City Palate May June 2013 by City Palate

T H E

F L AV O U R

O F

C A L G A R Y ’ S

F O O D

S C E N E

city palate C E L E B R AT I N G 2 0 D E L I C I O U S Y E A R S 1 9 9 3 – 2 0 1 3

the wine issue citypalate.ca

MaY JUNE 2013

decisioni, decisioni...

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

So much more than coffee... Sales, Service and Training

Elderflower Bliss 3/4 oz. Monin Elderflower 5 oz. Prosecco 1 oz. Sparkling Q Water Serve in an 8 oz. wine glass

www.cappuccinoking.ca

403.277.5169

www.cappuccinoking.ca

403.277.5169

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

T H E F L AV O U R O F C A L G A RY ' S f o o d S C E N E

city palate 1993 – 2013

C E L E B R A T I N G 2 0 D E L I C I O U S Y E A R S w it h 2 0 D E L I C I O U S events

1 3

City Palate turns 20 years old this year and we want to celebrate Calgary's amazing food culture with the people who support us, read us, and advertise with us. And we want to give back to the community – proceeds from these events will go to Calgary food charities. We hope you join us over the next year to celebrate this delicious milestone...

Date: May 1st - July 31st, 2013

City Palate's 2nd Annual Photo Contest Say cheese! This year, in commemoration of our 20th Anniversary, our photo contest stays local and goes creative! – with bonus points going to the photo containing the oldest copy of City Palate! Location: Submissions via citypalate.ca (See ad page 8)

Date: June 2013

Community Garden Sponsorship City Palate is proud to sponsor a part of the rooftop garden at The Mustard Seed. The garden was first created in the spring of 2011 and provides a peaceful green space for The Mustard Seed guests, as well as tomatoes, strawberries, herbs and greens for the kitchen. Offering support with plants, seeds, equipment and time, this community space will flourish for all to enjoy.

Location: The Mustard Seed

Date: Sunday, June 9th, 2013

The Food in the City Tour A City Palate Urban Tootle with Calgary Food Tours, ending with a fabulous dinner at The Cookbook Co. Cooks. Location: Bus leaves The Cookbook Co. Cooks, 10 am sharp Tickets: $125 pp, through The Cookbook Co. Cooks 722 - 11th Ave. SW, ph 403-265-6066, ext. 1 (See ad page 47)

3rd Annual Pig & Pinot Festival We present 12 chefs with a Berkshire pig from Irvings Farm Fresh and give them free reign to create delicious, unique and original pork creations: Model Milk, Avec Bistro, Alloy, Meez Cuisine, SAIT, Blink, Winebar Kensington, Taste, CIBO & Bonterra, Nicole Gourmet Catering, The Cookbook Co. Cooks, Hotel Arts & Yellow Door Bistro. Seven wine stores will pour hundreds of pinots from around the world: Bin 905, Vine Arts, Wine Ink, Richmond Hill Wines, Kensington Wine Market, Metrovino & J. Webb. And you get to taste it all! Plus – a fabulous silent auction, wine raffle, live music. Proceeds go to Meals on Wheels. Location: Hotel Arts, 119 - 12th Ave. SW

Date: Saturday, July 20th, 2013, noon-3 pm

Tickets: $125 pp, @ pigandpinotcalgary.eventbrite.ca (See ad page 34)

The Food Truck Flock A gathering of Calgary’s food trucks are setting up shop in the parking lot behind Metrovino. Alley Burger, The Steakout truck (brought to you by Holy Grill), Sticky Ricky’s, Cheezy Bizness and Village Ice Cream’s “Creamcycle” are among those who will serve the masses. Hang out for the day and enjoy some great street food – grown-ups can join us in the Beer & Rosé Garden inside at The Cookbook Co. Cooks. Foodies that flock together, rock together. Location: The parking lot behind Metrovino, 722 - 11th Ave. SW

Date: Thursday, June 20th, 2013, 7-10 pm

Tickets: No cover; drink tickets for the Beer & Rosé Garden available on-site, the day of the event

Date: Saturday, August 17th, 2013, 11-2 pm

Kayben Farms Family Brunch After enjoying an exceptional brunch prepared by the talented Nicole Gomes of Nicole Gourmet, take the kids to visit the play park, corn maze or petting zoo – or enjoy a relaxing stroll around the beautiful grounds. Visit the veggie garden or plant nursery, or indulge in harvesting some black currants. Whatever you decide, this charming afternoon is ripe for the picking!

6 8

Date: Saturday, July 27th, 2013

The South by Southwest Tour A City Palate Farm Tootle with Calgary Food Tours, ending with a hearty barbecue feast. Location: Bus leaves The Cookbook Co. Cooks, 10 am sharp Tickets: $125 pp, at The Cookbook Co. Cooks 722 - 11th Ave. SW, ph 403-265-6066, ext. 1 (See ad page 47)

Date: Sunday, August 25th, 2013, noon-2 pm

Calgary Opera – Picnic in the Village Calgary Opera presents Opera in the Village, Canada’s first outdoor summer opera festival. As a part of this inaugural event, City Palate presents Picnic in the Village. Reserve a basket full of goodies created by Sidewalk Citizen Bakery and River Café. Enjoy lunch by the river while listening to roving recitals, then stay on for an enchanting, pirate-themed matinée performance from Calgary Opera.

Location: Kayben Farms, just south of the city

Location: RiverWalk Plaza, East Village

Tickets: $65 pp, children $15 p/kid, @ kaybenfarms.eventbrite.ca

Tickets: $30 per picnic basket, through Calgary Opera Performance tickets sold separately

F o ll o w u s o n F ace b o o k an d c h ec k citypalate . ca

Date: Monday, September 16th, 2013, 5-9 pm

The Really, Really Long Table Dinner 7 restaurants... 5 courses... 240 people... 1 really, really long table. Blink, Catch & The Oyster Bar, Charcut, Divino, Teatro, The Belvedere, The Cellar and Trib Steakhouse will each prepare a course for this dinner that takes place on a stretch of Stephen Avenue one splendid autumn evening. Gather your friends, and make some new ones at this unique event that celebrates the culinary side of Calgary. Location: Stephen Avenue Mall Tickets: $175 pp @ reallylongtabledinner.eventbrite.ca

Date: Saturday, October 5th, 2013

Culinary Treasure Hunt

On your mark… get set… go!" Anneke Scholten and Culinary Calgary present The 2nd Annual Culinary Treasure Hunt. Gather your team and start training now. With at least 45 treasures on the list, you will require endurance, speed and an appetite for adventure. This day of foodie fun wraps up with snacks and drinks, and the crowning of a champion. Sign up now, and may the odds be ever in your flavour!

Thanksgiving Turkey Tootle A City Palate Farm Tootle with Calgary Food Tours, ending with a Thanksgiving Turkey dinner. Location: Bus leaves The Cookbook Co. Cooks, 10 am sharp Tickets: $125 pp, at The Cookbook Co. Cooks 722 - 11th Ave. SW, ph 403-265-6066, ext. 1 (See ad page 47)

Location: Kick-off at Casel Marché, 2505 - 17th Ave. SW, 9:30 am sharp!

Date: Saturday, October 6th, 2013

Tickets: $45 pp @ culinarytreasurehunt.eventbrite.ca

Date: Friday, October 25th, 2013, 6:30-9 pm

Gasthaus on the Glenmore Add a little Oom-Pa-Pa to your October! Alberta’s sausage producers – Old Country Sausage, Valbella Meats, and Olson's High Country Bison – are paired with local craft beer brewers – Village Brewery and Wildrose Brewery – to create the perfect beer and sausage party!

Date: January February 2014

CP Culinary Travel Grant

Sharpen your pencils, pour yourself a glass of something tasty and get comfortable. City Palate presents a superbig, super-fun culinary crossword puzzle. When you finish, send it in for your chance to win a delicious prize.

Open to all “back-of-the-house” restaurant cooks – City Palate can help further your culinary education with a travel grant to learn more about the world’s cultures and food. Details will be published in our January February 2014 issue.

Location: January February 2014 issue of City Palate

Location: Submissions via citypalate.ca

Colossal Culinary Crossword

Date: Saturday, February 8th, 2014

Crowbar 2014

Pop-up party architect Wade Sirois, of Infuse Catering, presents an evening of hand-crafted cocktails and small plates food in a secret location. We could tell you more, but that wouldn’t be much fun, now would it? Location: Secret – announced 48 hours before Tickets : $90 pp, @ eventbrite.ca coming soon

Date: Thursday, May 8th, 2014

Chefly Screen Shots

In the style of Andy Warhol's screen tests, we present a series of short, silent, black and white films with local chefs as its subject. These films will be projected on a large screen while local musicians play live music, composed specifically for these shots. After the screening, the crowd will enjoy appetizers that merrily reference the food prepared in the films. Food. Film. Music. Fun. Location: Festival Hall, 1215 - 10 Ave. SE Tickets: coming soon

Too many cooks? No such thing – especially when the cooks are your favourite Top Chef Canada participants! Join Nicole Gomes, Chris Shaften, Geoff Rogers, Xavier Lacaze, Trevor Bird (from Vancouver), Connie DeSousa & John Jackson, as they each prepare one course for this “Knock Out” charity dinner. This is going to be one delicious evening! Tickets: $150 pp @ topchefdinner.eventbrite.ca or The Cookbook Co. Cooks, 722 - 11th Ave. SW, ph 403-265-6066, ext. 1

Tickets: $75 pp @ gasthausontheglenmore.eventbrite.ca

Date: January February 2014

Top Chef Dinner

Location: The Cookbook Co. Cooks

Location: Glenmore Sailing Club, 8601 - 24th St. SW

an d in 2 0 1 4 . . .

Date: Monday, November 18th, 2013, 6:30-9 pm

Date: Monday, January 27th, 2014

Bill to Tail: A Specialty Dinner Avec Noble Farms

Ever wanted to enjoy eating duck 20 ways with wines to match? Now’s your chance! Darnell Japp, executive chef at Avec Bistro, pays homage to the noble duck and to Noble Duck Farms, by creating a menu of delectable duck dishes paired with a variety of wines from Okanagan Crush Pad. Location: Avec Bistro, #105, 550 - 11th Ave. SW Tickets: $100 pp, @ eventbrite.ca coming soon

Date: March 2014 (TBD)

SAIT Kitchen Party

We will team up with SAIT to create an interactive evening of wine, food and conviviality, tying in with their Culinary Class and Dinner for the Big Taste event in March 2014. Join us for a dinner party where attendees help prepare a 3-course meal, then enjoy it with wines supplied and poured by Township 7 Vineyards & Winery. Location: SAIT Downtown Campus, #226, 230 - 8th Ave. SW Tickets: $150 pp, through SAIT or @ eventbrite.ca coming soon

Date: Monday, June 9th, 2014, 6-10 pm

20 for 20 Wrap-up Party City Palate wraps it all up with a sexy summer soirée. Ox & Angela will be transformed into a grand tapas bar, complete with 4 paella stations and a sherry tasting. This night of divine, Mediterranean revelry is the perfect finish to an exciting year. Location: Ox & Angela, 528 - 17 Ave. SW, Tickets: $75 pp, @ eventbrite.ca coming soon

f o r up d ate s , an d late b r ea k in g culina r y ne w s !

Illustrations by Pierre Lamielle

• • • •

Le Creuset enamelled cast iron cookware 20% off with this ad

No Pesticides No Herbicides Biological Bug Control Hydroponically Grown

CUCUMBERS TOMATOES PEPPERS LETTUCE BEANS

Blu Seafood Check out our great selection of Fresh Fish, Seafood, Crab Cakes, Salmon Burgers and lots more! GOOD THINGS COME OUT OF THE BLU

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

contents City Palate May June 2013

THE MAIN DISH IS PROUD TO SPONSOR: KAILLIE HUMPHRIES - BOBSLED 2010 GOLD MEDALIST & 2013 WORLD CUP CHAMPION

features

30 n The Iron Sommelier

2 Dishes, 3 Sommeliers, 3 Judges, 6 “Wines”

36 n Tuscany on the Bow

This Calgarian not only makes wine, but grows the grapes too! Allan Shewchuk

ENJOY FRESH FOOD FAST.

MAYBE NOT 200 KM/HOUR FAST, BUT FAST.

38 n A Mexican Wine Adventure

Follow the Ruta del Vino for good wine and great new Mexican food. Jennifer Cockrall-King

42 n Dinner Party Disasters

You’ve invited people to dinner and you get over-ambitious... That’s when the trouble starts. Karen Ralph

46 n Eating Chicago

Get your sweet home Chicago with a side of fresh sass. Kate Zimmerman

50 n An Oasis of Wine in the Arizona Desert

Join Kaillie and other famous faces at our 7th annual:

Celebrity Burger Cook-Off

May 25th Noon - 4pm • The Main Dish Bridgeland In support of Ronald McDonald House Southern Alberta

Kevin McLean

World class athletes like Kaillie choose the Main Dish “Healthy Essentials” menu of chef-created meals because they’re fast, healthy and delicious. No matter who you are, or how busy your day, eating like an athlete is always as easy as a trip to the Main Dish.

Cover Design: Eden Thompson is a full time Calgary artist working in mixed media and paper. Incorporating traditional techniques in a contemporary way, his original fine art pieces have appeared on book covers and cards. As part of Sophia Arts, he shows several times a year in Calgary and B.C. nucleus.com/~sophiaarts and etsy.com/shop/jetblackdragonfly.

3 LOCATIONS AND GROWING! BRIDGELAND • CALGARY FARMERS’ MARKET • EDGE SCHOOL FOR ATHLETES

DOCKET # TMD-015(1) 11.75”

PUBLICATION City Palate

AD SIZE 4.625” x

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

say cheese!

city palate editor Kathy Richardier (kathy@citypalate.ca) publisher Gail Norton (gail@citypalate.ca) magazine design Carol Slezak, Yellow Brick Studios (carol@citypalate.ca) contributing editor Kate Zimmerman contributing writers Matthew Altizer Karen Anderson Jennifer Cockrall-King Laura Di Lembo Ellen Kelly Geoff Last Kevin McLean Karen Ralph Allan Shewchuk Julie Van Rosendaal Kate Zimmerman contributing photographer Carol Slezak for advertising enquiries, please contact advertising@citypalate.ca

enter city palate’s

account executives Ellen Kelly (ellen@citypalate.ca)

for

photo contest

This year, in commemoration of our 20th Anniversary, our photo contest stays local and goes creative! We know there are a lot of readers out there who’d like to show off their creative side, so we’re looking forward to some funny, interesting, and crazy photos, featuring you and a copy of City Palate, taken right here in Calgary. And, just to make it interesting, bonus points will be given to the photo containing the oldest copy of City Palate.

3 fAbULoUs prIzE pACkAgEs ArE Up for grAbs...

Liz Tompkins (liz@citypalate.ca) Janet Henderson (janet@citypalate.ca) prepress/printing CentralWeb distribution Gallant Distribution Systems Inc. The Globe and Mail website management Jane Pratico (jane@citypalate.ca)

A 2 night “romance” package at ISlAnD lAke lODge. Wine and cheese upon arrival. Spa treatment included.

2 nights accommodation at D’AngelO WInery’S VIneyArD VIeW BeD AnD BreAkFAST in the “Petite Verdot Suite”. Includes an in-suite continental breakfast.

A 2 night stay for 2 people at your choice of The FAIrmOnT BAnFF SPrIngS The FAIrmOnT JASPer PArk lODge The FAIrmOnT ChATeAu WhISTler.

Includes breakfast and valet parking.

Contest closes July 31st, 2013. The winning photos will be published in our September October 2013 Issue and announced on Facebook and citypalate.ca. ALL THE JUICY ConTEsT And prIzE dETAILs ArE on oUr wEbsITE Illustration by Pierre Lamielle

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

citypalate.ca

City Palate is published 6 times per year: January-February, March-April, May-June, July-August, September-October and November-December by City Palate Inc., 722 - 11 Avenue SW Calgary, AB T2R 0E4 Fax 403-262-3322 Subscriptions are available for $35 per year within Canada and $45 per year outside Canada. Editorial Enquiries: Please email kathy@citypalate.ca For questions or comments please contact us via our website:

citypalate.ca

ad-city palate:ad-cdn cowboy country full pg 03/04/13 9:56 AM Page 1

contents

Western leyle

The 32nd Annual Calgary Stampede City Palate May June 2013

departments

invites you to...

Creative Arts & Crafts comeo

11 n word of mouth

Notable culinary happenings around town

Calgary Co-op

13 n eat this

che heARe

What to eat in May and June Ellen Kelly

Windw

o he we

14 n drink this

Of all the gin joints in all the towns… Geoff Last

18 n get this

Must-have kitchen stuff Karen Anderson

20 n one ingredient

Spring greens Julie Van Rosendaal

A f tis and r in t

Western o A    July 5 - 14, 2013 has D & e, Bmo cntr, tapd ark

Creative Arts and Crafts Entry Deadline is Thursday, June 20, 2013 For event listings visit calgarystampede.com/westernshowcase

24 n feeding people

The art and architecture of grain salads Laura Di Lembo

28 n well matched

Made-in-heaven food and wine pairings Matthew Altizer

52 n stockpot

Stirrings around Calgary

54 n quick ways with... Green beans

Still think J.Webb is just

fine wine?

Think again.

56 n last meal

Keep it simple and seasonal Geoff Last

58 n back burner... shewchuk on simmer

Over 250 sensational wines for less than $20 Hundreds of organic and sustainable wines Great food and wine pairing advice Fun and informative weekly tastings

Shrimp and sympathy Allan Shewchuk

read us online @ citypalate.ca follow us on facebook and win monthly prizes!

making wine fun

www.jwebb.net Glenmore Landing: 90th Ave. and 14th St. SW

Casel Marché: 24th St. and 17th Ave. SW

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

French Inspired & Locally Grown Classic North American Cuisine

Lunch: Monday–Friday 11:30am–2:00pm Dinner: Monday–Saturday 4:30pm–close Experience Happy Hour beyond the usual Monday–Friday 4:00–6:00pm Veuve Cliquot • Belvedere Cocktails Premium Draft Beer • Wine by the Glass

JOIN US!

403 265 9595 • 107 Eighth Avenue SW thebelvedere.ca 10

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

word of mouth Notable culinary happenings around town

City Palate wants to know... where was your best restaurant meal in Calgary? We’ve come a long way, baby. Calgary’s restaurant scene is absolutely top notch these days. We want to know where you had your best restaurant meal in Calgary and why it was so good – so that we can publish a collection in the July August issue. Send to kathy@citypalate.ca by May 20 and be sure to include your name.

tickets on sale

the salt and pepper of cocktails

Don’t miss City Palate’s 3rd Annual Pig & Pinot Festival, Thursday, June 20th at Hotel Arts. (See who's cooking on page 34) Tickets: pigandpinotcalgary.eventbrite.ca

luscious cheeses Made right here in Calgary at the White Gold Cheese Factory, 1319 - 45th Ave. NE, fiordilatte.ca. Italian cheeses, like fior di latte, plus feta and chèvre and more. Get it at the factory or find these delish cheeses at farmers’ markets, specialty stores and restaurants throughout the city.

macarons by marcus Made by Marcus is Marcus Purtzki, part of FARM’s kitchen, who makes about the best macarons we’ve had – not too sweet, lots of good, full flavours, such as vanilla Earl Grey, calamansi lime basil, hibiscus yuzu fruit, chocolate salted caramel and passionfruit milk chocolate. Find them at Janice Beaton Fine Cheese, FARM, Kawa Espresso Bar, Deville Cafés, The Cookbook Co. and Cochrane Cookhouse. Marcus has also launched his ice cream flavours, such as maple bacon, chai carrot and burnt fig chèvre. Mmmmmm. Ice cream at The Cookbook Co. Cooks.

Twisted & Bitter bitters – just a shake or two will do ya – are made in a wood-fired still by Victoria Spirits on Vancouver Island, makers of Victoria Gin. Find these tasty cocktail and food seasonings in orange, rosemary grapefruit and black pepper at Vine Arts Wine & Spirits and at The Cookbook Co. Cooks.

mmmmmm, nutty good canola oil A most delicious canola oil – unrefined and cold pressed – from Mountainview Farming in Strathmore and newly available at Say Cheese Fromagerie in the Crossroads Market. If you think canola oil is all the same, you’ll have to try this one. It’s really tasty – use it on your salads.

facebook winners The February winner, Sieuwke Kozielski, told a good story of her Teatro dining experience to win a $75 gift certificate from Teatro and a 500 ml bottle of the luscious signature single-origin extra virgin olive oil from the owner’s family’s olive groves in Italy. The March winner, Bernice Hill, Dish ‘n’ the Kitchen, told us about her dream kitchen to win two VIP tickets to meet and sample the cuisine of Top Chef contender Trevor Bird at Jerome’s Appliance Gallery.

read this Modern Art Desserts, Recipes for Cakes, Cookies, Confections, and Frozen Treats Based on Iconic Works of Art, Caitlin Freeman (Ten Speed Press, $29.95, hard cover). Freeman is Blue Bottle Café pastry chef at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art. She started making desserts inspired by designs from paintings she loved in the museum, such as a cake of Piet Mondrian’s Composition (No. III) Blanc-Jaune/ Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue, and a Warhol Gelée based on Andy Warhol’s painting of Elizabeth Taylor, Red Liz. Fun!

and the culinary travel grant winner is... Eden Hrabec, sous-chef Crazyweed Kitchen, Canmore. Eden was Calgary’s 2012 Gold Medal Plates winner, with a dish excited and warmed by Indian masala spices that made it a clear winner among all the competitors. She competed in the finale Gold Medal Plates competition against Canada’s other Gold Medal Plates winners and scooped the People’s Choice Award for best dish. Eden achieved a culinary arts diploma at The Art Institutes of Vancouver, working part-time at The Fish House in Stanley Park with acclaimed chef Karen Barnaby. She travelled to Australia and worked as chef de partie at Rockpool restaurant in Sydney. She is currently enrolled in the Hospitality Management program at SAIT while working at Crazyweed. Eden’s plan is to use her grant to travel to India to broaden and enrich her inclination for the warmth and spices of the Subcontinent, focusing on the food stalls of Mumbai with the plan of developing a food truck in Canmore. She also hopes to get an intern position at the Michelin-starred Indian restaurant Ziya in the Oberoi Hotel. Learning the sources of Indian ingredients and how to properly use them in her cooking is also on her list. When Eden returns, she will write about her experiences for City Palate and prepare a meal for City Palateers using her new-found knowledge. In order to help further the education of local professional restaurant cooks, City Palate offered a travel grant to help one of them get to where he/she wanted to go to learn more about the world’s cultures and food. We were interested to read about the wide range of travel/learning aspirations that fuelled the culinary passions of the applicants.

Edgy, spicy & complex. We have great wine too.

NOW OPEN

Bow Valley Square #183 250 6 Ave SW 403.294.1310 Beacon Hill Shopping Centre 11668 Sarcee Tr NW

403.730.8430 corkwine.ca

TaSTing MaCHineS

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

KNIT NEEDLES

{ 1963 } Established

...from our family to yours

Celebrating our 50th Anniversary 3 generations offering the best in Italian groceries THANK YOU CALGARY!

botanic garden birds

! N I W

Enter our draw to WIN these great prizesâ&#x20AC;Ś 1st prize: $1000 Italian Super Market Gift Certificate

2nd prize: $500 Italian Super Market Gift Certificate 3rd prize: $250 Italian Super Market Gift Certificate Name: __________________________________________ Phone: _________________________________________ E-mail: _________________________________________

403.277.7898 I 265 20 Avenue NE www.italiansupermarket.com

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

Cut out and place your completed form in the draw box at the Italian Super Market store. No purchase necessary. Draw date: May 31, 2013. Winners will be notified by phone or e-mail.

A T

D A L H O U S I E

403.286.5220

S T A T I O N

www.zestkitchenware.com

eat this

Ellen Kelly

What to eat in May and June

A prairie spring is an ephemeral event – fleeting barely describes it. We joke that the Lilac Festival (May 26 this year) takes place in either winter or summer. We joke because it’s better to laugh than to cry. No matter, the transient quality of the season only makes the sight of those improbably spiky jade chive leaves all the more heartening. The sheer greenness of the first tiny peas as they burst in our mouths is revelatory, despite the absence of a discernable spring. Actual new potatoes remind us of a harvest yet to come while we feast today on a product that cannot be duplicated any other time of the year. We celebrate spring in spite of its truancy. Chives, of course, are onions, allium shoenoprasum to be exact. Described as “very tolerant of cold and frost,” they are the first edible to venture out in our slowly awakening Alberta gardens. Just like Lois Hole, as she remarks in her book Herbs and Edible Flowers, “I’ve been eating chives for as long as I can remember.” They’re a gift of pure spring flavour after a winter of hearty eating. Chive flowers are the bonus, evocatively echoing the flavour of the leaves. A colourful compound butter is an excellent use for both leaves and flowers. Use only flowers that are fully in bloom, but not yet faded. Hold the stem below the flower ball, check for unwanted guests and gently pluck out the tiny pinkishpurple flowers. Thoroughly mix 3-4 T. chive flowers, 1 T. lemon zest, 1 T. lemon juice, 2 T. each finely chopped chervil and chive leaves, 2-3 dashes of Tabasco, salt to taste and a grinding of black pepper into 1 lb. of room temperature sweet butter. Scrape the butter onto a large piece of cling film, shape it into a rough cylinder and roll it into a long sausage shape, twisting the ends tightly. Freeze and cut “coins” of butter onto hot grilled salmon, new potatoes boiled with mint, and barely steamed green peas.

BUY: If you absolutely do not have chives in a garden or pot, ask a neighbour. You can buy chives in the herb section of any supermarket, but nothing beats the first cuttings from your own (or someone else’s) clump. Cut only what you need so you don’t have to refrigerate any excess. TIPS: Less common garlic chives can sometimes be found at farmers’ markets, but buy the plants; they’re easy to grow too. The loose heads of ivory flowers and the slight garlic taste are delightful. Use as you would regular chives. DID YOU KNOW? Chives were eaten by Marco Polo while on his Far East adventures. Decorative, delectable, hardy, easy to grow, pest resistant, AND pedigreed – what plant can compare?

Illustrations by Pierre Lamielle

Fresh peas still snug in their pods are the quintessential summer

pleasure, not to be eaten at any other time. Frozen peas will fill the gap. The first tiny green peas, called petit pois rather obviously, are best on their own simply prepared and served. A deceptively rustic dish of fresh peas, good olive oil, bacon lardons, fresh sage and parmesan tossed with orecchiette pasta will satisfy the most sophisticated palate while making the kids happy. Cook the pasta, adding the peas in the last 5 minutes of cooking. Drain and return to the pan, reserving about a cup of pasta water. Render chopped bacon and onion until golden, about 15 minutes; add minced garlic and slivered sage leaves and cook another 2 to 3 minutes. Add the bacon to the pasta with just enough pasta water to lubricate. Stir in some grated ParmigianoReggiano and serve immediately with a drizzle of good olive oil and more grated cheese.

Real new potatoes are fragile, near-naked things wearing wispy skins that are easily rubbed off with a thumb. They’re available only in the spring, found almost exclusively at farmers’ markets, and are sublime simply boiled with salt and fresh mint, then served hot with dollops of sweet butter, Maldon salt and freshly ground black pepper. Because of their high moisture content and waxy nature, new potatoes make a lovely summery salad with the additions of new peas, chopped red onion and celery, tossed with a simple dressing of fresh dill, mayonnaise and grainy mustard. Boil halved new potatoes in salted water until fork tender. Drain and toss in a bowl with a splash of white wine vinegar. When cool, add the rest of the ingredients, season and chill slightly.

BUY: Many aficionados feel that the perfect peas are the ones that never leave the garden, picked and eaten on the spot. The sugar that makes them so delectable begins to turn to starch the second they are picked. Keeping this in mind, look for pods that are shiny and firm, plump, but not swollen. Refrigerate and eat as soon as possible. TIPS: Fresh peas have an affinity for all things new and green – baby leeks, tiny fava beans, young garlic, basil and chervil all provide the just-right counterpoint to their exquisite sweetness. DID YOU KNOW? Pea shoots are perfectly edible, tasting like a whisper of the vegetable itself. Dress them alone in a simple lemon vinaigrette or add to any tossed green salad. I first discovered how edible they were many years ago when my malamute, Mauya, browsed an entire garden of young pea plants as neatly as any goat. No peas that year.

BUY: New potatoes can be as small as a hazelnut or as large as a duck egg. Try to buy them all about the same size for ease of cooking. Purchase dry, firm potatoes without blemishes or soft spots. TIPS: New potatoes won’t store the same way mature potatoes will. Keep them in a paper bag in the fridge to avoid moisture loss through their thin skins and use them up right away. DID YOU KNOW? A tiny controversy foments over the distinction between creamer and baby potatoes and actual NEW potatoes. Many maintain they are the same thing. I beg to differ. Certainly both creamers and baby potatoes are early potatoes, but their skins have been hardened off for transit and storage. Nothing compares to a new potato.

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

drink this

Geoff Last

Of all the gin joints in all the towns…

FOR RESERVATIONS CALL 403.241.7611 BRING THIS AD IN M O N D AY - W E D N E S D AY FOR 1/2 PRICE APPETIZERS IN THE B-SIDE LOUNGE

Perfectly placed in the South Okanagan

Cocktail culture has regained its rightful place in the civilized world, and with it, gin, the resurgence of the king of cocktail staples. There are plenty of pretenders to the throne, but few can boast a history as colourful and enduring as that of gin. The late Julia Child credited her longevity to the spirit (along with beef) and entire civilizations have fallen prey to its charms. These days it’s considered a civilized tipple, but its past is certainly chequered. In the 18th century, Londoners were sucking back 38 million litres of the spirit annually – roughly 53 litres per person – mostly to drown the ills of unemployment and poverty. In 1730, the British government opened up the production of unlicensed distillation, fuelling the movement known as the Gin Craze and creating mass alcoholism in the process. Home-made versions would typically include such delightful additions as turpentine, which apparently tastes of juniper. I’d be willing to bet that the morning after chugging a litre of paint thinner was a real bitch. Eventually, mass consumption begat the Gin Act of 1736, whereby the government imposed rigid taxes on the spirit, which in turn led to mass rioting in the streets. The Gin Act was repealed in 1742 but was introduced yet again in 1751. The second attempt stuck, forcing gin distillers to sell to licensed retailers, putting an end to many of the nastier interpretations. “Back once again, sipping ‘eine, mixed with juice and gin. Bitches in, couple lady friends countin’ Benjamins.” A$AP Rocky, rapper

erfectly placed on rich South Okanagan farmland, Tinhorn Creek overlooks the old gold mining creek that is the winery’s namesake. We are environmental stewards of 150 acres of vineyards: “Diamondback” on the Black Sage Bench, and “Tinhorn Creek” on the Golden Mile Bench. Both provide us with the fruit to craft the superb, terroir driven wine that we’re known for. Our top tier Oldfield Series represents the finest of each vintage.

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

www.tinhorn.com

The word “gin” is derived from the Dutch name for juniper (jenever) and the Dutch are credited with inventing it in the 17th century, although juniper had been used as a flavouring compound in spirits as early as the 11th century. It was during the reign of William of Orange (who was born Dutch and took the English throne in 1688) that gin was introduced to the English, but it had arrived prior to his reign as a cure for the plague, or “the Black Death” as it was more cheerily known. Gin turned out to be ineffective as a cure, but it may have helped take the edge off the symptoms. During U.S. prohibition years, crude examples known as “bathtub gin” became popular, mainly because bathtub gin was relatively easy to distill. The iconic gin and tonic was created in the British colonies to mask the bitter flavour of quinine, which was added to tonic water to combat malaria. Because of the inclusion of juniper and other botanicals, gin has historically been thought to have medicinal qualities. Today gin enthusiasts just recognize it as being delicious, if not particularly healthy.

Most gin is essentially a neutral spirit distilled from grain and redistilled with juniper and other flavour compounds, but there are many other distinctions. The EU classifies basic gin as a neutral spirit flavoured with juniper after the distillation is complete. Distilled gin differs in that the botanicals are included in the distillation process and must be dominated by juniper. London gin is similar to distilled gin but must contain no more than 0.1 grams of sugar per litre, making it a “dry” style. Initially all gin was pot distilled – and many premium gins still are – but the creation of the column still (a.k.a. the continuous still) introduced a more cost-effective distillation process. Pot stills – most famously associated with the production of single-malt whisky – require multiple, small batch distillations and typically produce spirits that are expressive of the raw material. Continuous stills effectively complete a double distillation in one pass and deliver smoother, albeit more neutral, spirits.

Taste the world with us! Metrovino...Bringing Wine to Life

“Gimme some skin, gimme some gin, gimme some wine, I lost my mind.” The Ramones For decades, Bombay Sapphire, Beefeater and Tanqueray were the industry standards for premium gin, but the distinctions between them were subtle. Bombay uses a continuous still and the label indicates it is “vapour infused.” This means that as the vapours travel up the column, they pass through a basket containing the botanicals, infusing the spirit with the traditional gin flavours. Tanqueray uses a similar process but it’s distilled four times, which removes some of the harsher aspects of the alcohol component, most notably congeners and fusel oils, the two compounds thought to be responsible for hangovers. Hendrick’s – a favourite among gin aficionados (myself included) – distinguished itself by using two distinct stills (one made in 1860, the other in 1948, both still in use) and including a noticeable amount of rose petals and cucumber along with the traditional juniper-citrus-coriander recipe. When Hendricks, made in Scotland, was introduced to North America it immediately took off. In doing so, it opened the door to a flood of premium gins.

722 -11th Avenue S.W. 403-205-3356 www.metrovino.com

“The proper union of gin and vermouth is a great and sudden glory; it is one of the happiest marriages on earth, and one of the shortest lived.” Bernard De Voto, American historian The martini is the world’s most famous cocktail, a drink that is easy to make and even easier to screw up. Its origins are sketchy; the popular theory is that it was created at a bar in San Francisco in the 1860s, although there are records of gin and vermouth being mixed together prior to that era. A martini is straight alcohol, so it’s imperative that it’s served very cold. The essence of a good martini lies in getting it cold without overly diluting it with ice-cube water, which is why it should be stirred, not shaken. I recommend keeping the gin and the glasses in the freezer for at least one hour prior to serving. I like my martinis on the dry side, which simply means not more than one or two drops of vermouth. You can make martinis in a cocktail shaker or a pitcher – add the ice, gin and vermouth and stir about 15 times then strain it into chilled glasses, garnishing it with olives or a twist of lemon rind. If you substitute pickled onions it becomes a Gibson, also a fine cocktail. The most common mistake people make is with the vermouth. Vermouth has a wine base, which means it oxidizes like any other white wine. Take a look in your fridge or cupboard right now. Is that bottle of vermouth you bought back in the sixties looking a little brown? Throw it out and start over. Buy small bottles and keep them in the fridge (chilling slows down oxidization), checking for signs of discolouration after a month or so. As for the other classic gin cocktail – the gin and tonic – make it with premium tonic water such as Fever Tree or Q. These are pricey but they make a noticeable improvement in the taste of the G & T. Canada Dry is generally regarded as the best of the supermarket brands. “Nothing is more pleasurable than to sit in the shade, sip gin and contemplate other people’s adulteries, and while the wormy apple of marriage still lives, the novel will not die.” John Skow, folk dancing legend

continued on page 16

Combining fresh rosemary with our all-natural beer, we present to you an invigorating and delicious pale ale. Brewmaster

www.bigrockbeer.com CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

FF13CityPalateAd_Layout 1 2013-04-02 10:12 AM Page 1

drink this Of all the gin joints in all the towns… continued from page 15

There are many excellent gins on the market these days. These are some of my favourites: (pictured left to right above) Caorunn –This one is produced at Scotland’s Balmenach distillery and the name is Gaelic for rowan berries, one of the five native botanicals used along with the traditional ingredients of juniper, coriander, lemon peel, orange peel, angelica root and cassia bark. It’s triple-distilled in a unique device known as a Copper Berry Chamber, which looks like a copper column still turned on its side. The distiller recommends the addition of a thin wedge of red apple to a gin and tonic since coul blush apples are used in the distillation. This is a crisp, well-balanced gin with lots of character, a great addition to the premium gin fold. Okanagan Spirits – Produced in beautiful B.C., this is a solid entry in the everwidening gin realm. It’s pot-stilled using the traditional botanicals and is clean and lively, a good all-purpose gin. The Botanist – This one is produced on Islay, Scotland, by the highly regarded whisky producer Bruichladdich. It’s pot-stilled (the still they use is called “ugly betty”) using a recipe of 22 wild botanicals. It’s flavourful and intense, perhaps a bit much for a gin and tonic but perfect in a martini. No. 3 London Dry Gin – Another excellent gin from the U.K.’s Berry Bros. & Rudd. At 46 percent alcohol, it packs a little more alcohol punch, but the flavour is first rate and lively. It’s pot-stilled and a great all-round gin. Martin Miller’s London Dry Gin – This is one mixed-up gin, but in a good way. It undergoes two distillations in pot stills (one with the citrus components and the other with the remaining botanicals) in England. The undiluted spirit – all gin is reduced in alcoholic strength simply by adding water – is then shipped off to Iceland to be blended with water. Iceland is reputed to have the softest, purest water on earth, and since roughly 50 percent of gin is water, Miller felt it would make sense to go to the trouble to get Icelandic water. Is Martin Miller crazy? Maybe, but the gin is bloody good, not overly assertive and almost creamy in texture. Victoria Gin – Another solid Canadian entry, produced on Vancouver Island. The web site doesn’t provide much background on its production other than to say that it’s pot-stilled and gluten free, which leads me to believe that it’s distilled from corn rather than wheat. Either way, it’s good traditional gin. Bulldog – A London dry gin that uses some unusual botanicals that include poppy and dragon eye, a Chinese fruit also called longan. It’s distilled four times and also happens to be kosher and vegan. It’s not overly assertive, making it a great allpurpose gin. Hendricks – (not in photo) A Scottish gin produced in small batches that’s flavourful and aromatic. The label says it’s “not for everyone.” I would say that if you want a great martini gin, this is the one. No. 209 – (not in photo) This one is produced in San Francisco by the Rudd family, which also owns a Napa Valley winery and the gourmet grocery store chain Dean & DeLuca. The base spirit is corn – as opposed to the traditional wheat – and it’s distilled four times using a column still. It then undergoes a fifth distillation with the botanicals in a pot still, making it labour intensive (the water is sourced from glacier run-off from the Sierra Nevada Mountains). The juniper element is subdued, with more of a focus on citrus and spice. Not traditional, but good. Geoff Last is manager of Bin 905 Distinctive Wines. He also drinks gin.

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

Kiss “same old same old” goodbye! Monday’s

Mediterranean Makeover

Greek Salad with Oregano Grilled Pork Give classic Greek salad a boost with succulent grilled pork and a tasty creamy dressing- and marinade-in-one. Chop the vegetables while the pork marinates for a quick meal on a hot summer’s evening. Leftovers are terrific for lunch!

Transform your everyday favourites easily with the magic of Real Cream. Enjoy Greek salad like you’ve never tasted it before.

1. In a measuring cup or bowl, whisk together 1 clove minced garlic, 1-1/2 tsp (7 mL) dried oregano, 1/4 tsp (1 mL) each, salt and pepper and 1 cup (250 mL) 18% Table Cream. Gradually whisk in 2 tbsp (30 mL) freshly squeezed lemon juice (mixture will thicken). 2. Cut 1 lb (500 g) pork tenderloin crosswise into 1/2-inch (1 cm) thick slices or use boneless pork loin chops. Place pork in a resealable plastic bag or shallow dish. Add 1/3 cup (75 mL) of the cream mixture; turn to coat pork well. Seal bag or cover dish and refrigerate for at least 15 min or up to 1 day. Cover remaining cream mixture separately and refrigerate until serving. 3. Preheat barbecue grill to medium heat. Remove pork from marinade; discard marinade. Place pork on greased grill, cover and grill, turning once, for 3 to 4 min per side or until just a hint of pink remains in pork. Let rest for 5 min then cut into strips.

4. Whisk 1/4 cup (60 mL) plain Greek yogurt or drained yogurt into reserved cream mixture for dressing. Chop 2 stalks celery, 1 sweet red pepper, 1/2 English cucumber and 1/4 red onion; combine in a large bowl. Pour in half of dressing and toss to coat. 5. Divide 6 cups (1.5 L) torn Romaine lettuce equally among serving plates; top with vegetable mixture, then pork. Drizzle with remaining dressing; sprinkle with 1/4 cup (60 mL) crumbled Canadian Feta cheese, 12 black olives and chopped fresh mint, if desired. Preparation time: 15 minutes Marinating time: 15 minutes to 1 day Cooking time: 6 to 8 minutes Yield: 4 servings

Visit anydaymagic.ca for fantastic tips on this recipe. You’ll also find The Great Cream Challenge, cream recipes and cooking tips. CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

get this punt: reclaimed and redefined The definition of punt has expanded from flat-bottomed boats and football kicks to include durable drinking glasses made from the reclaimed bottom half of wine bottles. That funny little dent in the bottom of wine bottles is called a punt; it provides stability and structure to the age-old wine bottle design. The Wine Punts Drinking Glasses company, Colorado Springs, gathers used wine bottles from local restaurants, slices them into 16- or 12-ounce sizes and fire-polishes the rim for smoothness. CHARCUT restaurant uses them in-house and retails them as well. They come in five colours from clear and aqua to the more dramatic shades of olive, amber and green. Wine Punts Drinking Glasses, $12 each or $44/4 in green only/12 oz size, CHARCUT; other colours/sizes at winepunts.com

it’s chocolate-tea Letting velvet smooth chocolate melt in your mouth to fully enjoy its flavour is a great way to slow down and go mmmmm. Ditto goes for sipping on the soothing flavour of a great cup of tea. When The Naked Leaf tea shop owner Jonathan Kane met SAIT chef Albert Kurylo in 2010, Kurylo was selling his hand-crafted chocolates at a local fair. The two decided to collaborate and combine The Naked Leaf’s favourite tea blends with Kurylo’s chocolate-making know-how. They’ve created Corillo chocolate bars sold exclusively at The Naked Leaf. Apricot Cinnamon Plum is made with holiday blend tea, Spiced Green is sweetened with licorice, mint and ginger, White Chocolate Coconut crushes the shop’s coconut green tea into white chocolate, while Sakura Sencha Cherry Blossom is this spring’s seasonal offering. Pick up the chocolate, buy a cup of the Cherry Blossom tea and sip and savour the two together for some serious chocolate-tea lowdown on how to slow down. Corillo Chocolate bars, $4.95/50g bar, The Naked Leaf

young Canadian cheese, loves the blues, looking for mature red wine to pair with… Wouldn’t it be fun if wines and cheeses had their own personal ads? Or maybe they just need a great matchmaking service, like when Nancy Brown of Say Cheese Fromagerie gets together with her old friend Margaret Peters of Glengarry Fine Cheese. The two sat down for a glass of wine last summer and dreamed up a special gift pack of Glengarry cheeses for sale at Brown’s store in Crossroads Market. Glengarry’s Lankaaster aged gouda-style cheese, Celtic blue and fleur-en-lait washed rind were all included. But the real beauty of these cheese debutantes is the azzurro di bufala. It’s a stunner, with dark blue veins blended into a creamy rich body of both water buffalo and Brown Swiss cow’s milk. Once you strike the right chemistry between this cheese and your wine pairing, it’s sure to be the start of a beautiful relationship. Azzurro di bufala cheese, $7/100g, Say Cheese Fromagerie

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

Karen Anderson

Must-have kitchen stuff

it’s a wrap Try wrapping up your next gift of wine in one of Inspirati’s elegant and long-lasting linens. Most of the time, a gift of wine is enough, but sometimes when you really want to make a lasting impression a little extra touch is required. Owner Wendy Brownie and her staff will help you search Inspirati’s collection of Busatti, Somma, Ekelund of Sweden, Daniel Stuart Studio, Linen Way, Petit Mots and Le Jacquard Français tea towels for the perfect complement to your host’s home. Modern minimalists, traditional, country charm or boho-chic tastes are all accommodated. Long after your hosts have forgotten what wine you brought, they’ll remember it was you who gave them that beautiful tea towel each time they dry their wine glasses. Tea Towels, $15 & up, Inspirati Ltd.

buttery biscuits The butter content in these Fine English Wheat Fingers seems the perfect complement to an equally buttery cheese. We always take them along for our City Palate Foodie Tootles ploughman’s lunches and they always pull the fastest disappearing act from our buffet table. These biscuits are quintessentially British, and rank up there with Yorkshire puddings and clotted cream for that country’s greatest culinary contributions to the world. Try them with an English cheese like Wensleydale or do what we do – spread them with Alberta-made fresh chèvre from Noble Meadows Farm or Fairwinds Farm. Fine Cheese English Wheat Fingers, $8.50, The Cookbook Co. Cooks

get hooked on sustainable fish The W!ld Ocean Fish company is trying to make a point, which is why they slip exclamation marks into their product name. The W!LD Pacific sablefish, ling cod, halibut, spot prawns, coho salmon, albacore tuna and sockeye salmon are all hook and line caught, Ocean Wise recommended, flash frozen for freshness and sourced from fishermen who participate in eco-friendly sustainable fisheries. A favourite aspect of the product is that you can scan the QR code on the package and read about the fishermen who caught your fish. The wildoceanfish.ca site has lots of great recipe ideas, like our favourite: Asian-Inspired Sake-Ginger Marinated Sablefish. We’re hooked. W!ld Ocean Fish Sablefish Boneless Fillets, $17.99/227g, Community Natural Foods

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

one ingredient

Julie Van Rosendaal

Spring greens

Visit us on Facebook!

It’s the tips of green pushing up through semi-frozen ground that alert us to the arrival of spring. From the moment the first fern unfurls, backyard greens are once again literally within our grasp – until the first frost, at least. While the term “spring greens” occasionally refers to a specific member of the brassica family – a loose-headed, romaine-ish sort of cabbage – in the broader sense of the term, it applies to anything green and leafy that emerges once the ground thaws enough to allow passage. The first lettuces, arugula, pea shoots, watercress, mustard greens, baby kale and chard lead the charge to farmers’ market stalls, signaling the arrival of the growing season and inspiring all cooks who cross their paths. In the kitchen, the culinary possibilities of a bundle of greens depends mostly on the hardiness of the ones you choose; fragile spinach or arugula will nearly disappear upon contact with a hot pan (or steamy pot of soup), whereas sturdier kale can take the heat. The beauty of most produce is that it can pinch hit for others within its family; if you come across a recipe that calls for one kind of leafy green and what you have in your fridge is another, they can most often take each others place. With so many leaves – lettuces and otherwise – to choose from, even if you’re unfamiliar with a variety of greens, or unaware of an individual vegetable’s heritage, a nibble will tell you if it’s peppery, bitter or mild, tender or tough.

. . . o ! i c t i h a c p s è e l so tr

Contemporary FrenCh Bistro #105, 550-11th ave. sW 587.352.0964

aveCBistro.Com

aveC Bistro

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

@aveCBistro

As with most living things, all types of greens emerge as smaller, more tender shoots first thing in the spring, and grow bigger and hardier as the summer progresses. The young ones are best suited to salads, and need only the warmth of cooked potatoes, grains or pasta to wilt; the more mature can be simmered into soups, slowly braised with garlic and olive oil or baked into a gratin. Most greens will produce a delicious pesto, stems and all, and there are few dishes as quick and satisfying as a big handful of greens cooked in a hot skillet with plenty of garlic and olive oil, served over leftover rice or toast, topped with a poached egg. Although eating a brand-new leaf au naturel is tempting, their life expectancy is short, and cooking them will save them from the compost bin. Compared with other produce, most leafy greens are vulnerable once picked. They’ll last just a few days in the fridge – kale a few more. Moisture is the enemy of their delicate leaves; whether yours are packed in a plastic bin or bag, tuck in a sheet of paper towel to absorb any excess moisture. Once your greens start to droop, use them in any recipe that requires them to be cooked, wilted or mulched in the food processor. Only the bigger leaves need to be relieved of their stems, and even then, they need not be tossed; kale and chard stems are tasty and useful, but take longer to cook than their leafy parts. Chop and sauté them separately, or freeze them for soups and stews. If you want to freeze the greens themselves, you’ll save freezer space by blanching them first, then chopping and sealing them in a zip-top freezer bag.

If you are what you eat, it’s easy being green.

Fava and Arugula Crostini A brilliant mulch of springy fava beans (or edamame), arugula, lemon and parmesan is perfect atop garlicky toasts. If you like, spread them thinly with soft goat cheese first. (Adapted from Gourmet, May 2009.) Crostini: 1 baguette olive oil 1 garlic clove, peeled

Topping:

Spring Green Pesto

1 c. shelled fresh fava beans or edamame 2 c. baby arugula

Pesto can be made from virtually anything green; if it’s a tough leaf, cook it first. Pesto will keep in the fridge for up to two weeks, and is delicious on fish, pizza and pasta.

1/2 c. freshly grated parmesan (or to taste)

4 c. fresh kale, chard, spinach and/or arugula, tough stems trimmed, roughly chopped

1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed

1/2 c. chopped walnuts or almonds, toasted

a small bunch of fresh mint leaves

1 c. freshly grated parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Slice the baguette on a slight diagonal into 1/3-inch slices and place them on a baking sheet. Pour the oil into a small ramekin and place the garlic clove in it. Brush both sides of the crostini with the oil, then bake them for 10 minutes, or until they’re pale golden.

3-4 garlic cloves, crushed juice of half a lemon 1/2 c. extra-virgin olive oil salt and pepper

If you’re using kale, bring a small pot of salted water to a boil; add all the greens and blanch them for 2-3 minutes, until they’re tender and wilted. (You can do this with other greens, but it isn’t as necessary; more tender greens can be tossed into the pesto raw.) Drain the greens well in a colander and set them aside to cool. Place the greens in the bowl of a food processor with the walnuts, parmesan, garlic and lemon juice and pulse them until they’re well mulched. With the motor running, pour in the olive oil, blending and scraping down the side of the bowl, until the pesto is well blended and roughly smooth. Season it with salt and pepper. Serve immediately or refrigerate in a jar for up to a week. Makes about 1-1/2 cups.

1/4 c. extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra as needed

BEER THY NEIGHBOUR

zest and juice of half a lemon salt and freshly ground black pepper

GATHERING PEOPLE AROUND COMMUNITY. ONE BEER AT A TIME. WWW.VILLAGEBREWERY.COM

Meanwhile, bring about an inch of water to a simmer in a medium saucepan and cook the fava beans or edamame for 3 to 4 minutes. Drain them in a colander and run them under cool water to stop them from cooking. If you’re using fava beans, peel off their tough outer skins. In the bowl of a food processor, pulse the beans, arugula, parmesan, olive oil, lemon zest and juice and garlic until they’re well blended. If you’d like the purée smoother and looser, add more olive oil. Season the mixture with salt and pepper, if needed. Spoon the arugula mixture onto the crostini and top each one with small (or finely chopped) leaves of fresh mint. Serve the crostini immediately. Serves 10 or more. 

continued on page 22

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

one ingredient Spring greens continued from page 21

These recipes are on our website

Spinach Gnudi with Browned Butter ď ą These large, gnocchi-like dumplings can be made with any kind of green you have on hand; cook it until itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tender, then squeeze out any excess moisture and finely chop it. (This recipe is a great use for thawed frozen greens.) Serve the gnudi with browned butter or topped with fresh tomato sauce and parmesan cheese. Gnudi: 1 bunch (about 1 lb.) fresh spinach 1 c. ricotta 1/2 c. grated parmesan 1 large egg 1 T. melted butter 1/4 t. freshly grated nutmeg salt and freshly ground black pepper 3/4 c. all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting 1/4 c. butter

Bring a medium-sized pot of water to a boil. Roughly chop the spinach, discarding any big stems, and put it into the boiling water. Cook for 3 minutes, then drain in a colander and set aside to cool. Press out as much extra moisture as possible, and finely chop the pile of cooked greens on a chopping board.

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

In a large bowl, gently stir together the spinach, ricotta, parmesan, egg and butter. Season the mixture with nutmeg, salt and pepper. Gently stir in the flour, being careful not to overwork it, and refrigerate the mixture for at least an hour. Meanwhile, melt the 1/4 cup butter in a small saucepan set over medium-high heat. Continue cooking it after it melts; it will foam, then turn golden and nutty. Remove it from the heat and set aside. Bring a medium pot of salted water to a simmer. Use two medium spoons to shape the dough into quenelles (small tapered ovals) by scraping about half a spoonful back and forth between the spoons. Place them on a floured surface and shake a little extra flour over top. Gently drop a few gnudi at a time into the simmering water, ensuring that it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t reach a rolling boil, which could break apart the delicate dumplings. Cook the gnudi for a few minutes, or until they float to the top; at this point, you can remove them with a slotted spoon and set them aside on a plate. Serve the gnudi immediately, drizzled with browned butter, with extra parmesan cheese passed at the table. Serves 4.

Spring Greens Risotto A pot of risotto is a simpler dish to make than most people think; once you have the right rice (a short-grained risotto rice like arborio will release its starch into the dish) you’re halfway there. There’s no need to stand at the stove and stir constantly; stirring your risotto often, as you add stock, will help create a creamy texture. A handful of greens added at the end will wilt into the warm rice just before you serve it. If you like, top the risotto with a handful of fresh, peppery arugula for contrast. 2 T. olive oil 2 T. butter (divided) 1 small onion, finely chopped 1 garlic clove, finely minced or grated 2 c. arborio or other short-grain rice 1/2 c. white wine or water

k n i P R U O Y E T A E R C

T N E M MO

TASTING

EVENTS

Tasting Centre Locations Beddington 8220 Centre Street NE, Calgary Crowfoot 39 Crowfoot Way NW, Calgary Oakridge 2570 Southland Drive SW, Calgary For tickets email: wsevents@calgarycoop.com For more tasting events visit: coopwinespiritsbeer.com

Wines for Summer - $25 and Under

Our sommelier team shares some of its favourite summer wine picks and the best part is that they’re all under $25. Join us for this class that is easy on your wallet and delicious in your glass. Beddington: May 16, 7pm - 9pm • $25 per person Oakridge: June 1, 7pm - 9pm • $25 per person

Zazzy Zins – Summertime’s BFF Wine

1-2 handfuls fresh greens, such as spinach, chard, kale or arugula, torn

If your favourite cooking technique is BBQ and you love to entertain, then you’ll want to come to this class. We are going to showcase the juicy, spicy, smoking and sultry side of this zinfully delicious red grape. You’ll leave with a better understanding of why we call Zinfandel the summer season’s BFF. Crowfoot: May 16, 7pm - 9pm • $25 per person Oakridge: May 25, 7pm - 9pm • $25 per person Beddington: June 7, 7pm - 9pm • $25 per person

a handful of fresh arugula, for serving (optional)

True Southern BBQ – With JoJo’s BBQ

5-6 c. chicken or vegetable stock, warmed 1/2-1 c. freshly grated parmesan cheese juice of a lemon

In a large saucepan, heat the oil and 1 T. butter over medium-high heat and sauté the onion for 3-4 minutes, until it’s soft and translucent. Add the garlic and cook for another minute, then add the rice and cook for 1-3 minutes, to coat the grains with oil. If you like, add a splash of white wine and cook the mixture for a minute or two, until it cooks off; then add about a half a cup of stock at a time and cook the rice mixture, stirring occasionally, until the stock is absorbed. When your spoon leaves a trail through the rice without any liquid filling up the space behind it, it’s time to add more stock.

Bubbles & Pink

1 part Croft Pink 2 parts Botter Prosecco

Calgary’s very own BBQ Queen Jody Barned will bring her award-winning Southern BBQ, Chariot of Smoke, and secrets to the Tasting Centres. This class is a must for all BBQ fans. Just wait until you see what we’re grilling and pairing up for you. Crowfoot: May 24, 7pm - 9pm • $50 per person Oakridge: June 15, 7pm - 9pm • $50 per person

Hostess with the Most-est – Simply Elegant Entertaining

We’re teaming up with the amazing party planners of Simply Elegant Entertaining to bring you an evening of great wines and entertaining hints and tips. We’ll be sharing the best trends in wines and party planning. Get your girlfriends together and come channel your inner Martha with us! Beddington: June 6, 7pm - 9pm • $25 per person

IPA – The World’s Most Popular Craft Beer

Beer fans of every level will love this class as we showcase craft IPA (India Pale Ale) beer styles that are exciting beer enthusiasts around the globe. IPAs are currently the most popular craft beer style. Spend the evening with us and we will show you why. Oakridge: June 7, 7pm - 9pm • $25 per person

When you’ve used about 5 cups of stock (it should take about 25 minutes), the mixture should be creamy and the rice soft but still slightly firm to the bite. The grains should be soft. If they still have a crunchy core, add a little more stock or water.

Beers of the World for Summer

Our sommelier team loves its beer. Come to the tasting room and try some of the favourite choices for summer from our Beers of the World Wall. If you’re a beer enthusiast of any level, you won’t want to miss this class. Crowfoot: June 14, 7pm - 9pm • $25 per person

Stir in the remaining tablespoon of butter, the lemon juice (and some of its zest, too, if you like), and the greens. Stir the risotto until the greens wilt and the cheese melts. Taste and adjust the seasoning, and serve immediately. Remember – risotto waits for no one! Serves 4 to 6.

Perfect Picnic Pairings

A great picnic is one of life’s simplest and most divine pleasures. Join us to celebrate International Picnic Day with a class that will help you plan and pair for a perfect afternoon in the park. Beddington: June 14, 7pm - 9pm • $25 per person

Wines of the Calgary Stampede – Wine Garden Preview

Did you know you can find our sommelier team at Stampede Park during the 2013 Calgary Stampede? Drop by the Wine Garden or let us bring the Stampede to you in our Crowfoot Tasting Centre where we will give you a sneak peak of this year’s wine garden picks. Crowfoot: June 20, 7pm - 9pm • $25 per person

Like Us on Facebook. Pacific Wine & SPiritS inc.

Get great recipes and stay up-to-date on our latest tasting events.

www.liquorconnect.com/731509

facebook.com/coopwinesandspirits

PROUDLY PRESENTED BY

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

feeding people

Laura Di Lembo

The art and architecture of grain salads

Salads can be so many things. At one end of the salad spectrum are frilly, delicate, lettuce-laden concoctions, crisp, green sides to a meal. At the other end are grain salads, sturdy and hearty salads-as-meal. With an enticing variety of wholesome grains from many regions of the globe available in our shops, grains have become the foundation upon which we can construct salad-based meals that dish up colour, texture, flavour and nutritious goodness.

606 Meredith Rd NE • 403 229 1066 • atouchofitaly.ca

AROUND THE WORLD IN

35 BLOCKS 400 shops and services

26- 61 Streets on 17 Avenue SE The location for speciality food shops and restaurants Book now for our $25 food tour (est.1997) 403 248 -7288 www.internationalavenue.ca

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

There’s an art to this task of grain-salad architecture. Build them using ingredients that fit beautifully together, elements that complement each other. Take quinoa, with its Andean pedigree – it’s an ancient grain of the pre-Columbian people that’s best when married with other foods of the region, such as squash, corn and beans. Farro is a nutty, toothsome, traditional grain from Tuscany that pairs proudly with its Italian market-mates – fresh tomatoes, basil and bocconcini cheese. You have a veritable arsenal of options in your grain salad-making tool kit: bright bursts of fresh mango, cubes of roasted squash, grassy dill, toasted coconut, dates and walnuts, green onions, herbs. Add these vibrant ingredients to the grains as artists add colourful paint to a blank canvas. Here are four distinctive salads that integrate the innate qualities of particular grains with the elements that best flatter them. These are handsome, healthful salads that work as main courses, side dishes, week-day lunches, picnic fare, pot luck offerings or buffet beauties. These recipes serve 4 to 6.

Turkish Kisir Salad

Red Rice Salad with Mango, Shrimp and Coconut

(Bulgur wheat, fresh herb and walnut salad) Bulgur salads are ubiquitous in the Middle East. The Lebanese and the Syrians have tabbouleh; Turkish diners have tangy/sweet kisir, brightened and tinted a rosy hue by tomato paste and pomegranate molasses. For a pretty presentation, mound portions into cupped lettuce or endive leaves and sprinkle ruby pomegranate seeds over everything. 1 c. coarse bulgur wheat

Adapted from the cookbook Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi. Ottolenghi has distinguished himself internationally as a chef and restaurant owner. He is known best for his genius ways with grains and for gorgeous salads. This rice salad fuses a vibrant palette of colours with the lively aromas of the tropics. All I did to this perfect recipe to make it my own was add little wild shrimp.

TEQUILA

IT FLOWS IN OUR VEINS

2/3 c. basmati rice

1-1/2 c. boiling water

1/2 c. salted water (large pinch of salt)

1/2 t. salt 1 c. walnut pieces, toasted, cooled and coarsely chopped

2/3 c. red cargo rice* 1 c. cooked small wild shrimp*, shelled 1 c. loosely packed Thai basil*, roughly chopped

1/4 c. pine nuts, lightly toasted 1/3 c. chopped pitted dates

1 red bell pepper, diced

2 c. finely chopped fresh parsley

1/2 c. fresh mint leaves, roughly chopped

1/2 c. finely chopped fresh dill

2 c. cilantro leaves, roughly chopped

1/2 c. finely chopped fresh mint 1 c. finely diced tomatoes, optional 1 c. finely diced cucumbers, optional

6 green onions, thinly sliced 1 fresh jalapeño chile, seeded and finely diced

pomegranate seeds as garnish, optional

2/3 c. unsweetened coconut chips* or coconut flakes, lightly toasted and cooled

Dressing:

3/4 c. roasted cashew nuts

1/8 c. extra virgin olive oil

salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

2 T. pomegranate molasses*

1 large mango, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice

juice and zest of 1 lemon

Dressing:

2 T. tomato paste

grated zest and juice of 1 lime

1 t. ground cumin

2 T. canola oil

1 t. ground coriander seeds

1 T. grated fresh ginger

1/2 t. ground allspice

1 T. honey

2 t. ground sumac*

freshly ground pepper and salt to taste

1/2 t. Turkish or Aleppo chiles*

Put the basmati rice in a small saucepan with 1/2 c. salted water and bring it to a boil. Cover and lower the heat to a simmer. Cook the rice for 20 minutes. Spread it out on a clean kitchen towel to dry. Rinse the red rice in a colander and cook it in 3 c. boiling, salted water until it’s tender, about 25 minutes. Drain it well and spread it out on a clean kitchen towel to dry. Thaw the shrimp and drain well. Blot the shrimp with paper towels to dry it completely.

freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste

In a medium bowl, soak the bulgur in boiling water with the salt, covered, until tender, about 25 minutes. All the water should be absorbed. If it’s not, drain it well and spread it out to dry on a clean kitchen towel. In a small bowl, whisk the olive oil with the pomegranate molasses, lemon juice and zest, tomato paste, spices and salt and pepper. Pour half the dressing over the bulgur. Mix it in and let the bulgur absorb it for 20 minutes. Add the nuts, dates, parsley, dill, mint, tomatoes and cucumbers, if using, and the remaining dressing. Toss the salad ingredients together and garnish with pomegranate seeds, if you’re using them. The salad keeps well in the fridge for about 3 days. * Pomegranate molasses is available at Green Cedars Food Mart and other Middle Eastern grocers and specialty food stores * Sumac, Turkish (also called marash) and Aleppo chiles are available at Silk Road Spice Merchant and Hage’s Mideast Foods. These recipes are on our website

In a small bowl, combine the dressing ingredients and whisk them together. In a large bowl, combine the two rices and all the other salad ingredients except for the cubed mango. Mix the salad well. Pour the dressing over the salad and gently toss it. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper, if needed. Add the mango and toss the salad very carefully, trying not to break up the fruit. This salad is at its textural best when eaten immediately after it’s tossed.

CONTEMPORARy INTERACTIvE CUISINE

* Red cargo rice is available at The Real Canadian Superstore * Thai basil is available at The Real Canadian Superstore or Asian markets * Unsweetened coconut chips are available at The Italian Store * Small cooked wild shrimp are available frozen at The Real Canadian Superstore continued on page 26

PRIvATE DINING AvAILABLE 514 SEvENTEEN AvE SW | 403.228.9830 WWW.LIvINGROOMRESTAURANT.CA

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

feeding people

make every day

continued from page 25

Quinoa Salad with Roasted Squash, Black Beans and Corn This Aztec-inspired salad capitalizes on the trusted trinity of corn, beans and squash. 1 c. dried black beans 1 bay leaf 1 cinnamon stick 1 c. red quinoa (available in specialty food stores)

Our 2013 Everyday Delicious cookbook is now available Only

15 +GST

1 small butternut squash 2 T. canola oil 1/4 c. orange juice 1 t. chile powder 1 t. ground cumin 1/4 t. ground cinnamon salt and freshly ground pepper to taste 1 c. frozen or canned corn kernels 1/3 c. chopped red onion 2 c. fresh cilantro, roughly chopped

Dressing: 1 T. canola oil juice and zest of 1 lime 1 T. agave syrup (available in whole foods stores) salt and freshly ground pepper to taste extra chile powder and cumin to taste

In a medium bowl, soak the dried black beans overnight in enough cold water to cover them by 2 inches. The next day, drain the beans, put them into a medium pot, and cover them generously with water. Don’t salt the water. Add a bay leaf and cinnamon stick to the pot and bring it to a boil. Lower the heat and let the beans simmer until they’re tender. Drain them and remove the bay leaf and cinnamon.

Author of Four Canadian Best Sellers

Order your 2013 Everyday Delicious cookbook at atcoblueflamekitchen.com or call 1.800.840.3393

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

Tuscan Farro Salad I first met farro in a hearty peasant soup while travelling with my husband in Tuscany a few years ago. My husband is fluent in Italian and was able to converse with our gregarious inn-keepers in Lucca, who were as passionate about farro as we were. They gave us this much-loved recipe for a marinated farro salad that is traditional in the region. The olive oil in Lucca is like liquid gold, thick and luscious, with a pronounced sweet olive taste. Look for a similar Tuscan olive oil in your fave Italian store. Farro salad can be prepared and kept in the fridge for a few hours before serving. Salad: 1 c. farro* 1 c. corn kernels, fresh, frozen or canned 2 c. ripe tomatoes, diced small 1 c. diced cucumbers, preferably seedless 1/4 c. finely diced Spanish or Vidalia onion 1 c. bocconcini pearls*, drained well, or fresh mozzarella, cubed 1 c. fresh basil, roughly chopped 1 c. Italian flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped

Rinse the quinoa in a sieve and cook it in 4 c. of boiling salted water until it’s swollen and tender, about 15 minutes. Cooking times vary, so taste the quinoa for doneness. Drain it well and spread the cooked quinoa onto a clean dish towel to dry completely.

Dressing:

Preheat your oven to 400°F. Peel the butternut squash and remove the seeds and the stringy core. Slice the squash crosswise into 1/2-inch disks, then cut the disks into 1/2-inch cubes. In a medium bowl, toss the squash cubes with the 2 T. of oil, orange juice, chile powder, cumin, cinnamon and salt and pepper to taste. Spread the cubes evenly in a single layer in a baking pan and roast until they’re golden brown and fork tender, about 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside.

2 garlic cloves, minced

If you’re using frozen corn, cook it in salted water until it’s crisp-tender. Drain the corn well. In a small bowl, make the dressing: whisk together the 1 T. of oil, juice and zest of the lime, agave syrup and salt and pepper to taste.

In a large bowl, combine the farro with the other salad ingredients. Mix the salad well. Add the dressing and toss. Taste for seasoning and adjust if needed.

In a large bowl combine the quinoa, squash, corn, black beans, onion and cilantro. Add the dressing and toss the salad gently. Taste it for seasoning and add extra chile powder and cumin for kicked-up flavour, if you like.

1/4 c. extra-virgin olive oil, preferably a luscious oil from Tuscany 1 T. red wine vinegar 1/2 t. Dijon mustard salt and pepper to taste

Cook the farro in boiling salted water until it’s tender, about 1 hour. Drain well and lay it out on a clean kitchen towel to dry. Cook the fresh corn kernels in boiling salted water until they’re crisptender, about 3 minutes. Frozen corn should also be cooked briefly. Drain the corn well. In a small bowl, whisk together the ingredients for the dressing.

*Farro and bocconcini pearls are available at Italian markets. Bocconcini pearls are also available at Costco and The Real Canadian Superstore. Laura Di Lembo is a reference assistant at the Calgary Public Library.

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

Calgary’s Best Kept Secret

well matched

Est. 1913 - 2013

quail

Reader Rock Garden Historic Site Lunch • Dinner Weekend Brunch • Special Events

Kitchen Garden Cuisine

Macleod Trail & 25th Avenue SE 403-263-0210 www.readergardencafe.ca

green grapes ginger garlic verjus parsley honey pistachios butter

Quails Roasted with Grapes and Pistachios Serve this dish with a simple salad of mixed greens dressed with lemon juice and olive oil along with a big platter of buttery couscous.

8 quails kosher salt and pepper to taste 4 T. olive oil 4 T. butter 1 garlic clove, crushed to a paste with salt 2 T. ginger, grated and squeezed, juice reserved 1 c. seedless green grapes 1/2 c. verjus* (available at specialty food stores) 1 T. honey 2 T. finely chopped parsley 2 T. pistachios, toasted and coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 450°F. Season the birds generously with salt and pepper; set aside. Place a large heavy-bottomed, ovenproof saucepan over high heat and add the olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the quails and fry them for about 5 minutes, turning occasionally until golden brown on most sides. Add the butter to the pan followed by the garlic, ginger and juices, grapes, verjus and honey. Stir the quails to coat with the butter mixture. Put the quails in the oven and roast them for 10 to 15 minutes, or until they are just cooked through. Let the birds rest for 5 minutes, then taste the sauce for seasoning. Serve with the sauce, garnished with parsley and pistachios. Serves 4 as a main, 8 as a starter.

*Verjus is the sour juice squeezed from unripe grapes, a by-product of wine making with an excellent, subtle acidity.

casually elegant. uniquely vintage. distinctly canadian.

• Sunday Prime Rib Three-course Dinner • $34.95 per person

Reservations Recommended 403.268.8607 or HeritagePark.ca

1900 Heritage Drive SW Calgary

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

Pair this dish with: Tamellini Soave (Italy) $22 Ripe white peaches and Anjou pear aromas, medium bodied with a slightly oily texture on the palate, clean and mineral with fresh stone fruit undertones. A great accompaniment to fowl dishes. Kooyong Pinot Noir (Australia) $43 This wine offers wild bush berry aromas with delicate notes of medicinal cherry. The texture on the palate is a balance of soft tannins and savoury acidity, the finish is slightly mineral with a delicate beetroot component.

Matthew Altizer

Made-in-heaven food and wine pairings

pappardelle

verjus crème fraîche fennel

lemon

panko parsley capers

steelhead trout Pappardelle with Steelhead Trout, Preserved Lemon and Crème Fraîche

The flavours in this dish are subtle and complex, but have a beautiful aroma that complements steelhead trout perfectly. Make sure to use a pappardelle that is thin and delicate. 1 c. crème fraîche 1 lb. steelhead trout, finely diced 1/2 preserved lemon rind, rinsed and finely minced (available at Middle Eastern and specialty groceries) 1 T. capers, coarsely chopped 1/2 t. crushed fennel seeds 2 T. verjus* (available at specialty food stores) kosher salt and chile flakes to taste 1 t. lemon zest 2 T. butter 1/2 c. panko bread crumbs kosher salt and chile flakes to taste 2 T. finely chopped Italian parsley 1 lb. pappardelle

Fill a large pot with water and set it over high heat. Place a small saucepan over very low heat and add the crème fraîche, warming it gently until it just melts. Add the trout, half the preserved lemon rind, capers, fennel, verjus,

salt, chile flakes and half of the lemon zest to the crème fraîche and stir it to combine. Keep stirring the trout in the pan until it just barely starts to warm up – warming the fish ever so slightly will allow the hot pasta to cook the fish to perfection when it’s all tossed together. Melt the butter in a small sauté pan and stir in the bread crumbs, making sure to stir them constantly until they turn golden brown, keeping in mind that they will darken a bit further when you turn off the heat. Season the bread crumbs with salt and chile flakes, and then stir in the remaining lemon rind and chopped parsley. Set aside. When the water comes to a boil, season it generously with salt and cook the pappardelle according to the instructions on the package. Reserve about a teacup full of pasta water before draining the pasta. Return the pasta to the pot you cooked it in and immediately stir in the trout mixture, mixing just to combine, adding some of the reserved pasta water if it looks too thick. Divide the pasta among four bowls and garnish each one with a sprinkling of the reserved breadcrumbs. Serves 4 as a starter.

Pair this dish with: Fernando de Castilla Antique Fino (Spain) $45 This fino sherry offers delicate yeasty notes with fresh marcona almond undertones. The acidity and the fruit are quite thirst quenching, denoting hints of citrus zest and minerality. A refreshing match with cream dishes or salty foods. Shooting Star Pinot Noir (USA) $21 This wine offers intense cherry and raspberry aromas with delicate hints of plums, the tannins soft and silky with salivating acidity. This wine matches nicely with fish dishes if a red wine is required.

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

the

Sommelier 2 dishes, 3 sommeliers, 3 judges, 6 “wines” Photos by Carol Slezak

This is the 8th year of City Palate’s Sommelier Challenge that we call The Iron Sommelier. We have such a good time eating, drinking, laughing, that we don’t see any end to these fun and informative challenges. It’s also a good chance to provide you with information you can use for your own food and wine pairings – so that they are more fun and less of a challenge! The Way it Works This year we matched wines with two dishes created by Avec Bistro’s executive chef Darnell Japp. Japp made the dishes and fed them to our three sommeliers, who then chose two wines they thought would pair well with both dishes – a classic match and a more imaginative choice. The Sommelier Challenge enlists the services of three judges who are involved in the food and wine biz and one “man on the street” with a good palate. These judges taste each dish with each of the wines, then talk about how compatible each wine is with each dish. Finally, as a group, they choose one classic wine and one imaginative wine that paired best with both dishes. This year, the sommeliers really got playful with their imaginative choices – rather than wine, they chose a cider, a whisky and a sake. The judges were seriously challenged! Our Chef Darnell Japp created a Mushroom Tart appetizer with a rich, creamy filling of mushrooms, cream and sherry garnished with parmesan cheese in a crisp, buttery crust. He followed up with a dish of Pork Chop with Crispy Potato Pancake and Quince. The chops had been brined in apple juice and were succulent and juicy, tarted up with dollops of quince and accompanied with braised red cabbage.

Our Judges (left to right) Mark Kuspira Crush Imports Lisa Clack J. Webb Wine Merchant Jeremy Sturgess Jeremy Sturgess Architecture

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

The Sommeliers and the “Wines” (prices are approximate)

Deena Harris, Highlander Wine & Spirits Classic: 2011 Boedecker Cellars Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, Oregon, $25 This is a light and fragrant pinot noir. There is a hint of floral and earth character on the nose that follows through to the palate that matches well with the mushrooms and sherry flavour of the tart. The black raspberry and plum flavours match the pork and braised cabbage and complement the quince. A long, vivid finish on this wine stands up to both dishes. Imaginative: Domaine de la Minotière Cidre de Normandie (Cidre Fermier Bio Brut), France, $10.50 This is an off-dry cider from the Calvados region in France. It has flavours of earth and cinnamon that complement the mushrooms, and crisp acidity helps cut the richness of the sherry cream sauce in the tart. The crisp red apple flavour matches well with the pork and the quince purée, and soft creamy bubbles add another texture to the pork dish.

Toshi Karino, Carino Bistro Classic: 2011 Elio Altare Dolcetto d’Alba, Italy, $28 I want the wine to have a light, fruity, delicate structure. This wine is not oak aged, but has the rich flavour of dark berries with a hint of almond. The fresh acidity and delicate tannins are good complements to the creaminess of the mushroom tart. When we eat pork, we get lots of pork umami, which is well complemented by this fruity, juicy wine and its delicate structure. This wine should be served a little cooler than room temperature. Imaginative: Tamanohikari Yamahai Junmai Ginjo Sake, Japan, $40 Usually Ginjo sake is better served chilled. Yamahai is one of the classic brewing methods that takes a long time, so this sake is better served nurukan, which is 40°C. It shows the proper acidity and nutty flavour when it’s cold, but shows more umami (savoury) sweetness and smoothness when it’s warm. The smooth texture matches the creaminess of the tart. Pork has inosinic acid – present in muscle – and sake has glutamic acid. The synergy of the umami of both of these acids is enhanced.

Alex Keevil, Bin 905, Bar C Classic: Thibault Liger-Belair, Moulin à Vent Vieilles Vignes 2010, France, $45 One of my favourite Beaujolais Crus, this is no Beaujolais Nouveau. The structure, acid, tart fruit and earth notes (with tannin to boot) work beautifully with the mushroom tart, holding its own against the sherry cream sauce. Alongside the pork, the earthy, herbal qualities jibe with the cabbage and crispy potato. With enough fruit for the quince purée, this wine is the perfect weight to match the pork. Imaginative: Sortilège, Canadian Maple Whisky, $27 (375 ml) Thinking rich, I decided on the Sortilège, a blend of pure Quebec maple syrup and Canadian rye whisky. It harmonizes beautifully with the sherry cream sauce of the tart and gracefully carries the pastry and mushrooms across the palate. Paired with the pork, it blends with the cabbage and quince, complements the hearty, crispy potato and takes the pork to a new flavour level. Maple syrup and bacon anyone? continued on page 32 CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

the

Sommelier

continued from page 31 The Judges Comments... The judges had a heck of a time with the imaginative pairings, since they were all over the map – cider, maple whisky and sake... oh my!

Mushroom Tart with CLASSIC wine matches:

Pork Chop with Crispy Potato Pancake and Quince with CLASSIC wine matches:

Boedecker Cellars Willamette Valley Pinot Noir

Lisa: A perfect balance between classic pinot noir and mushrooms, with the earthy flavours and aroma blending perfectly.

Lisa: The wine was too acidic and light in body for the pork, and its youthfulness needed aging to balance the vinegar in the cabbage and the brine used for the pork.

Mark: The wine had no conflicts with the tart, in fact, the tart made the wine silky.

Mark: The acid in the wine matched the vinegar in the cabbage but didn’t emphasize it, so the wine brought all the elements of the dish together well – my pick for the best pairing.

Jeremy: The interesting wine nose is earthy, yet it was too competitive with, or distinctive for, the tart.

Jeremy: The wine was too earthy for the pork dish.

Thibault Liger-Belair, Moulin à Vent Vieilles Vignes 2010

Lisa: The fresh savoury fruit in the wine matched the thyme-roasted mushrooms creating umami.

Lisa: The decanted freshness of the wine complemented the pork and quince, but the tannins and acidity clashed with the brine and red wine vinegar.

Mark: This pairing was good, but the youth of the wine overpowered the delicate mushrooms. With more aging, this wine would have been perfect.

Mark: The acidity in the wine conflicted with the vinegar in the cabbage.

Jeremy: Very sympathetic to the mushrooms and sauce. Perfect. Sublime: made the mushrooms sing.

Jeremy: This was less interesting than with the tart. The wine didn’t serve the pork well and was less perfect than with the mushrooms.

2011 Elio Altare Dolcetto d’Alba

Lisa: The chilled freshness of the wine was almost too fresh for the earthiness of the mushrooms. The acidity also overpowered the creaminess of the dish.

Lisa: A complex but complementary pairing. The intense flavour of the wine highlighted the sweet-sour combo of the quince paste and vinegary cabbage. Served chilled, there was a wonderful fresh aroma and finish, begging for more pork and wine. Fantastic!

Mark: The chill on the wine worked, but the wine was still too big for the dish and the chill overpowered the delicate tart. Jeremy: Served cold, the wine was fresh, but it was uninteresting with the mushrooms.

Mushroom Tart with IMAGINATIVE matches: Domaine de la Minotière Cidre de Normandie (Cidre Fermier Bio Brut) Lisa: Bubbly is great with appetizers, and this cider had a fermented apple aroma that was intriguing in combination with the fresh finish – its tart flavour was cut by the tart’s sherry cream. Mark: The acidity of the cider lingered, but it didn’t conflict with the dish. Jeremy: This was not compatible with the mushrooms. The bubbles and relatively sour taste of the cider were at odds with the creamy richness of the tart. Sortilège, Canadian Maple Whisky Lisa: A light bacon aroma, beautifully smooth texture – the weight of the whisky complemented the weight of the cream sauce and parmesan.

Mark: The chill on the wine was perfect with the dish. I thought it would have been too powerful, but it made the pork seem juicier and cut through the acid of the cabbage. Jeremy: The wine and pork dish were just beautiful together.

Pork Chop with Crispy Potato Pancake and Quince with IMAGINATIVE matches: Domaine de la Minotière Cidre de Normandie (Cidre Fermier Bio Brut) Lisa: The pairing of pork and apply cider was perfect. Refreshing bubbles brightened the pork and highlighted the quince. The cider’s acidity matched the acidity of the brined chop. Mark: Bubbles freshen my palate and make me ready to eat anything. There were some heavier elements to the dish, but the cider’s bubbles made them lighter and brighter. Jeremy: A good fit – the textures merged well. Here, the savoury and the fizzy were ideal with the crunch of the potato and the boldness of the pork and cabbage. Sortilège, Canadian Maple Whisky

Mark: the most interesting of the three imaginative pairings, the heat lingered on the palate, but was nicely tempered by the creamy tart.

Lisa: An innovative choice, and I love maple and bacon so initially the maple-infused whisky went well with the pork. But the intense aroma and high alcohol overwhelmed the dish in the end, though the weight of the liqueur held up to the denseness of the meaty chop.

Jeremy: The nose was a little overpowering, but the richness gave ooomph to the tart... maybe more than the tart wanted.

Mark: The maple whisky was a good match, but the alcohol warmth lingered so much that it overpowered the pork but balanced the lightly vinegary cabbage well.

Tamanohikari Yamahai Junmai Ginjo Sake

Jeremy: The richness and strength of the whisky could be borne by the pork. Still, the strong nose was distracting.

Lisa: An innovative choice for sure, the warm, creamy sake balanced well with the creamy sauce. Fun! Mark: I have little experience with sake, so found it hard to evaluate. When the texture of the sake was described as milky or lactic, it balanced with the creamy texture of the dish. I wondered how it would have been served chilled as a contrast to the warm dish. Jeremy: Though initially awkward, the sake lingered well with the mushrooms, making good umami.

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

Tamanohikari Yamahai Junmai Ginjo Sake Lisa: An innovative pairing, but the vinegar in the dish accentuated the high alcohol of the sake so that they fought each other. Mark: The sake seemed to become hotter in style – more alcoholic – leaving a warmer sensation on the finish, making it the most confusing pairing. The milky texture of the sake was better with the creamy mushroom tart. Jeremy: This didn’t work at all with the pork dish.

continued on page 34

NOW BOOKING SOCIAL EVENTS Here is your chance to find out what it would be like to cook in a million dollar kitchen! Don’t pass up the chance to share this opportunity with friends and family at the state of the art Culinary Campus in the heart of downtown Calgary.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL: 403.774.4694 EMAIL: CULINARY.CAMPUS@SAIT.CA VISIT: CULINARYCAMPUS.CA

California Dreamin’ Join us in Napa Valley for some exclusive wining and exceptional dining! October 27th to November 1st, 2013 Hosted by Geoff Last (Bin 905) and Gail Norton (The Cookbook Co. Cooks) You’ll get the chance to visit wineries that never open their doors to the public, enjoy winery tours and tastings, dine in the area’s best restaurants, and learn enough at Gail and Geoff’s cooking classes to wow your friends when you get home. Next time you visit Napa, you’ll be the insider. Until October, though, you’ll be California dreamin’. $2800 includes accommodation: a spectacular private guesthouse overlooking a vineyard complete with swimming pool, hot tub and other enticing amenities, all food and wine and transportation within the week. For more details on our newest Culinary Escape, please visit our website.

THE COOKBOOK CO. COOKS

722-11th Avenue SW PH 403-265-6066, ext. 1 cookbookcooks.com CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

JOIN uS FOR

city palate’s THIRD ANNuAL

pig & pinot festival

the

Sommelier

continued from page 32 Avec’s exec chef Darnell Japp devised these two savoury recipes to tickle the palates of the sommeliers and inspire their creativity. They certainly did that!

Mushroom Tart This tart has the appearance of a quiche, but preparing each part of the recipe separately – the tart shell and the filling – makes for a texturally superior dish! The crust is crispy and the filling creamy and delicious. Crust for 6 5-inch tarts: 1/2 lb. cold butter 2 c. flour 1/2 c. sour cream

3 oz. whipping cream

Pork:

2 oz. vegetable stock

1 c. apple juice

grated parmesan for garnish

1 c. water

Grate the cold butter into the flour and mix until it becomes a coarse meal. Add the sour cream and salt and mix gently until a dough forms. Bring together into a ball, cover and let the dough rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes and for as long as overnight. When ready to make the tarts, preheat the oven to 325°F and roll the dough out to 1/8-inch thick. Lightly flour six 5-inch brulée dishes and press the dough into each one. Put a layer of dry beans in the bottom of each tart – this helps keep the tart dough from rising while baking. Bake the tart shells, removing the beans after about 10 minutes, and bake for another 5 minutes or until golden brown.

2 T. sugar

1 t. olive oil + 1 t. butter 1 c. mushrooms, chopped 1 shallot, very finely minced

A fuNDRAISING eveNT IN SuppORT Of

Guests will enjoy a stroll with plates of delicious piggy morsels created by 12 chef teams who will compete for the honour of winning the “Divine Swine” trophy using pasture-raised and naturally fed Irvings Farm Fresh Berkshire pork. No trot to this trough would be complete without perfect porcine and pinot wine pairings and the city’s most talented sommeliers will help guests sip, swish, and savour a global selection of both red and white pinot. pluS...  A summer solstice themed Silent Auction  A ticket raffle to win over $2000 worth of fine wines  Music by Simply Sinatra, featuring Rob Young

Food prepared by: 1. Justin Leboe, Model Milk 2. Darnell Japp, Avec Bistro 3. Rogelio Herrera, Alloy 4. Judy Wood, Meez Cuisine 5. Michael Allemeier, SAIT 6. Chris Dewling, Blink

7. Cam Dobranski, Winebar Kensington 8. Shawn Greenwood, Taste 9. Matthew Altizer, The Cookbook Co. Cooks 10. Glen Manzer, CIBO & Bonterra 11. Nicole Gomes, Nicole Gourmet Catering 12. Duncan Ly, Hotel Arts & Yellow Door Bistro

Wine poured by:

Quince Paste:

1 oz. dry sherry

Filling for each tart:

119 - 12th AveNue SW 7-10 pM

Avec makes its own quince paste but you can find good quality quince pastes at specialty stores. Heat the commercial paste and thin it with a little apple juice so it can be spooned over the finished dish. You can make the pancakes ahead of time and reheat them to assemble the dish. Simmer 5 large quinces, peeled and cored, with 1 c. white sugar and 1/2 c. apple cider vinegar over medium-low heat for approx 2 hours until very soft, then purée. Continue to cook until the purée becomes a thick paste.

pinch of salt

Thursday, June 20th

Pork Chop with Crispy Potato Pancake and Quince

pinch chopped thyme

To make the filling: heat a sauté pan with the oil and butter, add the mushrooms and sauté until golden brown. Add the shallots and thyme and deglaze with sherry. Scrape the bottom of the pan to release any of the browned bits, then add the cream and vegetable stock. Gently reduce to a thick, creamy paste. To assemble: Reheat the tart shell for 3 minutes in a 425°F oven. Spoon the warm mushroom filling into the shells, garnish with grated parmesan, and serve immediately. Serves 6 as an appetizer.

2 T. kosher salt 4 bone-in pork loin chops, 1-1/2-inch thick

Crispy Potato: 4 large Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and grated 1 shallot, very finely minced chopped thyme 1 egg salt and pepper

For the pork: Mix together the apple juice, water, sugar and salt. Add the pork and let it brine for 1 hour. When ready to serve, grill or fry to your desired doneness. Mix all the potato ingredients together and form into large, thin pancakes, about 1/4-inch thick. Fry until crispy. To assemble: Place the potato pancake on the plate, top with the pork chop and dollop the quince on the side to run each bite of pork through, or spoon it over the chop if you prefer. This is great served with braised red cabbage and roasted squash. Serves 4.

A nd t h e Winners are . . . The winners were not easily chosen! The idea was to find one classic and one imaginative pairing for both dishes, but that was not to be – it was a hung jury. But we needed winners, so here’s what the judges concluded:

The Mushroom Tart: Tickets are $125, available now at pigandpinotcalgary.eventbrite.ca T - @pigandpinot fB - City palate

Classic pairing – Boedecker Cellars Willamette Valley Pinot Noir Imaginative pairing – Sortilège Canadian Maple Whisky

Pork Chop with Crispy Potato Pancake and Quince: Classic pairing – Elio Altare Dolcetto d’Alba Imaginative pairing – Domaine de la Minotière Cidre de Normandie ✤

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

The

Entertainer

Using a time-honoured recipe, we handcraft our Turkish Bread from scratch ever y day. It â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a labour of love taking up to 24 hours to develop and resulting in a full-flavoured rustic loaf with a golden crust and a light and air y texture. Our Turkish Bread is perfect for entertaining, simply cut or tear and ser ve with your favourite dip.

VIS I T A N Y O F O U R 10 lO c AT I O N S I N c A lgA RY A N d SU R RO U N d I N g A R e A! w w w. c O b S b R e A d . c O m

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

Tuscany on the Bow

This Calgarian not only makes wine, but grows the grapes too! story and photos by Allan Shewchuk

Peter Fortini, a purebred Tuscan, stands between rows of carefully trimmed grape vines on his property and smiles. The late autumn sun is casting long shadows and he knows it’s almost time to begin his harvest and to start the process of making this year’s vintage. Out past his vineyard and fruit trees, he can see the spire of the local Catholic church and he breathes in the aroma of the hearty meat sauce his wife Piera is cooking inside their house for the evening meal. No wonder he’s smiling – isn’t this a perfect Tuscan scene right out of a Fellini movie? Well, it would be, except for the fact that Signor Fortini is standing in his yard in northwest Calgary and the church he’s looking at is called Canadian Martyrs. If you don’t believe me, I’ll understand, because the notion of someone growing wine grapes in Cowtown borders on the preposterous, what with our snowstorms in June and such. But Calgary weather is no match for a stoic Toscano like Fortini when it comes to putting good wine on the table. My friend Fortini was born in the beautiful walled city of Lucca, and raised in the village of Vagli Sotto, in the undiscovered Tuscan region known as the Garfagnana Valley. As you wind north of Lucca up the Serchio River and into the Garfagnana, you come upon high hills covered in chestnut trees and the stunning Alpi Apuane mountains. From these mountains comes beautiful white marble, and from under the canopy of chestnuts comes a bounty of juicy porcini mushrooms, black truffles and fat cinghiale, the wild boar that roam the countryside. And nothing goes better with the local maccheroni pasta in boar and mushroom sauce than a hearty red wine, something the Fortini family would buy in Vagli Sotto from the local contadino and for which Peter brought his passion when he immigrated to Calgary in 1954. The problem was that in the 1950s it was illegal to make wine at home, something Italians couldn’t do without. So Fortini, like almost every new Italian Canadian, made his on the sly. Initially he made wine from raisins, and then from table grapes that he would crush and ferment in a barrel hidden in the oil pit of his garage, which he covered with dirt to avoid detection. Eventually the law changed, and citizens were allowed to produce 25 gallons of homemade vino, which could now

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

be made with decent California grapes. Fortini was in business and he set up his basement as a cantina so he could store his wine there. Unfortunately, his early efforts were, in his words, “brutto” (really bad), because he made wine the way his uncle had taught him in Italy, but the sugar content in American grapes was far higher. That led to an alcohol content that would knock you on your rear end after one glass. Many unsuspecting non-Italians have encountered this phenomenon when they’ve been offered home made wine by their Italian neighbours, and after two glasses have had to head home directly for a “nap.” Fortini eventually taught himself to ferment his wine and then press it so the alcohol was reduced, with an increase in quality. His cantina is now full of the fruits of his labour, including several vintages of red and white wine, links of homemade sausages and other yummy pork products.

Wine- and sausage-making were just hobbies, though. Peter worked hard in his new hometown, eventually training as a Clinical Profusionist at the Holy Cross Hospital. He was the guy who hooked up heart surgery patients to the blood machine that kept their circulation going while the heart wasn’t beating, and he was known to one and all as “Peter the Pumper.” I came to know Fortini when I was looking to live in Tuscany while on a sabbatical in 1996. A mutual friend hooked us up, and Peter told me his cousin had a house I could rent in his boyhood village of Vagli Sotto. Because these were pre-Internet days and I didn’t speak much Italian, I had no way of finding out what I was getting myself into, so Peter told me to come over to his house for dinner so we could talk. It was a quintessential Italian experience. I arrived to find Peter with two bottles of his wine, which he plopped down on the table. His lovely wife Piera, suntanned and dribbling with gold necklaces and earrings, emerged from their fully equipped second kitchen in the basement with groaning bowls of pasta, and urged me to “Mangia!” Believe me, I didn’t need much urging. And so we talked and talked about everything except the house I was to rent, and I consumed nearly all of both bottles of wine. After being poured into a taxi, I arrived home to realize that in the midst of all this consumption of wine and food, I had learned absolutely nothing about what I had actually gone there for in the first place. So I phoned Peter and told him I needed info from him as I had a big decision to make. Another dinner invite for the next night ensued, with exactly the same result. After about seven such dinners, where I woke up the next day dazed and with no better idea of what to expect in Vagli Sotto, I gave up and rented the house sight unseen. It was one of the best things I have ever done and it’s cemented my bond with the Fortinis and their relatives, who also feed and “wine” me every time I return to Vagli Sotto. These days when I go to Peter’s, I look forward to the wine from his homegrown grapes. He grows the varietal fragola (or sometimes valiant) to make red wine. He has set up a semi-greenhouse to protect the fruit against Calgary’s capricious weather and admits that sometimes he has to turn on heaters so the budding vines don’t freeze. In the summer, he has to be vigilant about flies. But after lots of loving care, every year he ends up with about 60 kilos of grapes, which produce five gallons of wine. The crush is a family affair and a big meal always follows.

403 261 9003 • 230, 11 TH Ave S.e. • grumAnS.cA

Lunch | Dinner | Late Night 1919 4th Street SW | candelalounge.com | @CandelaCalgary

His home-made red is a revelation. Unlike the yeasty and acidic plonk that most home wine makers churn out, the Fortini red is ruby in colour with field berries on the nose and a smooth, fruity finish. The white malvagia is crystal clear, with a huge floral nose, but with good acidity and perfect alcohol balance. Ironically, now that he’s growing his own fruit, Fortini often has to add a little sugar to his juice to increase the alcohol content. But for him, alcohol is not the point of the exercise – it’s a celebration of the Italian lifestyle and a link back to his homeland. In fact, at our most recent meal together, where we dined on Peter’s homemade garfagnini sausages, he confided that he had only ever been drunk three times in his 76 years, and that was when someone gave him hard liquor instead of wine. Upon hearing this, the tips of my ears got hot from the shame of a lifetime of over-consuming wine, and I didn’t have the heart to admit that I had already been tipsy three times that week. That didn’t stop me, however, from letting Peter fill my glass one more time with some fragola, and we toasted to grapes grown in the city by the Bow. Salute! ✤ Allan Shewchuk is a long-time Italian wanna-be who is getting his wish by moving to Florence this year. Odds are, wine will be involved.

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

recommendations. We learned that the Guadalupe Valley – home to 50-some wineries and restaurants along a 24-kilometre loop – was the heart of Baja’s Ruta del Vino. Along with the wine culture, there was a farm-to-table food movement sweeping over the area thanks to a few revolutionary chefs pushing the idea of a North Baja cuisine. Following our new maps, we turned off Highway 1 and drove up Highway 3 into rolling hills of ochre-red soil strewn with large white granite boulders and cacti. As we crested a hill about 15 minutes into the drive, tidy square farms of green field vegetables interspersed with silver-green olive groves sprawled in front of us. Vineyards, somewhat less uniformly, crept up the hillsides. Had I not been driving, I would have clapped in sheer glee at the gastronomic potential beyond the windshield. We decided to splurge on the brand new Hotel Endémico for our first two nights in Mexico. It’s located in the Guadalupe Valley, about 15 minutes northeast of Ensenada, and I’d seen it on hipster web sites that gushed about the off-the-beaten-path luxury. As we approached, we saw the strangely wonderful private casitas that were cantilevered out over granite boulder-studded hills, newly planted vineyards and the Guadalupe Valley beyond.

A Mexican Wine Adventure Follow the Ruta del Vino for good wine and great new Mexican food. story and photos by Jennifer Cockrall-King

My husband Mike and I had put more than 3000 km. of highway and two border crossings under our belts in just five days, but our hastily made plan to flee Edmonton’s November snows and drive to Mexico’s Baja Peninsula in search of vitamin D, fish tacos and adventure was starting to make sense. South of Tijuana, the humidity of the Pacific air started to soften the lines on our faces and we cranked up the radio and blared polka-like norteño music from our truck’s speakers. Our first stop in the Baja was the Ensenada Visitor Info Centre where we picked up a map. We learned, as we crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, that our in-car navigation system, which was supposed to be “good for all of North America,” didn’t include the entire lower-third of the North American continent, otherwise known as Mexico. Before we left home, I had picked up rumblings along the foodie grapevine that Mexican wine had improved dramatically in the past several years. As it happened, the country’s largest and oldest winery region, the fertile Guadalupe Valley, was less than 20 minutes inland from the port city of Ensenada. The helpful visitor information agent was more than happy to provide us with maps and winery and dining

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

Before we got too cozy at Hotel Endémico, we needed sustenance. Calgary travel and food writer Marcello Di Cintio had suggested I contact Jay Porter, San Diego chef and blogging evangelist, about the North Baja’s food and wine scene. Porter told me he’d just been to the Guadalupe Valley tweaking his restaurant’s house olive oil, made by Rancho Cortés, a farmstead cheesery and olive oil producer. Porter rattled off dozens of wineries he liked, plus a long list of places to eat. For his money, Porter liked Corazón de Tierra, which had also just been named by Travel + Leisure magazine, Mexico edition, as the best restaurant in the nation. “This place is supposed to be good?” Mike asked more than once as we followed hand-painted signs down dusty backroads for two kilometres. Good? It was great. The five-course menu changes daily, and with chefs bounding out of the kitchen between each course to run into the garden, it’s not just seasonal, but changes hourly depending on the supply of arugula, chard, carrots, tomatoes or peppers. Corazón de Tierra had me at the first bite of soy-ginger-garlicdressed mahi-mahi ceviche garnished with fresh mint, and the first sip of Chasselas del Mogor, a minerally white wine. Mogor Badán, as it turned out, is a winery just down the highway. This pioneering winery produces only one white from 35-year-old chasselas vines and one red blend from 85-year-old cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and merlot vines. Halfway through dinner, for the seared yellowtail and the grilled ribeye courses, I switched to a rich, plummy tempranillo made a few hundred steps away at the restaurant’s own winery, Vena Cava. We left Corazón de Tierra rejuvenated. As the sun set over the valley, we settled into our boxy casita plotting another day of adventure. After a breakfast around Hotel Endémico’s pool, we drove to Mogor Badán, hoping we could charm our way into its tasting room. I was desperate to try its red, but the winery was shut tight, except for a market garden doing a brisk business from its on-site vegetable patch. Nearby Barón Balché, a winery with a reputation for big reds, was also closed. In fact, we tried a half-dozen wineries only to realize that wine touring mid-week in November is not ideal timing. Most wineries on the Baja Wine Route are small. Some have no tasting room, others are open limited hours on weekends, or by appointment only. But God bless the big wineries. L.A. Cetto is one of Mexico’s largest producers, with a good tour, generous hours of operation, and a well-stocked tasting room and store. With continued on page 40

bin905.com Now you can view and purchase our vast selection of wines, spirits and craft beer online and have them delivered anywhere in Alberta! Visit our new website and see why the Globe and Mail called Bin 905 one of the “best places in Canada to find rare wine”.

Unimarket offers authentic ingredients for all your Mexican recipes. Read all about us at unimarket.ca.

We noW carry Juan Valdez coffees! South Calgary 128 - 50th Avenue SE 403-255-4479

North Calgary 2405 Edmonton Trail NE 403-984-3373

Red Deer 5317 50th Avenue 403-309-4479

BIN 905

Distinctive Wines and Spirits

2311-4th Street SW 403.261.1600 / bin905.com

The new way to define a night out. {we call it Bar-see}, noun: 1. A new BRAND of restaurant in Calgary’s beltline 2. A modern hot spot for food & drinks FOOD & DRINK

3. The newest member of the award-winning Canadian Rocky Mountain Resorts family

Come and what everybody is talking about. Patio opening soon. 340 - 17th Avenue SW (beside Cilantro)

crmr.com CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

A Mexican Wine Adventure continued from page 38 an everything-under-the-sun selection offered in the tasting room, we discovered that the Don Luis Reserve Concordia (a cabernet sauvignon-shiraz blend) was surprisingly lovely, especially at its $18 price tag. Rather than attempting to repeat the soaring experience of eating at Corazón de Tierra, we opted instead for Ultramarino, an oyster and tapas bar in downtown Ensenada, on the advice of our helpful tourism-office dude again. I strayed from the wine mission at hand, tempted by the buzz surrounding the Baja’s craft beer scene, and happily nursed a pint of Cupacá Obscura, a dark, rich beer that went down very smoothly with Ultramarino’s exceptional tempura Baja oysters and smoky marlin tacos. The next day, we knew we’d better keep making our way south, but figured we could squeeze in one more stop. This time, I called ahead and made an appointment at Santo Tomás winery, 30 minutes south of Ensenada and the oldest winery in the Baja, founded in 1888. Laura Zamora, Mexico’s first female wine maker, had been at the helm of this major Mexican winery since 2003, and her wines had recently scored well at major European wine shows. She made time for a personalized tour through the vineyards where she grows 16 different varietals, from cabernet sauvignon and barbera (one of her personal favourites) to more obscure grapes, like French colombard and mission, a European grape clone of listan prieto, that has been thriving in the Baja for hundreds of years, although it has died out in its native Spain. The vines are between 25 and 75 years old. Hundred-year-old olive trees formed the windrows.

 Hotel Endémico, Tecate-Ensenada Highway 3 at km 75, Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California; from Canada, toll-free 1-800-337-4685; from Mexico 1-800-123-3454. designhotels.com/endemico Vena Cava, in-house winery at Villa del Valle Inn & Corazón de Tierra restaurant; Tecate-Ensenada, Highway 3 at km 88; 011-52-1-646-156-8007. Open year-round 11 am to 5 pm. lavilladelvalle.com/en/index.html Mogor Badán, winery; Tecate-Ensenada Highway 3 at km 86.5; 011-52-1-646-177-1484. By appointment only. Hotel Endémico - photo courtesy of Design Hotels

 Corazón de Tierra, Carretera TecateEnsenada, Highway 3 at km 88; 011-52-646-156-8030. (Follow the road signs to Villa del Valle Inn.) Open daily. corazondetierra.com L.A. Cetto, Carretera Highway 3 Tecate-Ensenada at km 73.5 km, Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California; 011-52-1-646-155-2179. Open daily 9:30 am to 3:30 pm. ettowines.com

Corazón de Tierra exterior

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

Ultramarino Oyster Bar, Avenida Ruiz (between Primera and Virgilio Uribe), Ensenada, Baja California. (no phone, no website) Santo Tomás winery, Highway 1 south of Ensenada at km 47.5; 011-52-1-646-151-9333. Open daily 10 am to 5 pm. santo-tomas.com

Many wines were available in the tasting room and wine shop, where Zamora and I discussed everything from the winery’s efforts to educate Mexicans about food and wine pairings to the winery’s custom olive oil collection. Given the hundreds of kilometres of driving in front of us that day, I wasn’t about to taste my way through Santo Tomás’ cellar, but I did one better. I loaded our truck with bottles of wine – a silky barbera, a fruit-bomb of a merlot, a raisiny off-dry white made from 100 percent mission grapes, and a solera-style dry sherry. I felt like I’d stumbled upon a hidden gem, but no one back home would believe that there’s good wine in Mexico unless I brought it back as proof. You can’t find Mexican wine in Alberta, so you’ll just have to go and drink it there.

Barón Balché, El Porvenir, Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California; 011-52-1-646-155-2141. Open to the public daily 10 am to 4 pm. baronbalche.com

Two websites that were useful: Baja California Secretary of Tourism’s Wine Route page: discoverbajacalifornia.com/bajas-winecountry.php San Diego chef Jay Porter’s Blog “My Biased Guide to Mexican Wine Country” from January 3, 2012: jayporter.com/2012/01/valle-de-guadalupeand-ensenada ✤

Corazón de Tierra garden

Jennifer Cockrall-King, Edmonton writer and author of Food and the City, appreciates an Alberta winter as much as anyone else... from a distance. When she’s not on a trans-continental drive to little-known wine regions, find her at foodgirl.ca

Cook Like a Pro

Willow Park Village 10816 Macleod Trail South | 403.278.1220 Compleat Cook Cooking Classes 3400 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 114 Avenue SE | 403.253.4831 www.compleatcook.ca

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

Dinner Party Disaster You’ve invited people to dinner and you get over-ambitious... That’s when the trouble starts. by Karen Ralph

blinis, hand-rolled shrimp dumplings in organic vegetable broth served in antique teacups, followed by seared scallops in a nest of sea asparagus. The main course would be grilled Arctic char and we would finish with a selection of cheeses, dark chocolate, and sweet banyuls wine from the south-eastern corner of Roussillon, in southern France.

The dinner party of my dreams was turning into a disaster. People were arriving and the house was smoky and reeked of scorched sauce. The cheese was cold, the wine was warm and the counter was covered with shrimp shells and lobster shrapnel, damp, shriveling salmon skin, fish heads, random blinis and raw frog legs. Cat hairs were stuck in the puff pastry, the table wasn’t set and I was disheveled and panicking. Our guests crowded into our messy, fishy kitchen, visually confirming that it looked worse than it smelled, and it smelled bad.

I still wasn’t satisfied with the scope of this meal, so at the last minute I bought a bag of frozen frogs’ legs. They were disturbingly large and humanoid, with muscular legs and pale little bums. Then I replaced the Arctic char with my own version of vol au vent; instead of a puff pastry bowl, I would use a puff pastry lid to top seafood-filled crock pots and I’d substitute miso gravy for cream sauce. This was a labour-intensive menu that required way more time than I had allotted, especially since dinner was slated to begin at 7:30 and I didn’t start cooking until mid-afternoon. Making the blinis took a couple of hours, the puff pastry was still frozen as evening set in, and the miso gravy involved many ingredients and lots of diced shallots. The dried wild mushrooms were only partially hydrated when I finally tossed them into the sauce and hoped for the best. On a whim, I thought eggplant would be good and popped one in the oven to roast. Things weren’t going smoothly but they were manageable until I accidentally turned up the wrong burner and mushroom-enhanced miso gravy bubbled onto the hot burner, followed by clouds of acrid smoke. It was already after seven. I didn’t have enough time to make fruity cocktails, so I stuffed bottles of wine into the fridge.

We all needed a drink. I had no excuse. This was not my first dinner party, but confidence had inspired complexity. Dinners had escalated from a roast chicken here or a pasta dinner there, to pairing six or more wines with several courses. More than the ancient desire to share food with friends, I wanted to throw a really memorable dinner party. Be careful what you wish for. Our guests didn’t know if they should look away, offer to help, or order take-out. In the competitive world of hosting soirées, it was obvious that I was no Martha Stewart. I opened the fridge and found a chilled bottle of the always-appropriate sparkling Blanquette de Limoux from the south of France. With boyfriend Ribsy’s help, I poured everyone large glasses of wine, like peace offerings. Then I did what any desperate hostess would do – asked for assistance and started to delegate. It wasn’t going to be the dinner party of my dreams, but at least it would be a party with dinner. I had planned on greeting our guests with a cooling cocktail of freshly juiced cucumber, apple, mint and gin. This would be followed by sparkling wine, chilled chablis and Alsatian pinot gris paired with house-smoked salmon and a variety of shellfish. We would finish with cheese, nuts, fruit and sherry, calvados and sweet French wine. The problem was that shellfish and chilled wine was so obvious. I wanted to make something I’d never tried before, something that would really make an impression. I tweaked the menu to include house-smoked steelhead trout on

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

I remembered the moment when my competitive, foodie one-upmanship had started. I blamed Julia Child and her “fool-proof” recipes, which encouraged ego and ambition. But the dim sum pied de poule was the original cause. Going to Vancouver’s Chinatown for dim sum had seemed like the perfect cure for a hangover. I was visiting friends Liz and Sarah, and over the course of the week we had eaten Japanese, Indian, Korean, Greek and French; I couldn’t leave without eating Chinese. Sitting in the hot, packed restaurant surrounded by screaming kids and bored waiters, dim sum wasn’t half as appealing as it had seemed after several bottles of wine the night before. I was sweating, my head was pounding and my stomach was queasy. Liz was cool and collected, choosing bamboo steamers full of black bean clams, shrimp dumplings, sugar cane crab claws and various other treats. The food was excellent, and I was starting to feel like I might not faint, when Liz chose a steamer of chicken feet. Gnarly toes poked out of thick brown sauce. It was an unspoken challenge. continued on page 44

A new twist on take-out

Your dinner is waiting at Calgary Co-op. We invite you to sample our delicious take home menu from our new Fresh to Go kitchen, located at our 8818 Macleod Trail S. location. Executive Chef John Humphreys has designed an incredible array of tantalizing dishes including candied salmon, basil roasted chicken and braised beef short ribs. From our table to yours, enjoy a hot, delectable meal prepared by Calgary Co-op chefs just for you. To view our extensive new menu, visit CalgaryCoop.com/freshtogo

Introducing Calgaryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Freshest Olive Oil

ur new northern hemisphere olive oils have arrived and are exceptional in both taste and quality. At Blue Door and Soffritto Deli youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll discover a delectable selection of more than 50 fresh olive oils and balsamic vinegars, all for you to try before you buy. Visit us and taste the difference fresh makes!

www.truthinoliveoil.com/great-oils/north-america Blue Door - 8561 8a Ave SW, Calgary www.bluedoorcalgary.com

Soffritto - 380 Canyon Meadows Dr SE,Calgary

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

continued from page 42

Dinner Party Disaster

Sarah, no stranger to dim sum, picked one up with her chopsticks and popped the toe end into her mouth. Feeling ill, I did the same, trying to block out childhood memories of free-range chickens with balls of manure on the end of each yellow toe. I could feel the tendons on my tongue. There was a lot of ginger and garlic in the sauce. I sucked the meat off the bones, ignored a toenail and set the cleaned foot on the edge of my plate. Sarah said it was probably just like eating a baby’s hand. Liz had chosen another bamboo steamer containing what looked like strips of calamari but was actually tripe in black bean sauce. Tender and rather bland, the tripe relied on the sauce for flavour, but was no problem after the chicken foot. I ate a few more feet and tripe strips to prove that I wasn’t afraid. On the way home, Liz bought a raw chicken, saying she would make her mom’s recipe. This involved rubbing it with lots of cayenne and other spices and leaving it on the counter in the hot kitchen, all afternoon. Sarah asked her if it should be in the fridge, but Liz said that her mom’s home in Trinidad was way hotter; the spices were like a preservative. We worried about it all afternoon, but she finally cooked the chicken and brought it to the table: red, crackling, spicy, dramatic and delicious. It was dinner with attitude and drama; I was hooked. Back in Calgary, emboldened by the chicken experience, I foolishly took on cassoulet – French baked beans – using Julia Child’s six-page recipe from Mastering The Art of French Cooking. This recipe was very specific and I started assembling ingredients four days before the party. I needed raw, un-smoked pork belly with the rind, four bags of white beans, two herb bouquets, tomato paste, ground pork, tomatoes, parsley, lamb shoulder, pork loin, beef stock and six confit duck legs. I was lucky to get the right pork with rind but bought black-eyed peas instead of Great Northern White Beans. This was frustrating because in the day that I wasted procuring the wrong beans, the pork went sour. I had gone from rind with no beans to beans with no rind. The butcher suggested substituting fatty pork shoulder, because the rind was meant to impart a tinny-ness to the cassoulet that would be counterbalanced by the sugars in the onions. The shoulder would do the same, but had to be seared, not boiled, and all the other meat could be cooked in the pork fat before being added to the beans. At this point I sat down and read the entire recipe, coming across this pearl of wisdom: “Some Words of Advice: …too often a debutant cook will start in enthusiastically on a new dish without ever reading the recipe first. Suddenly an ingredient, or a process, or a time sequence will turn up, and there is astonishment, frustration and even disaster.” Yes.

Vegetable Chow Mein Bring a taste of the Orient home with you today!

Available exclusively at

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

Party day was spent browning duck legs, draining beans, saving cooking liquids and assembling layers in my largest, cast iron, Dutch oven. Beans, lamb, beans, hand-made pork cakes, beans, pork sausages, beans, cubed pork loin, beans… there was a LOT of beans. Humming the theme to “Jaws” as I held a duck leg in my greasy hand, I thought of Chief Martin Brody’s famous line in Jaws: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” I switched to the turkey roaster, destroying the meat/ bean layers in the process. I smoothed the top of the cassoulet down with my hand, redistributed pieces of meat, tucked the duck legs into the top layer of beans, hid the whole thing under a layer of bread crumbs and chopped parsley and carefully lifted all 12 pounds of it into the oven. There were six people for dinner, and everyone

And now, here I was, assembling a bastardized version of vol au vent while tipsy guests tried to help. The week of cassoulet cookery had taught me nothing. It was obvious that I had a lot to learn about a) throwing sit-down dinner parties, and b) keeping it simple. I had forgotten about the roasting eggplant until someone opened the oven. Long strings of seed-studded eggplant guts had exploded, alien-like, out of its purple body because I had neglected to pierce it. My guests were too hungry to care and the general consensus was that it ”looked awesome and would still taste good.”

Slow Food CAlgARy pReSenTS

had brought a bottle of wine; we had champagne, pinot gris, beaujolais rosé and a selection of reds from the south of France. Boyfriend Ribsy carefully walked the heavy, bubbling cassoulet to the table and set it on the cutting board. Dishing up, we fell silent as we ate. The cassoulet flavours were melding, but still distinct. The duck, lamb and pork combined to create a rich, satisfying dish grounded by the earthiness of the beans. Everyone had seconds but our guests barely put a dent in the massive portion, and after a week of eating nothing but, Ribsy and I never wanted to eat cassoulet again.

The 13th AnnuAl

Feast of Fields SundAy, SepTembeR 15th 1 - 4 pm In The gARden AT Rouge ReSTAuRAnT 1240 - 8th Ave Se, CAlgARy

Join us

for a delicious afternoon of grazing, sipping and conviviality in the beautiful, historic garden at Rouge restaurant. Come and meet the people who grow your food and the chefs who create dynamic dishes with our wonderful Alberta harvest.

At last the individual seafood pots were ready to serve, the table was set and the wine was poured: Domaine Bernard Defaix chablis. The lean, clean acidity would be focused and invigorating, cutting through the seafood-studded miso gravy and buttery puff pastry. The vol au vents needed a little sprucing up, something to make them more visually interesting, and as Ribsy brought in the grilled frog legs, I jokingly poked one, upside down, into the top of a pastry lid. It looked exactly like it was diving in! We quickly stuck one in each lid and brought them to the table. Our inebriated and starving guests stared at the frog legs that seemed to be kicking their way to the bottom of the pot. “It’s a classic pairing!” I bragged, pouring everyone more chablis. The combination of hunger and alcohol made them brave and they ate and drank, saying later that they actually enjoyed the dish. The last guest headed home at about 4 a.m. Despite a chaotic start, the party had been a great success; everyone ate well and had fun. That is why dinner parties are worth the stress and effort. Our next party will take place outside and feature a spit-roasted suckling pig or lamb and will have a rustic Italian feel. What could be simpler?! ✤

TICkeTS AvAIlAble onlIne @ FeASToFFIeldS.evenTbRITe.CA

Karen Ralph works at Metrovino and is Red Wine Tongue “pop-up” celebrations, redwinetongue@gmail.com CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

Eating Chicago

G et your s w eet h o m e C h icago w it h a side of fres h sass by Kate Zimmerman

Like countless great comedians, many of this continent’s groundbreaking chefs started off in Chicago. This is no fluke. As self-described grocer to the world, a longtime hub for the distribution of grain, meat and the agricultural largesse of the Midwest, America’s Second City has played eager enabler to such culinary masterminds as Charlie Trotter, Homaro Cantu, Grant Achatz and Rick Bayless. Its hospitable nature and welcoming food scene made themselves evident early and were helped along by foreign newcomers. German-Jewish immigrant and meat market owner David Berg began producing hot dogs in 1860 – the Chicago frank remains a local staple. Swedes poured into the city; people still line up for weekend breakfasts at Swedish-American chain Ann Sather, established in 1945. Local Poles made traditional sausages and their garlicky links continue to prevail. Italians operated saloons and slung pasta, and the Italian Beef – a juicy slow-roasted beef sandwich loaded with either giardiniera (pickled vegetables) or sweet peppers – became a mainstay. In other words, as a tourist, you’re spoiled for choice in the “city of the big shoulders,” whether your budget is for haute cuisine or hot dogs. I’m in the latter camp. So my husband and I splurged just once while we were there. Our extraordinary dinner at Rick Bayless’s Topolobampo included a dozen oysters with tomatillo-habanero “minoneta,” smoky garlic chipotle salsa, and limes; several ceviches; an exquisitely dark lamb mole; and a dessert that melded both crispy and gooey meringue with raspberries and rose-pink peppercorn ice cream. The rest of the time, we relished eating like locals with our rambunctious Chi-town friends. If you, too, yearn to dine like a native, you should quickly tackle a pizza pie. A couple of things about deep-dish-style: this pizza’s hefty, and its reputation is based much more on the toothsome crust with its semolina crunch and its bold tomato sauce than it is on esoteric toppings. Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria has several big, breezy locations and its classic sausage on Buttercrust™ dough sets it well apart from whatever you’re used to. Two pieces are more than enough. Chicago’s famous hot dogs are another modestly priced treat. Make it simple and order a “Chicago frank dragged through the garden” for a steamed all-beef dog on a poppyseed bun loaded with fixin’s: ballpark mustard, chopped white onions, relish, dill pickle, fresh tomato, tiny pickled “sport” peppers and a sprinkling of celery salt. Of course, to truly eat like a local, you’ll need your own kitchen. If you’ve got the wherewithal to cook for yourself, on Saturdays and Wednesdays from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. the Green City Market takes over the south end of Lincoln Park and farmers’ stalls brim with seasonal regional produce and products. Pick up some freshwater fish like walleye or perch for a memorable dinner. Other temptations include slabs of cheese called Brun-Uusto, intended for grilling or heating, and Champaign, Illinois’ Prairie Fruits Farm & Creamery’s award-winning Black Sheep, a salt-ash-coated round that you might also encounter in the city’s top restaurants. If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool carnivore, veer over to the Lakeview neighbourhood’s legendary Paulina Market, established in 1949. There, the heady incense of European deli smoke assails your nostrils the second you enter. This stuff ain’t cheap, but Paulina is heaven for meat-lovers – it even sells “summer snack” chips made of smoked beef. Better yet, you’ll find such diva-ish cuts as the “tomahawk steak,” a 32-oz. bone-in rib-eye, and frozen wild boar sausages made from “feral” wild boar. “Ah lahk ma pork feral,” our Chicago pal drawled. Like any enthusiastic visitor, we didn’t want to waste time eating or cooking dishes that we make at home. One day I went in search of a much-vaunted soul food establishment called Army and Lou’s on Chicago’s rough South Side. When I arrived, I saw a young man with two teardrops tattooed under his right eye standing on the dusty stoop of the restaurant counting money. He said Army and Lou’s, established in 1945, was closed, but recommended a modest, inexpensive restaurant up the street. It turned out to sell fantastic fried chicken wings, corn bread, sweet potatoes mashed with nutmeg and brown sugar, and greens in “pot likker” with a wedge of pork. I’m not sure that café, called 5 Loaves, still exists, but wherever you are in Chicago, look for southern cooking. We don’t get much Latino food in Alberta, either, so Chicago’s Southport Avenue is a treasure trove. Tango Sur offers Argentinean fare, Frida’s sells Mexican, and, while the menu at the sleek Southport Grocery and Café roams the globe, it also offers a fully loaded Cuban sandwich (with smoked brisket, ham, Swiss cheese, pickled veg and arugula on grilled challah) and a creamy mole popsicle. The immaculate El Mercado Food Mart is overwhelmingly Spanish, selling guava chips, crisp-looking homemade empanadas, and chorizo.

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

continued on page 48

for The 2013 City Palate

foodie tootles

Join us for three fabulous farm-to-fork bus tour forays in this, our 15th season of tootling! city palat e to otle

Karen Anderson and Tilly Sanchez of Calgary Food Tours along with Matthew Altizer from The Cookbook Co. Cooks host these day-long bus tours in comfort and style. Each Foodie Tootle includes stops at Alberta farms, specialty producers and processors. Guests enjoy a ploughman’s lunch, snacks, tastings, beverages, shopping opportunities and site tours, before the finale – a fabulous home-cooked dinner prepared with fresh ingredients we have gathered throughout the day.

S P R I N G

Sunday, June 9th – The Food in the City Tour

You’ll be surprised to see how much is “growing on” in Calgary. First we’ll meet the Leaf Ninjas and see the bounty this new generation of permaculture gurus can produce on their Urban Farm in Inglewood. We’ll visit SAIT Polytechnic’s culinary garden and hear about the seeds of chef education it sews. River Café has taken sourcing local to new heights with the SPIN (Small Plot Intensive) farms they work with and their own garden boxes they continuously harvest from. They make it look like a walk in the park, which is what we’ll enjoy when we visit them. Next we’ll moo-ve on up to the East side to meet the cheese artisans at White Gold Cheese Factory. We’ll toast our day with a long-table feast of inner-city bounty back at The Cookbook Co. Cooks on this light-filled and very tasty June day.

S U M M E R

Saturday, July 27th – The South by Southwest Tour

Each year we like to change the direction our bus heads. This year we are going south to Fort Macleod to meet Anita and Ben Oudshoorn and their hard-working family at Fairwinds Farm certified organic goat’s milk and cheese operation. “Fresher than ever” will be the theme of our al fresco picnic frolic with these happy goats and the flavours will not mellow as we pop up to Claresholm to Jackie Chalmers’ New Oxley Garlic Farm. We’ll come almost full circle in distance as we follow the Cowboy Trail to examples of Albertan foods at Canadian Rocky Mountain Ranch in Millarville. Ranch manager and veterinarian Terry Church and owners Brad and Wendy O’Connor will give us a tour of the bison and elk herds and we’ll enjoy a barbecue feast before heading back to Calgary and into the sunset.

Your Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner Diner Real Food, Made with Love!

Now Growing... Fresh organic produce, grown in our very own private garden!

F A L L

Sunday, October 6th – Our Classic Turkey Tootle

We’ll fill our Thanksgiving cornucopias this year with help from our old Turkey Tootle friends Rosemary Wotske and Cam Beard at Poplar Bluff Organic Farm in Strathmore and Darrel Winter and Corrine Dahm of Winter’s Turkeys in Dalemead. For baking supplies we’ll head to Highwood Crossing Farm’s new processing plant in High River to tour the facility with owners Tony and Penny Marshall, and stock up on freshly milled flours, cooking oils and oats. We’ll get our fresh berry fix at The Saskatoon Farm where Karen and Paul Hamer and their staff will cook up a meal that will surely induce thanks and inspire you for the Thanksgiving weekend. Refreshment Sponsors: Wild Rose Brewery and The Organic Wine Connection Book your seats at: The Cookbook Co. Cooks, 403-265-6066, ext. 1 Ticket price: $125 per person, per tootle. Pre-registration is mandatory. All Tootles depart from: The Cookbook Co. Cooks, 722 - 11 Ave. SW, at 10 a.m. SHARP. The bus will be available for boarding at 9:30 a.m., rain or shine. Transportation: Sahalla Coach Lines (air conditioned and bathroom-equipped bus) Shop local: Bring cash for making on-farm purchases, coolers, hat, sunscreen, water bottle, farm-appropriate footwear and layered clothing to ensure personal comfort. Book early as our Foodie Tootles always sell out quickly!

Let’s celebrate Alberta’s farms and food artisans.

House-cured, hand-cut bacon Delicious gluten-free options Locally roasted 15 Kilo Coffee Private room with Chef’s Table

1420 - 9 Avenue SE in Historic Inglewood

Local free-range eggs Home-made yogurt Hand-made burgers Dinner Wednesday - Saturday

403.234.8885 finedinercalgary.com

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

EatingChicago

continued on page 48

Southport Avenue’s Coobah, whose fare is Latino-Filipino fusion, boasts an ecstatic review from the New York Times, bouncy Latin music, a noisy clientele, brick-coloured walls with warm wood and metal accents, and outstanding food. Chef Jimmy (Tasty J) Madla is a former drummer for the Chicago indie band Veruca Salt and his seasonal menu nuzzles up against the stovetops of Cuba, Spain, Brazil and the Philippines. Seared scallops served on crispy manchego grits with fried banana started us off with gasps. Pork bicol was an ultra-sexy samba of seared tenderloin and crispy belly atop coconut arancini (trust me, delicious) on pineapple bacon chutney with wilted arugula and adobo glaze. The mojito was cold and deep, the neighbouring table was crazy-friendly, and our waiter gladly recommended a few of his own favourite area restaurants. Now that’s a night out. For an equally lively experience, pop into the much-praised Café Iberico, in the River North neighbourhood. It has the clamorous vitality of a genuine Spanish tapas bar, a terrific red sangria and assorted tapas guaranteed to energize you for hijinks to come. Patatas Bravas – spicy potatoes in tomato sauce – is one of many vegetarian options, while Pincho De Solomillo is skewered beef tenderloin served with a rich, dark tangle of caramelized onions and fries. Two share-able tapas apiece is the norm. As always in Chicago, there will be amazing raucousness all around you – just go with it.

Tapas with a hint of Japanese Style and Flavor

1002 Edmonton Trail NE 403.250.8894 Find us on Facebook CEREZO cafe & bar

Anyway, you’re also in town for a mix of atmospheres, right? On the one hand, you really must drink an overpriced beverage on The Terrace at Trump in downtown’s Trump Tower, whose magnificent view takes you about as close to the top of the Wrigley building as anybody but a helicopter pilot could get. To cut the stench of money, though, you might want a gritty blast from the Billy Goat Tavern. This hole in the wall is located behind and below the Wrigley Building, sandwiched between the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times, and you may find yourself being seated by an employee with a solitary tooth in his head. Though it’s a journalists’ hangout, it’s doubtful that the out-of-towners who traipse in have ever heard of the Chicago scribes whose photographs festoon the walls. Instead, they’re drawn to this homely place by the fact that John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd’s famous cheezborger sketch on Saturday Night Live was inspired by a schtick the Billy Goat’s owner and an employee used to do. They’re still milking this 30-year-old routine, calling out “cheezborger!” to the cooks if you order one. Glamour-hounds should give this a miss, but if rough-and-tumble living intrigues you, hoist a brewski or twoski here and people watch for a bit. You’re never going to get bored of people watching (or drinking) in Chicago. Wandering along downtown’s swank Michigan Avenue, otherwise known as “The Magnificent Mile,” after a stunning rotisserie lamb, roasted pepper and arugula sandwich at a joint called Bandera, I found myself getting irritated at the sight of all the glossy shops whose high-end wares few could afford. Then I saw a line of people – older, younger, black, white, female, male – standing on the sidewalk holding signs advertising “Free hugs.” As we walked past, a middle-aged office worker behind us veered over and got a quick embrace from a young man in the line-up, then resumed her quick stride to wherever. Another day, just after leaving the checkout counter at a run-of-the-mill supermarket, I heard an adult woman bellowing at one of the checkout clerks that she should “Shut up!” The woman who’d checked out my own groceries instantly bristled. Apparently she knew the loudmouth. “Venus, don’t you ever talk to your mother like that!” she shouted. Then she looked at me, flashed me a dazzling smile, and said, “Well, I guess I told her!” That’s Chicago – warm, boisterous, and even brash, when required. To my mind, and my palate, it’s completely irresistible. ✤ Bandera: hillstone.com Billy Goat Tavern: billygoattavern.com Café Iberico: cafeiberico.com Coobah: coobah.com El Mercado Food Mart: folklorechicago.com/El_mercado Green City Market: greencitymarket.com Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria: loumalnatis.com Paulina Market: paulinameatmarket.com Southport Grocery and Café: southportgroceryandcafe.com The Terrace at Trump: trumphotelcollection.com Topolobampo: rickbayless.com Kate Zimmerman has never been on a more exuberant holiday than the one she and her family had in Chicago.

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

It’s like having 26 chefs as your neighbour eclecticod

Inglewoants restaur condo h t i w e e r f

NOW BUILDIN G!

LOFT INSPIRED LIVING STUDIO CONDOS FROM $297K ONE, TWO AND THREE BEDROOM CONDOS STARTING AT $300K TWO BEDROOM TOWNHOMES FROM $545K

SALES CENTRE 1640 17A STREET SE // PHONE 587.353.8955 CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

An oasis of Wine in the Arizona Desert

by Kevin McLean

With my hands white-knuckled around the steering wheel, I dodged in and out of traffic, making every effort to leave behind the sprawling jungle of strip malls and motorways of Phoenix as quickly as I could. I was headed due north, and as my white, 4-cylinder Chrysler’s engine started to whine and my ears began to pop, I was suddenly aware that I was gaining altitude fast. The 90-minute drive looked pretty uneventful on the map, but in practice it proved to be a little more dramatic. The gangly and comical cacti that inundated the roadsides earlier on had disappeared, replaced by rambling scrubland and barren desert. The landscape became dusty, lifeless and stark. Yet somehow it retained a certain beauty, and as my eyes found the copperhued Mingus Mountains framing the distant view, the anxiety of Phoenix was quickly forgotten. My descent into the Verde Valley tested the fading brakes of my overheated rental, but the vinestriped hills below told me I was in the right place. Wine country Arizona isn’t like wine country California, or, for that matter, wine country anywhere. The wine culture has yet to take hold of this land, so you’re as likely to find an alpaca farm or a car dealership separating vineyards as you are a fancy spa or high-end restaurant. There’s a kind of raw wildness there, and I was taken with the locals’ sense of adventure. To most vintners in Arizona, the whole “wine thing” is pretty much brand new, and when I asked them about their projects, their enthusiasm just lit up their faces. They spoke as if they were embarking on something that had never been done before – and, in a way, that was true. There was a time long ago when much more of this land was under vine, first planted by Spanish settlers back in the 1700s. But a cruel prohibition that started five years earlier than it did in the rest of the United States brutally crippled the Arizona wine industry. It didn’t begin its slow recovery until the 1970s, when a university professor, Dr. Gordon Dutt, started to replant vineyards. By the early ‘80s a few small wineries had sprung up, including Dutt’s Sonoita Vineyards, and shortly thereafter, the first Arizona AVA (American Viticulture Area) was approved. Although the Arizona wine industry seemed to be back on its feet, it was soon dealt a devastating blow in the form of a tiny intruder from neighbouring California. Pierce’s Disease visited the vines of Arizona with a vengeance. This vine-killing bacteria, carried by a small insect called a glassy-winged sharpshooter, has no known cure, and it made short work of Dutt’s plantings before taking hold of the entire state’s vineyard land. But Arizona pioneers persevered and replanted, determined to make a name for their wines. Today nearly 50 wineries are licensed in Arizona, spanning all three major areas: Wilcox in Cochise County (southeast), Sonoita/Elgin (south), and the area I explored, the Verde Valley in the north. All three of these regions share

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

some unique traits that you wouldn’t expect from a desert state. For starters, they’re at an elevation of 4,000 to 5,000 feet, making the temperature fluctuations between day and night the most extreme anywhere grapes are grown. Second, these regions are not warm. With extreme elevation there’s a lot of sunlight, but the cool winds keep relative temperatures down so late-ripening grapes, like cabernet sauvignon, are not widely planted. This is not the same scorching sun that golfers flock to in Scottsdale or Tucson. As is the case in other, more established, wine regions, there is a wine route that you can follow, although it’s shorter than most. The Verde Valley Wine Trail has a total of four winery stops and six tasting rooms. Today I’m stopping at about half of them, starting at the quaint and welcoming Page Springs Cellars, just south of Sedona, and winding up in the historic and reputedly haunted town of Jerome. Page Springs is a welcoming spot with the feel of an old farm tucked into the volcanic landscape overlooking pristine Oak Creek Canyon, 15 minutes south of Sedona. Its tasting room spills onto a large deck overlooking neat rows of vines bisected by Oak Creek. Inside you find friendly winery staff eager to pour you a glass of the latest release. The focus is on Rhône-style wines and, curiously, the winery makes good use of the rarely seen malvasia grape, which seems to have found a happy, if unexpected, home here. As you might expect, Page Springs hasn’t quite figured out what works best in the short time it’s been cultivating vines, so you get a little bit of everything. Arizona growers are still fine-tuning their craft, searching for what will best deliver the spirit of the land. I tasted everything from fresh, un-oaked chardonnay to teeth-staining petite syrah. If you could say that Arizona wine country has a heart, I think I found it in Old Town Cottonwood. Its quaint main street houses four tasting rooms and a bevy of inviting restaurants – it seems to be the hub of the wine route for folks in search of a glass of wine and a bite to eat. I popped into the lively Arizona Stronghold Vineyards’ tasting room where an enthusiastic staff member took me through the winery’s dizzying array of wines. Afterwards, he recommended another spot across the street called Burning Tree Cellars, so I made a quick detour to see what was on offer. I walked through the massive, wood-framed doorway and was greeted warmly by Mitch, a large and amiable biker who was more than happy to pull some corks on what ended up being pretty interesting wine. What struck me about both these places was their stark newness, both just a few vintages in. I wanted to stay and chat, but the day was getting on and I still needed to make it up the hill to my ultimate destination, Jerome and the mecca of Arizona tasting rooms. So I bid Mitch farewell and jumped back into my fading rental. The short but steep drive to Jerome offers spellbinding views for those brave enough to take their eyes off the twisting, narrow road. Supported by rich copper mines, it was home to more than 10,000 people in the 1920s. As of the 2010 census, its population was 444. Jerome has boomed and busted harder than most but was finally rebuilt by hippies and bikers who infiltrated the former mining town in the 1970s. Art shops, eateries and stores catering to those who believe in the supernatural dominate the slender streets, but the most popular stop by far is the Caduceus Cellars tasting room.

The usual crowd of pilgrims was gathered outside, smoking cigarettes and taking in the scene, secretly hoping to catch a glimpse of their hero, Tool rock band front man Maynard James Keenan. Keenan, descended from northern Italian wine makers, is the owner of Caduceus Cellars winery. Many of his fans make this journey to the winery, banking on a chance meeting. The tasting room is a funky spot, marked by a long bar that beckons you to saddle up for a sample. The wines here are Keenan’s personal creations, the culmination of his mission to show the world what Arizona is capable of. There is both pride and passion on the faces of everyone you meet here, especially Keenan. His labels are bold and creative with names to match, such as The Diddler, an exotic chenin blanc, malvasia and albariño blend, Kisuné, a bright and fresh sangiovese, and Sancha, a dark, spicy blend of tempranillo and grenache. After a prolonged session at the Caduceus bar with Keenan and his team, I finally settled in at the 115-year-old Connor Hotel next door to recap my day over a muchneeded cold beer. Although comparisons are inevitable, Arizona is nothing like Napa, Sonoma, the Okanagan or any other wine country I’ve visited. It’s a completely different experience, and I’m not sure Arizona wants to grow up to be like Napa anyway. The country is untamed, purposefully so, and it would be a shame if it were inundated by the ubiquitous coffee shops, spas and innocuous tourist traps that you find in most wine country. Arizona isn’t about lifestyle; it’s about wine, adventure and new discoveries. And I hope it stays that way.

If you visit Arizona and want to check out the wine scene, a good place to start is vvwinetrail.com. V V stands for Verde Valley. To find Arizona wines in Calgary, visit Richmond Hill Wines, Metrovino and J. Webb Wine Merchant. (prices are approximate) 2010 Arizona Stronghold Tazi (Sauvignon Blanc/ Malvasia) $23 Perfumed notes of lychee and grapefruit greet your nose, while the palate delivers a fresh, crisp finish. Great wine for Chinese food. (I like it with leftover egg rolls.)

CakeS in vogue

PREGO’S cucina italiana lunch • dinner • before theatre • after theatre

You dream it, we bake it!

Taste the tradition Eau Claire Market On the 2nd level

403-233-7885 120-13 Ave SW | 403.290.1161 cakesinvogue.com

2010 Arizona Stronghold Nachise (Rhone Blend) $35 A dark and brooding red with notes of cumin, hoisin, black tea and molasses. Drink with your lamb burgers cooked on a wood-fired grill. 2010 Arizona Stronghold Dayden Rosé $23 Pretty aromas of spring strawberries and pepper lift this delicious dry rosé. This is a lovely choice for salmon, but it loves a rotisserie chicken, too. 2010 Arizona Stronghold Dala Chardonnay $33 A well-balanced chardonnay with notes of peach, pear, a hint of lingering spice and a gravelly finish. Reach for a glass of this for grilled pork chops or your favourite sustainable seafood, such as sablefish or albacore tuna. ✤

savour

fine foods & kitchenware

Quality. Style. Service.

1331 - 9th Ave SE Calgary, Alberta

Kevin McLean is the general manager of J. Webb Wine Merchant and a regular contributor to Fast Forward.

Tel: 403.532.8222 savourfinefoods.com

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

Hey Calgary! City Palate wants to know where you had your best restaurant meal in Calgary and why it was so good – so that we can publish a collection in the July August issue. We’ve come a long way, baby. Calgary’s restaurant scene is absolutely top notch these days. Send to kathy@citypalate.ca by May 20 and be sure to include your name.

Craving Something healthy?

stockpot Stirrings around Calgary restaurant ramblings n Sabroso! Nuevo Latino Cuisine

should now be open at 1504 - 16th Ave. SW, on the corner of 16th Ave. and 14th St., home to many, but we can hope it will be the forever happy home for the people who used to own The Conga Room. Also, the same owners have opened a small sandwich bar called Cubanos at 610 - 1st St. SW featuring Cuban sandwiches and arepas!

n Stop in to Cerezo Cafe & Bar, a Japanese tapas or “izakaya” eatery. Much like the Spanish tapas culture, izakaya is about small share-able dishes paired with beer, wine or sake. Visit Facebook Cerezo Cafe & Bar for beautiful pictures of the beautiful food. Find Cerezo at 1002 Edmonton Trail NE, 403-250-8894.

n The new Three Crowns Pub wants

you to discover friends you haven’t met yet. Look for a wide variety of import and craft beers, including Boddingtons and Hoegaarden, on tap. The kitchen cooks from scratch whenever possible. Try the house special Guinness steak and mushroom pie and made-from-scratch pizza. #20, 523 Woodpark Blvd. SW, 403-238-4343.

n By the numbers at NOtaBLE: over

Sensational Salads Nutritious Breakfasts

Energizing Smoothies

the last year, the restaurant prepared 39,036 pieces of confit chicken and roasted mushroom ravioli, fire-roasted 6,163 whole rotisserie chickens, handpatted 5,760 burgers and placed them on the same number of house-made buns, slow-roasted more than 4,680 kilos of Alberta prime rib beef over the fire, panseared more than 2,490 lbs. of east coast scallops for the grilled romaine salad, and donated all the proceeds from the sale of 65,771 litres of sparkling and still water to Ronald McDonald House and other local charities. Sometimes it’s good to take note.

n After 26 years as a cornerstone of

the Kensington community, Osteria de Medici, corner of Kensington Rd. and 10th St. NW, has redesigned the traditional interior of its main dining room into a modern, contemporary trattoria and wine bar. With a new menu, an extensive list of wines by the glass – always the way to go for a wine bar – and new look, Osteria has entered the contemporary market with De Medici Trattoria & Wine Bar.

n “Team Rouge” cycling team hosts the “Tour for Kids” fundraiser, June 13, to

support children attending Camp Kindle, a summer camp for kids with cancer. Live music, great food and drink with live and silent auctions at Rouge Restaurant, 1240 - 8th Ave. SE in Inglewood. Tickets rougecalgary.com/home or call 403-531-2767.

7207 Fairmount Drive SE Calgary

Ph: 403-252-2083 | www.cravingsmarketrestaurant.com @cravingsyyc

facebook.com/cravingsmarketrestaurant

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

n River Café hosts an Ocean Wise Guest Chef Collaborative Dinner, May 29, creating a multi-course “boat to plate” meal highlighting Ocean Wiseapproved sustainable seafood and local spring ingredients. Details at river-cafe. com. River has summer picnic baskets too.

n Book your corporate Stampede breakfast at Boxwood, for a wholesome, local and sustainable Cowboy Breakfast in Central Memorial Park. Details at boxwoodcafe.ca. n Coming events at Vin Room: the third annual Mother’s Day brunch with bubbles and delicious food, May 12th, 11a.m. at Vin Room West and Vin Room Mission. For Dad’s day, treat your Pa to a five-course scotch dinner paired to Glenmorangie, June 13, 6:30 p.m., Vin Room Mission and Vin Room West. Powerful Paso Robles dinner, September 5, 6:30 p.m., Vin Room West. Tickets at info@vinroom.com or call Mission 403-457-5522, West 587-353-8812. n Locate, Locate, LOC8 Restaurant Properties – whose owners have more than 50 years of combined experience – finds buyers and sellers for the creation, expansion or sale of a business, offering in-depth advice for the food and beverage industry. LOC8 assists in avoiding timeconsuming pitfalls in relation to sale, purchase, lease negotiation, concept development, construction, interior design, project management and restaurant operations. For information call 403-807-1035 or visit loc8restaurants.com. n Canvas Coffee and Wine, 602 - 11th Ave. SW, offers a quaint, cozy dining room for a business lunch, afternoon coffee, romantic dinner or just a glass of wine. Larger parties catered at adjacent Gerry Thomas Gallery. Visit gtgallery.com. n The Trib Steakhouse has Wine

Wednesday every Wednesday paired with tasty food, details at tribsteakhouse.ca. May 11, join the Patio Launch Party with drinks and food, $25, tickets at 403-2693160; May 13 - June 12, Celebration du Canard (Duck Fest), part of the proceeds to Ducks Unlimited.

wine & beer wanderings n Food and wine lovers are invited to

escape to Banff for the Rocky Mountain Wine & Food Festival at the Fairmont Banff Springs, May 10 and 11. Indulge in the delicious food of Banff’s most popular restaurants along with a selection of local and international wines, spirits and import and micro-brewed beer. A gourmet’s getaway with special hotel packages, events at Banff hotels and restaurants. Visit rockymountainwine.com for details and tickets.

n Quails’ Gate Winery, in the Okanagan, has earned honours at France’s prestigious Chardonnay du Monde competition that included nearly 900 wines from 42 countries. The 2010 Stewart Family Reserve Chardonnay was awarded a gold medal; the 2011 Quails’ Gate Chardonnay received silver. Congratuations to Quails’ Gate for wines that are recognized to be among the best in the world! n Tastings at Cellar Wine Store: May

15, Chile in May; May 29, Beer Spring Fling; June 14, Scotch for Dad. Tickets at 403-503-0730.

n Look for Eco-Frog, The Four Varietals, organically grown wine of the Côtes de Gascogne, France. It’s a blend of four varietals typical of the region – sauvignon blanc, gros manseng, colombard and ugni blanc – for a fresh, lively quaff. Imported by the Organic Wine Connection, organicwineforyou.com.

n The fine wines from Bodegas Rey Fernando de Castillo in Jerez, Spain, are now imported into Alberta by Catavino Canada Wine Importers, an agency started by Calgarians Greg Stebbe, Pam Fortier, Llyn Strelau and Rodney Shaver. Decanter magazine called Fernando de Castillo’s wines the “Best Fortified Wine in the World” in 2010 and 2011. Descriptions, tasting notes, menu suggestions, and sherry articles at catavino.ca. Find them at Wine Ink, MetroVino, J. Webb Wine Merchant and Richmond Hill Wines.

n Check out the colourful summer offering from Big Rock Brewery, The Swinger Pack of 15 beers for those who love variety. Available April through September only, The Swinger Pack contains three of each beer: Paradox Dark Light Ale, Purple Gas (a refreshing fruit beer based on Saskatoon berries), SAAZ Republic Pilz, IPA and Grasshopper. Check bigrockbeer.com/beer-finder for your nearest Swinger outlet.

n Co-op Wine Spirits Beer wants you to explore the world of beer with the new Beers of the World Traveler program. Purchase beers, ales, draughts from more than 400 beers from around the world and be entered for a chance to win a trip to a well-known beer destination valued at $5,000. Pick up your Beer Traveler passport at Co-op Wine Spirits Beer locations and begin your beer tasting adventure.

cooking classes n SAIT Culinary Campus offers the following classes this spring: Date Night, Parent & Child Baking and Cooking, Introduction to Cooking, Knife Skills and Advanced Knife Skills, Artisan Baking, Everything Bacon, Buttercream Basics, Curry and Cooking Fundamentals. For a complete list of all the classes, visit SAIT at culinarycampus.ca or phone 403-774-4694 for more information. n The Compleat Cook: Seafood (May 7), Date Night (May 10), It’s All Greek To Me (May 16), Fiesta Mexicana (May 28), Hot & Cold First Courses (June 6), At Home in Greece (June 11), Date Night (June 14), The American Southwest (June 18), Flambé Desserts (June 20), Summer Appetizers (June 25), Flavours of India (June 28). Details at compleatcook.ca, or 403-253-4831.

n At Salsita Mexican Food Market: Mexican cooking classes in May, June and July – just in time for summer entertaining: Mexican rubs for marinating meats, poultry, and fish; spicy dips and salsas; empanadas; paella; tapas; Mexican flan; and much more. Call 403289-2202; visit 777 Northmount Dr. NW or salsita.ca for all the spicy details.

n At Sunterra Market: get crowned king or queen of the grill in your

neighbourhood with the Outdoor Kitchen: Burgers class at the Sunterra COMMUNITYtable (200 12th Ave. S.E.), June 21 and July 26 at 6:30 p.m. Each class includes cocktails, take-home recipes, tastings and a buffet-style meal for $49.99. For a complete cooking class calendar, visit sunterramarket.com.

n At The Light Cellar: Superfoods (May 4), Medicinal Mushrooms (May 9), Friendly Ferments: Cultured Foods & Condiments (May 11), Raw Chocolate Making (May 12/June 6), Love Your Liver: The Prometheus Recipes (May 23), Delicious Dehydrating (May 25), Friendly Ferments: Cultured Brews and Drinks (May 26), Mandala Raw Pie & Diviana Tea Taster (June 7), Raw Dessert Alchemy: Basics (June 8), Advanced (June 9). Details and to register: 403-453-1343, online registration at thelightcellar.ca. n Learn how to cook beautiful, healthy Japanese food with Miyuki Eubanks, Mi’s Kitchen Studio, Thursday, twice a month during the day – 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., $35. Thursday evening classes are also available, 6 to 9:30 p.m., $40. Also, Miyuki can set up a class for you for at least four people. Classes can also be booked as a gift for family and friends. Visit miyukitchen.wix.com/home for all the beautiful and tasty details.

n At Meez Fast Home Cuisine: book a cooking class with chef Judy Wood who will show you how to find your way around the kitchen. Visit meezcuisine.com for details. Meez has heat-and-eat meals in case you don’t feel like cooking. n At The Cookbook Co. Cooks, May and June: Girls Night Out, Cocktails & Hors d’oeuvres; Couples Cooking Classes; Italian Farmhouse Menu; Rise & Shine, Yeasted Sweet Doughs (2day workshop); Fabulous Burgers with Their Best Friend, Beer; Sushi Making; East Coast Kitchen Party; Secrets of Championship BBQ Workshop; Thai Classics; Bees in Your Backyard; Dinner with Friends, A Fundraiser Supporting Cancer Research, with chef Glen Manzer. Find the complete calendar at cookbookcooks.com.

general stirrings n Don’t forget to clip your entry to win $1,000, $500 and $250 gift certificates at the Italian Super Market, 265 - 20th Ave. NE, then drop it in the draw box by May 30. Find your entry on the Italian Super Market ad, page 12. Entries have to be dropped off by May 30, draw date is May 31.

n The ultimate in adventure and relaxation awaits you on European river cruises. Join Celebrity Chef Bob Blumer who will host a Gourmet Cruise on the Douro, Oct. 22-29. Join the “In Celebration of Wine”-themed cruises in the wine regions along the Rhone, Rhine and the Danube Rivers in Europe. Contact Jenni Evans, your river cruise specialist, epicurioustravel.ca,1-800-510-7926.

n Get into the ‘Spear It’ of Spring at the Edgar Farms Asparagus Festival, June 1 and 2. Visit a real working asparagus farm, experience fun hay rides to the field, witness picking using

homemade “asparabuggys,” asparagus tastings by chefs, petting zoo, bale fort, meet “Asparagussie,” shop the farm store, local artisan booths and lots more. Visit edgarfarms.com for details and directions.

n Fiasco Gelato concocts a luscious

THE HoTEl arTs group palETTE

gelato of strawberries and balsamic vinegar so that you get a hit of strawberries laced with something mysteriously exciting – that would be the balsamic. In just exactly the right balanced proportions so that it’s really “more-ish” and not at all weird.

n How does beer with bacon sound? Try Bacon Brown Ale from Uncommon Brewers in Santa Cruz, California. It’s a west coast, nut-brown ale brewed with toasted buckwheat and a generous serving of bacon-cured pork. It’s brought in by Craft Beer Importers – ask for it at your fave beer-buying joint.

n On Saturday, June 8, Eat Real YYC,

Calgary’s newest food festival, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. at Casel Marché, corner of 17th Ave. and 24th St. SW. Food trucks, local food producers and artisans, and entertainment. Lots of samples, swag and surprises. Details at eatrealyyc.com.

n Community connections are integral

kensingtonriversideinn.com 403.228.4442

to COBS Bread. Since 2003, COBS has donated more than $15 million in bread to local charities. Through the End of Day Giving Program, all leftover breads go to charity. COBS also gives back through a Dough Raiser Program. Sign up your school or club, mention the name when you make a purchase, and a percentage of your purchase is given back to your school or club. Contact your local bakery at cobsbread.com for more information.

n She loves you all equally of course,

but this Mother’s Day show her why you’re really her favourite with a Sunterra Market four-course, fully-prepared Mother’s Day feast, featuring your choice of chicken breast supreme with thyme and morel jus or chimichurri-roasted halibut with jasmine rice pilaf. Available May 11 and 12, $21.99 per person. Visit sunterramarket.com for more info.

n The Symons Valley Ranch is building a team of local producers and farmers for Symons Valley Ranch Farm Store & Market. You can register to receive the vendor application by visiting SVRFarmMarket.com. The Symons Valley Ranch is changing to a premium local food destination. Once fully built, it will host a farm store and market, unique restaurants, and the Symons Valley Tap House and Farm Fusion Restaurant.

yellowdoorbistro.ca 403.206.9585

n Jelly Modern Doughnuts is not only

opening its doors in Toronto, but Jelly’s chef Grayson and owner Rosanne go head-to-head with competitors from across North America on the Food Network’s Donut vs. Donut in the hope of winning the $10,000 prize. Tune it in, cheer Jelly Modern on!

n Did you know that Decadent Desserts is celebrating its 30th Anniversary this year? That’s a lot of decadent chocolate cake under the belt. Speaking of cake, if you need a cake for a small gathering, Decadent makes a number of its gorgeous layer cakes in a smaller $35 size. Pre-order at 403-245-5535.

continued on page 55

hotelarts.ca 403.206.9565

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

Fresh Produce

Antipasti

In-store Bakery

quick ways with Green beans

Specialty Foods Olive Oils Balsamics Catering

Olives Deli Meats &Cheeses Gift Baskets

We found the most beautiful green beans from Broxburn Vegetables in Lethbridge at the Crossroads Farmers’ Market. Broxburn is one of the new vendors in the newly expanded market. We trimmed them and cooked them in a small amount of water, then drained them and put them back in the pan with a big squeeze of Nonna Pia’s lemon ginger Balsamic Reduction. Gorgeous green beans need very little attention, but here are some good ideas for your Broxburn beans. Spicy Green Beans with Garlic and Ginger

Hot &Cold Lunches

Cappuccino Dessert Bar

Visit Lina’s for the real ItaLIan experience.

2207 Centre St NE • 403.277.9166 • www.linasmarket.com

From Eat Greens by Barbara Scott-Goodman and Liz Trovato, these beans have a great pickle taste. Combine 1/2 c. white vinegar and 1/2 c. rice wine vinegar with 1 c. water, 2 thinly sliced garlic cloves and 2 thinly sliced quarter-size pieces of ginger in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium low and simmer until the liquid is reduced by half. Cook 1 lb. trimmed green beans in boiling water for 2 to 3 minutes, drain well, pat dry and place in a shallow casserole dish. Pour the vinegar mixture over and toss well. Cover and allow to marinate at room temp at least 6 hours, tossing occasionally. Serve at room temp or chill. Serves 4 to 6.

Green Bean, Snow Pea, Prosciutto and Parmesan Salad Cook 1 lb. trimmed green beans in boiling salted water until tender-crisp, a couple of minutes. Drain and pat dry on a tea towel. Blanch about a half pound of snow peas in boiling water for about 1 minute. Drain and pat dry. Put peas and beans into a large bowl. Add 6 thin slices of prosciutto, cut into strips, and toss gently with your favourite vinaigrette or just a sprinkling of olive oil and vinegar. Season with freshly ground pepper and a sprinkling of Maldon salt, if desired, and top the salad with shavings of parmesan cheese. Serve with grilled meat or fish. Serves 4 to 6.

Brown Butter and Almond Green Beans Trim and cook 1 lb. green beans in boiling salted water until crisp-tender. Drain and pat dry. Put 2 T. butter into a small saucepan over medium heat and cook it, swirling gently, until it turns golden brown. Toss the butter with the beans, then toss with toasted almond slices. Serves 4 to 6.

Good food, good wine, good friends... that’s BoccaVIno! (right next door to Lina’s) ask about our divine weekly chef’s Specials! 2220 Centre St NE • 403.276.2030 • www.boccavino.com

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

Stockpot continued from page 53 n Boogie’s Burgers has been serving Calgary unique burger combinations for close to half a century, from the “Shroom a’le Gume Veggie burger” to the fourpatty monstrosity, Doug’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” burger, complete with a butterflied hot dog, fried egg, four slices of bacon and a mini corn dog on top. Find Boogie’s at 908 Edmonton Tr. NE.

n Gunther Stranzinger, Gunther’s Fine Baking, has returned to the 17th Ave. SE location of Gunther’s Fine Baking. The Bridgeland location has been closed, but all the excellent European-style bread and treats are still available in Forest Lawn at the original location, 4306 17th Ave. SE.

n Amaranth Stores and Self Connection Books will show the movie “Hungry for Change,” an exposé of the diet industry and how enjoying whole foods is the way to health and vitality. Watch it in Montgomery at Self Connection Books on May 8th and at the Cardel Theatre in Quarry Park on May 22nd. Tickets are available online at selfconnection.ca/ hungryforchange or 403-284-1486.

n Don’t miss Girls’ Night Out in Inglewood, May 9, with lots of promos, freebies and in-store parties. Visit calgaryinglewood.com for details.

n If you’re heading into the East Kootenays, don’t miss the 13th Annual Spilli-Chili-Cookoff Festival, June 1, at the Spilli-Chili grounds in Spillimacheen, B.C., just north of Radium. It’s a chef’s chili competition with a people’s choice chili-chef winner, an artisan food and craft market, food trucks, beer garden and entertainment.

n Calgary Co-op has launched a great Fresh to Go program at its Macleod Trail store for people with busy families who want to feed themselves healthy dinners. Created by exec chef John Humphreys, you can choose from a wide variety of tasty, nutritious dinners to pick up and serve at home – such as candied salmon, braised beef short ribs, citrus pork tenderloin, daily quiche, pot pies, Spanish chicken, ambrosia apple pork – and super sides, like couscous salad, almond broccoli, bacon & blue mac & cheese, spiced maple butternut squash, honey glazed carrots, herb roasted baby potatoes... and much more, plus gourmet pizza. And the price for your dinner is more than reasonable. What a great idea! Check it out. When shopping at Calgary Co-op looking for locally grown foods, look for the Localize orange labels that identify local and regional foods. There’s also a QR code that allows you to find out more about the product with your smart phone. Localize was started by Lita McDonald and Meghan Dear to help customers get easy access to information about local and regional products. So look for the orange labels and support your local food people. A local product that’s very good and available at Calgary Co-op stores is Judy G Gluten-Free pizzas.

n If you love exotic Asian flavours, such as Thai curry pastes and stir-fry flavourings, but don’t feel like making them from scratch, you’ll find that the

Blue Dragon sauces and curry pastes will do the job very well. These Asian flavours are well crafted and authentically flavoured, just add the veg and protein. We dumped a pouch of Chilli Coconut Stir Fry Sauce into a sauté pan, added a bit of coconut milk, heated it, tasted it – it’s very spicy – added a bit more coconut milk and plump shrimp, then spooned it over skinny Chinese egg noodles. Yum! At Calgary Co-op stores, Sobeys, Superstore, IGA, London Drugs and Walmart.

n Crossroads Market has renovated and expanded its food offerings. The place looks great – now you can find these excellent food vendors, along with all the vendors we already love, happily living at Crossroads: Greens Eggs & Ham, Rustic Sourdough Bakery, Broxburn Farm Vegetables, Mona Foods/ Fifth Element (everything truffles), Nefiss olives and oil, Black Forest Bakery, Happy Kitchen Express, Top of the Mountain Beef, Gluten-Free Foodgasm, Healthy Funky Foods, Harvest Hill Foods, Olson’s High Country Free-Range Bison complete with butcher shop, Tea-Kea Bar, Yummy Bites and Going Nuts. n The Art Gallery of Calgary presents AGCCooks, showcasing Calgary’s top chefs in a friendly culinary competition, May 8, at the Art Gallery, 117 - 8th Ave. SW. Each chef creates a four-course feast designed around a secret ingredient disclosed to them only days before the event. Guests dine on one of the meals, paired with fine wine, and rate all four courses. A panel of local foodies, media and celebrity judges awards prizes. Participating restaurants are Catch Oyster Bar, CHARCUT, Home Tasting Room, MARKET, Raw Bar and Teatro. Tickets at 403-770-1350. n LifeCycle Adventures, lifecycleadventures.com is a custom cycling vacations company that has operations in Napa Valley, California, Oregon, and on Hawaii’s Big Island. The trips are all custom designed and self-guided, creating a one-of-a-kind experience. n SIP natural craft soda, developed in Vancouver, is now available in Alberta. SIP is a sparkling spring water infused with fresh herbs and citrus, available in three flavours – Rosemary Lime, Lavender LemonPeel and Coriander Orange. Perfect for non-drinkers. Available at Patisserie du Soleil. Place wholesale orders with Worldwide Specialty Foods, 403-255-6262, or at sipsoda.com.

n The Banff Centre enhances dishes in its Three Ravens restaurant with healthy microgreens grown on-site. Exec chef Beat Hegnauer is growing tasty greens like amaranth, mizuna, mustard, and purple basil in an Urban Cultivator. “It’s fun, it’s different,” Hegnauer says. “It’s a small experiment but it can have a large impact.”

n The 2013 edition of “The Faces of our Food” directory, a Slow Food Southern Alberta initiative, features the stories of farmers and ranchers and where their good, clean, fair local food is available. Details about where to find it at slowfoodsouthernalberta.com.

n Culinary tours with seasoned foodie tourmeister Gail Hall, Seasoned Solutions: Smoky Lake, Alberta, June 15/16; Portugal, October 18 to 29; Vietnam, early spring 2014; Piedmont and Burgundy, October 2014. Visit seasonedsolutions.ca for details.

CLASSIFIED AD Executive Chef The Grizzly Paw Brewing Company is a brew pub and craft brewery located in the heart of the Canadian Rockies. With a focus on fresh food, craft-brewed beer and sodas, the company has recently expanded and requires an executive chef responsible for all culinary aspects of the company, including the future opening of the hospitality venue located in the new brewery location. To find out the qualifications for the position, contact Robert Flatt, CEO, The Grizzly Paw Brewing Co., robert.flatt@thegrizzlypaw.com

n Dairy Farmers of Canada finalists for the prestigious 2013 Canadian Cheese Grand Prix include six Alberta cheeses: Cayenne & Green Peppercorn Spiced Gouda, Grizzly Gouda, Italian Herbs Spiced Gouda, Natural Smoked Gouda, Aged Gouda, all by Sylvan Star Cheese in Red Deer, and Queso Fresco Cheese by Latin Foods Inc., Calgary.

n Chef Martin Picard, Au Pied de Cochon in Montreal, took home “Cookbook of the Year 2012” from The Gourmand Awards in Paris, France, for his self-published SugarShack Au Pied de Cochon, a cookbook dedicated to maple syrup.

n Culinary & Wine Tour of AlsaceGermany-Austria, October 5 - 18, with tourmeister Peter Blattmann. Take part in hands-on cooking classes with celebrity chefs, taste the world’s most acclaimed rieslings and unique grüner veltliners, Cruise scenic rivers lined with the world’s steepest vineyards, indulge in the worldrenowned pastries, concerts and operas of Vienna.Visit gourmet-experience.com, call 1-403-230-5375, or e-mail blattman@ telusplanet.net.

n Bulk Barn, 4889 - 130 Ave. SE, is an impressive emporium of dried goods – nuts, dried fruits, grains, spices, teas, sweets, baking ingredients, and more – in bins, which means you take just what you need. Find hard-to-find products like Israeli couscous, barberries, shelled pistachios and totally kick-ass candy.

n Grill Wipes attach to the bristles of your grill brush and apply high-heat grilling oil to grill grates, hot or cold, preventing food from sticking. Specially formulated accompanying grilling oil won’t burn off like conventional cooking sprays. A specially designed fiber allows them to be used on heated grill grates for optimal no-stick performance. Details at gratechef.com. n New Oxley Garlic, Naturally!, Claresholm, awaits the first tender leaves of the fall planted garlic to show themselves soon. Scapes will be available in July and cured garlic early September at all the Calgary Co-op stores.

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

last meal This monthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s menu has a decidedly Mediterranean bent, utilizing the characteristically healthy ingredients associated with that part of the globe. My first choice for salmon is always the wild varieties, but the season is fairly short, usually lasting about three months. When wild is not an option I go for the organically farmed king salmon, sourced from the B.C. coast. You could also substitute fresh halibut, sablefish or ahi tuna (pictured). The chick pea/Swiss chard recipe can be served as a starter or as a side dish; it is both healthy and delicious and a good way to get people who may not care for the bitter greens family interested in chard. We wrap things up with a fruit clafoutis, a simple dessert that is sort of a cross between a flan and custard. You can use almost any combination of fruit (cherries are the most traditional version) and nuts you want, which makes this a great year-round dessert. If you want to use apples I would caramelize them first with butter and a little sugar, as the clafoutis does not bake long enough to render the apples tender.

WILLOW PARK WINES & SPIRITS

Pan-Roasted Salmon with Tomato/Olive Chutney

presents

Chickpeas with Swiss Chard Blueberry and Nut Clafoutis

Saturday, June 29, 2013 | 7pm | $40

lemon tuna fennel parsley olives tomato capers

Pan-Roasted Salmon with Tomato/Olive Chutney (the photo above shows this recipe using tuna) 1 c. pitted and chopped kalamata olives zest of 1 lemon, then cut the zested lemon into eight slices and reserve 2 t. capers 1 large firm tomato, seeded and chopped 2 T. chopped flat-leaf parsley salt and pepper to taste 4 salmon fillets, pin bones pulled (or ahi tuna, halibut or sablefish)

For tickets call 403.296.1640 ext. 277 or email events@willowpark.net www.willowparkwines.com

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

sea salt and freshly ground pepper 1 t. ground fennel seed grapeseed oil for frying

Preheat oven to 400Â°F. In a small bowl, combine the olives, zest, capers, tomatoes and parsley and season with salt and pepper. Season the flesh side (not the skin side) of the salmon fillets with sea salt, ground pepper and a light sprinkle of fennel. Heat a large oven-proof skillet over medium-high heat and add enough grapeseed oil to cover the bottom of the pan. When the pan is very hot and the oil is almost smoking, add the salmon fillets, flesh-side down, and leave them to caramelize and brown, about 4 minutes. Flip the fillets, add 2 lemon slices to the top of each piece, and transfer the pan to the hot oven. Bake about 5 minutes, until done (the fish should yield to the touch and be slightly translucent in the middle), then remove from the oven. Discard the lemon slices, then place a fillet on each plate (skin-side down) and mound the relish over top and serve. Serves 4.

Geoff Last

Keep it simple and seasonal

Old Country Sausage Shop

Chickpeas with Swiss Chard 1 large bunch Swiss chard leaves, washed, large stems removed 1 T. + 2 t. olive oil 1 medium red onion, coarsely chopped 2 medium carrots peeled and diced sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 1/2 t. red chile flakes 1 c. dry, unoaked white wine 2 T. tomato sauce 2 roasted red peppers, chopped (canned or jarred are fine if you don’t want to roast your own) 3 cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed well 1 handful flat leaf parsley, chopped

Blanch the chard in a large pot of boiling water for 60 seconds and transfer to an ice bath. Drain, dry (you can use a salad spinner) and chop coarsely. Reserve. Heat the olive oil in a large pan over mediumlow heat; add the onion and carrot and cook slowly for 15 minutes or until the carrots are tender. Season with salt, pepper and the chile flakes. Add the wine and reduce almost completely. Add the tomato sauce and reduce until thick, about 5 minutes. Add the chard, red peppers and chickpeas and mix well. Adjust the seasoning and cook for 10 minutes over medium-low heat. Chop two-thirds of the parsley leaves and add to the mixture along with the lemon juice.

high quality extra-virgin olive oil for drizzling

Serve sprinkled with the remaining parsley leaves and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil. Serves 4.

chickpeas

experience great shopping, experience wil ow park vil age

2 t. lemon juice

red onion

parsley carrot red pepper

swiss chard

Wine recommendation: If using salmon or tuna I would go with a pinot noir, my go-to wine with either of those fish. If using halibut I would go for a white Côtes-du-Rhône, such as Beaucastel’s white Coudelet or the white Perrin Réserve. I am really impressed with the quality of pinot noir from New Zealand these days, so my choice with the fish is the Main Divide 2008 Tehau Reserve ($38), a Burgundian model of pinot that is nicely balanced and very expressive.

Blueberry and Nut Clafoutis 1 c. whole milk 2 t. + 1 t. unsalted butter 3 large eggs 1/2 c. sugar + 2 t. for dusting 3/4 c. unbleached white flour 1/2 t. salt 3/4 c. nuts – almonds, walnuts or pecans – pick your favourite or use all three 3/4 c. blueberries (or cherries, raspberries, caramelized apples, peach slices, etc.) vanilla ice cream

Heat the milk and two teaspoons of butter in a small saucepan until warm. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs then add the sugar, flour and salt and whisk vigorously to combine. Let the batter rest for one hour at room temperature. While the batter is resting, preheat the oven to 375°F. Toast the nuts (blanched almonds is my first choice) on a baking sheet in the oven for 10 minutes. Allow to cool and chop coarsely. Butter a 10” baking dish with the remaining teaspoon of butter and dust the dish with the remaining two teaspoons of sugar, turning the dish to coat evenly. Pour the batter in and then scatter the fruit and nuts evenly over the batter. Bake for 45 minutes until puffed and golden brown (the clafoutis will collapse when removed from the oven). Serve warm with good quality vanilla ice cream. Serves 4 to 6.

anewlstores,ittlenewunilooks.q. ue. . just l i k e you more than you remember! Willow Park Village is Boutique Shopping at its best! And they’re serving up everything you need to entertain in style! From fresh baked bread, sweet treats and tasty appetizers to delicious cheese, Willow Park Village has something to suit everyone’s tastes.

macleod trail & willow park dr se

www.wpv.ca

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

back burner

Allan Shewchuk

S he w chu k on simmer

Shrimp and sympathy

When we’re young and healthy, we tend to be oblivious to the suffering of others. It’s a basic human flaw. As a fit omnivore, I could never seem to muster up any sympathy towards people who had high blood pressure from salt, or got migraines from red wine, or suffered spikes in their cholesterol from eating one piece of chicken skin. Not my problem. Boo hoo. Pass me those salt and pepper wings and pour me another glass of vino rosso. Sucks to be you. Most embarrassing to me now is my longtime ignorance when it came to my dear brother Ron, who found out as an adult that he was intolerant of gluten, dairy, sugary fruits and vegetables – basically, anything yummy. He became a “bubble boy” after his diagnosis and was restricted to protein, vegetables and rice. Since he was a barbecue champion, the protein part came easy. In fact, he took to being a carnivore with such a vengeance that he can scare small children, the way he devours bleeding pieces of meat. My family refers to him as “Shrek” because he can stick a whole chicken thigh in his mouth, make a sucking noise and the bones will emerge looking like they’ve been bleached by the sun. To make up for his ban on wine and beer, he took to ingesting only vodka (which he lovingly refers to as “Vitamin V”), in Falstaffian quantities. From my perspective, life didn’t look so bad for my bro, so I selfishly wolfed down spaghetti in front of him and never once gave a thought to his deprivation from whole classes of foods. Then, this year, all of that changed. While flying to Italy I had a massive allergic reaction for the first time. And when I say massive, I mean one of biblical proportions, and I’m talking Old Testament stuff. It started with scarlet welts rising all over my body like gigantic chicken pox. Then my face and lips swelled up so that I looked like a red polka-dotted Jabba the Hutt. As this had never happened to me before, I began to panic. My wife, sitting beside me, reacted like any other healthy person who couldn’t understand my predicament and started snickering at my puffed out lips and making “fish face” jokes (which I can’t hold against her, given my previous unsympathetic ways towards other people’s maladies). After suffering with swollen lips for another week in Florence (I looked like a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills and my Italian friends thought I’d had “work” done), I found out that I had, at 52, developed a deadly shellfish allergy. I also learned that shellfish is the most common human allergy, and that it’s usually not a childhood thing and typically comes on in middle age. Frighteningly, I also learned that it’s a progressive allergy, meaning that one cannot “wean” oneself back onto eating the stuff. In fact, with each exposure, the reaction will get worse, perhaps leading to anaphylactic shock and ultimately (yikes!) death. Of course, immediately after diagnosis, the inevitable happened. Every cookbook or food magazine I picked up featured mouth-watering recipes for shrimp, scallops, crab or lobster. Every restaurant I walked into had specials full of shellfish delights. To torture me even more, it seemed like entire weeks of Food TV programming were devoted to shellfish feasts. It got so bad that at night I dreamt of Gordon Ramsey yelling at me to “Eat the f**king jambalaya!” as I cried over the bowl. It was a world of constant deprivation that I’d never known existed. Suddenly I understood what my poor brother and the legion of allergy sufferers endure every day of their lives. But instead of feeling sorry for myself, I try to look at the bright side. I’ll never again have to go through the charade of seeing crab cakes on a menu and asking the server in a hopeful tone, “Are they good?” The answer is always “Ours are excellent!” Truth is, I have never had even a mediocre-quality crab cake in a restaurant, so my perpetual disillusionment is over. I’ll never again have to endure one of those frozen shrimp rings that people bring to open houses as their contribution to “cooking.” I’ll never have to wear another plastic bib with a crustacean on it, looking like I need a highchair. And I’ll never have to eat at Red Lobster again. See? Every crabcake has a silver lining… Allan Shewchuk is a lawyer by day, and an Italian ”chef,” wine taster and food writer by night. Sometimes he tastes wine before nightfall.

CITYPALATE.ca MAY JUNE 2013

LeCreuset.ca

FORGED FOR LIFE UNSURPASSED NoN-STICK PERFoRMANCE

Le Creuset – Chinook Centre 6455 Macleod Trail SW 403-262-1128

Britannia ornamental Hardware 816 – 49 Ave SW 403-243-4444

Cookware | Bakeware | Dinnerware | Accessories

orange Works Kitchen & Home North Hill Shopping Centre 1632 – 14 Ave NW 403-452-3020

The Compleat Cook 232 Willow Park Village 10816 Macleod Trail S 403-278-1220

Zest Kitchenware 131 – 5005 Dalhousie Dr NW 403-286-5220