Gazpacho

If I had more time at home I would spend considerably more time outside growing a great vegetable garden. I love to prepare and share fresh picked local veggies and what better place than from your own back (or front) yard. Since I spend a great deal of time traveling for work it is difficult, if not impossible, to maintain a vegetable garden. I do grow some low maintenance winter squash and kale, but my real passion is for heirloom tomatoes. Over 10 years ago I started to grow them in a plastic Home Depot greenhouse using tomato starts from local Metchosin farm stands. Since then I have collected my own seeds, enlarged my greenhouse and I get started on my own seedlings every January.

Delicious raw ingredients

By September we are swimming in 6-10 varieties of heirloom tomatoes. What do we do with this great abundance of tomatoes? Well, almost every day we have tomato salad, we share them with friends and family, they get frozen whole, we make tomato sauce for pizza or pasta, and I make gazpacho. To me gazpacho captures the essence of summer. Colourful heirloom tomatoes from my greenhouse; cucumbers, garlic, shallots, and peppers from my favorite local farmers; all swimming in organic tomato juice and topped off with the best olive oil from Tuscan Kitchen on Broad Street. It is so very delicious!

In early September I made a great batch of gazpacho for a Saturday night dinner party. I gathered a great selection of tomatoes: Aunt Rubies German Green, White Ghost (actually yellow), Black from Tula (dark mahogany), Green Zebras and Peach Zebras.

The tomatoes were chopped into 1/4 inch dice, then were joined by fuzzy cucumbers and shallots from Windwhipped Farm, garlic from Sea Bluff Farm and peppers from the Wulff’s. It looks so beautiful in a big chrome bowl before adding the tomato juice, but after a day of resting in the fridge it looks even better in our bowls!

Gazpacho

Central Oregon Thai

By virtue of my profession as a management consultant I have the pleasure of spending some of my time travelling to see clients away from my home in Victoria, BC. In late August I spent a week visiting a client just outside of Roseburg, Oregon - population 21,000. The town of Dillard/Winston is a small forest industry town just off of Interstate-5 in central Oregon. Small resource sector towns like this are typically known for their home style cooking, one or two chain restaurants and the compulsory greasy spoons. On my second day I noticed a sign for Hello Thai Cuisine (273 SW Main Street Winston, OR – 541-679-5897 – www.hello-thai.com ), I decided to pass on the 6 inch Subway sub and take a chance on Hello Thai.

I arrived at 11:45 am to a 30 cover restaurant with only 1 customer having the daily $6.90 lunch special; which today was sweet and sour pork with rice, this was not what I had in mind! The pleasant Thai server brought me some ice water while I reviewed the menu. That’s when I noticed the specialty dishes and the list of 15 lunch specials that were totally different than the daily single plate special. Now this was encouraging. I decided to have egg rolls to start followed by the Pad Kee Mao. I was thrilled with my whole lunch. The egg rolls were stuffed full of fresh vegetables, were perfectly deep fried and not in the least bit greasy. Then came the Chicken Pad Kee Mao. I was served a big plate of chicken and wide egg noodles tossed with onions, peppers, thai basil and mushrooms. The dish had just the right amount of spiciness that I offset with hot Thai ginger tea.



Thai Egg Rolls



Pad Kee Mao at Hello Thai

I had discovered a gem in Winston. I was not the only person to discover Hello Thai, by 12:15 the restaurant was packed with local business people, foresters and a couple colorful locals (who ordered the sweet and sour pork special). I spent the next few days with my client raving about the great little Thai restaurant serving the quality of food you would find in Vancouver or San Fransisco. If you happen to be driving I-5 in Oregon you need to take the 15 minute detour to enjoy some of the best Thai food and service on the West Coast!