Windowsill ‘gardening’

16 May

Life is pretty great these days. The kitchen is full cooks, the restaurant is open, and I am back to daily bread baking – my kind of happiness. Today marks the end of a pretty much 17 day straight working streak. (There was one day off somewhere in there, but racing 4 hours to the city to run a half marathon and racing straight home is hardly restful!).

Today is my Friday, so life is that much sweeter this morning. Between work, wedding planning (4 months exactly till the day!), and doing a TON of yard work over the last month, I have a lot to share. But, I will start small. Mostly, because it’s 4.45am right now and my coffee is still brewing.

So, today I will leave you with a few ‘gardening’ successes of mine (thanks, Pinterest, for the inspiration!)

First up – instead of using the greens of green onions and then tossing the rest (in the compost, of course!), did you know you can put them in a glass with a bit of water and they will grow back, over and over?

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And here is a second tidbit of gardening knowledge (again, thanks Pinterest!). To start seeds inside, rather than buying those peat trays from the garden centre, simply crack eggs open carefully, fill with dirt, and voila. Instant, natural seed trays. Get them going on the windowsill, and when it is warm enough, crack the bottom slightly and plant. So fun! My tomatoes are looking great and almost ready for the garden!

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She’s baaaaack

2 Apr

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The Killer Flu of 2012 ran its course, and ever since then, we have been spending a lot more time in the kitchen refueling after the black-hole-of-chicken-soup-and-saltines that was March. We’re talking lots of bread baking, the best cinnamon buns you’ve ever had, and even a reverse wedding catering dinner….where our caterers came over and I cooked them dinner, while we all tasted our various wedding wines that we’ll be pouring. It feels so good to be back. The last few weeks have been getting more adventurous in the kitchen…. Now that our appetites have returned. And it’s about time. I am tired of potatoes/squash/onions. Bring on the asparagus, sweet peas, and tastes of spring! I have even turned the compost pile, aerated the garden beds, and am anxiously awaiting the last of the frost so the garden can get started.

In a somewhat kitchen-related topic, and especially fitting after the *whoomp whoomp* last post where I talked about missing out on the *perfect* job post, things are looking up. Not at all in the direction of where I expected to be heading, but I have learned by now that life throws curve balls, and it is better to play along than to fight it. My own marketing/content writing company, Benchmark Communications is slowly but surely getting off the ground. I have joined the local Chamber of Commerce, attended a full weekend social media marketing event, and am cracking my way into this town. But…at a slower pace than expected. I need more time to get established. A tricky predicament to be in at any time, but especially when trying to organize (ie. pay for!) a wedding just months away! And so, it is with much excitement that I tell you that I’m going back. (as if the photo at the top wasn’t enough of a clue!). Yup – I have decided to don my kitchen clogs for another season, and join the brigade up at Mission Hill for a second summer. In a way, it totally makes sense. Local food, good wines…. Why not? That is why we came here. It is hard only being a seasonal venture, but who knows. All I can tell you is that for now, for the next 6 months, I get to be in my element again.

Season one was pretty exciting. A Top Chef contestant chef to work directly under? An incredible kitchen to work in daily? Learning which plants in the garden pair with which of our wines? It was tough work, but so rewarding….most of which I came to appreciate after the summer ended.

And so, starting on May 1, you know where to find me.

Of course, this summer will be punctuated with dress fittings, hair trials, stagette weekend…a bit different from last year. I can’t wait! (but first, an impromptu trip to Arizona to visit my parents for a week before road-tripping home. May as well take advantage of the calm before the storm….and the cheap seat sales!)

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hibernation

15 Mar hibernation9

I find March to be so temperamental. It’s dreary, it’s chilly, and it flip-flops between those warm “Look at me, I’m almost springtime!!” days, and those “ha ha surprise, I bet you didn’t expect THIS fresh dump of snow!” days.  February is predictably chilly, and I’m okay with that. April is a sunny preview of what lies ahead. March – well, she’s a temperamental, cranky bitch. Already this month, the pruners have been out in the vineyards, getting an early jump on pruning the vines only to wake up to a fresh blanket of snow. I’m over it. Bring on summer.

It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Bernard and I went to Vancouver last week, for a few days of visiting friends and family, getting some wedding registries set up, and going tuxedo shopping with the groom’s party. All good. What we didn’t expect was to catch the Superbug of 2012 – a debilitating, horrible flu that smacked us both inside out and upside down, and didn’t let up for a week. It crept up really slowly, awakening with just a mild cough. I went about my day, and even made plans for a friend’s birthday celebrations that evening. Within an hour, I was convulsing on the sofa, riddled with aches, fever and chills. It was horrible. Bernard joined in the fun as well, and the two of us were quarantined in our house, taking shots of NyQuil and rubbing Vicks Vaporub on each other before an 8pm bedtime. If that’s not romance…

After more than a week, it lifted. Nutritionally, we’ve subsisted on chicken noodle soup, and my newest favourite, Arroz Caldo. It’s a Filipino congee (or risotto), packed full of piercing ginger slices, shredded chicken, and is thicky, creamy, and filling. After eating Saltines and green tea for days, it was just what we needed.I took no photos, and followed no recipe, but I promise to share the gist of it soon.  And so, a week and a half later, the hibernation was over. I had only left the house twice, and even at that, it was once to shop for medicine at Walmart, and a second trip to take the garbage out to the curb.  Cabin fever was at its pique, and I needed relief.

To top things off, just before the Superbug hit, I was called back for a second interview, for a marketing position that I was really quite excited about. I’d had a second interview, thought that I nailed it, and waited for what what felt like years. Finally, while in a weakened state of medicine-induced lightheadedness, was told that I didn’t get it. Overqualification was cited, which is a hard pill to swallow when you know you spent the interviews trying your best to be well-spoken, to draw on all the best past experiences, to really sell yourself. I thought the description was basically written for me, it incorporated every element of my passions…and in the end, they wanted someone with less experience. I’m sure it’s all for the best, it always is. But still,  it left a bruise. I was really hoping for this one, and opportunities don’t come around very often in this small town.  And so….the perils of March had hit, in a much more personal place.

With a weakened body and an aching heart, I needed some fresh air. Desperately.  The sunshine was calling my name, and I was in need of some quiet, some reflection, and some positive thinking. Doctor’s orders. I grabbed my camera, and headed out. Desperate for some clarity, some sense of positivity, some peace.

In March, everything looks like this. Brown. Unkept. Unruly. Without purpose. In a way, it’s how I felt.

This is a lilac bush. In a month or two, these lilac bushes will be stunning + fragrant. But right now, they are nothing to look at.

But if you look close, the buds are starting to burst. Up close, beautiful things are happening.

Signs of the spring ahead are really there, if you stop to see. Beauty is there, but you have to search it out.

Even the knarly, knotted cherry trees are showing signs of new growth. The delicate red twigs pointing upwards are all new.

I walked down to the beach. (It’s a bit blurry – I forgot to take my camera off macro). It was so quiet down there, so sunny and peaceful.

I closed my eyes and let the sun wash over my face. The cold air in the March sun is so revitalizing.

I’m happy to have taken the time to bring the camera along in search of some beauty. It’s there, if you look close enough. The fresh air, the sunshine, the quiet – it does wonderful things to a racing mind. The self-doubting negative thoughts were pretty much gone by the time I made it home.

But just to be sure, I did what any reasonable woman with an upset heart would do. I painted my toenails hot pink, I ate a cupcake* for breakfast….and I got on with my day with a renewed sense of purpose. The rest of the day, I’m happy to say, was a whole lot happier than the day before.

**a few days before, in the middle of our quarantine, I made cupcakes. We had both been feeling lousy, so I figured that a treat was in order. Nothing special, just some tasty coconut cupcakes using some coconut shards that Bernard’s dad had brought back from his last trip to the Phillippines.  I got the recipe here, from Smitten Kitchen, and it was a great chance to finally use the coconut oil  I’d bought at Trader Joe’s.  I even made icing, also using coconut oil instead of butter. They were delectable. Didn’t even take pictures of the pretty ones (I finally took a photo, of the last one right before I ate it for breakfast. Of course, it was the small one that was scraping the bowl for enough batter. Pretty, it might not be, but satisfying, it sure was).

Sunshine. Fresh air. Coconut Cupcakes. Pink toesnails. All the things it takes to chase away the flu and the bad days.

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How I Learned to Love Running

7 Mar

Remember back in the winter when I decided to run a half marathon in May?

I really wanted to like running. After all, it is a great workout, the scenery around here is stunning (including some perfect gravel running paths) and besides, it is free. The only downside of it is that I hate running. Yup…hate it. I like it for the first few minutes, and then it gets hard. My heart beats too fast, my face turns bright red, and don’t get me started on temperature issues. Too hot/too cold. Not a fan. Because it feels hard, I quit too soon. Or, I skip runs. Both of these, turns out, makes running even harder. When you run often, it is easier….or so I’ve been told. Never really made it that far.

But…I am getting married in 6 months, and needed a better exercise regime. I used to do the Sun Run in Vancouver every April (a 10km) and it was okay. In the years that I actually prepared for it….it was actually almost enjoyable. I am banking a lot on that feeling being my real motivation.

Enter the Nike+ running system. A wireless gadget plugs into my iPod, while a pedometer clips to the shoe. After a 1km calibration run, it was able to know my own pacing and could accurately keep track of my distances…or if I ran a certain amount of time, it would tell me the distances. Every kilometer, a voice will tell you (over the music) how far you’ve gone, and it makes going for a 5km or10km run pretty accurate. When I get home, I plug the iPod into the computer and the data uploads thru iTunes, and keeps track of run distances, pacing, etc.

Thanks to Nike+, I have actually learned to love running. It has designed a half marathon training plan for me, and my runs are booked on the calendar. Having it written down, on paper, has held me accountable to my training. In that sense, it is way easier than I could have imagined. Plus, it is pretty satisfying to cross those runs off the list!

I also picked up a better running jacket, and a headband (instead of a running toque, which was was way too hot). Oh, and a pair of slip on running spikes for those snowy days. No more excuses from this runner-in-training!
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(I have done lots of baking lately, and will start posting those soon. As of right now, I am couch-ridden with the flu and these photos were the only ones handy on the iPad.

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eat.drink.tweet.

28 Feb for-fb-150x150

Last weekend was the 2nd annual Eat.Drink.Tweet. conference in Penticton. I’d wanted to attend last year (but was living in Vancouver, so I held off making that snowy trek alone across the Coquihalla). This year, I was all over it. From February 17-19 at Okanagan College, I joined 80+ food, wine and communication professionals for a full weekend of social media bootcamp-style classes, along with plenty of time to network. For a bunch of food/wine nerds, myself included, it was pretty much pure bliss.

The hashtag #eatdrinktweet trended in Canada last year, and this year it trended in the top 10 in BC (which is pretty good for only having 80 attendees! And on the same weekend as Whitney’s funeral, which was accounting for most of the trending). Of course, some of the winemakers have massive numbers of followers on Twitter, so I think there were about 5 people who accounted for at least half of the impressions!

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I joined classes on WordPress, LinkedIn, Google+, and SEO 101. The WordPress class was pretty much all repeat information from the things I’d already taught myself, but I did pick up a few new nuggets worth remembering. LinkedIn, led by our keynote speaker Rob Duncan, went into the depths of the networking site, covering all the various ways that LinkedIn is useful besides just as a rolodex of your contacts. But my favourite class was the SEO 101 – basically, Search Engine Optimization for Dummies. I had absolutely no idea what was involved with SEO, and thanks to our instructor-extraordinaire Kazia from Crema Communications, she was able to teach us newbies the nuts and bolts of the SEO world in an ultra-condensed 90 minutes. It brought me back to my university days, scribbling notes down as fast as my hand would allow, and hopefully being able to translate some of it after the class to put it into use. The class portion – very worthwhile. Two Twitter-exhausted thumbs up! Already, I’ve been referring to my notes endlessly as I work to optimize my own Benchmark Communications, which is my marketing communications business site.

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And then the social element! Oh the wines, the food, the beer. Knowing they are putting on a show for some pretty connected people high up in the winemaking world, we were treated to some pretty stellar treats. Friday’s lunch involved a beer-pairing lunch with the Cannery Brewery Company (and they brought my favourite Blackberry Porter, so I was certainly satisfied!)….and then at night we had a live Twitter wine tasting, featuring wines from the Naramata Bench Winery Association, and nibbles courtesy Chef Neil and his team from the Okanagan Street Food.

eatdrinktweet 2012 featuring live Twitter winetasting with the Naramata Bench Wine Association

Considering how manic the summer wine tasting experience here can be, to get to taste at leisure while chatting with the winery owners and winemakers is a pure pleasure – especially since we live on the Naramata Bench, and call many of these folks our neighbours. It’s a wonderful time of year right now….quiet enough for everyone to relax, to breathe, to take in this amazing place that we live….and to rest up before another Okangan wine touring summer takes hold. It’s on its way.

So that was Eat.Drink.Tweet 2012. There were also dinners, panel discussions, and plenty of new contacts and friends. It’s hard for me to realize that I’ve only been here for 11 months. It feels like home, and with all the friendly faces I met at Eat.Drink.Tweet. made it that much better. Looking forward to more events like this!

cereal for dinner

22 Feb granola12

In my kitchen, there are three kinds of dinners. There are days that I feel like cooking - really cooking.  I put on the tea kettle, and haul a few of my favorite cookbooks down from their designated shelf in the kitchen. I can easily spend hours perusing their pages, jotting down ideas, cooking for hours. These  days usually happen when we are both at home, where we work together – as I cook,  Bernard asks a series of thoughtfully chosen questions to make sure the wine he chooses is the best possible match.

And then, there are the everyday dinners – the  days where I throw together a quick tried-and-tested dinner (pasta, or baked chicken, or grilled anything) – satisfying, quick, blah blah blah.

And of course, there are days where we eat cereal.

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Most days, Bernard works late at the restaurant, and he eats dinner there while I’m home alone. While I occasionally find it inspiring to cook for myself (like the day I made myself a souffle), I’d be lying if I told you that was the norm. Usually, dinner means a salad, or toast+scrambled eggs, or a sandwich, or  yes, cereal.

Just like making bread, yogurt and ice cream, cereal is one of those foods that I feel better about eating if it comes from my own kitchen. I’ve bought tiny, $10 bags of granola from the farmer’s market that taste delicious but send our grocery budget into a downward spiral. I’ve bought supermarket granola, so chalky and pale and lacking in every possible way.  My morning routine of coffee/browsing Food52 on Flipboard usually results in the bookmarking of recipes to try later. But on this dreary January day, their featured post – a  granola recipe – caught my eye. I have experimented with a few different recipes in the past, and while they’re all superior to Grocery Store granola, this one just sang of all things delicious.  Chewy/Crunchy/Salty/Sweet?  Olive oil and salt? Maple syrup?  Oh yes. This recipe contained all of my most beloved tastes. Before the coffee pot was even emptied, I had started to gather my ingredients.

The original recipe, from Nekisia Davis of Early Bird Foods, is called Olive Oil and Maple Granola.  She makes and sells this small-batch granola, and if it tastes as good as their website makes it look, we’ve already won. What sets it apart from other recipes is the liberal use of olive oil – which coats every grain in a crunchy shell of earthy goodness. Where other recipes I’ve tried have used melted butter, or vegetable oil, or no fat at all, the olive oil gives this a somewhat savoury, grassy finish. It actually tastes real.  She also gives a generous sprinkling of coarse salt over the just-baked granola – if there was a Nobel prize for Granola Making, Nekisia would deserve it. (I think Orangette would agree. Turns out she and I both made it within the same few days.  She just happened to blog about it much sooner.)

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I tweaked her recipe a bit, both in batch size as well as in ingredients. Mostly, because I had some candied ginger and dried Bing cherries  leftover from Christmas baking, and I could think of nothing more exciting than the Chewy/Crunchy/Salty/Sweet granola, studded with candied ginger and dried cherries.  The original version with pecans would also be delicious, but the beauty is in making it your own.  I made a big batch, and put half in the freezer.

Gingered Cherry Olive Oil Granola

- inspired  by Nekisia Davis of  Early Bird Foods, and Food52.

  • 9 cup rolled oats
  • 1 cup pumpkin seeds
  • 2 cups dried Bing cherries
  • 1 cup candied ginger, chopped
  • 1.5 cups maple syrup
  • 1.5 cups olive oil
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • 3 tsp vanilla
  • fleur de sel (such as Maldon), as needed
1. Combine the oats, 2tsp salt, cinnamon,  seeds + fruit in a large bowl.
2. Whisk together the syrup, olive oil, and vanilla.
3. Pour wet ingredients over dry. Mix thoroughly.
4. Spread over 3 sheetpans lined with foil. If your sheetpans are small, use more. You can’t crowd the grains. If you need to, bake it in 2 batches.
5.  Bake at 300˚ stirring every 10-15 minutes until it is golden brown and smelling delicious.  (Mine took 45 minutes.)   Remove from the oven.
6. While it is still hot, sprinkle liberally with fleur de sel. (If you don’t have flaked sea salt, use kosher salt or  coarse salt).  But if you have Maldon, or another good flaked sea salt, use it. Trust me. The flakes of salt will adhere to the granola as it hardens.
7. As it starts to harden, mix it every few minutes so that it doesn’t set in large chunks.
8. Store in an airtight container, or pack into airtight bags and store in the freezer.
Eat it for breakfast, for dinner, or if you’re like me, straight out of the pan while it’s still steaming.
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Maybe it’s time to get excited about cereal for dinner.

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relax, it’s only yogurt.

12 Feb

I don’t mind the regiment of the pastry kitchen. I find it kind of reassuring that when you do this, you can expect that. But the thing I love the best is that old adage about rules and the breaking of them. Once you know how a recipe behaves, how it should be, you can let your hair down a little. Freestyle, if you like. Make it your own. Stop stressing. You can start swapping one ingredient for another. Play with flavours. Do what you like, because you know how the original is supposed be.

This is how I approached the process of making yogurt. First, with the fear of a savoury cook in a pastry kitchen. And later, as I learned the process, I approached  yogurt-making with reckless abandon.  Look out yoplait, there’s a new chef in town.

That’s right. I make my own yogurt. And no, my clothes aren’t made from hemp.

Why yogurt? Over the last few years, I’ve tried to eliminate buying and eating a lot of storebought products that I can make myself. That seems like an obvious reason, doesn’t it?  Health and taste aside, the yogurt I liked to buy was putting a big dent in our grocery budget, and I wasn’t about to start buying any of those brands that list 12 ingredients in their ‘plain yogurt’ ingredient list. I don’t want to eat blahblahblahsulphides and howdoyoupronouncethatphates if I don’t have to. In its most pure form, yogurt should contain only two ingredients: milk + bacterial culture.

After reading a ton of reviews, I bought this yogurt maker. The ‘yogurt maker’ is actually just an incubator – it holds the mixture at a specific temperature for a set time. That’s it. After all, real yogurt is only milk+bacterial culture.

For the first couple attempts, I gave that boiling pot of milk my full concentration.  I was like a cook in a pastry kitchen – unsure, and a bit out of my element.  I was armed with thermometers, a kitchen timer, measuring cups, and a detailed instruction book (that is now unreadable after too many splashes of boiling milk have glued the pages together). I followed the directions word for word….and after few  batches, like a true pastry chef, the exact and scientific have become second nature.  I can now whip up a batch of yogurt without directions or measurements, during a commercial break, while chatting on the phone. It’s that easy.

Buy yourself a yogurt maker, and start eating the creamiest, most natural, most healthful yogurt you’ve ever had. You don’t have to like plain yogurt to like this. There are about a million things that you can do to flavour this yogurt, and not a single one involves that gel-like substance that yogurt companies hide ‘on the bottom’.  If I were to suggest that you follow a recipe, this is what I would tell you.  Once you’ve made it a few times, you can get away without the thermometer, the measuring cups, the timer, or the stress.

Yogurt 

(- makes 7 6oz containers  (*for the EuroCuisine yogurt maker)

  • 1L milk
  • 6 oz fresh, natural yogurt
  • dry milk powder (optional)
  1. Pour milk into a large pot. Turn the heat to high, and bring it up to a boil. You want the milk to actually bubble and start to climb the walls of the pot. Let it boil for 2 minutes. Turn off the heat and move the pot off the burner.
  2. Let it cool down to 42-44˚C  (this is about 110˚F). It should feel a bit hotter than bathtub water, but not as hot as a cup of coffee. You don’t want to kill the bacteria.
  3. Place the fresh yogurt in a bowl, and ladle in a scoop of the hot milk. Use a whisk to incorporate the yogurt into the milk. Once it is ‘dissolved’, add it all back into the pot.
  4. If you’ve used skim milk or 1-2% but you want your finished yogurt to be a bit thicker, you can add a bit of dry milk powder. This will make the finished product a bit thicker. I usually whisk in about 2 or 3 TBSP at this point.
  5. Pour the whole lot into a measuring cup with a spout, and evenly fill each of the 7 cups (without lids).
  6. Place the incubator lid on, set the timer for 10-14 hours (longer time yields thicker yogurt), and leave it alone.
  7. When the timer goes off, twist the lids onto each container, mark the date this yogurt was made, and refrigerate.

The model I have features dated lids. The dial on the lid lets you mark the date the yogurt was made. To use homemade yogurt as a starter for your next batch, it should be fresh, made within 10 days. I have had success with 14 day yogurt as starter, and the bacteria is still alive enough to make a new batch. Just make sure to save yourself one container, otherwise you’ll need to go out and buy a storebought yogurt, or a package of freezedried starter.


I like the tartness of plain yogurt. But when you make it with skim milk, as I do, the lack of milk fat means a very tangy yogurt.

Sometimes, I will mix a spoonful of homemade apricot jam into the jar, or drizzle it with honey. Maple syrup, fresh raspberries, blueberry compote – there are so many ways to bring the tartness down to a more tolerable level. I like to top blueberry pancakes with plain yogurt, or mix in a bit of vanilla and brown sugar, and drizzle it on a fruit salad. You can even drop a spoonful of jam into the empty jars before filling them, and the result will be a true ‘fruit on the bottom’ appearance. (Just make sure to leave one jar plain, as you’ll need the plain starter for your next batch.) After Thanksgiving, I used some leftover cranberry orange compote to make a tangy autumnal yogurt. You won’t be finding those flavours in your yogurt aisle anytime soon.

And that, my friends, is yogurt. 

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