Shawn Walton

March is such a fantastic time on Salt Spring, daylight becomes noticeably longer, flowers are blooming and frogs are croaking around the lakes, the buzz of spring is in the air! There is a sense of renewed life that is so prevalent at this time of year when our mild winter transitions to spring. The mornings at the café are some of my favorite times there; enjoying the calm before the storm, watching the sun rise over the distant islands and our beautiful harbour and getting ready for another busy day. For the better part of the last decade, my work day has begun with baking scones. When Lis and I opened Auntie Pesto’s Café in 2004 the competition for morning trade was fierce! Well established locations had the lock down on the morning muffin and we knew it would be a great challenge to crack that nut. No matter how you pronounce them, our scones have become a morning staple at the café for many of you. With a cup of our exceptional coffee, they may very well be the perfect…

It’s February again, the middle of winter, the time of year we Salt Springers like to boast about our gorgeous weather and how grateful we are to not live anywhere else in Canada. While the rest of Canada deals with snow and sub-zero temperatures, here it feels like Spring is in the air and we know it’s close because the daffodils and tulips are pushing through. One of the many wonderful things about living on the west coast is the abundance of local food available year round, there may not be much in the garden right now, but there are crabs in the ocean, and the chickens are still laying eggs, so why not indulge in a crab cake? My fresh, Dungeness Crab cake recipe is always a hit with both locals and visitors alike. Its versatility lends itself well to a variety of ways to serve up. I like them for Sunday Brunch with a perfectly poached egg on top and a creamy hollandaise from scratch but if the poached eggs and hollandaise create too rich a combination for you to digest, …