Even nimble mental gymnasts will find it hard to figure out the connection between Crofton House School, Doolin’s Irish Pub, and the Starlight Casino. Now add golf courses, yacht clubs, movie-catering companies, and Big White Ski Resort to the mix. Give up? All are environmentally smart enough to use disposable cutlery made of wood.

The legendary Casanova purportedly ate 50 raw ones for breakfast before heading out on his amorous escapades. Today, as they have become more adventurous, Vancouver diners share his passion.

Once upon a time, before culinary writers, bloggers, and Web sites existed, people learned about food firsthand. Travellers returned from exotic lands with strange seeds and spices. Aspiring chefs refined their techniques by watching not Gordon Ramsay but their elders. Home cooks picked up tips from Mom. So in a way, Don Genova, food journalist and educator, is heir to a long tradition that began when one Stone Ager said to another, “You know, if you brush some sap from that tree over there on your T.

One of the biggest challenges for visitors to the South Okanagan is finding all those wineries. According to Miles Prodan of the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association, 80 percent of B.C. grapes are grown in the area between Oliver and Osoyoos. However, not all of the wineries are on Highway 97, which means people often have to rely on maps or signs to find them.

The words Okanagan and wine are nearly synonymous. Today, Okanagan wine country encompasses wineries from Granite Creek north of Vernon to Nk’Mip, near Osoyoos in the south. Most of the wineries stretch along either side of a four-lake daisy chain (Osoyoos, Vaseux, Skaha, and Okanagan) tucked neatly into the Okanagan Valley.

Open any cookbook, turn to a well-loved recipe, and you’ll find salt, an essential but seemingly ordinary ingredient.

Oh dear, grains—the moral majority of the dinner plate. Dull, bland, righteous, humourless, dour, and about as much fun as doing your taxes. No foodie rushes to tell friends he’s just gotten his hands on the new season’s barley. No invitation includes the conspiratorial whisper, “Psst, I smuggled back some organic oats.”

Curry and soy may not seem like obvious bedfellows, but in Indian-Chinese cooking they come together to create a fiery, palate-pleasing match.

Starting in April, David Lee Kwen keeps a sharp eye out for his “prey” in B.C. forests. His most elusive conquest: the matsutake, or pine mushroom. The fungus grows under fallen needles and rotting leaves, so nothing more than a lump in the forest floor hints at a find. It’s a crusade that’s helped build his thriving Richmond business, Misty Mountain Specialties, over the past 10 years.

Star power. Chef Rob Feenie undoubtedly has it, and Cactus Club Cafes undoubtedly hope to cash in on it. The Vancouver-based chain’s recent appointment of Feenie as its “food concept architect” may draw more customers. But Feenie’s association could also attract a whole different set of VIPs: potential employees.

How to assemble Quebec's quintessential yuletide meat pie

Months in a French village teach our correspondent the value of regional food, full-service butchers, and real market food. But there are still Vancouver treats to miss

Take a walk on the wild side and hunt down some quail, pheasant, or even partridge at a butcher. They’ll be lean and local, too; most of the game birds available are raised in captivity in the Fraser Valley. The taste is, well, gamier, and all "have a lot more flavour than chicken, on par with duck. Even the little quail has great flavour," says chef Jeff van Geest on the phone from the busy kitchen at Aurora Bistro. "Farmed game birds are less full-flavoured than wild ones, for sure, and quail has a finer texture to it. When you get to the colour of the meat, they’re all darker than chicken."

Goat cheese is one of our fastest-growing product categories, and for those searching out new tastes or those suffering lactose intolerance or other milk allergies, goat's milk (and sheep's milk) is a break from the daily rind.

Valerie Overgaard, associate su­per­­intendent for learning services with the Vancouver school board, was excited when she met with Finley last spring to discuss the project. "There are many issues surrounding obesity and the lack of nutritional knowledge among our children. I think that Project CHEF addresses these issues," she says in a phone interview. Finley's program would fill a great need, as there are currently no nutrition classes in the Vancouver elementary school curriculum.