VanEats

Wow! It's been a year!

Looking back on it all, the best part of it has been sharing my life with Barb! I am so lucky to be sharing it with her and I look forward to our marriage in September!

Next to Barb, everything else pales in comparison but aside from that the best moments for me were donating food to the food bank that we collected at our Winter Warmup and Launch party and Barb's delicious Chocolate Caramel Pecan Cake.

Today is VanEats' first birthday! One year ago today we launched this site and it's been a great year full of wonderful food, cooking and eating right here in Vancouver! What we envisioned as our personal food journal has grown to be just that and much more.

After arranging for some alterations at the awesome tailors and custom suit makers at Modernize Tailors at 511 Carrall Street telephone 604 685 0610, Barb and I visited the Chinese Filipino bakery, New Town Bakery and Restaurant at http://ca.maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?BFCat=&Pyt=Tmap&newFL=Use+Address+Be...

Every other weekend or so, I go to La Petite France and try something new. I haven't got around to having tea there or eating something savoury like tarte flambée, but all the sweet things I've tried so far have been great.

In particular, I love their "patate" and "banane" which are pastries which look like potatoes and bananas! Mmmm.

Last weekend, I tried a delicious almond tart/pastry and it was delicious. It's my current favourite. A slice of heaven for only about four bucks!

This evening we were in the City Hall area and decided to pop into City Square to try out Safari Pies. According to David Koop's review, this place sounded great. David was right!

This pasta dish is delicious...it combines the meatiness of eggplant and fresh flavour of crushed tomatoes with a roundness from olive paste and smoked mozzarella.

It really helps to salt, rinse and pat dry the eggplant. It keeps the eggplant from getting watery and draws out any bitter flavour.

You can find olive paste in a tube at Italian grocery stores or other specialty stores such as the Gourmet Warehouse.

My workfriends threw a baby shower for our friend Susan, who recently had a baby boy. I made a light lemon layer cake using a few recipes I've already posted on this site, sponge cake and sparky lemon curd.

It's great when you're armed with recipes...you can mix and match different recipes to create new ones!

Fellow swing dancer, Darren Scherck, passed on his family's whipped shortbread recipe! Thanks Darren!

Heeerrrre's Darren:

Hey Barb and Roland! I've finally remembered to put this whipped shortbread recipe on your site. This is the recipe my mom always made for Christmas and other special occasions. Give it a shot and enjoy!!

This is my favourite shortbread recipe.