Agent Will

One of the real pleasures about living in Greater Vancouver is how quick and easy it is to get out to nature. Yesterday was a perfect day. Blue Skies. Sunny and Warm. A great day to go for a drive with the family.

Now, leaving Vancouver there are only really three directions you can go in, and only two won’t take you across a border. Taking the 99 up to Whistler is always a great drive on a sunny day. If you’re feeling like a long and spectacular mini-vacation keep going up past Pemberton, down to Cache Creek and back to Hwy 5 - Hwy 1. It’s about eight hours with six of them being spectacular. That said, it is not the best drive to do in winter and the hwy between around hope has had quite a few problems this year with avalanches. Oh yeah, there was also a pretty terrible crash that shut down the Sea to Sky (Hwy 99) just past Squamish on Friday night so you may want to plan well ahead before heading out. The other direction that can be a pretty serious drive with a lot of on the fly options is to head East. My preferred drive is to take Lougheed to Dewdney Trunk. You can go all the way out to Harrison Hot Springs or detour into quite a few parks and lakes. In fact, you don’t even have to go past Port Coquitlam to find spectacular drives, walks, and views but those will be shared in another post.

This post is about our drive on Sunday. We had been out for a couple of hours and had turned back but instead of just heading back directly we decided to get a bit creative. Basically, any road that looked like it might go somewhere North (we don’t have GPS in the car and if we did it likely would have ruined any surprises) we would take. Just as we were getting past Pitt Meadows I decided to go North and go beyond where the Corn Maze gets set up every autumn. We also had a sudden urge to buy some free range direct from the farmer eggs. As we did our drive we passed Hopcott Premium Meats (recognize the name from an ad seen in the Tri-cities newspaper). Mental note made to check out on way back we continued on up to the Alouette River. Time was running short and we’ll head back that way again but I’ll leve you with a serious recommendation to take this drive. It’s breathtakingly gorgeous with snow capped mountains in the distance of perfectly flat farmland (mostly blueberries, I think).

Heading back we popped into Hopcott Meats. They sell only locally sourced seasonal produce and a lot of meat. Not just meat but “Specialty Beef that a no time may be implanted with growth additives, hormones, or steroids,” and “are fed a specially formulated vegetarian diet of the cleanest and highest quality grown grain and a mixture of their own hay and corn silage.” The animals and feed are also thoroughly and at additional unannounced random times tested by independent licensed vets to assure this promise.

Walking in there was a sample of Kelowna produced corn chips and salsa. Take a test… sold!

Start looking at meat. First thought is that this is far better than what I’ve seen at some local (to me) butchers and I don’t even want to think about what I’ve seen at a major grocer. Let’s just say that the family and I have been on a reduced meat diet this year and much of that decision was my initiative influenced by being underwhelmed by taste and shocked by the book Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal - recommended. The staff were super courteous and friendly (must come with teh satisfaction of knowing you are selling the best). Next thing we notice at the checkout is a flyer for a new steakhouse (as of January 2008) named Lava. The brochure is filled with pride and we’ve decided that this going to be a place we have to check out (Haven’t had a fantastic steak in Vancouver, yet, and wish there was a Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse somewhere near here). Decide to pick up a few things and head on back home.

So it’s a sunny day, around 5pm and almost all the snow is melted (I live on a higher elevation) and it’s the middle of February. That can only mean one thing. BBQ!

Yes, the season (fingers crossed) has begun. First to hit the grill are hamburgers. I only use lump charcoal and have a Webber so you know that I’m pretty serious about my Que (this is not grilling, this is real BBQ, even if only burgers). I won’t bore you with the rest of the details but instead fast forward to the first bite. Dang! This is the bes meat to ever come of that grill. Bar none. It’s sweet (hamburger is sweet?) and juicy. Very tender. unbelievable. I’m raving about my burger for the first time in a long time. The wife thinks I’m doing it a bit much but then she tries a bite and quickly joins in. She comments that even in the prepping of the patties there was a different (read that as more pleasant) texture and smell to the meat.

Can you believe I just spent a whole post on a meat shop? There was the drive portion but the meat was what inspired me. This is what it means when the blog title is Life and Real Estate.

Oh yeah, and those chips and salsa. Love them. We will be regulars at Hopcott, no doubt about it.

If you have any recommendations for restaurants, shops, supplies, please share them with me.

Hopcott Meats can be found at 18385 Dewdney Trunk Road, Pitt Meadows. You can check out their website at www.Hopcottmeats.ca