How fun and awesome that there’s a foundation to “Further Food Awesomeness” :) The fun factor is that they’re open to all creative ideas in application for a micro grant of$1000, where it can raise awareness and make headlines for a better food system. Hi 5 to you Awesome Food! I can’t wait to see the submissions and who gets awarded with the grants and the finished product/service/event. This will get everyone thinking and learning while having fun :)

Ok. I’ve eaten what some consider to be gross, but I def. have not eaten any insect bigger than an ant, well, at least not knowingly.

When my cousin posted this photo from a recent trip to Thailand, It made me cringe; it got me to thinking,  I wondered how I came to eating crab and lobster, when really, they look like insects too?

Have any of you eaten Water Cockroaches? What is it like? I’m curious to know, but not curious enough to want to try it myself ;) (and no, my cousin didn’t try it either.)

I love swiss chard, meaty leafy veg that offers so much flavour and so much healthy goodness. I tend to cook them up two ways, in a soup/stew or sauteed with garlic (lovely with steak). The flavour is full and slightly sweet, so it can handle a bit of flavoring. If you get to have them as baby chard, you can eat them raw in a salad. lovely as well :)

Username: Dashoffood

Profile Photo by: Rachael Ashe of Foodtree

View Photo Stream Here

Above is the link to the photo stream of photos taken at the FoodTree’s Photo Scavenger hunt over the recent weekend, out at Trout Lake Farmer’s Market. It was a lot of fun, meeting up with a couple of my favorite fellow food lovers and competing to share the bounty that our local farmers and producers had to offer our beautiful city. Foodtree had launched their new iPhone App and we were invited to test out the new app and put it into action. We are all excited about the app and the direction of transparency in our food supply this will help to influence in our local food scene. Getting connected to your food from the basic level is so important in my opinion, and I’m glad to see more and more people being educated and exposed to real food, right from the source. It makes me happy :)

Help spread the word!!! Eat local + fresh, know more, eat better!!

This seriously makes me happy. Education in youngsters about food and where it comes from is so crucial, esp. city kids that are more detached from seeing farms and being able to have a yard where one can grow their own food. I was very lucky in growing up on hobby farms and large back yard veggie plots where I helped to toil and grow our own food and even helped raised and kill poultry and fowls, it fueled my respect for food and the healthy choices I make.

Though the grant sum isn’t very large, every little bit counts. Hope this fuels more funding for the initiative on educating kids on food.

Yay Vancouver!!!

I even cc: this article to Jamie Oliver on twitter, he’d be proud of our city too ;)

I love seeing more food movements that look to support local growers, such as Rooted Foods. This one defines Rooted Foods as “authentic, native foods that are created by small, community-based producers.” For most of my life, I’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy and in latter years come to understand the nutritional values of eating local in season produce, how it works in conjunction with your body in that same climate.

In order for the masses who haven’t been so fortunate to grow up on farms or to have grown their own food, movements like these help to educate.

Locally in Vancouver, we have aaaaFoodTree, which is working towards similar goals, to make food origins more transparent, and allow consumer involvement with their app to photo document and check-in local produce as it becomes available at local farmers markets. Smart right? Make it a fun thing, and people will get involved more and more, and get educated along the way :)

This coming Saturday, I’m going to be involved in a Scavenger hunt to help unveil and celebrate FoodTree’s new iPhone app at one of our many local farmer’s markets. I will be writing a follow-up post to let you know how that goes :) Keeping fingers crossed for a gorgeous warm summer day…

« Pho Phu Thinh

13 Jun

Those Amazing Spot Prawns!

Posted June 13, 2011 by chefsnightout in Ramblings. Tagged: Chef Alex Tung, Ocean Wise, Organic Ocean, Spot Prawn, Spot Prawn Festival, Tapenade Bistro. Leave a Comment

Based on my limited math skills, it appears that I have not blogged in close to two months.  Same lame excuses as usual.  Busy at the restaurant, lots of  stuff going on, busy with this, busy with that, blah blah blah.  I know, excuses are crap,  but it is true, I have been crazy busy and have not sat down in front of the computer in ages.  Well, “Jazzy” is currently napping and “Mr. Mom” (that’s me on Mondays) has temporarily got all “his ducks in a row”, so I’ve decided to “snap one off” and  blog about one of my favorite things about BC, the amazing BC spot prawn.

Have you ever had live BC spot prawns?  When I first arrived in BC in 2002, I barely heard of them and only ate them raw in high-end Japanese restaurants.  Well let me tell you, they are fantastic and are only available live for about two month of the year.  You can  enjoy them frozen year round, but nothing compares to the purity of a live spot prawn.  There’s about two weeks left in this year’s spot prawn season, so maybe I can get some of you excited about them and convince you to go try them out.  Spot prawns are known for their sweet, delicate, clean flavor and have a very pleasing, firm texture.  They are recognized by the white spots on their tail and are reddish-brown in color.  Interesting fact, spot prawns are hermaphrodites; for the first two years of their lives they are male and then change to females for the duration of their lives.  I was going to make a joke about “Momo” here , but that would be too easy.  Sorry, back to the spot prawn.  They typically live for four years and all mature prawns have the ability to spawn.  BC spot prawns are Ocean Wise and come from an exceptionally well managed and sustainable fishery.  A local, seasonal, delectable, sustainable delicacy; what more could you ask for?

Spot prawn season kicks off with the Chefs Table Society Spot Prawn Festival down at Granville Island.  2011 was their fifth year; every year it keeps on growing and they do an amazing job promoting these amazing prawns.  Seven years ago, no one really knew about spot prawns and the bulk of them were being exported to the Japanese market.  Though the festival is on a Saturday every year, I usually get my first delivery of spot prawns on Thursday or Friday.  I always anticipate my first spot prawns of the season and regardless of what we are doing, when they arrive in the Tapenade kitchen, we all stop our mise en place and enjoy a few of them raw immediately.  We’re a bunch of “food nerds” at heart and always smile and discuss their spot “prawn awesomeness” for the next while and figure out how we’re going to feature them.  The highlight of the 2011 spot prawn season was when the boys from Organic Ocean took me and some of my boys from the Tapenade kitchen brigade out spot prawn fishing.  It’s a big deal for us to see where our ingredients come from and to see the work required to provide us with these perfect specimens.  On our Monday off, “Great Wall”, “Momo” and I got up early and met down at Granville Island and  what a great morning we had out at sea.   No rain, beautiful prawns, awesome fishing stories, I didn’t get sea-sick and a tasty lunch on the water.  Thanks again to Frankie and Steve of Organic Ocean and check out these photos of our spot prawn adventure.

Some more spot prawn action.  Through out the spot prawn season, we get a fair bit of media coverage about how we serve them at Tapenade and their sustainability back story.  I’m more than pleased to tell the tale of the spot prawn; a recent highlight was when we had a group of Seattle food bloggers visit us and this is what Ronald Holden of cornichon.org had to say about it.  http://www.cornichon.org/2011/06/spot-that-prawn.html

Also, a couple of weeks back, Chris Stanley of the Richmond Reel came by Tapenade and shot this short video about how we serve spot prawns at the Tapenade.  It was a sunny fun afternoon of tasty spot prawns, good wine and a couple of cameras.

Listen, go try some spot prawns!  The season is almost over and you won’t get another chance till May of 2012.  Go visit Frankie and Steve down at the Granville Island Fisherman’s Wharf and pick up some live prawns to cook at home or come by Tapenade Bistro where I will be featuring them until the end of the season.   Spot prawns are awesome and you really need to go experience them.  Now, if only I could get people this excited about our upcoming sardine season.

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Great write up from Chef’s Night Out on the wonderfully tasty BC Spot Prawns