Hi all,

My greatest apologies for not being more on top of posting here. With the move to Kelowna, Jill being pregnant, the major renovation at the home and some changes to our service offerings, time just seemed to slip away.

I am here in Kelowna and ready and looking forward to cooking for you. I am flushing out some new menu ideas and will be launcing some new marketing soon.

Cheers

-Chef Donnie

My apologies, we have been swamped cooking for Kate Beckinsale and have had some huge events lately. I will have a spring inspired menu up next week.

-Donnie

Hello all and happy new year!

We are wishing you nothing but the best in 2011. Its going to be a great year, we now have a full size commerciall oven, a walk in cooler, an immersion circulator and a smoker… look for some exciting new menus items in the coming months.

I am going to keep this post nice and short, but I did want to share some photos from the past month or so.

Instead of posting all of them here, I have set them up on our Flikr page. Enjoy!

Tired of doing the same old thing for New Years? Don’t like sitting in crowded restaurants with people you don’t know? Want to take part in the latest trend of “underground guerilla dinners” but want them cooked by an insured, food safe, licensed chef?

Check out our New Years Eve Package.

5 courses, cooked and served by your own personal chef. Package price includes sparkling water, house made bread with infused salts, a server, HST and gratuity. $150 per person, minimum group of 10.

1) Butternut squash soup, artisan goat cheese custard, pumpkin seeds
2) Crusted albacore tuna, edamame & wasabi puree, marinated vegetable salad
3) Rabbit Parpadelle, house-made pasta, braised rabbit ragout, grated foie gras
4) Pan seared venison, sweet potato nest, apple cider foam, Brussels sprouts & hazelnut skins
5) Van gogh vodka crème caramel, chipotle pecan brittle

The best part is you can bring your own wine, saving you hundreds of dollars.

Avoid the crowds and higher drinking & driving regulations.

Call Donnie at 778-991-7553  or email at 778-991-7553

Only two dinner parties available, book now.

Porchetta from small butcher in Lucca

Spinach flan with egg yolk and truffle pecorino fondue

Spice in the Venice Market

Monkfish

Yes, you read that right, its a horse salumeri and butcher...

Peacock ravioli in peacock broth

Veggies at the marketThe next 7 dishes were from Minstral in Bellagio. It is a 1 michelin star rated restaurant. Site is www.villaserbelloni.com Apparently, the chef is one of the fathers of Italian Molecular Gastronomy, we went here for our anniversary dinner. Mignadises - little desserts after the meal at Minstral (One Michelin Star)

Local lake como fish in sage browned butter

Venison two ways: Seared rack and tartare

Foie Gras two ways - seared and terrine

Escargot risotto

Aubergine mousse, pecorino foam amuse bouche

Tempura'd local lake fish and vegetables

Enjoying an Old Fashioned with complimentary bar snacks

Sexy vintage style meat slicer

View from one of the Bellagio dinners

Mama Ornella rolling out Pici pasta, the local specialty

Olive oil braised rabbit in a Mason Jar

Wild Boar statue outside local salumeri, they were everywhere!

Squab and seared foie gras with poached pear

Chicken liver pate en croute... well whole wheat bread croute...weird...

Local anchovies, cured in local lemon juice... so good

Fresh shaved truffles anyone?

These were some of the highlights from the trip. I will work to post of the scenery shots at a later date.

I was very fortunate earlier this year, as one of my weekly clients gave me a 2004 Mission Hill Oculus. We had been saving this wine for the right meal and the time. With Italy only a week away and the in-laws leaving in a few days, we figured this was the time… now what to make?

I wandered the farmers market for some inspiration and was immediately drawn to some squash blossoms. Instead of going the typical cheese route I picked up some fantastic dork and pork rillette from the Oyama Sausage Company on Granville Island, as well a nice slice of duck and black truffle pate. I stuffed the blossoms with the rillette and then gave them a nice steam.

To offset this richness, I chose 3 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, as well as one from our own garden. I cut some small slivers of gouda, parmessan and aged white cheddar and made a little salad. We served this is a Sauvignon Blanc from Township 7 in Langley. A nice touch of tartness and acidity to offset the richness of the pate, rillette and cheese.

I really wanted to complement this amazing bottle of wine, so I called my butcher at Windsor Meats and ordered some lamb shanks. I seasoned them with salt and pepper and then gave them a really nice sear in my frying pan. I then transferred them to my slow cooker and covered them with our house-made veal stock, some smashed garlic, peppercorns, dried rosemary and some coffee beans to add a little depth. These cooked for 6 hours. I made some simple smashed nugget potatoes that were picked that morning and topped it with some truffle oil. I blanched some dragon’s tongue beans, fresh carrots and some great purple beans and tossed them in a light lemon butter glaze. The finishing sauce was my labour of love, house-made veal demi glaze. I reduced 3 liters of our stock down to about 2 cups. Thick, rich, complex, wonderful.

The Oculus was bold, complex, dry and was the perfect complement to the richness of this dish. I finished our meal with a stone fruit tart with black pepper whipped cream (sorry no photo, they got eaten really quick).

Adrian and I successfully catered our first “Southern Comfort” package, which includes pulled pork in our house-made BBQ sauce, BBQ chicken legs and thighs plus the always popular watermelon, feta & pistachio salad as well as other delicious sides.

We were lucky to have Dana from www.das22.com photography on site to catch the action.

Grilling the chicken legs...Adrian is slacking off, drinking water as usual...haha

I had the privilege to cater a wedding in West Vancouver over the weekend. Not only was it great to be a part of their special day, but it marked the first 100% farm-to-table meal for Culinary Ink. All of the vegetables for this wedding were sourced from a local South Surrey Farm (Mary’s Garden).

We had the honor of cooking fresh, local carrots, purple cauliflower, watermelon radishes, English breakfast radishes, broccoli and white cauliflower all tossed in a tarragon beurre blanc.

We served a 5 greens salad of arugula, red leaf, green leaf, romaine and iceburg lettuces with strawberry vinaigrette and caramelized pears.

We used all local romaine and garlic for “grandpa’s caesar” as well as local bread for the croutons and local pork for the bacon bits.

If you have yet to experience the beautiful bounty of vegetables that BC has to offer I implore you to go to your local farmers market and see what you are missing. The color, texture and taste will astound you.

Sun, summer and sizzling pig…

Over the holiday long weekend we invited family, friends, suppliers and a couple of freeloaders to our place for a good old fashioned pig roast. A&B Party rentals graciously donated the spit, table and bin rentals. Thank you again.

While roasting a large animal over large amounts of flames goes back centuries, we decided to employ some more modern techniques and flavours.

As you can see Preston (the pink pig) is enjoying a nice brine in a sugar/salt and seasonings solution. This will infuse some flavour, but also lock in the juices when cooking. While it was a little tough to get him in and out of the bin, the end result was well worth it. This was the juiciest pork I have ever eaten.

We went through over 100lbs of charcoal and let Preston slow cook for 8 hours.

We cooked the skin/crackling at the beginning then covered it with foil to prevent it from burning. Next time we might start with the foil on and then crisp up the skin.

We basted Preston every hour with the soya/orange mixture using a large deck mop… got the idea from Drive-in’s, Dinners and Dives. It held lots of liquid and had a long enough handle that you didn’t get burned being that close.

The end, “money shot” the head with an apple. My sous-chef Adrian and I dined on some ultra tender pork cheeks. He was 64 lbs, yielded about 30-34 lbs of meat, we had no left overs, we even used some extra pulled pork I had from a previous event.

That is not a look of disgust, it is trying not to get burnt and singed by the flames, with a 5foot long spit, there is a lot of heat. I was pulling all of the delicious crackling off as a snack.

A finished picture of Preston

The waves are crashing from the pacific just over the sand dune behind you….

Your fire is crackling away and the scent of cedar wisps trough the air…

Your tent is just feet away…

What are you having for dinner? If you are crazy like me, the following.

Making dough from scratch on the picnic table. We stuffed little balls of dough with some Tillamook (camping in Oregon) blue cheese,  fried them in some olive oil, and topped with a fennel salt I made with the left over fennel frond.

Grilled pork chop, pearl barley risotto, wine sauce with local grapes, local vegetables

We picked up some Maitake mushrooms at the farmers market, sauteed them with some olive oil, garlic and onions and just a hint of Oregon chardonnay.

Rather large local rib eye steaks, foil baked Yukon gold potatoes and vegetable brunoise

Adding a little Merlot to our lamb bolognese

Lamb bolognese, whole wheat linguine

We even decided to make some sangria with leftover wine… I may or may not have had a couple of beers before the sangria.

My goal in posting these is to show everyone that you do not need fancy restaurant equipment or a high end kitchen to make some amazing food.