Nothing tastes like your own, super ripe tomatoes on baguettes rubbed with home-grown garlic, Tim Pawsey photo The Hired Belly recently harvested his garlic—a sure sign that summer is slowly but surely on the wane. However, all is not yet lost. Besides, we’ve long been long convinced summer actually extends well beyond the [...]
Is it just a storm in a wine glass? Or is there more to this than meets the eye? Summerhill Winery (besides being infatuated with shapes Cheopic) is well known for its penchant for all things organic and environmental, so it came as no surprise to hear that the view-kissed East Kelowna winery, [...]
Off-leash and delicious Dogfish at The London Chef, Tim Pawsey photo Taste 2012 runs July 19-22. Read about last year's below—then book this year's here! We’re just back from Victoria, where we took in a couple of days at Taste Victoria—the very successful food and wine celebration organised by culinary tourism maven [...]
VICTORIA – The winners have been chosen for the 2011 Lieutenant Governor’s Awards for Excellence in British Columbia Wines. This year 309 wines were submitted from 83 wineries across the province. The winners are: • Howling Bluff Estate Winery 2009 Pinot Noir • Laughing Stock Vineyards 2010 Pinot Gris • Mt. Lehman Winery 2009 Viognier Reserve [...]
In anticipation of next week’s BC Lieutenant Governor’s Awards for Excellence announcement, we thought we’d revisit this column about wine judging that ran in the North Shore News a while back. Some folks have moved on to other things but ... well, you’ll get the gist. Sometime this summer, when you were [...]
The Hired Belly has decided there are probably two very good reasons why he doesn’t live closer to Granville Island. One is the proximity to nearby Les Amis du Fromage. The other is the newly renovated Bistro 101 at Pacific Institute for the Culinary Arts–or PICA as it’s known. Last night we dropped [...]
One of our few regrets, we never seem to have enough time to get the photograph we really want. Images are becoming even more crucial these days, especially in the more visually driven on-line world. We like this shot of winemakers Howard Soon and Stephanie Leinemann for any number of reasons, none the [...]
We had an excellent tasting recently with the folks from Languedoc and Roussillon. It’s a region that gets surprisingly little attention, especially considering the character of the wines and the value they deliver at most price points. Over the years, however, I think the entry level wines in particular have suffered from being [...]
Amazing how a guy driving through the Rockies with a couple of boxes of wine in his trunk can get people so stirred up: All power to Terry DavidMulligan for single handedly bringing this issue to such prominence. If you're not familiar with the topic, you can read up on it in this excellent Wine Access [...]
Vancouver’s Mayor Gregor Robertson is one of the most polished and enlightened politicos around. But he gets extra points in our book for (a) officially proclaiming Vancouver Craft Beer Week and for (b) showing up to tap a keg of Collaboration Ale. Not only that, he did it cleanly and nobody [...]