darren's classes are popular with teens and adults of all ages.
"If you hike to Fairview Bay - which should have been named Oyster Bay - all you'll need is an oyster shucker and beverage of choice," said Eagle Walz, laughing. The shelters also have barbecue pits and (when I was there) firewood. Free! And if you go during mushroom season, chanterelles abound!
Chanterelle saute
The Trinket Trail
One of the most popular family activities is hiking the Trinket Trail, essentially a free outdoor treasure hunt for kids of all ages. It’s mined with small toys left by residents and visitors alike, and has quickly become a popular geocaching hunt.
All you need is a GPS unit and go to geocaching.com, and look up different sites by region, area or city. It will give you the coordinates and a clue, such as “look under a rock that has a painted circle.”
“My family sees the Trinket Trail as one giant geo-cache where trinkets hang in trees and hide in woody stumps,” said resident Darren Robinson. “For my kids, it’s as exciting as Disneyland. My four-year-old daughter Sadie spotted Big Bird right away, then we came upon a treasure trove of trinkets—they’re everywhere.”
About 2.5 km along the trinket trail you can’t miss Troll Alley; there are literally dozens of the funky hairy toys hanging from branches and wedged into trees and moss. The entire Trinket Trail is a 5.5 km round trip and begins just off Southview Road, all the way up to the Bunster Bluffs and back again. Give yourself three to four hours for this hike. Continue Reading
