Hot Shots - August 11, 2023

Hot Shots - August 11, 2023
Severin R-B Danieli

Hello all,

Welcome to August!

Hope everyone's July ended well, and we slid easily into the last official month of the summer. We are having a few cooler days here on the coast which I am welcoming wholeheartedly, but I see a 32 degree day next week, so I won't get too comfortable. I've had a crazy busy few weeks, what with moving, midwife appointments and dentist appointments, but I am hoping August will be a more relaxing month. 
 
We've had some family in from Ottawa so we had a big family BBQ this past weekend at New Brighton Park which was lovely, and spent the rest of the weekend organizing the new place and seeing the new Christopher Nolan movie Oppenheimer. We enjoyed the movie, though it is very very dialogue heavy, so maybe have a coffee before you go! 

We've got some fun new products in house with, local season is truckin along, so let's dive in!

Fioretto cauliflower. 

Also known by the names karifurore cauliflower, white broccoli, stick cauliflower, sweet sprouting cauliflower, biancoli, flowering cauliflower and caulini. This slender stock cauliflower, loosely resembling baby's breath, is a hybrid between cauliflower and broccoli, and was developed by the Tokita Seed Company in Japan. The fioretto cauliflower took over seven years to perfect and was released to commercial markets in 2012. Popular first in Okinawa and Hokkaido in Japan, it has made its presence known worldwide. 

Here at Disco, we have this brassica hybrid from Blue House Organics which is a 70 acre organic vegetable farm with 20 acres in the Pemberton Valley, BC and 50 acres in Birken, BC. 

Back in 2019, a group of Disco staff members ventured out to Pemberton for the annual Slow Food Cycle Sunday, and actually stayed in the blue house of Blue House Organics. It was a great weekend of biking up and down the Pemberton Meadow Road and stopping at various farms and venues along the way.

Pictured above is the blue house from Blue House Organics and an aerial shot of some of their crops.

Corn. 

Corn! There is something so nostalgic about shucking corn for me, it was somewhat of a tradition at my uncle's home on the Ontario/Quebec provincial border. Both my parents are from Montreal, so growing up we would visit uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents and there would always be a stop at my uncles gorgeous home next to the Raisin River (no, I did not make that name up). 

My uncle would set us cousins up on the wrap around porch, with one bag of corn, and another bag for the discarded silks and husks. We would shuck as quick as we could, and would all be covered in silks in a matter of minutes. Once we finished, my uncle would take all the corn and dunk them in a big pot of boiling water. The corn would then be slathered in butter, sprinkled with salt, and devoured by our family. 

We've got bi-colour corn from two different farms, Two EE's and Secrest. Both in 48ct boxes, and both from beautiful BC.

Red kuri squash.

A cheeky autumnal vegetable snuck its way into Hot Shots this week, as I can't help but think about all the delicious soups and curries and vegetable roasts I want to make as soon as the temperature winds down. I made some chocolate chip cookies last night and I'm still not sure heating up our entire house was worth it. 

Wait, who am I kidding, chocolate chip cookies are always worth it. 

Pictured above we've got red kuri squash from Tutti Frutti farms located in central California. This farm is a 5th generation family owned and operated production, which started farming on 14 acres and is now an impressive 300 acres. They attribute some of their success to their unique location, read below a description from their website:

"Located on the Santa Ynez River, far from polluting highways, the farm is surrounded by wilderness, guaranteeing a wealth of natural predatory insects. Fifteen miles inland from the Pacific coast, a coastal breeze minimizes mildew while evening fog slows the ripening process, a truly natural flavor enhancer! Through religious planting of cover crops like vetch and clover, Tutti Frutti is able to keep the soil healthy and mineral rich. The natural rhythms of the unique micro climate offer additional defense against pests and plant disease"

Earligold apples. 

First of the season BC apples come to us from Sundance. This slightly tart, but crunchy early season apple kicks off one of the best seasons for orchard fruit in BC. Their colour is light green, almost yellow, and have good flavour for apple sauce or dried apples. Their history begins in Selah, Washington with a chance seedling being discovered. 

Has anyone ever been to the UBC Apple Festival? My mom and I happened across it one year and it blew my mind. There were so many more varieties of apples than I had ever expected. Arriving at Disco in the next little while will be more earligolds, then sunrise, then discovery apples (no, not our companies brand of apples, we just share the name). 

Further in the season and into the fall, we are stocked floor to ceiling in our apple berry cooler with local apples. Crunchy, local, all different sizes and colours - it is apple pandemonium! 

Sundance farms is one of our longest standing vendors at Discovery, and Trevor and Debbie Evans have been farming in the Similkameen Valley since 1978. This valley is now considered one of the organic growing capitals in all of Canada, and Trevor and Debbie were there right at the beginning. During the growing season in BC we have many items from Sundance, so if you are interested in their story and their product, ask one of our sales team members what we have stocked from Sundance the next time you call in! 

German butter potatoes. 

Everyone knows I love a good potato. And I've been advised to up my potassium, so hello potatoes! Now that we have settled in a bit more to our place, we fired up the BBQ and had some delish veggie dogs, some grillable meat for Jono, some sweet bi-coloured corn and, my fav, slices of pineapple. Alongside the grilled veg and protein, and a salad of course, there were baked potatoes. The perfect plate. 

These German butter potatoes also affectionately known as butterball potatoes, have pale, smooth, yellow skin, and more often than not a few brown patches. Inside, the flesh is golden yellow, firm and dense. These characteristics lend themselves to steaming, baking, frying and mashing. This potato was first introduced by David Ronniger in 1988, and was grown at his Ronniger Potato Farm in the northeastern corner of Idaho, USA.

My favourite way of preparing these butterballs, as well as Yukon gold potatoes, is baking them in a mixture of olive oil and margarine with a tiny sprinkle of salt. This is the way my uncle bakes them for Thanksgiving and Christmas, though I have yet to even come close to the deliciousness that he creates. But hey, a potato baked in oil and butter is still scrumptious!

Thanks for reading along, stay cool this weekend as I think the hot hot summer heat is coming back to us. I've got a family lasagna night on Saturday, which I am overly excited for, and then hopefully a chill Sunday. I'm definitely feeling sleepier these days, but I guess that is normal when you're 8 months pregnant smack dab in the middle of summer. 

Chat with you all next week!

Big love,
Severin R-B Danieli