Hardbite potato chips, Rob Feenie, Jason Priestly, Black Hills Winery, Araxi events, Cookies by George, Provence Cookbook, Outside World

THE MEDIA HOUND - THE LOCAL INK


Relax, and get caught up on your reading. Links to all your favourite food reviewers are now posted on the newsstand.

LOCAL PRODUCTS

A tale of two potato chips: one that will leave you feeling virtuous, the other not so much.

Above: The Good Chip

Below: The Bad Chip ...Crunch!





Filed in FOOD/New Products

TODAY'S PRESS RELEASES - October 19, 2007

The Gold Medal Plates Olympic fundraising competition returns next month with an all-star line up of chefs champing and pawing behind the electronic gates. Interesting that Dale Mackay is on the roster as cooking for the Lumiere team and that Rob Feenie will be competing as an "independent", don't you think?

P.S. We have not received any official correction to this effect, but have been told that the press release is incorrect, that in fact, both Chefs Mackay and Feenie will be competing under the Lumiere banner. We have to say that we are starting to feel a little sorry for Mackay's position in this crossfire. No doubt he is a very credible chef who could have found employment at any number of good restaurants across North America. He chose Vancouver because he wanted to be closer to his child who lives here. Who knows what kind of warning he may have had that he was walking into this public relations mess, if any. One thing we do believe, even though this town loves to discuss, critique and complain about Rob Feenie, it's pretty clear who the community will rally around if it ever comes down to a Sidoo vs Feenie showdown. It's the old, I can kick my dog, but Hell if you can.


Select Wine Merchants celebrates 25 years with a new website and a bit of a facelift on the old logo.


If you haven't sampled the vittles at Cobre yet, you have a chance to do so on the BCLDB. They are holding a free in-store tasting of Chilean Wines this Saturday afternoon and the new and highly rated Gastown restaurant got the catering gig.

JASON PRIESTLY JOINS BLACK HILLS ESTATE WINERY OWNERSHIP GROUP
(Directly from the press release.)

Oliver, B.C. -- Vinequest Wine Partners, a limited partnership investment group that will be acquiring Black Hills Estate Winery, announced today the addition of BC-born Hollywood actor Jason Priestley to its board of directors. Priestley has made a significant investment into the ownership group and brings his extensive passion and knowledge of wine to the team.

As an actor, Jason Priestley has starred in numerous movies and television shows, and is best known playing the role of Brandon Walsh in the hit television series “Beverley Hills 90210�. As a producer and director Priestly has been involved in several film and television productions, including directing a video for Canadian pop stars The Barenaked Ladies. One of his favorite roles is as the current co-host on “Hollywood & Vines� along with fellow Canadian Terry David Mulligan. The show is broadcast on the Star TV network, and follows the hosts as they visit wineries and restaurants in different wine regions around the world. As a result of those travels, Priestly has developed a deep appreciation of wine, a personal wine collection of over 3,000 bottles in his own cellar
... CONTINUE READING


(Thank you to Rhys Pender for this forward)
Filed in DRINK/ Wine News ... and .... PEOPLE/Winemakers.


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CHEFS MENUS
ARAXI ROCKS WHISTLER WITH THREE EVENTS


Araxi restaurant at Whistler gets ready to party with three special events. The first takes place during Whistler's Dine and Unwind promotion until November 29th. "From Farm to Table" is Whistler's first 100-mile-menu, where all ingredients have been sourced by Chef James Walt from farm suppliers located in the surrounding Whistler and Pemberton Valleys.

Number two and three are participation events for the annual Cornucopia Food and Wine Festival at Whistler. A winemakers dinner featuring the wines of California's Kendall Jackson takes place on November 9th. This is followed next day by the famous annual "Crush" after party, "Bubbles, Rhythm + Deep Sea", on November 10th. Both events are two of Cornucopia's most popular attractions.

Click on the links for more information or see all three listed together in our press release section.


Filed in DAILY NEWS/Greater Details .... and RESTAURANTS/Chefs Menus.


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DINE AND DASH

Need a job where you can make some good dough? Ouch! Is that pun as old as the family fruitcake recipe, or what? Anyway, it looks like Cookies by George is back on Denman. What with Cupcakes and all the gelato parlours clustering nearby, are we developing a sugar junkie strip in that neighbourhood? Looks like the sign may have been up for some time now. Lead and photo courtesy of Tim Pawsey.

NEW BOOKS FOR FALL

NEW WORLD PROVENCE: Modern French Cooking for Family and Friends.
By Chefs Alessandra and Jean-Francis Quaglia
Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007, Hardcover, $26.95
Available November 1, 2007



I must confess that whenever a weighty new cookbook from a celebrity chef lands on my desk with a thud, my heart sinks a little.

Maybe its just a leftover reflex from my years at Vancouver Magazine and Western Living Magazine, when one of my first editorial duties consisted of deciphering chefs’ recipes into plain English. I particularly recall one recipe which started with the line:

“Take one large coho salmon and cut it into minuscule dice."

And that wasn’t the most heinous example by any means; it was just the worst one that I could imagine myself struggling to obey.

Too often, chefs have little concept of the realities involved when their fans try to follow their dishes equipped at a non-professional skill level, and their recipes tend to reflect that. It’s the Marie Antoinette “let them first make confit of truffle stock� school of awareness.* In other words, unless you are a student chef hoping to assimilate a master’s techniques by faithfully reproducing his signature dishes, there usually isn’t a lot of value a home cook can hope to get out of a haute cuisine chef’s recipe book – although sometimes if you manage it right, you can colour oordinate the cover jackets with your sofa pillows.

Look at it this way, if you examine the cost of the ingredients involved, the techniques required (illustrations are usually all about photographic art, not instruction), and the time it is going to take you to scrub every dang pot in your kitchen afterwards, doesn’t it actually make more sense, especially if we are talking about local chefs, to just hot foot it over to their restaurants and let them do all the work? Call me a B!#ch for saying so, and chefs certainly will, but I think there is a reason their profession started in the servants' quarters.

Okay, so I'm no Princess Royal myself, but given that complaint, maybe that’s why I'm so attracted to this new project from local celebrity chef couple, Alessandra and Jean-Francis Quaglia. Their New World Provence cookbook is not just a collection of the dishes that have made their restaurants a success for the last ten years, it’s the obvious care they have taken to make the tempting recipes less opaque and labourious for home cooks who are aiming to achieve similar restaurant quality results. Which is why, on a rainy Vancouver night when I'm peevish, tired, in need of some Prozac in a pan, and must decide whether to whip out a chopping knife and a sauté pan and get cooking, or instead decamp to the restaurant itself, this book is actually going to make it a contest. ... CONTINUE READING ...


Filed in MEDIA/Books

Claridge's Hotel in London to sell water at 50 pounds a litre. www.decanter.com.
(Link supplied by Judith Lane.)


Now even your shopping cart is a nanny ....
"Supermarket shoppers may soon be cruising the aisles with "intelligent" shopping carts that warn them if they're buying too much junk food, technology experts say. While many would be happy enough if they could simply get their trolley to go in a straight line, the high-tech model will be fitted with a computer screen and barcode scanner. It will read each product's individual code to give customers information about calories, nutrition, ethical sourcing and the environment...." Reuters Canada.


Filed in MEDIA/The Outside World

TODAY'S PRESS RELEASES

Manuel Ferreira of Le Gavroche has been orchestrating a rendezvous with this complex redhead every year since she first "came of age"
and he's planning to do it again.


No grapes, no glory. Guess who has just splurged on a purchase of new Okanagan dirt?


Isn't cheese tempting enough just being cheese? Apparently not. The good people at les amis du Fromage have a sale event going on all this week that also includes a chance to win prizes. Looks like the only thing not going for less is the weight you are going to put on.


Giffard's has published the recipes for the winning cocktails at its recent "Iron Mixologist" competition in Vancouver. But where do the cashews go?


Here's one we missed from last week: C Restaurant is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a 10 course special menu. And the best part of it is, if you feel like blowing off your Friday afternoon (and who wouldn't need to after eating 10 courses at lunchtime - hey, this isn't Italy), they will price the whole nine, er ten yards at 50 percent off.


The year 1997 must have been an especially good vintage for restaurants. A number of our local eateries are achieving double digit status this year including the previously mentioned C restaurant, Provence, and let's not forget Trafalgar's Bistro. The Kerrisdale favourite is celebrating with its own 10-course menu on November 4, plus another one running Nov 5 - 10th that promises to be a blast from the past. And just when you thought your carefully acquired skill at disassembling food towers was never going to be useful again.


"Not Your Mother's Milestones" reads the title of the next press release, which is quite a relief because our mother's milestones were definitely not the same as our own. However, we can't give you any examples on our score because thankfully she doesn't know about most of them yet. Anyway, without further ado, some copy (sans hedge clippers) on the new renovations which have just been unveiled at the Yaletown Milestones, and our apologies for the translation in brackets. Really. No REALLY!

(The most requested information on the site as measured
by Google keyword counter.)


PEOPLE:


1) Manjy and David Sidoo - Owner Partners, Lumiere and Feenie's
2) Quang Dang - Chef, C Restaurant
3) Sean Cousins - Chef, So.Cial at Le Magasin
4) Dennis Peckham - Chef, Hart House
5) Joanne Sasvari - Media, The Vancouver Sun

PLACES:

1) Transcontinental - Restaurant, Gastown, Vancouver
2) Italian Kitchen - Restaurant, Downtown, Vancouver
3) Pala Lago - Restaurant, Cultus Lake
4) les amis du Fromage - Cheese Store, Kitsilano, Vancouver / Park Royal, West Vancouver
5) Milestones - Restaurant, Yaletown, Vancouver
6) Fuel - Restaurant, Kitsilano, Vancouver
7) La Buca - Restaurant, West Side, Vancouver
8) Charlatan - Restaurant, Commercial Drive, Vancouver
9) Me and Julio - Restaurant, Commercial Drive, Vancouver
10) Phoscao Cafe - Restaurant, North Vancouver

THINGS:

1) Rob Feenie and David Sidoo split
2) greenchef.ca
3) new restaurants in Victoria
4) my last supper cookbook
5) Loden Hotel opening

MOST INEXPLICABLE CONNECTION:

African restaurants in Victoria

NUMBER OF COUNTRIES LOGGING IN (visiting during this year): 129
NUMBER OF CITIES WORLDWIDE (visiting yesterday): 55
Number 55 was Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia is famous for hoagies, soft pretzels, water ice and cheesesteak, but not as the TV angel would have you think, for creamcheese.