Strathcona

I'm not really sure what to call the neighbourhood our second home is in. Not quite Chinatown, nor Strathcona. Maybe we're Mount Pleasant? Something-adjacent, perhaps?

There isn't much to this post, mostly some pictures. The evening was grey (as is often the case in Vancouver), but the walk was a fine one. Marie, Conrad, Mark, and I meandered through the very old Strathcona neighbourhood en route home from our dinner at Au Petit Chavignol. Certainly, there are some less-than-pretty homes in the area - it's not the wealthiest of neighbourhoods. Still, there is much character, some genuinely lovely houses, and gardens that were compact, lush, and a source of some small envy to us.

week of balcony dinners

You know, I sometimes think it might make for a more amusing blog if I once in a while did not correct some of the more blatant typos (and - ha! - I just typed that as "typoos"). A "wekk" of balcony dinners might grab some attention.

Anyway...

Conrad and I are having a very nice weekend indeed. Some housework, shopping at Target, a banquet, a drink at the home of friends, a swim. In a while we'll meet up with Luke and head for Yoshi's. Oh, and I decided to run a marathon this fall, so a five mile run for me this morning.

While we're each at our own laptops doing various things, I thought I'd post a simple entry about simple dinners. Conrad and I love this time of year for being able to sit out on our little balcony, listen to the Lake View traffic, watch planes heading for O'Hare, admire sailboats over on the lake. All of that while we eat dinner. And, this being a warmer time of year, I tend to plate up "salad" for us to dig into rather than cook up anything.

We dined outside on Monday when we got home from Vancouver.



The next night a variation on the theme.


Wednesday was chicken out on the balcony, but the light was poor, I couldn't be bothered to photograph our food (I was hungry!), and we came in quickly as the weather cooled sharply.

Thursday we were out for dinner, though we did get a bit of time on the restaurant patio. Does that count?

Friday I cooked. Ribs. Napa slaw and a bit of corn on the side. Very sticky glaze on those ribs, which made for fun dining.



We'll get ourselves outside as much as we can in the week ahead, too. I haven't checked the forecast, but I have some simple dinner ideas in mind for lingering outside, awaiting sunset, and not having to say much to each other in the warm Chicago evening.

Olympics postscript

I finally made it to the Oval out in Richmond.
A dreary Sunday afternoon, but there were people gathered for some fundraiser run. Live music. Small crowd. Everything made a little sadder by seeing how, inside, the rink is torn up. A walk around the building showed other places where good enough to be in use during the Olympics now looks bare, unfinished. Straggly.

Sad.

I had wanted to get to the Oval and see speed skating very much, but I never did get my hands on tickets. Ah well. I shouldn't complain. The building has some lovely aspects, too. The roof - pine beetle infested timber recovered for use - is one. Susan Point designs to the rain gutters.


Interesting net "sculptures" that made me think of how the area has been important to fisheries.


I hope it turns out to be a terrific community resource for decades to come.

But still: sad.

Any Vancouverites reading this may disagree, but I felt a profound change from when last we were there. It's silly of me to expect that there would be the Olympics EVERY day, but the energy in the city was so so much lower, and there was a paucity of Olympics regalia marking what had been. I saw some jackets and such (and was a vulture, shopping for scarce deals in The Bay), but mostly, the city was back to being a bit wet, a bit sleepy.

Pine for cedars, pine for the Vancouver that was. Ah well, the city thrives and is still a place I love dearly.

date night: Vancouver

Our last night in Vancouver, Sunday night. Date night for me and Conrad. A day together of driving around shopping/sightseeing. A meal where we could dine well, drink well, and just enjoy each other's company. So of course, we pick what is pretty much our favourite restaurant in Vancouver: ViJ's.

Not familiar with it? Imagine Rick Bayless had an Indian restaurant instead of Frontera. Refined Indian cuisine, no buffets, west coast ingredients incorporated into the mix. Decent wine list. No reservations.

Oops.

We got there at 5:25, just before the first seating. Too late. The line stretched past the sister restaurant and toward Granville. We knew we had a wait on our hands.

Our friend Brian recommends going over to West for a cocktail, and, in fact, you can leave your name and wander off. I didn't feel well enough dressed to try West, though, and anyway, we did get a seat in the bar area (one seat - I let Conrad sit down most of the time). A glass of wine each, waitresses bringing around hot salty snacks. Not a difficult wait. We sipped slowly, then sought guidance on a nice bottle of wine, settling on a LaFrenz red we hadn't had before. Opened it, got started sipping that slowly, and BINGO! A table!



The previous time Conrad and I had been in ViJ's we did a similar thing to this visit: here is the wine, now build food around it. My only caveat - no lamb lollipops. I've had them before, and they're fine, but I wanted something different. The waitress brought over the wine director (whom we'd talked to the time before) and we were off and running.

Appetizers:

• Lamb, beef, and paneer samosas
• Yam, paneer, and cabbage kofta in pureed lentil curry (Brussels sprouts underneath there)

I loved the kofta especially, though I think it was only a moderate success with the wine.





(we loved the wine, I should add)

Dinner:

• Rajasthani style goat curry with lightly spiced vegetables
• Beef tenderloin with ginger, onion, and date chutney on mung bean and sesame seed rice pilaf with ground fennel curry

The beef was marvelous on its own. The sweetness of the chutney was just right. The goat? Best dish with the wine, in fact. I was pleased.

Conrad and I ate very very well. No dessert - we were well-contented. I took a cup of chai, and then next thing we know the wine director has brought us two small glasses of a sweet sparkling wine. Cheers! We shook his hand gratefully when we left, and you know we've got our eye on another meal there next trip west!

old stand-bys

One of my many dirty little secrets is that I have not really had any new recipes for years. Instead, I keep foisting recipes from my restaurant days on people and rely on them never having been all the way to Terrace ever to keep the recipes "fresh" and "new".

It worked again this past weekend.

Chris and Sherri came over. There's a nice core group of Vancouver friends we enjoy seeing each time, and those two - not a couple! - are firmly within that group. Always good to see them even if it is just for one evening.

Plus, I like to be able to get better acquainted with my Vancouver kitchen three years after purchase of the condo. What did I learn this time? SLOW oven. Merde!

Anyway, they came over around 7ish. Sherri brought cheese and other snacks and wine, though it was Marie's sparkling wine and lavender cocktails that we started out with. In all, we had a healthy (ahem!) amount of wine that night, but plenty of food to go with.

Half Cornish game hens with a pea and bacon puree plus some veggies and a drizzle of truffle oil.





The standby - dessert: rhubarb anise crisp.
I winged it without the original Coyote Cafe recipe, and it was fine. Marie had barely enough sugar, though, and I ended up folding brown sugar into unsweetened whipped cream. Worked like a charm!





A very nice night with our friends, but really, I can't help but chuckle to myself that some of the food I make I've been making for years. The benefits of Don Diego's live on and on and on...