GOODS: Outdoor “Sunwolf Supper” By Butter On The Endive Going Down This July 30th
July 25, 2011
Vancouver | Squamish | Whistler | 778-989-9349 | info@butterontheendive.ca | www.butterontheendive.ca
The GOODS from Butter On The Endive
Squamish, BC | Come enjoy the simple flavours of summer with Chef Owen Lightly as he sources local sea-to-sky ingredients for a four-course, outdoor dining experience on July 30th. Nestled in the Squamish Valley, the Sunwolf property is the perfect place to chill out by the river, adore the mountains, and enjoy a fabulous meal with friends and community. The price is $60 for four-courses of delicious local food. Call 778-238-9600 or email info@butterontheendive to secure your spot. Menu after the jump Read more
GOODS: New Local Caterer “Butter On The Endive” Has Joined The Scout Community
July 23, 2011
We’ve invited local chef Owen Lightly’s new catering company, Butter On The Endive, to join our GOODS section as a recommended local business that is well worth checking out. They’re now a proud member of Scout, and as such we’ll be publishing their news front and center and hosting a page for them on our curated list of independent goodnesses. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank Owen for his support of Scout and for making Vancouver a better place to live…
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DINER: “Chewie’s Steam & Oyster Bar” To Open Up From Kits Beach By Summer’s End
June 28, 2011
by Andrew Morrison | Restaurant trade watchers and bivalve addicts might remember that long-time Rodney’s Oyster House fixture Richard Chew (aka “Chewie”) left the Yaletown icon after five years of shucking toil this past January.
He did so – together with Shine vets Jamie and Mel Haddad – to pick up the original Adesso Bistro space at 2201 Yew Street just up from Kits Beach (vacated last Fall by “Karv”). Chewie gave me a shout over the weekend and spilled the beans:
“Finally, our permits in order for the new space [...] We start our renovations shortly and look to be open by the end of the summer. We are opening a Cajun/Creole-inspired oyster and steam bar.”
If an ex-Rodney’s guy named “Chewie” opening a proper oyster joint next to the beach doesn’t sound quite cool enough, chef Owen Lightly (ex-Araxi) of Butter On The Endive is on board doing the food concept and menu design. Owen is a pretty awesome fellow and a great cook. This is his first big gig as an independent consultant, so I don’t expect he’ll deliver anything short of awesome.
The end result (this September, fingers crossed) will be a 2,300 square footer called Chewie’s Steam & Oyster Bar. Expect 60 seats inside and another 36 on the streetside patio. They’ve just received their development permit. Demolition permits are in the mail.
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Vancouver Food Blogs: What’s Out There That’s Worth A Read?
August 20, 2010
I’m teaching a class on Food Writing and Modern Media at the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts this Fall (details forthcoming) and I’d like to know what new(ish) local food and drink sites I should be referencing when it comes time to talk about the local blogosphere. I have my own favourites – City Food, Tiny Bites, Cherries & Clay, Foodists, Butter On The Endive – but the number has mushroomed over the last couple of years and I could use some guidance from readership. If you know of any good ones worth checking out (or own one yourself), please share the url in the comments below. Much obliged.
The Last Good Summer Night At Owen Lightly’s Sunwolf Supper
August 18, 2010
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
Vancouver Lexicon: Butter On The Endive
September 29, 2009
Butter On The Endive | website/expression | 1.) An expression that cooks in restaurants with open kitchens use to let their fellows know that they have seen an especially attractive woman enter the room for dinner. 2.) A very good food blog by local chef Owen Lightly.
Pronunciation: “But-er-on-thee-en-dive”
Usage: “Can I please get some butter on the endive for Table 56!”
Owen Lightly And The Beautiful Peyote Dream Of Street Vendors
August 26, 2009
the stuff of dreams: organic chickens on the left and porchetta (roast pork loin and belly) on the right, both giving up their drippings to potatoes resting below the rotisserie...
By Owen Lightly | Downtown 2am. I am a little drunk and very hungry, making my down Granville Street in a daze. I am looking for something but I don’t know quite what. I haven’t eaten since my staff meal back at the restaurant and that was many, many hours ago. The five beers I drank at the bar on an empty stomach are starting to do a number on my belly. I need food, fast and I don’t feel like pizza. I probably shouldn’t have smoked that peyote as well. Read more
Owen Sips Lightly On The Wood At Kitsilano’s New “Maenam”
June 16, 2009
Maenam barman Ben de Champlain
by Owen Lightly – A few days after the opening of Maenam, I went and hung out with their bar manager Ben de Champlain to check out a couple of the new cocktails.
Like me, Ben comes from the Island. He’s done a lot of traveling and has they eyes of a man who has seen a few things (ask him about his pilgrimage on the “El Camino de Santiago” in Spain).
Ben was a chef for years and only recently got into the bartending racket. His friends Steve (Corner Suite) and JT (Market), who were running the bar at Boneta at the time, knew he was looking to mix things up, so they offered him a shot on the wood there. Now, I’ve seen the bar at Boneta in full swing, and know how crazy it can get, so for him to jump in (and excel) is a testament to his skill and work ethic – all those years behind the line in a hot kitchen must have helped. Read more
East Side Welcomes Sweet New Wine Bar
March 13, 2009
I had to go and review a completely different restaurant for the paper tonight but I couldn’t help but also take a long-looked-forward-to tour of the brand new Au Petit Chavignol, a wine, cheese and charcuterie bar umbilically tied and allied to the almost finished Les Amis du Fromage location next door. Check it for yourselves at 843/845 East Hastings. So nice to see it busy out of the gate.
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Propped up and already deeply cut, the Fermin Jamon Iberico de Bellota ham on the hoof did seduce in a most irregular, Rape of the Lapiths sort of way, but my betrothed belly could only afford a beer before elsewhere, a tart tongue lash of Blanche de Chambly.
Scout contributor Owen Lightly – solo star of one of my favourite local blogs, Butter on the Endive – was out front in his whites, knife busily slicing meat and splicing cheese. That’s him pictured on the left (above) next to Joe Chaput, local Lord of the Cheese and Salami Bossman. If you’ve never met Joe, he is oft-mistaken for a Bhuddist super ninja – David Carradine style – head shaved and armed with gouda and brie (when he works a wheel of cheddar his hands make wap wap sounds like a kung fu superstar). Anyway, lots of the people were there looking good under the flattering glow of a cool bar set up. The menu looked savoury and simple, and the wine list read like poetry. Great beers, too.
Regular readers might recall that I popped in for a recce while it was still very much in its embryonic stage, a mess of dust and tools and imaginings courtesy of designer John Shields. See the video above. I also took pics that day, which might prove interesting for the many before-and-after fetishists among us…
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My sleeve drained and appetite sufficiently primed, it was then off to work proper. Break legs, fellas.
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Andrew Morrison is a west coast boy who studied history and classics at the Universities of Cape Town and Toronto after an adolescence spent riding skateboards and working in restaurants. He is the editor of Scout Magazine, the weekly food and restaurant columnist for the Westender newspaper, a contributor to Vancouver and Western Living magazines, and a proud board member of the Chef’s Table Society of BC. He lives and works by the beach in Vancouver.
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Lightly On The Elusiveness Of Aglio E Olio
January 30, 2009
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!
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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.
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