Cooking is a Vacation (for some people!)

I’m sitting at my window overlooking the marina in Victoria, BC, where Chuck and I are vacationing for a couple of weeks. It’s cool and rainy today, unlike home, which, I understand, is sweltering. I hope my neighbor waters our herb garden!

Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands here in British Columbia tout themselves as the organic capital of Canada and there is a vibrant organic-local-whole foods-veggie-whatever, thing going on. The movement is reflected best in the small, casual eateries and coffeehouses all around town. We like to go out for a cup every afternoon and try to dine out at least once a day. (It would be easy to do this three times a day, but we have to limit ourselves, or get fat/go broke simultaneously.) To give you an idea of just how difficult it is to resist the siren call of Victoria, not one block from where I'm currently typing sit three favorite places, all in a row: Habit, Mole, and Café Bliss. Okay, the last one isn’t a favorite. If I so much as hint at raw food cuisine, Chuck dramatically quotes Woody Allen (“I like my food dead. Not sick. Not wounded. Dead”) and follows it up with an elaborate mime of incipient death (throat-clutching, eye-popping, gag-relflexing, a final floor-crashing “faint”.) No sashimi or wheat-grass smoothies for our boy!

But vacations out here are one of the few times during the year when I actually get to do what I call “relaxation cooking”. I let the rhythm of the day, my mood, and the market inform the meal. It is quite a change from my real life, when that ticking clock and what's hanging around in the fridge determine what gets thrown together; on class nights, I'm limited to a little plain yogurt before late-evening sampling of our student's creations. And despite the seductions of its many restaurants, Victoria offers a lot of great fodder for the home cook looking to be creative.

Our proximity to Chinatown, just a half-block up the street, is great. In a few minutes, I'm going to stroll over and select fresh fruits and veggies from the sidewalk market. The stuff is way cheaper than the grocery store and I love to be able to cook based on what’s fresh that day. And whatever looks good is going to find its way onto the plate tonight. Fresh Asian noodles are made daily and bagged for easy pickup at the place next door, as well as Chinese baked goods and BBQ – I’d provide a link to this place, but it’s a no-frills, cash-only concern that doesn’t even seem to belong to the 20th century, let alone the 21st. I'll skip the Chinese herbalist today, since I don’t know what the hell goes on in there anyway.

After that, I'll walk another couple of blocks for fresh whole-grain bread at Cascadia or Wildfire. For a baker like me, these places are pure kryptonite, baby. Maybe a little something for dessert? Or a couple of vegan muffins for tomorrow’s breakfast? Witness me settling for both! Time permitting, a visit to Silk Road for loose tea, probably a smoky Lapshang. Last stop: the local Whole Foods clone for essentials (Island goat cheese, red lentils, Peace River honey, TP) and then it's back to my little condo kitchen.

I'm back! On tonight’s menu: a stir fry of spot prawns – it’s the season! – with bean sprouts, some fresh choi, and other good things, like Queen Anne cherries, the first of the year. And if the sun comes out, as it’s been trying to do for the last hour, we’ll dine on the patio overlooking the inner harbor, watching the University crew team rowing again the sunset.

Ciao for now from the Pacific Northwest.