Food Media Omnibus #557: On The Music At Black & Blue And Winging It With Alex Gill
February 7, 2012
by Claire Lassam | Presenting Scout’s weekly Food Media Omnibus, a collection of links to the local and international food stories of the day…
The New York Times looks into the history of the Boulevardier – the marriage of a Negroni and a Manhattan (I was sold as soon as they said “1920′s Paris”).
The LATimes finds tasty hot house tomatoes, which is all kinds of shocking.
Out of the 500 odd recipes published last year, Saveur rounds up it’s favorites.
I deeply and passionately love fried chicken, and so does Bon Appetit.
Ned Bell gives out his chowder recipe in Van Mag.
Mia Stainsby learns about coffee, which is fantastic except for the slurping (I hate slurping).
Yet another reason to buy locally: 34 states have listeria contaminated eggs. I have trouble imaging that any of those states don’t have chicken farms. The Huffington Post looks into it.
Andrew Morrison falls head over heels with the food, service and look at Black & Blue, but loathes the soundtrack.
The North Shore News waxes poetic about honey.
Korean wings beat the more BBQ varieties in Alexandra Gill’s tastes. She finds them perfect at the Happy Day Metro House.
In Food52′s cookbook-off, the amazing Montreal restaurant, Joe Beef, wins.
Lastly, TheKitchn talks about what Fair Trade means, and asks if it exists any more.
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Claire Lassam is a baker, blogger, and freelance writer based in East Van. She has been cooking and baking her way through the city for nearly five years, working in restaurants ranging from Cioppino’s to Meat & Bread. She currently toils at Beta 5 Chocolates and runs the baking blog Just Something Pretty.
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Food Media Omnibus #548: On Xmas Drinks In The Globe & Rice Lessons In Bon Appetit
December 5, 2011
by Claire Lassam | Presenting Scout’s weekly Food Media Omnibus, a collection of links to the local and international food stories of the day…
It’s time for eggnog! Design Sponge shows you how.
If eggnog is not your thing, Alexandra Gill shows you a few holiday drink fixes from Vancouver’s top barkeeps.
The New York Times talks about one of my favourite chefs of all time, Yotam Ottolenghi, and he turns out to be just as cool as I hoped he would be.
Andrew Morrison feeds a cold in The Westender.
Not surprisingly, thekitchn makes fudge look cute.
The North Shore News gets excited about the Chilean Wine Fest.
The Province gets philosophical about the meaning of culture and food.
Get ready for latke season with this simple gravlax recipe in the Vancouver Sun.
The rise of citrus fruits is examined in The LA Times.
Bon Appetit tells you what you’re doing wrong when you cook rice.
If your trying to stick to a budget this Christmas, check out Saveur’s edible DIY gifts. Tequila hot sauce, anyone?
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Claire Lassam is a baker, blogger, and freelance writer based in East Van. She has been cooking and baking her way through the city for nearly five years, working in restaurants ranging from Cioppino’s to Meat & Bread. She currently toils at the soon-to-open Cadeaux Bakery in Railtown and runs the baking blog Just Something Pretty.
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Alexandra Gill, Andrew Morrison and Anna Olson On “The Art Of Food Writing” At UBC
November 25, 2011
Come see Alexandra, Anna and I discuss what we do in an informative Q&A out at UBC this Monday night. Funds raised from the night go to the KidSafe Writer’s Room, a great program for East Van kids designed to build literacy skills through mentorship and creative writing. Tickets are here, and they include chow and a copy of Anna’s new book, Back To Baking.
Food Media Omnibus #545: On The Aptly Named “Meat Fest” And Scarfing Macaroons
November 6, 2011
by Claire Lassam | Alexandra Gill is pleasantly surprised by Vancouver bakeries in the Globe and Mail.
The North Shore News tells you all you need to know about the Cornuccopia Festival in Whistler.
The Province talks to Dale MacKay about takeout pizza and zip-lining.
The American Academy of Hospitality Sciences gives a big nod to the Loden Hotel with a Five Diamond Award, a Chefs Plate Award and Medallion Award to chef Marc-Andre Choquette in the Georgia Straight.
I’m not entirely sure what Bonfire Night is in the UK, but apparently candy apples are a tradition, and I do love candy apples, even though The Guardian calls them toffee apples.
The Vancouver Sun talks about the romance of canning. I have a whole cabinet full of the fruits of this seduction.
Butter on the Endive chats about the very aptly named Meat Fest in Penticton.
Whiskey mixed with apple cider is sounding like the perfect Fall drink right now. Thank you, Saveur.
Bon Appetit does the math on heritage birds vs. the supermarket variety.
Lastly, oh to be a food writer in NYC! The New York Times talks Parisian macarons, and samples 209 of them just be sure (unsurprisingly, Lauduree takes the top spot).
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Claire Lassam is a baker, blogger, and freelance writer based in East Van. She has been cooking and baking her way through the city for nearly five years, working in restaurants ranging from Cioppino’s to Meat & Bread. She currently toils at the soon-to-open Cadeaux Bakery in Railtown and runs the baking blog Just Something Pretty.
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Ah, So This Is What It Feels Like To Be Scared Of Alexandra Gill
September 7, 2010
I was on the Urban Rush television show again today and hosts Michael Eckford and Fiona Forbes were ribbing me about working two nights a week as an expediter at Gastown’s L’Abattoir (if you didn’t already know, I’m there researching for a Vancouver magazine story on restaurant service that is due this Spring – please be sure to say ‘hi’ if you come in). Anyway, I didn’t take offense. They were just kidding around.
Still, having invested a bucket of my own sweat in the place since opening night nearly two months ago, I’ve grown quite proud of the restaurant, especially the people who work there. So when I heard that both my colleagues at the Globe & Mail and the Vancouver Sun had come in for reviews while I was off traveling, indulging in my real job (the same as theirs), I couldn’t help but feel nervous. What if it’s bad? What if it’s fucking terrible? Oh my God, I thought. We’re going to get anally raped and crucified.
Since many of you aren’t restaurant wonks (please don’t change), let me tell you about Alexandra Gill, Vancouver’s food critic for the Globe & Mail. Of the five or six paid restaurant reviewers in town, she is by far the most feared. I’d put the number of people in the local trade who like her column at about 17 out of 40,000, and I’d wager that 10 of those are either drug addicts, liars or probably both. But they all read her.
She might pen a dud every few months (most weekly critics do), but damn it if there isn’t always an entertaining flick of the knife, a slash that leaves a mark. When she really sinks her teeth into a restaurant’s jugular, it’s the ultimate schadenfreude sundae. Even when I love the restaurant that is being torched, it’s as mesmerising as watching a cheetah take down a Thompson gazelle in slow motion. First comes the run and then the turn. Once you see the claw hitting the ankle and restaurant’s center of gravity falter, it’s all blood and dust from there. I imagine she’s exhausted after writing her best. Panting. Too spent to eat. And at the end of every read I don’t know whether to burn the paper or keep it in order to study how she does it.
While she doesn’t have the power to break a restaurant, she sure can make the people who work in them angry. She’s even made me angry at times, but only when I think she’s gone too far. For a few years – when I had a hotter head – I wasn’t all that kind to her. Why? Because – gasp – she spoke her mind, kept her own counsel and could give a damn about what anyone thought of her. I’ve written wholly reactionary words about her over the last five years, none of them nice. To be honest, I’m quite sure that some of them were downright awful.
So when Paul Grunberg, L’Abattoir’s owner, told me that she was writing the review, my sphincter involuntarily tightened. I felt the fear, the very same that most chefs and restaurateurs might feel whenever she calls to “follow up with a few questions”, only it was amplified, like ten-fold. I very quickly convinced myself that, despite the obvious merits of the restaurant (which she would ignore), she was going to take every backhanded thing I’d ever written about her and use this golden, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to slam it all back in my dumb, smug face. Yes, and with a big fuck you and a steaming turd on top. I was a liability to the restaurant, a walking time bomb. And she was holding the detonator. How could I have ever been so plum stupid to have set the hard-working people of L’Abattoir up for this? What a total asshole.
But she’s the pro and I’m the child, given to wild delusions fed by my sometimes Herculean sense of self-importance. Of course she loved it. She wrote almost the exact same review I would have done if I wasn’t polishing the restaurant’s glassware and trying not to get in anyone’s way. She probably had no idea I was working there. She could probably give a fuck, really.
Phew.
Mia Stainsby’s review comes out late tonight in Sun. Naturally, I’m convinced that it will be hand delivered by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, that it will be terrible, and that it’s somehow all my fault.
Food Media Omnibus #539: The Everybody Eat Cupcakes Edition
April 6, 2010
Once again we present our weekly Food Media Omnibus, a collection of all our local food writer’s most recent works in print. Get clicking…
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The Georgia Strait dished its annual Golden Plate nods in this thick issue, with Angus An of Maenam getting his props on the cover. Quote of the century comes from Tyson Reimer, co-owner of Cobre and big cheese at Deacon’s Corner, on delivering pancakes (pancakes!) to Snoop Dogg’s hotel room:
“When we got in the elevator you could already smell the dope, and by the time we got to their floor it just reeked…the room looked like my basement in high school, it was so thick full of pot smoke….He [Snoop Dogg] had this big fucking canon joint in his hand, and he handed it to me. And I hadn’t smoked in like, 15 years, but it’s like if Keith Richards hands you a bottle, you take a pull—it doesn’t matter, it’s just something you have to do. So we took it and we stood there for a little bit looking a bit awkward and very, very white.”
There’s also a good article on the Chambar alumni by the one and only Tara Lee.
In the Westender, I recall some recent Cactus Club eats and make a short argument for the company’s 2011 invasion of the beach at English Bay. I also slurp pig testicles (so plump and juicy).
In the Vancouver Sun, Mia Stainsby reports that Vikram and Meeru are moving Vij’s to Cambie and opening a new concept in the original space. This quote gave me pause: “Yes, rumours that the much-celebrated Vij’s restaurant is moving are true.” If by “rumours” she refers to our reporting of this truth two weeks beforehand, we must have been unconvincing. Either that or she doesn’t read Scout. She does a better job, anyway. She’s more thorough and provides more info. In other news, Mia is apparently rumoured to have made a trip to the Four Seasons in Whistler to sample some infra-red cow fleiss, and supposedly dishes on the exits of West chef Warren Geraghty and Market chef David Foot. There were also some unconfirmed reports that she ate a couple of cupcakes. We could find no witnesses to corroborate her side of the story, so we ate cupcakes as well. Sadly, they proved nothing.
In Maclean’s, we learn that the Japanese fishing lobby sucks very, very hard, and probably slept with the most irregular of Tiger Woods’ mistresses.
In the Globe and Mail, Alexandra Gill reviews Corner Suite and uses the word Lilliputian to describe the soup (and now I love her more than ever).
Tim Pawsey drinks sustainably for The Province and weighs in on the future of blended BC wines in the North Shore News. Also in the NSN, Deana Lancaster drinks Hester Creek at La Regalade (and is momentarily lost for words).
Last but not least, Metro’s Anya Levykh reviews The Poor Italian, journeyman chef Gianni Picci’s new digs on East 1st.
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Food Media Omnibus #538: Oru In The Headlights & Pizza Hunting
March 23, 2010
Once again we present our weekly Food Media Omnibus, a collection of all our local food writer’s most recent works in print. Get clicking…
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The Vancouver Sun, CBC, Province, and CTV all report on Cactus Club winning the bid for the Parks Board restaurant space at English Bay.
In the Globe & Mail, Alexandra Gill reviews The Urban Tea Merchant on West Georgia and then Oru in the Pacific Rim.
In the Westender, I go on a search for great Neapolitan pizza (much harder than I thought).
In the Georgia Straight, Tara Lee writes about the growing family-style dining trend while Jurgen Gothe previews the Wine Festival.
In the North Shore News, Deana Lancaster goes on soup safari at Burgoo.
In the Vancouver Courier, Tim Pawsey investigates claims of Malbec being the new Shiraz.
In the Vancouver Sun, Anthony Gismondi gets ready to speed date wines at the Wine Festival while Mia Stainsby remembers 16 years of Dining Out For Life and reviews Oru (very positively).
Anya Levykh also dines at Oru in the new Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel and loves it as well (mental note: go to Oru).
Food Media Omnibus #537: World Press Dogpile Our Restaurants
February 19, 2010
From the Vancouver Sun: Team Canada carbo-loads at DB Bistro Moderne, with Sid the Kid scarfing two bowls of pasta and a glass or two of red (Macleans writes the same story); the opening of The Keefer gets noticed; Mia Stainsby serves up 25 must-do foodie observances and welcomes back Daniel Boulud;
From the Province: Earls gets bad press about autograts and price hikes. They aren’t alone. As we noted last week, it’s been pretty horrific at some places. I heard one Yaletown restaurateur had a bit of a defensive meltdown on the news when confronted about it. Anyone see that?
From the Straight: Pieta Wooley on our culinary icons changing with the times; Carolyn Ali loves Local Public Eatery in Kits.
From the Globe & Mail: Alexandra Gill nails a few price hikers/autogratters. My favourite part of the piece?
Is the short-term gain really worth the long-term pain these practices may incite? Greedy restaurateurs may want to consider this warning tweeted by Raul Pacheco (@hummingbird604): “2 those in food industry jacking up $ during Olympics. Others may forget I won’t & I have a popular blog,”
How awesome is that? Local restaurateurs better watch out for that Raul dude, whoever he is. His “popular blog” will break your fucking legs, bro. For real. Snap. Read more
Food Media Omnibus #536: Local And Foreign Gastro-Scribbles…
January 28, 2010
The lip-smackingly delicious "Chicken Lupo" at the very well-received (and reincarnated) Lupo in Yaletown
Sorry that we allowed this weekly feature to go to pasture in January. To make it up to you, we’ll try and start from where we left off with an extended omnibus mix of the month’s local food writing, with a few add-ons from global scribes at large. Enjoy. Read more
Food Media Omnibus #535: The Year’s 10 Best New Restaurants
December 21, 2009
Once again we present our weekly Food Media Omnibus, a collection of all the local food writer’s most recent works in print. Enjoy…
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They’re loving the Cactus Club in Edmonton.
In the Georgia Straight, Carolyn Ali does takeout turkey and Jurgen Gothe recommends the best local reds of 2009.
Elephant & Castle will open in Whistler’s old Milestone’s location. Run for your lives.
With the Olympics on the immediate horizon, news outlets around the world have been making mention of Zagat’s well-timed launch of their new restaurant guide to Vancouver. Special congrats to local food writer Tim Pawsey, aka the Hired Belly, who (if I’m not mistaken) once again supplied the word meat on the page bone. It”s just too bad ABC News can’t spell Araxi. Read more
