Archive: 2010

Secret Supper SoireeA Pop up Restaurant Event for Dine Out Vancouver 2011 Early Bird Tickets on sale now! Dine out with adventure! Join us for a tour of secret restaurants popping up where you least expect them. Imagine you are a guest at a private mansion, in a house of curiosities after hours, or perhaps an indoor oasis. Drink stunning B.C. wines and taste delicious canapés made from fresh, wild B.C. fare. We’ll whisk you from one exotic location to another aboard a private trolley car. You’ll never guess where your next bite will take you! A night of culinary secrets. Four Libations. Six Courses. Three secret locations.Additional drinks available for purchase. Vegetarian menu is available. Pick up Location – VIA rail stationYour Chauffeur – Vancouver Trolley CompanyDress Code – As fancy as you like, the fancier the betterEarly Bird…

My First Deer Hunt…Hunting is not like picking apples or like guessing when it’s going to rain in Vancouver. It’s more like fishing, sometimes your lucky. I was almost lucky on my first hunting excursion last week. Ha. Almost doesn’t cut it, does it. This gorgeous bull moose wandered lazily in front of our hunting party. He paused about 70 yards away (well within shooting range) and slowly turned his big head to assess us. I looked at him, he looked at me and, I think, we both understood that I couldn’t shoot him. My father and boyfiend (no that’s not a typo) didn’t think I’d see any moose, so I didn’t get any moose tags*, sigh. As well, moose are so rare and otherworldly, I don’t know if I could have shot him even with the licence. Deer seem…

In a room full of 20 something boys from the sticks, I passed my CORE hunting program on Wednesday with 97%. Yeehaw! Mark one for city girl. I will say that it was a painfully easy exam for a pass that permits you to kill living creatures. My bloody sommelier exam required 100x more study. One piercing question has been rolling about my mind since getting my hunting license. Is hunting for food morally wrong? I realize the issue is more complex than this simple question. A lot of if, ands or buts come to mind, but it’s an important question for me to consider before diving into the forests. I posted the question to my Swallow Tail facebook group and I got some impassioned answers. The moral key for me is to cull only the populations of ‘meat’ that…

Just a quick update on the ultimate city slicker chef learning to hunt, yes, me. I was forced back to the firing range last week by my friend who is pitching the story to the CBC, she wanted to take some photos of us shooting. I really was not excited to go back as last time I left slightly shaky and pale. My neck was tweaking all week from the kick back on the shotgun and I was seriously doubting my ability to actually hunt ever. Here’s a link the story on my first hunting hurdle – first time to shoot a gun ever. But I sucked it up and went with my partner in crime, Helen Stortini (of Growing Chefs fame). She was far more comfortable with the kick and even looked like she had fun last time, damn…

Buying “Money’s Mushrooms” at Costco is akin to putting margarine on toast. It’s not going to kill you, but it is so boring. Head out into BC’s backyard to find the real treasures. A handful of them you may know and see on occation in the high end grocery stores in Fall; yellow chanterelle, matsutake (pine), lobster, king bolete (porcini) or oyster mushrooms. These will run you about $27/lb for chanterelle or pine. Ouch! It’s far more fun to find them on your own, plus to gain access to hundreds of other edible and delicious mushooms at the same time (here’s my shameless plug for Mushroom Hunting Trips in Vancouver). Above is a shot of seaweed risotto with wild califlower and porcini mushrooms by Chef Ted of Refuel at our last supper club. This is a puffball – edible and…

One of Vancouver’s best Thai chefs comes out of retirement for our guest chef series. October 16th at 6:30pm$49 for five courses by donationEmail us for a seat. Only 4 seats left As part of Swallow Tail’s guest chef series, acclaimed Thai chef, Chef Montri, comes out of retirement to cook a five-course feast. Chef Montri retired four years ago after 11 successful years as the owner and chef at Montri’s. His restaurant, located at Broadway and Alma, was consistently awarded ‘Best Thai Restaurant in Vancouver’ for each year it was open. Montri started cooking as a young man in a Bangkok hotel. He then moved to Copenhagen, Denmark where he trained as a chef. After five years in Denmark, he spent another five years as the Chief Steward on a cruise ship. The cruise ship was how he came…

I am not a girlie-girl, but, honestly, shotguns scare the shit out of me. I got dressed up in my best plaid shirt today to venture out to get comfortable with guns. Shotguns and rifles are the only metal that I’m interested in, handguns are for weirdos and psychopaths (just joking, all you psychopaths out there!). As a chef, I love venison and I want to be able to kill my own deer. Cause really, when you go to the grocery store and buy a lovely, juicy steak… you are part of an animal’s death. Being an urbanite, most of us never get anywhere close to understanding what the cost is of eating the amount of meat that we do. We never think about it (which makes it easy), but there is a huge impact on the world and on…

Seems simple, and it is. It’s all about the quality of the ingredients. Venturi-Schulze aged balsamic (Vancouver Island), Portuguese olive oil(Bom Dia), barrata -unripe cows cheese (Bosa Foods), fire roasted bread(homemade), the best in season heirloom tomatoes from the Vancouver Farmers Market, oven dried black olives and the most fragrant basil leaves that you can find.

From the kitchen of Swallow Tail this lovely evening… we present our halibut. After the 3rd course, we made a fire in the backyard for the guests. Prosciutto stuffed figs with Barrata (unriped Italian cow cheese) followed. Dessert – crab apple covered in caramel and ginger, anise ice cream and baked salted caramel figs.

Simple menu, fresh ingredients, flawless execution… in my top three restaurants of the year! You must try the stuffed red peppers with aioli, black olive and fish cake… white anchovies on top, STUNNING! I ordered a second and I was already full! Main Street at 11th Ave, it’s a must.Great wine list too, the house white is $5! This is the red pepper…