The Food Nerd Podcast

Just because I haven't been blogging most of this year doesn't mean I haven't been eating... it just means my incessant obsession with documenting every single thing I ate took a massive nosedive. 

I've still had some amazing meals this year, most of which have taken place with the lovely folks who joined me at the end of 2013 to make a resolution for conviviality. The core group, who I have affectionately come to call the food nerds, came together again over some charcuterie & beverages and talked about our highlights from our year in convivial eating, followed by other musings on the major openings, closings and shake ups on the Victoria food scene in 2014... and our hopes and dreams for 2015.  

This months topic for the the Canadian Food Experience Project is about a regional food of Vancouver Island. Head on over to acanadianfoodie.com to see all of the other bloggers from across Canada who participated in this topic as well.

I met up with Nanaimo native Shalyn of VIreviews.com to nerd out about the Nanaimo bar. We managed to cover that in about 10 minutes... and just generally chatted about the state of Island dining. I also discovered that Nanaimo had a mayor that dressed as a pirate! (This made me very, very happy. I love pirates!) 

Despite our efficiency in covering it the history of the Nanaimo Bar is actually quite fascinating... somewhere out there lurks proof of the origin of the Nanaimo bar. Make sure to check your cookbooks when you clear out your elders basements... you never know what proof you might find! 

Victoria finally has a beer week! Thanks to the hard work of the lovely folks who joined me on this podcast, Jay Nowak of Garrick's Head Pub, Jeff Kendrew of Vancouver Island Brewery and Ryan Malcom of Saltspring Island Ales & New Theatre Tonic! 

I love that this Craft Beer week came out of beer geeks sitting around drinking and realizing that they wanted to make this happen in Victoria! It epitomizes everything this podcast is ready to nerd out about. Little did they know it was going to take on a life of its own... and don't even get them started about what might happen next year!

There are a whole host of amazing, amazing events happening during beer week, and they are selling out SO fast it's not worth me listing the available ones, just get yourself over to http://victoriabeerweek.com ASAP so you don't miss out! 

(Apologies for the audio quality in this one, I had a total fail on the recording side! Bad Jen. No cookie.)

This month's topic for the the Canadian Food Experience Project is about my New Years Food Resolution. Head on over to acanadianfoodie.com to see all of the other bloggers from across Canada who participated in this topic as well.

Although Shatterbox opened more than a year ago I haven't managed to get there quite yet to blog... but I have been impressed by the level of coffee nerdery that I have experienced on every visit! The small espresso bar on Yates Street across from the Harris Green plaza serves beverages and the occasional muffin, but doesn't let its commitment to great caffeination be distracted by much else. 

I sat down with owner Kalen to talk about how his journey came to owning Shatterbox, and we ended up getting quite philosophical on the role of the coffee shop in our North American coffee culture vs the cafe culture of Europe where he began his coffee journey, and how he now helps people to find their coffee heaven every day! 

We also touched on the role that Shatterbox has played as a community member itself, supporting various community projects and developing their back room into a welcoming community-focused space. I also managed to get a bit of a scoop about what is coming this spring at the Shatterpod food truck spot! 

This month's topic for the the Canadian Food Experience Project is about my New Years Food Resolution. Head on over to acanadianfoodie.com to see all of the other bloggers from across Canada who participated in this topic as well.

In the last year and I bit through the power of Twitter I have connected with some people who are the original "food nerds" in my brain. I have been blessed with meeting many amazing locavores that have become new friends, but this group are the ones who are equally as obsessed with trying new restaurants as I am... and willing to try just about anything at least once!

It was with these friends that we were sitting with at the Island Chefs Collaborative Christmas cocktail fundraiser and they suggested that we should set a regularly monthly date to get together and try some of the amazing local restaurants that are still on our collective 'to visit' list! I took advantage of their tipsiness to corral them into promising to record the decision making process of the further details as my New Years resolution!

In Slow Food we talk about the 'conviviality' of food... that food should be local — of course — but also savoured, and it is always best when enjoyed with others (ideally with some local wine). Whenever I get together with my fellow food nerds we always laugh, learn, drink well and inevitably eat too much! I cannot think of a more perfect way to spend my 2014...!

Before everyone spread across the Province for the Christmas holidays we sat down together, put all of our ideas for restaurants we wanted to visit into an ice bucket and came up with quite the list...! We thought we would have some overlap, but shockingly there wasn't even one! I think that speaks to the vibrancy of our restaurant scene right now! We also touched on some of the restaurants that sadly closed in 2013, our favourite food events and joked about whether or not I should do some investigative reporting about the shocking number of restaurant fires in the last year.

This month's topic for the the Canadian Food Experience Project is about the local Christmas food traditions of our respective regions. Head on over to acanadianfoodie.com to see all of the other bloggers from across Canada who participated in this topic as well.

I was initially quite stumped about what defines our Vancouver Island food tradition... I could not think of anything unique that was just around the holidays and not a hold over from our English heritage. I even posted it on twitter, which generated a fascinating conversation, but nothing that was uniquely Island or uniquely holiday... 

So I asked the uber food nerd Aaron Hall from the local food show Delicious to come join me to talk through our own experiences of holiday traditions. Aaron is one of the few people I have met who can talk longer, with more passion and in more exquisite food nerd detail than myself. It turned out pretty fascinating - we did uncover that our Island traditions are pretty well inherited from the UK, but that we do put our locally sourced and westcoast vegetarian-friendly spin on things. 

I spend a lot of time thinking about how lucky I am to be writing this blog and eating this kind of food on a regular basis. Many people in our community are not so lucky. I've been donating on a monthly basis to the Mustard Seed food bank for the past few months... but I wanted to put a call out to think about making a one time or regularly donation yourself and make sure that our whole community gets to have good food — especially in the winter season. 

I visited the tranquil Jagasilk tea room a few weeks ago to chat with Jared, co-founder of the tea business, to enter in one of the most food nerdy conversations I have been able to have so far! I learned so much from just talking with him for an hour... 

Our conversation started at tea, where I learned about how there are many more kinds of tea than just black and green.. a whole rainbow, in fact! However the conversation quickly involved into the larger politics of consuming food including the terroir of kale, the zen of being 'fussy' and the delicate politics of supporting local indigenous foods as settlers.  

I had the most amazing trip up to Ucluelet a few weeks ago, including this chat I had with local food lover Amie, manager of the Wya Point surf shop! Amie talked about growing up here in the food scene in Victoria, her lifestyle choice to move to Ucluelet and raise a family and all the hot spots to visit while in the area. 

You can check out my full post with information about the rest of the trip that happened after our chat on my recent blog post, the first of my #VislandGetaway features!

I had the pleasure of interviewing Shannon from the Lifecycles Project here in Victoria for this weeks episode, which is the Harvest topic for the Canadian Food Experience Project. Head on over to acanadianfoodie.com to see all of the other bloggers from across Canada who participated in this topic as well.

I was so inspired by hearing all about the work that LifeCycles is doing — past present and future! Much of it was so far off my radar, I had no idea that they run a garden for the 6 mile pub or that they are working with View Royal to create a community urban food forest with property donated by a "plant nerd" who had cultivated 3/4 of an acre of amazing plants!

This episode's sponsor message is actually about another non-profit that just launched last week in Victoria! Mealshare is a non-profit started by a few UVic grads that is giving meals to people who access OurPlace if you buy a meal that has their symbol next to it at Zambris, Canoe Club, Lido or Westcoast Waffles. Check them out at mealshare.ca!