A Long Table Dinner at the 2nd Annual Oyster Festival

Miradoro at Tinhorn Creek

A sure sign of the Spring thaw here in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley is when the doors are unlocked at our local wineries. This week I was fortunate enough to attend an oyster themed long table dinner at Miradoro Restaurant at Tinhorn Creek Winery, along the Golden Mile near Oliver. The catalyst was the opening of the 2nd annual Oyster Festival. The restaurant which opened in 2011, blends Mediterranean-influenced cuisine, farm-to-table concepts and Ocean Wise Seafood with some of the regions top wines from Tinhorn Creek. Miradoro is a winner of Vancouver Magazine’s Best Winery/Vineyard Dining Award with chef Jeff Van Geest at the helm.

The Best of the Beach with Cooking Light and Tuna with Red Pepper Pasta Salad

Tuna and Red Pepper Pasta Salad

Welcome Suppers to another edition of the Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club where each month we create a menu from the pages of Cooking Light magazine. If you would like to join us for one month throughout the year just send us a note and we will give you your choice of months to join in. This months theme "The Best of the Beach" was chosen by Sandi of Whistestop Cafe Cooking who is enjoying some time at the beach with her family. Hours spent scuffling along the water's edge, gazing at the waves or beachcombing, swimming, and fishing seems like the way to have total relaxation. Beating the heat beats working! I hope you are all keeping cool.

A Taste of Yellow in Your Memory with Lemon Chicken, Garlic Creamed Corn and Baby Potatoes with Parsley and Lemon Butter

Lemon Chicken, Garlic Creamed Corn and Baby Potatoes 

with Parsley and Lemon Butter

There are many of us who have been writing for a while, long before Julie and Julia, long before Pinterest... gasp...even before Facebook. Some bloggers start with an enthusiasm that quickly wains, some blog for their friends and family, some blog for the sheer enjoyment, and some have achieved varying degrees of success. But how do you as a blogger measure success? Is it finally securing that cookbook deal? Is it those articles in high profile magazines? Is it thousands of followers? These are all perks of the food blogging community but not what we are about. I measure the success of a blogger by the number of lives they have touched, the awareness they have raised for pertinent issues, their ability to grab my attention with little effort.  I by no means put myself in these categories but we have all been touched by someone out there in the blogosphere that we have connected with. Yes we are food bloggers but we are not only passionate about food. One of the biggest perks is the connection that we have with each other in more ways than one.

A Tribute to The Food and Wine Writers Workshop with Spinach Ricotta Gnocchi with Basil Butter

Spinach Ricotta Gnocchi with Basil Butter

My new mantra is "live in the moment" which has always been seriously absent from my every day life. I am the first one to admit that I am guilty of always looking to the next adventure, the next meal, the next pay day. The next anything!  I firmly believe that I have enjoyed each one of my adventures and encounters with friends, strangers and other bloggers throughout my life, but the question is... have I really?  Many cultures have it ingrained in their blood to savour every moment spent with family, every morsel of food that parts their lips, just about every waking moment is spent in the present! It seems simple enough, but, is hard for me. I am the organizer, the planner, the observer.


In Italy there are phrases like "cogli l'attimo" or "catch the moment" or "vivi il presente" or 'live for the present."  The 5 weeks that I spend there this fall I have the very best of intentions of practicing my new mantra every waking hour of every day. How could I not? It's hard not to be captivated by Italy's charming towns, superb wines, delectable cuisine, and awe-inspiring historical sites. 


Falling in love with Italy should be easy and I for one am willing to give it a try. For centuries travellers from the four corners of the world have been drawn to this diverse country, which truly offers something for everyone, from stylish bustling cities, to the postcard-perfect hills lined with vineyards and olive groves, to vertigo-inducing seaside towns perched on cliffs along the coast.

Start Your Weekend with Seasonal Asparagus Bread Pudding for S-l-o-w Sundays

Seasonal Aspargaus Bread Pudding

This morning I lifted my weary head from my sleep-induced coma and crept from under the comfort of my down duvet. Peering through the fog I seemed disoriented and every fibre of my being thought I had awakened in the wrong city, in the wrong province, or even on the wrong continent. I wondered if somehow I had ended up on the coast where the skies pour their hearts out for days on end, or found myself in a tropical rainforest? I shook my head to clear my thoughts and heard morning doves and swallows and not the excited chatter of monkeys or the beating of drums. I don't recall having too many glasses of wine at dinner last night. Am I not in the "sunny" Okanagan Valley where the relentless summer sun beats down on the sunbaked rolling hills? Yes it has rained for an entire week and we the smug raincoat-less, umbrella-less society have been speaking our minds on the subject.

Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club Memories of the Mediterranean Brings Us Chicken with Olives and Lemons and Fresh Mediterranean Salad

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  Chicken with Olives and Lemon with Fresh Mediterranean Salad
  

  
  

We are so glad you have decided to join us once again for our Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club. This is a monthly event where a group of ladies and one gent in two neighbouring countries get together on the first Wednesday of every month to create a delicious meal with a theme in mind. This is our third year of the Virtual Supper Club where we continue to share a love for Cooking Light magazine with an emphasis on healthy eating and living. This is a team effort where we combine what Cooking Light readers like best...good food with great company!!!This month the Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club takes us on a sojourn to the Mediterranean. So easy to find delicious recipes!Would you like to join us as a guest at our virtual table? We are looking for bloggers who would like to join in our monthly themes. One of our members chooses the theme for the month and as a team we create a menu from recipes from the pages of Cooking Light magazine from appetizers to dessert following that supper theme. If so please leave a comment with your e-mail and I will include you in one of our following months themes over the next year. Or contact me through my sidebar.

We Have Come Full Circle with Julie Powell, The 50 Women Game Changers, and a Quiche Lorraine with Potato Crust

Quiche Lorraine with Potato Crust

As with all challenges, last June when Mary of One Perfect Bite asked bloggers to join her in recreating dishes from Gourmet Lives list of 50 Women Game Changers, those of us who rose to the challenge were oblivious to the amount of information we would amass in almost a year of blogging, the new cooking techniques we would discover, "new to us" foods,  and a whole new respect for those women (and men) who make their living in this industry.  It has been a challenge to post a recipe each and every Friday but we did it!!! We have checked out books from the library, borrowed cookbooks from friends, surfed the Internet and browsed our own cookbook collections seeking that one recipe that would highlight that weeks outstanding woman. I have eaten Caesar salad with my hands, braised and slow roasted lamb shanks, made a show-stopping voluptuous tomato sauce using 3 simple ingredients, learned the secrets of soufflés, discovered a new way to make my favourite comfort food macaroni and cheese, made the best bran muffins in the history of More Than Burnt Toast as discovered by one of our members, absorbed a world of knowledge and been introduced to so many new woman on "the list". You can revisit all of the wonderful recipes recreated by our group over the past months from my compilation of their creative recipes. 

Foodspotting Brings the Game Changers Into High Tech Featuring Herb Crusted Paneer with Indian Risotto

Herb Crusted Paneer with Risotto from 

Carvers, Inn at Big White as seen on Foodspotting

One of my favourite past times on a cool evening is to sit curled up by the fireplace with a good cookbook. It is a valid form of reading that I know you will understand with plenty of dreaming and planning involved.  These days there are two criteria for adding a cookbook to my collection. It has to be filled with mouthwatering photographs and it must be a good read. If my daughter and her friends were sitting next to me they would whip out their iPhones and enjoy on-line versions of the same. There comes a time when you just have to give up the feel and smell of a good book in your hands and Foodspotting indulges those passions. 

Cat Cora's Game Changing Salmon Burgers with Herbed Sherry Mayonnaise

Salmon Burgers with Herbed Sherry Mayonnaise

Cat Cora was raised in a small Greek community in Jackson, Mississippi, by a family who held strongly to their Greek and Southern heritage. Both her grandfather, father, and godfather were restaurateurs and, by the time she was fifteen, she had already presented a business plan to them for her very own restaurant. In 2005, she made television history by becoming the first and only female Iron Chef on Food Network's Iron Chef America. 

Zarela Martinez Game Changing Creamy Rice Casserole

Creamy Rice Casserole 

Zarela Martinez came late to her calling. As a young mother and social worker in El Paso, Texas, this northern Mexican native began baking cookies and catering for extra cash. Her mother, who is a renowned cookbook author, encouraged her to pursue her passion, and arranged for her  to travel to various U.S. cooking schools. It seems that culinary talent runs deep in the family. After several years of study, Zarela met Paul Prudhomme, who urged her to focus on her passion for regional Mexican dishes and develop her personal style. She spent a week in his kitchen, a brief period of time that changed her life.

Gaele Greene's Game Changing Mushroom Cappuccino

Bouillon de Champignons Comme un Cappuccino
(Mushrooms Cappuccino)

Gael Greene was New York Magazine's famed restaurant critic for over 30 years and the Insatiable Critic columnist. She became New York magazine's restaurant critic in fall 1968, at a time when most New Yorkers were unsophisticated about food and there were few chefs anyone knew by name. She was a passionate "foodie" before that word was even on our radar and in our vocabulary. Indeed, the American edition of The Foodie Handbook credited her with first using the word.  She created her image as the mysterious woman with the hat covering her eyes when she was reviewing a restaurant since she wanted to be able to subsequently venture to a restaurant when she wasn't working and not be recognized.  

Diana Kennedy Game Changing Albóndigas in Tomato and Chipotle Sauce Paired with Stewed White Beans with Allspice and Clove

 Albóndigas in Tomato and Chipotle Sauce Paired

 with Stewed White Beans with Allspice and Clove

"Diana Kennedy's home in Michoacan, Mexico, sits at the end of a long dirt road that can only be accessed by pickup or four-wheel drive. Heavy rains have turned her rambling gardens into a swath of jungle dense with ingredients: apricot and fig trees; chayote vines from Veracruz, Mexico; and a thatch of weeds underfoot that's thick with herbs."


I feel like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland scurrying along on an endless road crying, "I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date." Since our group began this journey of chronicling recipes from the Gourmet Live's list of 50 Women Game Changers back in June I have  posted every Friday without fail.

I almost never apologize for the lack of posts here on these pages or being late in posting since I know you understand and can relate. Sometimes life really does get in the way of the good stuff, but, as my excuse driving to Seattle for a whirlwind foodie adventure and staying with my friends and fellow foodies Don and Kathy of Sortachef, visiting my daughter on the coast, braving the mountains for the 5 hour drive each way, and arriving back in town just to head to the office to try and catch up on the never ending work had left me tired and empty just at the mere thought of entering my kitchen. I was spoiled with delicious meals that I felt could not be duplicated in my own kitchen from restaurants like Ethan Stowell's Staple and Fancy to the Chez Bullhog household.

Nigella Lawson's Game Changing Merguez Sausage with Halloumi and Flame-Roasted Peppers

Merguez Sausage with Halloumi and Flame-Roasted Red Peppers

If Delia Smith is the Queen of British "Cookery" then Nigella Lawson is the princess who made cooking fun with a little cheeky wit. Nigella not only plays up on her looks but is the daughter of former Conservative cabinet minister Nigel Lawson (now Lord Lawson) the second most powerful person in politics while serving as Margaret Thatcher's Chancellor of the Exchequer and the late Vanessa Salmon heir to the Lyons Corner House empire.

 Nigella has a way with words and attended Oxford and has a degree in Medieval and Modern Languages. It was a natural progression for her to pursue a career as a freelance writer for a range of renowned magazines and newspapers. She had made a success as a prolific journalist and broadcaster. 

Harumi Game Changer Deep Fried Chicken with a Leek Sauce and Green Pea Rice

Deep Fried Chicken with Leek Sauce and Green Pea Rice

I often think of Japanese cooking as complex and difficult but Japans most famous housewife Harumi Kurihara, has sought to change that perception. She is all at once a cookbook author, restauranteur, TV chef and personality, and a business woman with a line of products to rival her famous American counterpart Martha Stewart. She has become one of the best known style gurus in Japan over the last 20 years! We can learn more about this amazing woman on her site where it is easy to see why she deserves her rightful place on "the list" of Gourmet Live's 50 Women Game Changers.  

Elizabeth Andoh's Game Changing Tonkatsu

If you were asked to think of one Japanese food, what would come to mind? Sushi, raw fish, tempura, tofu? That's what comes to my mind.  With Japanese restaurants and Sushi bars popping up all over the world these days Japanese food is no longer considered mysterious. In fact, more and more we are recognizing Japanese food as one of the healthier cuisines. L'il Burnt Toast, the future dietitian, insists on eating sushi like it was going out of style!!!! The traditional Japanese diet is impressively low in cholesterol, fat, and calories, and high in fiber. No wonder residents of Japan have the highest longevity rate.

When it comes to describing Japanese cuisine in a few words, "natural"  and "harmony" best fits the description. Many devotees of Japanese food speak of the importance of clean flavours and simplicity. Japanese cuisine has developed over the past 2,000 years with strong influences from both China and Korea. But it is only in the last 300-400 years that all the influences have come together to form what nowadays can be described as Japanese cuisine.

A Tribute to Elena Arzak With Basque Chicken and Roasted Fingerlings with Red and Yellow Pipérade

Basque Chicken with Roasted Fingerlings with Red and Yellow Piperade

In Europe, the Basques are known for their creativity in the kitchen and their long-enduring culinary heritage. In the Spanish Basque country itself, food and eating are the center of everyday life and the focus of endless conversation. Basque women lovingly pass on their cooking techniques to daughters and granddaughters, and Basque men, who belong to traditional cooking clubs called "txokos", themselves enjoy lingering over the stove and table. Basque people have been tremendously successful in passing down their traditions and lore and maintaining a link to their culture through both cooking and storytelling.

Game Changing Lemon Chicken Breasts and Orzo with Roasted Vegetables

Lemon Chicken and Orzo with Roasted Vegetables

Of all of the celebrity cooks my favourite is the Barefoot Contessa. I am always inspired to prepare her homey dishes in my kitchen and I have never had a recipe that is lack lustre or even comes close to heading for the garbage bin. I cannot say the same for every dish I have experimented with in my own kitchen.

Darina Allen's Game Changing Braised Lamb Shanks with Garlic, Rosemary and Cannelini Beans

Lamb Shanks with Garlic, Rosemary and Cannellini Beans

March is when the rest of the world takes notice and we all become Irish for a day. We start wearing as many colours of green as the Irish hills and dales, drinking green beer and Guinness at our favourite local pubs and singing renditions of Danny Boy in our best pitched voices. L'il Burnt Toast is named after the Emerald Isle so it holds special meaning for us, even if we are not Irish, and we have always celebrated with food. Farm fresh spring lamb flavoured with fresh rosemary, smoked Irish salmon served with Connemara Peated Single Malt Whiskey, and black pudding will exercise your taste buds as you imagine taking in the sights and sounds of the Emerald Isle along one of Ireland’s many tasty food trails. 


So what better way to bring a little Irish into your life than to discover our next Game Changer Darina Allen who is the owner of the internationally renowned Ballymaloe Cookery School in Shanagarry, County Cork, Ireland. As well as running the school and teaching classes there, she writes newspaper columns, articles and cookbooks, most of which focus on Irish cuisine. The school is part of an organic farm that grows much of the food used at the school and the nearby Ballymaloe House bed and breakfast.

Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club Celebrates Spring with Eggs

Spring is a time of renewal, when we find ourselves longing to shed all the layers of a dreary winter. We envision plucking fresh greens from our gardens or enjoying the pop of a fresh pea, or to feel the sun on our backs.

For this reason we are so glad you have decided to join us once again for our Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club. This is a monthly event where a group of ladies and one gent in two neighbouring countries get together on the first Wednesday of every month to create a delicious meal with a theme in mind. This is our third year of the Virtual Supper Club where we continue to share a love for Cooking Light magazine with an emphasis on healthy eating and living.This is a team effort where we combine what Cooking Light readers like best...good food with great company!!! This months theme " Fresh Eggs - A Sign of Spring" was chosen by our very own Roz of La Bella Vita to herald in the Spring season. How can you join in? If you would like to add your own Spring dishes made with eggs  join the Linky below.

Severine-Inspired Game Changing Maple Syrup-Marinated Wild Salmon

Any journey into what is being called the “New Agrarian” movement will not take you very far before you hear about Severine von Tscharner Fleming.  She is busy sowing seeds at the non-profit organization she co-founded, The Greenhorns, serving young farmers who are passionate about growing healthy food. According to her website, "To spread the news about the future of food in America, Severine directed a documentary film, The Greenhorns, (you can see the trailer here) exploring that nation’s young farmers as well as hosting Greenhorn Radio on the Heritage Radio Network, a blog, even farmer mixers. She is one of the founders of  The Young Farmer’s Coalition, whose website manifesto describes the organization as “a group of young and sustainable farmers organizing for our collective success: we’re defining the issues that beginning farmers face, fighting for the policy change that we need, and bringing farmers together in person and online to learn, share and build a stronger community.”