A Wine Tour, Cake Balls, and a Cake with Balls

July 16, 2014 By Korena in the Kitchen 18 Comments

Winer Tour of the Cowichan Valley | Korena in the Kitchen Last weekend our friends Sam and Whittney tied the knot (for those who are trying to follow along here, Sam is my friend Lynette’s brother. He is also Nate’s good friend, which is how Nate and I met). We were fairly involved in the wedding – Nate was the best man and I made the wedding cake (more to come on that, I promise!) – which for me included Whittney’s stagette weekend. Whittney and Sam live just up the road from us in Shawnigan Lake in a house with lots of extra bedrooms, so the stagette was basically a big girls’ sleep-over at their house with lots of drinking and eating (Sam spent the weekend at my house with Nate).

stagette1 …

An Afternoon at Teafarm (plus a chocolate cake!)

August 7, 2013 By Korena in the Kitchen 6 Comments

The Canadian Food Experience Project began June 7, 2013. As we share our collective stories through our regional food experiences, we hope to bring global clarity to our Canadian culinary identity. The theme for this month’s Canadian Food Experience Project is “A Regional Canadian Food Hero”, which can be broadly defined as anyone involved in food growing, production, education, activism, or the like, working to preserve local foods, skills, traditions, or to define the local terroir.

{For some reason, I had a hard time writing this post – sometimes it’s difficult to put an experience in words. I wrote several drafts, one of which accidentally got published a few days ago, so apologies to anyone who got a bunk notification in their reader or email. This is the real post!}

The Cowichan Valley is home to many farms and artisanal food producers, one of which is Teafarm, located just north of Duncan in the Westholme area. My friends Lynette, Ang, and I visited on a beautiful Sunday in July for their “tea + sweet pairings” menu, and ended up having a pretty wonderful afternoon, sipping tea, enjoying chocolate goodies, and basking in the farm’s pastoral bliss. Believe me when I say I am not at all exaggerating about the bliss part.

Welcome to Teafarm!

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The Canadian Food Experience Project: BC Spot Prawn Cioppino

July 7, 2013 By Korena in the Kitchen 19 Comments

{A Regional Canadian Food from the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island}

The Canadian Food Experience Project began June 7 2013. As we share our collective stories across the vastness of our Canadian landscape through our regional food experiences, we hope to bring global clarity to our Canadian culinary identity through the cadence of our concerted Canadian voice. Please join us.

What comes to mind when you think of Canadian food? Maple syrup and poutine? Canadian bacon? (Known as back bacon here, but everyone I know eats regular bacon.) Tim Horton’s coffee and doughnuts? Patriotic beer? (Just for the record, decidedly NOT the best this land has to offer.) Of course there is much more to Canadian food than that, but it’s a tough one to answer. Canada is a HUGE place and it includes people of so many different cultural backgrounds. Other than First Nations people, we are all immigrants from somewhere (some more recent than others), so naturally the way we prepare and eat food is influenced by whatever culture we came from. Discovering what “Canadian food” is, exactly, is kind of exciting to a food geek like me, so I am thrilled to be participating in The Canadian Food Experience Project, which was started last month by Valerie Lujonga of A Canadian Foodie in an attempt to explore and help answer the question, “What is Canadian food?“

Poutine: the most Canadian food? (photo credit: Huffingtonpost.ca)

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A Visit to Merridale Estate Cidery

November 12, 2012 By Korena in the Kitchen 12 Comments

Back in September, when the sun was still shining warmly and the leaves were just starting to turn yellow, Lynette and I went to check out Merridale Estate Cidery. It’s been on our to-do list for a few years, and by convenient coincidence, I now live literally about ten minutes away from the property. Merridale makes traditional hard cider from apples grown on the premises, and in addition to cider, they have started making other types of spirits such as vodka and fortified ciders (but more about that later). They also run a fantastic bistro (open year round) and outdoor kitchen (open in the summer) that feature their products in many of the dishes, as well as lots of other local ingredients. We showed up on a Sunday for brunch and enjoyed our meal in a sun-drenched, covered patio area. Lynette had a chicken pasty and potato-leek soup: