1) now that’s how to throw a rooftop party in Vancouver! … the long shot

5) the party … a little closer in

There is a rather notorious condo that sits directly on Water Street. A condo we gaze down upon from our perch up here in the sky. That condo regularly hosts loud, raucous parties on its rooftop patio.  So far this summer we’ve seen fireworks lit (presumably illegally) from the patio and for much of July they set-up a regular backyard swimming pool on the patio where the owners/renters/guests launched themselves from the roof of the staircase that leads to the patio. Last night, the jolly bunch turned the patio into a massive bubble bath.  Rimbaud once famously said, ‘la seule chose incroyable est que rien n’est incroyable’ (from my poor French into a poorer English translation, roughly, ‘the only unbelievable thing is that nothing is unbelievable’ and this latest stunt proves him right in spades. I cannot imagine owning a unit beside these folks and I suspect they are the wild young thangs of the building’s owner.

Meanwhile on the food front, we recently prepared THE BEST FRIED Chicken ever. Sure, the Colonel may have 8 or 10 or whatever it is secret spices, but our version has 22 (yes twenty-two). We prepare a buttermilk coating first and then sous vide the chicken before applying the secret spices and – of course – deep frying them. Freaking awesome I’m telling you!

3) we deep fry herbs in the oil before putting the chicken in

4) here’s the chicken double dipped and ready to get dropped
5) mmmmmm!

6) here’s the final product

7) so freaking moist inside and omg that crust!

We also have been enjoying British Columbia cherry season and made a couple mini-cherry pies. We are big fans of Alton Brown’s super crust recipe and highly recommend using this suggestion of always replacing the water in your pastry dough with alcohol – in this case, I added cherry-favoured palinka I brought back with me from Budapest. I was drinking the beer, which, I have to admit, was just dreadful and will never grace our bar fridge again.

8) here we make the cherry pie filling

9) it’s all set to go

10) the finished pie

On Saturday we had WestJet Sue and Kevin over for dinner and made this outstanding ‘Cambodian’ gazpacho. I remain a little confused as to why it got itself a Cambodian title, but I suspect it is the result of the addition of rice wine vinegar, pickled carrots; deep-fried shallots and one boat load of chillies. G even made tomato foam to finish it with. Highly, highly recommended.

11)  Cambodian gazpacho