Every summer I get invited to a beautiful get together at friends in Brentwood Bay. This August was no different, surrounded once again by delightful and charming people, reminiscing with old friends and creating conversations with newly-made ones. Throughout the evening we get to enjoy amazing food, and my hosts helped shape moments around cooking with the best ingredients they can find seasonally and locally.
If there is a formula for making a lasting food memory, they nailed it. The pork sausages they served were as local as you can get, from Berryman Farm on Dooley Road. The farm raises their pigs on pasture and do not use any GMO feed. Their quality of life is paramount and the case is the same with the pastured beef my hosts slow-cooked and served with fresh carrots and celery. The beef was raised on a family farm off Interurban Road. The wild spring salmon and halibut that was cooked was caught in the Kyuquot and served with a potato/green onion salad as well as spinach and berry salad. Even the zucchini lasagna was made with zucchini grown in their own garden.
There was pizza cooked in traditional style, starting with non-GMO flour and topped with simple, quality ingredients. The oven is wood-fired and cooks at 900°F or higher. I understand that this is the only way to truly cook pizza in Neapolitan fashion: ready in less than two minutes. One of the favourites for the kids – and adults! – was the Margherita, which includes pureed San Marzano tomatoes as the sauce, mozzarella di bufala from my hosts’ friends at Natural Pastures, homegrown basil and a drizzle of good Italian olive oil. And their father would be devastated if they didn’t make his favourite, straight-up San Marzano tomato sauce and anchovies. Other pizzas served included spicy eggplant, Italian prosciutto, salami and peppers. Dessert was local fruit (peaches from the neighbour next door) and a home-made, world-famous pecan tart!
Taste can linger far longer in the mind than it does on the tongue, and as anyone who remembers that sacred sandwich from childhood can attest, food memories rarely exist in a vacuum. They are intimately tied to where you were when you had that unforgettable bite. Memories of that party will last a lifetime with me.
My mother was an amazing cook, trying her hand at new recipes but always bringing out the traditional ones too. I can honestly say that most of the memories that are really vivid for me have been surrounded by food in some way. As a child living in the Maritimes, our beach adventures were daily and always involved digging for clams and then boiling them on an open fire ready for a family feast. I can still smell those clams.
In this issue of Seaside we celebrate “food,” from discussions on food security to discovering our local chefs in our Inside the Kitchen profiles. Those that make food their career tend to understand the importance of creating lasting food memories – most chefs hope the meals they craft will stay with their clients for years to come. They often draw inspiration from their own food memories, in ways both recognizable and unexpected. In our “Can We Talk” column, while sharing a bite with Gary Hynes, founder of EAT Magazine, I get to share some of his secrets to success and his remarkable love of food and the industry after 18 years.
And many thanks to Ron and Maureen Vincent, owners of Sea Glass Waterfront Grill, for our cover creation. And yes, it is floating on water!
