market excursion: sea salt

Last weekend I bravely defied a wine-induced hang over to slice my way through the thick fog that has temporarily (?) made its home in Vancouver for yet another epic walk to the Granville Island Public market. I generally go there alone to weave through the multitude of European-inspired delicatessens, butchers & kiosks offering a range of ingredients from Indian salmon candy to Okanagan apple chips & sultry slabs of prosciutto hovering high from the ceiling at the Oyama Sausage Co.

Following that particular weekends theme of random encounters & series of events, I decided that I would adopt a no-plan plan of purchasing & simply select foods for the hell of it to see where I would turn up. Mid-way through my market expedition, I realized that I was evolving towards an Italian affair & so decided that naturally, I would make pasta. I then consciously made my way towards a small Italian kiosk to peer through their various spices & oils. In the midst of a chaotic crowd of tourists, chefs & cook wannabes like myself, I knelt in front of a dusty wooden stand & discovered a series of various sea salts. After pondering over whether or not I had wanted to drop $13 on a small box of smoked sea salt, I figured that a little usually goes a long way, & such staying true to the principle of quality over quantity, always. 

That evening I made a multi-grain penne with herbes de provence chicken, roasted pine nuts, portobello & enoki mushrooms, grape tomatoes & of course – smoked sea salt in olive oil & a red wine reduction. The cedar smokiness in the salt gave the dish an agrarian taste, & thus progressing my curiosity in how such a common ingredient could be used to bring forth & tie all the main flavors of a dish together. So here I am, thinking about sea salt & wondering about what other infusions there could be that could excite me just the same. 

Oh, & there are many. My small box of smoked sea salt bares boredom in comparison to coconut-kaffir infused sea salt, apricot salts or Salish smoked sea salt, which is slow smoked over red alder wood by Native American Indians in the Pacific Northwest. For the above infusions of salts, Saltistry is one company that offers a medley of salts to satisfy my creative curiosity for flavor.

I believe that I have now found yet another gastronomical pleasure to geek over.

blue moon / jochen schmidden

“Design is the realization of emotions in products.” – Jochen Schmiddem

Duravit, the design market leader for baths, recently created a line called D-Code, which targets its brand towards all price points in the market. At the top of its chain sits an indoor/outdoor pool bath called Blue Moon, designed by Jochen Schmidden. 

Blue Moon is nothing short of a inimitable bath experience, where you bathe in a compact 140 x 140cm pool with a generous depth of 530mm. Aside from a touch of back support, your body is completely surrounded by water; creating a feeling of physical lightness while gleaming in an array of mood-setting lights. With the capacity of nearly 520 litres, Blue Moon beautifully blesses the body to liberally float & adopt a variety of relaxing positions. To me, this product is an element necessary to the composition of the dream bathroom, where the body retreats to cleanse both itself & its soul. 

The pool bath was designed with the philosophy that a product should not only embody a strong sense of personality, but that is must also shape the emotions that cater to the functional need of the consumer. 

cheese, the desirable

The first time that I recall falling in love with not just food, but the taste of food, was upon the discovery of cheese. Growing up for a few years in Poland, cheese was there but certainly not as abundant as sausages & sauerkraut. Looking back on it now, it was truly admirable as to how everything back then was so freshly made from the garden or the farm, or if living in the city like I was, acquired from a delicatessen who was always in marriage with suppliers so that our families could extend that growth into meals of love, nourishment & familial bribery.

My parents had then packed our life out from Poland & moved us over to a small island in Northern Germany, & it was there that I was exposed to a world filled with food on demand. Despite all the junk food chaos that had unexpectedly (& unfortunately) entered my life, the only real memory of taste that I recall is with a cheese that our neighbors brought over for us one day, wrapped in aluminum to contain it’s pungent smell. The cheese was hard & thin, breakable like flattened candy & sharp unlike anything I had tasted before. I fell in love. I could not retain myself from entering & re-entering that fridge to steal a few more bits off this old & smelly cheese. It was disgustingly delicious. To this day I am still unsure of what it was called, but the only relative cheese that I have had of similar flavor here is Limburger, which is also wrapped in aluminum in attempt to contain it’s strong odor. Distracted by mounds of ice cream & candy, I can’t rightfully say that I became a cheese connoisseur then, but it started a foundation for a love that continues to excite me still.

Thankfully, there are people here that are far more passionate about cheese than I am & use this passion to run shoppes & import cheeses from around the globe. One of my favorites in Vancouver is Les Amis du Fromage. Although a slight cry away from what Paris or Asturias in Spain has to offer, it’s still a lovely blessing from heaven. It’s my first stop down to Granville Island, where I eagerly continue hunting for strange & smelly cheeses to pair with whatever wine or beer I’ll be having with that night. Yea, I’m cheese geek but simple pleasures do me well.

Before I go on an essay of a rant on cheese & decide that I should open a store of my own, allow me to share with you some of my most recent & favorite discoveries of 2008:

St. Andrei

This is a high milk-fat, 75% triple crème cheese from France. The concept of less is more applies finely here, as it’s rich fattiness quite resembles the likes of butter. This cheese is amazingly delicious but can quickly turn on you & taste like soap if paired with most red wines.. & as well can make white wine taste metallic & sour. I am convinced that there is a wine out there suited for this cheese, but until I discover the perfect pairing, I suggest you stick to light beer & slices of pear.

Champfleury

This cheese came in 1st in the 9th annual Quebec fine cheese contest in 2007. I discovered it in 2008 while looking lost in the sea of delicious cheeses at Urban Fare. I tend to judge books by their covers & so I was immediately drawn to its bright poppy on its packaging & its copper rind showing subtly underneath. It is a washed rind, soft-ripened cheese that has the interior texture of a double crème Brie. You will die softly while eating it but I assure you that it will all be worthwhile. Goes perfectly with a Pinot Gris or a Pinot Noir.

Oka

Oka is a Canadian cheese named after the small village of Oka, Quebec where it originated in 1893. Recently it’s gotten a surprising amount of advertising in the form of a commercial & editorial print – something I don’t think it needs because a product this tasty only really requires a little word of mouth action. A bit smelly.. creamy & with a fruity or almost nutty taste to it. Delicious. Comes in a variety of forms but my favorite is ‘Providence’ as it is the richest & most flavorful.

I really could go on forever.. but if you’re still here reading this, you either really like cheese or you really like me. Hopefully both. Now go hit your local market & try some of the above.