While the rest of y'all do work team bonding in the form of "I'll fall back and you catch me" or "have another pint", half of Tourism BC's web team (l-r: me, my office roomie/mate Sarah, boss William and search marketing guy Dimitriy) spent Sunday on Dimitriy's sailboat, adrift somewhere in American waters, and getting crazy suntan raccoon eyes. We even had to bring our passports - D's boat is moored off this nutso little place called Point Roberts, which, while attached to BC, is actually American territory. Cue heeelarious visit to the US border control office (we all were forced to laugh at the guard's rubbish "Show me the money" joke as he held our passports), and a visit to the scary International Food Market which was filled to the rafters with lard and weird Americans. Still, I got to cross another "never done that before" thing off my list. And we saw a seal. Woot!
Monday 21 July 2008
This is a tale of some castaways
While the rest of y'all do work team bonding in the form of "I'll fall back and you catch me" or "have another pint", half of Tourism BC's web team (l-r: me, my office roomie/mate Sarah, boss William and search marketing guy Dimitriy) spent Sunday on Dimitriy's sailboat, adrift somewhere in American waters, and getting crazy suntan raccoon eyes. We even had to bring our passports - D's boat is moored off this nutso little place called Point Roberts, which, while attached to BC, is actually American territory. Cue heeelarious visit to the US border control office (we all were forced to laugh at the guard's rubbish "Show me the money" joke as he held our passports), and a visit to the scary International Food Market which was filled to the rafters with lard and weird Americans. Still, I got to cross another "never done that before" thing off my list. And we saw a seal. Woot!
Saturday 12 July 2008
About Bloody Time
Finally! The Canadian Summer is here - OH YEAH!
Now that the sun is shining like an awesome shiny thing, and we don't have anywhere to be or anything to do, Mikala and I have finally been able to have a weekend chillin' in the sun.
What did we get up to? Weeeeell...
First off we went to the farmers' market (just round the corner from The Taycave, and which Mikala has blogged about, ahem, extensively) to pick up some tomatoes, monster cukes, tasty lamb and roast-garlic-&-Monterrey-Jack sourdough. Today's unusual market purchase: mutton! Someone in the queue reckons it tastes lamby. We shall see....baa.
Then we prepared an impromptu pic-a-nic basket and headed to Trout Lake - also just round the corner from Chez Tay. After enjoying a delicious repast and a few sneaky ales in the sun ( I say "sneaky" because drinking outdoors is illegal in Canada - ridiculous, I know...) Mikala and I swam out to the pontoon in the middle of the lake for a spot of chillin' and bombin'.
Then we swam back for Pimms and pizza sur le balcon at home. Mmmmm.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand relaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax.
x
Dan.
Now that the sun is shining like an awesome shiny thing, and we don't have anywhere to be or anything to do, Mikala and I have finally been able to have a weekend chillin' in the sun.
What did we get up to? Weeeeell...
First off we went to the farmers' market (just round the corner from The Taycave, and which Mikala has blogged about, ahem, extensively) to pick up some tomatoes, monster cukes, tasty lamb and roast-garlic-&-Monterrey-Jack sourdough. Today's unusual market purchase: mutton! Someone in the queue reckons it tastes lamby. We shall see....baa.
Then we prepared an impromptu pic-a-nic basket and headed to Trout Lake - also just round the corner from Chez Tay. After enjoying a delicious repast and a few sneaky ales in the sun ( I say "sneaky" because drinking outdoors is illegal in Canada - ridiculous, I know...) Mikala and I swam out to the pontoon in the middle of the lake for a spot of chillin' and bombin'.
Then we swam back for Pimms and pizza sur le balcon at home. Mmmmm.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand relaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax.
x
Dan.
Wednesday 9 July 2008
Saturday 5 July 2008
Hawkmen... DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!
OK, there are no two ways about this: hawks are cool.
Vultan, king of the Hawkmen, from Flash Gordon? Cool.
Steely-eyed space-assassin, "Hawk", from Buck Rodgers? Also cool.
Dodgy 70's sci-fi aside, let me tell you in advance that the following story contains the aforementioned birds of prey and is, therefore... cool.
So... the other day I was taking the Skytrain to work... Speaking of which, what would you rather ride every morning? The Skytrain or the Underground? Skytrain? Under ground? Yeah, whatever - suckers of Londone Towne: Vancouver isn't the city with the highest quality of life in the world because it forces its inhabitants to commute in subterranean sardine tins!
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes: ...Skytrain to work! Anyway, as I was going through the Skytrain station I spotted a lady wearing a fluorescent yellow waistcoat; the sort of garment usually favoured by street sweepers and the like. I mistakenly assumed that she was there to pick up litter... until I spotted the dirty great (wait for it...) hawk perched on her arm.
Intrigued by this strange sight, I went over to say hello...
"Nice hawk." Said I.
"Why thank you. My falcon is in the car resting." she replied.
"And what, if you don't mind me asking, brings you to the Skytrain with two birds of prey?" I enquired.
"We use them to get rid of pigeons" she replied matter-of-factly.
How cool is that?!!?!?
They use the hawks to kill the pigeons!!!
Can you imagine Red Ken deploying that kind of pest control in Trafalgar Square? A squadron of kestrel descending from Nelson's Column, raining down taloned vengeance on, what are essentially, rats with wings. Maybe he could get a few bald eagles in to take out some tourists as well... one can but dream.
Anyway, my point is that, with hawks being so cool, the fact that Vancouver uses them to get rid of pigeons, which are inherently un-cool, is a consummate victory for coolness. Viva Vancouver!
Until next time, my feathered friends...
DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!
x
Dan.
NB: Yes, we know Red Ken is no longer mayor. :-)
Vultan, king of the Hawkmen, from Flash Gordon? Cool.
Steely-eyed space-assassin, "Hawk", from Buck Rodgers? Also cool.
Dodgy 70's sci-fi aside, let me tell you in advance that the following story contains the aforementioned birds of prey and is, therefore... cool.
So... the other day I was taking the Skytrain to work... Speaking of which, what would you rather ride every morning? The Skytrain or the Underground? Skytrain? Under ground? Yeah, whatever - suckers of Londone Towne: Vancouver isn't the city with the highest quality of life in the world because it forces its inhabitants to commute in subterranean sardine tins!
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes: ...Skytrain to work! Anyway, as I was going through the Skytrain station I spotted a lady wearing a fluorescent yellow waistcoat; the sort of garment usually favoured by street sweepers and the like. I mistakenly assumed that she was there to pick up litter... until I spotted the dirty great (wait for it...) hawk perched on her arm.
Intrigued by this strange sight, I went over to say hello...
"Nice hawk." Said I.
"Why thank you. My falcon is in the car resting." she replied.
"And what, if you don't mind me asking, brings you to the Skytrain with two birds of prey?" I enquired.
"We use them to get rid of pigeons" she replied matter-of-factly.
How cool is that?!!?!?
They use the hawks to kill the pigeons!!!
Can you imagine Red Ken deploying that kind of pest control in Trafalgar Square? A squadron of kestrel descending from Nelson's Column, raining down taloned vengeance on, what are essentially, rats with wings. Maybe he could get a few bald eagles in to take out some tourists as well... one can but dream.
Anyway, my point is that, with hawks being so cool, the fact that Vancouver uses them to get rid of pigeons, which are inherently un-cool, is a consummate victory for coolness. Viva Vancouver!
Until next time, my feathered friends...
DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!
x
Dan.
NB: Yes, we know Red Ken is no longer mayor. :-)
Simple Pleasures
Yes, I'm a bit special. I do like my slimy animals, me. So in addition to the garden-dwelling otter we saw last weekend, feast your eyes on the kewl creatures of the deep (and the Bowen Island forest) that we've met recently:
The rare Bowen Island Camo Slug. He uses his cloak of invisibility to move effortlessly across the forest floor at Mach -346.
Baked, not fried.
So long and thanks for all the fishSo sad that it should come to this
We tried to warn you all but oh dear!
You may not share our intellect
Which might explain your disrespect
For all the natural wonders that
grow around you
So long, so long and thanks
for all the fish
The world's about to be destroyed
There's no point getting all annoyed
Lie back and let the planet dissolve
Despite those nets of tuna fleets
We thought that most of you were sweet
Especially tiny tots and your
pregnant women
With friends like these, who needs anenomes?
The rare Mink Frog. Its skin secretes a hallucinogenic toxin. But instead of you licking it, it licks you.
xMikala
One of my top five meals of all time
Holy crap, the food at Sooke Harbour House is good!
No, no - better than that.
Last weekend Mikala and I went on a bit of a road trip to the remote area of Vancouver Island known as Sooke (which clever readers may remember from the Christmas before last). "Why?" I hear you ask. I'll tell you why...
The restaurant at Sooke Harbor House is run by Chef Edward Tuson who is somewhat of a kitchen renegade (seen here brandishing a large prosciutto ham, which he probably raised from a wee piglet himself).
He insists on...
1) Changing his menu daily, depending on what food is freshly available
2) Gets all his ingredients from within 100Km of his kitchen
3) Grows most of the herbs and vegetables in the hotel's 4 acre certified organic garden
4) Cook with the craziest stuff - from flower petals to beaver tails.
Well, OK, he doesn't cook beaver tails, but if he did I am sure they would taste awesome.
Needless to say the food here is phenomenal. Here is what Mikala (now, thankfully, in the maintenance phase of her diet) and I chowed down on:
Starter: The famous Sooke Harbor House Salad
Now this is not your common or garden salad (see what I did there?) Chef Tuson makes this from a delicious melange of wild, organic greens and a sprinkling of edible flower blossoms from the aforementioned garden. It's then dusted off with a light mustard rosemary dressing and the resulting taste sensation is truly remarkable.
Entree: Wilted Greens & Goat's Cheese Tart
With a delicious red onion, poppy seed and chervil salad.
The cheese was so fresh tasting I wouldn't have been surprised if it was still just milk a few hours early.
Main Course: Roasted Lamb Loin with a sun-dried tomato, butter-milk sauce and nodding onion oil, served on a shitake mushroom & barley crepe roll with a spinach and sweet pepper salad.
This is the best thing I have ever eaten. The lamb was rare, succulent and flavoursome. It can only be described as... emotional. I may have wept...
Desert: Rhubarb Souffle with candied angelica, served with a Chardonnay poached rhubarb compote and angelica Ice-cream
The souffle was like a party in my mouth - Oh... my... God. This was almost certainly because the rhubarb had been picked from the hotel's garden a few hours previously. We found out later that the Angelica is grown in the garden and candied for six days before being turned into ice-cream, the taste of which is really unusual - Mikala and I couldn't decide if it was pistachio, mint or something else entirely so, in the end, we had to ask the maître d'.
The missus had the white chocolate mousse, which came served with wild Nootka roses, alpine strawberries and a strawberry mint sorbet. It was also rather good.
This delicious meal came with a lovely wine paring - if you ever have the opportunity to purchase a bottle of La Frenz 2006 Semillon, then do. Don't think about it, don't hesitate, just get it. Best... wine... ever.
Needless to say the night was finished off with a glass or two of Canados - a Canadian Calvados (clever, eh?) and the customary selection of baby cheeses, which, despite it not being Yuletide, were still very tasty.
The next day, to top things off, we were treated to a tour fo the hotel gardens, where the head gardener pulled up all sorts of exotic flowers & herbs for us to taste. WHen we told her how much we enjoyed the nodding onions, she was kind enough to give us a plant to take how so we could add them to our ever growing balcony herb garden. Sweet!
Now all wee need is some sheep on the spare balcony and we'll be sorted...
:)
Dan.
No, no - better than that.
Last weekend Mikala and I went on a bit of a road trip to the remote area of Vancouver Island known as Sooke (which clever readers may remember from the Christmas before last). "Why?" I hear you ask. I'll tell you why...
The restaurant at Sooke Harbor House is run by Chef Edward Tuson who is somewhat of a kitchen renegade (seen here brandishing a large prosciutto ham, which he probably raised from a wee piglet himself).
He insists on...1) Changing his menu daily, depending on what food is freshly available
2) Gets all his ingredients from within 100Km of his kitchen
3) Grows most of the herbs and vegetables in the hotel's 4 acre certified organic garden
4) Cook with the craziest stuff - from flower petals to beaver tails.
Well, OK, he doesn't cook beaver tails, but if he did I am sure they would taste awesome.
Needless to say the food here is phenomenal. Here is what Mikala (now, thankfully, in the maintenance phase of her diet) and I chowed down on:
Starter: The famous Sooke Harbor House Salad
Now this is not your common or garden salad (see what I did there?) Chef Tuson makes this from a delicious melange of wild, organic greens and a sprinkling of edible flower blossoms from the aforementioned garden. It's then dusted off with a light mustard rosemary dressing and the resulting taste sensation is truly remarkable.
Entree: Wilted Greens & Goat's Cheese Tart
With a delicious red onion, poppy seed and chervil salad.
The cheese was so fresh tasting I wouldn't have been surprised if it was still just milk a few hours early.
Main Course: Roasted Lamb Loin with a sun-dried tomato, butter-milk sauce and nodding onion oil, served on a shitake mushroom & barley crepe roll with a spinach and sweet pepper salad.
This is the best thing I have ever eaten. The lamb was rare, succulent and flavoursome. It can only be described as... emotional. I may have wept...
Desert: Rhubarb Souffle with candied angelica, served with a Chardonnay poached rhubarb compote and angelica Ice-cream
The souffle was like a party in my mouth - Oh... my... God. This was almost certainly because the rhubarb had been picked from the hotel's garden a few hours previously. We found out later that the Angelica is grown in the garden and candied for six days before being turned into ice-cream, the taste of which is really unusual - Mikala and I couldn't decide if it was pistachio, mint or something else entirely so, in the end, we had to ask the maître d'.
The missus had the white chocolate mousse, which came served with wild Nootka roses, alpine strawberries and a strawberry mint sorbet. It was also rather good.
This delicious meal came with a lovely wine paring - if you ever have the opportunity to purchase a bottle of La Frenz 2006 Semillon, then do. Don't think about it, don't hesitate, just get it. Best... wine... ever.
Needless to say the night was finished off with a glass or two of Canados - a Canadian Calvados (clever, eh?) and the customary selection of baby cheeses, which, despite it not being Yuletide, were still very tasty.
The next day, to top things off, we were treated to a tour fo the hotel gardens, where the head gardener pulled up all sorts of exotic flowers & herbs for us to taste. WHen we told her how much we enjoyed the nodding onions, she was kind enough to give us a plant to take how so we could add them to our ever growing balcony herb garden. Sweet!
Now all wee need is some sheep on the spare balcony and we'll be sorted...
:)
Dan.
Why is the monkey lost?
Because da jungle is massif!
That's right my drum 'n' bass brethren - at long last Mikala and I have finally scored some quality clubbing here in The Couve. Courtesy of a tip-off from our slightly deranged but totally awesome Aussie mates, Kylie and Arthur, we are now hooked up with Vancouver's junglist posse.
So, what better way to celebrate our "cotton" wedding anniversary than with a trip to see LTJ Bukem and MC Conrad mix it up at The Plaza?
I wanted to get Conrad to do a wedding anniversary shout-out, but Mikala put the breaks on that idea in a (fairly sensible) bid to protect our street cred. Spoil-sport.
And, this Canada Day, what could have been more patriotic than a crazy midnight mosh-up with king of the cheeky rewind, Shy FX, and his good chum DJ Hype?
And why is it that drum & bass artistes all have to have so many acronyms in their name? Even the super cute Vancouver D&B mistress, B Traits (who Mikala and I both love) can't resist the urge to acronise.
More annoyingly, however, is the fact that all these wikkid bust-ups are always on a fucking* school night! And, to make matters worse, the headliners never come on until the witching-hour chimes, meaning that poor little Dan and Mikala get about , ooooooh, three hours sleep before having to haul our sorry asses into work.
Still, that's why God invented You Tube...
Respec' to the massif!
x
Dan.
*Sorry, Mum.
That's right my drum 'n' bass brethren - at long last Mikala and I have finally scored some quality clubbing here in The Couve. Courtesy of a tip-off from our slightly deranged but totally awesome Aussie mates, Kylie and Arthur, we are now hooked up with Vancouver's junglist posse.
So, what better way to celebrate our "cotton" wedding anniversary than with a trip to see LTJ Bukem and MC Conrad mix it up at The Plaza?
I wanted to get Conrad to do a wedding anniversary shout-out, but Mikala put the breaks on that idea in a (fairly sensible) bid to protect our street cred. Spoil-sport.
And, this Canada Day, what could have been more patriotic than a crazy midnight mosh-up with king of the cheeky rewind, Shy FX, and his good chum DJ Hype?
And why is it that drum & bass artistes all have to have so many acronyms in their name? Even the super cute Vancouver D&B mistress, B Traits (who Mikala and I both love) can't resist the urge to acronise.
More annoyingly, however, is the fact that all these wikkid bust-ups are always on a fucking* school night! And, to make matters worse, the headliners never come on until the witching-hour chimes, meaning that poor little Dan and Mikala get about , ooooooh, three hours sleep before having to haul our sorry asses into work.
Still, that's why God invented You Tube...
Respec' to the massif!
x
Dan.
*Sorry, Mum.
Fair Market Value
10.21 am, Saturday. Back from the Farmer's Market with a fascinating tomato update. ;-) By the time I arrived, 15 minutes before the "time to sell" bell, Gipaanda Tomatoes had 25 people in the queue, 50 by the time I got in and got out and were sold out of their mandarin yellow toms when I scooped the last handful.THEY'RE LIKE CRACK I TELL YOU! Made off with a full-salad bowl's worth brimming with 8 different types (pink, black, orange, yellow and tomato berries - but decided to skip on the one called "The Beast"), all grown a mere 30km from here. The English Cucumber I bought also top-trumped the one I mention in the blog below: instead of saying "picked yesterday" this Cukezilla was picked at....erm, at 6am this morning. How awesome? 
Also made away with a bunch of white irises, some wild coho salmon for cedar planking on the BBQ, a huge fillet of Ling Cod from the Queen Charlotte Islands way up north, a bag of peppers and some to-die for Okanagan Cherries.
Who's coming for dinner?
xMikala
xMikala
Friday 4 July 2008
This Little Piggie Went to Market
One of the ace things about living where we do is that we're only a few short blocks away from one of the city's best summer farmers' markets at Trout Lake. Every Saturday (from May-October), I haul arse out of bed at the ungodly hour of 8.30am so Dan and I can get to market, to market for its opening bell. Why, you may ask? I'll show you why...
Yup. The foodie in me hath reawakened. With a vengeance. And it's hungry for lycopene.Every few weeks, the Gipaanda Greenhouse duo come down to sell their 15 varieties of greenhouse toms - and these babies are the shizzle. They're like candy. And it's cool to know that the person selling you their red, orange, pink, yellow cherry toms, is usually the same person who picked the things. In fact, I am so obsessed with these balls of redly goodness that I buy kilos of them whenever Gipaanda are in-stalled. I even have their schedule bookmarked. I usually also eat most of the $30 I usually spunk, over the course of two days. *Burp* Creepy and scary 'cos we're really only talking about tomatoes? Perhaps. But my salads rock mob-style and are almost as good as...
...Iron Maiden's sashimi-grade albacore tuna that we also cannae live without and which we buy to throw on GrillKong, or Celyddon Farms' cucumbers that list the date they were picked (usually "yesterday") , or the San Pareil brie from frazzled woman at Little Qualicum Cheeseworks, or Dan's favourite hot tapenade, Skoogh, sold by the entertaining Jewish guy who fronts "Golda's Finest Foods". Stomach rumbling yet?
Mine is. But it's time for bed. For tomorrow I hunt and hit the ENORMOUS Gipaanda queue early before the ones that look like strawberries disappear. Oink!
xMikala
Beaver Shot....
....well, actually, it's an otter. Soz to disappoint. ;-)
Wildlife is plentiful in British Columbia. But the last place you expect to see a wild otter is in the gardens of the Sooke Harbour House (more on that weekend above). Otter madness I tell ye!
xMikala
Thursday 3 July 2008
Canada D'eh
July 1, 2008 - Trout Lake - the inner city park near our flat replete with lake, greenery and panpipes (a South American family took up lawn near us, we didn't bring 'em). Add in Dan's former-goth, music fan workmate Gregg, Mikala's VanBFF Joy and BBQ'd tandoori chicken, salads, home-made dips and Danmade margaritas, plus some strange burning ball in the sky, and you get one very chill, no-stress Cancouver Day. But too many boozy lemonades (for Dan at least) + lots of rays = Dan passed out on our bed at 4pm. And a good thing too - we had to rest before going out clubbing that night at 11pm to see ShyFx with our kooky fluorescent-red-dreaded-tattooed-pierced Aussie mate Kylie. UK Drum n' bass in da house on a school night? What could be more Canadian? :-)
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