Chef Rod Butters of RauDZ Regional Table and micro bar • bites has finally completed a project that had been long on his mind and close to his heart – his first cookbook. Working with publisher Figure 1 in Vancouver, The Okanagan Table: The Art of Everyday Home Cooking hit the bookshelves in summer 2017.
“At its heart, this book is about my passionate relationship to food. I wrote this book, quite simply, for people who love to cook. It’s not intended to blow our minds or turn cooking into a lab experiment. Cooking should be inclusionary, not exclusionary. We gather in the kitchen because it’s comforting, and it harkens back to the happy feelings that a warm, aromatic kitchen instilled in us as kids” explains Butters.
As the name suggests, this cookbook is for the home cook. Butters states “I want you to get this book dirty – dog-ear the pages, write in the margins, stuff your grandmother’s best recipes for Swedish meatballs and zucchini loaf between the pages.”
The Okanagan Table: The Art of Everyday Home Cooking boasts over 270 pages including 80 recipes and more than 120 photos by local photographer, David McIlvride. The recipes include some favourites from Butters including Oat Crusted Arctic Char, a classic on the menu at RauDZ Regional Table, the addictive Spring Pea Soup that celebrates that season in the valley and even a few cocktails to be enjoyed with appetizers and friends. Many of the dishes also have a suggested Okanagan wine, beer or cocktail pairing, selected by Audrey Surrao, a respected wine competition judge and co-owner of RauDZ Regional Table.
Signed copies are available at all of the RauDZ Creative Concepts restaurants as well as online at Chapters Indigo and Amazon.