The Cookshop & Cookschool in City Square caught our eyes with their 3 for the price of 2 promotion. We chose to attend the “Passport to Italy: Rome” class on Friday. This class featured a few recipes commonly found in or around Lazio (Rome), Italy. That evening was a Full House! The school’s kitchen was filled with hungry students, Tuscan tunes and the aroma of lemons and herbs.

On the menu:

• Fettucine alla carbonara – the classic pasta sauce with cream, proscuitto, egg, pecorino romano
  
• Fava beans and escarole salad, with pancetta, artichoke hearts, peas, onions, olive oil
  
• Roman-style leg of lamb, cooked with orange and olives
  
• Chicken scaloppini al limone – chicken slices with lemon and white wine
  
• Lazio dolce al limone – lemon cake

Chef Pepe started off with the preparation of the Roman-style leg of Lamb, while the lamb was in the oven he continued on with the Fava Bean and Escarole Salad followed by Fettucine Alla Carbonara. After intermission, the leg of lamb was ready and served, while we enjoyed your zesty lamb, Chef Pepe moved on the the Chicken Scaloppini Al Limone and Lazio Dolce Al Limone.

Some things I learned from Chef Pepe:

• Pasta time saver tip: You can pre-cook pasta 1/2 way, rinse through cold water, separate into portions, refrigerate portions. When you are ready for dinner, reboil the 1/2 cooked pasta add sauce and serve.
  
• Don’t add salt to pasta water when it’s cold… add salt to water when it’s boiling. Why?? heating the salt at the bottom of the pot may cause corrosion and you’ll go through pasta pots a lot quicker.
  
• SING! sing to your food! While Chef Pepe cooks be serenades his cooking with song. If this whole chef and catering business doesn’t workout for him, he should definitely try Canadian Idol… Pavarotti better watch out.
  

My personal favorites were:

Fava Beans and Escarole Salad, Chicken Scaloppini and of course… DESSERT! Lazio Dolce Al Limone (Sorry no photo of the dessert…I ate it too fast!)

Since I was a little piggish with the Dolce Al Limone (lemon tiramisu) below is the recipe that was given to us.

Dolce Al Limone

Serves 8

Ingredients:

3 layers of sponge cake
1lbs of Mascarpone Cheese
250g Sugar
4 eggs
5 Lemons
50g White Chocolate
1/2 cup Water

Method:
Zest one lemon and put aside. Juice all the lemons and strain through sieve, the yield should be 3/4 cup.
In a small pot, combine lemon juice, 100g sugar and water.
Bring to a boil and reduce to low heat and let cool.

Separate egg yolks and whites, beat yolks with remaining sugar for 2-3 minutes with an electric mixer
Add the mascarpone a little at a time while mixing on low speed until creamy. DO NOT Over Mix
Add zest and white chocolate in small pieces. Blend well.
Place layer of sponge cake and brush with lemon syrup. Spread cream over cake and repeat to form layers.
Cover cake wit remaining cream.
Cover and refrigerate overnight before serving (at least 8 hours)

There are many types of cooking lessons the Cookshop offers and other Italian cooking sessions with Chef Pepe.
I’m already scoping out their December schedule!

June 14th 2009 was  Car Free Day in Vancouver. Roads were closed off in 4 locations: Main Street, Commercial Drive, West End, Kitsilano Block Party. Along with Car Free Day the Golden Ears Bridge was opened to pedestrians.

On Saturday I was planning to visit Main Street, Commercial Drive and the Golden Ears Bridge on Sunday. Well… I was a little ambitious, cause I only had enough time on Sunday for Car Free Day on Main. I’m not complaining, I had a blast on Main! I couldn’t believe this only happens once a year! This event NEEDS to be at least a monthly thing in the summer time. The atmosphere, people, entertainment, information, arts, crafts, culture, fashion, FOOD! and lots more makes Car Free Day a family and community event.

I started off my day at about 12:30 waiting for the bus on King Edward with Danny (my beefcake aka boyfriend), his sister and her special someone. Thinking 12:30 head to Main at about 1:00pm out of Main street by 3 or 4pm head to Commercial check that out, and see if the Golden Ears Bridge is still open after all that. I was on Main Street from 1:00pm – around 6ish, I having so much fun I didn’t want to leave.

Entertainment:

Various local bands rocked the streets. At almost every intersection there was a band, group or radio station filling the streets with different beats.

Besides music, there were numerous different types of performances and displays. Dancing, skate boarding, skate board hockey, unicyclist, roller derby girls, sisters in bridal dresses, ladies in butterfly costumes, a shark man… you name it, they were probably there.

FOOD:

We stopped at The Coppertank Grill for some food, I was surprised we were able to get a table, it was super busy. The Sunday promo was $12.99 for a pint of beer and pizza! They also had live music going on, didn’t know who it was but it sounded like he was beat boxing on his guitar. All the restaurants, bars, grills, bakeries and coffee shops were filled with people. Some even set up shop on the street. Wallflower Modern Diner had a station serving their delicious burgers for just 5 bucks! Once you’ve had enough savories there was also free cotton candy and pop corn hear the Heritage Hall. I myself had 3 servings of cotton candy. I made Danny and my brother line up for one, even though they didn’t want any, just so I didn’t seem like a pig getting 3 cotton candy cones all to myself…

Major sugar high after that big fluffy ball of spun sugar! I heart cotton candy!

Stuff to do:

Who knew in one day and on one street I was able to ride a unicycle, make custom buttons, blow bubbles, draw on the floor, draw on canvas, and probably a dozen more thing I can’t remember doing. Every step you took there was something to do, see or learn. It was a person with short attention span’s dream! I was bouncing from station to station… then again, I did have 3 servings of cotton candy in my system.

I don’t think I’ll be riding a unicycle again… this was probably my 20th attempt just to get this photo. Poor guy… he was so patient with me.

Local Crafts, Fashion and Art:

Countless local artisans lined the car free street with tables and tables of their work. Jewelers, fashion designers and artists sold and displayed their pieces. There were so many unique, one of a kind pieces of jewelery I wanted to purchase. Main street retail stores were also taking the opportunity to do some MEGA house clearances. I found some sweet deals at Lushuz Boutique, Dresses for $24.99, Sam Edelman shoes ONLY $39.99, Jeans from $59.99 all with additional 30% off just because it was Car Free Day! I love a sweet deal. Carole, my classmate with Poplar Studios, had a stand. They featured pottery by her partner Keith Lehman and Carole’s famous Cuddle Cups (in my opinion, the cuties things EVER!). It was so great to see each other outside of the school environment… more like it was so great to see each other out of cargo pants and t-shirts! Cargo/sweat pants and t-shirts seemed like the “uniform” for our design class.

This was the Poplar Studio table. LOOK! Cuddle Cups!

I can’t wait till next year’s Car Free Day in Vancouver. I will have to be better prepared for all the festivities. Goal and aim to visit all locations! Also, hopefully by next year, my blog pages would look a bit better too.

More random photos of the day:

They are the cuties things EVER and they’re life size!

Today at Trout Lake Community Center Miga, Quatchi and Sumi, the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games Mascots, were there to meet and greet people from the community. The event was called Pulse to the Podium: Celebrating Vancouver’s Countdown to the 2010 Winter Games

The event took over the gymnasium and the soccer field of the community center.
Just to name a few of the activities, here are some highlights:

• Outdoor rock climbing wall
• John Hendry Park Scavenger Hunt
• Wii Sport and Winter Games
• Skate board bob sled race
• Face painting
• Bouncy Castle
• Trivia Games
• Various relay games
• Craft tables
• Best part: Meeting the Mascots

Personally, I thought this was an event for all ages. I might of had a little too much fun running around with the little kids, trying to get a photo with the life-size mascots. What can I say, I’m a big kid at heart.