Using the format of my last post, I'll describe what we did. First and foremost, Victoria is a place where food and drink are a part of its culture and we are happy to indulge.
Eating: Our first meal is always at Christie's Pub and those who read this blog, know this. The menu has changed over the years but we can usually find something we like and we always have a jug (or two) of Killer Bee Dark Honey Ale made by a small brewery called Tin Whistle Brewing. I don't think I've seen this beer anywhere else in Victoria.Before I got involved with Christmas baking, I wanted to have dim sum at Don Mee's. Our table soon becomes laden with goodies and we end up filling boxes to take home. This means I don't have to cook supper and there's nothing wrong with that. We used to walk to this Chinatown restaurant but Glen's bad hip means we now take the bus.
Not only do we enjoy restaurant dining, we also frequent our local fish monger, Finest at Sea. We made several visits and enjoyed rockfish, sablefish, dungeness crabs, oysters, and mussels. Beside the haggis (see last post), we also bought a lamb and a goose at our local butcher, Slaters Meats. The goose became a wonderful Christmas dinner.
New Year's breakfast we do at Shine Café. They open 9:00 on New Year's day so you can stay up to midnight and still make the first sitting. The place is small so getting there close to opening time is advised. I usually get the Nemo eggs Benedict but we had had so much smoked salmon over the holidays, I decided to go all veggie and ordered the Provençe. It was all I could ever have asked for in deliciousness so has become my new favourite. Glen always orders the classic benny. He did so again when we went to celebrate his birthday. It is a short walk from our place to the Oak Bay location which was their first restaurant. I had always thought the downtown version was the original.
It has become a tradition to go to Marina restaurant in Oak Bay for our birthdays. They were closed for renovations on mine so we waited a couple of days and celebrated my 65th birthday then. The server, Holly, recognized us from the summer and even remembered which beer we drank. Impressive! I told Glen he must have tipped well.
Our final island meal is at the White Spot at the airport. Glen swears they make the very best burgers. I had their noodle bowl which was delicious. I travel with chopsticks as it seems wrong to eat Asian food with a fork but the server gladly provided me with them. This meal is always bittersweet as we hate leaving the island but still enjoy our prairie home, too.
Golfing: Winter golf is not usually pleasant if one plays some of the courses in Victoria but the Ridge, a nine hole, par 3 is on a hill and well drained. With the snow and frost causing course closures, we only golfed four times. Glen had a great round on his birthday with four pars. I got par on the most difficult hole which pleased me. We use our old clubs in Victoria and I really can feel the difference although my no-name driver can still hit it out there. Glen does have issues walking the course but his golf cart acts as a 'walker' in disguise.
Crabbing: We've visited the Sidney Fishing Pier on numerous occasions and watched people fish for crabs. Glen wanted to do this so, for Christmas, I gave him a small crab trap. After opening it, he immediately perused the regulations and bought himself a crabbing license. We bought a float and rope, a measuring device since you can't take small crabs or females, and a can of cat food as Geoff said it was good bait for crawfish.
We lowered the trap (see photo) off the side of the pier and then headed to the Rumrunner for lunch. We had our favourite Dead Frog Ale and shrimp and crab croissants then Glen had a nap in the van while I read. We were very disappointed when the trap came up empty but realized the cat food can had tipped over so its 'smell' had not attracted anything.
Undeterred, we made plans to use raw chicken (another favourite bait). I butterflied a chicken for a great lemon chicken recipe and we used the discarded backbone. This time we got to the pier early and had coffee at the local Oasis coffee shop in the Pier One Hotel. We weren't the only crabbers waiting it out there.
This time when Glen pulled up the trap, there was a huge dungeness crab clinging to the outside. It had pulled the bait bag through the trap's webbing and was dining in style. We held our breath as the trap broke the surface and Glen gently pulled it in. The crab let go, taking the bait with it. As it floated to the bottom, upside down, I was pretty sure it was a female. This tale is now known as "Moby Crab".
Beaches: Unfortunately, Glen can no longer walk to the beach. He does ride his bike to Willows but we are seldom there together. I walked there on my birthday and a week later, I met Glen there. Bonus was I didn't have to walk home as he had driven the van. One thing we discovered while walking along Cadboro Bay beach, was that Glen needs a basket on his cane so it doesn't sink into the soft sand. Who knew this could be a problem? I suggested using his old ski pole and he might do that.
Dogs are permitted on beaches in the winter so become part of the wild life. We also saw herons, mergansers, ravens, goldeneyes, and cormorants. Closer to home, we hung up our hummingbird feeder and five minutes later had the first of many hummingbird visits. The cold temperatures kept them coming back for more. Even the bush tits stopped by to have a sugary treat.
Salt Spring Island (SSI): To say you're off to SSI for lunch with friends seems odd to us but those in Victoria shrug it off as normal. We took the 9:00 ferry and did as locals do -- stayed in our van and read during the crossing. It was a cold day so no one was up on deck. We've never been on the big SSI ferry so that made the trip different. We disembarked and headed straight to the SSI cheese factory. After checking out the goats, we went to buy our usual cheeses. Horror of horrors, there was no Montaña! Turns out the person who provided the sheep's milk had retired and no one else on the island could provide the amount needed to make Montaña. So we settled for a chili-flavoured feta that was amazing on pizza, Sicilian olives and my favourite, Raspberry and Habanero jam (pairs well with soft goat cheese).
Our next stop was a sheep farm where I must resist buying wool for spinning (I am almost finished spinning the last bag of Alberta wool I bought back in 1982) but can buy as many lamb sausages as I want. The miniature horses always come to say hello and the sheep welcome us with deep baas. The owner's little dog tries to hog our attention before the bigger ones realize guests have arrived. As the owner stuffed her stove with fragrant wood, she told us the animals were expecting breakfast. The horses get fed last as they don't work for a living. I remembered what my friend Cathy used to call her horses, living lawn ornaments and I guess these two served much the same purpose. As we left, one of the black lambs, born the previous day, came dancing across the field to watch us drive away. It was snowing but that didn't dampen its good-to-be-alive spirit.
We took a quick cold walk along the Ganges Harbourfront before going to Moby's (see last post). I had to photograph the famous tug that sits in the harbour and got a couple of decent shots of a goldeneye plying the waters close to the pier. What used to be our favourite pizza place is now a burger joint (again). It seems every two years, it changes hands and food styles. There are rumours another eatery we liked, the Harbour House restaurant, had closed its doors but their website seems to indicate they're still open.
We tried to catch the 2:00 ferry, a new time slot on the schedule, but so did everyone else. We missed boarding by one car so were first in line for the next crossing. We had a wonderful view of the sunset then took a detour because the day before both my sister, Lynda and my best friend, Wendy sent me flowers for my birthday.
Glen had to work on my birthday so I had walked down to Willow's Beach. There I received a call from the florist saying no one was home. Turns out our entry buzzer wasn't working. I called Glen but he was doing a radio interview. After several attempts at a solution, the flowers were delivered. Lynda's bouquet also had delivery problems and we ended up picking them up at the FedEx centre near the Butchart Gardens on the way back from SSI.
Walks: Other than beach walks and ones to the coffee shop/barber, Glen did his usual holly hunt to Stadacona Park so we had live holly for Christmas and one day I walked to Government House gardens. It was a cold day in the gardens so I only saw two others walking. The duck pond was frozen and the Christmas roses shivered in their beds. I did see blooming snowdrops and daffodil shoots poking through the leaf litter but most plants were dormant. The sage in the herb garden was silvered with frost. I love the gardens in the winter as they alway remind me of the book, "The Secret Garden" by F. H. Burnett which was one of the first 'British aristocracy' books I read (it was set in Yorkshire). The view from behind Government House (which was under renovations and where Prince George and Princess Charlotte stayed) is spectacular in the winter when the trees are bare and you can see across to the snow covered Olympic Mountains.
That seems to be it as far as what we did and when we did it.
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