Picnic season is here! Whether you’re walking, cycling, or driving, you need a good plan of attack to make your picnic run deliciously smooth.

The Gear

A classic wicker hamper (basket) to hold everything is a fun thing to have, but you can use anything to transport your goods. A cooler with wheels works great, but if you have kids and a ton of stuff, a large folding wagon is your best bet. Load up with cooler, a blanket, and all the food, and plop baby (human and/or fur-baby) down in the back. 

Food storage is crucial, and you need to keep your food at 4 degrees C or below for food safety. Reusable ice packs in a variety of sizes help you customize cooling to your payload. Place these at the bottom of your cooler. We use glass when we can (mason jars or saved containers from grocery items) and spill-proof Glad-type containers when needed. 

Pro-Tip: refreeze and reuse those gel-filled ice packs from food delivery services.

We also grab some utensils from home; tongs, spoons for serving, a cutting board, and cloth napkins for each person. If we can bear the weight, we take small serving plates from home, but if not, compostable paper plates are light and convenient.

A large blanket or a lightweight tarp is great for carving out space on the beach or in the park.

The Food

If your style is to simply arrive, plop your basket down, and crack a cold one, we suggest making ahead of time: a frittata (made with any of our cheeses), roasted chicken drumsticks, or a pressed sandwich (see recipe below!). These items are finger friendly, less mess, and easy to deal with. Supplement with a chopped salad, a potato salad, or a pasta salad and you’re done.

If you like to settle in and do some assembly on-site, we always love a classic French baguette with a wheel of Buffalo Brie or Comox Camembert – or a good cheese board filled with a mix of cheeses, like Aged Farmhouse, Smoked Boerenkaas, Mozzarella di Bufala, and Pacific Wildfire Verdelait

For the true Picnic Pro: bring a portable grill. The sky’s the limit: grilled marinated kebabs are fantastic (try with cubes of Buffalo Paneer!), as are fresh-made sausages from your local butcher, little steak fillets, and you can also grill our Buffalo Paneer in the style of Halloumi.

Some other easy to-bring items: Caprese skewers, homemade soup, empanadas, quiches, and savoury tarts.

Here’s a very nice pressed sandwich that you can make and refrigerate the night before:

The Drinks

If you’re in North Vancouver this summer you can pack your craft brew growler to be openly consumed at a variety of public parks LIST HERE.

For virgin drinks, we love making a homemade iced tea, lemonade, or iced coffee. Flavoured soda water is nice, especially with a squeeze of fresh lemon or lime. 

Think Local

Don’t forget your local small businesses serving up picnic baskets, take away food, and food truck vendors. It saves a lot of prep to pick something up along the stroll to the park or beach.

Get out there! Practice social distancing but enjoy being out in nature on your luncheon in the sunlight.

Now for Something a Little Different 

You’ve tried our Comox Brie on your cheese board, and baked a few in the oven topped with dried fruit, honey, and nuts. Awesome! You are a cheese fan!

But how about something a little more adventurous?

Buffalo Paneer

Never cooked with a Paneer cheese before? No worries, it’s easy and delicious! A protein-rich staple in South East Asia, and with good reason. Paneer is a firmer cheese that holds up well to grilling and pan-frying. If you’ve ever had haloumi in the greek dish saganaki, paneer has a similar hearty quality. With grill season well on its way, it’s a great time to try this out. You are actually looking for grill marks on this cheese. It won’t melt into your grill!

Marinated Bocconcini

Have you avoided Bocconcini because of the too-mild flavour? Amp up the texture and flavour by breading and frying: you’ll get a crunchy, savoury exterior and a smooth, delicious centre. We love treating our bocconcini the traditional Italian way, by marinating with herbs and olive oil. You’ll find this dish all over Italy with good reason, it brings out the flavour in the mild cheese and serves as a great accompanyment to summery BBQ’s and picnic meals on the patio.   

Pacific Wildfire 

How about turning up the heat? But how spicy is spicy? Don’t fear, our Pacific Wildfire cheese won’t melt your face off – but it will melt perfectly into egg dishes, nachos, or your BBQ’d pizza. We’re talking about a perfectly balanced warm hum blended with a smokiness that mellows your soul. All the more excuse to pair with beer or a nice chilled white! 

Try this nice beer dip using our smoky favourite, Pacific Wildfire.

Stay tuned for more recipes and pairings as the sunny season gets underway. And stay safe out there everybody.

Show your sweetheart just how much you care through thoughtfully selected and lovingly prepared cheese dishes, of course! 

These dishes require some prep, some technique, and a huge amount of love. Be sure you have the time to fully indulge your loved one, all day long. 

Start Valentine’s day off right with an elegant and classic breakfast.

Call us cheesy, but we like to start the day with a flute of our favourite “breakfast juice” – a classic mimosa! Refreshing, bubbly, and a little bit naughty. It’s a great way to perk up the senses. If you’re feeling more ambitious, try a delightful Bellini. Of course, it’s best you have nothing pressing to do afterward.

Follow your “breakfast juice” with a classic french omelette, stuffed with savoury Boerenkaas. This is a thing of beauty. Brush up your omelette skills with Jacques Pepin. 

This omelette is delicious on its own, but some lovely thin-sliced gala apple with toasted squares of buttered bread are always welcome players in your V-Day game.

On to lunch! A smorgasbord for the senses.

And finally, dinner: Cacio e Pepe

This elegantly simple pasta dish gets right to the point – fresh pasta, grated Aged Farmhouse and Parmadammer cheese, black pepper, and plenty of it. This dish is easy to prepare after a long day of wooing your loved one. A simple dish to warm anyone’s soul. Pair with your favourite BC produced Chianti, Pinot Grigio, or Riesling.

There you have it – this day of worshipping cheese (and your loved one) is complete! Until you want to do it again, that is.

There’s nothing more delicious than showing your love through food, and cheese is the best kind. Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Do you pronounce Canada’s favourite dish “pou-tin” or “poo-teen”? Well, that depends on where you are and who you are talking to.

In the heart of poutine country in Quebec and New Brunswick, francophones vote “pou-tin” all the way. Outside of those provinces, it’s straight anglo with “pou-tine”.

Either way you slice it, poutine is the best thing to happen to potatoes since, well, cheese curds and gravy! And with National Poutine Day coming up on April 11, we ask you: 

Eat in? Or take out?

Origin

Coming out of mid-century Quebec, poutine’s true origin is not confirmed. One story from 1950’s Warwick, Quebec has a restaurant customer ask for fries, cheese, and gravy. To which the owner proclaimed, “Ça va faire une maudite poutine,” or, “That’s going to make a dreadful mess.”

Indeed. Poutine is a hot mess of the very best kind. What makes it so good?  

The Curds

Squeaky cheese curds are the benchmark for the very best traditional poutine.  You’ll only hear the squeak when the curds are very fresh, and some curd-experts insist that a curd must be eaten before it spends even one night in a fridge. However, although not as noticeable after refrigeration, the squeak will usually last a day or two before it finally dissipates. If you want the squeak, your best bet is to stop at our Cheese Shop in Courtenay (635 McPhee) around 1:30 on a Wednesday afternoon and you’ll be able to pick up a bag still warm from the vat. The taste, texture and shape also make it the perfect snacking cheese, as you can eat it straight from the bag like popcorn. We have customers who pick up two bags when they come to the shop on Wednesdays – one for making poutine, and one for the drive home.

The Gravy

Some gravies are lighter and chicken stock based, while others are dark and beefy. We prefer our gravy somewhere in the middle. For that, we look to French-Canadian and tv host, Ricardo. His recipe uses a 2/3 blend of both chicken and beef, which we think is the perfect balance. 

The Fries

We like our fries thick, hand-cut, and twice fried. The fries have to be heavily crispy to stand up to hot gravy, and will provide the best textural contrast in a meal with only three star ingredients.

From Vancouver BC, to St. John’s, NL you can find poutine in menus across the nation. When it comes to eat in vs take out, we like mastering the ingredients and preparing the best poutine at home. While there are countless recipes for it’s preparation, we like Ricardo’s recipe for Brown Gravy Sauce for Poutine.