This week we have two reviews of the SoBo Cookbook:
1.) Go ahead and burn it. It will taste better if you do. By Nicole Fitzgerald
And
2.) A Journey to the West Coast by Joanne Fogolin
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1.) Go ahead and burn it. It will taste better if you do. By Nicole Fitzgerald
It’s as if author Lisa Ahier is speaking directly to me. Many of her Texan/West Coast inspired recipes from The SoBo Cookbook (2014) use words like “high heat”, “char” and “blacken”. All words of permission. The underlying text: Go ahead and burnt it. It will taste better if you do. And to this I reply, yes. Yes! This is something I can do. This is something I can do while keeping my 11-month-old daughter entertained with Tupperware on the kitchen floor while sterilizing bottles, feeding the dogs and whipping up a few soups to freeze for those days when life gets really busy. Soup being that wonderful one-handed food drank easily from a mug while feeding a small wild animal spitting out more food than they consume from their highchair cage.
It’s a feeling Ahier knows all too well. The first incarnation of her restaurant SoBo began as a purple truck in gravel parking lot in Tofino, B.C. when her first child was only six-months-old. I remember lining up for fish tacos with mango salsa at that truck on my honeymoon. A bittersweet experience. Satisfying that reoccurring craving was now a very long, long drive and ferry ride away. As my family was growing, so too was hers. Two years later, the SoBo truck was parked for dinners at the Tofino Botanical Gardens. However, surfers and tourists still lined up for miso oysters in the parking lot for lunch. A new driver joined the team. A semi-permanent car seat for Ahier’s new baby Ella was installed. Her daughter’s first few months of life were asleep at the wheel. Ahier and her husband were determined to raise their children without a nanny. (Kitchen staff and good friends don’t count.) And did so realizing their other dream of now a permanent restaurant still situated in Tofino.
So it’s not surprising Ahier’s soul food recipes are easy to shop for, simple to follow, adaptable to any waistline, encourage multi-tasking and yes, make blackening a good thing. Not a grab-a-knife-and-scrap-it-off-with-the-hope-that-nobody-notices thing.
After a trip to my local farmer’s market, I had most of my ingredients for four soup recipes even before I had opened The SoBo Cookbook. Utilizing local ingredients has been a driving force in Ahier’s culinary career. A career lauded by Gourmet, The New York Times and Food & Wine magazine. Fall’s bounty provides amply for all twelve of her soups. My favourite the rich Roasted Sunchoke and Leek Soup, and my husband’s the hearty French Green Lentil and Roasted Shiitake Soup.
Her recipes are flexible like Lululemon pants. The uniform of mothers. Fry up the Hippy Chicken in half an inch of oil for guests. Or opt for coconut oil spray for a more calorie-counting daily routine. One that leaves the crust of almonds and pumpkin, sunflower and sesame seeds that much toastier in taste. Same with the Huevos Rancheros. Pile it up on tortillas with beans, roasted salsa, cheese, avocado and the saucy sunny-side-up eggs. Or double the recipe for the punchy charred tomato, onion, garlic and chipotle chili salsa to top on your morning egg whites for the week. Yes, this salsa makes even egg whites formidable.
This dark side of the kitchen sprouts from Ahier’s time in Texas. Poblano chilies are roasted black. Cast iron skillets char garlic cloves whole. Myself a spice pussy, even I ramped up from one to her suggested two poblano chilies in the Heritage Squash Soup the second time round. Trust in this hot goddess. Recipes are balanced with cooling ingredients like whipping cream and avocado.
Recipes beg for multi-tasking. Most soup recipes call for roast vegetables. While roasting shiitake mushrooms, squash and sunchokes, I was able to fold laundry, load the dishwasher and tidy up. Roasting times vary from 20 to 40 minutes. This is slow food in every sense. One that comes with layers-of-flavour rewards.
Four recipes in, my composting bin overflows with skins. A few tins in recycle. Nothing in the waste bin yet. My soups cool on the stovetop awaiting freezer bags. I decide to char more Roma tomatoes for a second batch of salsa, maximizing my daughter’s afternoon nap. My one tip to new mothers enjoying the liberation of blackening. If you don’t have a range hood, it’s best to make this salsa when your baby is awake. The fire alarm sounds. Looks like naptime will be a littler shorter today. But that’s okay. A freezer full of soup, the week ahead looks more palatable.
As part of the Whistler Readers and Writers Festival, Lisa Ahier will participate in the chef reception and book signing, Tasting the Divine: Cooks with Books Friday, Oct. 17 at 6:15 pm at MY Millennium Place. Ahier will be joined by fellow authors Shelley Adams of Whitewater Cooks and Eric Arrouze of A Gourmand in Training. Tickets are now sold-out.
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2.) A Journey to the West Coast
by Joanne Fogolin
I grew up in Prince George, also known by many as the Great White North. The kind of place where as a kid, I’d step outside with wet hair only to have it freeze in the winter. And in warmer days, I might see a seagull flying in pulp-mill scented air. So far from the west coast, I’d think as I dreamed of the warm ocean climate and salt infused air.
And so I chased dreams of the ocean to Vancouver Island and traveled with my family to Long Beach to experience the surf and village life of Tofino where we discovered the SoBo Restaurant food truck in 2003 when we took our kids to the Botanical Gardens. A perfect chow-down location for a family of five. The smoked chicken was so flavourful and tender I wished I could replicate it and asked one of the staff, “Will there ever be a SoBo cookbook?” The answer was, “We’re working on it.”
Our next visit to Tofino we stopped at SoBo again. (The name combines the words sophisticated and bohemian). The food truck had transitioned into a downtown restaurant framed by a driftwood rock-bed garden that looked out on the ocean and village. Inside, there was a large, glass refrigerator with grab-and-go items of soup, huge cookies and pies. Front and centre was a live open kitchen. At the centre of food preparation frenzie was owner Lisa Ahier in her signature bandana
Her team served up a mixture of west coast cuisine (hearty, satisfying, and full of locally sourced ingredients) as well as Tex-Mex items more “chill” in style such as Killer Fish Tacos and Polenta Fries. We returned several times throughout the years always with the same question: “Will there be a SoBo cookbook?” The answer still was, “We’re working on it.”
Our family moved to Whistler after living on the island for over twenty years. And over the summer, we returned again for a family surf trip. While enjoying an afternoon in the village alone, I stopped at SoBo for lunch where I finally got the answer I had been hoping for all these years. There on the counter stacked high was “The SoBo Cookbook” by Lisa Ahier. Now a staple in my kitchen library. I’ve worked my way through numerous recipes.
o Huevos Rancheros – crazy-delicious, my whole family stopped talking during the meal so I knew they loved it
o Roasted Tomato Salsa – described by one family friend as the best they’ve had in their life! I agree.
o Smoked Salmon Chowder – easy for me to find the ingredients since we have a freezer full of smoked salmon.
o Pinto Bean Burrito – home-style fast food (created slowly) that satisfied all of my boys.
o Hippy Chicken – I love the piles of almonds, pumpkin, sunflower, hemp and sesame seeds, but I think I would bake it not fry it next time.
o Guacamole – great recipe but I added chipotle chillies in adobo sauce to kick it up a notch.
o Salmon with Sorrel Sauce and Layered Potatoes – no sorrels were available so I used arugula. Good choice but not amazing.
o Chicken Enchiladas – amazing and loved by my family
o SoBo Slaw – simple, crunchy veggies with a light citrus dressing.
o Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies – gobbled up by the boys but clearly not as beautiful as what I saw in the SoBo showcase of desserts!
Kids back in school, the nearest SoBo experience is my own kitchen as well as the Whistler Readers and Writers Festival. Lisa Ahier will participate in the chefs reception and book signing, Tasting the Divine: Cooks with Books Friday, Oct. 17 at 6:15 pm at MY Millennium Place. The event is sold out, and me ticketless, this Prince George native is left out in the cold again – all be it closer (and secretly hoping a stray ticket may find its way to me).
