British Columbia Magazine

Stephanie Yuen is a name many Vancouver epicureans will recognize. The vivacious Hong Kong-born food writer and self-taught chef has emerged as an ambassador for the city’s Asian cuisine. Yuen worked as a food columnist for CBC Radio 1 and now writes for Edible Canada, What’s On, and the Vancouver Sun, among others, and regularly appears on TV and radio.

For British Columbia Magazine’s Winter 2011 feature article on Chinese New Year celebrations (“Behind the lion’s mask”), Yuen introduced writer Daniel Wood to the many auspicious ingredients that go into a Chinese New Year feast.  

“Oranges are always present for New Year’s visitors because they’re golden and promote wealth. Noodles are never served cut into pieces because their length represents longevity. A cooked chicken always appears with its head and feet on to symbolize wholeness,” she advised.

Yuen shares more of her wisdom and observations of the Vancouver food scene over the past 30 years in her newly released cookbook East Meets West (Doulas & McIntyre), which features traditional and contemporary Asian dishes gathered from acclaimed Vancouver restaurants. The offerings range from the well-loved (Phad Thai and Beef ‘Pho) to the more surprising (Sea Urchin and Scallop Mousse and Jellyfish and Chicken Salad).

One of the first to try on my list is ‘Lovely Lady’ Special Bubble Tea, which Yuen secured from Chef Dennis Lam of Dessert Dynasty:

“Lovely Lady” Special Bubble Tea

2 tsp basil seeds

16 oz watermelon juice

1 Tbsp white sugar

½ cup ice chips

2 oz premade kanten jelly in ¼-inch cubes

3 oz seeded watermelon, in ½-inch cubes

In a medium saucepan, bring 2 cups water to a gentle boil on high heat. Add basil seeds and immediately turn off the heat. Allow seeds to soak for 5 minutes or until they become translucent. Pour seeds into a colander, drain and rinse under cold running water for 90 seconds. Transfer seeds to an airtight container and refrigerate until needed. In a blender, combine watermelon juice, sugar and ice chips and blend on high for 60 to 90 seconds. Evenly divide kanten jelly, basil seeds and watermelon cubes among 3 or 4 large, tall glasses. Pour watermelon juice over the jelly and serve ice cold.

For another sample recipe from the book, Original Shanghai Tan Tan Noodles, click here.

To order a copy of East Meets West, contact Douglas & McIntyre.

Sookies know their food; it’s official. After 12 weeks of culinary challenges, Sooke native Carl Heinrich has won the title of Top Chef Canada during  the second season of the television show, which airs on Food Network Canada.

Heinrich, now based in Toronto, spent time learning his craft in several local kitchens, including the homey Mom’s Cafe and the internationally known Sooke Harbour House, before branching out to complete his studies in Stratford, Ontario. Heinrich plans to use his cash prize to fund his own restaurant.

Find out more about Heinrich’s hometown and its local food scene in our Destination article “A Taste of Sooke.” Watch for it in our Special Summer Travel Issue on newsstands next week!

Above: Produce from a Sooke community garden.

Below: Bounty from the Sooke Harbour House gardens.

Photos by Shanna Baker

Did you know that the first two lighthouses on British Columbia’s coast turn 150 years old this year?

The Spring 2010 issue of British Columbia Magazine includes “150 years of light,” a short article about Victoria’s Fisgard Lighthouse and Race Rocks Lighthouse.

Dale Mumford of Fort Rodd Hill and Fisgard Lighthouse National Historic Sites of Canada has done extensive research on the history of these two beacons, and shares his profiles of the first and last keepers at Fisgard Lighthouse in this week’s web exclusive. Read the full article on our website.

Karen Davies of Victoria, winner of our Saltspring Island Getaway Contest, recently travelled to the southern Gulf Island with husband, Dai, to claim her prize. Karen and Dai met with resident artist/author Nick Bantock, creator of the bestselling Griffin & Sabine series of books, and subject of our Spring 2009 “Nick Bantock’s Saltspring” feature article. At Bantock’s airy Ganges studio, the threesome quickly fell into conversation about life, art, and politics.

“We were really surprised at Nick’s down-to-earth nature and lack of ego,” said Karen. “He’s very stimulating to be with.”

The gallery has a “happy feel” that invites discovery, Karen observed. “We loved the texture of Nick’s work,” she added. ”He creates the sort of pictures you want to be involved with, rather than just look at. . . . Nick was also very generous in the way he told us about how he works.”

The winner’s prize also included a stay at the Harbour House Hotel and $50 in Saltspring currency. Karen used the colourful bills to buy herself two of Bantock’s out-of-print Griffin & Sabine books, which, of course, Bantock personally inscribed.

The next morning, the couple visited Saltspring’s famous Saturday market, then kayaked to nearby Chocolate Beach.  All in all, it was, Karen sighed, a “wonderful getaway.”

To celebrate the launch of our Spring 2009 issue—including a truly unique travel piece on Saltspring Island—we’re inviting readers to enter our Saltspring Getaway Contest. You could win a $200 gift card for accommodation on this charming Gulf Island, plus $50 in spending money, and a chance to meet artist/author Nick Bantock, creator of the international bestselling Griffin & Sabine books. Click here for complete contest details; open to adult residents of Canada, excluding Quebec.

When we invited Nick Bantock to create original artwork for our spring feature, “Nick Bantock’s Saltspring,” we could hardly wait for the results. The artist is known worldwide for his collages. The wonderful abstract images he created to depict Saltspring, his island home, are indicative of how the artist sees the world. For Bantock, it is more meaningful to convey the essence of a place than to provide a literal view.

“If you show someone a photograph of a tree next to a beach in front of the water on Saltspring,” he says, “you’re not giving them anything other than ‘This is how it is.’”

To represent Ganges, Saltspring’s main commercial centre, the artist dreamed up a new species: the “flizzard”—half lizard, half fish. “In summer, Ganges is very much a tourist place, but in winter, it’s more for the locals, so I created a creature that’s half and half, to represent its duality.”

Evocative, imaginative, and mysterious, the final artwork beautifully evokes the spirit of Saltspring Island. See Bantock’s delightful creations in our online photo gallery. To see more of Bantock’s artwork, visit his Saltspring studio/gallery, The Forgetting Room (250-537-0096), or browse his website: www.nickbantock.com

There will be a battle of the brains when two rival Lower Mainland university professors face off in a public debate over which great thinker influenced modern science more, Charles Darwin or Galileo Galilei.

In one corner, representing the University of British Columbia, will be zoology lecturer Greg Bole, arguing that Darwin’s 19th century theory of natural selection eclipses Galileo’s achievements. Tom Archibald, chair of mathematics at Simon Fraser University, will make the case that the 17th century Tuscan physicist, astronomer, mathematician and philosopher should take the crown.

The event is scheduled as part of Simon Fraser’s Geek Week, a cheeky celebration of science. The debate is intended to mark the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s improvements to the telescope and related finding that the Earth is not the centre of the universe. This year is also the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s The Origin of the Species.

The gloves come off January 28, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., at SFU’s Interdisciplinary Research in the Mathematical and Computational Sciences video-conferencing centre, at the Burnaby campus.  The public are invited to attend the debate in person. Book a seat by contacting Stephen Price at (778) 782-5347; stephen_price@sfu.ca. The cerebral match will also be streamed to the Internet, available by clicking: www.irmacs.sfu.ca/about/live-video. For more information, see www.sfu.ca.

Alma Rattenbury was infamous on two continents for her role in the sad, sordid love triangle that ended in 1935 with the murder of her husband, architect Francis Rattenbury, and incarceration of her teenaged lover. (See “A century of secrets at the Empress Hotel” in our Winter 2008 issue for more). It would be easy to dismiss Alma as a home wrecker and an adulteress, but there was more to her than the tabloid sensation she became.

Alma, while undeniably beautiful, was also a gifted pianist at a young age. As a teen, she performed with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, playing both piano and violin. In later years, she composed her own songs under the name “Lozanne,” specializing in sentimental ballads.

She flouted social mores, but also earned accolades for her public service. Devastated by the death of her first husband on the battlefields of France during the First World War, Alma signed up to serve in a field ambulance unit in hope of finding his grave, according to the biography Rattenbury, by Terry Reksten. Alma’s nursing work merited her a prestigious decoration from the French government.

Although painted unsympathetically in the press, Alma could be overtly generous. If, for example, a guest admired an object at her home, she would urge the person to take the item home, Reksten noted in Rattenbury.

Alma was the devoted mother of two sons: Christopher, from her second marriage, and John, from her union with Rattenbury. Raised by relatives following his parents’ tragic deaths, John became an apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright and is now an esteemed architect working in Scottsdale, Arizona.

I don’t pretend to have known Bert Brink well, but during our one sit-down interview in his West 16th Avenue home in Vancouver in 2001, he impressed me with his graciousness, quiet sense of passion, and deep knowledge of British Columbia history.

He shared some of the last firsthand memories of the great drives of domestic sheep across 150 kilometres of the southern Interior, before the Second World War. Experiences that inevitably led to his long-standing campaign to save the South Chilcotin.

With two hip replacements and a bad leg dating to when he once trained Canadian soldiers in mountaineering in the Rockies, Brink sensed in 2001 that his alpine days were numbered. 

“It’s hard to get into a tent and sleeping bag,” he allowed. “You put a lot of other people to trouble. You can’t fight the aging process indefinitely.”

Brink’s efforts helped to create the 56,540-hectare Spruce Lake Protected Area, a level of protection he would have considered a start, not a conservation end.

Tom Perry, the Vancouver physician, conservationist, and former provincial cabinet minister, describes Brink as “the greatest and most consistent environmentalist and naturalist of British Columbia, and perhaps in Canadian history,” adding that his longevity made him the “human equivalent of a Jeffrey pine or giant sequoia, Douglas fir, or Sitka spruce.”

Brink served as chair of the University of British Columbia department of plant science, had an accomplished research career, and assisted in the creation of numerous provincial and regional parks while serving with groups such as the Federation of B.C. Naturalists and the Nature Trust of B.C. He travelled to Victoria in June to receive the 2007 Lieutenant-Governor’s Conservation Award for his contribution to wetland conservation and education, the latest in a series of accolades that included the Order of Canada.

Vernon Cuthbert Brink died on November 29, 2007, at age 95. A celebration-of-life service will be held for him January 31, 2008, 4 p.m to 7 p.m, at the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club, 3811 Point Grey Road.

His voice endures in British Columbia Magazine in an article he wrote for the Winter 1997 issue, “Redfern is no Lake Louise,” about Redfern Lake in the Northern Rockies.