Margaret & Michelle drinking dark rich hot chocolate at Mink Chocolate Cafe

Chocolate lovers swooned inside Mink Chocolate Café on West Hastings at Hornby. We slowly sipped our divine dark hot chocolate with 70% cacao and little marshmallows on top, as we perused many kinds of exotic chocolate bars with names like “Peace in Provence” with lavender or “Fountain of Youth” with blueberries and goji berries. A chocoholic could spend a day there! You can taste how the owner, Mark, has traveled far and wide to track down the best chocolate.

As we arrived at Sciue Italian Bakery Café on West Pender and Howe Street, the owner, Davide, sped up on his bicycle to the entrance, stylishly decked out in a sleek, orange Italian cycling outfit with “Sciue” written on the back, and welcomed us.

Delicious mochi green tea roll with mango pudding at Kirin Restaurant

Inside we sunk our teeth into wonderfully fresh, flavourful, thin, crisp Italian flatbreads. Being Margaret, I picked up the simple Margherita one first—fresh tomatoes, good melted mozzarella, herbs….it took me back to Italy! Mmmm! The caffe latte was good and strong, Italian style. Outside the café, I saw a banner with Michelangelo’s statue of David, “Pure Italian Unadulterated” with “Sciue’s name below. That sums up what I enjoyed eating so much!

For a complete change of atmosphere, we walked up to Alberni Street between Thurlow and Bute to Kirin Restaurant, specializing in northern Chinese cuisine. Michelle goes to Kirin often and says it serves some of the best dim sum in Greater Vancouver. The steamed pork and prawn dumpling topped with fish roe was light, fresh and delicate. I loved the contrast in flavours and colours in the green tea mochi roll filled with mango pudding. If I wanted a special Chinese dinner, I’d head straight to Kirin!

Joy, owner of Sala Thai Restaurant, making green lovely papaya salad

At the Sala Thai Restaurant in the 800 block Burrard, the gracious owner, Joy surprised us with a food performance, a demonstration of preparing green papaya salad. She cut, pounded, mashed and gradually mixed in chili, garlic, green beans, tomatoes, peanuts, lime juice, fish sauce and slices of green papaya. Heavenly! A subtle mix of contrasting flavours. The restaurant décor with a big elephant on the wall, bright flowers and other Thai touches, added more “Thai-ness” to my experience. No wonder it got the Silver Award for best Thai restaurant in Vancouver Magazine in 2010!

Our last stop took us to the Boulangerie bakery and the wine shop at the Sutton Hotel. To remind us how well the Sutton Hotel chefs make chocolate desserts, Mike walked us past the sumptuous chocolate buffet (no touching or tasting!) in the hotel as we made our way to their wine shop. With some Merlot ice wine, we enjoyed a light, rich chocolate mousse looking truffle cake. What a wonderful finale!

Decadent truffle cake and ice wine at Sutton Place Hotel

Michelle reminded us the envelopes she’d given us at the start contained discount coupons for the restaurants we’d visited. We also learned how easy it is to join the Sutton Hotel wine shop’s wine club. Just buy one bottle and you can come to free wine tastings on Thursdays 5-6 pm and get discounts in the hotel’s restaurants.

Next downtown Vancouver Foodie Tour is June 12 from 4:00 to 6:30 for $35. This time, due to tour participants’ feedback, Michelle will take you to five restaurants, not eight, so you can relax more and appreciate the food, atmosphere and people’s work to the max. The restaurant list for every tour is subject to change and may contain some of the above restaurants from the May 22 tour.

Reserve by credit card at http://dtfoodietour.eventbrite.com/

Monterosso beach from sea promenade

Ondine Cohane’s article in Conde Nast Traveler’s April magazine, “Great Beaches of the World: Italy” solves this dilemma. She traveled throughout Italy to write eight mini-articles on different kinds of “best” beaches in Italy. Oh! Would I ever love that assignment! I was born by the sea and love strolling and lazing on beaches.

Monterosso beach from 5 Terre walking path

She gives a wonderful variety of experiences and places from famous to not yet famous Italian beaches like the Best City Beach at Venice Lido and The Best Kept Secret Beach at Maratea, about 2 ½ hours south of Naples.

If your soul comes alive in pristine, natural beauty, you’ll discover The Best Culture Beaches in Tuscany’s Bolgheri Wetlands Reserve (near top Bolgheri wine country) or The Best Off The Beaten Path Beach in Sicily’s Vendicari Nature Reserve not far from Syracuse. I loved her enchanting descriptions of The Best Natural Beauty Beaches in Sardinia's Maddalena Archipelago with “rose-coloured granite, sheltered coves, aquamarine water.”

Mama Margaret in Florence

I loved Susan Van Allen’s book! I’ve been traveling to Italy for 35 years. On my next trip, I’m taking this little gem with me. It opens so many doors to new experiences that excite me and deepens old experiences to enjoy again in a brand new way.

Susan has created a gold mine of fun, stimulating mini-adventures in Italy backed up with “laugh out loud” tales behind paintings, palaces, gardens and churches and insider tips. Her lively, humorous, conversational writing style made me feel a close friend was just back from Italy, eagerly regaling me with her travel discoveries and stories over drinks. She paints such clear pictures I can see myself right there in front of the art, buildings and people.

Piazza San Marco,
Venice Italy

But I got so engrossed in the entertaining, inspiring tales that I read all 20 chapters in one sitting! I found myself laughing at her cute humour in her flamboyant description of Titian’s painting of the Assumption in the Venice church, I Frari. Mary dances joyfully in the heavens supported by 22 putti as “God swoops down like Batman”. The painting “caused quite the sensation like the opening of Star Wars”. The church refused to pay Titian for such a provocative painting but when the public praised it as revolutionary, Titian got paid and became a superstar. I Frari will come alive for me next time I’m in Venice!

In the villas and gardens chapter, she says to let your imagination run wild and picture what they happened to the people who lived there. Her storytelling really helps your imagination flow in places like Rome’s Villa Farnesina, built in 1506 by Chigi, a banker. Imagine standing in the villa now museum, reading about his opulent parties when they threw china into the Tiber, and the tangled love affairs of Chigi and painter Raphael, both in love with the same courtesan.

Modica, Sicily

The “Indulging Your Tastebuds” chapter will make your tastebuds willingly work overtime: cafes, gelato, chocolate, wine bars, and women owned wineries. She recommends gelaterias with helpful hints like going to ones with signs like “produzione propria”—our own production. Chocolate lovers will drool over seven chocolate centres from Turin to Tuscany’s chocolate valley, to Modica in Sicily. The chapter on women owned wineries in Tuscany and Piedmont with tales of passionate, accomplished owners add a lovely feminine dimension to your winery visits.

Want to get active outdoors so you go home weighing the same? The Active Adventures section covers biking, hiking, boating, skiing and yoga & pilates. As a nature lover, I would have liked to see more of the less known hiking paths covered, beyond the popular Cinque Terre and Amalfi Coast ones. She glosses over paths near Spoleto in Umbria and National Parks in Piedmont, Abruzzo and Sicily before giving longer details on a hiking tour company. Downhill skiers will be delighted with her detailed information on great runs in Bormio in Lombardy with spas and grappa to celebrate après ski and in Alto Adige with pretty mountain hamlets to explore.

Rome S. Pietro, Italy

The cooking classes section envelopes you in a delicious array of experiences with local women from Parma to Calabria. She paints sensual pictures of the food (Roman veal rolls stuffed with pureed pumpkin and smoked pancetta), of beautiful cooking spots (in Calabria…a hilltop cottage surrounded by lemon trees and figs and tiny gardens of red onions, fava beans, chard…). She describes the cooking teachers and local women and tells you their stories so you feel you’re there, like Judy Witts “market mamma” in Florence’s central market, a 70 something (Sicilian) woman with dyed, jet-black hair piled high in a fifties bouffant style on her tiny head.” I read these chapters and feel like reserving right now!

I’m a creative soul so the “Learning Italian Crafts” chapter really excited me. I never knew I could make masks and mosaic art in Venice, leather book covers and jewelry in Florence, or ceramics in Deruta right with the artisans.

Her chapters on advice from writers like Marcella Hazan were enlightening and useful. Want to get treated like a celebrity in Venice? She lists three restaurants Marcella Hazan recommends. If you tell them, “Marcella sent me”, you’ll get the red carpet treatment. I wonder if they’ve read this book.

I highly recommend Susan Van Allen’s “100 Places In Italy Every Woman Should Go”, a light, 434 paged paperback, published fall 2009, at $18.95 U.S. available on Amazon.com

What are your favourite places in Italy every woman or man should go? Let’s make a list right here!

Secrets From My Tuscan Kitchen: Divina Cucina’s Recipes by Judy Witts Francini

In her new cookbook, Judy’s welcome to her Tuscan kitchen feels like she’s a friend telling you her story over an espresso. If you follow her advice on what to stock in your Tuscan kitchen and dive into her wonderful collection of classic Tuscan recipes, passed to her by word of mouth, you’ll soon take her advice to “invite friends to your own Tuscan table”. Like I did. I began perusing her recipes: 8 appetizers, 11 sauces for pasta and other things, 18 first courses (pasta, soup, rice), 27 main courses (meat, fish, eggs), 16 vegetable plates and 13 desserts, 4 breads---97 recipes.

At the front of the book, Judy also includes measurement conversions from American measures to metric and tells you about “eating like a Tuscan” so you can practice at home for when you go to Tuscany. Lots of practical advice!

In no time at all, I was back in Florence and in the Tuscan countryside, savouring some of my favourite dishes like bean and pasta soup with fresh sage, arista (pork roast with herbs) or chocolate salami. I imagined tasting delicious sounding, “new to me” dishes like rolled turkey breast with prosciutto, garlic, sage, rosemary and wine.

First I have a confession to make.

I’m an adventurer, a traveler and even though I’m 164 cm/5 foot 4 and weigh 55 kg/120 lb, I’m an eater. But I’m no gourmet cook. I don’t understand why some people read cookbooks as bedtime stories. I was relieved to discover that all but one of Judy’s recipes fit on one page or less and are easy to make.

I got so inspired that I invited my Italian friend, Sofia to my Tuscan table! On a rainy Sunday night in Vancouver, I cooked some dishes I’d never made, Salvia Fritta--Fried Sage Leaves and Carabaccia--Tuscan Onion Soup, and Judy’s versions of Pollo alla Cacciatora---Hunter Style Chicken and Peperonata---Tuscan Bell Pepper and Red Onion Stew.

fried sage leaves and Hunter
Style Chicken ready to serve

The fresh, big sage leaves fried in a batter tasted aromatic and light. My egg yolk must have been smaller than a Tuscan one so when I added it to the one cup of flour, I got a rather dry mix. I followed Judy’s sage advice to add white wine and/or bubbly water and the perfect batter resulted. Lovely!

The onion soup looked easy and good. Fry thinly sliced onions slowly in olive oil, add the broth with salt & pepper, pour the mixture over pieces of toast and top with parmesan. But what kind of broth? Vegetable, chicken or beef? I used my powers of logic. A vegetable soup meant vegetable broth which I made from scratch with water, onions, carrots, celery and salt & pepper. I followed the instructions and grated what I thought was a generous quantity of fresh parmesan on top. However, it tasted too bland to me. I should have made a more flavourful broth and heaped parmesan cheese on top.

As Judy says, “The first time you make a recipe, it is new. The 2^nd time, you correct it. The 3^rd time you make it, it is yours.” I love onion soup, so I’ll correct it for my taste next time!

For the Hunter Style Chicken, I used my dependable electric frying pan that my mum gave me in 1974 and followed Judy’s easy, step by step directions for about an hour. The recipe called for sage. How much? Generally I find Italians use bigger quantities of herbs than we do so I threw in a healthy handful of fresh sage leaves.

It called for a cup of black olives. I didn’t want to break a tooth on an unexpected olive pit in my mouth, so with a small kitchen knife, I pitted 43 black olives that filled a one cup measure. When I looked at all the ingredients in the pan, including eight pieces of chicken, there were more olives than chicken! Sofia laughed, “Italians wouldn’t pit the olives!” Next time I’ll use 22 olives.

The chicken, covered and cooked slowly while combining flavours of sage, tomatoes, white wine and black olives, was divine. Sofia had two helpings, “This is a 10 out of 10!”

Hunter Style Chicken and Peperonata ready to eat

The peperonata with red and green peppers and purple onions really appealed to me. I love bright colours together!

The recipe called for four large bell peppers and four large red onions. At the green grocer’s, the Canadian peppers looked smaller than “large” Tuscan ones, so I got five instead of four. The Canadian onions looked Tuscan size so I got four. But when I looked at the pile of sliced onions and peppers overflowing in my electric frying pan (they’d reduce, wouldn’t they?), I had about 2/3 onions and 1/3 peppers! More like an “onionata”! Next time I’ll buy six or seven Canadian peppers!

Capers made the peperonata come alive. The red wine vinegar and sugar made it tangy. Very tasty with a perfect balance of gentle sweet and sour flavours!

For dessert, I served a fresh fruit salad with fresh lemon juice and limoncello sprinkled in with a cold little glass of limoncello.

I’m really looking forward to cooking more of Judy’s Tuscan recipes and inviting more friends to my Tuscan table. I’m sure Sofia will jump at the chance to come again!

You can buy “Secrets From My Tuscan Kitchen” through Judy’s web site at divinacucina.com for 20 Euros or about $30 Cdn/$29 U.S. at today’s exchange rates.