road rituals
actual B&B, roadside sandwiches, and zucchini challenges
We set out on last week’s road trip, as you may recall, with some amount of uncertainty due to the fires in the central areas of the province, but it all worked out in the end. Knowing that thanks to the stress of our eviction, we wouldn’t make lunch at Benja Thai in Keremeos on the way up, we stopped at the market near the Abbotsford Costco, the one with the petting zoo. It has a good deli counter, so we got sandwiches to eat at a rest stop just outside Hope. And as much as I enjoy the fact that Keremeos has one of the best Thai restaurants in the province, eating a sandwich at a picnic table trying to stay in the shade does feel very ‘road trip’.
The wedding in Kelowna on the 22nd was on a 32°C day, but the ceremony was lovely (and shaded) and there were misters and lots of cold water in the cocktail tent afterwards, though I, dressed like a Vulcan Diane Keaton, envied the other women in their breezy dresses a little. The dinner and dancing in the evening were inside, and considering it was a straight people wedding where I only really knew the groom before that weekend, I quite enjoyed it. My Star Trek knuckle tattoos were a decent conversation starter, which is great because Star Trek is the main thing I like to talk about. During our stay in Kelowna, we ate at a mediocre wood oven pizza place which made me realise how spoiled we are for choice even just in North Van, and a pleasantly dive-y pub that had incredible curly fries I’m still thinking about.
We stayed at a bed and breakfast rather than a hotel (or worse, an airbnb) because the price was similar and someone else makes food for you! It was run by a couple, Chrissy and Steve, whose dry British humour put us at ease (watching them interact with the group of Australians also staying there was very fun). The breakfasts were lovely: each morning we got coffee, juice, and a small sweet breakfast followed by a mix of fruit, and then a main dish with eggs. I was consistently too full to finish the main, because the sweet part was always so good I’d eat the whole thing. My favourite was a crisped tortilla filled like a crêpe with grilled pineapple and strawberry and served with a scoop of chocolate ice cream, which I of course didn’t take a picture of.
The drive up to Quesnel was a little different since we were coming from the Okanagan rather than the Lower Mainland, and we stopped for lunch at a brew pub in Salmon Arm— decent beers and pretty good pub food, too. We got caught in a rainstorm storm coming through Williams Lake, which has happened to us a couple years in a row, now, but because of the fires it felt welcome. It rained more while we were in Quesnel, which made me realise I’d packed my suitcase under the impression we’d end up staying in the desert (half the stuff I brought I didn’t end up wearing, because it was simply too cold).
Jeff and I always enjoy our morning routine, when we visit, of going for breakfast at Granville’s. It’s a coffee shop and diner where the food is really reasonably priced— you can get a really good egg sandwich for about what you’d pay for one at McDonald’s. I like eating outside because of the tiny birds that eat up the crumbs, and the people-watching; it’s a popular meeting point for the locals, though the lack of anonymity in a smaller city has its benefits and drawbacks, I’m sure.
We usually buy deli sandwiches in Quesnel for the drive back, stopping in Marble Canyon or Goldpan Provincial Park to eat them (depending on whether we take Highway 99 or Highway 1). This time, we stopped at Horstings Farm Market outside of Cache Creek to buy sandwiches there, and I highly recommend it. You get a little paper order form to select your fillings, the type of bread, and what condiments you want on it— like if Subway was actually good— a nice big sandwich with fresh ingredients on house-made bread for about $12. This place is also known for their delicious pies, which we didn’t get this time, and regretted by the time we got home.
The Marble Canyon/Sea-to-Sky route isn’t easy driving, but it is gorgeous, and gives us the chance to stop at Fort Berens winery in Lillooet. For dinner, we like to stop at Pizzeria Antico in Whistler. We got the piccante and the margherita classico, both of which were excellent. Every summer we consider maybe going someplace new, but there’s definitely something to be said for the comfort of a ritual.
I’m really trying to be grateful for the production of our garden, knowing this could be the last summer for some time we’ll be able to grow anything prolifically, if at all. But I’ll admit it would be nice if things wouldn’t all seem to arrive at the same time. We have so many little cherry and grape tomatoes, and even though I gave two zucchini away before we left, and Jeff’s mom took two or three out of the garden while we were gone when she came by to water, there are still… a lot. Many of the herbs are starting to flower and go to seed, and I’m just letting them, because it keeps the bees coming around and I also just don’t have the will to cut and dry pounds of oregano or thyme.
On Sunday, I used a pint or so of various little tomatoes to make this dish which I make often, baked feta with chickpeas and lots of herbs. It’s really easy and always worth turning on the oven for. The feta wasn’t too fresh after ten days away, but the rest of the dish more than made up for it: burst and softened tomatoes with plenty of salt and olive oil, and buttery-soft chickpeas. We usually eat this with taftoon from the Persian bakery, but it’s equally good with a crusty loaf of fresh bread.
With the other half of the chickpeas I’d cooked, I made a riff on another Smitten Kitchen fave, zucchini with crispy chickpeas and yogurt. I always make tzatziki instead of just garlic yogurt, because I love it this way for a bit more texture, and the addition of another vegetable makes it feel like a more substantial meal.
The trick to getting chickpeas nice and crisp without deep frying is to make sure they’re really dry first— I usually put them on a paper towel and then hold another paper towel over top to roll them around. Tossing them with lemon zest and chili flakes (I use aleppo) really makes this dish pop, since zucchini is fairly mild on its own, and it all works really nicely in combo with the pungent garlic in the tzatziki. Almost any herbs are good, I just use lots of whatever I’ve got. This time it was mint, basil, parsley, and oregano.
Did I make the zucchini butter pasta again? Yes, yes I did. I started the cooking process very much in a *heavy sigh* guess I’ll make this again kind of way, but eating it became a god, yes, this is delicious mindset, which is nice. I get this in the winter too with certain soups, dragging my feet while I’m cooking, and then sitting down to eat and remembering that they’re part of my regular repertoire for good reason.
I chopped up too many herbs the night before, so this had the not usual but welcome addition of mint and oregano in conjunction with the basil and parsley I normally add. And I got distracted by writing while the zucchini was cooking down, so it was even more concentrated and creamy than usual. We’d opened a bottle of chardonnay, too, because buying new wine always reminds us to drink the old wine we have at home, making this feel like a nice dinner instead of one I’d begrudgingly resigned myself to making an hour before.
The task of using the zucchini in different ways without getting entirely sick of it has become, for me, the meeting point between ‘fun challenge’ and ‘personal vendetta’. So after two tried and true zucchini dishes in a row, I felt I couldn’t go back to something else I make all the time for the third night. My mom had posted a picture in our family group chat of some really good-looking quesadillas she made with zucchini, corn, and pepper jack cheese and I went, “wait, I also have corn.” I figured I would grill the corn and mix it up with sautéed zucchini and chili flakes and garlic, then cheddar since that’s all we had, but when the time came to make dinner I changed my mind a bit. Instead, I started with two sliced jalapeños and cooked them until they softened. While they were cooking I cut the zucchini really thin on the mandoline, and then let that cook down in the pan with some sliced garlic.
I did still grill the corn, only instead of adding it to the quesadilla filling, made it into a salsa with some of our boon of grape tomatoes, chopped pickled red onion, a little lime juice, and tajín. When the zucchini was done, I squeezed the other half of the lime over it and let it cool a bit before mixing it up with the cheese (conversely, you could put it right into the tortilla if you put cheese above and below the filling, but that felt like more work to me). Then you just need a little oil in a cast iron pan to brown the tortilla and melt the cheese. The whole thing was really good, the acidity and sweetness in the salsa making a nice contrast for the creamy and spicy quesadilla. It almost made me forget I was eating zucchini for the third dinner in a row.
Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with someone new! I like providing this to you for free, but it does still involve time and effort, so donations I can use towards cookbooks or future treats (or moving costs 😓) are much appreciated. I have nothing revelant to share this week because my brain is soup. If you’re a local, happy Pride! Stay safe, stay hydrated, and don’t forget to reapply your sunscreen.