I love this trend. I think that it makes a dessert station look much more personal, it gives more options, and every dessert has a homemade feel to it. You can’t get these miniature desserts from a supplier that has a giant freezer, these are made in-house.

I recently added a great item to our dessert menu: strawberry-rhubarb pie-in-a-jar. I think they are so cute! My objective was to have a miniature pie that had great taste, but looked hand-crafted. In the end, it came down to buying small jam jars (125ml ones), making a great pie filling that is cooked in advance and figuring out how to lattice the crust so that it looked like more than a piece of dough sitting on a jam jar.

So cute!

The key to the lattice top is to roll out the dough and cut it into long strips. Then overlap them so that they are woven. Then I used a round, crinkled cookie cutter that matched the diameter of the pie jar and cut out circles of latticed dough. I lifted the dough off of the table with a spatula and placed it on the pie jar.

The best part, the pies only have to bake for 15 minutes because the filling is already cooked through. You just need the dough to get a little flaky and crispy and it’s done!

Served with our blueberry-lemon trifle (we wait to add whip cream till right before the event starts. Otherwise it melts!)

Learning to knead dough for the French baguette

Among other recipes, they made a strawberry salad with raspberry vinaigrette, Caesar salad with homemade croutons and dressing (anchovies and all!), roasted carrot soup with basil pesto, French baguette and homemade apple pie. They created their own “cookbook” as the class went along and took responsibility for each individual recipe. It was so great to see each kid tasting and experimenting with ingredients they were unfamiliar with and learning how to make good food.

One of the kids in my class fell in love with anchovies of all things! He kept asking me to bring him more every time we had a class. He had never had a real Caesar salad before and he loved it.

Almost ready to lattice the pies

Finished Pie!

I look forward to this class every year because I love seeing the wonder and the discovery of cooking in someone’s eyes. They realize that this is something they like, they go home and ask Mom and Dad if they can make dinner tonight. They know, from an early age, the real food is better than anything else they have ever tasted.

I attended the Chef’s Table Society Spot Prawn Festival at the False Creek Fishermen’s Warf two weeks ago, and I have to say I was impressed. For only $10 we got a full plate of food, including heirloom tomato and cucumber salad, Israeli couscous, some great buns from Terra breads, and of course, poached spot prawns. There was also wine samples, beer samples and coffee samples. Quite a lot of food for $10!

About three hundred people attended. I am proud to live in a city where the foodies come out in masses to enjoy this rare delicacy and then stand in line in the rain to get a plate a food!

Vancouverites in the rain waiting for food!

La Piece de Resistance

I know what you are thinking: why am I telling you about spot prawns when you can’t taste them? You can! Head over to 1 Fish 2 Fish in Langley at 20534 Fraser Hwy. They have fresh spot prawns daily! Follow this recipe and you will start looking forward to spot prawn season, too.

Garlic butter spot prawns

1 lb fresh spot prawns – not peeled (heads one is better, but if you that makes you leery, go with heads off)

1/4 lb unsalted butter

4 cloves garlic, sliced

Kosher salt

Squirt of lemon juice

1. Put butter in a medium frying pan and heat to medium-low temperature.
2. Add the sliced garlic.
3. Let the garlic sizzle in the butter for 2-3 minutes but don’t let it brown
4. Season the spot prawns with the kosher salt and add to the garlic butter
5. You are cooking these slowly so that they will absorb the garlic flavour. So cook on one side for 3-4 minutes and then flip over and cook on the other side for 3-4 minutes. Until no longer translucent
6. Squirt lemon juice and stir
7. Serve immediately with a nice bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. Oh, and a heads up, spot prawn shells are spiky, so be careful when you are peeling them!

Justine, our fabulous barista at Meso Coffee House has lent us some time to write about her passion for coffee. Check it out as she guest blogs this week:

The name of the Coffee House is Meso. It means “in the midst of” in Greek. And that is what we are: we are a place that is in the midst of chaos and insanity to create tranquility and full bellies! We are also in the midst of an office building. Meso is located inside the Power to Change building at 20385 64th ave. In the very centre of it.

My favourite part of the coffee house is Justine. She runs the place and is so, so sweet. Justine has been with us for about seven months now. She loves to make good food for people. She’s always experimenting with new baking items and drinks for our guests. Come and meet her, you will want to take her home to feed you.

Justine

The reason for this post is because we are finally, after much thought, launching our Meso Coffee House website. You can peruse our menus, see the daily specials and soups, and order for groups online! If you have an office luncheon and don’t know what to serve, come check us out. We can offer you healthy, homemade, seasonal food that will not leave you exhausted or bloated for the rest of the day. Just go to www.meso.ca and check it out.

Next week, Justine will guest blog about how she feels about coffee!

Here is a recipe for Bacon and Kale Seared Digby Scallops (serves 4)

4 Digby scallops*

1 bunch of Kale – leaf removed from stem and cut into bite size pieces

3 oz of double smoked bacon, small diced

2 tbsp sherry vinegar

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp olive oil

1 lemon

Salt and pepper

*If you are unable to get fresh digby scallops, buy ones that have been individually quick frozen. Once thawed, place between paper towels so that all excess liquid is removed from them.

1. Preheat a frying pan to medium and add your bacon. Dredge off all of the fat slowly until you have delicious bits of bacon left. Remove the bacon from the pan with a slotted spoon. Add your olive oil and butter and heat to medium high (just below smoking level).
2. Season your dried scallops and place them in the pan. Sear on one side for 2 minutes and flip over. Sear for another 2 minutes. Squeeze some lemon juice over them before removing them from the pan with tongs.
3. Now add kale to the remaining “juices” in the pan. Toss the kale around so that it is coated in the fat in the pan. Once it is well coated, add the sherry to deglaze the pan. Keep stirring the kale for one more minute. Remove from heat and mix the bacon in.
4. To plate, put some of your kale and bacon mixture in the bottom of a miso soup spoon and place the seared scallop on top. For a garnish, I like to use fennel sprigs.

Serve this at your next dinner party and you will never regret it.

What really struck me about Manhattan, is that there is such a strong food culture. New restaurants pop up and close daily. It seems like no one eats at home. Every restaurant I went to was packed, even at odd hours of the day, and there was always a waiting list. People stay for hours and eat a ton of food. It’s never about a quick bite. In a way, the whole thing was very European. Eat late, have a few courses, enjoy good conversation, be loud!

As far as sightseeing, I’m the type that likes to find the places that the locals visit. Yes, I did see Times Square and Central Park, but by far my favourite place is the High Line. It is an old raised railroad that goes through the Meat Packing District, Chelsea and a few other places. A group called Friends of the High Line have spent the last four years turning this eyesore it  into a beautiful outdoor garden/art gallery. They planted local vegetation right over the train tracks, made awesome benches with wheels from trains, and have created some incredible art projects that blend in with the city. You can walk above the city over 15 city blocks. It is a peaceful place, and yet it is right in the middle of it all. It was part of my walk to work every day and it was a great way to start and end, with nature and quiet.

The High Line - not great in winter, but you get the idea

As for food, we had a blast! I was disappointed by a few such as Colicchio and Sons (Tom Colicchio’s new restaurant in Chelsea) and Bar Basque (a funky modern tapas bar). Collichio and Sons had some decent menu items, but I found everything was doused in oil while Bar Basque just had terrible service. I enjoyed their charcuterie platter, though.

But I was impressed by others:

Chelsea Market

Chelsea Market – this old biscuit factory turned into a food concourse with a local and sustainable emphasis. There’s little bakeries, good eateries and a colourful fish market. I had the best chicken pot pie ever on a cold blustery day at Farm to Table.

Pastis – This cute little restaurant in the Meat Packing District offers rustic French cuisine. I had the lamb chop with roasted pears and braised cabbage. Delicious!

Eataly

Eataly – Mario Batali’s new Italian Market on 5th Ave that highlights all things Italian. There are four different places to eat here and all the ingredients used are the best. My favourite was the Vegetable Butcher that is in the produce section. She will show you how to cut artichokes and unusual vegetables from Italy.

I have become one of those people that loves New York. I love the feel of a big city that knows food and celebrates it. I also love how easy it is to get around, the fact that you rarely hear people speaking English and the whimsy expressed through art in so many places.

I have the great privilege of having a mentor. It is one of those things that simply happened, and I am glad it did. Two years ago I won an award through Les Dames d’Escoffier, a non-profit that focuses on furthering women’s careers in the culinary industry. The award meant that I got to go to New York City for a week and work with Abigail Kirsch Catering Relations. They are the premier caterer in Manhattan and the surrounding areas. Alison, the Vice President and a partner of the company, took me under her wing for a whirlwind week of meetings, observations and training. She opened her doors wide for me to observe how a catering company operates that has been around for 35 years, has over 1,000 staff members and remains a company that is all about high end food. It changed the way I am building my business.

I’ve had the chance to meet up with Alison and talk with her on the phone over the past few years to ask for advice, to eat great food, to be encouraged. At the end of February I was able to make another trip to Manhattan to glean from Alison’s experience further.  While I was there, I had the honour of attending their annual new menu tasting.

Alison, along with all of the most senior chefs, spends twelve weeks coming up with new dishes for their expansive menu. They focus on current trends, sustainability and visual appeal. After much testing and re-testing, they have all of their sales people and events planners attend a tasting to sample all of the new food. It also serves as a training for their kitchen staff.

For eight hours I ate food. Every five minutes or so, the servers would come out with a new beautifully plated dish to share between two people and we would all critique and write notes about the food. I was stunned by how precise the food was, how delicious the meals tasted, and how original and whimsical some of the plating was. I have to admit that by the end I fell into a coma and I was having a hard time thinking straight. I didn’t eat for a full day and a half afterward. But it was a once in a lifetime event that I loved being a part of.

By far, the dish that I enjoyed the most was the cookies and cream dessert. It was so cute and whimsical. In the picture, you can see that there is a malt milkshake with a homemade chocolate fortune cookie – complete with a fortune listing the types of cookies included with the dessert. Those are homemade Oreos! So good! Everything was moist and delicate. The lollipops were an encouragement because we recently added ice wine lollipops to our menu. It confirmed that I’m not crazy and they are tasty. I especially loved the sangria one. I have included pictures of my favourite dishes that I thought you would enjoy, too. You may not be able to taste them, but you can see how pretty they are

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]]> http://www.mizuna.ca/2011/03/eight-hours-of-eating/feed/ 0 http://www.mizuna.ca/2011/03/a-day-to-give-back/ http://www.mizuna.ca/2011/03/a-day-to-give-back/#comments Thu, 17 Mar 2011 17:05:36 +0000 rebecca http://www.mizuna.ca/?p=831

This coming March 24th, cities around the world will be hosting Twestival (Twitter Festival). Twitter has become a huge phenomenon over the past few years as a way to connect with people around the world. Twestival is a way to use the power of Twitter for good. This social media fundraising initiative is being hosted in 179 cities around the world. Each city has chosen a local charity to which will receive 100% of the profits.

The Fraser Valley Twestival Sponsors have chosen Canuck Place Children’s Hospice in Abbotsford as the charity that will receive the proceeds this year.

So, you may be asking yourself how you can be a part of this. We have organized an amazing event for the evening of March 24th that will be full of entertainment, food and wine.  It is being held at the Coast Hotel and Convention Centre in Langley. You don’t need to be on Twitter or even own a business, you just need to come and enjoy a great event.

Here are 20 reasons to come that are highlighted on the Fraser Valley Twestival website:

20. Delicious appetizers from Mizuna Culinary, our super fabulous food sponsor!

19. Awesome performances from Westcoast Contortion. These folks are unreal!

18. Big screen XBox gaming fun from Digital Smart Homes.

17. A fantastic venue! Coast Hotel & Conference Centre is a great venue and they have a great casino downstairs! If you are interested in spending the night, please quote Twestival for a special rate.

16. Wine sampling with Township 7 and Vista D’oro – two of the Fraser Valley’s most delicious wine producers! Your Twestival ticket also includes one drink from the bar.

15. March Hare. Check these guys out – they are amazing! Bring your dancing shoes.

14. Sweet treats from Mozart Bakery and Marie Antoinette Cake.

13. Get inked with a temporary airbrush tattoo or two from Tattoos For Now.

12. A fresh oyster bar from 1 Fish 2 Fish. You have to try these; you’ve never tasted fresher, more delicious oysters.

11. Abbotsford’s own Greg Neufeld. This guy’s voice is mesmerizing!

10. Networking. Folks from all over the Fraser Valley be gathered together for the inaugural Twestival Fraser Valley! Come on out and get to know some new people.

9. The Jennifer Kirk Photography photo booth. Dress up like a goofball and show the camera some sass!

8. Raffle prizes! Check out the growing list of prize donors – impressive! Your Twestival ticket includes one raffle ticket and additional tickets will be available for purchase.

7. Sound Refuge! Enjoy an acoustic performance from this awesome local band.

6. It’s the 1 year anniversary of the Fraser Valley Social Media Meetup. If you’re a member, or even if you’re not – come out to celebrate!

5. It’s the 2 year anniversary of FraserValleyPulse.com! We will be celebrating 2 years of exploring the Fraser Valley and meeting so many of you!

4. Have your photo taken on the red carpet by Orange Memories Photography.

3. Twestival Fraser Valley hosts Kristi Ferguson, Teri-Lyn Conrad and Caree Bray want to meet YOU! It’s true, we do!

2. It will be a GREAT night out! Lots of fun, lots of folks, lots of fundraising.

1. THE most important reason. We are supporting an amazing local charity – Canuck Place Abbotsford. 100% of proceeds from the event, including ticket and raffle/auction ticket sales, will go directly to Canuck Place Abbotsford! They will use the money to purchase warming blankets and other items required for inside the new hospice.

So, now that you are really eager to come, you can purchase tickets here .

And as a further temptation to come, I am providing some pretty awesome hors d’oeuvres. Here is just a sample:

Bittersweet Paprika Crusted Albacore Tuna with Preserved Lemon and Caviar

• Bittersweet paprika crusted albacore tuna on an organic crostini and topped with preserved lemons and caviar
• Chorizo-manchego-and green olive skewers
• Tomato-basil-bocconcini served with balsamic glaze
• Poached garlic shrimp served with paprika aioli
• Oyama charcuterie and cheese platters

I love this idea. I love that I live in a city where a meal can constitute a beautifully crafted meat and cheese platter with gourmet pairings and garnishes. Salt Tasting Room doesn’t even have a kitchen! They serve everything cold (because it’s supposed to be that way) and whatever needs to be prepped, it’s done down the street at their kitchen in The Irish Heather.

Salt Tasting Room was inspired by the Lord of Gastown, Sean Heather. He owns several establishments downtown, all of them successful. He took the idea of a Spanish bodega, underground wine cellars that have been turned into restaurants, and transplanted it to North America.

The Wine Flight - Fort Berens Cabernet Franc, Rose and Chardonnay

As a kid, I had the great privilege of living in Spain. I remember going to quite a few bodegas with my parents. They were usually on the outskirts of town, known only by the locals. You’d literally walk into an old tunnel and go down, down, down, until the air was thick. Then you would enter into a series of tunnels and rooms that were used as wine cellars. Tables were haphazardly set up throughout the place. There was never electricity, just a lot of candles. They would use tall white tapered candles that melted down into huge piles of wax, and then they would stick another candle on top. The reason for the candles was so that we would have an indication that oxygen was still around. If the candles started going out, it meant there were too many people in the room, taking up too much air. The menu was always rustic: cold Spanish tortilla, blood sausage, serrano ham… lots of sherry and wine. It was delicious, and unforgettable.

Arugula salad with shaved fennel and Sugared Almonds

Salt Tasting Room has some bodega touches, like nice long wooden tables and an exposed brick wall, but they have combined it with unmistakable modern Vancouver touches.

We partook in the Dine Out Vancouver menu for the night. Our first course was a fresh arugula salad tossed in a light citrus dressing with shaved fennel and crystallized almonds. It was crisp and clean. My favourite kind of salad. Uncomplicated.

For our second course, I chose the best of BC platter while my husband chose the meat platter. Each type of meat and cheese on my plate was paired with different ingredients and with a different wine  from a new local winery called Fort Berens to enhance the flavor. I loved the Abruzzo with the Piccalilli Relish paired with the Rose. So sweet and tangy at the same time. I’m a freak about good cured meats and cheeses.

Three pairings: Ambrosia apples with smoked beef, Piccalilli relish with Abruzzo and hazelnuts with ash Camembert

Dessert was simple sherry trifle. Not too heavy, not too light.

So, now you know. If I am ever on the verge of dying, please send me tons of Salt Tasting Room gift certificates.