Cool Stuff From the CRFA Foodservice Expo (Vancouver, B.C.)

Last weekend Vancouver’s spiffy new convention center played host to a veritable pantheon of celebrity chefs, food product artisans and industry professionals. For a couple bucks you could spend a couple days nibbling handmade cheeses, haggling over sous-vide machines, watching local chefs out-garnish each other and wander around tastefully buzzed on local wines. The CRFA Foodservice Hospitality Expo was in town and my chef Hiro-san decided that we should, neigh, MUST  be in attendance to represent Vancouver Island at this most prestigious (and network-able) of gatherings. It wasn’t hard to convince our mob of Kamikaze cooks to hit the mainland when “free booze” was mentioned. Read More

The Chinese Tea Shop (Vancouver, BC)

“The first bowl moistens my lips and throat.
The second bowl breaks my loneliness.
The third bowl searches my barren entrails but to find
Therein some five thousand scrolls.
The fourth bowl raises a slight perspiration,
All life’s inequities pass out through my pores.
The fifth bowl purifies my flesh and bones.
The sixth bowl calls me to the immortals.
The seventh bowl could not be drunk,
Only the breath of the cool wind raises in my sleeves.”

– Lu Tong (Chinese Poet: AD 790-835 – translated by Steven R. Jones, 2008)

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