Paintings and/of fruit

No, the title is not a typo. After a stop in Seattle, we spent the weekend in Victoria Island, British Columbia Canada. Saturday, in a residential neighborhood, about 30 blocks were barricaded  to allow painters, sculptors, bands, and my personal favorite, a farmer’s market, to take over the street for a food and art festival.

The entire festival was local. Watercolor renditions of Victoria storefronts, acrylic neighbor’s houses were many themes of paintings. While I am unsure that the wine with a pear slice were bottles and grown locally, the ocean vista scenes were certainly Northwestern. The farmer’s market features local vegetables, fruits, cheese, cider, and a variety of baked goods, spreads, and jams.

As we perused the produce, our first tasting stop was cheese. Considering that the milk came from a single farm, the variety of cheeses produced was impressive. The makers had studied in Switzerland, so a mild gouda, swiss, gruyere, and a raclette made appearances. Sharper jack cheeses spices with herbs and red pepper flake also brought some additional variety. Even a blue cheese that was mildly funky and still creamy was tasted.

Down a few stalls, hard ciders was available to sample. The Victoria Island brand had a number of variations, all served in a re-sealable glass bottle. The Flagship was a darker color, with a hint of brown touching the gold. The flavor was deep, but had a bitter finish. We went to the other end of the flavor spectrum, sipping down a cup of much lighter, both in body and in color cider. While refreshing, the overcast, midsummer day felt more like fall, so I wasn’t in the mood for something so light. I gravitated to the Rum Runner, a more fortified cider at 12.5% as opposed to the 6-7% of the others. It too was a darker color, while remaining translucent. It had a bracing kick, with only a hint of sweetness which faded to a minor bitter finish, only making me want to drink more.

Heirloom tomatoes, purple beans, cream top yogurt, green tea rolls, maple-flavored honeycomb baked goods all passed by as we continued to explore the festival. A booth, lined with mason jars, had bowl of all kinds of jams and spreads, which of course, I had to taste them all. The apricot jam was smoothly pureed, not chunky as I had expected. The “bumble berry” jam was comprised of tayberries, blackberries, and raspberries and was both sweet and tart. A caramelized onion dip had chunks of asparagus combined with a balsamic twist that went from sour to sweet from being reduced.

As we exited the farmer’s market to further investigate art, a chef was explaining how simple ingredients can be combined for complex flavors. He had marinated (not pickled) fresh cucumbers in vinegar, then topped it with a fresh cow’s milk cheese, reminiscent of the fromage blanc I mentioned in my last post. He topped off  the bite with pumpkin seeds he had roasted in a pan with olive oil, cumin, turmeric, coriander, salt and pepper. Lastly, he finished with a small drizzle of walnut oil. The roasted notes of the seeds pulled out the similar flavor in the oil, which contrasted with the twang of both the cheese and the cucumber. Crunchy seed and cucumber parried smooth cheese and oil for a textural contrast as well.

After the festival, we meandered the streets of downtown Victoria, a casual end of a nice weekend with our neighbors to the North.