Grain & Glass

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Grain and GlassSoon after stumbling into The Edible Valley, I’m hit with the soon-to-be arrival of another big bit of Comox Valley food media. Grain & Glass will be an online magazine dedicated to food, drink and storytelling by Bon Vivant dude Hans Peter Mayer. It looks pretty cool. Very… what’s the word? Designery! Yeah that’s a word!

Also, the guy can write:

“Grain & Glass is a new online publication being created to showcase the producers and purveyors of fine food on Vancouver Island and beyond. It’s fine wine paired with the perfect cheese; a new IPA alongside the most decadent slice of pizza; the sweetest fireweed honey and the mead that it might become.”   

It’s not gone to (Word)press yet, but you can click here to subscribe to the Grain & Glass Email list which should get you all the details and more.

So, this is what it feels like to be part of a scene that’s blowing up!

Fennel-Roasted Salmon

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Fennel Salmon1Andrew and Nikki, our awesome neighbours across the street were kind enough to slip me a big chunk of sockeye from their last fishing trip with only the promise to “do something good with it” in return.  I love my neighbourhood!

The next day was surprisingly warm and clear so I caught up on the last of the garden maintenance – Pull those last two carrots, rake the lawn, hit the gutters – and started plotting dinner a little early. I’d collected a couple big armfuls of fennel stalks, some fresh and some dried from last year (they make great garden staves!) and I wanted to cook with ‘em. My mind was already set on grilling outdoors; I just needed a plan of attack. Read More

The Edible Valley Podcast

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The Edible ValleyI get an electric charge when I’m listening to the radio and someone mentions something I know and love. It’s usually something related to mass media, but sometimes it’s more of a localized thing like a Vancouver restaurant I’ve eaten at or a local artist that’s getting big. The closer to home the topic is, the more I’m ‘gonna get excited.

So when I learned that there was a food podcast being beamed out of the Comox Valley by two local boys, focused on what was growing and being eaten right here, right now… I got BBQ duck excited! Read More

Gone To Seed

Shawn 6 Comments

Gone To Seed1“Still alive I am.
At the end of a long dream.
On my journey,
fall of an Autumn day.”

–          Matsuo Bashō, The records of a weather-exposed skeleton (1684)

I sit in my living room, coffee in hand with the fire from the wood stove sputtering and popping behind me, toasty and content, while outside my austere little zen garden shivers and rots in the autumn frost…  It’s all gone to seed. Read More