Features

Today is VanEats second birthday! Wow two years have gone by so fast. VanEats started on June 10, 2000 but because it's also my brother's birthday on June 11, it's easier for me to remember and so we celebrate VanEats's birthday every year (like last year) on June 11.

The highlight of the last year was definitely our wedding and our honeymoon in Tuscany. And our brief stay in London on our honeymoon was also great.

Here's a photo of Nattalia's delicious uttapam that we mentioned yesterday:

A few weeks ago, we had the privilege of spending a morning cooking up an Indian style breakfast with Nattalia, Toni's mum. Not only is Nattalia a fabulous cook, but she's a great teacher! She taught me how to make uttapam, a savoury pancake often served for breakfast.

Uttapam are made from a similar batter as dosas. Whereas dosas are very thin, crisp crepes filled with various mixtures, uttapam is made with a thicker batter with vegetables and seasonings mixed in.

The New York Times is currently featuring citrus cooking tips, recipes and videos on its dining website including how to carve a lemon pig from Jacques Pepin''s Complete Techniques.

If citrus is one of your favourite things like it is for us (we love lemons and other citrus fruits!), be sure to check it out!

Recently I've been trying to increase my calcium intake by eating yogurt and using yogurt in breakfast shakes. I've been trying different brands and styles but I've found that I like Olympic yogurt--it's balkan style (a looser texture) and has natural bacterial culture.

Just a brief reminder that Taste of the Nation 2002 is tomorrow Thursday May 23.

Unfortunately, Barb and I cannot attend. If you do, please let us know how you liked it (requires quick and easy membership).

According to this article from the Observer, Britain (of all places! Not really surprisihg considering their huge Asian population!) is re-inventing and morphing Indian food into something unique and wonderful. And one of the areas of innovation is the adoption of street food recipes such as Sweet Potato Cake (a recipe for this dish is at the end of the article).

Based on our observations from our time at Masala Zone in London during our honeymoon, we would have to agree!

Everything in moderation!

This old adage applies equally to what we eat. It looks like the immoderate consumption of Chilean Sea Bass due to it being a "trendy" food is causing its numbers to greatly decrease.

So, a lot of chefs are advocating a moratorium or boycott of Chilean Sea Bass as documented in this New York Times article.

I personally agree with this. We all need to carefully examine our dining choices and recognize that they have an impact!

At the East Van Farmers Market today, we learned about the 8th Annual GVRD Farm Open House Day on Saturday May 25, 2002, 10a.m. to 4p.m. at farms across the Lower Mainland.

Thirteen farms across the Greater Vancouver Regional Disrict will be open for FREE tours.

And you can park your car at one of four farms, and then be whisked on a free bus tour to several farms.

This sounds like a great event for the entire family. It's always great to find out more about our food comes from and how it comes to our table.

The New York Times dining and wine section has an excellent series of cooking lessons which include videos (requires free Real Audio player).

Cooking with Calamari is one of the latest lessons and looks fabulous. A great resource! It's very inspirational and educational to be able to watch a real chef cook.