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A restaurant with a unique take on sharing plates
Try their “I Want It All” offering and let them take you down a fun and delicious journey
Jamie Mah
January 26, 2023
Good morning!
The Oscar nominations dropped yesterday and I’m happy to say that I’ve seen only two of the 10 films nominated for Best Picture. For some reason I’m delighted by that figure, even though I’m a big fan of In Bruges and will look to see Banshees of Inisherin here at some point. If there ever was a time of year to buckle up and watch some movies, this is definitely it. A cold snap is on its way and all I can think about is the opening to Groundhog Day.
Today’s newsletter has a brief look at meal prep and home delivery meal kits, our societal addiction to PB&J and a dining guide recommendation for sharing.
Let’s get to it.
— Jamie Mah, Vancity Lookout Eats food editor
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DINING GUIDE
I want it all from The Mackenzie Room
415 Powell St
(604) 253-0705
Open daily from 5:30pm-10pm
What they are: Where rustic meets refined. Inventive concepts with creative names done with a west coast style.
HOME COOKING/INTERVIEW
Meal prep, meal kits and an interview with Shauna Ghislieri
With this newsletter's focus on the comforts of home cooking and those treasured items like PB&J (more on that later), my mind wandered back to the early days of the pandemic, specifically two years ago this month.
For three weeks in January 2021 I was home sick with COVID-19. With no vaccine in sight, I was hit hard with the first strain of the virus. It was during this time where I experimented with home delivery meal kits, specifically Fresh Prep and Hello Fresh.
To say nothing of their quality, which was rather great I might add, I could never fully give myself over to the idea of what they symbolized. It felt like cheating in a way, that I was taking myself further from the essence of being close to the foods I choose to eat.
After a few weeks of meals, I’ve never bothered to use them again. Yet, in spite of my own personal feelings toward their existence, I often see videos of friends prepping their own weekly meals. I also know a lot of people who use both of these meal kit services.
To gather a bit of context for this topic, I reached out to a friend of mine, Shauna Ghislieri, who recently started her own meal prep company Cater to You. In speaking with her last month, she detailed her transition from hospitality and how it’s been a revelation for her overall happiness.
She recounted the amount of success she’s had so far, which for a solo endeavour can often be slow at the beginning. Below are five questions I asked her, to better understand the space of home delivery meal kits.
Read some of the Lookout's other interviews:
FOOD
Can PB be just as good without the J?
Jamie Mah/Vancity Lookout
A few years ago, I came across a column on ESPN talking about how NBA players nowadays have become addicted to having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before and after games. The piece is titled, The NBA’s Secret Addiction, and I strongly urge all of you to read it, if, like me, you are yourself addicted to eating PB&J sandwiches.
It all started back in 2007 when then newly acquired Boston Celtic, Kevin Garnett, partook in the hunger pains of a fellow teammate who requested one of the trainers to provide the two of them PB&J sandwiches before the game. After eating them, Garnett played well. In fact, he played very well. Afterwards, he told the trainer and coaching staff that “we’re going to need PB&J in here every game now."
And with that a new trend quickly emerged. Soon the rest of the team was on board. Then as other teams heard about it, so too did their players want in on the action. As word began to spread, the whole league eventually was in on the PB&J craze.
It’s a weird and silly story that hit home with me, as I too am one of those PB&J fanatics. I love a good PB&J, especially with good soft bread and actual real peanut butter, none of this fake Skippy or Jif sugar stuff. Actual runny, stir the heck out it, real peanut butter is what I like.
Most of us have all grown up with our parents feeding us Wonder Bread PB&J’s for our lunches. To not understand the significance of this staple is to not understand people. Childhood delights are hard to forget. And unless you have a nut allergy, which I’m sorry about if you do, most people enjoy a good PB&J — even into adulthood.
I’ve been eating PB&J toast as my breakfast for probably 20+ years now. Every morning I wake up and pop two pieces in the toaster. Some people can’t live without their coffee machine and a cup of joe in the morning, but for me, it’s my toaster. I NEED my toaster.
But something happened to me a few years back. After a long night of partying, I woke up one morning in a very hungry drunken stupor. With not much in the way of food in my fridge and a throbbing headache gnawing at my every thought, I made myself some toast.
However, on this day I did something different, I made it with only the PB. This was done out of desperation, as I’d run out of J. As I sat there, with dishevelled hair, the TV on in front of me and myself chomping away at these two pieces of toast, something quickly dawned on me.
I really liked what I was eating.
Much more so than ever before. The PB on its own really stood out, and it was fantastic. Now at the time, anything could have stood out. I was hungover and I needed to eat something. Crackers in my state would have tasted delicious. So at the time, I didn’t think much of it.
A few months later, however, I ran into the same predicament — plenty of PB but no J — except, this time I wasn’t hungover. Knowing full well how delicious my previous PB experiment had tasted, I tried it again. And guess what? It tasted delicious. So much so, I made myself another slice.
On the heels of this newfound realization — life without J — I tried my little experiment again the following day. The thought of - maybe it was just so damn good because it was different? - spun around my brain over and over as I was preparing the next day’s two slices. But, just as I’d feared, day two tasted just as freaking good as day one. Well WTF! I exclaimed to myself.
I felt horrible and sad. It was like breaking up a beautiful marriage only to realize that being alone isn’t so bad. Could PB and J exist much in the same way as two divorced parents possibly could? Could happiness be a part of their separate existences?
I never fully got an answer from PB or J on this one, and, well, it’s been awhile now since I’ve made the switch. Every morning since, it’s just been me and PB. Crunchy PB mind you.
I think of J sometimes, especially when I pick up a new jar of PB. I wonder how she’s doing, how she's coping with this reality. I always convince myself that she’s fine, that someone out there is appreciating all the splendor that she once offered to me on the daily. But then I look down in my shopping cart and I see PB staring up at me like a loyal dog, and I smile.
It’s just you and me buddy.
PB & Jamie. And I’m just fine with that.
ARCHIVE
Suyo Modern Peruvian
Website
3475 Main Street
Vancouver BC V5V 3M9
604 322 1588
Tuesday to Saturday 5pm – 930pm
What they are:
Peruvian Cuisine combines the flavors of four continents. Its beginning dates back to the Pre-Inca era with their aji hot peppers, maize and vast variety of potatoes. With the arrival of the conquistadores, the evolution began. Over the next centuries, French, Italian, African, Chinese and Japanese influences helped shape what we know today as comida Peruana.
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