Are you the Stig?

Countdown's started for the best show on earth. And I really really can't wait.

Some say....

Kings, Queens, and Robin Hoods...

Kings, queens, and Robin Hoods. Throw in a dude with horns playing an accordion in the park and there you have it, Halloween in my 'hood.

Trick or treat....

Rob Hood and his side kick, King Arthur. Or, as he insisted all day...The King.

"There! The Villan! Charge!"...

"WHAAAAT?? I thought YOU'RE suppose to duck while I swing the sword!"

A scary dude playing scary music with a scary band in a scary park.

Oh. And the queen...

RNM

One more about Van.

The Richmond Night Market.  My heaven on earth.  Street food nirvana.  The pic above was taken right at the entrance of the RNM and it pretty much sums up the shenanigans that goes on in that acre of ashphalt beside the airport.  Do the contestants eat and fight at the same time?  Or do they eat first and then fight?  Or fight after they eat?  Or fight to eat?  And who the hell has a handle of "Chubby BBQ"??????

More pics from KK:

http://themintmansion.blogspot.com/

Burp.

Framing.

Whippppisssssh.

Yeah.  That's the sound of the whip...

...holiday's over and back to building.

A food-lover's vacation.

"So...what do you guys want to do this next few weeks?", KK and Rebbecca asked.

"Hmmmm...eat?" I said.  "And cook?"

And that's how it was for those last two weeks in August.  Eating, sleeping, thinking about cooking, eating, napping, making plans about cooking, reading cooking mags, cooking...and more eating.  That's what happens, I guess, when you spend your holidays in Vancouver with couple of food-lovers.

The Dman and I headed out west first and with the Izza, Rebbecca, and Unkee Chunkee, we spent a week eating fried squid, bbq'd pork, crispy duck, crepes, risotto, shrimp, green onion pancakes, and the best damn tomatoes from the Trout Lake farmer's market.  Oh, and KK and I watched a lot of Top Gear episodes in between meals.  Top quality food with some top quality BBC programming. Some say...

When Melanie showed up for the second week, we ramped up the cooking and eating routine; there was pork stuffed squid, KK's special smoked ribs, pork bellies and olives stuffed with anchovies, trout from Granville Island, Rebbecca's cheese dogs, and a gut-busting trip to the Richmond Night Market.  All of that and stove-top Lavazza coffee coupled with a Gourmet article every morning to  start off the day.  Wouldn't want to do any heavy thinking (i.e. planning for the next meal) on an empty stomach, you know...

Man.  I'm still in food heaven.

In between courses, the Izza and the Wildman chased each other from morning 'till dusk, with the former squealing the latter's name seemingly every five minutes.  She chased him, he chased her.  She cried, he cried, he laughed, she laughed.  He ran around naked and she wore everyone else's shoes.  He jumped off the piano bunch, and she jumped off the piano bench.  For hours and hours...

Everyday, we biked in bike heaven, with Dante in the bucket seat and Melanie and I screaming down Ontario St. to the water.  There was popcorn at Science World, Cheddar Bunnies at the Vancouver aquarium, Jappadogs on False Creek, blue-cheese flavored ice cream at La Casa Gelato, crispy pork in Chinatown, braised pork bellies at Campanolo, tacos at Donna Cata and dim-sum on Fraser.  Actually, make that dim-sum (s) on Fraser.  Emphasis on the plural, please.

Oh yeah.  And there was TNT.  And the jumbo shui-mai at the Night Market.  I don't even know where to start with those two.

As I'm writing this, I'm already thinking about those frozen duck legs I have in the freezer.  Maybe I'll braise them and roll them onto a warm crepe with ice-crisp green onions and bean sprouts.  A glass of orange juice and champagne and an espresso to finish things off.  And then plan for dinner...

Vancouver and food.  Not one without the other.  Sigh.  Thanks, Rebbecca, KK, and Izzy.  You guys, it seems, have ruined me for other food adventures in the foreseeable future.

Breaded jumbo-squid from TNT.  Those Chinese.  They always do a lot of everything jumbo-sized...

...even shui-mai.  Man, even if you've never tried shui-mai, how could you resist after reading a sign like that?

Cuzin's....

Jumbo-octopus.

KK's hands, like a starved carnivore that he is, in mid-action, fetching a mitt full of...jumbo short-ribs.

The other carnivore, waiting to pounce on a roasted duck in Chinatown.

WMD and the Izza, looking for food at the farmer's market.

The Izza and Rebbecca, deep into the chow-mein at the Night Market.  The WMD did this too, except he was on my shoulders and in his eating frenzy, half of his noodles ended up in my hair.  Yeah, picture this: A food-crazed Chinese guy with chow-mein in his hair and a kid on his shoulders, walking up to a food stand and saying "Yeah...ah...I'll take two of everything" while wiping off the sweet and sour sauce on their shirts and making quick, jerky glances to the next barbeque hut on the strip.  The Richmond Night Market.  Yeah.  Gotta love it.

Just another week-night meal...

Black berries in the Endowment Lands.

Taco's at Donna Cata.  Straight-forward.  No muss, no fuss.  Reminded me of the taco-stands in the Baja.

Dragons at the Farmer's Market.

Wow.  That silver car in the background is really cool.

Frites a las Unkee Chunkee.

The Izza, at dim-sum.  Clearly, not shy with food.  

Neither one of them happy that I was eating their bag of Cheddar Bunnies...

   

  

How to braise ribs...

Talking about food and cooking...

I did some braised beef ribs over a charcoal fire tonight.  Bought the meat from TNT in Toronto.  Cheap.  And lots of them.  Chinese-style.

Anyways, I've never braised meat over an open fire and tonight was my first crack at it.  Really pumped up from the two weeks of cooking and eating in Van so I decided to do it.  Used half a bottle of a good red on it, cut up some onions, and chucked the cast iron pot onto my Turkish grill.  KK, Christian, and Eric:  You guys better be taking notes.

I left it for awhile, as I was suppose to, and was checking my email when I noticed Karl standing in my backyard, alone in the dark.  It was approaching eight in the evening.  He had a cup of DQ ice cream in his hand and he was standing there in my backyard, in the dark. Normally, that kinda stuff would freak me out, but tonight seemed different.  

"Hey", he said to me, without really looking at me.  "How's your bbq going?"

"Fine", I said, without looking up from my laptop.  "I'm braising some ribs.  Want some?"

"Ah, you might want to check this out first", he replied, kinda in a mesmerized tone.  "I noticed a lot of smoke coming out of your backyard and I started to get worried".  His ice cream was melting in his hand but he didn't take his eyes off of something in the backyard.  "You might want to come out here".

Perturbed that I was being interrupted in my emailing, I stumbled out of my chair and walked out to the backyard...only to discover a blazing fire leaping out of my Le Cruset pan.

"Oh", I said.  "That's doesn't look too good, does it?".

The next few minutes unfolded in a weirdly comical/slow motion manner.  I took a look at the ribs in the fire and saw that they were engulfed in flames.  In a flash of male macho-ness, I flung the flaming pan from the grill to the ground where it took a bounce before landing next to the brown paper bag full of compost.  I didn't really appreciate the added complication to the dilemma until Karl starting doing his nervous chuckling.  "Oh boy, that's really not good", he said, while taking a step back.  

I thought I'd deal with the issue by going into the kitchen to get a ladle; apparently, I thought that pushing flaming pieces of black meat around on the pan and enticing the flames to shoot up even higher into the now smoky night sky would solve the problem.  Clearly, no.  Damn. Next, I thought I'd shoot some water into the entire fiasco with the garden hose but I didn't want to ruin what was left of the meal so I stood around the flaming pan thinking about my options while Karl walked in circles busting out in laughter.  Hey.  That was a good bottle of red, man.

Not that he was helping.  He mumbling something about starving the flames of air and he went into the kitchen to fetch a small bowl.  To cover the foot high flames.  Shit.

It all ended with me finding the lid to my Chinese fondu pot set and shoving it into the fire.  It almost burned off my hand but I think it did the trick.

Afterwards, I offered Karl some of the ribs while in the kitchen and to his credit, he took a small bite out of a small piece.

"Mmmmm", he mumbled.  "What are the spices?".

"Didn't use any", I said, as I threw him my best evil glare.  "Didn't have time".

That was before he quickly shoved the now melted ice cream into his mouth while walking backwards out the door, saying something about giving the well-done pieces to Melanie and Wendy.

Cheeky monkey.  Let's see if he'll be invited to the next rib dinner at my place....

The Band.

Just got back from Van.  Lots of cooking.  Lots of food.  Lots of good times.  Something like this:

More pics to follow...after I find something to eat...