Richmond Night Market

Richmond, British Columbia, Canada plays host to an Asian night market on summer weekend evenings. Music, kareoke, great deals on clothes, electronics, luggage and more, plus a fantastic array of foods from Asian nations including China, Japan, Korea, and Thailand. Some of the offerings are recognizable from any neighborhood ethnic Asian restaurant, but many others are more exotic and hard to find. Pronouncing the names of the foods is beyond me, but we ate dishes with octopus and squid, pork, beef, chicken and then there were the dishes featuring fruits. We tried a UFO, a dessert made of shave ice piled high and sprinkled with fresh stawberries, mangos and the fresh juices from those fruits. Delicious and refreshing!

All of this fun opens at 7 pm and continues until midnight Friday, Saturday and Sunday throughout the summer. It comes to an end all too soon in early October.

Everything is done with cash. With the exchange rate almost even at this writing, they even take American dollars, though you'll receive Canadian money in return.

Most food items are $2 to $3, however there are some items which are pricier and

you can opt for combination plates that will give you a variety of tastings and include a beverage.

Check out this fun video clip of aguy selling a knife ala Ron Popeil in Chinese! People watching is definately great at the Market. So many people representing so many cultures.

Everyone was having fun and I felt absolutely safe despite the fact that there were so many people.

Rule #1

Salmon needs very little to make it awesome. I have seen people smoother it in sauces of all sorts, with fruit, veggies, seen it baked, fried, roasted, BBQed, seared, sashimied, you name it. I recently saw a recipe that called for the salmon to be smothered in mayonaise. Please people, keep it simple!

Salmon is at its best when it is lightly salted and peppered, a pat of butter placed in the middle and baked in a 375 degree oven until done. How long is that? Depends on the salmon, and the size and thickness of the filet or steak. It takes some experience doing it before you get the hang of it. Generally, a filet or steak will take between 20-30 minutes. Check to see if the salmon flakes easily and is a pale pink color in the middle. All you really need to worry about is that it is not overcooked. When salmon is perfect it is moist almost to the point of underdone.

Keep the fish and the plate simple and elegant. Serve the salmon with a mild vegetable such as broccoli or haricot verts, and with a light starch such as a long-grain rice. Salmon can stand on its own but it can be overpowered by what you serve it with. Honor it with simplicity!

Here is my salmon recipe of the day:

1--3-4 ounce piece of salmon filet per person with skin on.

Lightly oil with Olive Oil

Sprinkle with Kosher Salt and fresh ground pepper

One pat of fresh creamery butter in the middle of each piece of fish.

Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees.

Place in a baking dish skin side down. Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes.

Remove from oven. Let rest 5 minutes before plating.

What To Do With All This Fish?

While attending my institution of higher learning way back in the 70's, I found myself in need of a means of supporting myself. Little money came my way from my family and after my dad passed away things got really tight. So I went to the school food service office and snagged a job as a dishwasher in the dorm cafeteria. Pots and pans, dinner plates, cups, glasses and flatware. Tons of it! All passing through a small window by hands sans face. This photo isn't of me but it gives you a feel for the situation I was working in. Imagine dishes times ten and the temperature a cool 100 degrees with humidity though. I worked hard, was never AWOL and eventually earned a rep as being very dependable, an important characteristic in the food service industry.

My boss walked in one day and asked if I'd be interested in being the weekend breakfast cook. Wow, out of the dishroom and into the kitchen? Yeah, I think I'd like that. I wasn't out of the dishroom at all. I just worked the breakfast on weekends and did the dinner dishes during the week. No problem. I worked 7 days a week and continued to be dependable, on-time and I turned out to be a pretty good breakfast cook. Eggs over easy, poached, sunny-side up, bacon, sausage, pancakes, you name it and I did it.

My boss walks in one and asked if I'd be interested in working in the main cafeteria. Out of the dishroom and into the main kitchen? I'd like that. Once again, I was in the dishroom. This time at the central cafeteria's main kitchen, a much bigger faciity and much busier place. I was still the breakfast cook on weekends at the dorm. Oh, well. I was always on time and dependable.

My boss walks in one day and asked if I'd be interested in working on evening catering events. "Would I be out of the dishroom?", I asked hopefully? "Oh, yeah", was his response.

Within the year that I'd been hired as a dishwasher at the dorm, I was the Student Manager and Catering Chef for all evening events at the school. During the next 2 years I attended every training session held by the corporate chefs that stopped by from time to time. Often I was the only employee that paid any attention to what the chef had to say. I listened and learned and I learned a lot. I prepared dinner for George Bush the first (I wouldn't boil water for George Bush the second.) He was only the CIA director at the time, but you'd have thought the president was eating with us what with all the security surrounding the event. Later in my career I cooked for the San Francisco 49ers camp, and many other well known dignitaries. I even cooked for the Gallo family of the Ernest and Julio Gallo clan. Today I cook mostly for special events around our church, community charitable organizations and the occasional catered event of one sort or another. Professional cooking is a young man's game and takes a horrific toll on you physically even when you are in good shape--and few cooks are in top shape. So doing it professionally on a day to day basis for me anymore is just not in the cards. Besides I have a full time job already as a teacher I love. So, nowdays it is just for the love of it and the fun of cooking for friends and family.

All of this was to give some background on my life and knowledge of the culinary arts as I prepare to launch into a series of blogs on the subject of cooking. First stop. . .what to do with all that fish I caught this summer. I am going to do a series on preparing salmon and halibut your friends will love. So stay tuned!

Final Tally

Our trip ended with our having caught our limits of King, Coho and Halibut. The fish on the right in this photo are the Kings which averaged a little over 20 pounds with the largest coming in at 26 pounds and my biggest fish about 23 pounds. Our catch of halibut averaged about 20 pounds and the Coho were about 12 to 14 pounds. The Coho catch are in the photo on the left. We also caught a couple of Redsnapper (below right) and a Ling Cod which met keeper status.

Besides the fun of catching my first ever salmon and catching my limit, there was the sheer beauty of the place. Being 22 miles off-shore, in a rolling sea with little possibility of being saved should anything go wrong was exhililarating. Surrounded by wild sealife, whales breaching, porpoise swimming in groups chasing bait fish and jumping out of the water the way you only see them do when at Sea World. Seeing eagles, sea lions, and critters of all sorts in their natural habitats was just amazing.

The natural beauty of the land was also awe inspiring. Hearing the bells of the off-shore bouys clanging mysteriously in the distance through the fog and the foghorn and light beaming from the lighthouse in predictable cycles were reassuring as we approached the coastline and got our first glimpse of land after a rainy, windy day at sea.

All in all, it was an adventure I hope to repeat again next year. Not just because I will have the chance to refill my freezer with fish I caught myself, feeling the wildness of the fish as it fights at the other end of the line, but because of the comraderie with friends and the opportunity to be in nature, surrounded by it, a part of it, feeling it with all 5 senses, not as we usually are, casual observers looking at it in captivity or through the windshield of our automobile. See you next year!

Fishin"--Day 4

Today we ventured out to the outer banks, 20 plus miles off shore. The weather was finally cooperating and we couldn't wait to get out to where the fish were really bitin'. It took nearly an hour to cruise out to the South Bank. These banks are areas of fairly shallow water (still 200-300 feet) where in this case the fishing is great. Here Coho nearly jump into your boat. We would have Coho on our lines before we could get the line down to the depth we wanted. Then we would have to reel them in and determine whether they were keepers. The rule in the area was that if the Coho had no adipose fin, it meant the fish was "marked" and threfore could be kept. The adipose fin is located between the caudal (tail) and dorsal (the one on top) fins. It is sort of like the appendix in a human. It has no purpose but it is still there. The adipose is removed at the fish hatchery before the fish is released into the wild. The adipose fin can be seen on the fish at the right just in front of the tail on the top of the fish.

The water was flat calm all day and the temperature in the 70's. Perfect day for fishing and boy were the fish eager to please. Here we were in a 21 foot boat sitting on top of 250 feet of Pacific Ocean, 22 miles from the nearest land. Extraordinary! The Coho and Kings were all biting today. We wound up with nearly our limit of fish. In the afternoon we jigged for halibut (photo at right), a technique in which you place a lure on your line and send it to the bottom. Then you jerk or jig your line off the bottom every few seconds and allow it to drop back to the bottom. The halibut sees the lure rising and falling, rises from its resting place on the bottom and eats the lure. Now the steady and tedious reeling begins to get the halibut the 200 plus feet to the surface. It wears you out getting the fish up but then you have to get the fish in the boat and the fish doesn't like that idea. Rick uses a gaff, a stick with a sharp metal hook on the end to stick into the fish as soon as he can reach it. Then he pulls it up over the rail and into the boat. Whew! I could not get the idea apparently as I never did actually catch and reel one in on my own. Rick caught them all. On one he knew what he had and then handed me the rod. I reeled it in and landed my first halibut--a fish about 15-20 pounds.

We headed in after an incredible day of catching, keeping, and releasing Coho, King and halibut. The long cruise back to port was uneventful and pleasant due to the warm weather and calm seas, a day that would not be repeated the last day of fishing.

Fishin' Trip--Day 3

So just where in heck is this place I can barely pronouce--Ucluelet? Well, it is pronounced You-Clue-Let. Now run it together and you've got it. Where is it? A map of western Canada will show you a large island--Vancouver Island. No, Vancouver, British Columbia is not on Vancouver Island. Victoria is the provincial capital of British Columbia and the largest city on the island. A vast majority of the island is nearly inaccessible except by logging roads, boat or seaplane. It is mainly forest, lakes, rivers and stunning beauty.

The map at right shows Vancouver Island and about a quarter of the way up the west side (the left side) of the island you will find Ucluelet right below the Pacific Rim National Park.

Today was a stormy day and we headed towards Barkley Sound which is that area of water just between Ucluelet and Bamfield. You can't see them on this map but Barkley sound is covered with islands called the Broken Group (aeriel photo on left) and it was on the leeward side of those islands that we went fishing. Had a bit of luck here mostly with Kings and a Coho or two. On the leeward side of an island there is less wind. It is stronger on the opposite side or windward side of the island because the windward side faces towards the open sea. Fishing on the leeward side was easier and much more pleasant.

By the end of the day we had had another great day of fishing, nature watching and adventure. Only a couple of fish but they were great Kings. Dinner tonight was an encore at Roman's Italian restaurant. This time I had a huge Mediterranean Salad with kalamata olives, cherry tomatoes, red and green peppers, feta cheese and romaine. With it I ordered a bowl of the seafood chowder which was full of crab, shrimp, salmon, potatoes, and carrots in a thick creamy white broth. Another delicious dinner and only feet front our front door. To top off the night, Rick pulled out a tin of cookies his mother had sent along with a half gallon of milk. So dessert couldn't have been better--chocolate chip, walnut cookies dipped in ice cold milk. Then, off to bed before another early rise for more great fishing adventure.

My Fishin' Trip--Day 2

Got up early (6:00 am) this morning. Pulled on my waterproof boots, rain gear, wool hat and trudged out the door to the truck. A short drive over to the marina and we hauled out the ice chest with our lunch fixin's and walked down the gangway to the docks and out to the boat. As Rick readied the boat for a big day of fishing, I stowed away the ice chest and helped where I could to set up the gear. Mostly Rick wanted to do it himself so I watched, learning as much as possible. He attached the down rigger equipment on either side of the boat, pulled the rods and reels out of the cabin below deck and got the fresh bait ready in the bait locker. In the photo at right you can see the down rigger (the black device with the silver rod coming out of it and a red knob). Its job is to lower the lure to the desired depth. To do this a metal cable with a heavy lead ball attached, called the cannonball, is attached to the fishing line and then lowered to the desired depth. When a fish bites the cable attached to the fishing line, the cable automatically detaches from the line allowing the fisherman to begin reeling in the fish.

Today we fished along the stunning shoreline only yards from the rocks at times. We trolled along with the use of a secondary engine, much smaller than the main engine, and called a pusher. The main engine on our boat is a 150 horsepower Evinrude while the pusher was a 15 horsepower Yamaha. The pusher engine is designed to let you move along at slower speeds while consuming far less gas than the main engine. The photo at left shows the two engines on our boat.

The scenery was stunning and difficult to take your eyes off of. We had to really multi-task to keep safe and to land the fish that were biting our lures. But with Rick in charge and taking care to keep our little boat off the rocks and away from other boats in the area, I had much more time to watch the wildlife and take some photos. We saw schools of dolphins, whales breaching, eagles soaring, river otters, deer, and on and on.

We caught lots of small coho salmon, a couple of kings and with the exception of the 2 kings, everything was thrown back in. Too small!

Still, it was a beautiful day, a little rainy and windy causing the waves to keep me off balance much of the time. I need to get some sea legs!

Back at shore we off loaded our catch, cleaned up the boat and headed for dinner. This time we tried Roman's Italian, a pizzeria that also offered pasta and . . .ah, fresh halibut and chips! I ordered it and was not disappointed. We each enjoyed dinner and then walked back to the room for a well deserved good night's sleep.