Pies, you say? Well, not just any pies as I was soon to learn.

Sensing my interest, Arlene continued to tell her tale of pies made with custard and farm fresh berries picked that morning. The place where all these delights could be found was Krause Brother’s Farms in Aldergrove (about 45 minutes east of Vancouver).

While I have not been to the Krause Brother’s farm myself, Arlene dropped a hint that our mutual friend Gayle lived practically next door to the farm. Since Gayle and I worked together, the opportunity of a fresh pie supply chain became immediately clear.

I spoke to Gayle about the farm and the pies this morning and she admitted to be more than familiar with the Krause Brother’s bounty. Gayle called me again later in the day and told me that her nanny was planning a run to the Krause Brother’s farm that very day.

My luck couldn’t have been better.

I gave Gayle the OK to pickup a Strawberry Pie for me and mere hours later I was holding an incredibly tasty looking pie in my hands with deep red strawberries piled high.

I had my first slice of the Strawberry pie about an hour ago. The flavour of the berries is indescribable and in conjunction with the custard underneath, it’s a dessert to remember. About the only down side to this is that the pie is so big that for just the two of us it may take extra big portions to go through it before it goes bad.

Arlene’s recommendations are now going to get my full attention and I’ve already made a mental note to stay in Gayle’s good books.

Baden

Arlene provided me with the recipe and I made it for our guests yesterday. She would be the first one to clarify that the recipe originally comes from The Pampered Chef but since Arlene was the one who got me hooked on it, I’m willing to give her the credit.

Officially called a Cherry Cheese Coffee Cake, it’s simple to make and guaranteed to please. The only change that I made in the recipe after making it yesterday is to put some parchment underneath it as my cake stuck to the baking stone and made serving a bit difficult.

So I guess technically I can make my own cake now but I’ll still be enjoying it best at Arlene’s place.

You can find the recipe for the Cherry Cheese Coffee Cake here.

Baden

When Anna offered me some Tabouli with dinner, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It looked somewhat like a rice salad but it really tasted like nothing I have ever eaten. There were small pieces of tomatoes and it had a hint of lemon flavour to it. There was distinct Middle Eastern taste but however it is described, it was quite delicious.

Some time later I asked Tony to get the recipe for me as I was sure to want to try it again. A few days afterwards, a box of Tabouli mix appeared on my desk with a hand written note attached from Anna. Made by a company called Fantastic, the front of the box proclaims it to be a “Traditional Middle Eastern Wheat Salad Mix”. Admittedly not the best description of the contents, preparation of Tabouli is quite easy. Just mix with water, olive oil, diced tomatoes and refrigerate for one hour. I also added half a squeezed lemon and some fresh chopped parsley. It became the perfect side dish for a some steak sandwiches that I was making.

I found that I could buy Fantastic products from my local Save On Foods stores.

Baden

We were seated at a table by our host and we placed an order of some Butter chicken and Lamb curry.

While we were waiting for our food, we noticed an unusual mix of decor in the restaurant. Facing our table was a large painting of a Greek seascape (with the white buildings and blue sea). However, what we found really unusual was the music. The restaurant had two separate radios going and both were playing completely different types of music. Coming from the kitchen was Indian music but overriding that was a radio near the entrance playing (I’m not kidding) heavy metal music. An unusual mix of music to be sure.

Nonetheless, I was willing to be forgiving depending on the quality of the food. And quality it was.

As soon as our food was put in front of us, the aromas of turmeric, cumin and coriander spices enveloped us. We were asked in advance how strong we wanted the curry and they were right on the money with the spices. The curry was flavourful and rich. Our meal was served with rice and fresh naan (Indian bread) and was just the perfect amount of food to fill us up. At about $12 per person, it was quite a bargain for such good food.

We’ve gone back to Mirchi one additional time after the first and the food was just as good the second time (with the same heavy metal music playing). If you go there for no other reason, you’ll never find another Indian restaurant playing the same type of music.

Baden

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Mirchi Restaurant
7964 Granville St., Vancouver
604-266-7000

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On average, we seem to pickup about 4 new maps for every trip and right now we have a stack of maps about 15 inches high. Usually we get one map for the country that we’re going to and also one map for each large city that we’ll visit. As you might imagine, we’ve gotten to know what we like in a map and what we don’t.

For example, last year’s trip to France was the first time that we brought some maps made by Michelin. For European destinations, Michelin is one of the big guns in the map world. It seemed to be a natural fit that getting maps of the different regions of France would be best served from a French company like Michelin.

We ended up getting two Michelin maps for the Burgundy and Provence regions. We ended up doing a lot of driving in those areas and we ended up concluding that the Michelin maps, while extremely detailed, were far too large to be used while driving in a car. Seriously, these maps would fold out to about 4ft x 5ft so flipping from one section of the map to another would almost take up the entire space in the car – an accident waiting to happen. In future, we’ll go with smaller maps.

For traveling around cities (which we usually do on foot or by subway), a big bulky map would be even worse. We’ve found that having a map that can open and close quickly is ideal. Being laminated in plastic, even better so if it’s raining the map won’t become a soggy mess. The ideal map that we’ve found that meets all of these criteria is the National Geographic Destination Maps.

While the National Geographic Destination maps don’t have issues for every city that we have wanted to go to, they seem to cover most large cities in North America and Europe. What I really like about the maps (beyond the features above) is that they usually have a convenient guide for the local subway system as well as these nicely drawn three dimensional image of the local landmarks (like the Coliseum or the Eiffel tower) making it easy to find a place in a city in reference to these landmarks.

We’ve bought two more National Geographic maps for Rome and Florence for the upcoming Italy trip but had to resort to another brand (Insight Flexi Maps) for the map for Milan. We’ll see if it turns out to be as good as National Geo’s maps this fall.

We usually buy our National Geographic maps online from either Chapters or Amazon.ca.

Baden

Once everything was completed and I started to use the new cooktop, I realized that the 15-20 year old hand-me-down pots and pans just weren’t doing the job. Most of them were made from a variety a cheap, thin materials that just weren’t suitable to the high heat cooking that I was starting to use on the gas range. Because I was also planning on hanging up most of my cookware on our pot rack, I wanted them to not only function well, but look good too.

I did a bunch of research into different brands of stainless steel cookware and continued to find that a brand called All-Clad was always rated very highly. The main distinguishing feature of a stainless steel pot is the ability of it to evenly distribute heat across the bottom and up the sides as well. Top brands use a multilayer approach having an aluminum core sandwiched between layers of 18/10 stainless steel on the inner and outer walls of the pot. Some of the cheaper types only do this on the bottom but it really needs to go through the entire pot to get even heating.

The first couple of pots that I bought were from All-Clad and they worked really well. Food heated up quickly and the long handles kept cool. Everything was tops notch construction.

The biggest problem that I had with All-Clad was that they cost a fortune. Seeing how I eventually wanted to replace up to a dozen different pots and pans, I started to look at different options at a more reasonable price.

In the end, I found two brands that I really like that I find are quite close to the performance of All-Clad but on average, about 1/3 the price for the equivalent size. The two brands that like are:

   - Cuisinox Elite
   - Meyer Analon Clad (this is different from their Advanced Clad line)

Of the two, I have bought more of the Cuisinox line as I find it easier to find. In the Vancouver area, the Cuisinox line can be found at Ming Wo and the Meyer line at The Bay. Both lines seem to be perpetually on sale at both stores.

The features that I have found that make up good quality stainless steel cookware are are usually things like:

   -Weight. I’m usually looking for a heavy pan. Light materials means cheap construction and uneven heating.
   -Riveted handle. The handle should be securely riveted to the pan and not spot welded.
   -Uniform thickness. The bottom of the cookware should be the same thickness as the sides for even heating.
   -Tri ply construction. Good cookware will be made with three layers (an aluminum core and 18/10 stainless steel on the outer walls. in general, the thicker the metal the better.

On the issue of non-stick coating vs. not, I like to have a couple of non-stick pans on hand but generally like to use the uncoated pans. I have found that bare uncoated cookware gives a better sear to food when I have the heat up and that the non-stick coatings generally start to flake off over time.

If you take the time to look at the availability of cookware that you have in your local kitchen stores, you can probably find good quality stainless steel cookware that will not only look good, but will perform nicely as well.

Baden