I made it to day 18 of 30, that is not too shabby in my opinion. After a few blogging lapses this week, I am getting back on track. Please stay tuned for more Vancouver foodie blog shares and a new profile sharing some daily life adventures of a Vancouver food blogger!
In the meantime, watch this video. Even though there is no connection to food, and even if you’ve seen it before, it is a good reminder to be happy!
So, Happy Friday everyone!!
It’s Monday again. Hmm.
Depending on whether you are a glass half-full or half-empty kind of person, you could be reminiscing about the lovely weekend you just enjoyed and likely included some wine? Or perhaps you are really feeling the heat of your Monday and have begun counting down to your next wine-time…
But then there are others who enjoy wine on a routine basis, regardless of the day of the week: as true aficionados and connoisseurs, like this blogger, who confesses to enjoying wine almost daily. I think there is nothing wrong with that because it is, after all, all about the moderation.
This brings me to blog share #18, which I felt should cover the beverage side of our food scene in Vancouver. Because naturally, food pairs frequently with wine and with wine being a whole other world of it’s own outside food – there is a lot of information to consume. And if you are like me, you may not know as much about wine as food, so it is helpful to have more educated people to follow on the topic, like Sean Calder – host of Vinifico.
VINIFICO, is a magnificent wine blog, based in Vancouver. Yes, a blog purely about wine, and some food too. The name of this blog alone is a tasty one, I am a fan of the puns myself, so I cannot help but appreciate other pun-makers. Blogging since 2005, Sean has hosted Vinifico and describes his blog as his online wine journal – with contributions from his friend Graham here and there.
Follow Vinifico and you are in for some fantastico-pours, bites, and wine event updates. And like many trendy bloggers, Sean is on twitter too.
Vinifico - Vancouver Wine Blog
There are several culinary/ cooking schools in Vancouver and a huge variety of programs available to anyone interested in improving their culinary skills.
Well some of them blog too! This blog or bust post is about cooking school blogs, and this one is a local host who lives in Vancouver and is a mobile cooking school. Zac’s Cooking School offers cooking lessons one to one, in groups settings, for events, for couples, but specializes in group cooking classes. The blog shares fun updates about recipes and food adventures too – its a cool follow.
You can also follow Zac on Twitter!
Zacs Cooking School
Follow Me Foodie
Mijune Pak is host of Follow Me Foodie, a fantastic local food blog and restaurant guide for Vancouver. Her blog has grown beyond her original site and is now its own website – which is not something all bloggers achieve – great to see in Vancouver!
As one of her followers on Twitter, Mijune is an avid-foodie-tweeter (@followmefoodie), sharing fun updates life. Her blog includes reviews of restaurants and even grades them on a scale, which is handy; along with her convenient navigation bar – listing top tens and best of. Her photography is fun too!
FollowMeFoodie is certainly a blog to follow, organized and current with local food happenings… Love it!
Did you know that there are over 700 Japanese restaurants in Metro Vancouver, according to Dinehere.ca; and of those over 500 are categorized as Sushi restaurants. And that was one simple query search… I bet there are more!
Vancouver is well known for it’s diverse food scene and Japanese is simply one ethnic variety. Japanese I chose at random, but wanted to use it as an example of the more niche-styled food blogs. Today’s blog or bust post is a blog that has quite a few Japanese tags within their posts that I can see – and includes photos and stories etc of restaurant reviews.
Eat Snap Repeat is a contemporary looking designed blog hosted by two young guys, Eddie and Daniel, “techies living in beautiful Vancouver, Canada. We spend a lot of our time writing software – blogging is a nice escape for us.”
Read their about page – to learn what their previous blog name was and how they got started: inspired by bad work cafeteria food… It happens!
Eat Snap Repeat
Their home page says it all: URBANSPOON Vancouver! UrbanSpoon is a resourceful food site, that includes contributions by many of the food bloggers I’ve already mentioned, and have yet to mention. Their TOP rated lists are helpful, when searching for a particular style of dining or cuisine; and they include reviews of all the great eats around town.
The Vancouver page, is just one of many other great Urban Spoon city pages within the larger mother-site, including Melbourne, Calgary, Toronto, Seattle, New York, Florida, Atlanta, and more.
Simply said, who wouldn’t love convenient referrals to good local eats?
UrbanSpoon Vancouver
Tonight is another short post about food blog titles – that I simply love. Each are more great local writers and fun follows!
I’m Only Here For The Food – A great Vancouver food blog a local, that reviews a variety of local restaurants. The author shares they does not have a formal culinary background, through the about page, but has an adventurous food philosophy to live by, “taught to appreciate food and [have] willingness to try almost anything.” I think the content of this blog reflects this policy! Well done!
I'm Only Here For the Food - food blog
Vancouver Street Eats – Another great name for a food blog in Vancouver, especially with the recent addition of more food vendors and ‘street eats’ following the Games earlier this year. Lots of fun pics of food carts on the street downtown in Vancouver, reviewing them all as new additions to the food scene in Vancouver. This blog is also a relatively new one, established this year. This blog is extra cool because it includes videos and maps of the exact location of the street eats! A FUN FOODIE FOLLOW!
Vancouver Street Eats - food blog
But I’m doubling up tomorrow!!! Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Stay tuned for my Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake recipe…
Lady J's Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake
The most important food blog ever, is Owen Lightly’s opening header for Butter On the Endive. I think he can take that claim. Owen is the blog’s editor-in-chief and works at Araxi in Whistler; he has one blog contributor, Katie Sanders, and each have professional culinary training. When I met Eric Pateman earlier in the summer, this was among the blogs that came up as we chatted about local foodies.
This is blog #2 for me because it is one of the first food blogs that was referred to me. Since then I have read about Butter on the Endive numerous times – and agree it is quality food blogging. With great photography, by contributing photographers, writing and recipes, they even include videos too.
PS. For those who may not know, endive is a type of leaf lettuce.
Endive. Photo source: kitchengardens.org
The other night I made my very first chocolate mousse. We devoured the rich chocolate pudding-like goodness so fast my camera didn’t stand a chance to document the successful recipe attempt! I plan to make it many times again in the future because it turned out so well. It was basically a chocolate custard with whipped cream folded in – how can one go wrong!? So I want to switch it up and see if I can make my lemon curd into a mousse using a similar method.
In the meantime, here is the recipe, I recommend trying it because it was super easy and it was a very rich chocolate dessert that would be a fine-dining-experience in any restaurant; why not try to recreate it at home. Fine Dining at Home:
CHOCOLATE MOUSSE! Recipe courtesy of Martha Stewart Living’s Fresh Flavour Fast (one of my many favourite cookbooks – with a photo of each recipe and easy instructions with simple ingredients).
Chocolate Mousse: Fresh Flavour Fast cookbook
Serves 6 | Prep Time: 30 Minutes | Total time including chilling – 2 hours
INGREDIENTS:
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
4 large egg yolks
4 tablespoons sugar
2 cups heavy cream
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
TIP: you have to use real heavy cream or at minimum whipping cream – you can’t go light on the dairy as this is what gives it the light fluffy texture!
METHOD:
1. Place chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over (not in) a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally, until melted. Remove from heat.
2. In a medium saucepan, whisk together egg yolks, 2 tablespoons of sugar, and 3/4 cup of heavy cream. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring, until mixture coats the back of a spoon, 3-4 minutes (do not let it boil though). Remove from heat; whisk in melted chocolate and vanilla until completely smooth. Strain through a fine sieve into a bowl (this is an important step because it discards any solids from the process of cooking the yolks). Refrigerate, covered, until cool.
3. With an electric mixer on medium speed, beat remaining 1 1/4 cups heavy cream and 2 tablespoons sugar until stiff peaks form. Stir one-third of whipped cream into cooled custard mixture, then use a flexible spatula to gently but thoroughly fold in the rest.
4. Spoon into the serving dishes; chill, covered, at least 1 hour and up to 3 days. Remove from refrigerator 15 minutes before serving.
Top with a little seasonal fruit, whipped cream, crumbled cookies, or just eat and enjoy as is! Simply smooth and decadent chocolatey goodness; a.k.a. heaven in a dessert cup!
Beyond The Dough 