Very Vegan

I have been told that the number one thing that drives vegetarians back to meat is the smell of bacon cooking.

The first Canadian person I ever met was a hardened vegetarian/recycling nazi who could not understand our British obsession with all things meat ( I mean she was up against hundreds of years of haggis and black pudding consumption). As a result I had this image that Canadians were a tofu-eating, bottle-hoarding, hemp underwear clothed bunch - so totally incomprehensible to my British sensibilities. After 6 months of working in a chalet in France, cooking breakfast for 15-20 hungry British skiers who wouldn't know a refried bean from a tofu dog, my new Canadian friend succumbed to the powers of the bacon.

Of course it also helps that our bacon is highly superior to Canadian bacon. My Irish friend used to take 2 hour round trips to the British butcher in North Van in order to get hold of the "good stuff" when he was living over here. For his birthday his mum airmailed him 5 Ibs of vacuum packed bacon straight from the land of the leprechauns (don't ask me how much it cost her!).

This week we had a family phone up the restaurant and ask if we had any Vegan options, as they were thinking of coming in for a meal. Chef Alex had the great pleasure of coming up with a vegan dish which blew their socks off (pictured). We got to have a taste of the creation and in all honesty it was pretty damn good - and that's a big compliment coming from someone who normally wouldn't go within 20 feet of a black bean. Now, if you added a few bits of chorizo to that........