Canning Cabbage Part 2 – Sauerkraut

Shawn 1 Comment

A full three quarters of a mightily dense cabbage head remains in the fridge so my Mason jar odyssey continues. First came the Korean kimchee, then the Mexican curtido and now I’m going to finish off this great green beast by hacking it up, salting and fermenting it as a classic Northern European sauerkraut.

Now what we in America refer to with the blanket term of “sauerkraut” actually is part of a great Germanic-Scandanavian tradition of fermenting vegetables to keep during hard times thought to have originated in the Eurasian Steppes and spread by marauding tribes such as the Huns, Tartars and Mongols. Nowadays the name is synonymous with Germany, its culture and culinary traditions. Read More

Canning Cabbage Part 1 – Curtido

Shawn 4 Comments

I found another post-Halloween head in my fridge. Unlike last time this particular head was never part of a large fish, it was pulled from the loamy back yard of my friends ‘n co-workers Cara and Karlee and gifted to me. It is a head of cabbage, and it’s not alone. I still had half a head in there from our last trip to the Willows Market. That’s over ten pounds of cabbage total!

Now I’m more used to cooking with members of the Chinese cabbage family, which are on average much more delicate, sweet and melt away at the hint of heat and salt. I can steam or stir fry pretty much any Choy in big chunks, but not so with these two bowling balls… These Celtic cabbages need to be sliced super fine and require time ‘n technique to get ‘em soft ‘n sweet. Read More

2018 Autumn BC Beer List

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It’s been almost a year since my last beer list and the landscape of my local liquor store has once again reconfigured Matrix-style to suit the tastes ‘n times.  I’m happy to report that the BC craft beer industry in general has mostly marched past the pumpkin spice frenzy of Octobers past (only counted two!) and has focused on more quality-crafted brews with, say a new strain of hops standing in for what used to be a lot of guava and Vanilla-Rooibis nonsense. Read More

Beef Stew!

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[This is a very special guest recipe that my good buddy, fellow cook and hilarious Podcaster Jess shared way back in October of 2016 for our now-defunct Brotherhood of Bacon website. Though that concept now lies in the ditch of the information superhighway it produced this great recipe, one that I followed last night with phenomenal results! It’s the perfect one-pot-wonder to cook on a chilly Autumn night.]

Hey there, I’ve recently moved! Therefore I get the fantastic task of building a new kitchen from the ground up! (I discovered I didn’t have much in the way of essentials) So here’s a guide to one of the first recipes I cranked out in my new tiny kitchen wonderland! I’m a big fan of soups, stews, curries, or anything that sits on the stove top for a while, they warm the house up, and makes it seem like you’ve done more work than you actually have.

OH! It also makes your house smell great too! Now, one day, I’ll figure out how to put pictures up with these word, but until then I want you all to imagine the food in your mind. It will be fun! I promise. Read More

Il Falcone (Courteany, BC)

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Via: https://www.ilfalcone.ca/

I recently sat down with farmer, philosopher and garlic guru Brent Garstin at his bucolic Comox Valley farm for a secret project that hopefully I’ll be able to share in a bit. Brent dropped all kinds of knowledge on me, including where to get some of his award-winning garlic to eat.

Crystal was then gracious enough to pick me up from the middle of nowhere so I treated us to dinner at the restaurant Brent suggested. Neither of us had ever eaten there, but I had high hopes after Brent said, “they do things there the right way, authentic… People that I trust say it’s the best in town.”

Those people were right.

Located at the end of the main drag in Courtenay and easily spotted thanks to its copious grape vines and nearly-neon orange paint job is Il Falcone. We arrived around six and scored a couple of seats in their small dining room just before the dinner rush hit. On the way by I peeked in the open kitchen and saw a guy laying out sheet after sheet of fresh pasta and knew we’d made the right choice.

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