Winter to Spring Victoria Food Culture 2 Cooking Pasta with Don Genova · Friday March 18, 2011 by colin newell
Tackled a fresh pasta dinner for the first time in a long time – We have had an Atlas manual pasta maker for years and have only used it once.
Let’s see if this 2011 attempt explains why!
Pasta
In a food processor add:
1.5 cups all purpose flour
2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cooking oil
Have 5 tablespoons of water handy (on the side) do not add any yet.
Pulse mix above ingredients for around 30s until the mix becomes
finely crumbled – touch the mixture and squeeze a small amount between your fingers
and if it all sticks together, it is ready.
Dump mixture out and form into ball.
Wrap in plastic and set aside at room temperature for 1/2 hour.
Cut into 4 pieces and roll out through Atlas (or similar) pasta maker starting at setting number 1 – fold and alternately roll 4 times at setting #1 and then 1 pass each from setting 2 through 8.
Cut the sheets of pasta to around 10 inch lengths.
Attach your pasta cutter (the Atlas comes with a Fettucini and spaghetti dual cutter)
And cut your pasta. We have a pasta tree dryer but you can fashion a broom stick or simply dry the pasta 5 to 10 minutes.
This pasta cooks quickly! 3 minutes in boiling water (salted) – stir frequently.
In the next chapter – we make a sauce!
Winter to Spring Victoria Food Culture 1 Cooking with Don Genova · Thursday March 10, 2011 by colin newell
As much as Victoria B.C. Canada is near the nerve center for coffee culture in North America (with nothing to be ashamed of from a Worldwide perspective…) local culinary culture is something that is fairly new – at least for the amateur like me.
And with the arrival of Cook Culture on Blanshard between Yates and Johnson, culinary learning has taken an uptick. And I am not saying that culinary learning is not available elsewhere in Victoria – because it is – but it either not well publicized (like some of the UVic programs) or it’s a professional caliber that is really more suited to the career cooking professional – the chef. Camosun is one place where you can take some serious chef training or community based cooking classes – all great.
What Cook Culture offers are single evening workshops more suited to the rest of us – slightly older folks like me (and my much younger wife) who are already pretty food smart who want to learn some more tricks or hone our existing skills.
Photo right – Mill Bay’s Don Genova was the affable and engaging host of Pasta 101 at Cook Culture in Victoria.
Cook Culture delivers in cupfuls.
Our first class (tonight) was Pasta 101 with food journalist Don Genova – in a fun, informal and intimately small group of 12 in a large and brightly lit gourmet professional kitchen.
Here’s what we did. We all got a chance to participate in the creation of a basic egg pasta dough. Don’s pacing was good and informative – we were all into it – and everyone has a chance to ask as many questions as they want, to participate to whatever degree they are comfortable or to just sit back and observe. Tonight just about everyone jumped in.
Our first dish after the basic sheets of pasta were produced was Tortelli di Zuca – a broadly interpreted recipe that features pumpkin or squash, olive oil, crushed amaretti cookies, a bit of nutmeg and cinnamon, beaten egg – under a sauce of butter and sage leaves. And topped with Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
It’s brilliant and simple.
Second up, our group created some mighty fine looking spaghetti that Don turned into a quick Spaghetti with proscuitto ham, lemon zest, chopped parsley and the ever present Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
Thirdly, a Fettucini with a duo of pesto and turkey ragu.
The fresh pesto was whipped up with fresh garlic, basil, olive oil, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and walnuts. Who needs pine nuts in a pesto? Walnuts are cheaper.
With some leftover time, Don expedited a pasta based dessert using (correct me if I am wrong Don…) some vermicelli pasta in something called Hazelnut Noddle pudding (with some Genova variations) and drizzled with a fresh Crème anglaise. Yummy.
Everyone had fun. Don Genova is the kind of food teacher that talks to his students, not down to them – in a lively and friendly environment. I can totally imagine spending some more time at Cook Culture (with Don and some of the other great chef’s and teachers.)
2011 Media report chapter 1 - the increasingly silent radio dial · Sunday March 6, 2011 by colin newell
Victoria, British Columbia’s place on the coastal ring of fire almost guarantees that one day we are going to be struck with an Earth moving earthquake.
There will be challenges. We will need to survive on our own devices for upwards of a week before help arrives – but what will be absent are some of the reliable radio voices that we have depending on for news… for years.
Camosun colleges CKMO Radio Society station on 900khz has decided to change from classic AM radio broadcasts to a more “sustainable, future-oriented digital platform to deliver the popular campus radio programming.” Their words…
“We live in a world with so many new media channels and technology options,” says Andrew Bryce, Chair of Camosun’s Applied Communication program (ACP). “Traditional broadcasters are scrambling to find new ways to connect with their customers and communities in the digital world. Camosun’s radio station will be ahead of the game, and still deliver great programming.”
My problem with this – CKMO will opt to be carried on the internet – the first thing that will fail in the event of a natural disaster. There are few things more technologically vulnerable than an all-internet hosted medium. Eggs in one basket if you know what I mean. A stand alone AM radio station can kick in a diesel generator and be on the air in minutes helping with an emergency. On the internet, no such contingency.
Brad Edwards, CKMO Station Supervisor says, “The AM transmitter we now use is expensive and power-hungry. The station can save a lot of electricity by moving to online streaming, a great green option.”
Calling this green is an illusion. Radio stations around the World are using this fib.
Picture this: Turn off a 10kw transmitter that they are probably paying dollars an hour to run and off-load the “energy cycle” of this process to each user who is, in turn, using 50 to 300 Watts of power to flash their computer to hear the broadcast – And the end user is paying 25 to 50$ a month for the privilege of the internet connection.
“ Moving to online streaming will also enable savings to be redirected into areas that will more directly benefit the students and the station, including long-overdue updates to critical equipment like microphones, broadcast boards and hardware and software necessary in establishing a stronger online presence within Victoria and around the world.”
Not sure about the microphones they use but the ones I buy are a once in a lifetime investment. They do not wear out.
“CKMO radio listeners will still be able to access the station they have come to love and, as further investment is made into streaming technology and a state-of-the-art production facility, the quality of the signal will also improve considerably.”
Signal? Quality of the signal? There is no signal if you switch off the transmitter.
Listen to Village 900 while you can. The old fashioned way. On good old radio. And while you are at it (after sunset) tune your old radio dial around for stations located in Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and beyond… for free.
And reliable as gravity. Earthquake or not…
Colin Newell is a Victoria resident, writer and federally certified Electronics Technologist.
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Coffee photos that speak for themselves... · Monday February 28, 2011 by colin newell
Not entirely sure why I find this photo amusing… taken some years ago – the Barista action figure I picked up in Halifax if memory serves me correctly.
Click on the photo below for the full meal deal.
Press coffee is my center of the Universe.
Whether it is from DISCO on Oak Bay Avenue…
Or HABIT COFFEE and CULTURE on Yates at Blanshard.
Or wherever it is being made.
I am there.
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