Edible Vancouver & Wine Country

07/05/2025

Welcome to July and a fresh summer issue. Make sure you grab a copy while you can or subscribe to never miss an issue (link below).

Here's what you'll find:

- blueberry recipes Russlynn Blueberries, Krause Berry Farms & Estate Winery, On The Go Farms, Surrey Farms, Bumbleberry Farms, Berry Bounty Farms
- WA BAGEL is redefining bagels witha Japanese twist, thanks to headbaker Yukiko Iikura.
- "In Praise of the Pop-Up": If you want to find the heart of the local food movement, look not in traditional restaurants but in bookstores, art galleries, optometry offices and even on beaches — or, more commonly, at a Russian nesting doll of restaurant within a restaurant.
- "It Started with a Cherry": Sharon Hunt started cooking at her dad’s side at the age of 10, carrying on a family legacy he had started when he was 10 and his mother was too ill to cook for her family.
- "Waste Not, Glean More": Charitable movements across B.C. are working toward decreasing food waste on all fronts. Greater Vancouver Food Bank, Chaser's Fresh Juice Vancouver, Supreme Freeze Dry, LifeCycles Project Society, Urban Bounty, FoodMesh
- "Beyond Tomato Sauce": When tomatoes are in peak production this summer, relish these tomato-based condiments.
- "At Your Service": TIPS Academy BC is a new program designed to trainrestaurant servers — and transform the hospitality industry.

Subscribe to never miss an issue and to support local journalism: https://ediblevancouver.ediblecommunities.com/subscribe/

Cover photo by Helena McMurdo Photography.

07/01/2025

Happy Canada Day from Edible Vancouver & Wine Country!

Today we raise a glass to the farmers, chefs, winemakers, and food lovers who make this region so deliciously unique. From Okanagan vineyards to West Coast kitchens, we celebrate the flavours that bring us together and the stories that root us in place.

Eat well, sip local, and savour the beauty of this land we call home.

06/25/2025

Bobby Kongsilp is still a bit bummed about the elephant. Imported from Thailand, adorned in gold and weighing hundreds of pounds, it cast a benevolent eye over the diners at SalaThai, the restaurant his parents, Sam and Joy Kongsilp, owned for nearly four decades until they retired last year. “My mom sold everything… but I wish she hadn’t sold that,” Kongsilp says.

Now that he is owner and general manager of his own restaurant, Jay Nok, Kongsilp thinks the elephant would be a cool addition to the contemporary and slightly industrial-looking space in Olympic Village. But aside from his mom’s famous (and famously non-traditional) pad Thai, there’s not a whole lot else he’d want to copy.

“It was her restaurant, with lots of teak and artifacts, old school. This is me — modern,” he says.

It’s the same challenge — and opportunity — shared by a second generation of restaurant kids trying to redefine their culinary traditions. They’re inspired by what their parents brought to this country, but are remaking it in a way that is fresh, modern, very Canadian and deliciously their own.

Read "Tomorrow's Thai" by Joanne Sasvari: https://ediblevancouver.ediblecommunities.com/stories/jay-nok-tomorrows-thai/

Photos by Jonathan Thompson.

06/19/2025

Buttermilk pudding with honey and macerated strawberries

Yes, buttermilk is an unusual ingredient to make pudding with, but if you like a dessert that is sweet and sour, give this a try. The buttermilk pudding is reminiscent of a thick yogurt. If you like your pudding extra thick, add another egg yolk.

Buttermilk pudding
2 cups buttermilk, divided in two
¼ cup honey
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 egg yolk
½ teaspoon vanilla paste (or extract)
⅕ teaspoon salt

Macerated strawberries
2 cups strawberries, cleaned with stems removed
4 teaspoons honey
2 teaspoons orange liqueur (Grand Marnier, Cointreau, etc.)
Pinch of black pepper (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

Add ½ cup of buttermilk into a mixing bowl. Add the cornstarch, egg yolk and salt and mix well. Add the other 1½ cups of buttermilk and honey to a small pot over medium-low heat. Warm until the buttermilk separates (yes, it will separate). Pour a small amount of warm buttermilk into the mixture and whisk. Continue adding in the warm liquid and whisking until all of the buttermilk is added. Pour this mixture back into the pot and cook over medium-low heat.

Continue whisking until the mixture thickens and just begins to bubble. Remove the pot from the heat and strain the pudding into a clean bowl. Stir in the vanilla.

Let the pudding cool to room temperature before placing in the refrigerator. The pudding can be kept, covered, for several days.

https://ediblevancouver.ediblecommunities.com/recipes/buttermilk-pudding-with-honey-and-macerated-strawberries/

Photo by Helena McMurdo Photography

06/19/2025

Canada’s First Community Cookbook by Jo-Anne Lauzer, from our May issue.

How a plucky group of women came together to preserve our traditions, cultural heritage and culinary history — one family recipe at a time.

Canada's First Community Cookbook

06/17/2025

Taste the Heart of B.C. — Subscribe to Edible Vancouver & Wine Country

Edible Vancouver & Wine Country is your trusted guide to the vibrant food culture of British Columbia — from the coast to the valley, the vineyard to the forest floor.

Every issue brings you inside the kitchens of innovative chefs, the fields of regenerative farms, and the cellars of world-class winemakers. With rich storytelling and evocative photography, we highlight the people and places that make B.C.’s food and wine scene so exceptional.

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Choose local. Choose impact. Subscribe today to start with our July issue:
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06/16/2025

For four generations, the Dias family has been committed to producing the highest quality Arabica coffee beans while embracing the core values that were first established by Christina Dias’s great-grandfather and his brothers.

“It’s been a long tradition in my family,” says Cristina Dias as she pulls out a glossy coffee-table book filled with stunning images of her family’s farm in Brazil that show how they harvest the coffee. She smiles and points to a photo of Ernesto, her grandfather, then flips through the pages, explaining each step of the coffee bean growing and drying process. Part way through, she pauses and offers a cup of coffee — “espresso or pour-over?”

Each option has a specific process, which Dias takes very seriously because she insists on serving the perfect cup of coffee to anyone who buys Mogiana Coffee beans, her Burnaby-based business, aptly named after the valley in Brazil where her family grows the beans. Dias’ passion for exceptional coffee and sound business practices are deeply rooted in family and tradition.

Read "Brewed in Family and Tradition" by Jo-Anne Lauzer:
https://ediblevancouver.ediblecommunities.com/stories/mogiana-coffee-brewed-in-family-and-tradition/

06/06/2025

Birch Block Vineyard is a five-acre boutique winery in Kaleden, owned by Sarah and Murray Bancroft. It’s so small, the Bancrofts don’t even have a tasting room.

Instead, this summer you might just find them pouring their juicy, low-intervention Pinot Noir and pét-nat wines at the UBC, Kitsilano or Mount Pleasant farmers’ markets.

Although alcoholic beverages have long been a staple at markets across Europe, shopping for wine — or beer or cider or spirits — is still a relatively new thing at B.C.’s farmers’ markets. It’s only been since 2014, when the province modernized its liquor laws by, among other things, legalizing happy hour and allowing minors into pubs that we could finally pick up a B.C.-made Sauv Blanc alongside the local asparagus it pairs so nicely with.

The thinking behind the change was twofold: to make shopping for local products easier for consumers, and to create economic opportunities for small businesses. But what it really did is create a convivial pairing of food, wine, conversation and, of course, commerce.

Read "Why Not Buy Wine at Your Farmers Market?" by Joanne Sasvari: https://ediblevancouver.ediblecommunities.com/stories/why-not-buy-wine-at-your-farmers-market/

UBC Farm - Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, Vancouver Farmers Markets

06/04/2025

Ben Healy, the entrepreneur behind Healy's Traditional Irish Brown Bread, is a young Irishman bringing his country’s traditional brown bread recipe to Vancouverites and expressing his own creativity.

He started making brown bread in Vancouver simply because “I couldn’t find it anywhere.” He longed for that taste of home and also wanted to do something creative, where he could express himself. On a trip back to Ireland, he got the idea of making bread with the help of his grandmother’s rediscovered recipe, which he says included no hints to technique — just a list of ingredients.

Read "Healy’s Traditional Irish Brown Bread" from our May issue: https://ediblevancouver.ediblecommunities.com/stories/healys-traditional-irish-brown-bread/

Words and photos by Helena McMurdo Photography.

06/01/2025

Have you picked up a copy of our 2025 BC Touring Guide?

As more of us rediscover the allure of our own backyard and choose to travel in Canada, let this year’s touring guide lead the way. Since it was first published 10 years ago, the guide has grown in popularity year after year, helping adventurers discover B.C.’s breathtaking landscapes, local flavours and unforgettable experiences.

To find or purchase a copy, see our website for details: https://ediblevancouver.ediblecommunities.com/local-guides/2025-bc-touring-guide/

You can also view a digital copy here: https://ediblevancouver.ediblecommunities.com/digital-issues/

Happy touring!

05/31/2025

Is Chris Van Hooydonk the happiest chef in the Okanagan Valley? People keep telling him that he is, which kind of makes him, well, happy. “I love what I do so much,” he says, before launching into a passionate explanation of how he just wants to “continue the relationship piece and educate consumers about food and agriculture and the people behind it.”

It makes for a refreshing change from all the doom and gloom of 2024, a year that began with a winter cold event that decimated the valley’s grape and stone fruit crops and continued with rising costs, labour shortages, wildfire fears, bureaucratic rule changes and the pandemic’s lingering emotional hangover. It hasn’t been a very happy time in the Okanagan, or indeed, in the hospitality community across Canada.

But at Van Hooydonk’s two-acre Backyard Farm just south of Oliver, things are a little different. “I didn’t want that to be our story,” he says. Rather, he wants people to know that there’s lots of wine, the fires haven’t been an issue “and isn’t it a great time to support people when they need it most?”

Read "How to Make a Chef Happy" by Joanne Sasvari: https://ediblevancouver.ediblecommunities.com/stories/how-to-make-a-chef-happy/

05/29/2025

There are many fish in the sea, but none really compares with salmon — an iconic coastal species, woven into the human, ecological and cultural fabric of its place of birth, and dramatic death, here on Canada’s West Coast.

It’s the latter part of the story, the life cycle and migration of this big, silvery fish, that really sets salmon apart from all others.

We love the epic tale of the wild salmon, its struggle to navigate back to its home stream to spawn after a life in the open ocean, and then its return to the earth, literally sharing its body with the land, the eagles and bears, even the rainforest trees that depend on its decaying flesh to supplement the soil.

But people love to eat salmon too, and that, among other realities of the modern world, has brought our favourite fish to the brink. So, what should a responsible diner do? It’s not an easy question to answer, but many people have informed opinions when it comes to salmon.

How to save, buy and serve B.C.’s best in "Sustaining Salmon" by Cinda Chavich: https://ediblevancouver.ediblecommunities.com/stories/sustaining-salmon/

Ocean Wise, Slow Fish Canada, T.Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation, Watershed Watch Salmon Society, Skipper Otto, Raincoast Conservation Foundation, SkeenaWild Conservation Trust, Gitanyow Education and Training, Finest At Sea Victoria, Codfathers Seafood, Boulevard Kitchen & Oyster Bar, CedarCreek Estate Winery