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Restaurants Travel

Victoria, BC: Fantastic Brekkie at Blue Fox Cafe

Every city has at least one, right? The breakfast/brunch spot that people line up and wait for without complaint. When we lived in LA, it was Maxwell’s (or Blueberry, or Lulu’s), in San Francisco it was Rose’s and (RIP) Ti Couz; in Portland, there's TastynSons. In Victoria, BC, it might be the Blue Fox Café. By Sunday morning, our birthday crew was going in separate directions. Some to the spa, some headed home, so it was my morning to get around and see the city. I scoured Yelp for potential breakfast spots and hit on the Blue Fox Café. Four and a half stars on 129 reviews, with many warning about the wait. It was already almost 8:30 am, so I get movin’.
June 22, 20120Comments

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Recipes

Antipasti Party: Insalata di Farro e Ceci (Chickpeas & Farro, Yo!)

I keep the weather in other cities on my phone just to torture myself. Right now the line up is: home, Victoria, BC; San Francisco; Sydney; San Diego; Denver; and Arezzo. We went to Italy two years ago and Arezzo still hasn’t been deleted from the list. It’s in the low 90s, high 80s this week in Arezzo, just a tad too hot, but still the idea of sitting out under a pergola, looking out into a valley in Tuscany as the sun dips beneath the horizon, sipping a little pinot grigio, with a little antipasti…well, that sounds like dinner.
June 21, 20121Comment

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Restaurants Travel

Victoria, BC: Lure & the Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe Resort

The last time I was in Victoria, BC, it was a pass through point on the way to and from Tofino. We darted around downtown trying to find some quick lunch before the ferry to Port Angeles. This past weekend, I headed up to Victoria with the city as the end destination for a girls weekend celebrating my friend Linda's birthday. We stayed at a great little place on the Inner Harbour - the Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe Resort.
June 19, 20120Comments

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Not About Food

Wild Kingdom

This week has been crazy. It's not anything you'd think -- not work, not family commitments, not getting ready for a vacation. It's been Wild Kingdom over here. Literally. It started with the Heron. Our relationship with the Heron has been tenuous at best. We have a small man-made pond and he showed up about a year after we moved in, looking for dinner. It was mainly a goldfish pond, but there was one big koi in there, old enough and wise enough to survive. We called him The Leviathan. The Heron is a gorgeous bird with a 5 foot wingspan, but his goals and ours are completely at cross purposes. Our koi pond is not a sushi bar. So Wolf MacGyvered a cover out of PVC and netting. But the Heron is persistent. Like a 3-year old running through a group of pigeons, I’ve taken off across our grass, waving my arms and yelling to scare him off. We've driven up only to catch him soaring off after a sashimi appetizer from our pond. Eventually, while we were on vacation, he even got the Leviathan. This week, I saved the damn Heron.
June 15, 20120Comments

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Dessert Recipes

Zoku Popsicle Maker: Fudgesicles with a Cayenne Kicker

Inspiration comes at the oddest moments. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do, still laying in bed, is a scroll-through of email, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to see what happened over night. Sunrise is at 5 something now, alarm goes off at 6, and there is zero chance I'm getting out of bed before that. On one of those scroll-throughs, Chronicle Books was doing a Twitter contest to win a signed copy of the Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream Bookand a bag of bacon peanut brittle. All you had to do to enter was come up with a dream Humphry Slocombe flavor. My idea: Chocolate y Churros -- a cayenne-kicked Mexican chocolate ice cream with churro chunks (I didn't win)...but it led to these cayenne-kicked fudgesicles for the Zoku.
May 30, 20120Comments

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Book Reviews Dessert

Humphry Slocombe’s Ice Cream Book and Butter Beer (at Home!)

There's really only one thing to say about Humphry Slocombe's Butter Beer ice cream: OMFG. It's not hyperbole. It's not even sucking up, this ice cream is really that good. It's ridiculous. And hold the phone, I didn't get this scoop at the shop, I made it. At home. From the new book - the Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream Book. Now, if you're already a Humphry Slocombe fan, I know what you're saying, "What, you didn't start with Secret Breakfast?" I love me some Secret Breakfast and Blue Bottle Vietnamese Coffee, but I said, "We gotta go for one of the deep cuts. And it shall be Butter Beer." This isn't the Butter Beer you're thinking of, it's a combo of their Stout and Brown Butter ice creams, and it's not one for the kiddies.
May 28, 20120Comments

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