VanEats

Barb's Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Brownies, which she submitted a while back to allrecipes.com, was recently published as one of the recipes in Allrecipes Tried & True cookies; Top 200 Recipes cookbook.

The recipe is while worth trying and very delicious! Check it out!

Pacific Farms in Florence, Oregon grows wasabi and markets wasabi related products. Their website has lots of great information on wasabi. Recommended for sushi lovers and lovers of spicy stuff!

At last Tuesday's cooking lesson by Chef Paolo Monti, Verdicchio's Deli and Trattoria of West Vancouver donated some excellent cheese and meat platters.

Our favourites were the soppressata and prosciutto salami.

I've never been to West Vancouver other than on the way to Whistler but Verdichio sounds like it's worth the journey over the Lion's Gate bridge to West Vancouver!

Moderne Burger (they don't appear to have a website yet) opened two months ago after a long startup period. Barb and I used to walk by it on Broadway last summer and wondered if it would ever open.

Well the wait is finally over and it was worth it! It's a beautiful restaurant done up with vintage diner style booths, furniture and sound system. Cool mint green and lots of chrome. You really feel like you've been in a timewarp and it's the 1950s all over again!

We went yesterday night after our swing dance workshop. We were pleasantly surprised to find out the food is great!

Last week, we tried Ann Kirsebom's Tequi-Lime BBQ sauce which we received as a gift from some friends.

We briefly marinated some pork in it and BBQ'ed it! It was delicious, citrusy, spicy and tomatoey. And as an added bonus, Ann is a Vancouverite! Recommended!

BC Gelati served their wonderful Gelati at Paolo's cooking demonstration on Tuesday.

We especially liked the strawberry and raspberry finger gelati that they served. It's close to where Barb and I live (and they also serve breakfast and lunch), so we will check it out and do a mini-review soon.

As always if you have tried it, please let us know what you think!

Here's a picture of Paolo and Margaret at yesterday's cooking class. As I said before, if you have a chance to go on one of Margaret's Italy tours or Paolo's cooking classes, GO! You will not be disappointed.

The famous Italian Chef, Paolo Monti, was in Vancover tonight at Culinary Caper's wonderful space on 3rd Avenue West sponsored by Margaret Cowan, who organized our Italian cooking school holiday, and by Vacanza Italy, another Vancouver Italian vacation company.

As a followup to Barb's item about deepfried turkey, here's a funny Flash movie about how to prepare deep fried turkey which includes several video games!

Whenever I have a cold or cough, as I do now, I put on a big pot of spicy ginger tea. It tends to soothe my throat and makes me sweat!


I don't know if there is any medicinal properties to ginger tea (which has no real tea in it!), but in some eastern cultures, ginger is known for aiding digestion. It's also great for quelling nausea (for my pregnant friends, please note!!).


The tea is also great served after Southeast Asian meals like Indonesian food (as we've tried at Pondok) or over ice on warm days.