Richmond city councillor Ken Johnston admits he is not well enough acquainted with his home kitchen to be able to provide a blow-by-blow re-creation of one of his favourite meals — roast chicken with cranberries, Brussels sprouts, and stuffing. In short, it’s like a turkey dinner, minus the big bird.
The preparation, he said, is best left up to his wife, who makes the entire dish from scratch.
“The stuffing is done by hand, the cranberries come from a Richmond farm, as opposed to canned,” he said. “We freeze a whole batch of local cranberries each year. And the sprouts are just about my favourite vegetable.”
While in the past few years there have been a plethora of recipes to tart up the venerable sprout and make them more appetizing, Johnston said he prefers them done the old school way — steamed.
“We don’t fry them or put them in bacon grease,” he said. “They are simply steamed lightly.”
When the dinner is done, Johnston said he likes to go traditional for dessert.
“My mother, who was Irish, made a chocolate roll,” Johnston said. “And she’s passed that down to various generations.
“It’s a real winner. It’s got a kind of custard filling, and two kinds of chocolate,” he said. “I don’t make it. I just eat it. And everyone in the family goes crazy for it. It’s pretty traditional in our family.”
Traditional, too, is Johnston’s role in the kitchen, once the dinner and dessert plates are cleared away.
“I’m the clean-up guy,” he said.
