Plenty Epicurean Pantry

image courtesy of Glynnis Osher, www.themysticmasala.com

When we opened Plenty I swore that scented candles would not find their way into the store yet that resolution quickly dissolved when I walked into the studio of Glynnis Osher (also see her profile at glynnisosher.com).  I had been lost in Vancouver while looking for a pottery studio and went into a studio Glynnis was sharing to ask for directions.  The exotic yet gentle scents of her Mystic Masala candles and soaps immediately caught my attention.

Glynnis incorporates Ayurveda, an ancient wisdom born more than 5000 years ago in India, into her creations.  She uses pure soy wax for her candles and only cotton wicks.  Using a traditional cold-process, wild-crafted herbs, flowers and roots are infused for 5 weeks into the base oils of the candles and soaps. Without any crude oils, petroleum or toxic chemicals, the candles burn cleaner and longer than most others.  Glynnis makes the candles in Vancouver and she contributes to women’s and rural economic development in Nepal by partnering with Wild Earth, a women’s fair trade cooperative in Kathmandu, to make the soaps.

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Three Pears

We are very pleased to feature several paintings by Shelley Davies in the storefront this month.  Three Pears (image above) evokes in me a sense of the crisp, clear Fall air and of the wonderful ripening fruit to be found now in yards all around Victoria.

It reminds me to mention that if you have fruit that may go unpicked this season please contact the Lifecycles Fruit Tree Project to invite them to harvest it for you. They’ll set aside a quarter of the fruit for you, a quarter for the volunteers who pick it, a quarter for the food bank, and a quarter of the fruit goes into wonderful products that help support the Project.  We have some Apple Pie Gelato in-stock that was produced by Salt Spring Gelato with Fruit Tree Project apples.  We also carry an apple cider vinegar produced by Spinnakers Gastro Brew Pub in support of the Project.  I wish that we could carry the incredible Kings & Spies sparkling cider that Sea Cider produces with Fruit Tree Project apples.  The Salt Spring Island Apple Festival is coming up on Sunday, October 3rd.

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A Few of our Favourite Things - Photo courtesy of Mary-Lou Leidl

This Spring we said good-bye to two wonderful members of the Plenty crew.

Cathy has headed off to be a co-ordinator / leader at Camp Thunderbird (the YMCA summer camp) before heading to Korea to teach in the Fall.   She’s been at Plenty part-time since 2006 while studying Art History at U-Vic, as well as more recently caring for Anton on Fridays. My friend Corrine had told me about this great person who was looking for a job. I am so grateful to have met Cathy and been able to work with her.

Cathy introduced us to her friend Katie who was looking for a nanny position and ended up helping to care for my niece and nephew after they were born. She started part-time at Plenty in 2007. Katie is a food writer and became an editorial assistant and local reporter at EAT Magazine.  Her recent editorial in EAT is quite wonderful, In the Details celebrates the beauty of those small things that we often overlook.  Katie has headed back to Ontario for the summer and then on to new adventures as well.

We wish both Cathy and Katie the best in their travels and endeavours. They will both be missed by customers, co-workers and by my family but we look forward to hearing back from them often (remember to send us postcards).

Katie left us with a recipe card with one of her favourite things on it. [ READ FULL ENTRY ]

Fathers Day is coming up and Plenty is stocked with many things a Dad might like: mortar & pestles, salt & pepper grinders, a rocket ship pepper mill, cardboard moose heads, spices, hot sauces, hamburger and hot dog spreads, origami mechanical robots, jars of Italian tomatoes and fantastic pastas, cookbooks, locally made Venturi-Schulze balsamic vinegar, chocolate frogs, chocolate turtles, and chocolate snails, fantastic coffee beans, exotic teas, masa harina flour & corn husks for tamales … A note to Anton (although not old enough to read this yet), for Fathers Day I’ll always be thrilled to receive a hug and perhaps a jar of Old Fashioned Pickles from Mountain Ash Farm.

I also like to receive books that combine great recipes with insight into people’s experience with food. One of my favourite books at Plenty is Apples Under the Bed: Recollections and Recipes from B.C. Writers and Artists. It’s edited and published locally by Joan Coldwell who has Hedgerow Press in Sidney.

Dads will find many recipes of interest in this collection including Phyllis Serota’s Pepper Steak, Shirley Madill’s Cabbage Rolls, Richard Hunter’s To-the-Moon Flan, Christine Smart’s Honey Garlic Shrimp, M.A.C. Farrant’s Baked Salmon, Linda Rogers’ Mud Pies / Bread, Mike Matthews’ Steak and Kidney Pudding, and Bill Gaston’s Hippie Popcorn.

My favourite recipe from the book, so far, is Manish Om Prakash’s Shahi Paneer, which he has generously let me post for you to enjoy too. I’ll start though with an evocative quote that describes the kitchen of his youth:

The kitchen occupied one whole side of the courtyard. There was a long steel counter with the stove. The shelves on the adjacent walls were lined with neat rows of gleaming steel and brass pots of various sizes and shapes. With windows overlooking the courtyard, there was almost always a draught of cool air. And then there was my favourite portion of the ceiling where lentils shot out from the top of the pressure cooker had left a dotted multicoloured patch.

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Plenty will be celebrating the local Sea Asparagus harvest from Sunday, June 14th to Saturday, June 20th.  We will be sampling fresh Sea Asparagus at the store all week.  Please stop by to try some.  We have fresh Sea Asparagus, pickled Sea Asparagus and Sea Asparagus Mustard available at the store for purchase.

• Sea Asparagus (Salicornia virginica) belongs to the genus Salicornia, making it a distant relative of beets and spinach!
• It grows in estuaries where it is exposed to salt water, imparting it with a salty flavour and crisp, crunchy texture.
• The harvest season for Sea Asparagus runs from May to early July.
• The Sea Asparagus that we sell is sustainably harvested from licensed beds by Brad Carey of Westcoast Seaweed.  Brad is conscientious and committed to the long-term health of the beds.  He also helps monitor for an invasive grass that’s threatening the coast.
• Sea Asparagus is high in vitamin A, and a good source of calcium and iron.
• It can be used raw to garnish salads or steamed and tossed with butter.
• It is wonderful served with sushi or as a garnish for any seafood dish.
• It can be blanched quickly in unsalted water, plunged into ice water (to set the colour) and then tossed with butter and a little garlic.
• It can also be sautéd with onions, olive oil and garlic.
• For a savory pesto blend Sea Asparagus with basil, Parmesan cheese and pine nuts.

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Tonight, Erica made a fantastic curried sole from one of her most treasured cookbooks, The Chez Piggy Cookbook, which she picked up while studying in Kingston. We had the sole over jasmine rice with a simple green salad drizzled with the South China Seas Trading Junko’s Ginger Salad Dressing that is new to Plenty (yes, I’m biased but it is truly fantastic). We’ve had copies of The Chez Piggy Cookbook at Plenty in the past and this reminds me to reorder more. Erica adapts the recipe to use lime and cilantro instead of lemon and dill. [ READ FULL ENTRY ]