Photo by Ric Ernst

I’ve been growing garlic for nearly 20 years, and for a number of those years, I had no idea the scapes – or “flower” heads – were good for anything but compost. In fact, at first I left them on and wondered how you could possibly peel and slice the tiny cloves each flowering scape had yielded.
It turns out, those tiny cloves were seed garlic – also known as bulbils — which apparently is one way to “purify” the strain you’re growing. Garlic doesn’t actually reproduce by seed, so there’s no cross pollination but over time, you might grow from bulbs that have certain characteristics – for example, large but fewer cloves, or multiple cloves within single skins – and you want to get back to the original. Apparently you can do that with the seed garlic, though it will take several years before you have a full-sized crop to harvest.

Incidentally, I recently read a wonderful book on garlic covering everything from its long history as a culinary staple to its current popularity as a home-garden specialty. It’s titled In Pursuit of Garlic; An Intimate Look at the Divinely Odorous Bulb (Greystone Books 2012) by Liz Primeau, a Canadian gardening guru who plants a wide variety of garlic wherever she finds space among the many perennials in her own garden.

Getting back to scapes, cutting them off once they start shooting up from the centre of your garlic plant will force the plant to concentrate on increasing the size of its “root”, or bulb. So if your aim is to maximize bulb production, start cutting now. I usually harvest mine when they’re 8-12 inches long.

The scapes themselves will keep in the fridge for up to three weeks if stored in plastic bags in which you’ve placed a few pieces of paper towel to absorb excess moisture. They’re delicious chopped into stir fries, omelets, soups or anywhere else you want a mild hit of garlic. Pickling them is another option.

The following recipe is from Georgia Morley, a Vancouver-based personal chef to high-profile stars and athletes who is also an enthusiastic home canner. She teaches at Well Seasoned when her busy schedule allows and offered this recipe at one of her canning classes there. It’s for green beans but it makes a very fine scape pickle too. If you’re an inexperienced canner, go online to any major canning supplies manufacturer and read up on proper canning methods before you start. No sense in unnecessarily killing the family with your canning kindness!
Here’s Georgia’s recipe. Note: you don’t need to use garlic in the brine when pickling scapes, though it won’t hurt if you do add some.

SERIOUSLY AMAZING SMOKED-PAPRIKA PICKLED GREEN BEANS
2 1/2 lbs. fresh green beans with tops and tail intact
2 1/2 cups distilled white vinegar
2 cups water
1/4 cup salt
1 clove garlic, peeled
1 bunch fresh dill weed
3/4 tsp. smoked paprika – hot

Sterilize 6 (1/2 pint) jars with rings and lids and keep hot. Trim green beans to 1/4 inch shorter
than your jars.
In a large saucepan, stir together the vinegar, water and salt. Add garlic and bring to a rolling boil
over high heat. In each jar, place 1 sprig of dill and smoked paprika. Pack green beans into the
jars so they are standing on their ends.
Ladle the boiling brine into the jars, filling to within 1/4 inch of the tops. Discard garlic. Seal jars
with lids and rings. Place in a hot water bath so they are covered by 1 inch of water. Simmer but
do not boil for 10 minutes to process. Cool to room temperature. Test jars for a good seal by
pressing on the center of the lid. It should not move. Refrigerate any jars that do not seal properly.
Let pickles ferment for 2 to 3 weeks before eating.

YIELD – 6 -1/2 PINTS

The book offers instructions on how to make these cute snowmen.

The cupcake craze has pretty much passed me by, perhaps because I no longer have kids at home and the bake sales, birthday parties and other sundry cupcake friendly events have long ceased to involve me. And most cupcakes I’ve eaten haven’t really inspired me to love them enough to keep baking them.  In fact, there’s been only one one cupcake in memory that left me lusting for more, and that was one made about a year ago by Terra Breads baker Mary McKay, a Vancouver legend who could make cardboard taste good. I don’t know what she did, but those cupcakes were rich and tender, yet light enough to make me swoon, with frosting as ethereal as an angel’s wing.

I’ve now had to rethink my cupcake aversion, only because I adore Cake Pops, a new book by Bakerella, aka Angie Dudley. Dudley is not a professional baker — in fact she has no compunction whatsoever about telling the world that she’s still fond of yellow and chocolate cake-mix cakes and actually suggests you use boxed mixes for best results. She does provide several from-scratch recipes, but on the whole, this is a decorating book, not a cookbook. Bakerella doesn’t even really make cupcakes. These are whole cakes she bakes, then turns them into crumbs, mixes them with frosting and uses that to mold cake balls around lollilop sticks

It all started as a lark, Dudley says. She’s never been interested in baking, but she took a cake decorating class and was immediately hooked. She started a blog to keep track of her baking and decorating attempts, and as a result of her finesse with frosting, she’s now a cupcake star with a new cookbook and cake pops orders from Disney.

She calls them “fascinating tiny treats”, and even I could be convinced to try one despite knowing her penchant for boxed cake mixes. That’s because they look like so much fun, like toys you can eat.

I don’t know if I’d have the patience to attempt the ladybugs and pirates, the puppies, pumpkins, pandas and pussycats Dudley painstakingly shows you how to make with everything from edible ink to cookies and candy sprinkles. There are lots of photos showing her technique and there’s even a video at marthastewart.com where she demonstrates her sweet specialty. It’s actually quite fun to watch Martha fumble her way through making one of the simpler pops, but her clumsiness also serves as a reminder that even the queen of “I do it all myself and so should you” isn’t an immediate pro when it comes some things. If, however, you’re at all crafty and enjoy baking, you’ll have hours of fun with this one. And the nice thing is, you can always eat the mistakes.

Fabulous boletes, aka porcini, have sprouted on Vancouver Island and feature prominently in an upcoming dinner at Deerholme Farm.

Feeling peckish? Let me whet your appetite even more with the following.

Duck-liver and pine-mushroom pate with cloud berry jelly on raisin bread croutons followed by a salad of pan-seared duck breast, frisée, bacon, candied pine mushrooms and a blue cheese and citrus vinaigrette. Still hungry? Consider the ultimate lasagna: porcini bechamel, shredded duck and buffalo mozzarella (from nearby Fairburn Farm), all of it laced with sage and roasted garlic.

Oh my, I’m almost drooling as I read the mouthwatering menu featured at Deerholme Farm’s teaching kitchen in Cowichan on Vancouver Island Saturday, Nov. 20, the final wild mushroom dinner of the season. There’s duck in every course, including a dessert of duck-egg crème caramel with port-poached pear and dried pear crisps. The man behind the menu is our favourite Island foodie, chef Bill Jones, who also happens to be a master wild-mushroom forager (he taught me much about finding them in the Lower Mainland when he still lived here).

Jones seems to have a built-in radar for finding boletes (porcini), chanterelles and pine mushrooms, not to mention lobster, cauliflower and other fab fungi. Jones dries, pickles and freezes the mushroom bounty, much of it practically outside the front door of his farm, where he also grows veggies year-round. Jones is part of a network of great food and wine producers and promoters that have made the Cowichan Valley a foodie’s dream destination.

If you’re on the Island in late November, sign up now for this dinner, which you’ll watch being prepared and eat in the cozy kitchen/dining area of Deerholme. Cost is $90. You will not go away hungry! More info at deerholme.com.

From left, collards, kale, Swiss chard and Japanese mustard greens. Photo by Ric Ernst

Although some things did not do well in the garden this year, our patch of greens, which included Tuscan black kale (sometimes called dinosaur kale), rainbow chard and collards, did flourish. I’m particularly fond of the kale, as were the many bugs that invaded our garden this damp and cool growing season. Yes, eating insects is trendy in some places, but not on our farm. And the dimpled, curled leaves of  Tuscan kale are perfect places for them to hide, so my habit of blanching the leaves for 30 seconds or so before rinsing in cold water, squeezing dry and chopping helped flush these little critters out very nicely.

I’ve found that blanching kale and collards before cooking them up in other dishes also helps remove the cabbagey smell and bitter flavour that the longer cooking they require brings out. My favourite way to serve these super-healthy greens is by simply sautéeing the chopped, blanched kale (remove the stems after blanching) for about five minutes  in a little olive oil and bacon fat (this adds a wonderful rich and smoky flavour, but if you’re not into bacon, use a drop or two of liquid smoke for similar affect or skip this altogether; it’ll be just as good) with minced garlic and a splash of broth. Salt and pepper to taste plus a sprinkling of red pepper flakes, and you have a side dish that marries beautifully with just about any main course. When I cook the chard, it needs no blanching, but I do remove the ribs, chop and and cook it like spinach, seasoning it as I do the other greens.

All the greens are also delicious stirred into soups, folded into cheesy omelettes or added to pasta dishes.

I love couscous in both cold salads and as a warm side dish. I recently discovered Israeli couscous, and although it is more like tiny pasta pearls than true couscous, it makes for equally delicious eating. When cooked, it’s not at all sticky like pasta but keeps it shape and mixes well with other ingredients. The sky’s the limit when it comes to what to add: pesto and lemon zest is fabulous, or sautéed wild mushrooms and garlic. When making the following recipe, I pulled out all the bits of leftovers filling the fridge after a furious week of cooking, thus the actual measures are really quite flexible. If you have more of one thing and you like it, add as much as you want. I probably would have added more kale, if I’d had more ready to go. But as it was, this was a delicious success.

ISRAELI COUSCOUS WITH KALE, SQUASH AND WILD MUSHROOMS
3 tbsps. butter, divided
½ cup pine nuts
½ cup onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 ½ cups Israeli couscous
1 ¾ cups salt-free chicken broth
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. dried thyme
¼ cup finely chopped parsley
Zest of one lemon
4-6 oz. of wild mushrooms, sliced and sautéed
1 cup cubed, roasted squash
½ cup chopped and sautéed kale

Melt one tablespoon butter in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Add pine nuts and stir until golden brown. Transfer to a small bowl.

Melt remaining 2 tbsps. butter in the same pan over medium heat. Add onions and garlic and sauté until golden. Add couscous, and stir until couscous browns slightly, about two minutes. Add broth, salt and thyme and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer until liquid is absorbed and couscous is tender. Remove from heat and stir in pine nuts, parsley, zest, mushrooms, squash and kale. Season to taste with more salt, if needed, and pepper. Serves 4.

He is there, he says, to promote the fact his employers, the Cactus Club Restaurants, are planning to open a restaurant in Abbotsford later this year. Although Feenie is described rather grandly as “Food Concept Architect” for the Cactus Club chain (don’t know if I would find a food concept all that appetizing, but never mind!), I have to admit, the food at CC has improved considerably since he’s taken over the menu and recipe development duties.

Rob Feenie

For those of you who may not know, Feenie was for many years the Golden Boy of Vancouver’s restaurant scene with his Lumiere Restaurant, which garnered too many awards to mention. He also won the Iron Chef title on the Food Network’s Iron Chef competition a few years ago. And he says he wouldn’t mind going back to the bright lights and pressures of that fierce competition.

But for now, Feenie seems content with his role at the CC chain, which gives him time to enjoy being Dad to three kids aged two, four and six. “My wife and my kids are now the most important things in my life,” says Feenie, who will cook some of his trademark dishes this weekend, including squash soup,  mini pulled-pork and grilled cheese buns and raw-milk ricotta and fresh herb ravioli.

Also on the cooking stage this weekend are Lynn Crawford, host of the Food Network’s Pitchin’ In, and chefs Quang Dang of Diva at the Met in Vancouver, Scott Jaeger of the Pear Tree in Burnaby and Ned Bell of Cabana in Kelowna. Each of these chefs has earned his or her spurs for culinary excellence and you’re sure to pick up some great cooking tips as well as some fine recipes when you stop by at the cooking stage. Check the schedule if you’re interested in seeing a particular chef in action.

This is Eat! Fraser Valley’s third year at the Tradex Centre and it is bigger than ever. Among the many food producers with booths at the show are Hills Fine Foods of Coquitlam, which offers chefs and foodies the best of local and imported exotic meats; Gelderman Farms of Abbotsford which produces terrific pork sausages and other pork products; Goodness of Garlic Products where the stinking rose finds its way into jellies, chutneys, vinegars and oils, among other tasty things; Holy Grail savoury  sauces, including tamarind, chimichurri and smoky tomato, and sweet caramel sauces deepened with other flavours such as coconut, orange, whiskey and amaretto; and Redl’s  pasture-raised beef from the Williams Lake area.

Lots of other things happening, too, including wine, beer and spirits tastings featuring both B.C. and international products such as Dead Frog Brewing, E&J Gallo, Sea Cider of Vancouver Island, UV Vodka and Mt. Lehman Winery; cheese seminars with the Dairy Farmers of Canada who bring with them cheese samples from across the country; and Bite of the Valley featuring a handful of local restaurants that offer samples of their fare for a few bucks each.

In all, it’s a foodie’s paradise, valley-style, so bring an appetite. The show opens Friday at 2 p.m. and runs until Sunday. Tickets are $12. More information at http://www.eat-fraservalley.com.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/dining/30mini.html?ref=dining

• An unusual way to highlight the tempting  bounty of fresh strawberries is in a cheesecake that uses soft goat cheese instead of cream cheese and tops it with a balsamic-berry sauce.

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-summerpierec2-3jul02,0,4017525.story

http://live.gourmet.com/

The Best of Chef at Home: Essential Recipes for Today’s Kitchen

By Chef Michael Smith

Published by Whitecap, 2009; softcover, $29.95; 258 pages.

Michael Smith is one of those people you wish was  your friend, or at least your neighbour. The mild-mannered Food Network star has no need to shout, eat questionable things or set fire to whatever he’s cooking. He’s like the Mr. Rogers of the kitchen, and that’s a good thing.

When Mr. Rogers, er, Mr. Smith wanders on set in his popular Food Network Show, Chef at Home, he brings with him an air of friendly excitement and discovery about what he’s doing (“Oh good, there’s some fresh rosemary in the fridge. I can use that!”), but it’s never in your face or scary, just comfy enough that you want to stand next to him and watch what he’s doing and hear what he has to say about it.

This same jolly ease comes through in his latest book, which has been on the B.C. best-seller list for a number of months now.

“A best seller?” I wondered as I first opened the book and began reading through recipes for grilled cheese and tuna fish sandwiches and cheddar cheese omelettes. “Who needs recipes for such things?” But as I wandered further into the book, it occurred to me that Smith was doing a Mr. Rogers on us, gently leading those of us who do not feel totally at ease in the kitchen into the sometimes frightening territory of “cooking it yourself.”

So it’s not all home-made popcorn and steamed broccoli. Smith does offer more sophisticated fare such as Thai Curry Coconut Soup, Grilled Leg of Lamb with Tomato Mint Tapenade and Cornmeal-crusted Salmon with Basil Mussel Broth, and most recipes include suggestions for variations. So if you want to serve more than a basic fruit crisp, for example, Smith has ideas on how to jazz things up with different fruit combinations, unusual spices or even wholewheat flour and oil in place of the usual butter and all-purpose flour. He further expands the recipe repertoire with multiple variations on  the following: Ten Salad Dressings; Steamed Mussels Ten Ways; and Twelve Grains (and how to cook them), so there’s value here if you’re looking for basic cooking info. Here’s an example: I’ve been cooking for a long time, but I have not made many prime rib roasts in my day, so when a sudden urge to do so hit me recently, I had to call my sister-in-law (who grew up in a household where such roasts were regular Sunday and holiday fare) for advice. Had I opened Smith’s book before my moment of roast-a-phobia, I would have found a recipe for classic Roasted Prime Rib with Horseradish Sauce.

But since it’s salad season, we’ll enter home-made-dressing territory. Once you taste your own dressings, you won’t go back to store-bought, Smith promises.

TEN SALAD DRESSINGS

Master Recipe

1 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup any vinegar, lemon or lime juice

1/2 cup honey, maple syrup or jelly

1 heaping tbsp. Dijon mustard

1 heaping tbsp. of any fresh herb or spice (optional)
A sprinkle of two of sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Simply decide which ingredients you’d like to use and then measure everything into a Mason jar and shake vigorously until combined. Your personalized dressing will stay fresh in your refrigerator for several weeks, if it lasts that long.

Freestyle variations:

1. Sherry Maple: Sherry vinegar and maple syrup

2. Fennel Balsamic: Balsamic vinegar, honey and ground fennel seed

3. Raspberry: Red wine vinegar and raspberry jelly

4. Italian: Red wine vinegar, no sweetener, minced garlic, oregano and thyme

5. Caesar: Lemon Juice, no sweetener, 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, 1 tsp. minced garlic, 1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

6. Caribbean: Lime zest and juice, honey and shredded coconut

7. Southwestern: Lime zest and juice, honey, cilantro and hot sauce

8. Vanilla: White wine vinegar, honey and pure vanilla extract

9. Goat Cheese: 1 small (5 oz.) log of goat cheese, 1/4 cup white wine vinegar, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1 tbsp. honey and a sprinkle or two of salt and pepper, puréed until smooth.

10. Tomato: 1 large ripe local tomato, puréed with zest and juice of 2 lemons and 1/2 cup olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper.

-From The Best of Chef at Home

Stacy gets ready to dig into fresh apple fritters.

Oh, to be in Toronto right now, where the temperatures are in the 80s (okay, the 30s, if you’re a stickler for Celsius and clueless about Fahrenheit). Here, we’ve been caught in the grip of devil rain for a week, with no end in sight. It’s downright depressing and I worry about all the veggie seedlings – rainbow chard, sugar snap peas, bush beans, beets, carrots, squashes, mizuna and other greens – that may drown if this doesn’t stop. And the heritage tomato plants are still in their cold frame, looking healthy and sturdy but quickly outgrowing their pots and sure to turn blue if taken out of their comfy little shelter in this weather.

I’m ready for happier thoughts though, which is why when I heard about Toronto’s current heat wave, I was reminded of our visit there in late April (no heat waves then, but nice weather nonetheless). Our favourite eastern rellies, Stacy and Dean, took me on a road trip to St. Jacob’s Farmers Market in the heart of Mennonite country. It’s in the Waterloo-Kitchener area about an hour’s drive from the big city.

Outside the main market buildings, numerous vendors were selling fresh fruits and vegetables, most of them imports as the growing season was just starting. I did see fresh wild garlic – or ramps, as they are called locally – and lots of  local maple syrup. In summer, I’m told, there’s a huge selection of local fruits and vegetables available there, but truth be told, we had come for a more wicked treat: the market’s famous fresh apple fritters.

Oh my, they were good. There’s always a lineup for them, but it goes quickly enough and the anticipation just makes the prize that much more delectable: fresh apple slices dipped in batter, deep fried, and dusted with cinnamon sugar. You can, if you want, go crazy and have them topped with ice cream, something I might have done in a heat wave. But I wanted the pure experience and it was heavenly; the crust crispy and sweet, the apple cooked just enough to be softly toothsome but not mushy.

When I’m traveling, I also like to see what local growers and producers are offering and found one booth inside the main market loaded to the gunnels with smoked summer sausages made by A.F. Weber Summer Sausage of Wallenstein, Ont. It’s a fabulous product, meaty and savoury, with just the right amount of smoke and salt. I couldn’t resist buying a whole sausage — about a kilo — which I shared with Dean and Stacy before shrink-wrapping my portion so it wouldn’t perfume my entire suitcase with the smell of smoke. I didn’t see much in the way of local cheeses, but found one booth which carried a  selection of sheep and goat cheeses from Fifth Town Artisan Cheese Co. I’m partial to sheep cheeses, so we tasted several samples and were also offered a slice of similar French cheese for comparison. The FT cheeses compared quite favourably. I took home a chunk of Bonnie & Floyd, described as a “Saint Paulin style washed rind cheese” and a chunk of Wishing Tree, a “First Place Winner at The COCA British Empire Cheese Competition. Hard cheese. Dense, slightly nutty, and complex with mineral accents.” Needless to say, both disappeared quickly once we got them home.

There are also several antique malls near the farm market complex and though traveling by air meant I couldn’t go overboard with purchases, I always enjoy browsing through old kitchen items and found some beautiful blue Crown canning jars for a couple of bucks each.

All in all, it was a fine way to spend a day away from the city and see what rural Ontario has to offer.

The market is open Thursdays and Saturdays all year and on Tuesdays as well from June 15 to Aug. 31. And if you’re planning to head out there for a visit, save room for those fritters!

Both tastings are being hosted by Georg Riedel of the famed wine-glass family. The spirits tasted include Herradura Repasado Tequila, Hennessy V.S.O.P Cognac, and Ben Riach Curiositas 10 Year Old Peated Single Malt while the wines are from
the fabulous Mission Hill Family Estate, including their 2007 Reserve Riesling, 2007 SLC Chardonnay, 2007 Reserve Pinot Noir, and 2006 Oculus.

Tickets for the spirits tasting are $50 and include three Riedel spirits glasses valued at $80. Tickets for the wine tasting are $99 and include a four-piece stemware set of Vinum XL Riedel glasses — one each of the Vinum Bordeaux, Montrachet, Burgundy and Sauvignon Blanc glasses — valued at $148.50. These are all beautiful machine-blown lead crystal glasses that are dishwasher-safe.

­The event is meant to introduce what a press release calls “a new generation of Riedel glasses”. Although I have been a bit skeptical of the theory that a wine’s best flavour is enhanced by the shape of the wine glass (Riedel has a glass for just about every wine varietal), I do own a number of Riedel glasses and can vouch that their elegance certainly adds cachet to any occasion. And, let’s face it, when you feel elegant, things do have a way of tasting better.

In any case, fine wine or fine spirits and beautiful glasses. You can’t go wrong!

For spirits-tasting ticket info, go towww.bchospitalityfoundation.com/events (full disclosure: I do volunteer work for the BCHF, which receives $45 for every ticket sold). For wine-tasting tickets, call 604-264-4069 or email riedelglasstasting@markanthony.com.

“The goals of the spot prawn festivals are to highlight an environmentally sound and locally sourced product and to remind us that farmers markets don’t stop at the waters edge.”

Behind this declaration lies a stark market truth. Spot prawns are a seasonal delicacy in B.C. and the influx of farm-raised Asian prawns into our grocery stores over the past decade or so have posed a threat to the local fishery. The Asian variety are available year round and they are generally cheaper. But even 10 years ago, the intensive farming being done on the shorelines of Asian countries to meet world demand were killing whole swaths of seabed. The dead areas were becoming so large that they could be seen by satellites high above the earth. Those who actually went out to see such farms in operation were appalled at the filth and destruction left behind when farms could no longer be productive and had to move on to cleaner waters. In short, such production just isn’t sustainable. (And, by the way, if you’ve ever tasted a local prawn next to an imported, farmed specimen, you’ll never go back to the import.)

Local chefs who had incorporated sustainability into their menus were approached by prawn fishermen who saw their markets disappearing. Something had to be done to make the public aware of the precious and sustainable ocean resource we have right here, and that’s when the CTSBC went into action with the first prawn festival in 2007.

Today, awareness is high as food-lovers eagerly anticipate the opening of another spot prawn season this weekend. Says Vancouver’s John Bishop of Bishop’s Restaurant: “The overall idea was that the public and the restaurants should know such products are available locally, so the idea was for a two-month spot prawn festival and we as a chefs . . . would do what we could to showcase the spot prawn.”

While each chef in the CTSBC will showcase the prawns in his or her own way, Bishop describes his approach as that of a purist.

“I love them steamed like crab and have them with drawn butter (or) a light mayonnaise with mustard and garlic. I like to barbecue them too, toss them in a little olive oil and grill them just like that – as with lobster and crab, once they turn pink, they’re done.”

Bishop says he likens the experience of eating a big pile of steamed or barbecued prawns out on the picnic table — newspapers down to soak up the drips, then get down to it — as similar to the lobster feasts of Prince Edward Island. Pour a local chardonnay or pinot gris, and you have the makings of heaven. “They’re so rich and incredibly tasty, so nice and fresh,” he says.

And the prawns don’t stop giving there, either. “Keep the shells; they are the makings for a wonderful bisque,” Bishop says.

Here’s what to do, he says. Place the uncooked or cooked shells into cold water, about half again as much as covers the prawns, and add fresh herbs like thyme and a bay leaf, bring to simmer and cook for about 30-40 minutes. You can also add onion or celery for a deeper flavour. Allow to cool and strain. From that base, you can make a wonderful bisque. You can also freeze the stock for later use in a seafood stew or soup.

If you buy more than you can use now, spot prawns freeze well. “The best best way is to remove the heads, place tails on baking sheet, freeze them, then bag them. They’re good for couple of months that way,” says Bishop. You can also freeze the tails submerged in water, but don’t leave the heads on or they become discoloured and will cook up mushy. The heads, of course, can join the tail shells when making the prawn broth.

Ready for some good eating? The prawn festival kicks off Saturday, May 8, with a family-friendly event at False Creek Fishermen’s Wharf in Vancouver and from noon to 3 p.m. at  Granville Island Public Market where  live entertainment, speakers, children’s play area and wine tasting are on the bill.

Meanwhile, the Vancouver Island version of the CTSBC spot prawn festival will be held next Saturday, May 15 at the lovely waterfront district of Cowichan Bay, where C Restaurant Executive Chef Robert Clarke is special guests and many local restaurants will be featuring this sweet ocean treat on their menus.

Not to worry if you can’t make it to either festival. Fresh-caught spot prawns will be available at $12 a pound daily after 1 p.m. into mid-June at Fisherman’s Wharf.