Vancouver and the Granville Island Public Market. July 2013

Sorting through my photos from my travels to Canada, I have found a few food related photos that I took with the intention of writing blog posts about but never got a chance to do while on the road. WiFi in campgrounds I discovered is not always the most reliable so that is my excuse.

We only spent a couple of separate days in Vancouver but on our first day there, after walking over a very very long bridge in a downpour, we discovered the Granville Island Public Market......foodie heaven.

There it is, down there on the left....... This photo was taken on our second trip to the market in much better weather,on our return to Vancouver a week later.

All sorts of food was on offer from fresh seafoods, to handmade ravioli, from olive oil to cheeses from all over the world, from artisan breads to fresh fruits of all descriptions piled carefully into arty displays and the most exquisite looking hand made and decorated chocolates which unfortunately at about $4 per tiny piece were beyond my budget of my last remaining Canadian dollars.

Naturally it was the place to have a late lunch/ early dinner (twice) as it closed up at 7 pm. There was of course the long hike back over the bridge to our hostel to work off all those extra calories.....not for us those cute little boats that ferried people back and forth across False Creek, so named because itwasn't  really a creek at all but an inlet. We didn't really care if we didn't see any of the other sights of Vancouver after that!!!

Wensleydale with a twist 26th July 2013

Last weekend I made the first hard cheeses I have made for months. I make feta regularly but to make a hard cheese involves quite a process which needs a whole day free. Even though the process itself is not that difficult, there are lots of little steps which leaves little time to do much else in between.

Since I was going to make one cheese I though, why not make two?  I should have answered that by saying, because you don't have the equipment to do two at once. Once I realised that I would need 2 cheese moulds and a press that pressed twice the weight I have needed before, it was too late, the milk was heating up in the 2 pots!

So in between all the little steps, I was busy making a new mould out of pipe and getting Max to invent a way of adding additional weight to the press which involved safety ropes and bars suspended from the laundry ceiling.

Meanwhile back in the kitchen the cheeses were progressing to curd stage.

One curd had mustard seed mixed into it before pressing and the other dried cranberries.

 I had tasted some Wensleydale with cranberry in Carstairs near Calgary when I was recently in Canada, sitting around the dinner table with my daughter Jennie's Workaway host who kindly hosted me as well on my first night in the country. It was so delicious, I had to have a go a producing it myself.

By the next morning, both rounds were pressed nicely and just needed a couple of days drying before being waxed. The cranberry version needs to be eaten in a month or so as I read on someone else's blog that they might ferment if left longer. The mustard one I will age for much longer. We have recently been eating one I made in March 2012 and it has a fantastic bite to it, like a vintage Cheddar.

Add some nice new red wax and voila, there you have it.