Tag: wine

Eat | Drink | Cheap Episode 11 – Mead, Part 2: The Sobering

Shawn Leave a comment

The boys sober up and continue their talk on one of mankind’s oldest alcoholic creations. Including step by step instructions on fermenting your own mead, recipes, flavouring ideas and what to avoid when entering into the mead community. Shawn also laments shopping for his wife in the liquor store and shows some love for the original Iron Chef Japan.

Questions, comments or corrections? Hit us up at email@eatdrinkcheap.ca

eatdrinkcheap.ca

eadrinkbreathe.com/podcast

Music by John Palmer

Show notes and Shout Outs:

Make Mead Like a Viking by Jereme Zimmer: https://www.amazon.ca/Make-Mead-Like-Viking-Wild-Fermented/dp/1603585982#:~:text=In%20Make%20Mead%20Like%20a,not%20only%20uncomplicated%20but%20fun.

Middle Mountain Mead: https://middlemountainmead.com/

Wardruna: A Norwegian Folk Metal group that uses traditional instruments: https://www.wardruna.com/

Original Iron Chef Japan on Youtube: Big love to Eevee EVP, Sidney Greenwood and Xacred for keeping my Nostalgia alive!

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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New Horizon Cocktail

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New Horizon CocktailWell kids, we made it!

Judging from all the puffy eyes, shambling and moans I assume everyone had a great time on New Years and probably toasted the end of 2016 with a variety of libations that they’re now regretting. That’s great! We needed a party to forget last year’s unrelenting weirdness and tragedy.

We lost a lot of great people who filled our lives with music and fantasy and all the things that keep us young. I lost my grandfather, my dog, my house was ravaged twice by floods and my shed collapsed with both bikes inside. It was a hellish year!

But enough doom! Like many others, we mixed up a couple of custom cocktails on New Year’s Eve and celebrated with a loud sigh of relief. Now that we’ve survived I’ve been tinkering with the recipe and figure I’d share it, even though most of us are still nursing a week-long hangover. *laughs* Read More

Cherry Blossoms!

Shawn 2 Comments

Cherry Blossom 1

Cherry blossom petals
The wind carries them away
Taking me with them

– Sean Condon, Vancouver, British Columbia (2014 Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival, Honourable Mention)

One of the more profound moments of my short time living in Vancouver occurred by accident on a frigid spring morning at the Burrard skytrain station. It was crazy early and I had my headphones on to blot out the world as much as possible. I exited the train amidst the rest of the rabble and had begun the long climb up the central staircase to the street when a teenage Japanese girl beside me squealed.

It wasn’t a terror squeal, or a “look, its Johnny Depp!” noise, but it was enough to make me look up just in time to see a massive cloud of cherry blossoms descend down the staircase towards us. All the sakura trees up top had dropped their collective payloads simultaneously to form a dense, beautiful and unnervingly slow-moving tsunami of pink petals.

Whoooosh! The station filled with flowers and everyone gasped. Children whooped and spun. Couples drew closer. Even the proto-hipster guy (who hadn’t looked up from his book, even while disembarking the train) acknowledged the moment with a “huh”. The spell lasted about four magical, luxurious minutes before reality resumed… And I’d realized that by tallying amongst the cherry blossoms I missed my bus and was going to be late for work. Read More