Hot Shots - June 10, 2022

Hot Shots - June 10, 2022
Severin R-B Danieli

Hello all,

These two weeks have flown by! And also, hello June!

It was my birthday in early June, and we have weather reaching 20 degrees Celsius on the coast, so the whole city is out celebrating. The trees are green and bushy, pollen is flying around, and the bikes, rollerblades and skateboards are being dusted off and hitting the pavement once again.

We recently attended a wedding of an elementary school friend of mine. It was held on Bowen Island, a 20 min ferry ride away from the mainland, but it feels miles away from the hustle and bustle of the lower mainland - wait, is that the point?

The wedding was beautiful, everyone was so happy to be together and celebrating love, and, I might add, the chillest bride and groom ever. For dinner, we were treated to paella being cooked right in front of us on the lawn. I have never actually had paella, with its origins in Valencia, Spain, but I am definitely a fan now!

This past week, The Art of Leadership for Women conference was held at Vancouver Convention Centre. Disco sent eight women to attend, which included: owners, team leads and supervisors. It was a wonderful conference, with very unique speakers. Thank you Disco for sending us! We had a great day, learned a lot, and laughed a lot.

Papaya!

Now, I will be the first to admit that I am not a huge fan of papayas. They always paled in comparison to the delicious mango in my mind, but I have started to come around to them.

Papayas were first domesticated in Mesoamerica, which is modern day southern Mexico and Central America. Around 43% of papayas in today's market are grown in India, and the ones we have here at Disco are the Formosa varietal, and from La Patrona down in Mexico.

The turning point for papayas and mines relationship was when I was down in Mexico in 2019, and there was fresh cut papaya with fresh lime juice squeezed over the pieces. Delicious. Honestly, anything I don't like I just put lime juice on - problem solved!

Garlic.

A crowd please, a classic, the flavour never lets us down, and this purple garlic from Del Cabo is no exception. The recipes with garlic are literally endless, but if you need inspiration, there is a great list on bon apetit website - "31 Recipes That Put Garlic Front and Center"

Native to Central Asia and northeastern Iran, garlic has thousands and thousands of years of recorded use, both as a food and a traditional medicine. Currently, China is the world's biggest supplier of garlic, clocking in at 76% of the global supply that reached 28 million tonnes of garlic in 2020.

Slicing off the top of a bulb of garlic, dousing it in olive oil, and roasting it whole is definitely my garlic go to right now. Fresh garlic in a salad dressing is also a common occurrence in my kitchen.

Rainbow Chard.

Always a show stopper colour wise, but not a super common leafy green.

Rainbow chard can vary in colour, from pink, gold, orange, purple, red and white. A compound by the name of betalain is found in swiss chard, which gives the stalks hues of red and yellow. Betalains act as a source of survival for the plant, by protecting the plant against UV rays, as well using the colourful stalks to attract insects and bees for pollination.

Back in 1636, rainbow chard was written about in a book called "The Herball or General History of Plantes", and its seeds appeared for the first time in 1888 in the Vilmorin Seed Catalog.

On my last day working up in Pemberton at Laughing Crow, I harvested rainbow chard. We started early morning, so that the sun and its heat had not crept down the mountains and into the valley yet. The plants were heavy with dew, and our harvesting knives, as well as hands, feet, legs, were covered in water and dirt within a few minutes.

My last day on the farm, harvesting rainbow chard for CSA boxes & the weekly farmers market.

Sea asparagus.

A very very unique product that we have here at Disco.

My first experience with sea asparagus was on Hornby Island, on a rocky beach with my mom and some family friends. Our family friend was harvesting sea asparagus and I literally thought she was playing with reeds or something. Little did I know that you could actually eat this stuff!

Sea asparagus has many different names, such as: glasswort, pickleweed, picklegrass, marsh samphire, sea beans, samphire greens, and finally, sea asparagus. In Hawaii, seagrass is used as a salad topper or a side dish to fish.

Dates.

Or, as my father-in-law calls them, 'pure energy!'

The fruit of a palm tree, grown in many tropical places and groves around the world. Here at Disco, we have pitted deglet dates in 15# cases and medjool dates in 11# from United with Earth in California, as well as mazafati dates in 12x400g boxes from Azin Foods in Israel.

Deglet dates, pictures above, are the superior choice for baking. This is due to their modest sweetness and firm consistency which can withstand chopping and dicing and not becoming mushy. Cooked into bread, cookies and cakes, these deglets hold up.

Deglets are originally from Algeria, but have been cultivated in California for over one hundred years. In California, 41 million pounds of deglet dates are produced annually. Talk about a lot of energy!

Melon season!

And this cute guy? A galia melon.

The flesh of the galia melon can range from white to green, the weight can range between 2 to 3 pounds, and flavour wise a cross between a cantaloupe and a honeydew. Created in the 20th century in Israel by crossing a smooth-skinned cantaloupe and a Russian reticulatus melon, the galia was born.

The name 'galia' was chosen by its breeder, Dr. Zvi Karchi, who named the melon after his daughter, Galia Karchi.

Big love,
Severin R-B Danieli