Picturesque Sublimity
Split-Rail Fence
Wired Sky
Harvesting an Identity
Long has the harvest been an important part of my life and long has it been associated with fall, bountiful cornucopias of food, and Thanksgiving. Growing up in the Okanagan Valley, the fall harvest meant picking the last of the fruit and stripping our garden of its remaining plenty before tilling the vegetation back into…
Maple-Apple Jelly
At its most fundamental level, cooking is pure chemistry and physics. At its most profound, it is art, tradition, culture, identity and love. Nothing arguably combines both as purely as making preserves. Thus when I took up the most recent challenge in The Canadian Food Experience Project chose to make it personal, I found myself with the challenge…
Preserving: Our Canadian Tradition
I grew up among trees. Indeed, trees define a huge part of our national identity – and our food – in this country. Speak to any foreigner about their image of Canada and it will almost universally be of “wilderness” and the wide expanse of mountains, water, open spaces, and trees. Growing up, everywhere I…
The Shore Lunch … My First Authentic Canadian Food Experience
A few weeks ago, I jumped into the Canadian Food Experience Project in medias res when I wrote about my Canadian Food Hero. Now, circling back to the beginning, I’m being challenged to write about an authentic Canadian food experience. I was a bit stumped by this challenge and I understand in retrospect why this is…
“Hop Head” (IPA), Tree Brewing Company
There is something powerful about going home. In that homecoming, there is a sense of being completed, of filling a space that is at the foundation of who we are. Even if that space goes unrecognized, even while we build upon it, and while we take our lives to distant ramparts, the space remains. Last…
“Fearless” (IPA), Dead Frog Brewery
Collect Experiences. Not Things. You will read these words at the top of this 650ml bottle which on the front displays an extreme surfer and on the side proclaims “For fearlessly pursuing your passion no matter how many sharks stand in your way … You have earned the coveted SHARK BAIT BADGE.” Not that I…