Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the magnificent Dr. Phillip B. Funk Dunkel.
Phillips Brewery, our very own Victoria brewery has released a full-on invasion of funky libations from their showcase series and the one that grabbed my attention (while surfing my local liquor store cooler) is their Bavarian Dark Lager.
Thanks to a whirlwind foraging weekend with Toni I’ve got fresh watercress, I’ve got a venison roast and I’ve got a couple days of holiday dinners to cook my heart out.
Forget the turkey. That’s old news… A Christmas ham? That’s been done. This year I’m going new and different, seasonal and local. This is the kind of rustic, hearty meal that a pioneer family would have sizzling in the hearth on a cold winter’s night. Read More
Toni and I had just returned from a cold, bleak trek across the beaches of Merville (chronicled in Part 1) laden down with bags of watercress and jacked up on coffee and the promise of more food-related adventure.
“I think we passed a farm on our way here. You ‘wanna check it out?” Toni gunned the engine and smiled her mega-watt mad grin at me, “I’m game.” Read More
Soon 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!
Crystal and I spent almost twenty minutes prowling the middle of freaking nowhere Nanaimo looking for The Nest Bistro, a highly recommended chef-owned joint which we had made dinner reservations for. We’d already passed a Phillipino mother smoking and breastfeeding in her doorway, a drunken soon-to-be domestic call two doors down and an elderly man with no shirt and one shoe chasing a cat back and forth across the road. It felt, magically, like we were back in our old neighbourhood in East Van – At first glance kind of ghetto, but the Tibetan prayer flags over everyone’s door made it okay. Read More