The Last Good Summer Night At Owen Lightly’s Sunwolf Supper

photo: Brenda Lowe

by Owen Lightly | My friends Jake, Jess, Slater and Tanya recently purchased the Sunwolf Outdoor Centre. The property, sitting right on the Cheakamus River in the Squamish Valley, includes ten cabins, a conference centre and a small licensed cafe with seating for 50. Not long after the purchase, I went over to check it out. The second I saw the cafe I was in love; it’s nestled under a massive walnut tree with the seating outside on beautifully weathered picnic tables. During the day they provide lunches for sunburned river-rafters and the occasional wandering local. At night the cafe sits empty. Hearing this I had a crazy idea: what if I rented out the space one lovely summer evening and held a dinner? Together with my lovely lady friend Naomi Horii, we would like to invite you to… Read more

Queen Margherita Takes A Trip Down South And Discovers Pizza

by Owen Lightly – As long as people have been pounding and grinding wheat into flour, there has been bread – and as long as there has been bread, people have been rolling it out and putting things on top of it. Read more

Lightly On The Elusiveness Of Aglio E Olio

Imagine this after a hard night of hitting the piss

I’ve always loved eating pasta, but only recently have I started to treat it with the reverence it deserves. Like a lot of people, I used to overcook it, and then pile on a shitload of whatever sauce might be accompanying it, leaving a soupy mess at the bottom of my dish long after all the pasta is gone. Now I buy a decent brand (most places stock de cecco or barilla), cook it about two minutes shy of the package instructions in heavily salted water and then finish the cooking while tossing it with the sauce, using some of the pasta water to bring everything together. The starch from the water, helps the sauce cling to the pasta, leaving none of that soupy mess I referred to before.

For whatever reason, whenever I see Andrew he always manages to bring up the dish spaghetti aglio e olio. Our conversation could be going in any direction, but somehow he always brings it back to this simple Roman pasta. “Yeah the food at such and such a place is good and all, but what I could really go for is a good aglio e olio”, he might say, as he stares off into space, mentally recalling all those perfect pastas of time gone by. He often laments the fact that he can’t find a good version of this minimalist dish in Vancouver, something I think he discussed in his review of Italian Kitchen [ed notes: actually, it was Mon Bella...CinCin's wasn't right either. If I recall correctly, Italian Kitchen's was pretty bang on. Alvin at Campagnolo can make a good one, too, but it isn't on the menu].

Don't burn the garlic...

Start your Spaghetti in plenty of heavily salted boiling water. While it cooks, chop some garlic (about a clove per person I’d say). Heat a pan with a generous amount of olive oil, and when you figure the pasta is about two minutes from being done, fry the garlic until it just starts to brown. Add a few pinches of chili flakes to the oil near the end. Drain the pasta and toss with the oil in the pan. At the last second, throw in a little chopped parsley and serve.

"Is that what you're talking about Andrew?" Yes, Owen...it's the requisite "puddle" - lovely stuff

A dish this simple, is filled with many pitfalls, so be careful. Like I said earlier, use a decent brand of Italian pasta – none of this Catelli shit. Good, freshly chopped garlic is crucial, as the second it is peeled, it is going downhill fast. The oil is the sauce in this dish, so don’t use the safeway dregs – a nice flavored, modestly priced extra virgin olive oil will do just fine. The most important step though, is the cooking of the garlic: too much and the dish will be bitter and acrid, too little and it will be pungent and overpowering. Just do it perfectly, as Hawksworth used to say to me.

Enjoy!

——————————————————————-

Owen Lightly is a boy from a small island in the Gulf of Georgia. After attending cooking school, he moved to Vancouver in 2002 to start a career in the restaurant “biz”. His website, Butter On the Endive, was created for sharing and caring.

——————————————————————-

Wearing Vans To The Top Of Whistler

Endive at 5000. Where's the butter though?

On New Years day, my girlfriend and I were joined by a couple of friends en route to Whistler to have an after-the-fact ringing in of the New Year. Originally, I was going to do a post entitled “Fondue at Five-Thousand”, but that never really panned out as the holiday hangover sapped all my motivation. I then toyed with the idea of making up a story about infiltrating an Australian snowboarding gang that terrorizes the hapless tourists of Whistler, but that was too far fetched (and a downright fabrication), so I’ve settled instead on a brief account of our trip. It was just nice to get out of the city for a couple of days.

Oh my god, it's gorgeous. The view from our room at the Adara Hotel.

We arrived in Whistler to crystal clear skies and some of the most beautiful scenery you might find in this fair province of ours. I’d never been up there in the winter, as I don’t partake in any winter sports and nor am I fabulously wealthy.

The lobby at the Adara Hotel.

We checked into our suite at the Adara Hotel – an unassuming boutique hotel right in the centre of Whistler Village – and proceeded to kick off our shoes and pop open a bottle of bubbly.

Wow! A present!

The fireplace was going, there was a Canucks game on TV (which we won!), and I felt relaxed for the first time in ages. Do you ever stop and realize that you have been grinding your teeth for weeks? I had one of those moments, and it felt good to unclench my jaw and take a load off.

Jumping right into the wine.

After a few bottles of wine, we ventured into the heart of the village for dinner at Araxi. They were loaded to the hilt, but within a few minutes we were able to snag four seats at the bar. My friend Victor, with whom I once worked at West, mans the raw bar there now, and he sent us out some sushi and sashimi to start. So good for a white boy!

At Araxi's bar.

We ordered a few things off the menu, all of which were great (chef James Walt’s food is always solid). I had the chance to work with him this past summer when he and the restaurant catered the VIP tent at the Pemberton Music Festival. A really nice guy, and a great chef. For the volume they do (300 plus covers that night), it makes what they do even more impressive.

Now, call me lame, but all I really wanted to do after was go back to my hotel room at the Adara, have a few nightcaps, and go to bed. But then Victor came over after his shift. We reminisced and bitched about things, as that’s what cooks do, and then it was off to sleep in a way-too-comfortable bed that made mine at home seem very inadequate.

Good morning

Upon waking up, we lingered over coffee (Adara provides JJ Bean beans and a French press), and waited until the last possible second to check out. We then headed out for a forgettable breakfast at a tourist trap in the village, kicking ourselves for not listening to Victor, who recommended the Sunshine diner.

Looking back as we venture over 3 kms of unsupported cables.

On the agenda for our final day was checking out the recently opened Peak to Peak gondola, which now links Whistler and Blackcomb mountains. The project took over a year and a half to complete, cost nearly $51 million dollars, and is the first of its kind in North America. The trip across takes 11 minutes and covers 4.4 kilometres, 3 of those kilometres being with no support from towers – just hanging cables. It is quite the trip, both literally and figuratively. Being the idiot that I am, I wore Vans up the mountain, and upon stepping outside I knew I’d made a mistake. My feet remained frozen for the next hour, and I was lucky to escape with all of my toes intact.

[imgset:72157612451640491,square,true]

We made it down the mountain safely and headed back to Vancouver, stopping only for the last period of the Canucks game at a White Spot in Squamish (does anybody know what is in Triple-O sauce? It’s pretty tasty, but man do they put a lot on their burgers!). I could feel myself getting fatter, and it didn’t help that I cashed in on their offer of bottomless fries. Will I ever learn? Just because the food is there, it doesn’t mean I have to eat it.

Oh well, Happy New Year.

——————————————————————-

Owen Lightly is a boy from a small island in the Gulf of Georgia. After attending cooking school, he moved to Vancouver in 2002 to start a career in the restaurant “biz”. His website, Butter On the Endive, was created for sharing and caring.

——————————————————————-

Field Trip: Owen Lightly Fishing For Dinosaurs

I recently visited Harrison Hot Springs, and among some other interesting activities, had the chance to fish for White Sturgeon – a pre-historic fish – on the mighty Fraser River.

A couple weeks prior, Andrew had called and asked if I wanted to go to Harrison Hot Springs as part of a media trip that would highlight things to do in and around this little village. He mentioned that Sturgeon fishing would be involved and my interest was piqued. I somehow wrangled two days off from work, and last Monday I hit the highway to Harrison.

Being a virgin to these sorts of press junkets, I was a little apprehensive. There would be real writers on this trip, and then there would be me: a dirty cook with a blogging hobby. Would they allow me to speak to them? Would they eat steak and lobster, while I ate bologna sandwiches alone in my hotel room? These are the sorts of things that run through my insecure mind. Of course all the worrying was for naught, as everyone was incredibly nice and a pleasure to hang out with.

The drive to Harrison takes about 90 minutes from Vancouver on Highway 1. If you have a little more time, and are a fan of winding, tree-lined roads, Highway 7 will also get you there. All nut-lovers must stop along the way in Agassiz at one of the many hazelnut orchards there.

The Kilby General Store

You had me at pie

Pig at Kilby

Upon arriving in Harrison, I headed to the Harrison Hot Springs Resort and Spa, where I would be staying, to rendezvous with the media group. After a brief meet and greet, we headed to the Kilby Historic Site in nearby Harrison Mills, where Jo-Anne Leon gave us a tour of this interactive museum. The centrepiece of the five-acre site is a hundred year old building, which was once owned by the Kilby family and operated as a general store from 1906-1977. The general store is filled with original packaging for products from the 1920′s and 30′s, and in the high season has interpretive actors playing out scenes from times gone by. The top floor, which was a hotel at one point, now has many exhibits on the history of the area. With a restaurant, heritage farm, camp site and boat launch on-site, it’s a nice place to spend some time.

Back at the resort, we checked into our rooms and then had some free time to explore the property. I soaked in one of the five hot springs they have on-site (two indoors, three outside), and then it was back to the room to iron my fancy clothes in anticipation for dinner at The Copper Room, the resort’s upscale restaurant. Prior to dinner we met up for drinks and canapés in the one of the suites with director of sales and marketing for the resort, Ian Maw (Jamie Maw’s brother!), who prior to moving to the valley seven years ago, worked for both the Pan Pacific and The Four Seasons in Vancouver.

Love is beautiful

Dinner at The Copper Room is a trip back in time. The restaurant doesn’t look like it has changed in thirty years, and I think our server Bart has probably been there since the last renovation. There is a house band which plays lounge favorites seven nights a week and a large dance floor to strut your stuff. Watching the old couples shuffle across the dance floor, holding each other closely, was almost enough to thaw my cold heart for a moment – but not quite. Food was standard hotel dining room fare, but I have to say the steak I had was cooked nicely, which counts for a lot in my books.

Then it was back to my room for a good nights sleep, for tomorrow was the activity that drew me to Harrison Hot Springs: Sturgeon fishing. But first I would have a relaxation massage in the Healing Springs Spa.

The White Sturgeon has been swimming around the river systems of the Pacific coast for over 175 million years, making it the oldest freshwater species of fish on earth. It can live to be over a hundred years old, with females first spawning between 24-35 years of age, and males anywhere from 11-24 years. They grow very slowly, but fish up to fourteen feet in length and weighing over 1500 pounds have been found. They differ from most fish in that they don’t have scales. Instead, they have bony plates called scutes along their sides and back, which protect them from predators.

From 1880-1916, commercial fishing took over a million pounds of Sturgeon a year out of the Fraser River, nearly wiping the species out entirely. From 1916-1994, sport fisherman were allowed to harvest Sturgeon for personal use, but a massive die-off in 1993 prompted a moratorium on all removal of the fish from the river. Since then, the fishery has been a hundred percent catch-and-release. With stocks as low as a few thousand in the early nineties, Fraser River Sturgeon are now on the mend, with anywhere from 45,000 to 70,000 now in the Fraser – a marked improvement since the moratorium.

Our fishing guide for the day was Tony Nootebos, owner of Harrison Bay Guided Services and its parent company the B.C. Sport Fishing Group. Tony has lived in Harrison Hot Springs for twelve years, originally owning a gas station and campsite before starting the charter business in 1996. The first year he only did 8 trips and nearly went bust, but the following year that number increased to 80, with the company growing steadily ever since. He offers seasonal salmon fishing, and trout and sturgeon fishing year round. He now has a 22 boat fleet, 24 full and part time fishing guides and takes out about 4500 guests per year.

We met Tony at the dock near the entrance to the resort. The first group of media had just returned from their morning trip and were just beaming, having reeled in a 300 pound fish that morning. Hearing their stories, I felt the excitement building up inside me. Having grown up around commercial fish boats (my cousin and dad were both commercial salmon fisherman), I have a connection to fish that I have never quite embraced fully, but am conscious of it all the same. Every time I’m near the water it reminds me of growing up.

Eagles wait to kill something

We set out across Lake Harrison, heading for the mouth of the Harrison River, which will take us to the Fraser. We stop briefly to do some bald eagle watching and fill out our one day fishing licenses.

Tony baits the hook with salmon eggs

Casting the line

We enter the Fraser and Tony takes us to the same spot where the first group made their catch earlier in the day. This time of the year it is harder to get the sturgeon to bite, as the colder water slows down their metabolism and makes them less active. The anchor goes down and the lines are baited and cast into the cold river. Different times of the year calls for different types of bait – right now salmon eggs are appropriate, as that is a large part of the diet of the Sturgeon this time of year.

The lines are set and the waiting begins

Now we wait, watching the lines from the comfort of the heated cabin. Tony tells us about the Sturgeon Conservation Society’s tagging study, of which he is an active participant. When a fish is caught for the first time, a microchip is inserted into the fish, which is used to monitor and assess these endangered fish.

I'd never battled a dinosaur before

A bite! There is a pull on the line and Tony jumps into action. He sets the hook and hands the reel off to me. I immediately realize how hard this is going to be. It is raining hard and my weak arms are burning within a few minutes. “Only another hour”, Tony says, laughing as I reel in, wince, reel in, wince. After watching me struggle for long enough, Tony gives me a couple of pointers. The first thing he says is to keep the arm you are holding the reel with straight, using the body for leverage rather than putting all the strain on your arms. Another is to not fight when the fish is swimming away from you; there is nothing you can do at this point. When the fish gets tired, pull up on the reel to create slack and then let the reel down, bringing in line as you go. This helps a lot and I start to make some definite progress. Half an hour or so later, the fish is within twenty feet of the boat, and does a little jump out of the water. “That’s got to be a six footer”, Tony says. Holy shit! A couple of minute later it is beside the boat. Tony sets up a hammock kind of setup to lay the fish in when he brings it into the boat to check for a microchip and measure the fish. In one quick movement, he pulls the fish into the boat and I get a look at the pre-historic creature that I have been battling for the last thirty minutes. Tony checks for the chip in it, and finds it has been caught before. It is 6.5 feet long and he estimates its weight at around 150 pounds.

That's what half an hour of hard work looks like.

After posing for my obligatory victory photos, we toss the fish back in and re-set the lines for another one in our group to have their turn.

Owen, Jayne Lloyd-Jones (Spectacular Ink owner), and fishing guide Tony Nootebos.

I returned home that evening one step closer to becoming a man, having fought a dinosaur and won.

Thanks to Spectacular Ink, Tourism Harrison, Harrison Hot Springs Resort and Spa and the B.C. Sport Fishing Group for everything!

The Best Staff Meal In Town

You can tell a lot about a cook by what they make when it is his or her turn to make the staff meal in a restaurant. If they put the same love into a lasagna for their comrades as they do into a foie gras torchon for the customers, it says a lot about them. Any monkey can follow a recipe, or do what the chef tells them to do, but if they can take a bunch of scraps and conjure up a tasty meal, then they’re really on to something.

In my last eight months at West as the junior sous-chef I was in charge of preparing the staff meal most days. I always loved doing it and found it to be a great way to learn about cooking types of cuisine I would never learn about in a French fine-dining restaurant. If not for the staff meal, I might not know how to make tortilla soup or ma po tofu.

When I worked for a brief spell at Gastropod this past summer, I was exposed to some great staff meals made by Chef Angus An. He would often make the Thai dishes that he was exposed to while working at Nahm in London, the only Michelin-starred Thai restaurant in Europe. Last week I returned to get the recipe for one of those dishes: the Massaman Curry.

[imgset:72157610704584219,square,true]

Thai cooking is a cuisine based on a balance of hot, sour, salty and sweet flavours. During my visit, Angus told me about one of the great lessons in his cooking career, and it came while he was working at Nahm. He had over-salted a dish and Chef David Thompson took him aside and said, “If you take anything out of working here, I hope it is this”. Thompson then proceeded to fix the dish, adding sweetness, acid and spice to bring the dish back into balance. This is a lesson all cooks, professional or not, should take to heart – seasoning a dish is not just about adding salt and pepper. It’s about attaining a balance of flavours.

So without further ado, here is one of the great dishes that Angus makes for the lucky staff of Gastropod.

Massaman Curry

Serving: the entire restaurant staff!

1 pound yellow curry paste
1/2 pound peanuts peeled and roasted
1 tablespoon coriander seed
1 teaspoon cumin
1 tablespoon cardamom pods
1 stick cassia bark
3 sheath of mace
2 star anise
1 nutmeg
1 tablespoons fennel seeds
1/2 cup palm sugar
1/4 cup fish sauce
2 cans of longans (like a lychee)
3 pounds chicken meat
6 litres coconut cream
2 cups fried shallots
2 cups fried garlic
2 tablespoons tamarind

Crack the coconut cream by letting the milk sit still in the can to settle. The cream that sits on the top is what you want to crack. Ladle out the cream and bring it to a high simmer in a pot. Stir occasionally for about an hour and a half hours, or until the curd separates from the clear coconut oil.

Toast the spices until aromatic. Grind in a spice grinder or a mortar and pestle. Add the roasted peanuts to the mix and blend or pound until fine. Fold in the curry paste.

Fry the curry paste with the coconut oil that you separated from the cream. The clear oil will fry the curry, while the curd lets out the curry and gives it moisture. When the curry is aromatic (3-5 minutes) add the palm sugar and fish sauce. Let out with the remaining coconut milk and cook. Fry the chicken in oil and add to the curry. Add 1 cup each of fried garlic and shallots. Check the seasoning, using tamarind to give acidity.

In the end, garnish with the sweet longans, and the rest of the fried garlic and shallots. Eat with lots of rice!

———————————

Owen Lightly is a boy from a small island in the Gulf of Georgia. After attending cooking school, he moved to Vancouver in 2002 to start a career in the restaurant “biz”. His website, Butter On the Endive, was created for sharing and caring.

———————————-

The Risotto Kama Sutra

Risotto and good sex have a lot in common. For instance, both provide indescribable pleasure and take about twenty minutes to make.

Before beginning these things, there are a few simple preparations you must see to. With risotto, you make a nice broth, dice some onion, and decide on the ingredient that you want to be the star (the simpler the better). With sex, you must light a scented candle and put on an R. Kelly CD if you want to have any hope of success.

You must be very gentle at first. Sweat the onions in a little olive oil and butter, being careful not to color them. Then add the rice (don’t skimp on the rice!), and listen for a light crackling sound as it toasts in the fat, stirring all the while – keep listening, it will tell you when to add the wine. Once added, let it evaporate completely, until it is begging for the stock that you so lovingly prepared earlier. You can’t add it all at once though; it must be added in increments to extract the most starch from the grains, which in the end will give you a nice, creamy risotto. Oh, and the stirring! You must stir constantly, or at least often, and don’t be afraid to vary the speed at which you do so – it makes things more interesting. Seasoning is important as well. I find if you season the risotto as you go, slowly adding it in layers, the result will always be better than if you just dump all the salt in at the end. Now it’s looking good, the rice is plumping up and it’s getting creamier with every ladle of stock that you add.

adding stock

This is the time to concentrate, because it will all happen very quickly from here until the end. When the rice is nearly there, it is time to add the main ingredient, be it mushrooms, squash or whatever the hell you want – it’s like a blank canvas. You’ve been working really hard, so don’t screw it up now. At the moment the rice is done, adjust the consistency so that it’s not too thick, and not too thin (au point, as the French would say). Take it off the heat and add some diced butter, some grated parmesan (unless it has seafood in it, then skip the cheese), some herbs, maybe a touch of lemon juice and you’re done. With all that being said, there are endless ways to make risotto, and everyone has their own little tricks. Like sex, the only way to get good at it is practice, practice, practice. As long as it feels and tastes good, that’s all that matters.

Lately I’ve been using a brand of rice for my risottos at home that I was introduced to when I started at West Restaurant. The brand is called Acquerello, and it is short-grained Carnaroli rice from the province of Vercelli, in Piedmont, Italy. The farm has been owned and operated by the Rondolino family for three generations, and in 1998 became a completely organic operation – on top of that, they allow fish, frogs and birds to live amongst the rice paddies, creating a natural ecosystem that goes “beyond organic”. They are blessed with rich, alluvial soil and an abundant flow of cool, clean water from the Alps. Once the rice is harvested, it is aged in refrigerated silos for anywhere from 1 to 3 years. Aging makes the cereals, vitamins, nutrients and proteins less soluble in water, which allows the rice to absorb more liquid. After aging, the rice is refined using a tool over a hundred years old called “the screw”. In it, the rice spirals slowly downwards, rubbing grain against grain rather than bleaching, which leaches nutrients from the rice. All of this adds up to a rice which holds its shape, has a distinct flavour, and keeps me coming back for more.

Acquerello can be bought at Meinhardt Fine Foods or through Mikuni Wild Harvest.

———————————

Owen Lightly is a boy from a small island in the Gulf of Georgia. After attending cooking school, he moved to Vancouver in 2002 to start a career in the restaurant “biz”. His website, Butter On the Endive, was created for sharing and caring.