Don Genova's Blog

Register for Courses Today!

Time is running short...register today for two courses I'm teaching starting this week. The first one actually begins today, October 5th.  But you don't have to go anywhere to learn.  This is my online version of Food and Travel Writing.  Click here to view details of the course.  Over the next 8 weeks I'll teach you how to pitch your ideas in a winning way to editors of newspapers and magazines, then craft a story to successful completion.

The other course is called 'Cooking the Books'.  It is offered through the Continuing Studies Department of the University of Victoria, but I'm teaching it at the Tuscany Village location of Thrifty Foods in Victoria, in the Cooking and Lifestyle Centre.  This means I will be cooking some of the dishes from some of the most influential cookbooks published over the years, including Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child.

Click here for more information or to register.

 

You MUST take this course on Tea...

I've just come back from a meeting with Daniela Cubelic, the charming proprietor of Silk Road Tea in Victoria.  Silk Road is the site of my tea course this Saturday (Sept. 19th) offered by the University of Victoria Continuing Studies Department.  Introduction to Tea, or Tea 101, as I like to call it, is going to be absolutely fascinating!

Daniela has an encyclopedic knowledge of tea, the counter where we will be set up on Saturday morning is an ideal location for tasting, and there will be lots of tasting!  If you have anything more than just a passing interest in tea you should join us.  Cost is just $55 + tax for a four-hour seminar. 9-1 this Saturday morning. You can register online by clicking on this link. Hope to see you there!

Island Spirits on Hornby Island

It’s difficult to ‘distill’ the ‘spirit’ you get when you hit the entranceway of Island Spirits Distillery on Hornby Island.  After driving through the dense bush lining the gravel road, a clearing awaits, in which it wouldn’t be unusual to see dwarves or elves parading around the entrance of the cedar shake-clad distillery. The modest footprint of the distillery is a pleasant reminder of when spirits were distilled from small companies around the country, instead of today’s massive factories where speed and quantity rule, rather than patience and quality.

Instead of dwarves or elves, I’m greeted by two tall figures, and while their bearded visages may remind me of trolls, they are all business, science and flavour.  Peter Kimmerly and John Grayson are two-thirds of Island Spirits Distillery, and as they described their products and the processes necessary to achieve the high quality they’re seeking, you know they have a passion for their work.  Kimmerly is an ice breaker captain, Grayson a winemaker.  The third part of their triumvirate is Dr. Naz Abdurahman, a professor of organic chemistry.  They came together about seven years ago to share their love of experimenting with distilling spirits, and now their results are winning rave reviews from consumers and at tasting competitions.

Kimmerly explained how their longer process and custom-made still removes the impurities such as propanol, isopentanol, methyl butanol and iso butanol from their gin and vodka products. Those impurities are what cause you to have a hangover, but they also interfere with the enjoyment of a spirit in its pure form, unadulterated by the heavy mixers we use to make industrially made liquor more palatable.

So, you can sip Phrog Gin and Phrog Vodkas at room temperature, neat, or perhaps with a bit of pure water to them.  The Phrog Name comes from the multitudes of singing frogs on the Hornby property, changed to ph at the beginning to reflect the scientific nature of the trio, pH being the measure used to describe how acidic a compound is.

Science aside, the proof is in the tasting.  I sat at the comfortable tasting counter, wondered at the complex curves of the still, marvelled at the number of aromatic botanicals added into the Phrog gin such as juniper, coriander, cinnamon and eleven more, and then sipped, and relaxed.  Smooth is the first word that comes to mind, especially with the vodka.  The gin changes with every sip, more of the aromatics being released as you swirl it in your mouth and expose it to air.

Island Spirits has also gone a fun step further with the creation of its Black Jelly Bean Szechuan, a liquor that tastes just as it sounds….dark liquorice flavour with a jolt of spice as it clears your palate on its way to your belly.
The only problem with perfection is bureaucracy.  Provincial government regulations make it next to impossible to actually make money on their products while keeping them reasonably priced.  To get the most bang for your buck and to help them stay in business, take a trip to Hornby and buy direct from the distillery.  Find out more at www.islandspirits.ca.

Back to School!

No, I'm not going back to school again, but you could be!

Enrolment is now underway for the various courses I teach at UBC and the University of Victoria.  At UBC I teach Food and Travel Writing, so whether you want to write for newspapers or magazines, or just want to make sure your food or travel writing for your blog is the best it can be, that's the course for you. More about that course later. Oh, and I'm teaching a tomato cooking class as well, read on.

The first course of the fall season takes place on Saturday, September 18th at Silk Road Tea in Victoria.  It's called Introduction to Tea and I will be helped by the staff at Silk Road to take you through the history of tea along with extensive tastings.  For more tastings, join me for five delicious Wednesday evening starting October 7th in a course called Cooking the Books.  I'll examine (and cook from) a number of books I consider to be essential parts of our food history and culture and how these books affect how we cook today, especially in our current economy and heightened awareness of where our food comes from.  For more information on both of these courses you can click on the links above, or download or pick up UVic's Continuing Studies calendar for Fall 2009.  My courses are listed on page 45 of the physical calendar, page 47 of the download.  Yes, you can register on line!

That's me...looks like I am about 12 years old, sitting in our backyard tomato patch back home, holding a tomato that weighs about 3 pounds!  Tomatoes have been an important part of my life for a long time, so on Thursday, September 24th, I'll be teaching an all-tomato cooking class with Chef Eva Cherneff at the Thrifty Foods Cooking and Lifestyle Centre in Victoria.  I'll share some of my favourite recipes like roasted tomato soup shooters, panzanella salad and my quick, no-fail, make-it-from-scratch pasta sauce.  Okay, with meatballs, too.  It promises to be lots of fun, and you don't even have to help clean up the mess.  You can register online for this one as well by following the link.

Finally, my Food and Travel Writing courses begin in October at UBC.  The good news is that you no longer have to travel to UBC to take the course if you don't live in Vancouver!  The online version of the course begins the first week of October as well.  I cover all the same material as in the in-person class and give you personalized feedback on your work.  Hope to see you soon at one of the above classes!

Smoking and Jelling and Garlic and Planting...

Satisfaction in the summer for me comes from spending hours in the kitchen, preserving stuff from my own garden or from local farms.  Does that sound weird?  I guess I get it from my mother, although I never heard her say how satisfied she was after spending her mornings harvesting and her afternoons and evenings blanching, freezing, canning and so on.

At the end of the day she would come into the living room, settle into the couch, pick up the newspaper, and listen for the 'pop' of her lids sealing on her jars.  That was satisfying for her. I get that same satisfaction when I hear them pop, and think about her often as they do. Today I stemmed, seeded and chopped a couple of pounds of red jalapeno peppers I got from a greenhouse grower, and made them into a hot pepper jelly. (recipe at the bottom of this post)  One jar will be cracked open this Saturday as part of a barbecue dinner I'm putting on with Bill Jones at his Deerholme Farm. (only 3 spaces left!)  The jelly makes a great pairing with goat cheese, almost any kind of cheese, actually.

While I was making the jelly, a few more pounds of peppers were sitting pretty on my Traeger pellet smoker.  Smoking jalapenos turns them into chipotle peppers.  They spent almost 12 hours on there today...some are completely dried out and I will store them in plastic bags or containers.  Those that are still a little moist will be canned in abobo sauce...tomorrow.

Here are some of the smoked peppers.  If you start with 10 pounds, by the time they are fully smoked and dried, you get 1 pound.

I also harvested my garlic today, I actually planted it last fall, probably a little too close together in not-so-great soil.  Almost every clove I planted grew into a new head of garlic, however, even if some of them are a little small.  57 heads, now drying under my balcony.  I love it when something you planted 9 months ago bears fruit!  Gee, just like giving birth, ha ha.

Oh, and yesterday I built a new herb garden around this huge rock we had left over from the excavation we had done recently in our back yard.  I have some more herbs to plant, but so far so good!

Time for bed.  The lids have popped, the peppers are off the smoker.  Now here's the jelly recipe:

This is adapted with very few changes from Mary Anne Dragan's excellent book, Well Preserved.  I have the first edition, but a third edition was just published in May, so you might want to make you buy that one if you want to try some more recipes.

Red Jalapeno Pepper Jelly
Makes about 6 to 7 8-oz. (250-mL) jars
25-30     medium red jalapeno peppers
1 ½ cups    cider vinegar
6 ½ cups    sugar
½   tsp.     salt
2   3-oz. (85-mL) pouches liquid pectin  
Prepare the peppers, cut them into chunks, discarding the stems and seeds.(you should wear disposable gloves for this.  Grind the pepper chunks in the food processor until they are smooth and uniformly ground. Measure out 2 cups.  Prepare the preserving jars.

Combine the 2 cups of peppers, vinegar, sugar and salt in your preserving pot. Bring to a boil over high heat, keeping a close watch and stirring occasionally.  Once the mixture has reached a full boil, stir constantly. (it can really boil over quickly!) Boil for 5 minutes. Stir in the pectin, and when mixture has returned to a full rolling boil, boil for exactly one minute.

Remove from the heat. Stir and skim off any foam from the surface of the jelly. Stir the jelly for 3-5 minutes (this will help the peppers from floating to the tops of the jars). Pour the jelly into hot, sterilized jars, leaving a half-inch head space. Wipe the rims clean. Seal according to manufacturer's directions. Process the jars in a boiling water bath for 5 minutes.

Smoking and Jelling and Garlic and Planting...

Satisfaction in the summer for me comes from spending hours in the kitchen, preserving stuff from my own garden or from local farms.  Does that sound weird?  I guess I get it from my mother, although I never heard her say how satisfied she was after spending her mornings harvesting and her afternoons and evenings blanching, freezing, canning and so on.

At the end of the day she would come into the living room, settle into the couch, pick up the newspaper, and listen for the 'pop' of her lids sealing on her jars.  That was satisfying for her. I get that same satisfaction when I hear them pop, and think about her often as they do. Today I stemmed, seeded and chopped a couple of pounds of red jalapeno peppers I got from a greenhouse grower, and made them into a hot pepper jelly. (recipe at the bottom of this post)  One jar will be cracked open this Saturday as part of a barbecue dinner I'm putting on with Bill Jones at his Deerholme Farm. (only 3 spaces left!)  The jelly makes a great pairing with goat cheese, almost any kind of cheese, actually.

While I was making the jelly, a few more pounds of peppers were sitting pretty on my Traeger pellet smoker.  Smoking jalapenos turns them into chipotle peppers.  They spent almost 12 hours on there today...some are completely dried out and I will store them in plastic bags or containers.  Those that are still a little moist will be canned in abobo sauce...tomorrow.

Here are some of the smoked peppers.  If you start with 10 pounds, by the time they are fully smoked and dried, you get 1 pound.

I also harvested my garlic today, I actually planted it last fall, probably a little too close together in not-so-great soil.  Almost every clove I planted grew into a new head of garlic, however, even if some of them are a little small.  57 heads, now drying under my balcony.  I love it when something you planted 9 months ago bears fruit!  Gee, just like giving birth, ha ha.

Oh, and yesterday I built a new herb garden around this huge rock we had left over from the excavation we had done recently in our back yard.  I have some more herbs to plant, but so far so good!

Time for bed.  The lids have popped, the peppers are off the smoker.  Jelly recipe will be added tomorrow....

Dynamic Duo Teams To Tantalize Tastebuds!

Do we look like we're having a good time?  The answer is YES! ...and you can, too.  Chef Bill Jones of Magnetic North Cuisine and Deerholme Farm and I have been accused of being brothers in the past.  Well, we are brothers in food!

Bill and I are teaming up for two great presentations on one great weekend in July.

On Saturday, July 18th, we present Barbecue with the Masters.  Bill and I will explore the world of BBQ cooking. We promise to bring the heat in a variety of forms using charcoal, gas and new pellet-bbq technology to add smokey delights to your day.

Here's our proposed menu:

Amuses: Chicken and Mushroom Skewers with Hazelnut Satay Sauce

Grilled Tomato and Goat Cheese Crostini

 Followed by:

House-smoked Spring Salmon with grilled onion, caper and cream cheese flatbread

Jamaican Jerk-flavoured pork ribs with grilled Caesar salad

Dry-rubbed, slow cooked pork shoulder with sunflower coleslaw on herb-garlic foccacia

Cedar-planked peaches, mint syrup, lemon verbena ice cream

To get in on this $90 dinner/class, held at Bill's beautiful Deerholme Farm, contact Bill at 250-748-7450 or email him at bill at magnorth.bc.ca.

The very next day, Sunday, July 19th, we hit the kitchen again with Cowichan Valley Surf and Turf, part of Taste:  Victoria's Festival of Food and Wine.

Forget far-away lobster and feedlot beef! Bill and I will preside over a scrumptious afternoon delight featuring local pasture-raised chicken and ocean-fresh Dungeness crab. Enjoy 8 different dishes such as chicken stuffed with crab, garlic shoots and morels, and Victoria Gin-soused crab wok-fried with ginger and green onion. Local wines will be served, along with the best fresh produce of the season from the Cowichan Valley, often described as Canada's 'Provence'.

Ticket price includes transportation from downtown Victoria to the Cowichan Valley escorted by yours truly on mini-coach. Just an hour's drive to Bill's idyllic Deerholme Farm, the event takes place in and around his lovingly restored 1918 farmhouse.

$169/person - including transportation from Victoria, local wine pairings and a fabulous feast.  If you are already in the Cowichan Valley contact me at don at dongenova.com and we'll work something out on the pricing.

For regular ticket info contact: info@victoriataste.com

www.victoriataste.com

We hope to see you at one or both of these great events!

Memories of Mom - Miscotti

  Apparently in this photo are most of my mother's 15, yes, fifteen aunts and uncles.  And I thought she came from a big family with 3 sisters and 4 brothers.  This photo came to my sister recently from a cousin of ours who lives in California.  My mother, who is almost 92, had a hard time remembering all the names, but my sister is going to dig a little further to get some more info.  So, I was thinking about family today, and that got me thinking about family recipes.

Although my mother was a great cook, and I learned a lot from her regarding how to shop for the best produce, how to pick ripe berries, and peas and beans from our garden, and how to pickle and preserve, she never really did teach me that many specific recipes. But there is one recipe that she still helps my sister with these days when she goes over for her Sunday visits: Miscotti.  I don't even know if I'm spelling that right, I couldn't find anything like it on Google...except for an Italian dessert wine and a sweet biscuit from Abruzzo.  Her miscotti are rolls made from a yeasted dough, with oil-cured black olives and parmigiano-reggiano cheese. They look like this:

I don't have a recipe but I have seen her make them enough times to figure it out.  I made a pizza dough in my bread machine...had to use part whole-wheat flour because I ran out of all-purpose.  Rolled out the dough into a large rectangle.  Brushed it with olive oil.  Dotted it with cut-up olives, sprinkled on the grated cheese.  Rolled it up like a jelly roll, then cut them into individual rolls.  Put them in a greased pan, let them rise for 1/2 an hour, brushed the tops with olive oil, sprinkled on a little coarse salt, then baked them at 400F for a half hour.  Perfect!

I talked to my mom briefly on the phone today but she had problems hearing me, so I couldn't tell her about my efforts. She had a stroke almost 12 years ago now...it robbed her of the use of her left hand and leg, so when my sister brings her over from the nursing home, she sits in the kitchen with a cup of tea, maybe a shot of whisky(!) and cuts up the olives and puts them on the dough...and that's the picture I had in my mind when I was talking to her today...made me happy to carry on one of her traditional foods.

With the miscotti I barbecued a Cowichan Bay Farm chicken I had cut up and marinated in lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic and smoked sweet paprika.  I find it hard to eat any other kind of chicken these days, as these really have superior flavour.  I paid $14 for this chicken, and I will make at least six meals out of it, plus stock for soups, sauces, etc.
Better than the $35 chicken I read about in the New York Times Magazine today.

To round out the meal, a big fat Greek salad.  Cucumbers, tomatoes and fresh basil from the hothouse down the road.
This is where the 5-mile diet broke down....the feta was Canadian, but not local. (there is some available at times) And I used Greek Calamata olives and lemons from California, but hey, I definitely reduced my carbon footprint with the majority of my ingredients.

As I head off to bed tonight I am reading a history of Italian food...and thinking about all those people in the picture that were born in Sicily, left for 'a better world' in Canada, and left many of their recipes behind.  One day I'm going to go back there and find those recipes.  Stay tuned.

Michael Pollan Comes to UBC Farm

This guy is a real local hero, but on the international stage.  Michael Pollan is the author of two fantastic books I've recommended on this blog before, The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food.

Next Saturday, June 6th, Michael Pollan will make a special appearance at the UBC Farm in Vancouver.  The current status of the farm is up in the air. It's a beautiful, productive piece of farmland in the middle of the city but its future is being threatened by urban style development on the UBC Campus. 

You should know that Pollan's appearance at the farm is a fundraising effort, his only public appearance in Canada slated for this year and your ticket price includes a copy of In Defense of Food.  Oh, and that this whole thing came together courtesy of the brilliant scheming of Barbara-jo McIntosh of Barbara-jo's Books to Cooks.  Much more info on the fundraiser and the farm is here.

Local Asparagus Means Incredible Flavour

Spring has sprung ---or at least the asparagus has at our local asparagus farm, Pedrosa’s. And apparently it has sprung overnight. Finally the weather has cooperated after a week of cold nights. The stalks went from 0” to 12” overnight.

Jaco Pedrosa, wiping the sweat from his brows, came to greet us from the field. He had been out since dawn and would stay out doing the back breaking working of cutting asparagus until they had all been harvested for the day.

Jaco is relatively new to the process, an architect and masonry specialist by profession, he bought the established farm two years ago and has not looked back since, excited by the quality of the asparagus which rivals even the asparagus in his native Spain.

The spurt of growth is good news for everyone in the neighbourhood and even for those chefs who come as far as Victoria to get this fresh and delicately sweet asparagus. We walked away happily munching on our stalks dreaming of the asparagus themed meals for the next three weeks (the length of the asparagus season.)

Here is an example where local beats imports everytime. Just one taste of the tender and sweet asparagus will win you over forever.  To see a Facebook photo album with more photos and recipe results, click here. (you don't need a Facebook account to view the photos)

(this blog posting written and some of the photos taken by Ramona Montagnes)