Food Fetish: Avocados

¡Feliz Cinco De Mayo, todos los guapos y guapas!

What a perfectly timed celebration. Nothing makes people feel more festive than a long awaited Spring. Finally we can show a bit of skin, feel the warm breeze on our faces, enjoy a patio, let fresh air reinvigorate and inspire us.

East Van native and life-long Vegetarian Caitlin Das is an avocado enthusiast. She shares her seasonally appropriate killer-guacamole recipe with us, and also gives us 24-hours worth of reasons to shake ourselves free from the daze of a long hibernation. It's time to wake up and reacquaint ourselves with this fair city!

Photographer Yoshi Tanaka, a regular on Vibrant, and the exquisite Miss Caitlin captured the delicate balance of sexiness and whimsy of 1950's pin-up photography for this photo shoot.

The result is completely charming.


V: Why avocados?

CD: I love avocados because of their creamy texture, versatility and cultural ambiguity. They are definitely a staple in my diet.

V: You are a rare breed having been born and raised in Vancouver. Do you still love it here?

CD: Like most Canadians, I often have a love/hate relationship with my hometown.

I find the night life here is sometimes lacking as Vancouver struggles to find its identity, somewhere between "large Canadian town" and "world class city". Despite that, there are some diamonds in the rough. If you are willing to do the detective work, you can always find something to do any night of the week.

One of the reasons why I absolutely love Vancouver however is the long list of fantastic vegetarian-friendly restaurants. I have a tonne of childhood memories at Cafe Deux Soleil, which is still one of my favourite haunts even though I live in the West End now. I could eat my way across this city and back!

V: I'd love to see what that would look like.

CD: I thought you'd never ask.


24 HOURS IN VANCOUVER: A JOURNEY FROM WEST TO EAST

Breakfast, Monday morning: Melriches Coffee / Panini & Americanos / horoscopes, friendly service, lively communal tables.

Jaunt on the Seawall!

Lunch: Yuko Maki on Davie Street / Yam, Avocado & Cream Cheese maki rolls, deep fried! /clean, excellent service, creative makis.

Beach!

Dinner: The Templeton / $5 dollar milk shakes / Juke boxes, cheeky service and comfort food.

Dancing: The Ice Cream Social / The Waldorf / Sock Hop inspired music, poodle skirts, and bourbon filled root beer floats. An evening filled with fun people & youthful vigour.

Breakfast, Tuesday Morning: Cafe Deux Soleil / Teriyaki Tofu Scramble / inexpensive & hefty breakfasts, Commercial Drive charm.

*Vibrant Chef, Caitlin Das and any establishment mentioned above completely absolve themselves of any responsibility for weight gained over the course of this journey. But please note that it is absolutely worth it!

Featured on Caitlin are locally made & designed clothes: a Kimono Top by WE3 and Reversable High Waisted Bottoms by Clementine Clothing, both available at Twigg & Hottie on Main street.

The Twigg & Hottie boutique is yet another reason to love Vancouver's Main Street and provides a pretty strong incentive to shop locally. Part owner of the boutique, the WE3 line, as well as chief designer for Clementine Jess Vaira was instrumental in choosing an outfit that is both retro and fresh. The styles featured below are available now in a variety of hot Spring colours. Going local has never been more chic!


GUACAMOLE PICANTE

3 avocados, cubed or mashed
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 roma tomato, diced
2 sprigs green onion
1 lime, juiced
1 pinch sea salt
1/4 t cumin
1/4 t pepper
1/4- 1 whole jalapeño minced

Use more or less jalapeño depending on desired heat. You can remove the seeds to get flavour without full spicy intensity.

Smash it up, chica!




Photography: Yoshinori Tanaka

Wardrobe provided by: Twigg & Hottie

Special Thanks: Shauna Eve

Food Fetish: Samm'iches!

Sandwiches.

The ultimate lunch food, the ultimate finger food, the ultimate fast food.

Simplistic in design as it may be, there are a thousand variations upon the theme.

People's preferences are as intimate and unique as ones' choice in music.


Luckily we have local Drum and Bass Royalty, Kir Mokum, an aficionado of both sandwiches and music, to give us the low down.

Kir Mokum began to perfect his craft in the hey-day of 1995, and is now a member of the esteemed SHAH DJ crew in Vancouver, as well as an up-and-coming d'n'b producer in his own right.

Despite his hard Junglist veneer, Kir Mokum is a gentleman at heart. He is not the type of man to tell a woman to make him a samm'ich. Not only did his mama raise him better than that, in all honesty he just doesn't trust many people, man or women, to do the job correctly.

To Kir, sandwich making is an art. As such it should not be rushed. Nor should it be over-thought, done without design, intent, or precision. Surely, a sloppy sandwich is indicative of a sloppy mind. And who could possibly want to consume such a gross indiscretion? Lunch food or not, there is always room for perfectionism. And a little Wu Wei goes a long way.

Yoshinori Tanaka captured Kir Mokum as he sat on a patio to enjoy a dinner sized sandwich, two or three Guinness, and a golden hued sunset over charming East Van.

V: Describe the perfect Sandwich.

KM: [bread]toppings[/bread]

V: Does your vision of the perfect Sandwich extend to other areas of your life?

KM: I think one's personal philosophies inevitably permeate every aspect of one's life. So yes, I am just as particular about my music whether I'm DJing or producing. I don't want to say I'm a perfectionist as that implies a certain amount of obsession with the unobtainable, but I definitely strive for excellence and integrity.

V: Your talents extend to music graphic design and visual art. As an artist, what inspires you?

KM: I'm really inspired by artists doing amazing and moving things. There's a lot of cross pollination in those influences too ie: films influence my graphic design; visual art influences my music, etc.

I've never been content to just be a passive observer. I need to experience creative processes to understand them. I get excited not just with the end result, but with the process itself and trying to understand the more esoteric traits of an art.

I get inspired by the idea that I have a vehicle with which to push the envelope and introduce new sounds to the audience, and by reminding them what's come before.

V: Does d'n'b in particular allow you to do that?

KM: Yes, but not always. Like any genre, there is a wide range within it. There will always be the Pop version of d'n'b that is all about being as crazy as possible, appealing to the audience on a very base level. I'm not saying that mainstream d'n'b doesn't play a role, it's just not the role I've chosen.

For me it's about digging deep into the emotive niches of the genre while keeping the audience engaged and moving. The idea of music being equally effective on the dancefloor as it is on a home stereo has always been a measure of quality for me. Striking a balance between moving, feeling and thinking is my MO.

There is a lot of really inspired music out there right now that is made to evoke a dynamic range of emotions. Artists like Blu Mar Ten, Calibre, d:bridge, Seba, Rockwell... they're all producing music that I feel people need to hear.

V: Name some of your top favourite shows you've played.

KM: Overall, I love playing outdoor festivals. Especially early morning, when I have license to play some really deep music that the audience isn't as receptive to at peak time-slots.

More specifically, I recently played a benefit for Japan's earthquake and tsunami victims hosted by Vancouver's Lighta! crew.

Not only was it for a good cause, it was also very exciting for me because I wasn't playing to a strictly d'n'b crowd. I chose to play a deep and dynamic style of minimal d'n'b that I like to call Liquid Chunk. It brings back the experimental aspects of the genre that were big in 1995/96. It's big in the UK, but no one in Canada seems to be really pushing it right now. I took a risk playing something new, and people loved it. Bam!

V: Kir, what is the meaning of life?

KM: Wash your bowl.














KIR SAMM'ICH

deep house / deep techno / or deep d'n'b mix
3-4 Guinness
hearty bread
mayo or pesto spread
avocado
tomato
porter cheddar / smoked gouda / havarti / or lightly baked dulse


Latest tracks by Kir Mokum

Special Thanks to Yoshinori Tanaka

Food Fetish: Eggplant

Beauty and mystery are everywhere you look. Sometimes all it takes is a subtle shift in perspective to turn the mundane into the sublime.

The humble eggplant is filled with such mystery. The shade of a moonless midnight sky, with smooth shiny skin and earthy flavour. It's plumpness and name symbolic of fertility. When mixed with staple ingredients such as garlic, seasalt or miso, truly amazing things can happen.

Naturopathic Doctor Carmen Tanaka loves beautiful things. She also has a knack for uncovering the type of beauty that lays in wait for a worthy observer. For this shoot her refined aesthetic, along with her photographer husband Yoshinori Tanaka 's sharp eye, guided the way.

Carmen is newly graduated from The Boucher Institute of Naturopathic Medicine, and is about to have a baby. What better way to celebrate the New Year than to celebrate new beginnings? And life is definitely unfolding in beautiful ways for Dr.Tanaka right now.

Vibrant Fare is honoured to have the opportunity to capture this spectacular moment, and her fabulous glow.



VF: Training in Naturopathic Medicine must give you a very wide range of knowledge. What modalities do you plan on focusing on?

CT: I am of the mind that there is no separation between the emotional, the mental and the physical. You cannot treat one without the other. My practice will revolve around uncovering the mental and emotional causes of illness: an area often over looked in medicine.

When you're helping someone to heal, you have to start by looking at the basics: is the patient getting enough sleep/water/clean food? Simply correcting deficiencies in these areas will cure a large amount of ailments.

When these basic conditions for health are met and illness still persists, it's time to dig deeper. Lifestyle and emotional counseling are good tools for uncovering non-physical imbalances, and so will play a large part in my practice. I also find a combination of acupuncture, herbs, and homeopathy to be highly effective for rectifying those imbalances.

VF: You became pregnant in the last months of your schooling at Boucher, and are expecting any day now. That must have changed the course of your life immensely.

CT: Yes and no. It might be cliche to say this, but you are never fully prepared for the immensity of creating a life. But priorities naturally shift when you become pregnant, and everything suddenly becomes feasible.

While in school, I was in a very yang mentality: studying, working in the clinic, transforming into a doctor and career woman. Since becoming pregnant and graduating from school, I've settled into a yin state: calm, contemplative, inward facing. The timing turned out to be perfect as I can let all that I have learned at school settle within me, and I have the luxury of a chunk of time to envision the future I desire.

This personal experience will also translate beautifully into my professional life. Pregnant women are notoriously complex to treat. Most adult treatments are inappropriate for the growing fetus. Going through the experience of pregnancy myself will make the prospect of treating pregnant women less daunting.

VF: You are obviously very passionate about the Art of Medicine. What else gets you going?

CT: Food. Every aspect of it. From picking out the perfect ingredients, to preparing them, and especially the act of sitting down to share plates of food.

VF: Why did you choose eggplant?

CT: Having never had it as a child, eggplant seems very exotic to me, which I find appealing. I also love the colour and texture. For me it is a comfort food: soft and grounding, and such a great conduit for an array of spices. I love them in thai green curry, and my husband makes a delicious Japanese miso-eggplant dish that I adore, by itself or on a bowlful of Haiga rice.


Thai Green Curry featuring Eggplant and Bamboo Shoots

1 japanese eggplant, cut into thin half moons
1 fresh bamboo shoot, sliced into chunks
1 red pepper, sliced thin
1/2 cup peas
1 shallot
1/2 red onion diced
3 cloves fresh garlic, chopped fine
1 1/2 cups veggie stock
1 can coconut milk
2 kaffir lime leaves
1 inch lemon grass stalk
1 T Thai Green Curry Paste
1 t grapeseed oil
1 pinch seasalt
1 inch fresh ginger, grated

In a saucepan heat oil and onions and shallots, with a pinch of salt.
Saute until translucent and add garlic, veggie stock, coconut milk, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass.

In a small bowl, dissolve curry paste in hot water.
Add curry paste to pot and heat. Add eggplant and bamboo shoot, and simmer on med-low for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Make sure eggplant has lost all of it's toughness and feels mushy. Stew longer if necessary.
Add red pepper and peas in the last few minutes of cooking.

Serve on short grain brown rice or brown jasmine rice, and garnish with fresh grated ginger.








Japanese Miso Eggplant



6 tablespoons shiro miso (white fermented soybean paste)
3 tablespoons rice vinegar (not seasoned)
1 1/2 tablespoons water
3 3/4 teaspoons honey
1 tablespoon finely grated peeled fresh ginger
2 tablespoons vegetable oil plus additional for brushing pan
6 Asian eggplants(about 8 inches), halved lengthwise
2 scallions, finely chopped

Preheat broiler.

Whisk together shiro miso, vinegar, water, honey, and ginger until honey is dissolved.

Brush a large shallow baking pan with oil and arrange eggplant, cut sides up, in pan. Brush tops with 2 tablespoons oil (total). Broil eggplant 4 to 6 inches from heat until it begins to turn pale golden and soften, 4 to 5 minutes. Brush generously with miso mixture and broil 2 minutes more. Brush eggplant with miso again and rotate pan 180 degrees (do not turn eggplant over), then continue to broil until eggplant is tender and glaze is golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Serve sprinkled with scallions.


Photography: Yoshinori Tanaka

Special thanks to 'Nugget'