Kitchen Alchemy

Recently I took a trip to Canada to attend a course and had the great fortune to spend a couple of days in Vancouver. Of course Vancouver is all about the Canuks! The big foodie highlight for me was Granville Island, the location of the public market. With autumn falling across Canada, many shop windows showed displays of their harvest produce. I was concerned that there really wouldn't be much good food available, but boy was I surprised! Here is a selection of the great fresh produce I found on Granville Island. Granville Island was originally a swamp and was converted into an industrial island where the main product being produced was iron and steel. It fell into dilapidation after the second world war, and was reclaimed by the city and turned into an urban redevelopment in the late seventies. You get there by taking the bus from downtown, or you can catch the Aquabus which docks right outside the market. You can find out more about Granville Island by checking out t

When I was a kid my parents attended many a party hosted by members of the Apex Club. This was an exclusive club for men under the age of forty, and where we lived, there were loads of young dads in the club. The rules for these parties were simple: blokes bring the booze, ladies bring a "plate" and kids run amok until you pass out with exhaustion. There would be tressle tables, sometimes in marquees, or maybe set up in the garage, covered with all sorts of culinary delights like cabanossi and cubes of cheese, pickled cocktail onions on tooth picks, slices of devon wrapped around mashed potato, and of course plenty of potato chips and a new concept in catering for a crowd - dip. I remember the Apex party we went to on new year's eve, 1976, very clearly because I was sitting on my mum's lap at midnight. "There goes 1976!" she said, pointing to the night sky. I started crying because I didn't want the year to go. I don't think Mum expected t