by TRISH KELLY
Eat Out >>
To the outside eye, the food media’s love affair with C Restaurant must seem like overkill. A Critic’s Choice award every year since the restaurant opened in 1997 and more nods than you’ll find at a head-banging Kiss reunion show don’t begin to explain why C is so crush-worthy. This month, executive chef Robert Clark and chef de cuisine Quang Dang offer a greatest-hits tasting menu with signature dishes from the last 10 years. Centre-stage in the menu will be many of the sustainable seafood choices C made sexy, including B.C. abalone and sablefish. Need more reasons? Check out the headshot of Clark on C’s website at www.crestaurant.com. You’ve never seen a conservationist look better in chef whites.
CHECK OUT >>
The year that James MacKinnon and Alisa Smith lived the 100-Mile Diet, they learned to cherish grain flour. In B.C., you’ll find pockets of organic spelt in Armstrong and some Red Fife wheat on the Island, but a completely local diet isn’t exactly bread-friendly. According to Andrea Gunner from Anita’s Organic Grain and Flour Mill in Chilliwack, much of the local wheat she’s found isn’t up to snuff (yet). But concern about food miles is at the forefront of its procurement. As a result, Anita’s makes excellent quality, certified organic grain flour, stone-ground and sourced as close to home as possible. Sometimes that requires going all the way to Manitoba, but it also means nurturing relationships with farmers in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and microclimates in the B.C. Interior. Available at Capers and Whole Foods, or visit anitasorganicmill.com.
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When you find yourself pondering the eggs in your favourite supermarket, which do you choose, the organic, the free-run, or the cheapos? If you give in to the lowest ticket price, you’re likely buying eggs laid in a battery cage. (Visit chickenout.ca to find out about that; it’s enough to make you skip breakfast.) B.C.’s concern for chicken welfare stretches back to 1994: the appropriately named Steve Easterbrook of Rabbit River Organic Farms has been producing certified organic eggs since that year. Located on Richmond’s Agricultural Land Reserve, Rabbit River was one of the first commercial farms in Western Canada to explore organic, free-range egg production. Easterbrook’s ability to balance animal welfare and human food needs also won him an Ethics in Action Award in 2001. Rabbit River eggs are available at Capers, Choices, and Whole Foods.
Trish Kelly lives and eats in Vancouver. She loves pumpkin tarts, pink lady apples, and
people who call her Sugar. At her request, SharedVISIoN donates Trish’s freelance
fee to a local food-focused non-profit. This month’s recipient is Cooking Fun for Families
(communitykitchens.ca), a program that helps children and their families build community
and food security in the school environment.
