BC Business
Treve Ring, Edible Canada | BCBusinessTreve Ring pairs wine with breakfast – for lunch.
Chocolate as art, where to nosh for a cause and why Edible Canada is so happy to be in the red.
The Expert: Treve Ring, director of liquid assets at Granville Island’s Edible Canada bistroThe Dish: Ham and eggs with bacon hash, grilled onions and pork jus, $15The Pairing: Edible Canada Market Red, Gamay/Syrah blend, 2010, Okanagan Valley, B.C., $10/glass, $48/bottle
Market Red is an 80 per cent Gamay, 20 per cent Syrah blend that was barrel-aged for 10 months in thin-stave aged French oak. This Gamay has incredible structure, but needed more depth – hence the Syrah.
Gamay Noir is one of owner Eric Pateman’s least-favourite wines, so creating a line that was predominantly Gamay was not something we anticipated doing. But when our team sat down with winemaker Michael Bartier and started thinking about the key things we do well as a restaurant and as a Canadian food culture, this wine screamed those pairings.
Pork is especially big for us. We’re doing a lot of work with Fiore Farms in the Fraser Valley, which is raising amazing heritage-breed animals, including free-range Berkshire pork. We’ve been playing with this particular combination for a few months. It’s a comfort dish with the typical ingredients you associate with breakfast, but in a more elegant presentation.
Ultimately, we crafted this red to pair with all of our bistro fare and some of our favourite products from the market, like heritage pork, B.C. salmon and wild mushrooms. Expect bright, pure cherry, perfumed wild raspberry and cracked pepper notes from first sniff through the lingering finish.
– as told to Alexandra Barrow
According to a list compiled by Statistics Canada called “Valentine’s Day . . . by the numbers,” Canadians spend a whopping $1.5 billion on chocolate and confectioneries for their valentines. The figure doesn’t surprise Heather Rondeau (“Hodie” to her regulars), owner of Xoxolat in Kitsilano. She says that next to Christmas, the days leading up to February 14 are her chocolate shop’s most profitable. Xoxolat is known in Vancouver for having the largest selection of single-origin chocolate bars from around the world, but nearing Cupid’s day its clientele is especially keen to get their hands on one of Xoxolat’s whimsical chocolate high heels. Ranging from The Simple and The Painted to The Inspired and Red Carpets, each handcrafted shoe is an elegant – and edible – work of art ($35-$150, xoxolat.com).
What’s better than good eats? Good eats for a great cause. All profits from East of Main Café, opened in Chinatown by sisters Maureen Webb and Donalda Weaver six months ago, benefit Project Limelight Society, a free performing arts program available to children from the Downtown Eastside. Simply by noshing on a plate of chef Jenny Patsula’s eclectic Mediterranean and Middle Eastern-inspired cuisine or sipping on one of bar manager Colin Turner’s lively libations you can help to provide youth with a safe place to go and grow. “We consider East of Main Café to be a social-purpose business,” says Weaver. “Today’s consumers want to know that their spending dollars have a positive impact in their community and they make decisions based on that information. The social impact of a business is not easily determined, but it’s important to us that it be considered when measuring our success.” (eastofmaincafe.com)