Features

The UBC Apple Festival is next Saturday and Sunday (October 19 and 20). We'll be there checking out the great apples!

DETAILS:
WHERE: UBC Botanical Garden
WHEN: Saturday October 19 and Sunday October 20 11a.m. to 4p.m.
HOW MUCH: free for the whole family!

FoodieByNature.com sent us an email telling us about their food related blog and asking us to put them in our food related website directory. Done!

FoodieByNature.com

Last weekend we threw a retro theme birthday party for our friends Lisa and Rebecca. Since we're swing dancers, it wasn't too out of the ordinary for us to wear vintage attire. However, we haven't had an opportunity to cook a retro inspired meal. Instead of cooking "authentic" dishes from the 50's, I turned to my vintage cookbooks for inspiration.

This summer, Barb and I had the pleasure of meeting John Bishop. It turns out that he's a close friend of very close friends of ours. It really is a small world!

Over dim sum and a wonderful dinner at Bishop's (one of the best we've had in 2002! Barb went there four years ago before she met John and loved his restaurant's gracious style and delicious food then just as much as now! Highly recommended!), John talked about his recent visit to India.

After tonight's dinner, I am beginning to appreciate and understand the legacy of Roy Mah and I urge you to support the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop work to keep Roy's dream alive! Check out our report for full details.

A reminder that the 50 Years of Stories from Chinatown Dinner that we wrote about earlier is tonight!

Barb and I will be there! And we hope to see you there too!

It's the perfect time of the year for tomatoes. The locally grown ones are in season and absolutely delicious. Here's one way to enjoy them:

Take a local heirloom tomato, cut it in two, rub it on a piece of good Tuscan bread (e.g. from Pane e Formaggio), sprinkle a bit of olive oil on (the best you have which will be extra virgin of course!) and add salt to taste. A perfect treat: quick, easy and delicious.

I recently received the following in the mail and thought VanEats readers may be interested in the following Chinatown history related food event:

You are cordially invited to an evening with
Roy Mah, Wayson Choy & Paul Yee
50 Years of Stories From Chinatown
Presented by the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop

The Confabulist finally filed his French Laundry review and boy is it a doozy: informative and funny!

My colleague, Jatinder, recommended Khana Khazana, literally translated as "food treasure." The site is indeed a treasure of useful tips, information and recipes.

The recipes cover many different regions of India in categories such as traditional soups and dals to eggetarian dishes and fusion cuisine. Being a big fan of Bombay style snacks, I found interesting recipes for south Indian snacks that I don't often find in many local restaurants.