This past Sunday we hopped on our bikes like good little environment conscious Vancouverites and peddled down to the first Gastown Farmers Market. Little did I know I would get a lesson in a food I thought I knew well enough.

The subject: heirloom tomatoes

The teacher: Michael Allen from Garden Back to Eden

Seriously I had no idea there are so many different varieties of heirlooms, nor that each has their own name. And not just ordinary names. Names like The Black Price. Green Zebra. Striped German. And my favourite: Heart of Compassion. C’mon, these are poetic! Who names a vegetable, a food of any kind, Heart of Compassion? These kinds of names seem to suit incredibly valuable things with a rich history that needs to be protected. Or things that have a long lineage, traceable to all corners of the globe! Not…tomatoes??!!

But just you hold your horses for one moment my student, heirloom tomatoes are in fact from royalty (the seeds from The Black Prince were brought to England from Russia by an heir to the throne, so I was told); they do have lineage traceable back as early as the 1800’s from Belgium, Germany, Russia, the list goes on; and the history behind where the seeds originally come from is often long stories about people leaving (or being forced to leave) their country with just the clothes on their backs, their families, and their tomato seeds. Amazing.

Gorgeous! Heart of Compassion (foreground) and Green Zebra (background).

Vintage Heirloom

What did they taste like, you ask? The Black Prince was a gorgeous purple-brown-deep red colour that was only more beautiful when sliced open, and was ridiculously sweet. Lots of seeds, thin skin. Heart of Compassion was, suitable to it’s name, in the shape of a heart and quite possibly the meatiest tomato I’ve ever had; it was solid tomato the whole way through, very few seeds and was as pink as a watermelon inside. I squished out some seeds from both these varieties and they’re drying on my counter top right now; I can’t wait to plant them next Spring (they’re an indeterminate and my garden definitely has vertical space!).

Your homework: Next Sunday go to the Gastown Farmers Market, find Michael at Garden Back to Eden and pretend like you know nothing about heirloom tomatoes. Ask for the what’s what of heirlooms and you’ll see with your own eyes the passion this man has for this gorgeous and tasty food. * Notetaking optional (I used the paper bag I took my 6 tomatoes home in).

This week’s What’s Your Favorite? points to ethnic foods: Chinese, Irish, Japanese, Turkish, Jamaican, Indian, Thai, Welsh…what’s your favorite ethnic food?

Mine definitely used to be Chinese, but lately I’ve been wanting to experiment with foods from my Irish heritage so I’ve been researching lots of soup, stew, meat and potatoes recipes. I’ve also come across some interesting Irish food blogs.

So…what’s your favorite ethnic food? Leave a comment and let us know!

Miss 604 is one smart cookie. So smart that she got me writing this post. The challenge? Write a post about the charity close to my heart, and link to her efforts towards CandaHelps. So, here goes.

There are several charities close to my heart and the hearts of my family including the BC Cancer Foundation as we have a family member who is a breast cancer survivor, the BC SPCA as there are two fur bearing members of my family and would have ten more if I had more time, but at this time of year the Food Bank tops my list.

Sitting down to Christmas dinner. photo: Simon Ogden

This year instead of buying Christmas gifts for the adult members of our family (we still bought for the little ones) my Grandpa wrote ‘Food Bank’ on a yellow stickie note and stuck it to an empty gift box; after we had finished eating the massive meal prepared by my mom, uncle & cousins the gift box was put on the table and people contributed whatever money they could to it.  For some it was $5 or $10, for others $20, but we all felt good making a group effort that would go towards others who aren’t as lucky as we are.

Being a food photographer and seeing the amount of food purchased for our shoots (and lots of it not used, go bad and/or thrown away) I must remind myself how lucky I am and that there are other less fortunate people living in my neighborhood, my city and in my country that need help not only during the holidays but all year round.

Happy Holidays to everyone,

~ j

A few evenings ago, we got together with some friends we hadn’t seen in while and ate for hours. About 5 hours to be exact. Funny how sitting down around a table, whether it be your table or someone else’s table, slathered in delicious food, eating and drinking for hours just makes such a perfect get together. Oh, and don’t forget about the wine. Wine helps too. Especially when it is served several bottles at a time.

Our dear friends at Bistrot Bistro prepared yet another perfect meal amidst a chatter-filled atmosphere which we were certainly contributing to, if not driving. Warm, hearty food just seemed to keep arriving at our table, and more often than not by Chef Laurent himself. Certainly makes one feel welcome when the chef delivers your main course, doesn’t it? The melt-in-your mouth beef bourguignon is always my favourite there, and it didn’t disappoint. I tried something new to the menu this visit, a warm goat cheese gruyere tomato black olive tart, which, if you could eat goat cheese by the dainty, lady-like bucketfull like I can, would make you come back solely for this dish. And I can’t forget to tell you about the brussel sprouts: I have harsh childhood memories about being forced to eat brussel sprouts, as did a few others at the table that eve; of course they were cold and wilted after I had pushed them around on my plate for half an hour hoping that would make them appear less in quantity than I had originally been served, the taste by then resembling something close to paper towel. However, Laurent’s brussel sprouts made with molasses and tiny chunks of, what tastes like, bacon don’t remind me for even a split second of my childhood horrors; they’re amazing.

And isn’t gorging on desserts really the icing on the cake? If the cake was our dinner? Er…not that we ate cake for dinner…or that I ever eat cake for dinner. Oh, well I’m sure you get where I was going there. Specifically, we had the French sundae, Crepes Suzette for two, and the monkey waffle (too much wine actually made us have to ask what the monkey waffle was exactly…”waffles with chocolate and bananas” the patient server replies…ahhh, of course. And bring more wine with those monkey waffles! Right.

Seriously though, gorging on food with friends is one of my favourite past times. And to our friends that not only served us but also dined with us that night, it was so good to see you all; let’s not let so long pass before we get together again

~ j

You may think these are all foods that I love…or possibly foods that I love to cook…or even maybe foods that I have special attachment to. Well, special attachment to in a round-about way, yes, but not in any remotely-even-close-to-positive sort of way.

I have to start out by saying I love my mother, she is a great, great person, and she has always tried to provide her kids with nutritious, creative, exciting and tasty foods. However, over the years that I lived under her roof and was forced to eat what was put in front of me, I grew to despise certain foods that we ate a lot of…or at least it seemed like we ate them a lot. I guess when you’re a child and those two days a month that your mom decides to serve beets, well they seem like they could never be too far apart. Honestly I think the beets were more my fault, the smell of them cooking in the kitchen hunted me out upstairs in my room and invaded my olfactory senses like a freight train. Come time to sit down for dinner, I couldn’t bear to put one anywhere close to my mouth, and so I got really good at saving them until last, secretly hoping that my mom would look at my plate and say “Oh, let me get those stinky things out of your way!”. But no, they just got cold and tasted 100 times more gross when I had to choke them down. To this day, I can’t go near them.

And don’t get me started on cucumber & cheese sandwiches. My mom was kind enough to make my lunch until at least grade 6 if memory serves me correctly, of which I should probably be thankful, except that most high school teens don’t sit and eat a civilized lunch with their colleagues. Combined with a ridiculously small locker, lunches don’t last long if left unattended…for days. Especially cucumber & cheese sandwiches. Ingredients melt, bread starts growing extra layers, and funky smells begin to rise. Not a situation that makes one want to eat what is beginning to grow legs in ones locker. Hmmm, again possibly my fault.

And finally, onions. I actually don’t mind onions today, if they’re chopped up quite small and I can’t really discern them in the dish I’m eating. As my mother used to say “You can’t taste them…they’re just for flavour!” Ummm…say what? Aren’t taste and flavour the same thing? I was only a youngin’ at the time but even I knew that made no sense.

So, Basil Gazing’s question of the day is:

Are there foods that you were forced to eat or ate often that have played a role in your food likes/dislikes/choices today?