WHAT: C Restaurant will be visiting three select Chapters locations for food tastings and book signings for its newly released hard cover cook book, C Food.

DETAILS: Taste some of Vancouver’s finest seafood creations from C Restaurant and get your copy of C Food signed by co-author and C Restaurant Executive Chef, Robert Clark.

January 31, 2010 at 2 p.m.
Chapters Granville
2505 Granville Street, Vancouver

February 7, 2010 at 2 p.m.
Indigo Park Royal
900 Park Royal South – Park Royal Shopping Centre, West Vancouver

When: Thursday, September 17th 2009, from 5.00pm
Where: Barbara Jo’s Books to Cooks, 1740 West 2 Avenue, Vancouver
How: Tickets cost $65 (including a copy of the book) and are available from www.bookstocooks.com

“An enticing collection of recipes from our oceans, rivers and lakes finds form in a stunning coffee table book, launching this month. Featuring recipes crafted by internationally renown chefs from fourteen different countries including Alain Roux, Alice Waters, Rick Stein and Vancouver’s own David Hawksworth, with a poignant foreward by Heston Blumenthal, ‘A boy after the sea’ is worthy addition to any food lover’s library.”

^ Michael Pollan speaking on North America’s dysfunctional relationship with food (Jackie Connelly photo).

Berkeley author, Michael Pollan, was in Vancouver recently to promote the paperback release of his critically-acclaimed book, In Defense of Food. Barbara-Jo McIntosh invited him to speak at UBC Farm as part of a fundraiser to protect the 24 hectare farm from development, the last working farm within Vancouver’s city limits. Over 700 people were on hand to hear Pollan speak, sample vegetarian appetizers prepared by members of The Chef’s Table Society of BC, and get signed copies of the book. While the organizers were prepared for rain, it evolved into a glorious day.While Pollan admitted he was not very familiar with the Canadian food context, much of what he said was still relevant north of the 49th parallel. Naturally, with such a dominant neighbour, we’re influenced by the American outlook on food, an outlook Pollan believes is fatally unhealthy. The dietary paradox, he related, is not with the French, it is in America — a society obsessed with health and fitness but suffering from high levels of food-related chronic disease. We know this, says Pollan, because wherever in the world this Western diet has been introduced, an increase in chronic disease has quickly followed. Traditional diets, on the other hand, pose no such problems, even those that are deemed highly unhealthy from a nutritional point of view, such as the blubber-rich Inuit diet.

Pollan’s prescription? In a nutshell: “Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” While that sounds simple, it takes Pollan 244 pages to explain it in his book. His conclusion? Food is

no mere thing but a web of relationships among a great many living beings, some of them human, some not, but each of them dependent on the other, and all of them ultimately rooted in soil and nourished by sunlight. I’m thinking of the relationship between the plants and the soil, between the grower and the plants and animals he or she tends, between the cook and the growers who supply the ingredients, and between the cook and the people who will soon come to the table to enjoy the meal. It is a large community to nourish and be nourished by. The cook in the kitchen preparing a meal from plants and animals at the end of this shortest of food chains has a great many things to worry about, but “health” is simply not one of them, because it is given.

^ Mark Bomford, UBC Farm’s Program Coordinator for the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, welcomed everyone to UBC Farm and gave an eloquent introduction to Michael Pollan.

^ Barbara-jo McIntosh & Michael Pollan listen to Mark Bomford’s introduction.

^ 700 people gathered to hear Michael Pollan speak in defense of food. What was expected to be no more than a 20-minute speech, turned into a 45-minute address that roused the crowd to a standing ovation in the end.

Afterwards, people were able to sample vegetarian hors d’oeuvres prepared by some of the city’s leading chefs and student chefs…

^ Chef Gord Martin loves Mother Nature.

^Bin 941 stuffed tomatoes.

^ Chef Julian Bond and PICA students preparing their offering.

^ Edible British Columbia Hazelnut Rhubarb Cobbler by Chef Cari Lynn Reid.

^Angelina of the Northwest Culinary Academy of Vancouver prepares vegetable cups.

^ Brunoise Apple, Carrot, and Beet with Mango Cilantro Vinaigrette on an Asian-Marinated Cucumber by Chef Robert Erickson of Wild Rice Restaurant.

^ Some aural ambiance added to the festive atmosphere.

^ Eating can be a political statement. The Green Party’s Adriane Carr appreciating the offering from La Terrazza chefs Gennaro Iorio and Tim O’Brien.

Thanks to all of those who made this event possible, Barbara-Jo McIntosh was able to give UBC Farm a cheque for $12,000.00. If you care about where your food comes from and want to protect our food self-reliance, please sign the petition to save UBC Farm. Don’t forget, the 15th annual Lower Mainland Feast of Fields at UBC Farm is on Sunday, September 13, 2009.

~ RG

I recently got my hands on a copy of the new book celebrating West on Granville. A job well done to everyone involved. Although the cover says it’s by Warren Geraghty a quick read shows like a great restaurant, it too is a collaboration of many.

I saw Mr. Geraghty on the Noon News the other day promoting the book. And I had to ask, why is it necessary for chefs always to appear on TV in their whites? No other profession is expected to do TV appearances in their uniform. Doctors don’t appear in lab coats with stethoscopes dangling around their necks. I have no expectation that Dr. Rhoda Low is performing open heart in the hallway outside the studio prior to her appearance, nor do I suspect that Mr. Geraghty was sweating shallots in the CTV commissary prior to his appearance. So lose the whites on chefs, Mr. TV producer.

Barbara-Jo cannot get over Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid’s latest book, Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China ($45).

This is the fifth book in the couple’s series of award-winning titles that include Flatbreads & Flavors, Seductions of Rice, Hot Sour Salty Sweet, and Mangoes & Curry Leaves. This gloriously aesthetic cookbook maps new borders in outlying China that are bounded by food rather than politics. Beautifully written, it’s a book of new and uncharted flavours.

Jeffrey will host a dinner on Thursday, September 25th at 6:00 pm at Wild Rice. Chef Ryan Mah will prepare a colourful meal while guests enjoy Jeffrey’s stories of feasts and adventures.

Barbara-Jo’s Books to Cooks will welcome Jeffrey to the shop on Friday, September 26th at 6:30 pm for an evening of slides and stories. Guests will explore some of the recipes from Beyond the Great Wall while Jeffrey presents a slideshow featuring spectacular photographs taken during his voyages across Asia.

For further information on these events, please visit BooksToCooks.com or all 604-688-6755.

ED Note: I am happy to announce that the team at Barbara-Jo’s Books To Cooks will be recommending book titles for Urban Diner on a regular basis.

Tony Minichiello , owner/instructor at NCAV and a fellow CTS Board member has a sage blog happening at his school’s website. This is one of his latest posts, entitled Time to Change the “Reality” Spiel:

The “reality” of becoming a professional cook is the same old story no different than “when I was your age, I had to walk 3 miles to school, in the snow, uphill both ways.” I hear it all the time, it’s well documented in culinary “reality” biographies and TV, pontificated by chefs and instructors alike.

Go Ahead and

No doubt there is a reality culinary students must understand and compromise with when committing to this career: it’s hard work, it takes patience and persistence, time, and incredible focus, even personal sacrifice to do one’s work very well. But times have changed. Those entering this field are no longer 14-16 years old – wide-eyed, malleable and dependent kids. Can’t call the majority of them “kids” anymore as most going into this field, especially in North America, are in their 20’s, well-traveled, informed (and connected), bright (many with post-secondary education), independent (thus with their own living expenses), and willing change-agents (to borrow from Bill Clinton). So that old story that if you want to make it in this industry you’ll have to make total sacrifices, work crazy hours, and receive little pay because that’s the way it was, has been, and will always be – that doesn’t jive anymore.

What is needed, soon, is a paradigm shift. I’m of this Barack Obama wave: we can do better. What is needed, soon, is fair pay, fair treatment, organized and structured training within the industry to keep employees, and responsible media. In other words, the industry leaders need to assess the “old reality”, stop the denial, and create a new one – one that is fair to all, moves forward, and invites bright young people to commit positive energy for the better future of the hospitality industry that feeds so many people every day. The public’s responsibility is to demand quality changes: don’t forget, it’s people, not an industry, that cook your food and feeds you any time you decide not to feed yourself, and quality, cost, and health all go hand in hand.

Read all his posts here.

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, the book that’s been getting a lot of local media play because it singled out a Richmond joint as the best Chinese restaurant in the world, gets dinged in tomorrow’s Seattle PI:

Reading Lee’s “The Fortune Cookie Chronicles” ends up being much like eating some Chinese meals — filling at first yet unsatisfying soon afterward.

Hmm. What’s the more subjective exercise, reviewing books or restaurants?

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X_yzr2FINs]

Heat author and New Yorker journalist Bill Buford spends an hour with Charlie Rose discussing his year working the line at Babbo for Mario Batali.

Sara Dickerson navigates the written word of food snobbery in this afternoon’s Slate feature.