VanEats

I can't disagree with Robin Mines of the Westender who chose Lumiere as their top pick on their Best 11 Restaurants of 2000. Barb and I had an excellent meal there and friends who have dined there at various times throughout the year have also given it rave reviews.

Happy Ukrainian Christmas! Apparently it's tomorrow! We will be celebrating it tonight with our friends Sarah, Shaun and the swing dancing gang. Hopefully we will have some of the meat free Ukrainian holiday traditions (check out some of the recipes that I found from a Google search on L. Hodges's Prodigy site and from the Toronto Vegetarian Association).

Balatong is my favourite dish that Roland's mum, Sofia, makes. It's a hearty pork and mung bean soup that really sticks to your ribs on rainy winter days like today. This is my version of the soup. It's great on its own but Roland likes eating it with a mound of steamed rice.

This recipe makes a large pot of soup, so you might want to scale it back. But if you're a soup addict like we are, the quantities are fine!

My dad is quite the foodie. He has great taste in food and can come up with some creative dishes. This is my dad's recipe for smoked salmon potato cakes. He didn't give me any quantities, since he likes to cook by feel rather than by recipes...pretty good for a fellow who was once known as a one dish wonder (chicken a la king)!

Among the many fabulous Christmas gifts that I received this year was Umberto's Tuscana Mia Cookbook. If all goes well, Barb and will I be going to Umberto's cooking school in Tuscany this October! In the meantime maybe we will review one of his Vancouver or Whistler restaurants.

Barb and I will be taking a break until January the 2nd, 2001 so there won't be regular updates until then.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Holidays to all our readers and members and their families! Thanks for making the first six months of VanEats a success!

These latkes (courtesy of Scripting News) are the kind of stodgy, heavy food that keep you going on snowy or rainy winter days like today in Vancouver.

Here's another cookie recipe for last minute Christmas baking. This shortbread is a nice variation on regular shortbread. The brown sugar gives the cookie a nice butterscotch flavour. For a milder flavour, use light brown sugar.