Local sourcing
With good wine you often find excellent food, and that's true in the Okanagan, too.
On a Saturday morning, I browse the local, twice-weekly Kelowna farmer's market, following the crowd from a mall parking lot to its adjacent location. I survey the organic offerings at its 165 stalls -- from apples and peaches to kale and green onion and lettuce -- chatting with some of the sellers about the unique, and usually excellent, growing conditions in this valley. The same sun and soil that produce those grapes, they say, also grow the bounty I see before me.
For a taste of the area's finest flavors, all in one place, I have dinner at Raudz, a Kelowna institution for the past fourteen years. Chef and co-owner Rod Butters made his name in high-end hotel kitchens, including a stint with Four Seasons. His stripped-down space in downtown Kelowna is fastidious about sourcing from the valley.
"We use 100 different small producers," he notes as he swings by my table.
He boasts that 92 percent of all their ingredients and 99 percent of their wines by the glass come from local sources. I dig in, sampling everything from a savory pork cheek confit to a delicate venison carpaccio.
The next day, I make the short trip from my lakeside hotel to tour a number of other spots in the walkable center of the city, all places that use Okanagan ingredients.
At Broken Ladder, I sip cider made with apples from local orchards. At Okanagan Spirits, I down some spruce-infused gin and cherry-infused liqueur, learning how even this distillery follows the seasons in its offerings. And at the Beer Institute, I chat with self-professed beer geeks, sampling their unfiltered, unpasteurized brews, some of which are made with hops they grow themselves, on-site.