City Palate September October 2015 by City Palate

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

the harvest issue

CITYPALATE.CA

SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

PIZZA

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

•

PASTA

•

E BASTA!

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

TAKE HOME THE Specialists in all manner of spices, herbs and seasonings from around the world.

PREMIUM EXTRA VIRGIN & NATURALLY FLAVOURED OLIVE OILS + VINEGARS

THURSDAY – SUNDAY • 9AM – 5PM • Heritage & Blackfoot Trail

MORE AT

soffritto.ca

Thanks to irrigation Gourmet Hot Dogs

NOT YOUR AVERAGE SANDWICH BEST ONION RINGS IN TOWN

Lil’ Russ’ Jacket Potatoes Frozen Treats Gelato Milkshakes and other Goodies!.._

The natural choice.

FREE RANGE PORK Pasture raised & naturally fed.

• family owned and operated • focused on quality and taste

Learn more about irrigation at the Calgary Farmers’ Market or visit: thankstoirrigation.ca

Visit us in Rosemary, Alberta www.spraggsmeatshop.com

contents

CITY PALATE SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

F E AT U R E S

Celebrate the Harvest LENTILS AND VEGETABLES TAKE CENTRE STAGE ON THE TABLE

The Local Pantry Karen Anderson

g n i v r e s e Pr

ONâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S SEAS ST E H E T H A RV E T A B L E S

PA R

VEG T 2: drews l a V An

wine festivals Elizabeth Chorney-Booth

A Barbecue Belt Road Trip ...to eat and learn about barbecue

Fine food

Casual prices

Erin Lawrence

Modern Ideas Prevail at Vancouver Food Festival Kate Zimmerman

T H E 40

C U L I N A R Y

Holy Grail I DREAM OF GALANTINE Linda Kupecek

Cover artist: 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. edenthompson.com and etsy.com/shop/jetblackdragonfly

6920 Macleod Trail South 403.252.4365 #yycbestkeptsecret #businesslunch #tangolove CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

VINTAGE

GROUP

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 contributors Karen Anderson Val Andrews Elizabeth Chorney-Booth Al Drinkle Chris Halpin Ellen Kelly Linda Kupecek Pierre Lamielle Geoff Last Erin Lawrence Allan Shewchuk Julie Van Rosendaal Debby Waldman Kate Zimmerman

YOUR HOLIDAY MEMORIES WITH US! An eclectic group of restaurants from Southern BBQ to Canadian comfort food and prime steaks. Semi-private & private dining rooms to accommodate your holiday parties from 8-500.

contributing photographers Karen Anderson Kathy Richardier for advertising enquiries, please contact advertising@citypalate.ca account executives Liz Tompkins (liz@citypalate.ca) Janet Henderson (janet@citypalate.ca) Ellen Kelly (ellen@citypalate.ca) prepress/printing CentralWeb distribution Gallant Distribution Systems Inc. The Globe and Mail website management Jane Pratico (jane@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

YOUR TABLE AWAITS.

Vintage Group restaurants have satisfied Calgary palates for over 18 years. Our locally-owned eateries offer award-winning cuisine and exceptional service. We take pride in creating a unique and memorable dining experience.

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

Subscriptions are available for $48 per year within Canada and $68 per year outside Canada. Editorial Enquiries: Please email kathy@citypalate.ca For questions or comments please contact us via our website:

citypalate.ca

contents

CITY PALATE SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

D E PA RT M E N T S

9 n word of mouth

Notable culinary happenings around town

11 n eat this

What to eat in September and October Ellen Kelly

Welcome to the family, Calgary!

on a cultural gem Come visit and feast your senses 1959. Albertans have been savouring since

12 n drink this

A tale of three rieslings Al Drinkle

14 n one ingredient

#stepintoitaly

Sauerkraut Julie Van Rosendaal

18 n feeding people

etgin

#me

Silviaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Swiss eggplant parmesan Debby Waldman

20 n the sunday project

Samosas with Karen Anderson

42 n stockpot

Stirrings around Calgary

45 n kids can cook

Pumpkin Pie Soup Pierre Lamielle

46 n 6 quick ways with...

Apples Chris Halpin

48 n last meal

Keep it simple and seasonal Geoff Last

50 n back burner... shewchuk on simmer

Rocky mountain high Allan Shewchuk

Swipe your AMA card at the Italian Centre Shop and earn 1% in AMA reward dollars on purchases under $50 and 2.5% in AMA reward dollars on purchases of $50 or more!

read us online at citypalate.ca

city palate

earn rewards!

@citypalate

Willow Park 9919 Fairmount Drive SE italiancentre.ca @italianctrYYC | 403-238-4869

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

9 restaurants... 5 courses... 280 people... 1 really, really long table. Blink, Catch & The Oyster Bar, Charcut Roast House, Divino, Teatro, Wine-Ohs, Trib Steakhouse, Home Tasting Room and The Bank & Baron will each prepare a dish for this remarkable dinner, with wine pairings from The Cellar. A long stretch of downtown Stephen Avenue will be our venue. Gather your friends, and make some new ones at this unique event that celebrates the culinary side of Calgary. Tickets: $200pp available now: reallylongtabledinner.eventbrite.ca For hotel packages: VisitCalgary.com #capturecalgary

join us! Monday, September 14th, 5-9 pm

Q U A L I T Y

D I S T R I B U T O R S

city palateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 3rd annual

Really, Really Long Table Dinner

citypalate.ca 8

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

word of mouth

xcited to announce the creation of our SEASONS cooking classes. Launching in u through the delicious seasons of the cookbook and teach you how to master If you are looking for your own copy of the SEASONS Cookbook, visit the main campus).

city palate’s RRLTD Calgary - we really, really hope you’ve purchased your  Hey tickets for our 3rd annual Really, Really Long Table Dinner!

city palate’s chef and the farmer dinner series October 6, Bistro Rouge & Black Hills Estate Winery. Chef Paul Rogalski will create a delicious menu paired with wines from the Okanagan’s Black Hills Estate Winery. November 9, Gaucho Brazilian Barbecue & Tinhorn Creek Winery. Ede Rodrigues serves authentic churrasco – Brazilian barbecue – paired with wines from the Okanagan’s Tinhorn Creek Winery. Tickets at eventbrite.ca (see the ad on page 14)

NOTABLE CULINARY HAPPENINGS AROUND TOWN

sait mentors students at risk for dropping out

read this

Some of Calgary’s top chefs were working with at-risk youth over the summer to inspire them to build on their culinary talents. SAIT joined up with the United Way’s All In For Youth program to encourage vulnerable youth to complete their high school education by tapping into their passion for food and cooking. Fifteen students learned cooking techniques, knife skills, food safety and first aid from SAIT chef instructors, then had the opportunity to apprentice in some of the city’s restaurants. They were also motivated, at the end of the term, by a visit from some of Calgary’s top chefs. Good work, SAIT!

3 Times a Day, by Marilou and Alexandre Champagne (House of Anansi Press, $34.95, hard cover, publication date, October 10) is a testament to Quebec pop singer Marilou’s recovery from six years of anorexia. She created a blog by the same name, in French – Trois fois par jour – as a form of healing, aiming to transform the relationship people have with food for the better. The blog turned into this book beautifully photographed by her husband. It’s filled with good, accessible recipes, such as Beet Hummus, Sweet Potato & Mascarpone Risotto and Pulled Pork tacos.

red tree transformation

charcut won the poutine crawl...

A very tasty place in Marda Loop, Red Tree Kitchen, is going through a rebirth and has launched a new web site. Visit experienceredtree.ca and learn what it’s all about. Red Tree makes some of the best takeaway food you’ll ever take away. And bakery goodies that will have you living according to their slogan of... “Life is short. Eat dessert first.”

With its truffle poutine – we aren’t the least bit surprised! This year’s Poutine Week more than doubled the number of poutines sold – 5,000 poutines provided 5,000 free meals to people in need via Mealshare. The Poutine Crawl people ate all the poutines created by participating restaurant and voted for their favourite.

it seems to be the thing to do these days Do you think you want to open a distillery? A new, intensive, hands-on program, The Distillery School, opens at the Sons of Vancouver Distillery in North Vancouver, September 14-18. An ideal atmosphere for a future distiller to learn everything about opening and operating a distillery. Details and registration at distilleryschool.ca

the new old-school burger is here New in town is a place we find makes great burgers and has a funny name: RE-GRUB – ‘burger’ spelled backwards. Everything built from scratch and handmade. Who doesn’t loves a good burger?

who doesn’t love bacon?

food & wine writers’ workshop

Atco Blue Flame Kitchen offers 10 of the best bacon recipes ever that you can download in a digital bacon cookbook free from atcoblueflamekitchen.com/bacon. Then make your Caramel Bacon Popcorn or Maple Bourbon Bacon Jam. Mmmm, bacon!

It’s not too late to register for the Okanagan Food & Wine Writers’ Workshop, September 11 to 13, in Kelowna. The 2015 program includes dinner by Joy Road Catering with wine maker Howard Soon of Sandhill Winery, an orchard cooking class, farm-to-table and vine-to-glass dinner with Manteo Resort’s chef Brad Horen. Not to mention the culinary writing workshops with Calgary author and travel writer Marcello Di Cintio, NUVO magazine editor Claudia Cusano, WestJet Magazine editor Jill Foran, and food/culture writer (and City Palate contributor) Jennifer Cockrall-King. Pricing and details at foodwinewriters.com 

this is way cool... Cuisine et Château’s French culinary journey takes place in the Périgord region, also referred to as the Périgord pourpre (purple) because of its outstanding and undervalued wines. A group of men and women known as the knights of Bergerac preserve the tradition of the region’s wine making. This year, the group honoured Cuisine et Château’s Marnie Fudge for her promotion of Bergerac wines by making her a knight of the brotherhood. She made a life promise to promote the nectar of the “Périgord Pourpre.” Woooo-hooooo, good on ya, Marnie!

breanne’s road snacks One day, we bought bags of Hard Bite beet and carrot chips at The Cookbook Co. and Breanne, the store manager, told us that these chips eaten with cheese curds were the best road snacks because they’re tasty and not messy. Sounded good to us, so we went to Janice Beaton Fine Cheese and got the cheese curds. Later, we gave road snacks a go – they work like a damn! Thanks, Breanne, we’re all set for the next road trip. Hard Bite original chips work, too.

Twenty Dinners, by photographer Ithai Schori and musician Chris Taylor, who are both cooks (Clarkson Potter, $44, hard cover) who believe that great food is what happens when you do simple things well. This book is divided into seasons, and within the seasons the dinners, numbered from 1 to 20, vary from two to five courses, mostly fewer than more. The food is really interestingly appetizing, often unexpected, such as Dinner 6, Meatballs (and Spaghetti), Caesar Salad with Egg in a Frame – that’s toast with a hole that an egg is fried in – that goes atop the salad, finishing with Affogato with Biscotti. Dinner 18 got us with its dessert of Berry-Blood Orange Trifles. Each dinner has a “What to Drink,” such as the Dinner 7 Smoked Earl Grey Hot Toddy and wine recommendations. Beautiful pictures of the food, too. Great book!

Cook It Raw Comes to Alberta Top international chefs will arrive for October’s Cook it Raw, taking place in Calgary and Canmore. Joined by 14 of Alberta’s top culinary talents, they will explore the region though hunting, foraging, fishing and investigating the wild, natural ingredients that define Alberta cuisine. In Calgary, the chefs will collaborate on a food event at Rouge, where they will create seven dishes inspired by Alberta. Information, updates and tickets for the Rouge event at albertaculinary.com/cookitraw and cookitraw.org (see the ad on page 48).

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

COOKING EXCELLENCE

Willow Park Village 10816 Macleod Trail South | 403.278.1220

www.compleatcook.ca

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

eat this I love the scents, the colours, and the veritable cornucopia of fresh produce autumn brings us. Root vegetables begin to take their rightful place on the table; hardy brassicas fill market stalls; the new apples and fall pears are finally here. Harvest means plenty and plenty to keep us busy, too. It’s a time to reflect on past successes and a time to look forward to creating new ones. Personally, I just like to put stuff in jars.

BEETS I usually make my Aunt Myrtle’s pickled beets every other year, but here is an easy beet relish that tastes wonderful with braised and roasted meats. At 350°F, roast 10 medium/large beets by wrapping them in a double layer of tin foil with a splash of water for about 1-1/2 hours. Cool, peel and grate, using the large holes on a box grater. Combine the grated beets with 1/2 c. freshly grated peeled horseradish root and 2 T. lemon zest. Set aside. In a saucepan, put together 1-1/2 c. good cider vinegar, 2 t. kosher salt, 1/2 c. sugar and 1/2 c. freshly squeezed lemon juice. Heat the mixture until it’s hot and the sugar dissolved. Pour over the beets and mix well. The relish can now be jarred and processed as you would any similar condiment. It also keeps well in the fridge.

Ellen Kelly

WHAT TO EAT IN SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER Illustrations by Pierre Lamielle

BUY: Look for beets that are hard, unblemished and still have their fresh leafy greens attached. The greens are delicious and can be used just like Swiss chard. TIPS: When pickling beets, use the long cylindrical variety called Cylindra. They cook quickly, peel easily and slice into uniform disks, perfect for pickles. Choose beets all of a size so they cook evenly and at the same time. DID YOU KNOW? In 1970, W. Atlee Burpee & Co. introduced its golden beet variety. It has the advantage of not creating a “blood bath” when grated and used with other vegetables, a deterrent for some. It also has a slightly milder flavour. There is a red and white striped variety called Chioggia and a white beet called Albino, among others not so easily found.

CABBAGE In the fall, the brassica family truly comes into its own. They love the cooler weather and taste sweeter for it, especially cabbages. Cabbage is a wonderfully versatile vegetable. The common red and green heading variety is the most available and is equally at home as salad, braised side or hearty main dish. This simple Colcannon-style concoction will convert even the leeriest diner and is a great way to use up leftover mashed potatoes. Finely shred a medium head of green cabbage and cook in a small amount of boiling salted water until just crisp-tender. Drain well and press out as much liquid as possible. In a large cast iron frying pan, sauté a chopped medium yellow onion in butter and olive oil until translucent. Add the cabbage and cook, frequently stirring, for about 10 minutes. Mix 2-3 T. melted butter with about 2 c. mashed potatoes and add to the cabbage. Season the mixture well with chopped parsley, kosher salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Put in a 350°F oven for 10-15 minutes, dotted with yet more butter and finish under the broiler to brown the top just before serving. Grilled sausages are the perfect accompaniment.

PEARS are generally available all year, but it’s fall when I think of their luscious near- savoury flavour. Use ripe pears for salads and pizza toppings and use slightly under ripe fruit for relishes and butters. Pam Fortier, of Decadent Desserts and the Dishing cookbooks fame, contributed this simple but lovely recipe for Pear Vanilla Honey with which I’ve taken one or two liberties. Wash, core and chop about 7-1/2 lbs. pears, peeling optional. Heat the fruit in a large pot over medium heat. Use a potato masher to crush the fruit and release the juice. Bring to a boil and simmer over low heat for 20 minutes, or until the pears are very soft. Put through a food mill on the finest grate and return to the pot. Bring the puréed mixture to a boil and add juice and zest of 1 lemon, the seeds of 2-3 vanilla beans and 1 c. honey. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes over low heat, stirring occasionally. Off the heat, stir in 2 T. pear brandy, optional. Fill clean jars and process as you would any jam. Spread on toast, add to fall vinaigrettes, and swirl into plain yogurt.

BUY: Choose heads that are shiny, firm and heavy for their size. Eschew cabbages that are yellowed or moldy at the stem. TIPS: Either red or green cabbage kraut can be enhanced by the addition of a few caraway seeds or juniper berries. Even another vegetable can be added; 80% cabbage and 20% shredded carrot or fennel, for instance. DID YOU KNOW? Good cabbage cookery covers the entire globe, with everything from American cole slaw, Ukrainian cabbage rolls, Asian stir-fries, German sauerkraut, Russian borscht.

BUY: Pears are fragile, so choose fruit that is unblemished, heavy in the hand and slightly under ripe. Try to get them home without too much banging about. TIPS: Pears should be ripened at room temperature. Try putting very green pears in a paper bag, like green tomatoes. They will need to be checked daily, you don’t want to miss that perfect pear. The flesh at the neck will give slightly with light pressure. DID YOU KNOW? There are two main classes of pears, European and Asian. The ideal European pear is creamy, silky and aromatic, whereas the Asian pear tends toward a juicy crispness, with a pleasing granular texture. Both are excellent in salads.

Ellen Kelly is a chef and regular contributor to City Palate.

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

drink this presents

A TALE OF THREE RIESLINGS

It’s been said many times by wine writers with much more impressive credentials than mine – riesling is the greatest of all the white wine grapes. It can produce supernal wines at virtually every level of sweetness, explicitly including bone-dry, and at alcohol levels ranging from 6 to 15 percent.

2015 GRAND TASTING HALL

ALBERTA’S LARGEST SELECTION OF FINE WINE, SPIRITS, BEER & GOURMET FOOD

CALGARY Oct. 16 - 17 Stampede Park BMO Centre

SIP, SAMPLE, VOTE IN THE FESTIVAL APP!

Friday Evening Session: 5 - 10 pm Saturday Afternoon Session: 12 - 4 pm Saturday Evening Session: 6 - 10 pm Supporting the SAIT culinary school, Calgary Food Bank, Mealshare, and Jumpstart. Please enjoy your beverages responsibly. Minors are not permitted.

For Tickets, Festival & Contest Details, visit rockymountainwine.com

In future, a portion of all keg and case sales will go to WildSmart in aid of programs that contribute towards sustainable populations of bears and other wildlife.

THE BEER

SAVE THE BEAR THE GRIZZLY PAW

BREWING COMPANY CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

Riesling can be an uncanny conduit of terroir, which is to say that wines from the same vintage and wine maker that have been made in identical ways but from vineyard sites that might only be separated by a mere footpath can taste wildly different. Its ability to eloquently express subtle disparities in soil type, slope aspect, exposure and altitude is virtually peerless and can sometimes result in a marketing nightmare when purist wine makers offer dozens of different riesling wines from a single harvest in order to isolate and celebrate these differences. Although most of the best examples of riesling will effortlessly evolve for a couple of decades, the same wines will also be delightful in their youth. Most young rieslings offer tantalizing aromas and flavours of fruit with peach and apple at the forefront, but there are enough citric and tropical examples that to cite specifics is a disservice to the grape’s versatility. Perhaps more important is the inherent minerality that most good examples offer – “rock juice,” as I like to call it, but it’s also described as flintiness, salinity or the flavour of wet stones. Reflecting the cool climates that riesling likes to grow in, it’s likely that these flavours probably have something to do with the wine’s high natural acidity, a component that’s also instrumental in its sense of freshness and effortless ability to complement an almost infinite range of food. Riesling originates in the Rhineland in southwest Germany and northeast France. There’s at least a 600-year history of its cultivation there, and today, regions like Alsace, Mosel, Nahe, Pfalz and Rheinhessen, to name a few, produce the full range of riesling styles. One of the most miraculous wine regions on earth is the Rheingau, where the Taunus mountains have forced the Rhine river westwards for a mere 30 km to create a compact but perfectly situated range of south-facing slopes on its north shore. This is seen as the northern extreme of viticultural potential, but the aspect of the slopes (which range from gently undulating to dizzyingly steep), the heat-retaining potential of the various rocky soils, the moderating effects of the river and the protection of the Taunus forest make for a riesling paradise. Johannes Leitz is one of the top growers here and his beginnings in the unfathomably precipitous vineyards above the town of Rüdesheim go back to when he lost his father at age two. He would accompany his mother in the vineyards early in the morning and late in the evening, and spend the time in-between in the family flower shop that paid the bills. The vineyards were only maintained so that the family tradition could be passed on to Johannes when he came of age. In his early twenties, he began pursuing commercial wine making, but it was the mid-1980s, a low point for German wine, and those who were marketing wines based on quality were swimming upstream. This meant that steep-slope sites that were not conducive to the industrially produced swill that was so popular at the time became affordably available, and Johannes was able to expand the estate.

SAVOUR

Al Drinkle

THEGRIZZLYPAW.COM [403] 678-2487

Fast forward 30 years and Leitz is making a wide range of sensational rieslings, but the greatest example of his integrity is the remarkable quality of his inexpensive wines. The cheekily-named “Eins-Zwei-Dry” is an eminently steely, refreshing wine and one of some power that exhibits the regal peachiness for which the region is known. Scientific research comparing elements in vineyard soils to components in the resulting wines seems to be disproving long-held beliefs that the minerals in the ground can also be found in the wine. But one sip of this bracingly dry riesling is an argument on the side of the believers – the onus is on the scientists to explain the utterly compelling stoniness of this wine. In 1847, Englishman Joseph Gilbert planted his homestead in South Australia’s Eden Valley with the first vines that the region had ever seen, including riesling. Today, the same contoured area, 500 metres above sea level, is under the management of wine maker Louisa Rose of Pewsey Vale. There are other Australian riesling all-stars, but Pewsey Vale is noteworthy for dedicating all of its energy, not to mention its sizable vineyard, to this one grape. Its admirable Eden Valley Riesling is almost electric in its mouthfeel with hallmark aromas of lime zest, sea breeze and what I politely and endearingly refer to as “toast” – a less diplomatic writer might say “petrol” – an aroma linked to the compound TDN that can be detected in riesling, particularly from this country. The wine is cuttingly dry with a zesty palate alive with citric saltiness. It’s highly recommended as an exemplary offering of dry Aussie riesling. Canada’s wine industry is still far too young to claim that any single grape or style is the way of the future, but rarely have I felt so vinously patriotic as I did tasting

vember 7, 2015 o N

Synchromesh’s range of 2014 rieslings for the first time. Alan Dickinson, in his early 30s, seemed to appear out of absolutely nowhere with this recently established winery based in Okanagan Falls. He makes four single-site rieslings with grapes from vineyards throughout the Okanagan Valley, all exhibiting unique qualities, but the best introduction is the proprietary blend of all four. It’s juicier, if less assertive, than its Rheingau or Eden Valley counterparts, offering mouth-watering aromas of mango, black cherry and apricot, and a palate redolent of peach and spearmint. Despite all this, the wine is more dry than sweet, with just enough residual sugar to alleviate the tension of the vibrant acidity.

Such achievements as Dickinson’s confirm my belief that we should be leaving the monster red wines for other countries to produce – Dickinson and a handful of others are proving that the Okanagan is yet another place where riesling can speak in a new, delicious dialect.

ry •

A l be rt a •

a Can

Your Thanksgiving table deserves the very best food. da

Join us for a spectacular evening that features a gourmet dinner and

Now, to abandon any semblance of objectivity, I would argue that the best rieslings of their respective price-points are among the best wines of their respective price-points. My personal goal is to drink and cellar as much riesling as possible before its cost begins to reflect its quality again (as it did in the early 1900s when the top wines from the Mosel and Rheingau cost the same as First Growth Bordeaux). Few other grapes produce wines that, at their best, are so hedonistically delicious and so cerebrally complex – at the same time. It’s like the fun of gamay coupled with the haunting nuance of nebbiolo. Riesling is the wine version of the Nietzsche authority who has also mastered Cantonese cuisine but loves John Hughes movies and gave you the best sex you ever had. Sometimes it seems that life is too short to drink anything else.

lg a

real food, real people.

a dazzling array of

The vendors at Market on Macleod have everything you need.

whiskies from around the world.

find these quality vendors and more at market on macleod:

PALOMINO ROOM BMO CENTRE, STAMPEDE PARK NOVEMBER 7, 2015 General Admission

VIP Admission

$125 6-9 pm

$175 5-9 pm Includes a guided tasting with experts, and exclusive products to sample

From L-R: 2014 Weingut Leitz Riesling Eins-Zwei-Dry, Rheingau, Germany $21 2014 Pewsey Vale Riesling, Eden Valley, Australia $25 2014 Synchromesh Riesling, Okanagan Valley, Canada $24 Al Drinkle works at MetroVino.

For tickets, please call: 403-219-6025 ext. 6290 or email: wsevents@calgarycoop.com To avoid disappointment, buy your tickets early.

• a little taste of country • a touch of india • AdriAnAh’s art nest • alberta Greenhouse • anahata enerGy yoGa studio • AngelA’s Olives • arrowwood colony (sat.) • bauer meats • biG catch sushi • billinGsGate fish co. • broxburn veGtables • burnt to order (sat. & sun.) • casa corazon • dor bel fine foods • it’s All gOOd orGanics • freshadilla • Greens eGGs & ham • hand crafted coffee • health span massaGe • herbal healinG • kaffir lime • Kruse’s BAKery

pre-order for thanksGivinG:

Greens eggs & ham: turkeys, duck and geese spragg’s Meat shop: hams and turkeys sunworks Farms: turkeys

Open year-rOund: thurs tO sun, 9 am tO 5 pm 7711 macleOd trail sw Facebook: the market on macleod twitter@marketonmacleod

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

one ingredient

f e h C e Th

r e m r a F & The

Join us for a delicious dinner series. Enjoy

specially created menus that bring together talented chefs, winemakers and local

producers. The dinners will take place in the

restaurants’ private dining rooms — an upclose and personal food and wine experience. Let the food come, the wine flow and the stories begin.

Bacteria has become the new “it” ingredient in the kitchen as home cooks get more comfortable with the idea of home fermenting – nurturing gut-friendly bacteria to produce their own beer, wine, sourdough and kimchi. Yet sauerkraut, which has sat, pale and soggy-looking in its plastic bag, on produce shelves for more decades than I can remember, has never achieved the popularity of yogurt, kefir, kimchi and kombucha. Prediction: in a classic case of what’s old is new again, sauerkraut will make a dramatic comeback, evolving beyond its role as a hot dog condiment and moving into the mainstream. Sauerkraut is made using a similar method to that used for pickles and kimchi; cabbage is finely shredded, layered with salt, and allowed to ferment at room temperature, utilizing natural bacteria on the surface of the cabbage. It’s an ancient form of preserving that’s slightly more intimidating on account of the science it involves, but in reality, all you need to know is what to look for – time does all the work. Submerged in brine, these beneficial bacteria, including lactobacillus – the same bacteria found in yogurt – convert the sugars in the cabbage into lactic acid, which, in turn, prohibits the development of harmful bacteria. (Sauerkraut producers in the Netherlands determined that starting new batches of kraut using a portion of a previous batch as a starter results in an overly sour product; it must go through three distinct stages of fermentation to achieve the proper balance and flavour.) When you think of it as a sort of pickled slaw with an appealingly sour flavour, sauerkraut has more potential. It’s commonly used in Eastern European cuisine in soups and braised dishes, and is a popular ballast to rich roast pork and sausages. Try adding some to the skillet as you cook sausages, braising it along with pork shoulder, or adding it to browned meat and onions when making filling for meat pies. Pile some onto a sandwich (or mini slider) of Montreal smoked meat or pulled brisket and top with crushed salted potato chips, fill a small crock to add to a charcuterie board, tuck some into a grilled cheese, or chop and mix it with mashed potatoes as a perogy filling. And of course a good batch of sauerkraut is always fit to eat by the forkful, straight from the jar.

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

Julie Van Rosendaal

SAUERKRAUT

Small-batch Sauerkraut

real food, real PeoPle.

When it comes to DIY fermenting, sauerkraut – literally, soured cabbage – is as easy as it gets; all you need is a knife and a jar. (And a cabbage, and some salt.) It’s made by a process called lacto-fermentation, in which beneficial bacteria turn the sugars in the cabbage into lactic acid, which gives it its distinctive sour flavour while preventing the growth of harmful bacteria. 1 small green cabbage 2 T. kosher salt

Remove the rubbery outer leaf or two from the cabbage, reserving it, and cut the cabbage lengthwise into quarters. Cut out the core and thinly slice each wedge. Put the finely shredded cabbage into a large bowl with the salt and toss to combine, massaging the cabbage with your hands to help start breaking it down. Let it sit for about 20 minutes – it should start releasing liquid. Pack the cabbage into clean glass Mason jars, pouring any liquid that has accumulated in the bottom of the bowl over top. Place a large piece of the reserved outer leaf over the surface and weigh it down with a smaller jar or other weighted object – ceramic fermenting weights are available at some stores. The idea is for all the chopped cabbage to remain submerged in the brine. Cover with a square of cheesecloth and an elastic band and let sit at room temperature for 24 hours. If enough liquid has not been released to cover the cabbage, make extra by dissolving 1 t. salt in 1 c. water and pouring it over top. Let the sauerkraut ferment for at least a week, and up to a month; if white foam or scum appears on the surface, simply spoon it off. Once it’s fermented, remove the weight and seal the jar; your sauerkraut will keep in cool storage for a couple of months, or refrigerated for longer. Makes about 4 cups.

Braised Sauerkraut with Pears and Wine Jarred sauerkraut becomes smooth and buttery when it’s finished with sweet, floral pears and a glass of wine. This makes the perfect fall accompaniment to roast chicken, pork or turkey. Adapted from an old issue of Gourmet. 1/4 c. butter 1 onion, halved and thinly sliced 3 c. (about 1 lb.) sauerkraut 1 ripe but firm pear, thinly sliced or chopped 1/2 - 1 c. dry white wine 1 sprig fresh thyme 1 T. brown sugar or honey salt and pepper to taste

In a skillet or enamel-coated cast-iron braising pot (such as Le Creuset), heat the butter over medium-high heat and sauté the onion for 4-5 minutes, until soft and turning golden. Add the sauerkraut, pear, wine and thyme and bring to a simmer. Cover and simmer for an hour or so, until tender and starting to turn golden. Stir in the brown sugar or honey, season with salt and pepper and serve warm. Serves 6. continued on page 16

Are you looking for a deeper understanding of wine? Join us for one of these fun and informative tasting events.

TASTING

EVENTS

MINDFUL TASTING WITH WORTHY & WELL “Ditch the all or none and eat for fuel, flavour and fun”. That is the mantra of registered dietician and yoga instructor Casey Berglund. We are teaming up to show you that good, healthy eating habits can be flavourful and fun and most importantly go great with wine. In this catered event we will have real examples of healthy choices for wine and food. Shawnessy: October 17th 7-9pm $65 Crowfoot: November 19th, 7-9pm $65

Tasting Centre Locations Beddington 8220 Centre Street NE Crowfoot

39 Crowfoot Way NW

Oakridge

2570 Southland Drive SW

Shawnessy 80, 250 Shawville Blvd SE

Come enjoy good times at Market on Macleod... You’ll love our vendors and events!

HIGH AND MIGHTY – MOUNTAIN VINEYARDS OF NAPA Napa Valley is easily recognized on a wine label by even the most blasé of wine drinkers. It has a certain air of quality associated with its vineyards, but the true quality vineyards of Napa are high on the hills of the mountains surrounding the area. If it’s truly premium California wine you’re after then join us as we explore the high and mighty vineyards of Napa’s Mountain Districts. Oakridge: October 15th 7-9pm $65 Beddington: November 12th 7-9pm $65 Shawnessy: December 4th 7-9pm $65 Crowfoot: December 12th, 7-9pm $65 GERMAN FOOD & GERMAN BEER – GET TO KNOW If it grows together it goes together! Join us as we tour Bavaria and explore the cuisine and traditional beers of Deutschland’s most infamous brewing state. From pretzels and mustard, sausage and sauerkraut even Bavarian doughnuts too! We will bring to light the how-tos of Beer and Food pairing surely leaving you inspired and confident to create your own pairings at home. Come ready to indulge in a full meal with pairings. Shawnessy: September 26th 7-9pm $60 Beddington: October 3rd, 7-9pm $60 WINE BATTLES – RIBERA DEL DUERO VS. RIOJA The Tempranillo battle! Both these northern Spanish wine producing regions have a deep heritage and long tradition of producing some of the world’s finest Tempranillo based wines. They are however very unique in their own right each offering an individual set of characteristics. We’ll compare and contrast with a flight of wines from each of these famous regions. Shawnessy: September 24th 7-9pm $35 Beddington: October 16th, 7-9pm $35 TALKING AND TASTING TEQUILA Tequila has lost the worm and is now being enjoyed throughout the world much like cognac, scotch and fine rum; that is straight up and neat. Fine tequila can be a wonderful experience: rich, smooth and packed full of flavour. Join us in our tasting room as we explore the world of tequila production, sharing tricks of the trade and cocktail secrets and of course sip on some fine Tequila. Shawnessy: October 3rd 7-9pm $35 Crowfoot: October 15th, 7-9pm $35 Beddington: September 25th 7-9pm $35 WINE-DOWN WEDNESDAYS - VALUE WINES UNDER $20 In this mid-week event, we’ll lead you through a flight of wines that over-deliver and don’t break the bank. Our sommelier will select hidden gems that bring true value at an unbeatable price. Let us help you find your next go-to wine! Beddington: September 30th, 7-9pm $15 Crowfoot: October 7th, 7-9pm $15 Shawnessy: October 14th, 7-9pm • $15 Oakridge: October 28th, 7-9pm $15 For tickets or to view more great tasting events visit: coopwinespiritsbeer.com/events

find these quality vendors and more at market on macleod: • le Picnic • lotus herbal • Miss P’s Gluten free (sun.) • more than baGels • noble tree coffee • Pasu farms • Prairie farms • Prazo italiano • Primal souPs • rustic sourdouGh bakery • sabores mexican cuisine • saiGon suGarcane • sichani mediterranean • simPle simon Pies • sPragg’s Meat shoP and deli • sunworks farms • sylvan star farm cheese • twitchin threadz and comPany • ukrainian fine foods • uPtowne Gelato • wicked chocolate • yyc beezwax

For details on all our upcoming events, visit marketonmacleod.com Open year-rOund: thurs tO sun, 9 am tO 5 pm 7711 macleOd trail sw Facebook: the market on macleod twitter@marketonmacleod

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

FRIENDLY FERMENTS A Festival of Fermentation & Culture

one ingredient SAUERKRAUT continued from page 15

Bigos My friend Elizabeth Chorney-Booth traveled to Poland and came home with this fantastic recipe for bigos – a classic, hearty Polish stew made with a double whammy of cabbage and sauerkraut.

“Sandor Katz has proven himself to be the king of fermentation”

4-6 thick slices bacon, chopped

Sally Fallon

1 lb. kielbasa sausage, sliced

with Sandor Katz Friday Oct 16 6pm-9pm

BUBBLES ’N BRINE

an evening talk and taster The Flavours & Functionality of Fermentation

Saturday Oct 17 10am-6pm

FERMENTATION REVIVAL taste-discover-learn-experience Get inoculated into the culture of fermentation at this full day of festivities!

For all the event details and tickets visit: 403 453 1343 thelightcellar.ca 6326 Bowness Rd NW Calgary

BIN905

1/4 c. flour 1 lb. country-style pork chops, cut into 1-inch cubes 3 garlic cloves, minced 1 onion, diced 3 carrots, diced 2 c. mushrooms, sliced 1/2 head green cabbage, shredded 1 lb. (about 3 c.) sauerkraut, drained 1/2 c. dry red wine 1 T. paprika 1 t. marjoram 1/2 t. caraway seed 2-3 c. chicken stock 1 c. diced tomatoes, canned or fresh 2 T. tomato paste 1 bay leaf

Set a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat and add the bacon. Cook until it starts to render its fat, then add the kielbasa and cook until the fat is rendered and everything is starting to turn golden on the edges. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside in a bowl, leaving the drippings in the pan. As the meat cooks, put the flour into a shallow dish and dredge the pork cubes in it, then brown in the bacon fat in the Dutch oven. Transfer to the bowl with the bacon and sausage. Add another drizzle of oil if you need it, and sauté the garlic and onion until they begin to soften and turn golden on the edges. Add the carrots, mushrooms, cabbage and sauerkraut, reduce the heat to medium-low, and cook for about 10 minutes, until the carrots have softened. Add the wine and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the paprika, marjoram and caraway seed and cook for another minute, then add 2 cups of the chicken stock, the diced tomatoes, tomato paste and bay leaf. Stir in the reserved meat. Cover and simmer on low for 2-3 hours, until the meat is very tender. If the sauce starts to look too thick, add more stock. Remove the bay leaf, season with salt and pepper and serve on its own with a toothsome, crusty bread or over noodles. Serves 8.

salt and pepper to taste

1950s Sauerkraut Cake

WINE, SPIRITS & CRAFT ALES

Back in the fifties, sauerkraut was as common an ingredient for cake as was grated carrots. This is a moist, not-too-sweet chocolate sheet cake you can serve in squares, dusted with icing sugar. 1/2 c. butter, at room temperature 1-1/2 c. sugar 2 large eggs 1 t. vanilla 2 c. all-purpose flour 1/2 c. cocoa 1 t. baking powder 1 t. baking soda

Check out our wall of great wines under $30

NEW

Temperature controlled fine wine room and tasting area We specialize in California, Italy, Spain and France and we offer the finest selection of premium German Rieslings in Canada

Visit bin905.com for upcoming tastings and events Online ordering at bin905.com 2311 4 St SW, Calgary, AB / 403.261.1600 / bin905.com

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

1/4 t. salt 1 c. sauerkraut, rinsed, drained and roughly chopped 1 c. milk icing sugar, for dusting (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy; beat in the eggs and vanilla. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add half to the butter mixture and stir just until combined; stir in the sauerkraut and milk, then the rest of the dry ingredients, mixing just until blended. Pour into a greased or parchment-lined 9x13-inch pan and bake for 30 minutes, or until springy to the touch. Serve warm, dusted with icing sugar, if you like. Makes about 20 pieces.

LET US TAKE GREAT CARE OF YOU

GUESTROOMS DINING & ENTERTAINMENT MEETINGS & EVENTS South Calgary’s Premier Hotel Destination Phone 403-253-1101, 9030 Macleod Trail South www.carriagehouse.net sales@carriagehouse.net

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

feeding people

Debby Waldman

S ILVIA’S S W I SS E G G PL A N T PA RM E SA N

Upcoming Events Back by popular demand!

Murder Mystery

Thursday, October 29 follow us on Facebook at RancheYYC for ticket info

Christmas in November

Book your corporate holiday event by September 30 for any date in November, and we’ll waive the facility fee.

I consider myself fearless in the kitchen, but there are some things even I won’t attempt. Croissants, for instance, which take two days to make and two minutes to eat. Ditto for authentic Liège waffles, which have the added complication of requiring a type of sugar that is nearly as hard to come by as a live dinosaur. Until recently, eggplant parmesan also fell into that category. Part of the problem was that every time I fried the eggplant, it turned out soggy, not crispy. The eggplant acted as a sponge, so instead of tasting like eggplant, it tasted like oil. All that changed about 10 years ago, when an Argentinian friend of mine showed me how to bread and fry eggplant so that the outside retains a perfect crisp exterior and the inside is almost juicy. The secret: double-dip the eggplant, and fry it in a pool of oil in a roasting pan in the oven. It’s messy and fiddly: you have to dip the eggplant in a beaten egg, roll it in bread crumbs, and then repeat the process. It’s also dangerous – in addition to being splattered with oil, there’s a good chance you’ll singe your arms when reaching into the oven to pull out the roasting pan or, worse, drop the roasting pan, melt your linoleum, and wind up in the hospital with third-degree burns. The end result, however, is so delicious that you may be able to convince yourself that it’s worth the prep time and the possible ensuing aggravation. I, however, wasn’t able to convince myself. My romantic obsession with Argentinian, restaurant-perfect eggplant parmesan ended after I made the dish twice. Until recently, I hadn’t made it in years. All that changed when my daughter, Elizabeth, and I visited Switzerland in June.

Bow Valley Ranche Restaurant

15979 Bow Bottom Trail SE | Calgary, AB events@bvrrestaurant.com | www.bvrrestaurant.com RancheYYC | Phone: 403.476.1310

Our Gift to You Purchase a $150 gift card and receive a $30 promotional card Promotional card is valid from January 1 - March 31, 2015

Great products, great advice, great food!

I know what you’re thinking: “You were in Switzerland and you ate eggplant parmesan? What’s the matter with you? Switzerland is fondue country.” Allow me to set you straight: Switzerland is fondue country, but fondue season ends at the end of May in the Italian part of Switzerland, where we were staying. The restaurant where we had dinner our first night had stopped making fondue a week earlier. “It’s too hot,” the manager apologized. We consoled ourselves with gnocchi, lasagna, and tiramisu. The next night we dined with our hosts, Silvia and Giuseppe, who had moved to Switzerland from Milan a year earlier. When we arrived at their apartment after spending the day climbing up and down an Alp, their daughter, Emma, 8, was cooking eggplant in a nonstick skillet. There was no oil in the skillet, nor was the eggplant coated with anything. Silvia had simply sliced it thinly, and Emma cooked it until it was soft and floppy and lightly browned. Then she arranged each piece on a platter, like flower petals. It was a work of art. Meanwhile, Silvia was toasting sandwich bread and dunking it in beaten eggs. Instead of frying the egg-dipped bread, she used it to cover the bottom of an 8-inch square glass baking dish. Atop the bread she put a layer of eggplant, followed by homemade tomato sauce and a handful of shredded parmesan cheese. It was like lasagna, with eggplant instead of noodles.

Located in historic Inglewood 1331 - 9th Ave SE, Calgary, AB 403.532.8222 savourfinefoods.com

After three layers of eggplant, sauce, and cheese, Silvia topped the dish with Swiss cheese, because it’s what she had on hand. Then she baked the dish until it was golden brown and bubbly. It was the best eggplant parmesan I’ve ever had. Instead of burying the eggplant beneath layers of breadcrumbs and egg, the toasted-bread-and-egg combo served as a base. Because the eggplant was unadorned, its flavour came through. And I loved the idea that in addition to the requisite parmesan, Silvia used Swiss cheese. After all, she may be Italian, but she lives in Switzerland.

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

Silvia’s Swiss Eggplant Parmesan 2 large eggplants, peeled and sliced about 1/8-inch thick 2 eggs enough sandwich bread, toasted, to fit the bottom of an 8-inch- square baking dish (I found three slices worked well. Before toasting, I cut the slices to fit the dish) tomato sauce (recipe follows) 2 to 3 c. shredded parmesan cheese 1 c. of the shredded cheese of your choice (Swiss works well, as do provolone and mozzarella)

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Spray an 8-inch baking dish with non-stick cooking spray. Cook the eggplant in a non-stick pan until it’s soft and lightly browned on each side. In a medium-sized bowl, beat the eggs with a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Dip each piece of toast into the beaten egg, then line the baking dish with the wet toast. If there is extra egg, pour it over the toast in the dish.

brazilian barbecue

salt and pepper

Layer the eggplant on top of the toast. Cover the eggplant with sauce, and then some of the parmesan cheese. Repeat eggplant/sauce/ parmesan until there is no more eggplant. You should have three layers. In addition to the parmesan, cover the last layer with the cheese of your choice. Bake for 20 minutes, or until brown and crispy on top. To make the eggplant parmesan easier to cut, let it sit for 10 to 15 minutes after baking. Makes a lovely dinner with a green salad. Serves 4 to 6.

Silvia’s Tomato Sauce 3 T. sunflower oil 2 garlic cloves, unpeeled 1 28-oz. can of diced tomatoes 1 t. white sugar 4 basil leaves, chopped coarsely salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a two-quart saucepan. Flatten the unpeeled garlic with the blade of a knife. When the oil is hot, fry the garlic. The method is called aglio in camicia, which means, literally, “garlic with shirt.” It removes the tomatoes’ acidity so you don’t need to add sugar or baking soda. When the garlic turns brown, remove it from the oil and turn off the heat. After the oil cools, add the can of tomatoes along with the sugar, basil and salt and pepper. (Silvia also adds paprika because, she says, “I love paprika.”) Simmer for at least a half hour, or longer if you have the time and patience.

we hardly look our age. Ten years, two restaurants, countless pounds of picanha, and we don’t feel a day over nine and a half. Thank you, Calgary and Canmore, for a decade of support.

C A L G A RY

100 5920 Macleod Trail SW phone:403.454.9119 C A N MOR E Debby Waldman is an Edmonton writer who loves to cook, eat, and travel the world in search of interesting food.

629 Main Street phone:403.678.9886

w w w. b r a z i l i a n b b q . c a

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

the sunday project

with Karen Anderson

SAMOSAS

Samosas Beef Filling: 2-1/4 lbs. lean ground beef 4 T. water 1 t. salt 1 t. each garlic paste, ginger paste and green chile paste or sambal oelek 2 T. lemon juice 1/2 t. turmeric 1 t. ground cumin 1 t. Indian chile powder 1 c. finely cut yellow onion 1 c. finely cut green onion, first cut in half lengthwise 1/2 c. finely cut fresh cilantro leaves 1 t. garam masala salt to taste 1 (or more) seeded and finely cut jalapeño pepper (optional)

Put the ground beef in a colander and remove any visible blood from the exterior of the meat by rinsing it briefly under cold water (removing visible blood helps achieve a fine crumbled texture for a more enjoyable samosa filling).

www.wusthof.ca House of Knives Market Mall 3625 Shaganappi Trail NW Calgary

Hendrix 457 42 Ave. SE Calgary

Kitchen Boutique 212 - 1st St. W. Cochrane

Kitchen Boutique 960 Yankee Valley Blvd SE Airdrie

This is an excerpt from the soon-to-be-released A Spicy Touch – Family Favourites from Noorbanu Nimji’s Kitchen by Noorbanu Nimji and Karen Anderson. Samosas are a favourite Indian snack and Noorbanu Nimji’s recipe – from her A Spicy Touch cookbook series – is famous for its flavour and texture. Each bite starts with an assertive crunch, derived from the inventive use of spring roll wrappers instead of traditional samosa dough, and finishes with the well-balanced seasoning that is the trademark of a great Indian cook. Noorbanu’s Indian meets East-African Ismaili cuisine is a delight to the palate. We believe she was the first to record these recipes that were previously only handed down orally. We’ve updated all the recipes in her collection with instructions that will allow cooks to feel they have Noorbanu at their elbow in the kitchen guiding them through cooking these exotic tastes.

Heat a large fry pan on medium heat and add the ground beef with the 4 T. of water. Stir continuously, breaking up the meat, until it’s evenly browned and finely crumbled. Drain the meat in a strainer, then return to the pan with the salt, garlic, ginger and chile pastes, the lemon juice, turmeric, cumin and chile powder, and stir until the meat is coated and dry. Cool the meat mixture completely and add the yellow and green onion, cilantro and garam masala. It’s important to wait until the meat is cool so that it doesn’t pull the water out of the onions and cilantro. Adjust the salt and, if desired, add the jalapeño. (Keep in mind that the wrappers tone down the overall spiciness of the meat mixture.) Set meat mixture aside. Paste and Wrappers: 2 T. all-purpose flour 3 T. water 1 package TYJ brand (30 sheets – 10 x 10inch) frozen spring roll wrappers

Make a paste by combining the flour and water in a small bowl and stir briskly until smooth, thick and glue-like. Wrapping the Samosas: cut and fold as per photos and instructions:

Samosa wrapping is an intricate process. We’ve included step-by-step photos in the new book that we’re happy to share with City Palate readers.

2207 4 th Street S.W. 403 244 4443 www.inspirati.ca

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

Stock up on TYJ Spring Roll Wrappers, available in the frozen section of the Lambda market on Centre St., make your meat filling a day ahead, gather a few friends to help wrap them – that would be our number one tip for making samosas – and reward yourselves with a feast after you’ve cooked them.

1. Thaw the spring roll wrappers at room temperature (never in a microwave) and cut the wrappers into 3 equal sections.

the Grape Escape 2. Cut 18 of these long pieces in half to yield 36 short pieces. Put the remaining long pieces in 1 pile and cut the ends at a steep angle.

7. Use a Popsicle stick or other flat utensil to apply paste to the lower inner flap.

Wine, Spirits & Beer Festival 8. Pull the inner flap down snugly onto the samosa making sure the corner it creates is also tightly closed – and then apply paste to the remaining outer flap. 3. Pull all the long and short pieces apart carefully and collate the long pieces in groups of 2. Store the wrappers in damp kitchen cloths, otherwise they become too dry to work with.

Nov. 13 and 14, 2015 5pm to 9pm BMO Centre, Stampede Park $65+GST per evening

9. Pull both outer flaps onto the body of the samosa triangle.

Tickets are available at all Co-op Wine Spirits Beer locations.

4. Place a short piece in the center of one set of 2 long pieces (top), fold the top right end down until it forms a diamond shape, pinch the top of the diamond to hold the corner in place (bottom). Pick up the diamond as a unit and fold it to the left.

Authors photo by Julie Van Rosendaal, food photos by Pauli-Ann Carriere

10. Separate the two outer flaps and apply more paste between them.

5. Lay the diamond onto the wrapper underneath to make a conical pocket. Release the thumb/finger holding the corner tight.

11. Pull the last flap down tightly. You should have a filled – not bulging – samosa triangle with 3 tightly sealed corners. Deep fry the samosas in sunflower oil at 375°F, about 10 at a time, until golden brown, about 10-15 minutes. Drain on a paper towel-lined baking tray. Enjoy with your favourite chutneys, hot sauce and/or a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. Makes 36 samosas. 6. Pick the pocket up in your non-dominant hand; hold the back of the pocket against your palm and the flap open with your thumb in front. Look inside the cone to make sure the corner fold was tight and there’s no hole in the bottom. If there is, you’ll need to refold it until it’s tight to keep the filling from leaking out during cooking. Fill the pocket with about 2-1/2 Tablespoons of the meat mixture.

(To freeze your samosas for later eating, pack them into plastic containers – so they won’t get crushed in your freezer – with wax paper between the layers. They freeze well for up to 2 months. When ready to eat, deep fry them from frozen, don’t defrost first.) Karen Anderson is the owner of Calgary Food Tours

coopwinespiritsbeer.com

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

Celebrate the Harvest

LENTILS AND VEGETABLES TAKE CENTRE STAGE ON THE TABLE Canadian Lentils launched the FUNdeLENTIL Tour, a crossCanada lentil recipe restaurant competition throughout June. Twenty-four restaurants across Canada – including River Café, Rouge Restaurant and CHARCUT Roast House in Calgary – cooked up their best lentil dish and diners ate them and voted for their favourite. We bring you the River Café and Rouge Restaurant lentil dishes that prove what Canadian Lentils wants you to know – how delicious a lentil dish can be! The Calgary entries didn’t win, but these dishes are exceptionally tasty. Make these lentil dishes and fall in love.

Elk and Sprouted Lentil Tartare with Red Lentil Hummus

Saskatchewan Black Lentil and Edgar Farms Aparagus Salad with Fairwinds Farm Goat Cheese Vinaigrette on Beef Carpaccio From Chef Andrew Winfield, River Café Beef Carpaccio: 1 lb. center-cut beef tenderloin, one whole piece

Prepare an ice-water bath in a large bowl. Blanch the asparagus pieces in salted boiling water just until the spears turn bright green, approximately 10-15 seconds.

From Chef Jamie Harling, Rouge Restaurant

Elk and Sprouted Lentil Tartare:

Sprouted Lentils:

2 T. each minced shallots and cornichons

1/2 c. beluga lentils (at specialty food stores)

2 T. grainy mustard

1 c. water

2 T. sprouted lentils

In a bowl, cover the lentils with water, cover the bowl with cheesecloth and let soak overnight. The next morning, strain the lentils and let them sit at room temperature, in a dark place, covered with cheesecloth, rinsing 2 to 3 times a day until sprouts form, in 2 to 3 days. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and blanch the lentils for 30 seconds, refresh in ice water then blanch again for 30 seconds to remove some of the raw lentil flavour. Set aside.

2 T. first-press canola oil

Red Lentil Hummus: olive oil 1 c. red lentils 1 T. minced shallots 1 bay leaf and 1 sprig thyme 1/3 c. white wine

12 oz. elk, inside round or top sirloin*

2 t. lemon juice 1 dash Tabasco sauce 1 egg yolk 2 T. minced herbs (parsley, chives, chervil, tarragon) salt to taste

Dice the elk into small dice and mix it with the other ingredients in a bowl. Taste to check seasoning and serve immediately.* Second to None meats carries elk, as do other butchers. If you can’t find it, Jamie says both bison and beef will work well. To plate: spread the hummus on 4 or 6 plates, top it with the elk and lentil tartare. At the restaurant, we garnish with Fairwinds Farm goat feta, lentil crackers (recipe below), a drizzle of black garlic vinaigrette and mesclun greens. Serves 4 to 6.

Plunge them into the ice water bath; after 30 seconds, remove and drain them.

3 c. water

1/2 t. black pepper

Mix the remaining ingredients together and add the asparagus. Toss together with vinaigrette.

1/4 c. first-press canola oil 1 T. sambal oelek (Indonesian hot sauce)

Lentil Cracker :

1 T. chopped thyme

Fairwinds Farm Goat Cheese Vinaigrette:

2 t. sesame oil

From Jr. Sous Chef Ryan Lumsden

1 T. extra-virgin olive oil

3 T. apple cider vinegar

1 lemon, juice and zest

3 c. all-purpose flour

Combine the seasoning ingredients and rub it onto the tenderloin; allow to sit for 1 hour. Turn on your grill to very high heat and allow it to get searing hot, about 10 minutes. Grill the beef for 1 minute, rolling it every 15 seconds to mark the exterior.

1 T. shallots, finely minced

salt to taste

1 t. garlic, finely minced

Remove and let sit for 15 minutes, then wrap tightly in plastic wrap and freeze for 2 hours. Remove the plastic wrap and slice the beef with a very sharp knife into slices about 1/8 -inch thick. Reserve.

In a splash of olive oil, sauté the lentils, shallots, bay leaf and thyme. Deglaze with the wine, then cover with the water. Cook for 10 minutes until the lentils are soft, then strain them.

3/4 c. lentil flour (grind dry lentils in coffee/ spice grinder/blender until a flour forms, sift)

2 T. chives, chopped fine

Black Lentil and Asparagus Salad:

In a medium bowl, whisk together the vinegar, shallots and garlic and let sit for 5 minutes. Add the camelina oil, parsley, chives, mustard and chèvre. Whisk to combine, season with a touch of salt and fresh cracked pepper. Dress the salad.

1 t. ground juniper berries 1 t. Maldon salt

4 c. asparagus spears cut into 2-inch pieces (at this time of year, you might use green beans instead of asparagus) 4 c. cooked Saskatchewan black beluga lentils (at specialty food stores) 1 c. kohlrabi cut into 1/2-inch cubes 4 c. mesclun salad greens

1/4 c. Three Farmers camelina oil 3 T. parsley, chopped 1 T. grainy mustard 1/4 c. Fairwinds Farm chèvre, crumbled salt and pepper

To plate: lay 6 - 8 slices of beef carpaccio on 6 plates and top with about 1 cup of lentil and asparagus salad. Enjoy some of the tastiest lentils you’ll ever have! Serves 6.

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

2 t. minced garlic

While still warm, place the lentils in a food processor and blitz with the garlic, canola oil, sambal, sesame oil, lemon juice and zest. Season with salt, tasting as you go.

3/4 T. granulated sugar 1/8 t. sea salt 1 c. + 1T. cold cubed butter 1-1/4 c. buttermilk, more if needed 1 egg white, lightly beaten Maldon salt for sprinkling

Combine flour, lentil flour, sugar and salt in large bowl. Cut in the butter to make a coarse meal. Add buttermilk until the dough just comes together. Don’t overmix. Form a dough ball, wrap in plastic wrap and let rest in the fridge. Preheat oven to 325°F., roll dough to about 1/8-inch thickness, cut into desired shape, brush with egg white and sprinkle with Maldon salt. Bake 15 minutes until golden brown. continued on page 24

Host your next corporate meeting in one wild setting. With our unique atmosphere, first-class dining and large open spaces, the Calgary Zoo is an ideal location for your next social or corporate function. Whether it’s a gathering of 25 or 1000 people, we have a venue that’s sure to impress. Call 403-232-7770 or email salesinfo@calgaryzoo.com

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

Celebrate the Harvest

LENTILS AND VEGETABLES TAKE CENTRE STAGE ON THE TABLE

continued from page 22

Zucchini Baba Ghanoush From City Palate publisher, Gail Norton This has become my favourite recipe this season. It’s my take on a recipe from Ottolenghi’s Plenty More book. It’s a really pretty dish with lots of colour and texture. Serve with large Iranian bread or pita that you tear off big chunks to scoop through the layers – YUM! 5 large zucchini (about 2-3/4 lbs.) 1 T. unsalted butter 3 T. pistachio nuts 2-1/2 t. sea salt, divided 1/2 t. dried chile flakes 4 garlic cloves, minced 1/3 c. Greek-style yogurt 2 T. olive oil 2 T. blue cheese, crumbled (optional) 1 t. za’atar* rose petals* 2 T. pomegranate seeds

Preheat oven to 400°F. Place zucchini on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake the zucchini until the skin is brown, then turn over and brown the other sides. The flesh of the zucchini has to be soft enough to be pierced through with a fork. You can also brown the outside then turn down the oven temperature and bake until they are soft.

Warm Lentil Salad – New Comfort Food From Shanna Jade’s web site, kissmybowl.com 1-1/2 c. beluga lentils, soaked for 4 hours (at specialty food stores) 2 strips kombu* sea salt juice & zest of 1 orange 1 t. capers 5-6 sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil plus 2 T. reserved oil 1-1/2 c. assorted pitted oil & brine olives 1 red onion, sliced into rings, separating each segment 1 sprig fresh rosemary, leaves minced arugula Maldon salt

Put the lentils and kombu into a pot and cover with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and cook until the lentils are soft but not at all mushy. Add a pinch of salt, remove from the heat and let sit without being drained.

While the lentils are cooking, put the orange juice, capers, tomatoes, 1 T. tomato oil and olives into a food processor and blitz until the mixure forms a rough tapenade; set aside. Get a pan hot on the stove and add the remaining tablespoon of tomato oil. Add the onion and rosemary and sauté until the onion is soft and fragrant. Remove the kombu from the lentils, drain the lentils and transfer to a large bowl. Add the tapenade, rosemary onions and most of the orange zest. Mix to combine. To serve, fill the bottom of a bowl or centre of a plate with a handful of arugula and top with the lentil mixture. Garnish with a touch of Maldon salt and the extra orange zest. Hot tip: this salad is super delicious as a filling for a wrap or pita. Serves 6. *Kombu is an edible seaweed. If added to beans and legumes when cooking, it helps to diminish the not-so-sexy gas potential. Try it! Available at whole foods stores, like Amaranth and Community Natural Foods.

Remove the zucchini from the oven, put them in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Poke an air hole in the top, allow them to steam and cool. Pull the skin off of the zucchini and place the flesh into a wire colander to fully drain. This is an important step, if you don’t drain the zucchini thoroughly, the mixture will be watery. You might need to jostle the colander to release as much of the zucchini water as possible. In a small sauté pan, melt the butter over low heat. Add the pistachios and cook, stirring often, for 3 to 4 minutes, until the nuts are golden. Stir in 1/2 t. of salt and the chile flakes, set aside. Add half of the minced garlic cloves to the yogurt. Set aside. Put the fully drained zucchini into a bowl and mash roughly with a fork. Mix in the olive oil, the remaining minced garlic and 2 t. of sea salt. Stir to combine well. Taste and adjust seasonings, you may need to add more salt. To serve: Place a layer of the zucchini on a platter. Top with a layer of the yogurt. Crumble the blue cheese on top followed by the pistachios, za’atar, rose petals and pomegranate seeds. Serve with pita wedges or Iranian bread that you can find at Middle Eastern groceries. Serves 6-12 as an appetizer. * Za’atar and rose petals may be found at Savour Fine Foods, The Silk Road Spice Merchant and The Cookbook Co.

Roasted Tomato & Garden Lovage Soup with Cucumber Relish From chef Andrew Winfield, River Café Check the farmers’ markets for lovage – an herb that tastes like celery – but if you can’t find it, use celery leaves. Soup: 5 lbs. heirloom tomatoes splash of extra-virgin olive oil salt and pepper 1 T. extra-virgin olive oil 2 large leeks, white only, chopped 1/4 large yellow onion, chopped 1 T. minced garlic 2 T. minced ginger 1 t. crushed dried chiles, or less, if you prefer less heat 1/2 c. dry white wine 1/4 c. lovage, chopped 8 c. vegetable stock

Sachet ingredients – tied up in a piece of cheesecloth: 2 bay leaves 1 cinnamon stick 10 juniper berries 2 each sprigs of thyme and oregano reserved tomato skins

In a large bowl, toss the tomatoes with a splash of olive oil and season with the salt and pepper. Grill over high heat on the barbecue until the skins blister and crack. Remove from the heat and peel, reserving the skins. Chop the tomatoes roughly and reserve. In a large pot, heat the 1 T. olive oil and sweat the leeks, onion, garlic, ginger and chiles slowly until the vegetables are tender. Add the wine and reduce slightly. Add the lovage, stock and chopped tomatoes. Add the sachet of herbs and spices and simmer the soup for 20 – 30 minutes. Ladle warm soup into bowls, top with a tablespoon of cucumber relish (recipe follows) and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil. Serves 8-10. Cucumber Relish: I like to slice the cucumbers very thin and marinate them with vinegar. It reminds me of how my grandmother served cucumbers on a hot summer evening. 1 large cucumber 1 t. puréed or finely minced garlic 1 oz. (2 T.) champagne vinegar 1/2 t. seeded and minced chipotle chile

Peel and finely slice the cucumber on a mandoline or with a knife. Toss with the remaining ingredients and season with salt. continued on page 28

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

CHECK OUT OUR NEW

AV A I L A B L E D U R I N G L U N C H M O N D AY - F R I D AY 1 1 : 3 0 - 2 limited while quantities last *

hapacalgary.com

hapa calgary

@hapacalgary

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

The Local Pantry

by Karen Anderson

I’ve turned into a serial stalker. I’m constantly stalking local goods for the job of stocking my larder. Buying local isn’t about following a trend; it’s an action we can all take in the creation of a sustainable food system. If you think about it, every time we buy a food product we’re voting for what ends up on our grocery shelves.

Local Pantry Goods

PULSING WITH LIFE

Pulses – peas, beans and lentils – are a huge part of the crops that have the fields of Southern Alberta pulsing with life each summer. They’re sold in bulk bins across the province. Alberta Grown Pulses – various prices/1 kg bags, Prairie Farms stall at Market on MacLeod N A K E D O AT S

TA K E T H E H I G H R O A D

Tony and Penny Marshall were voted “local food heroes” by Slow Food Canada. All their products are organic. I keep all-purpose and whole wheat flour, steel-cut and rolled oats, the muffin and pancake mixes, canola oil and their incredibly tasty granola in my home at all times. I often use the recipes on their web site because I know Penny Marshall has developed and tested them. They always turn out as true blue as the Marshalls themselves. Highwood Crossing Organic – canola oil, flax oil and seeds, flours, cereals, muffin and pancake mix, gluten-free pizza mix and granola – various prices, Calgary Co-op Stores

These oats are hulled as they’re harvested, last for six years without spoiling and cook up like Canada’s local answer to rice. Cavena Nuda – $10/750 g, Innisfail Growers’ stall at The Calgary Farmers’ Market P O W E R F U L O AT S

Originally made for athletes in training, but tasty for all of us. Follow Calgarian and co-owner Simon Donato’s TV show Boundless to see just how far a bowl of this fuel will take you. Stoked Oats – $19.99, Market 17 HOME-GROWN GARLIC

MIGHTY TRIO, INDEED

Cold-pressed for maximum flavour and grown organically in Redwater, Alberta. Mighty Trio Organics – canola, flax and hemp seed oils – $10 and up, Amaranth Whole Foods Market T H R E E FA R M E R S , O N E O I L

Though this company is in Saskatchewan, camelina oil tastes like spring to me so they make this list because they’re the only Canadian source of this high-smokepoint culinary oil. Three Famers Camelina Oil – original, onion and basil, roasted garlic and chile flavours – $17.99/500 ml, Planet Organic RED FIFE-DOM

Farmer Mark Gibeau is part of a small group ploughing the way for a revival of heritage wheat varietals that started with red fife. These are tasty times for bread making in Alberta. Heritage Harvest’s red fife and Marquis heritage wheat – various prices/ 3-20 kg, heritage-harvest.ca or Sidewalk Citizen Bakery

Grown near Claresholm by Jackie Chalmers, I try to stock up on enough to see me through the year because home-grown garlic tastes better than anything from our usual sources in California or China. It will last all winter if kept in a cool dry place. New Oxley Garlic Naturally – market price, at the farm gate and Calgary Co-op Stores LOCAL SPICING

The Silk Road Spice Merchant’s spices come from all over the world. If you aren’t up to foraging your own juniper berries locally, check out theirs and add a few of these to your next bison or elk stew, because things that have grown together, go together. Juniper Berries – $5.99, The Silk Road Spice Merchant W E L L S A LT E D

It’s okay to extend our limits of local to include Canada’s only sea salt company. It’s so fresh you can use 25 percent less on average. Vancouver Island Salt Co. – Canadian Sea Salt – $8.50/227 g, Sunterra, West Market Sq., Willow Park Wines & Spirits LINKED-IN

WITH THE GRAIN

From A to Z – amaranth to zinzinia (Wild Rice) – this company, based in Vulcan, has an astounding variety of pulses, grains and mixes all grown in Alberta and Saskatchewan. TIP: You’re going to need a bigger pantry. Grainworks – more than 100 grains, peas and beans, flours, flakes and mixes – prices vary depending on quantity ordered, grainworks.com REGIONAL RICE

Wild rice is the seeds of a native grass. On its own or in salads or blini, this is a prairie staple. Willow Creek Organic Saskatchewan Wild Rice – $11.75/454 g, Bite Groceteria

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

Family, team spirit and solid friendship have formed the foundation for one of Calgary’s favourite institutions. The lean gourmet sausages are a pantry/freezer must. They contain no fillers or preservatives and are gluten, egg, and dairy-free. Spolumbo’s Fine Foods and Deli – mild & spicy Italian, chicken with red pepper, apple or sundried tomato & basil, maple breakfast and more – $14.50-$16.25/kg, at the Deli and Calgary Co-op stores BOREAL BEVVY

Dried mushrooms from our native boreal forests add intense flavour to whatever you’re cooking up. Untamed Feast Dried Mushrooms – $10.99 and up, Soffrito

Local Preserves to Keep on Reserve PRESERVING POWER

Three of the five farms that belong to Innisfail Growers have production kitchens where they preserve what’s not sold at the market each week. It’s a triple-win – decreased waste, extra income for the farmers and the best of Alberta’s growing season preserved for you. Innisfail Growers’ Preserves – beets, carrots, asparagus, dill and bread and butter pickles – $6-$16, Innisfail Growers stall at the Calgary Farmers’ Market T O M AT O E S A L L T H E T I M E

No time to preserve your own tomato sauce? Thanks to yearround greenhouse know-how, Gull Valley’s got your meatballs covered. Gull Valley tomato sauces and salsa – various prices and sizes, The Gull Valley stall at The Calgary Farmers’ Market PICK OR PRESERVE

Pick your own black currants in season, buy a case of frozen berries or enjoy this delicious preserved local fruit. My favourite is the punch base. Kayben Farms – punch base, jam, jelly, barbecue sauce, chutney and salad dressings – various prices, at the farm gate store in Okotoks B E R RY B L I S S

With 50 acres of saskatoon bushes hugging the banks of the Milk River, this is one of the prettiest farms in Alberta and the café, bakery and store are open 364 days/year for your local shopping pleasure. The Saskatoon Farm – frozen saskatoon berries, syrups, jams and jellies – various prices, at the farm gate store in DeWinton S A N TA F E I N S A S K AT C H E W A N ?

Don’t let the name fool you. These sour cherry preserves are from an orchard in Saskatchewan that the Santa Fe Rail Car Company ran through. The University of Saskatchewan cultivated these prairie-hardy fruits; this company found great things to do with them. Try the chertney on Valbella Gourmet Meats’ smoked duck breast. Santa Fe Food Company – chertney, chelish and rib sauce – $12.95/350 ml, Savour Fine Foods JELLING AND JAMMING

Crave jams and jellies are made in-house using peak-of-the-season Alberta and Okanagan fruits. Jams and jellies – raspberry, apricot and blueberry – $8/ 250ml, Crave Cupcakes QUINCE-ESSENTIAL

Made from B.C. quinces especially for Luke’s. Delish as a glaze on cheesecakes, in a grilled cheese, on cheese boards and straight-up on toast.

Le Meadow’s Pantry Quince Marmalade – $8.95, Luke’s Drug Mart SAUCY SOLUTIONS

Made in Lethbridge, where you can also buy terrific perogies and cabbage rolls. Saucy Ladies – antipasto, salsa, dills, chutney, and more – various prices, Second to None Meats

Loading up on local also means that money spent on local goods injects even more money into the economy as producers pay the businesses in their local supply chain. Niche products from our locale – Calgary, Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan – find their way from the recesses of grocery shelves to being prominently featured items. Grocers follow consumer trends and are happy to capitalize on the rising demand for local. Consumer review systems like “Localize” work to make local products easier to find. I’m happy to share some of my favourite local pantry finds with you. Let me know if I’ve missed any of your favourites. Contact me at karen@calgaryfoodtours.com

M U S TA R D M A I N S TAY

Made in Airdrie since 1995 by the husband and wife team of Desmond Johnston and Karen Davis, who realized Alberta was growing most of the world’s mustard seeds and shipping them off to Dijon to be processed. This talented duo proved that unnecessary. Brassica Mustards – cranberry-honey, dill, black pepper, horseradish, roasted garlic and traditional whole grain prepared mustards – $9.95 and up, Bon Ton Meat Market SOME LIKE IT HOT

Both of these delectables are made from scratch in the Kings’ (Wonton King) kitchen. The hot sauce delivers a balance of garlic and heat perfectly suited to our Calgary palates. It’s my go-to. Fresh Carrot Ginger Vinaigrette and Heavenly Hot Sauce – $10.99/500 ml, Kings on the Hill F R I E N D LY F E R M E N TAT I O N

These lacto-fermented foods and condiments that are made locally have the health benefit of boosting the “local community” of healthy bacteria within us all. The Light Cellar’s Sea Vegetable Kraut, $12/500 ml, The Light Cellar BUZZED ON BEES

Art and Cherie Andrews’ idea of retirement is buzzing around this business that is part apiary, country store, meadery and major bee education center. Chinook Honey – honey, jams, pickles and ice cream – various prices, at the farm gate store in Okotoks H O N E Y D E R I VAT I V E S

Alberta is the world’s fifth largest honey producer. Most of that comes from Peace River where the Honey Bunny brand thrives as the largest organic honey producer in Canada. Kudos to them for adding value to their honey with the production of these delicious condiments. Amazing Dad’s BBQ sauce and Bodacious Tomato Ketchup by Honey Bunny – $7.99, Blush Lane Organic Market CANADIAN “SUGAR”

Maple syrup is Canada’s natural sugar source. We don’t make maple syrup in Alberta but what Canadian can be without it? If the point of buying local is to taste the land where we live, then nothing could taste more of this sweet land than the sap that flows from its soil to feed our beloved sugar maples each spring. This is the most elegant maple syrup I’ve ever tasted. St. Leon Maple Syrup – $26.75 and up, The Cookbook Co. Cooks KITCHEN CACHE

Fans of Canadian Rocky Mountain Resorts (CRMR) will be happy to know they can find an array of their signature goodies – from mustard melon preserves to Cilantro’s pizzas – cached away in a new online store via Second to None Meats. Click CRMR Chef’s Kitchen on the Products page. CRMR preserves, charcuterie and frozen meals, $6 & up, secondtononemeats.com/products/crmrkitchen

The Local “Snack Bracket”

The Local Dairy Case

TA S T E PA RT N E R S

There are more than a dozen Alberta cheese and organic dairy producers with fresh artisan quality products to stock up on – ask for them at your grocer and keep their business moo-ving. Look for the following brands: The Cheesiry, Crystal Springs, Fairwinds Farm, Fresk-O Cheeses, Noble Meadows, Old West Ranch, Rockyridge Dairy, Sweetmeadow Farmstead, Sylvan Star, Vital Greens and White Gold.

Janice Beaton’s Cheese Partner jam and jellies are made in-house by chef Marcus Purtzki. They’re selling well across Canada. Will Beaton’s flatbread or savoury fig and cheese crackers be next? Those staples are in-house recipes made for the cheese shop by Alexandra Chan at nearby Itza Bakeshop. It’s a great example of local dollars supporting more local businesses. Flatbread crackers, fig and cheese savoury crackers and JBFC Cheese Partners – Tomato Chili Jam, Pear Vanilla and Apple Rosemary Jellies – various prices, Janice Beaton Fine Cheese C U R E D L O C A L LY

The Von Rotz family has been making world-class Swiss charcuterie in Alberta for more than 30 years. They make it for 5-star hotels but mostly they make it for us! Pork, elk, bison and beef charcuterie – varying prices, Valbella Gourmet Meats, Canmore CHOICE CHIPS

Tres Marias makes my number one choice in tortilla chips right here in Calgary. The secret – organic ingredients and delicious Alberta canola. Tres Marias Tortilla Chips, $5.90/270 g, Tres Marias in Marda Loop T H R E E FA R M E R S , O N E G R E AT S N A C K

Chickpeas grow in an environmentally friendly way with camelina – so the clever folks at Three Farmers have invented this snack as a tasty local alternative to chips or nuts and a way to use both of the things they grow. Three Farmers Barbecue, Sea Salt and Lime, Balsamic and Cracked Pepper Roasted Chickpea Snacks – $4.50 and up, Calgary Co-op stores, Sunterra and Community Natural Foods.

The Local Liquor Cabinet NOTHING TO BE BITTER ABOUT

Made in Calgary by Cheezy Bizness Food Truck owner Nicole Fewell, these tonics are a great bitters flavour asset to be used in the sweet and sour, hard and soft elements of your cocktail equations. Porter’s Tonic – Original, Grapefruit, Cardamom and Orange, – $16/8 oz., widely available, including Willow Park, J. Webb, The Cookbook Co. MIGHTY MEADERIES

Try Fallentimber’s completely refreshing honey beer, Chinook Arch’s King Arthur’s Dry Mead, before it sells out annually and Spirit Hills’ Dande Honey Wine – it will make you see dandelions in a new light. Fallentimber, Chinook Arch Meadery and Spirit Hills Honey Winery products – various prices, at the sources LOCAL CRAFT BEER

Olds College has a many-year wait list to enter its craft brewmaster course. We benefit from recent graduates. Whether you want to quench your local thirst or braise your favourite protein in a tasty stout, it’s great to see local craft beer coming of age in a province with the world’s best barley. Big Rock, Last Best Brewing and Distilling, Village Brewery, Tool Shed Brewing, The Dandy Brewing Company – various prices, Kensington Wine Market

N O W A S T E – A L L TA S T E

Marcus Purtzki is a no waste, all taste, kind of chef. He needed egg whites to make his macarons but hated wasting the yolks, so rich, exotic ice cream flavours were born. Both have been selling like ice cream on a hot summer’s day ever since he started making them – even in the depths of our chilly winters. Happily – the ice cream now comes in 1.5 L tubs. Made by Marcus Macarons – $11.95/8 pack and Ice Cream – $17.99/1.5L, Bridgeland Market, Calgary Farmers’ Market, Janice Beaton Fine Cheese I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM, WE ALL

Village Ice Cream. Owner Billy Friley gave this ice cream the rich creamy texture and flavour profiles that gave us the will to search out his nigh-on impossible to find location. Thankfully, store two in Britiannia is much more obvious! Ice Cream – $9/500 ml, Village Ice Cream

GRAIN TO GLASS

David Farran and Larry Kerwin started craft brewing in the province with Big Rock Brewery. Now, they’re reimagining uses for the grains growing around us with their Turnery Valley distillery. TIP: whisky aging in barrels will be ready for release in 2016. Eau Claire Distillery – Three Point Vodka, Parlour Gin – $50.95/750 ml at quality liquor stores, including J. Webb, Metrovino, Kensington Wine, Bin 905, Co-op Wine Spirits Beer, Highlander, Crowfoot Liquor

SCREAM FOR…

L O C A L G E L AT O G I A N T

Fiasco Gelato owner, James Boettcher, is famous for his novel flavours and crazy-good, house-made marshmallows. Fiasco Gelato – $9/562 ml, Fiasco Marshmallows – $6/8 pack, Sunterra Markets or fiascogelatoshop.com

PRAIRIE FINE WINE

The Gill family planted 50 acres of fruit bushes and trees in Strathmore only to find that was an extreme amount of fruit for a U-Pick operation. They hired worldfamous fruit wine maker Dominic Rivard and have won a prairie slough full of awards for their fruits turned beverage-of-the-gods. Field Stone Fruit Wines – $17.11/750 ml and up, widely available, including Co-op Wine Spirits Beer, Crowfoot Wine and Spirits and fieldstonefruitwines.com ✤ Karen Anderson is the owner of Calgary Food Tours

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

Celebrate the Harvest

LENTILS AND VEGETABLES TAKE CENTRE STAGE ON THE TABLE

continued from page 24

Move Over Meat – Pan Roasted Cauliflower Steaks with Red Pepper Romesco Sauce and Carrot-Top Pesto From Lori Sharkey, food stylist and writer. This recipe is a culinary nod to vegetables taking center stage at our tables. I came across this inspired dish during a Wolf Walk with my husband in Golden B.C. Casey and Shelley Black operate Northern Lights Wolf Centre, a privately owned facility dedicated to educating the public about the importance of wolves in our environment. We participated in a guided hour-long hike with wolves through the Purcell Mountains bordering on Yoho and Banff National Parks. My hubby had a surprise kiss from one of the more adventurous wolves, Scrappy Dave. Without doubt a first and lasting experience. We stayed in the Adventure Chalet at Cedar House, awarded best place to stay in Golden 2012/2013, by EnRoute magazine. We ate at the restaurant and thank chef and proprietor Corey Fraser for sharing his recipe with City Palate. Cauliflower Steak: 1 large cauliflower head salt and pepper 1/2 T. olive or grapeseed oil 1 rosemary sprig 1 thyme sprig 1 T. fresh lemon juice

Clean the cauliflower before placing it core side down on a cutting board. Cut two 3/4- to 1-inchthick steaks from the centre. Reserve remaining florets for snacking on. Preheat oven to 425°F. Season the steaks generously with salt and pepper. Add oil to a preheated cast iron pan. Place steaks in the pan, one at a time, with rosemary and thyme and cook on medium heat. Turn the steak over after two minutes, then place in the hot oven for 9-12 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the romesco sauce and pesto, check seasoning and adjust if needed.

The same dish made with purple cauliflower – a showstopper!

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

Roasted Red Pepper Romesco: 2 roasted red peppers 3/4 c. raw pumpkin seeds 2 garlic cloves 2 T. bread crumbs 1 large beefsteak tomato 2 T. apple cider vinegar pinch of sea salt and cracked pepper

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until completely puréed. Transfer to a plastic container and refrigerate until needed. Carrot Top Pesto: 1 small bunch of young carrot tops 1/2 c. fresh basil leaves 2 oz. parmesan cheese, grated 1/2 c. pumpkin seeds, toasted 2 garlic cloves pinch of salt juice of half a lemon 5 T. olive or grapeseed oil

In a food processor, purée all ingredients until a rough consistencey is acheived. Taste, adjust seasoning, and refrigerate until needed. To plate: Place the cauliflower steaks on two heated plates, top with warm romesco sauce and a spoonful of pesto. If desired, sprinkle with shaved parmesan and pass the lemon wedges. Supper, inspired. Serves 2. ✤

Stocking up on local and regional goods helps keep good people in business.

一愀琀甀爀愀氀⸀ 匀甀猀琀愀椀渀愀戀氀攀⸀ 吀爀愀挀攀愀戀氀攀⸀

“Good, clean, fair, loca

New Oxley New Oxley

䠀攀愀氀琀栀礀Ⰰ 搀攀氀椀挀椀漀甀猀瀀爀漀搀甀挀琀猀琀栀愀琀愀爀攀瀀爀漀甀搀氀礀最爀漀眀渀愀渀搀瀀爀漀搀甀挀攀搀椀渀䌀愀渀愀搀愀⸀

“Good, clean, fair, local.”

Garlic Garlic

眀眀眀⸀琀栀爀攀攀昀愀爀洀攀爀猀⸀挀愀

New Oxley Garlic.com

“Good, clean, fair, local.”

New Oxley

N a t u r a l l y g ro wn i n C l a re s h o l m , A l b e r

Scapes & Bulb Scapes & Bulbs

Garlic

N a t u r a l l y g ro wn i n C l a re s h o l m , A l b e r t a Visit newoxleygarlic.com for recipes and tip Visit newoxleygarlic.com for recipes and tips! New Oxley Labels Final.indd 1

New Oxley Garlic.com New Oxley Labels Final.indd 1

Available at: The Italian Centre and 14-06-26 12:36 PM SPUD or by mail order.

Natu rally grown in Cla res hol m , A l b er ta

Scapes & Bulbs Visit newoxleygarlic.com for recipes and tips!

highwoodcrossing.com New Oxley Labels Final.indd 1

14-06-26 12:36 PM

Home of authentic Italian sausage, in the heart of Inglewood. Quality meats, natural spices and Old-World recipes. That’s authentic Italian.

WHolesale & RetaIl 1308 9tH avenue se 403.264.6452

Heavenly Hot Sauce is Alberta’s ‘other’ liquid gold.

kingsrestaurant.net

Available in stores & at Calgary Coop

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

14-0

PA RT 2 : V E G E TA B L E S by Val Andrews

Now that summer is moving into fall, it’s time to stock your pantry with as many fresh local vegetables as you can. When I was young, a small portion of every weekend was set aside for harvesting garden vegetables and helping to “put them up.” Spending a few hours every weekend, by summer’s end my family had a full pantry of sweet and savoury preserves, tangy pickles and mysterious ferments waiting to be savoured throughout the winter. To this day, I remember the anticipation of opening the first jar of pickled beans or gooseberry jam.

Pres ervin g TH

E H AS E A RV S O ES N T ’S

These are happy memories that have kept me inspired and curious about finding new ways to preserve food. There’s plenty of room for experimentation and imagination. Once you’ve tried a few recipes and gained a little experience, you can get adventurous and inventive with different fruit, vegetable and seasoning combinations – nothing to lose and good memories to gain. The recipes that follow include pickles, jam and a ferment. All of these preserving techniques may be used year round and will add versatility to your pantry.

WATER BATH CANNING BASICS For Marmalades, Jams, Jellies, Chutneys, Pickles and other high acid preserves. CANNING EQUIPMENT: A WIDE-MOUTH FUNNEL LONG TONGS AND A BOTTLE GRIPPER METAL LADLE GLASS MEASURING CUP WATER-BATH CANNER POT TO HEAT LIDS COOLING RACK (i.e. cutting board or tray lined with tea towels) CLEAN TEA TOWELS AND DISH CLOTHS JARS, LIDS AND RING BANDS SUITABLE FOR THE PRODUCT BAKING TRAY TO KEEP JARS HOT IN THE OVEN VINEGAR – FOR WATER BATH (this prevents the minerals in the water from adhering to the jar surface)

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

CANNING PROCEDURE: • Wash the jars. • Fill the water-bath canner with water and heat to boiling: keep water hot but not boiling. Bring water to a boil just before placing finished product in the water bath. • Have a large pot or kettle filled with extra hot water to top up the water bath, if needed. • Sterilize your jars. In a large pot, cover the canning jars with water and bring to a boil. Boil for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and let them sit in the hot water until ready to use, or remove jars from the water, place on a tray and hold in a 200°F. oven until ready to use. • Soften the rubber gaskets on the lids by placing them in a pot of boiled water until ready to use. • When you’re ready to fill your jars, remove them from the oven or hot water and place on a tray on a heatproof surface (kitchen counter lined with tea towels). • Using the funnel and ladle or measuring cup, fill the jars with the hot product. • Be sure to allow for adequate headspace when filling jars. Headspace is the unfilled space above the food in a jar and below its lid. Typically leave 1/4-inch for jams and jellies and 1/2- to 1-inch for vegetable pickles, fruits in syrup and tomatoes. • Fill jars one batch at a time. A batch equals the number of jars that will fit into the canner. • Use a clean, moist cloth to gently wipe the rim of the jar in case any product got on the rim, then place the lid on the jar and secure with the metal ring band. • Using a jar gripper, place the jars gently onto the rack of the water-bath canner. Lower the full rack into the hot water bath. Make sure the water completely covers the jars. Add 2 T. of vinegar to the canning bath to prevent mineral build up on the jars. • Bring water to a boil, cover the pot and maintain a steady gentle boil for the full time as provided in your recipe. Start timing the bath from the moment the water maintains a boil. • After the appropriate time, turn off heat and let the jars sit in the water for up to 5 minutes, then remove them to cool. • Let the jars sit undisturbed for 12-24 hours. Don’t tighten the ring band or press down on the lids during this time. The lids may take up to 24 hours to seal. Lids should be sucked down when cool. • Label jars and store in a cool dry place. • If any product has not sealed, move it to the fridge and consume it first. • Remember to always label your product with a name and a date.

Pickling Spice None of the spices listed in this recipe are mandatory. If you don’t like a certain spice, replace it or just remove it. Always use whole spices. Ground spices will cloud your pickling brine. Common pickling spices may include bay leaf, mustard seed, coriander, pepper, allspice, juniper, cinnamon, mace, ginger, and dill seeds. 1 T. mustard seeds 2 t. black peppercorns 2 t. coriander seeds 1 t. whole cloves or allspice 1 t. juniper berries 1 t. dill seeds

Mix all the ingredients together and store in a small, airtight jar for up to 2 months. Makes 1/4 cup.

Drunken and Pickled Green and Yellow Beans Best pickle-y thing ever! Friends always ask for this recipe. These are delicious served at a barbecue, on a charcuterie board, or plunked into a spicy tomato caesar. Make sure to have a few extra on hand! You’ll need 10 one-pint canning jars and lids. 4 lb. mix of green and yellow beans

Pickled Vegetable Antipasto This is a go-to pickling recipe that is great for a variety and/or surplus of vegetables. You may choose to use this recipe to make a mixed vegetable antipasto or you may limit your selection to a couple of your summer favourites. Either way, you’ll end up with a crowd pleaser that is versatile and delicious. You’ll need 10 one-pint canning jars and lids.

20 garlic cloves

4 lbs. assorted market vegetables, such as cauliflower, sweet peppers, carrots, fennel, mushrooms, pearl onions, green beans, zucchini

20 t. pickling spice (recipe above)

5 c. water

5 small hot chiles 10 bay leaves

5 c. white wine vinegar or cider vinegar 5 c. white wine or cider vinegar

1 c. sugar

3 c. water

4 T. sea salt

2/3 c. sugar

6 T. + 2 t. pickling spice

1/2 c. sea salt

3 jalapeño chiles, seeded and sliced

2 c. pale ale beer

20 garlic cloves

Wash and sterilize the jars.

10 each thyme and dill sprigs

Wash and trim the beans to the same height as the beginning of the neck of the jar. This will allow about 1 inch of headspace for air to escape in the canning process.

Wash and sterilize the jars.

Wash, stem and halve the hot chiles. Peel the garlic. Place 1/2 chile, 1 bay leaf, 2 garlic cloves and 2 t. pickling spice in each jar. Pack the beans, upright, in each jar. In a saucepan, combine the vinegar, water, sugar and salt. Bring to a boil to dissolve salt and sugar. Turn off the heat and stir in the beer. Pour the hot vinegar solution over the beans, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Make sure the beans are covered with brine. Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. Makes 10 pints.

Wash the vegetables and trim unwanted bits. Peel carrots if necessary. Cut vegetables into one-inch chunks, coins, lengths and pieces. It’s good to have a variety of shapes, but keep them similar in size. Toss the vegetables into a bowl. Combine the water, vinegar, sugar and salt in a pot. Bring to a boil and stir to dissolve sugar and salt. Remove from the heat and set aside. Place 2 t. pickling spice, a few jalapeño slices, 2 garlic cloves, 1 thyme sprig and 1 dill sprig in each jar. Divide the chopped vegetables among the jars and cover with the vinegar brine, making sure to leave 1/2-inch headspace. Seal with lids and ring bands. Process in a hot water bath for 15 minutes. Makes 10 pints. continued on page 32 CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

Join us!

g n i v r e s Pre S ON’ EAS ST S E T H A RV E 1 H page 3 ed from u in t n co

Crushed Tomatoes with Fresh Herbs and Garlic

If you have a thirst for travel and an appetite for adventure, then you’ll love our culinary escapes to Tuscany and the south of France!

Tomatoes and tomato sauce need to be acidified for home canning. A common misconception is that tomatoes are a high-acid food. They are not. Their pH hovers around 4.6, depending on the variety, which means that their acidity sits right in the middle between high acid and low acid. Therefore they are not acidic enough to safely can without the addition of an acid. You can do this by adding vinegar, lemon juice or citric acid to your jars before filling, or by stirring the acid into the tomatoes or sauce just before canning. These tomatoes may be used as a tomato base for soups, stews and sauces. You’ll need 6 one-pint canning jars and lids. 9 lbs. tomatoes

Caramelized Onion Jam Delish stirred into a wine-based sauce or Thanksgiving gravy or served alongside poultry, meat and game. Adds a tangy rich sweetness to a meat or cheese sandwich. You’ll need 4-6 one-cup canning jars and lids. 1/4 c. extra-virgin olive oil 3 large sweet onions, cut into 1/4-inch dice 2 parsley sprigs 2 bay leaves 1 rosemary sprig 1 c. sugar 3/4 c. white or red balsamic or red wine vinegar pinch of salt

Wash and sterilize the jars.

glug of olive oil 6 large garlic cloves, minced 2 T. sugar 12 T. vinegar or 6 T. lemon juice 6 large basil or oregano sprigs, washed

Wash and sterilize the jars. Wash the tomatoes and dip them into boiling water for 30 to 60 seconds or until the skins split. Dip them into cold water and slip off skins. Remove the cores and quarter the tomatoes. Set aside. Heat the olive oil in a pan over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and sweat it for about 10 minutes until it becomes translucent and soft. Add the tomatoes and sugar, stir, reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. While the tomatoes are simmering, put 2 T. vinegar or 1 T. lemon juice in each jar. Place 1 herb sprig in each jar. Immediately fill the jars with the hot tomatoes, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Secure with lids and ring bands Process in a hot water bath for 45 minutes. Makes 6 pints.

In a large pot, heat the olive oil. Add the onions and cook over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally, until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Tie the parsley, bay leaves and rosemary together with kitchen twine. Add the herb bundle to the diced onions and cook over low heat, stirring a few times, until fragrant, about 3 minutes. Sprinkle the sugar over the onions and cook, without stirring, until the sugar melts, about 5 minutes. Increase the heat to high and cook, without stirring, until an amber-brown caramel forms, about 6 minutes. Stir in the vinegar and simmer over low heat. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally. The jam will thicken in about 5 minutes. Discard the herb bundle and season the jam with the salt. Put the warm jam into the jars and seal with lids and ring bands. Process for 10 minutes in a hot water bath. Makes 4 - 6 jars (yield depends on size of onions). This jam improves with age – let it sit for at least 2 weeks before opening.

Lacto Fermented Hot Sauce

Hosted by Judy Wood and Gail Norton Booking now for 2016:

France Food and Wine Tour: May 15th – 22nd France Food, Wine and Cycling Tour: May 23rd – 30th

with cycling guides Kevin Elander and Johnny Halliday

Tuscan Food and Wine Tour: October 17th – 24th

This sauce gets better with time. It’s still delicious and sassy when fresh, so I recommend making a large batch and use it continually from a young fresh ferment to a more complex aged hot sauce. Let it spice up your soups, salad dressings and stews. It is equally yummy on tacos, burritos or anything you think needs a little kick! You’ll need a one-quart jar and lid. 1 lb. fresh hot chiles, such as jalapeño, serrano, bird’s eye or habañero, de-stemmed 4 garlic cloves 2 T. sugar or honey brine (1-1/4 c. water mixed with 2 t. sea salt)

THE COOKBOOK CO. COOKS

722-11th Avenue SW Phone 403-265-6066, ext. 1 Check all the delicious details at cookbookcooks.com 32

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

1/4 c. raw apple cider vinegar (find at whole foods stores)

Pulse chiles and garlic in a food processor until a coarse purée forms. Add sugar or honey. Transfer to the jar. Add brine and stir well. Loosely screw on the lid and let stand at room temperature for four days to start fermentation. Stir daily. On the fourth day, stir in the vinegar and, again, loosely screw on the lid. Let the chile mixture stand at room temperature for at least 2 weeks and up to 6. The longer it sits, the richer the flavour. When ready, purée the mash and liquid in a food processor or high-powered blender, until smooth. Store in the refrigerator. Shake before using. This sauce lasts indefinitely. Makes about 2-1/2 cups. ✤

Val Andrews is the owner of The Harvest Pantry, a food pantry and kitchen tool supply shop in London, Ontario. She teaches classes in preserving and fermenting foods.

FABULOUS FALL TASTINGS!

WINE MARKET JOIN US FOR FUN AND INFORMATIVE NIGHTS OUT. TASTINGS START AT 7:00 AND YOU’RE DONE BY 9:00 TUE SEP 15

200 Years of Laphroaig: Toasting 200 years of the iconic distillery, we’ll sample 3 vintages of Laphroaig 25 plus a long lost one! $65

THR SEP 17

Tightwad Oenophile: Vacation and school bills spell the time for wallet-friendly wines, the ones the experts secretly love at home. $30

TUE SEP 22

Calgary Brews: Local has never been better! Join us as we sample great brews from all (or nearly all ) of our local craft breweries. $35

THR SEP 24

Gin Glorious Gin: Is gin your secret weakness? Gin is going through a “Ginnaissance” worldwide; we’ll sample some of the best. $40

FRI SEP 25

Cheese Please: “Unwrapping” our fresh Spanish shipment has been like Christmas! Come drink and taste…Spain! Stand up format. $40

TUE SEP 29

Classic Single Malts: An intro to the world of single malt Scotch whisky: learn a little history, how it’s made - and sample of course! $40

THR OCT 1

A Trip Down the Loire: Taste the Loire Valley, where grapes like Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Gamay, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Franc shine. $50

THR OCT 8

Okanagan Mini Wine Festival: It’s harvest time! This mini festival will be a floor walk of great Oh Canada wine and food! $45

THR OCT 15

The Wines of the Atlantic vs the Mediterranean: You’ve tasted Spain’s central wine regions; now it’s time for wines from its coast! $50

1257 Kensington Road NW, Calgary • www.kensingtonwinemarket.com • 403.283.8000

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

See Ya Later

wine festivals by Elizabeth Chorney-Booth

The Okanagan wine industry is an increasingly big business, and while most of us know some of the bigger wineries, without doing some firsthand wine touring, it’s impossible to grasp the scope of the Okanagan’s more than 230 wineries.

Clos du Soleil winemaker Michael Clark and tasting room coordinator Jesce Walker

Since wine touring can be intimidating to the uninitiated, the Okanagan Wine Festival Society (OWFS) has stepped in to make things easier for anyone wanting to explore the Okanagan wine scene. Representing 122 of the Okanagan’s wineries (and partnering with several of the area’s breweries and spirits producers), the society hosts three annual festivals – spring and fall festivals with events spread throughout the valley, as well as a winter festival at Sun Peaks ski resort – plus some smaller events throughout the year. A typical festival will consist of dozens of events held at individual wineries and several larger “signature” events, like the flagship WestJet Wine Tastings, which allow guests to choose from more than 250 wines to sample in a friendly environment. Since many of the wines are produced in small batches and don’t make it into Alberta liquor stores, the Okanagan wine industry is largely powered by tourism. Save for the big guns like Mission Hill and Jackson-Triggs, most of the region’s wine labels are unfamiliar to the typical consumer. The only sure way for Calgarians to get their hands on many of them is to go to the Okanagan – a fairly leisurely drive or a quick flight to Kelowna or Penticton – and buy directly from the winery tasting rooms. That prospect can be daunting for first-time wine tourists who don’t know the typical tasting room or vineyard tour drill, so the festival events can be an easier way to break the ice and get over the intimidation factor.

Rustic Roots Winery

“When you create an event, you’re creating a party,” says Blair Baldwin, Okanagan Wine Festivals’ general manager. “I think of our WestJet wine tastings – they’re a young and fun company, so you know it’s going to be a good time. And with 700 people, you can blend in if you want to, so there’s no intimidation. You just go and have fun.” Exploring the various wineries is fairly simple. You either attend some of the food pairing or workshop events throughout the festivals or pop by for a tasting at wineries with public tasting rooms. Do check ahead, because many tasting rooms are only open seasonally, or have reduced hours in the winter months. First-timers may want to visit the larger tasting rooms, and superb chef-driven restaurants, of better-known wineries like Mission Hill and Quail’s Gate in West Kelowna or Tinhorn Creek and Jackson-Triggs near Oliver. Jackson-Triggs launched two new food-pairing programs in its tasting room this past spring, one of them focusing on ways to pair ice wines with both sweet and savoury foods, which mirror some of the kinds of events that occur during the wine fests.

Similkameen Valley

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

Another way to break into wine touring is by making a bee-line to the “Golden Mile Bench,” a stretch in the South Okanagan between Oliver and Osoyoos that houses 11 of the Okanagan’s most celebrated wineries, including Tinhorn Creek (which also features the must-visit Miradoro Restaurant, boasting one of the best

patio views in all of the Okanagan) and Donald Triggs’ new family winery, Culmina, as well as lesser-known gems like Fairview Cellars. This March, the Golden Mile was the first area in British Columbia to be awarded with a sub-appellation distinction. That means the region has been recognized as having a distinct character, and wines containing 95 percent grapes from the area can label themselves as official Golden Mile wines. That designation is probably a bigger deal to wine industry experts than to most casual wine tourists, but with its high concentration of top quality wineries, warm desert climate and beautiful views, the Golden Mile is another good place to check out some less central festival events or drop by for a tasting. Once you’ve spent some time with those bigger names, the world of Okanagan wine tourism will have opened up and you’ll find endless opportunities to seek out something off the beaten path. Each region of the Okanagan has its own hidden treasures. They range from the all-natural Ancestrale sparkling rosé at Bella Wines (a small winery on the Naramata Bench specializing in chardonnay and gamay noir sparklers) to the apple and pear fruit wines that could almost pass as traditional grape wines at Rustic Roots in the Similkameen Valley, or its neighbouring Clos du Soleil, which specializes in fine bordeaux-style reds and whites. Some of the mid-sized wineries also come with surprising back stories and unique events. Some of those events are part of OWTF, some are not, like the dog-friendly theme and special bring-your-dog events at See Ya Later Ranch, tours through the mystical pyramid wine cellar at Summerhill Pyramid Winery, or the much-celebrated

release of the famed Note Bene wine at Black Hills, which is released in such limited quantity that it’s nearly impossible for anyone outside of the winery’s wine club to get their hands on it.

The Okanagan is a special part of the world and the beauty of wine touring – made all the easier with wine festival events – is that by experiencing it firsthand, you feel like you’re being let in on a glorious secret. It seems like the Okanagan wine industry is experiencing a golden age. What better incentive to drive out there, visit some wineries, and fill your car with bottles to bring home? “Now is our time,” Baldwin says. “The question is if we can manage our time properly to make sure that our terroir stays pure – the clean air, the beautiful water, the great soils – and will we continue to be the funky entrepreneurs that take calculated risks daily and make things different all the time.” The fall festival takes place throughout the Okanagan, October 1 to 11. The Sun Peaks winter festival is January 15 to 24, 2016. The spring festival returns April 29 to May 8, 2016. Find out more about these festivals and other OWFS events at thewinefestivals.com. ✤ Elizabeth Chorney-Booth is a Calgary-based food and lifestyles writer and an enthusiastic collector of vintage recipe books and kitchenware.

2 2n d C HA R I T Y W I N E AU C T I O N in support of Best Dresse d in ‘Moulin Ro uge’ costum

$10,000

e wins

for the char ity of your choice !

NOV 7

2015

Event starts at 7:00 PM TICKETS $225 Auction Week Events:

Whisky in the Warehouse Wednesday, November 4 - $100 or $150 for VIP entry Beer Bash Thursday, November 5 - $40 California Dreamin’ Friday, November 6 - $60

For info visit: www.willowparkwines.com

Honouring the Regional Harvest

by proudly sourcing from over 50 local farms, foraging indigenous ingredients and cultivating rich diversity with our edible garden Lunch, Dinner, Weekend Brunch, Afternoon Retreat 4 0 3 -2 6 1 -76 7 0 r iv e r - c af e.c om CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

A Barbecue Belt Road Trip...

...to eat and learn about barbecue

by Erin Lawrence

Normally, smoke wafting over Eau Claire plaza might be cause for concern, but at this time of year, a smoky haze can only mean one thing – BBQ on the Bow is up and running. Calgary may be set to cool off with fall’s arrival, but there’s still heat to be found over the coals and among competitors at this annual event, now in its 23rd year. BBQ on the Bow bills itself as “Canada’s Oldest Barbecue Competition.” It will dole out $10,000 in cash and prizes to those who compete in cooking events September 5th and 6th. The event proves barbecue is taken seriously in Calgary by both chefs and diners. Indeed, a love of barbecue is why my husband and I embarked on an almost 5,000-km. road trip across the barbecue belt, our sole purpose, to eat and learn about barbecue. Barbecue and grilling are the same thing to many, as in “to barbecue/grill” burgers. That’s the verb, the action word. There’s a vast difference between barbecuing/ grilling meat and barbecue, the noun, the end product of smoking meat. Use the word wrong to an aficionado, and you’ll find out quickly enough. The Coles Notes version: barbecuing/grilling sears meat with hot direct heat, sometimes a flame. Grilling is often used on prime, tender cuts. Barbecue is the meat that’s cooked over low indirect heat for many hours using charcoal and wood for smoke. Low and slow is the best way to tenderize a tough cut. Austin, Texas, barbecue cook Aaron Franklin defined the art of cooking over fire to Bon Appétit magazine: “I split it into ‘long cook’ and ‘fast cook.’ If it’s a fast cook, it’s steak and it’s grilling. If it’s barbecue, then it’s a slow, agonizing, sleep-depriving cook.” The barbecue belt – and BBQ on the Bow – are about barbecue, the noun. We already knew that there are myriad regional differences when it comes to barbecue. To sniff them out, we had to get up close, so my husband and I planned our road trip to take us across 10 states, and through many of barbecue’s biggest cities. Time and distance meant we’d have to leave out the cities and regions on the edges – Kansas City and the Carolinas. So, with a Corolla full of camping gear, we hit the road. Our first main stop was Memphis, Tennessee, home of Elvis Presley’s Graceland and some of the best pulled pork I’ve ever tasted. Central BBQ was packed and lined up out the front door at lunch on a scorching Tennessee Sunday. You often wait in line for barbecue in the South because the meat makes the pit boss and cooks “wait” all night. It’s only fair. I ordered the pulled pork sandwich after hearing others in line rave about it. At the till, the waitress leaned over the counter to ask me, “Slaw or no slaw?” When I asked what my options were, she replied, “Slaw or no slaw, honey, coleslaw is a condiment, not a side!” I’d been schooled.

Pulled pork sandwich with fried pickles

Birmingham, Alabama, was where we next sank our teeth into fabulous barbecue, this time at Saw’s, where I was introduced to a new delight – white barbecue sauce. The mayonnaise-based sauce, also called “Alabama Sauce,” is made with mayo, vinegar, sometimes horseradish, sometimes mustard, possibly garlic. It’s a crazy and tangy concoction that’s typically put on chicken, but is all kinds of delicious on pulled pork and ribs, too. Sauces vary wildly across the South. It seems there was a time when the town you showed up in had its own sauce and that was that. Nowadays, barbecue lovers can get their sauce preference almost anywhere across the barbecue belt. There are prevalent styles, but differences within them: Kansas City: KC lays claim to barbecue’s origins, and one of its hallmarks is its tomato and molasses sauce.

Franklin’s line-up

Memphis: Thanks to its history as a port city that imported molasses, Memphis is definitely prone to sweeter sauces. North Carolina: This state’s style of barbecue sauce borrows from other sauces; primarily tomato and sugar based, its much thinner consistency and lip-smacking tang is due to a heapin’ helpin’ of cider vinegar.

“Coleslaw is a condiment, not a side!” at Central

The pork at Central was pulled into thick shreds that were tender and smoky. BBQ sauce comes standard on sandwiches here, and the basic sauce slathered on my sandwich was sweetly spiced. All flavour, no heat. Louisville, Kentucky, was next on our barbecue roadmap, and what a Sauces at Central foodie city it turned out to be! We headed to the top-rated Feast. I’d grown tired of massive slabs of meat on their own – in many barbecue joints, sides are ordered separately – so I opted for a sampling of tacos – pulled pork and (gasp!) barbecued smoky tofu. The pork was deliciously caramelized and shredded. As was customary, a selection of sauces was at my elbow. Feast’s Mexican twist on barbecue tasted great, but what blew this carnivore’s mind was that tofu. Cut into thin slabs, it had been marinated and then smoked, which gave it a deliciously complex flavour and kept it firm. The texture was just right in the taco, like the texture of perfectly cooked shrimp or fish. (Turned out we couldn’t resist the Feast brisket sandwich.)

In Louisville, I started to realize that what I was expecting from barbecue was not at all what I was finding. I had thought of Southern barbecue joints as small, smoky places churning out plate after plate of meat. They are that, but they’re also full of creativity, variety, and increasingly upscale twists.

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

South Carolina: The sauce here owes its signature yellow colour to mustard, primarily Creole, or ballpark yellow. It’s got a tangy zip that originated with the Carolinas’ French and German immigrants.

Franklin’s ribs

Texas: Texas barbecue sauce borrows heavily from the styles of other states. If there’s a distinguishing feature, it’s spiciness, thanks in part to Texas’ Mexican influence.

Purists will tell you the Texas penchant for beef brisket makes it the redheaded stepchild of barbecue. While brisket is definitely a standout all across the state, there’s not a sauce that’s consistently paired with it. Instead, as we found at Franklin Barbecue, there’s an array of regional choices. Research had told us that if we wanted to taste Aaron Franklin’s legendary beef brisket, we’d need to arrive at his Austin, Texas, restaurant before

Franklin’s smokers

Franklin’s brisket

8 a.m., or risk being turned away. That’s because the restaurant’s hours – 11a.m. to “sold out” – are determined by the number of like-minded carnivores already in line, and lunch is the only meal the restaurant serves. Before most people had woken up to make coffee, some in the line-up at Franklin Barbecue the day we arrived were already on their second beer. There was a festive atmosphere amongst the loose gaggle of people slumped in camp chairs beside the restaurant. While some were sitting on crates, or cross-legged on the concrete, others were playing card or board games. Nearly everyone was exchanging stories about their history with, or expectations of, this restaurant; newbies were hoping to find out what lay ahead, and veterans eagerly shared their advice. We scraped some folding chairs across the parking lot, unloaded coffee and magazines, and took our place in line. We happened to be next to the hazy, screened-in barbecue room, where smoky, pungent hardwoods were already hours into flavouring the meats. While Franklin himself was nowhere in sight, a kindly pit boss let me into the barbecue room. It’s an elevated, metal mesh-screened room where four massive former industrial propane tanks now huff hardwood smoke over tens of thousands of pounds of meat every year. Franklin spends most days tending the fires and the meat himself. While he’s become the poster boy for Southern barbecue, he’s now also got the cred to back it up with his James Beard award for Best Chef: Southwest 2015. Four and a half hours after we’d first taken up residence in Franklin Barbecue’s parking lot, we were inside. After waiting so long, and hearing so much about this

restaurant, I was fully prepared to be underwhelmed. After all, what can live up to that much hype? It turns out Franklin’s cooking can. The ribs, tender and lightly seasoned, pulled free of the bone with just the right amount of teeth tug. They were perfectly cooked, with a beautiful, lightly caramelized bark. I ate half the ribs on their own, having forgotten all the sauces next to me. Franklin’s brisket had a crisp exterior, a pink smoke ring just under that bark, and a juicy interior. Franklin swears by a dry rub that’s a 50/50 mix of kosher salt and ground black pepper, and says a brisket is perfectly cooked when a slice comes apart with the lightest tug. Ours did. The taste was of delicious beef, with just hints of the salt and pepper. Franklin’s pulled pork is an eight-hour affair. He smokes it five, then wraps it in foil and keeps it going about another three hours. It was tender, pulled apart easily, and was ribboned with tasty juices and crunchy bark – a crazy-luscious meat candy. While barbecue scholars can argue until the pigs come home about the origins, nuances, saucing and cooking preferences, and differences that make each region unique, what I found on my road trip were blurred lines and extraordinarily creative chefs. Sauces cross borders, barbecue styles overlap, and influences spread – which, for me, made the barbecue adventure all the more interesting. Since we have barbecue in Calgary, go to BBQ on the Bow and get yourself some. ✤ Erin Lawrence in a Calgary writer and TV producer. You’ll find her at BBQ on the Bow.

Escape today on our patio.

For reservations call 403 268 8607 or visit heritagepark.ca

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

Modern Ideas Prevail

at Vancouver Food Festival by Kate Zimmerman

Say what you will about the “Millennials” and their quirky obsessions – when it comes to cooking, their conscientiousness, dedication to local ingredients and inventive mindset benefit us all. Their fingerprints are all over current culinary trends. That was clear at May’s eight-day, 35-event EAT! Vancouver Food + Cooking Festival, which opened jaded eyes and grateful gullets at talks, demonstrations and special dinners.

The overarching ideas were to make the most of what’s growing – or being raised – around you, use only what you need, and leave some for future generations. A symposium kicked things off with panels discussing seafood sustainability. “Consumers like to be a part of the solution, not part of the problem,” said marine biologist Mike McDermid, former head of the Ocean Wise program at the Vancouver Aquarium, now co-owner of The Fish Counter. Raising awareness of the perils of over-fishing is key, he explained. One of the troubles is that we consumers are spoiled and greedy. We need to pay a fair price for our fish, support local providers and, said UBC marine biologist Dr. Daniel Pauly, stop demanding choice cuts of fish every day (hello, sushi nuts). Victoria chef Dan Hayes recommended branching out from halibut and salmon to, for example, dogfish and mackerel. Another panel called Beyond the Chop urged consumers and chefs alike to utilize every bit of the carcass, not return repeatedly to the same “top” cuts. Nose-to-tail enthusiast Connie DeSousa, chef/ co-owner of Calgary’s CHARCUT, noted that her restaurant uses the less popular animal parts in its celebrated charcuterie. Theory aside, it was fascinating to experience the cooking of original young chefs like Nick Nutting, of Tofino, B.C.’s Wolf in the Fog, which won EnRoute magazine’s award for best new restaurant in Canada in 2014. When was the last time you noshed on poached gooseneck barnacles? These prehistoric-looking creatures resemble tiny rhino hooves, from which protrude an edible pink “stem” – in this case, napped with vibrant yellow saffron aioli. As part of the Collaborative Chef Dinner Series, working at the restaurant Cinara with its chef, Lucais Syme, Nutting’s slow-cooked Portland Point, B.C. wild spring salmon displayed the fatty richness we usually associate with Atlantic salmon, served with bracing pickled wild leeks. Ravioli stuffed with rabbit and nettles and Dungeness crab tickled with the tartness of preserved lemon, slivers of tender radish, crunchy asparagus, and a fine dust of parsley and dill were two of Nutting and Syme’s other dishes at this extraordinary nine-course dinner. At the Canadian Flavours Gala that kicked off EAT, chefs from across Canada doled out delectable morsels. One of the most memorable was created by Whitehorse chef Michele Genest, author of The Boreal Feast, who contributed macaron ice cream sandwiches, their centres made with boreal rose ice cream, its essence enhanced with rosewater and birch syrup sourced from an off-grid farm.

EAT Vancouver, Wolf in the Fog, Poached Gooseneck Barnacles with Saffron Aioli

Respecting not just wholesome ingredients, but the people around you, however damaged, is the motivation behind several food businesses operating in the Downtown East Side (DTES). A volunteer from ToursByLocals took my group on a Social Enterprise Eating Tour of outfits that prioritize helping the community by selling their customers sandwich vouchers that they can then give to street people who request help, offering space for local artists to show their wares, and training previously unemployable people to prepare everything from office lunches to gourmet chocolate. EAT Vancouver, a spruced-up three-day festival at B.C. Place, featured well-known chefs cooking on several stages, including Toronto’s Susur Lee and Mark McEwan and the chef at Vancouver’s Yew Restaurant, Ned Bell. Wellknown for having bicycled across Canada last year to promote sustainable seafood, the energetic Bell appeared on EAT’s Celebrity Stage to sear scallops that he paired with a sauce made of birch syrup (trend alert!), Okanagan wine, sea water salt, and rhubarb.

EAT Vancouver, Secret Location, Cucumber Salad

A foraging expedition in Stanley Park capped off a food-focused week. Members of the public are not allowed to forage there, as one bossy boots passerby shouted at us. But Ficus Chan (only in Vancouver), my group’s guide from Swallow Tail Tours, pointed out the natural nibbles around us for future reference and told us how to cook them, including Sitka spruce buds, cattail stalks, reindeer moss, yellow water lilies and the stems of the salmonberry plant. EAT Vancouver, Secret Location, Seared Sturgeon Liver with Rhubarb Ficus Chan foraging in Stanley Park

Lesson learned. The future of food in Canada lies in using what’s around you, but not going whole hog – unless, of course, you have a whole hog. Then the conscientious cook makes sure there are no leftovers. ✤ Kate Zimmerman doesn’t see herself boiling up a mess of cattails.

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

2015 HOLIDAY SEASON

Gift card rebate for dinner group bookings

Mouth-watering food and jaw-dropping scenery. Could get messy. Bon Appétit Banff is back. For 10 mouth-watering days - November 12 to 22 – over 30 of the finest restaurants in Banff and Lake Louise will create unique three-course menus at fixed prices of $27, $37, $47 & $57. Plus, check out new culinary events and dine-arounds for the complete mountain dining experience. For all the delicious details, visit BanffLakeLouise.com/BonAppetitBanff

Now accepting bookings for lunch and dinner par ties.

BOOK NOW 587-354-3441

visit 521 10 Ave SW www.pampasteakhouse.com

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

T H E

C U L I N A R Y

Holy Grail I DREAM OF GALANTINE

by Linda Kupecek

Years ago, after “Upstairs Downstairs” and before “Downton Abbey,” there was a British television series called “The Victorian Kitchen.” The elderly host, Ruth Mott, was a retired cook who had hands-on experience with the authentic cooking of the Victorian era. Week after week I watched, entranced, as she and her assistant spent hours pounding and mincing and dicing, preparing concoctions by hand that a food processor from Walmart could spit out in the blink of an eye. Then Ruth made galantine. I was agog at the elegance and intricacy of this recipe for what is essentially a really dressed-up meat loaf with 100 ingredients and 75 steps, all very time- and labour- intensive. French in origin, a galantine is usually made with de-boned stuffed meat, served cold in aspic. I grabbed a notepad and pen, and began scrawling. I was determined that some day I would make a galantine. I kept those illegible notes for years, and finally, they disappeared. Yet I still dream of galantine. Don’t we all save fabulous recipes, the ones that seem unattainable, like the Holy Grail, but which we fantasize about cooking some day? How many cooks have a Bucket List of recipes, convinced their culinary careers will be complete once the masterpiece is on the table? Five-star chefs do it. Home cooks do it. Kitchen idiots like me do it. We hoard recipes that yellow and fade over the years, daring us to be great. A woman sitting next to me at a slot machine told me, “When my kids were small, I saved a magazine recipe for a gigantic gingerbread sleigh. Every year, I planned to make it for them, but never got around to it. My kids are in their forties now, and I still have that recipe!” Hope springs eternal. I therefore present a small selection of my Holy Grail recipes, so seemingly unattainable, undoable, doomed to disaster, but so magnificently impossible that I cling to them, year after year. Do I do this because I am a brilliant cook? Naaah. In fact, the reverse is true. Given my lousy kitchen skills, I crave the thrill of having people fall about on the floor, delirious with admiration for any of my culinary accomplishments. Crass but true. I am not a gourmand or a gourmet chef. I am a ghoul for praise. First, the impossible appetizer, which, in my case, is gravlax, salmon cured in sugar, salt and dill, and, unlike lox, not smoked. The simplest recipe I have found is this one from the May 2014 issue of Chatelaine magazine  Maybe this looks easy as pie to most people, but I tremble at the thought of ruining perfectly good salmon by bungling any step of this. So I look at the recipe and drool a little bit, and go to the supermarket and buy some inferior smoked salmon instead. Coward! My impossible main course would be galantine, in all its glory. It seemed straightforward enough, but after I watched Ruth Mott and her kitchen helper pounding, chopping and massaging a mess of ground beef, veal and pork, rolling it around bacon and liver, shaping it into a loaf, wrapping it in cheesecloth and boiling it for eight hours, I was exhausted. Plus, since I was busy taking notes, I missed a lot of it, and probably don’t even have the recipe right.

Nordic Gravlax 450 g. skinless salmon fillet 1 c. brown sugar 1/2 c. kosher salt 3/4 c. chopped dill Slice the salmon into 1/8-inch-thick slices. Line a large baking sheet with overhanging plastic wrap. In a bowl, stir together the sugar, salt, dill and lemon zest.* Scatter half of sugar mixture on the prepared sheet. Arrange the salmon slices in 1 layer over the sugar mixture. Completely cover salmon with the remaining sugar mixture. Wrap the fish with the plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour. (Purists might say up to 12 hours.) Transfer the salmon to a colander. Rinse it under cold running water until the sugar mixture is removed. Pat the salmon dry with paper towel. Serve with thinly sliced rye bread and sour cream. Serves 6. *For a tasty variation, add 1 T. lemon zest to the sugar mixture. Continue with recipe, but drizzle with 1 T. gin before wrapping.

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

If you want a real galantine recipe and don’t mind delaying dinner for a week or so, here’s a fabulously ornate recipe for Galantine de Poularde, featured on a blog by the delightful gourmet Peter Hertzmann, hertzmann.com/articles/2004/galantine. The recipe is nine pages, takes at least four days, and looks really beautiful and expensive. It’s the sort of recipe I can read over and over again, torturing myself with the thought of making it, and then put it aside with huge relief. After all, there’s no point in attempting it until I find the right apron so I can look like Mrs. Patmore from “Downton Abbey.” Now that I’ve fantasized about spending a week making galantine, I can move onto dessert, which should take another virtual month out of my life. Every Easter, as I plan my entertaining, I excavate the April 2000 Bon Appétit Fabergé Egg Cake recipe from my landfill of impossible dreams, and contemplate it reverently. It’s a vision of intricate artistry, a culinary replica of Carl Fabergé’s famed jeweled creations. I’ve saved several recipe versions over the years, but have conveniently lost the one with 125 steps. I was initially inspired for professional reasons. My screenwriting partner and I thought we had sold a TV mystery based on a missing Fabergé egg to a major network. We were already counting our money and fine life in the sun (fees for screenwriting are extremely tasty). I was plotting the publicity we could get from baking a Fabergé egg cake and getting a great photo op on the cover of TV Guide. My imagination took me everywhere. Alas, the executive who liked the script got fired, and we were out in the cold with our Fabergé egg script. Yet I still have the recipes. If I ever made this darned cake, I think I should win an award for chutzpah. And, at least, I would have tried. Maybe the reason I’ve never made the Fabergé egg cake recipe is that it got tattered over the years, and is now mostly unreadable. If you feel inclined to tackle one of these cakes next Easter – or any time at all! – go to this blog site for a step-by-step recipe with lots of instructive and beautiful pictures of the Fabergé egg cakes the blogger made. I can’t believe she went to all this trouble, but lots of people do, and if you don’t mind suffering for beauty, you might want to, too. facefullofcake.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/faberge-egg-easter-cakes/ As a back-up plan to the Faberge Egg Cake, I’ve hoarded recipes for Easter Bunny Cake and Bunny Biscuits. I set a cute table at Easter, anyway, as there’s a surfeit of bunnies and springtime creatures in my house – all pottery, so there’s no need to clean up after them – so the cuteness factor of placing bunny biscuits on the table as well would be a hoot for me, but perhaps unendurable to the more sophisticated of my guests. If I actually managed to work my way through these recipes, I could peruse my Victorian Cake Book and try the most intricate recipes. I’m persistent in my fantasy life in the kitchen, including planning A Repast on Pig-Killing Day, from The Cuisine of Hungary by George Lang.

What is a culinary life without hope? We all need to look forward to something that takes us beyond the routine of everyday boiling, frying, roasting and grilling, same old, same old. So, whether you want to make a five-tier Victorian cake, a magic meat loaf, or the ultimate Caesar salad from scratch, follow your dreams. â&#x153;¤ Linda Kupecek is a best-selling Canadian author and a deranged dreamer who has printed all nine pages of Galantine de Poularde, with the crazy idea that she might make it for her next dinner party. CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

Fresh Produce

Antipasti

In-store Bakery

stockpot

STIRRINGS AROUND CALGARY

Specialty Foods Olive Oils Balsamics Catering

Don’t miss BBQ on the Bow, September 5 and 6 at Eau Claire Market Festival Plaza. BBQ on the Bow is Canada’s oldest barbecue competition where barbecue teams from Canada and the U.S. compete for $10,000 in cash and prizes, including Grand Champion, Chef’s Challenge, Kids Q and the Jon Lord “Lords of the Grill” Rookie of the Year. Fun for the kids, lots of music, including Smoking Aces Blues Band, and cooking demonstrations. And the seductive smell of smoked meat... don’t miss it!

restaurant ramblings

Olives Deli Meats &Cheeses Gift Baskets n Canadian Lentils launched a cross-Canada lentil recipe restaurant competition in June. CHARCUT, River Café and Rouge were Calgary’s entries and we scooped River’s and Rouge’s recipes for the article on page 22. CHARCUT delivered a superb red lentil and bacon bratwurst sausage topped with fennel kraut – who doesn’t love a good snaussie, and the kraut was the perfect tangy foil to the rich sausage. You can eat this at CHARCUT. Go. Eat.

Hot &Cold Lunches

Cappuccino Dessert Bar

n Go help Gaucho Brazilian Barbecue celebrate 10 years of serving us delicious meats rodizio-style – and be sure to go hungry. Thank you Ede Rodrigues for bringing your sensuous meat-centric barbecue of the Brazilian gauchos to Calgary. We raise our caipirinhas to the next 10 years! n That clever, creative couple, chef Dwayne and mixologist Alberta Ennest, famous for Big Fish and Open Range, are about to launch themselves into two more eateries – right next door to each other, interestingly. A vegetarian restaurant, White Rose Kitchen, cheek by jowl to the meatiest of cooking at The Coal Shed that grills, braises and smokes meat – like smoked and pulled pork butt and beef brisket, both also known as barbecue. Bring it ON, we say!

Visit Lina’s for the real ItalIan experience. 2202 Centre St NE 403.277.9166 www.linasmarket.com

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

n The second Restaurants for Change fund-raising event to support Community Food Centres across Canada takes place October 21. Participating Calgary restaurants include River Café, Boxwood, FARM, NOtaBLE, Rouge and The Nash. In 2014, Community Food Centres Canada and The Alex Community Health Centre built Calgary’s Community Food Centre that strives to improve people’s health and well-being. Go eat at one of these restaurants on the 21st – total food sales from the dinner service supports our Community Food Centre.

n Bow Valley Ranche restaurant, in Fish Creek Park, is one of a number of Calgary restaurants named Canada’s 100 top outdoor dining venues by OpenTable diners. The Best Outdoor Dining list showcases restaurants that deliver exceptional dining and where diners can appreciate Canada’s beauty. The others: 500 Cucina, Alloy, The Bavarian Inn in Bragg Creek, Bonterra Trattoria, Cibo, Cilantro, Laurier Lounge, The Living Room, Oceana Seafood, Steakhouse & Bar, River Café, Rouge, Selkirk Grille (Heritage Park) and Vin Room Mission. n 4th Spot Kitchen & Bar is a popular neighbourhood hang-out on 4th St. NW and now there’s a new one – Spot On Kitchen & Bar – in the southwest near Mount Royal University at 2 Richard Way SW. Same owners, same good comfort food – one of our faves is the calamari. n The Teatro Group of restaurants: Dinner dates are great at Cucina Bistro. Monday to Friday, Cucina serves a tasty three-course dinner for a mere $35. For $20 extra, enjoy a wine pairing with each course. eatcucina.com. E.A.T. Trattoria offers a good selection for breakfast, lunch and snacks, and provides catering for corporate functions, events, meetings and office get-togethers. The space, can accommodate up to 200 people. eattrattoria.ca. Vendome Café is newly renovated and ready to roll with a lot of the same favourites with a modern twist, plus a sunny patio and live music nights. vendome.ca. If you’re looking for really good fast food, try Teatro’s Express Lunch every Monday to Friday that offers three gourmet dishes for $25. teatro.ca n The old Il Sogno space is being transformed into Whitehall, opening at the end of September, under the guidance of chef/owner Neil McCue, a Michelin Star chef returning to Calgary after working the last nine years in England. Whitehall is the name of the London street that houses the British Parliament, so look for a casual take on modern cooking with British influences. McCue cheffed at Catch for four years when it first opened. n The beginning of September sees a new executive chef taking over at the Hotel Arts Group – Jan Hansen, most recently at Heritage Park’s Selkirk Grille. Exec chef Duncan Ly and pastry chef Karine Moulin are moving on to pursue new roles. Both have made a significant mark on Calgary’s culinary scene and have garnered accolades for their considerable contributions. Moulin is headed to Palm Springs and Ly will be opening his own restaurant here in Calgary. Yay! More Vietmodern, we can only hope. Hotel Arts’ Raw Bar will remain Vietmodern. At Hotel Arts’ restaurants: Plates & Palates, four-course dinner paired with Spottswoode Estate Wines at Chef’s Table, September 8; Daily 3- and 5-course tasting menus with optional wine pairings at Yellow Door Bistro; at Chef’s Table, bring your own bottle, no corkage, on Mondays and half-price bottles of wine every Wednesday at dinner;

every Friday at Raw Bar and Chef’s Table, happy hour specials – $.99 oysters, $4.99 prosecco; live music at Hotel Arts every Thursday in the Raw Bar. hotelarts.ca n dirtbelly, with a small “d”, is now open on the +15 of TD Square and Bankers Hall. The fresh, healthy menu offers mix-and-match gourmet salads – by the scoop – fresh juice, tealadas made with brewed tea and fruit on ice, and bacos (half bread, half taco). Healthy food on the go, served in an airy space brightened with skylights. Details at dirtbelly.ca n Chef Darren MacLean’s new place Shokunin is a Japanese-inspired restaurant – MacLean spent lots of time in Japan getting inspired – that fosters collaboration with local farmers to harvest his own ingredients, raise free-range pigs and ferment miso and soy. More bold flavours with global inspirations. Yay! Opening mid-October.

FESTIVAL

n Home & Away is the newest eatery from the creators of CRAFT Beer Market, Commonwealth Bar & Stage and The Hifi Club. The idea was born from a love for Calgary, travel and the golden era of sport. Look for the best of each in a nostalgic concept that features contemporary takes on classic feel-good food, cocktails and décor to create a modern and comfortable Calgary Kitchen located in the heart of 17th Avenue.

selected to represent Canada in the 2015 La Chaîne Des Rôtisseurs International Jeunes Sommeliers Competition to be held in Adelaide, Australia on September 25. Smolarz will be competing against sommeliers from around the world in three areas – theory, service and blind tasting. Good luck, Peter, you’ll knock ‘em down! n The Northwest Wine Summit in Oregon awarded three gold medals to Field Stone Fruit Wines of Strathmore, designating it “Winery of Distinction.” The Summit also awarded Field Stone a bronze and four silver medals! Alberta Beverage Awards chose Field Stone for Best in Class for best fruit wine in the competition. Well done Field Stone. n Okanagan’s Burrowing Owl wines wow judges at international competitions. The 2012 Estate Syrah was awarded gold at the Syrah du Monde 2015, held in France in May. The winery also picked up gold, silver and bronze medals at other 2015 competitions. This is mighty tasty wine.

n River Café presents Taste, a creative theatrical collaboration performed during Beakerhead, September 17-20, featuring story telling combined with food tasting. Fun! And don’t forget to order your fully prepared Thanksgiving roast turkey dinner from River so you can spend less time in the kitchen. Yes! Details on Taste and turkeys at river-cafe.com. n Order a picnic from Boxwood and spread your blanket in Central Memorial Park for an afternoon of music and food at the Honens Open Air Concert, September 12. Picnic basket details at boxwoodcafe.ca. Boxwood also has free-range rotisserie chickens to go for Thanksgiving. Call 403-265-4006 to order.

wine & beer wanderings

n Fonseca Port celebrates its 200th Anniversary this year. Its flagship port, Bin 27 Reserve, comes with a complimentary commemorative tin. Find it at liquorconnect.com/156877. Also, Fonseca’s Jorge Ramos will host a port/tapas pairing at Saltlik Restaurant in Banff on Sept. 13. Call the restaurant 403-762-2467.

n Get inspired with Meez Cuisine’s hands-on cooking classes hosted by chef Judy Wood using seasonal, local ingredients to show you the secrets of a professional kitchen. A unique gift or party idea is a private cooking class. Decide the menu for your group of eight or more, Meez takes care of the rest. meezcuisine.com

At SAIT’s Main Campus: Sushi, September 4, $90; Cake Decorating, Sept 15-Oct 13, $315; Chocolate, September 19, $120; Fondant, October 3, $90; Vietnamese, October 20, $90; Indian, October 23, $90; Cupcakes, October 24, $100. Visit culinarycampus.ca for details and for more courses. n ATCO Blue Flame Kitchen Lunch‘n’ Learn, noon-1 p.m., $20; September 10/11, Caribbean; September 17/18, Philippines; September 24, Craft Beer-Infused Grub; October 1/2, Japanese Ramen; October 8/9, Recipe Alternatives; October 15/16, Soups and Bread; October 22/23, Bavarian Delights: Weekend/Evening Classes, Hands-on Artisan Bread Making, September 19, $70; Chef’s Table, Local Harvest, September 26, $95; Hands-on

n At The Cookbook Co. Cooks: Aviv Fried, Sidewalk Citizen, teaches Artisanal Breadmaking, September 17; Food and Wine from North of Spain, September 16; Making Pho with Ching and Chiao Li, October 6; Hand-Made Pasta, October 15; Alain Chabot, 4 Essential French Dishes, includes an All-Clad pot. Details at cookbookcooks.com continued on page 44

NOVEMBER 5-7, 2015

An Alberta Culture

Top 10 Alberta Food Festival A film festival about food culture. Movies worth watching on the big screen. Speakers to inspire conversation. Food and drink experiences. A place for food lovers to gather. Relish Fest is presented by the Relish Food on Film Festival Society

On screen November 5-7, 2015 at Metro Cinema in Edmonton’s historic Garneau Theater: the home of Relish Film Fest.

• 2 015

Films about people and food. After all, everybody eats. • Dinner & a Movie events at restaurants around town. • French language food films at La Cité Francophone.

n Calgary’s Milk Tiger Lounge, 4th Ave. and 4th St. SW, has been named one of the world’s best bars by Condé Nast Traveller magazine. Woot-Woot! No more Cowtown, we’re Cocktailtown, now. Of course, a good cocktail pairs perfectly with delish grilled beefsteak.

n At SAIT’s Downtown Culinary Campus: Introduction to Cooking, Aug 31-Oct 5, $400; Intermediate Cooking, Oct 19Nov 9, $450; Thailand, September 3, $90; Date Night, October 2, $75; Knife Skills, October 7, $60; France, October 29, $90; Artisan Bread, October 31, $120.

n The Calgary Rocky Mountain Wine & Food Festival returns on October 16 and 17 at Stampede Park BMO Centre. The Grand Tasting Hall will overflow with the latest beverage products, a diverse collection of wine, premium spirits, liqueurs, and beer, as well as delicious food samples from local restaurants. For details and tickets, visit rockymountainwine.com.

Indian, October 15, $70; Chef’s Table Seafood, October 17, $95; Special Event, The Ultimate Chocolate Experience, October 24, $65; Hands-on Halloween with the Kids, October 31, $70. ATCO Blue Flame Kitchen Learning Centre, 909-11th Ave., SW. Details and registration at atcoblueflamekitchen.com/classes

cooking classes

• Volunteer and sponsorship opportunities available.

www.relishfilmfest.org @RelishFestyeg

• 2 015

Celebrating 25 years of the very best coffee, customers and conversation.

#relishfoodonfilm

n Peter Smolarz, fine wine director at Willow Park Wines & Spirits, has been

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

stockpot continued from page 43

Kitchen parties are always the best! HOST YOUR NEXT PARTY IN OUR STATE-OF-THE-ART KITCHEN. You gather the people – we’ll create an interactive cooking class just for you.

TEAM BUILDING STAFF PARTIES SPECIAL OCCASIONS

cookbookcooks.com THE COOKBOOK CO. COOKS

722-11th AVENUE SW 403-265-6066, ext. 3 To book your event, call Cathy Cuthbertson, Catering Director, or email cathy@cookbookcooks.com

Also available in men’s formula

Whole Earth & Sea Pure Food Organic Whole Food Multivitamin Even if you have the best intentions, it’s hard to get all of the nutrients the body needs! Natural Factors takes real food and attaches it to vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients in a way that creates an organic multivitamin that gives the nutrients of non-GMO whole food.

Organic Week September 19-27

A big thank you to Alberta Organic Producers of produce, dairy, meats, eggs and grains. Your hard work ensures our tables are filled with healthy and delicious meals throughout the year!

Three Calgary locations to serve you

amaranthfoods.ca

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

n Cuisine et Château offers hands-on classes: Cheese Making Level II, cheddar, camembert, feta, September 9; Flaky Viennoiserie, croissants, danishes, September 13; special dinner/demonstration event with Poplar Bluff Farms, September 18; Best of Brunch, September 19, October 24. Cuisine et Château’s Interactive Culinary Centre. cuisineandchateau.com n Poppy Innovations’ Classes: canning and preserving that captures seasonal flavours. Calgary Farmers’ Market, a new Gate to Plate class for teens and adults, and Cook with Your Kids classes. ParentChild culinary programs offer six weeks of cooking fundamentals. poppyinnovations.ca. n At Janice Beaton Fine Cheese: Pickles, Preserves and Pairings Class at the cheese shop and FARM Restaurant. A new class on cheese pairings and pickled provisions, September 16, $55. Details at jbfinecheese.com n Light Cellar Superfood & Superherb Teaching Kitchen offers classes such as hands-on Raw Chocolate Making & Fermented Foods, Drinks & Condiments, Culinary Mushrooms, Bone Broths, Sourdough, Chia, Seaweeds, Algaes, Clays, Miso and more. Don’t miss the Festival of Friendly Ferments featuring expert fermenteur Sandor Katz, Oct. 16 and 17. Class details at 403-453-1343 and thelightcellar.ca.

general stirrings n Chef Michael Christiansen, Pear Tree Restaurant in Burnaby, B.C., will represent Canada at the 2015 Concours International des Jeunes Chefs Rôtisseurs competition in Budapest on September 11. He will compete against entrants from 25 other countries in a black box event. The competition is open to young cooks under the age of 27. n Glengarry Fine Cheese’s Celtic Blue Reserve won best in show at the American Cheese Society’s annual conference. It also won best in the blue category and took the grand prize in Rhode Island. Find this winner along with the third place winner, Celtic Blue, at Say Cheese Fromagerie in the Crossroads Farmers’ Market. Also find the 2013 global cheese grand prize winner, Lankaaster Aged. Say Cheese owner Nancy Brown knows the women who make the Glengarry cheeses since her family’s dairy farm operated in the area.

n The start-up costs associated with becoming an organic farmer in Alberta can be a deterrent to those seeking to take the leap. Organic Alberta raises funds and shares knowledge to help producers get started. Amaranth Markets will have “I ‘heart’ organic” pins for sale during Organic Week, September 19-27 with your toonies helping farmers make this transition. Check out the new stock of organic oat flour, grown, milled and packaged in Alberta. n The popular Bodacious Black Currant Mead by Chinook Arch Meadery will be re-released late August. The gardens at Chinook Honey Company in Okotoks have provided beets for delicious Honey Pickled Beets sweetened with rich, golden alfalfa/clover honey. Stop by the country store. chinookhoney.com n Rediscover “boutique” with Willow Park Village, September 12, 11a.m.-4 p.m. Open-air market, fashion show, live music, gelato, food trucks and more. Show your support for the Women’s Centre, receive a ticket to win prizes valued at $3,000. The first 50 guests receive swag bags packed with exclusive treats. Get a glimpse of Willow Park Wine & Spirits’ new look and taste wine. See the newest pop-up vendor! n Join the Calgary Produce Marketing Association at Heritage Park for its annual Fall Harvest Sale, September 12 and 13. Great deals on fresh fruits and vegetables to help raise money for the Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation, the Calgary Community Kitchen Program and the Heritage Park Society. calgarypma.ca/fallharvest n The Compleat Cook sells this very cool tool – the world’s first heat-transfer butter knife that uses your body heat to spread cold butter. SpreadTHAT! works on other spreads, like peanut butter, cream cheese and chocolate. Check it out at thatinventions.com n The Millarville Farmers’ Market is open Saturdays, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. until October 10. 13th Annual Motorcycle Swap Meet at the Millarville Racetrack, September 13, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., details at cvmg-rms.ca or call 403-273-7840. Millarville Community Garage Sale, October 10, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., details at jwhyte@ telus.net or call 403-933-3331. Millarville Christmas Market, November 6-8. Farmers’ Market and Christmas Market details at millarvilleracetrack.com

Cheese, cheese and more cheese from around the globe at Say CheeSe. Check in for specials! Stop by Regina’S Fine MeatS to pre-order your free-range, antibiotic- and hormone-free turkey. Phone orders: 403-861-8719 Find Say CheeSe & Regina’S Fine MeatS in the Crossroads Farmers’ Market

n The Calgary Home + Design Show, September 17-20, BMO Centre, Stampede Park, is the authority on all things design, entertaining and home improvement, with big names in the field and more than 350 exhibitors and lots of new features. There’s expert insight, innovation and inspiration. Details at facebook.com/homeandgardenevents tickets at bit.ly/1BzDtMg

kids can cook

Pierre Lamielle

PUMPKIN PIE SOUP

n Many farmers and ranchers care for their animals in a humane manner. “Compassion for Farm Animals” focuses on people who speak on this subject – farmers Kris Vester of Blue Mountain Biodynamic Farm, Ron Hamilton of Sunworks Farm and Ben Campbell of Grazed Right Ranch. October 1, John Dutton Theatre, Central Library. Details and registration, 403-260-2620 or calgarylibrary.ca n Join chef Gail Hall on these culinary tours in 2016: South India, February 28 March 9; blues and jazz in Chicago, May 19-23; Nova Scotia, September 22-29; Turkey and Greece, fall 2016. Visit seasonedsolutions.ca for all the tasty details. n Cuisine et Chateau’s 2016 Culinary Tours in Périgord, France, are all-inclusive and made up of small groups with professional chefs as guides, staying at a private estate. For details, register for a tour information session, September 14 or October 18 on cuisineandchateau.com or phone 403-764-2665. n For garlic lovers, New Oxley Garlic, Naturally!, grown in Claresholm, supplies the new Italian Centre at 9919 Fairmount Dr. SE and SPUD – Sustainable Produce, Urban Delivery – with its delicious local garlic. n Keep fresh produce at your fingertips with fall edible garden container workshops with Poppy Innovations. Choose from a living fall arrangement for your doorstep or an indoor food garden. Get a jump on gardening next year by reserving your plot in the De Winton Community Garden. Schedule available online at poppyinnovations.ca n Take a foodie road trip to Fort Macleod for a Taste of Fort Macleod, September 11, 4:30-9:30 p.m. at Urban Core (257 Main Street) for a tasting event featuring food and drink from local artisans and producers. Details at facebook.com/ TasteofFortMacleod n 2nd Annual A Taste of Autumn, Wine & Beer Tasting and Silent Auction, September 17, 7-9 p.m., Meadow Muse Pavilion, Bow Valley Ranche, Fish Creek Park. The Friends of Fish Creek invite you to celebrate the changing of the seasons and support the Friends’ conservation efforts in Fish Creek Park. Appetizers supplied by Bow Valley Ranche Restaurant and Great Events Catering, wine and beer provided by local companies. Silent auction. friendsoffishcreek.org/event/autumn n OneO Culinary Wine Tours offers an all-inclusive trip to the Naramata Bench, September 17-20. Luxury accommodation, boutique wineries and culinary attractions. Dine with local celebrity chefs. Meet award-winning wine maker Dick Lancaster at Taste of the Tour Dinner, August 27, The Ranchmen’s Club. Details and register at OneO.ca

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

6 quick ways with...

Chris Halpin

APPLES

The fall harvest of apples is seemingly endless; when I was speaking to Hue Tran of DJ Market, she told me that she averages 26 different varieties at this time of year and even more by October. This is the time of year to explore all the small-crop varieties that can only be found at local markets.

This Thanksgiving, let us help you set the table!

apple, fennel and sage chicken sausages Use a tart apple, like a macintosh or cortland. In a pan over medium heat, melt 1 T. butter and 1 T. olive oil. Once the pan is hot add 4 chicken sausages and brown on both sides. Arrange the sausages around the outside of the pan and, in the centre, add 1 large sliced red onion, salt and pepper to taste, and sauté until the onion is translucent. Turn the sausage from time to time. Add 1 small fennel bulb, finely sliced, and continue to sauté and turn the sausages for 15 minutes, or until the sausages are done. Remove them from the pan, turn the heat up to high, add 1 apple, skin-on and sliced, 6 sage leaves, finely sliced, 1 crushed garlic clove, and sauté until the apples have heated through, about 2 minutes. Serve on a crusty roll or with buttered pasta. Serves 4.

cumin-crusted scallops with apple, radicchio slaw Hands down, this is a granny smith recipe – the tart, watery flesh is perfect. The fact that this apple doesn’t discolour after being sliced makes it perfect for salads. In a bowl, put 1 granny smith, julienned, 1 radicchio, finely sliced and 1 shallot, finely sliced. Add the juice of 1 orange, 2 T. champagne vinegar and 1/2 t. Sriracha hot sauce. Salt to taste, gently toss and set aside. In a small bowl, put 1/4 c. cornstarch, 1 t. ground cumin, 1 t. salt and 1/2 t. smoked paprika. Mix well. Rinse and blot dry 12 sea scallops. Dredge them in the cornstarch mixture. Place a skillet over high heat and allow it to get very hot before adding enough canola oil to cover the bottom. Sear the scallops quickly. To serve, arrange the slaw on four plates and place 3 scallops on top of each. Serves 4.

• Providing you the finest free-range turkeys that are hormone- and antibiotic-free. • We specialize in AAA Alberta beef (aged a minimum of 21 days), free-range poultry, pork, lamb, milk-fed veal and many other exotic game meats. • Our friendly and knowledgable staff turn first-time customers into repeat customers.

apple and roast garlic-crusted pork loin

ITY • QU AL I

SER VICE

28 Crowfoot Circle NW 403.282.3132 bontonmeatmarket.com

•

E HON ST Y •

GR TE

Calgary’s Consumer Choice Award winner for 14 consecutive years.

Experience the Bon Ton difference!

1921-2015

OPEN MONDAY TO FRIDAY 9 - 6, SATURDAY 8:30 - 6, SUNDAY 10 - 5

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

A sweet, fleshy apple like a gala or spartan will work nicely. Cut the top off 2 garlic heads so that all the cloves are exposed. Place on a piece of foil, drizzle with olive oil, wrap and bake in a 350°F. oven for 20 to 25 minutes. Salt and pepper a 3 lb. pork loin, place on a baking pan and roast in the oven for 40 minutes. On a chopping board, squeeze out the roasted garlic and, with the side of a knife, work it into a paste. Place the garlic in a bowl with 2 apples, peeled and grated, the juice of 1 lemon, 1 t. salt, 1 egg and 1/2 c. bread crumbs. Mix well. Remove the roast from the oven, pat the apple mixture evenly over the roast and return it to the oven to bake for another 40 minutes. Let the roast rest for 5 minutes before carving. Serves 4.

apple currant chutney Use a softer-fleshed apple, like a red delicious or pink lady. In a pan over medium-low heat, put 1/4 c. canola oil, 4 cardamom pods, 4 cloves, 1 t. coriander seeds and 1 t. chile flakes. Gently fry for about 2 minutes, then add 1 onion, finely diced, sauté for about 2 minutes. Pour in 1 c. apple cider vinegar, 1 c. sugar and 1 T. salt, increase the heat to high and bring to a rolling boil for 2 minutes. Add 6 apples, peeled and diced, and simmer, stirring from time to time, until the apples start to break down, about 5 minutes. Add 1/2 c. currants, stir to incorporate and remove from heat. Cool and spoon into a container and refrigerate for at least 24 hours before using. Makes 6 cups. This recipe will easily make a large batch for preserving. Spoon the hot chutney into sterilized canning jars and, using new sealer lids, tighten snugly. I use the oven to seal the jars. Place the jars in a shallow pan on the middle rack, in a preheated 270°F. oven. Pour about 2 inches of boiling water in the pan and bake 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack, then ensure that the lids have sealed – this may take up to an hour.

apple charlotte

contemporary interactive cuisine

Use a starchy apple, like a spa or bramley. In a buttered 8 x12-inch casserole dish, put 6 peeled and sliced apples, 1 c. sugar and the juice of 1 lemon. Mix. Butter 8 slices of white bread. Remove the crusts and cut each slice on the diagonal. Arrange on top of the apples, so the slices slightly overlap. Sprinkle 1/2 c. sugar and 1 T. cinnamon over top and bake in a 350°F. oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the apples are bubbling. Serve warm with ice cream. Serves 4.

403.228.9830

· 514 - 17 ave sw, Calgary, AB · livingroomrestaurant.ca · @livingroomyyc

T H E FA C E OF 4TH STREET #HALFY HOUR ½ P R I C E TA C O S & T E Q U I L A

3 P M – 5 P M D A I LY |

$ 5 M A R G A R I TA S & B E E R S

crab apples in a black pepper cinnamon syrup

recipe photos by Chris Halpin

Crab apples can be a lot of work, but this recipe is the answer – easy and delicious with ham or turkey. Into a pot put 2 c. water, 2 c. sugar, 2 T. black peppercorns and 2 cinnamon sticks. Bring to a rolling boil and allow to boil 5 minutes. Add 24 crab apples and bring back to a boil. Place a lid over the pot, remove it from the heat and allow the mixture to cool slowly. When cooled, place in a glass jar and refrigerate for a couple of days before using. This will be good in your fridge for up to 3 months. Makes 24.

Chris Halpin has been teaching Calgarians to make fast, fun urban food since 1997 and is the owner of Manna Catering Service.

a n e j oyyc | 5 87. 3 5 3 . 2 6 5 6 | # 2 , 2 1 1 6 – 4 t h S t re e t SW C a l g a r y, A B | a n e j o.c a

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

last meal

COOK IT RAW ALBERTA FEAST IN THE FRONTIER Sunday, October 11th, 2015

14 of Alberta’s top culinary talents + 7 internationally renowned chefs from around the globe + 7 iconic Alberta dishes A NIGHT OF INCREDIBLE FOOD THAT WILL BE SHOWCASED TO THE WORLD Rouge Restaurant, 1240 8th Avenue S.E. For more information, visit cookitraw.org Buy tickets here: www.albertaculinary.com/cookitraw

Many of the recipes I post in this column tend to be amalgamations of recipes I’ve sourced over the years in my attempts to come up with the ultimate version of that particular dish. The salmon burger featured as this main course, for example, is essentially the one posted by Mark Bittman on the excellent NYT (New York Times) Cooking website. It‘s the best version I’ve tried to date. I just tweaked it a little to give it some zing with the addition of lemon juice, zest and a little hot sauce. I always opt for wild pacific salmon when available, but a number of stores, including Co-op, have been carrying an organic farmed salmon from B.C., which is available year-round and quite good. The credit for the fregola salad goes to my friend Sal Howell (owner of River Café) who created this dish for a dinner party. It’s versatile and delicious and can stand on its own or as a side. On the sweet side, the apple pecan cake recipe is one I found and modified to include some bourbon and maple syrup, which gives it a nice “lift.”

Fregola Salad Fregola sarda (also spelled fregula) is a type of pasta from Sardinia that looks like Israeli couscous; it has a similar texture but considerably more flavour. It comes in varying sizes, but typically consists of semolina dough that’s been rolled into balls 2-3 mm in diameter and toasted in an oven. It’s not widely available but I was able to get it at the Italian Centre on Fairmont Drive S.E. The beauty of this dish is that you can change up the herbs and vegetables to allow for whatever’s in season or on hand. 1/2 bunch kale, leaves only, or other dark leafy greens 1-1/2 c. peas, fresh or frozen

ALL NATURAL, ARTISAN ITALIAN CHEESES MADE WITH 100% CANADIAN MILK AVAILABLE AT FINE GROCERS

large handful of green beans (you can also use broccoli and asparagus) 1/2 lb. fregola pasta juice and zest of 1 lemon 2 T. red wine vinegar 1/4 c. olive oil 1 t. Dijon mustard sea salt and pepper to taste 1 c. cherry tomatoes, halved (optional, but adds nice colour) 1 bunch mint, chopped

MASTER CHEESE MAKERS

403.402.2031 |

4207 - 16 Street SE, Calgary, Alberta

New website coming soon together with Myra’s Best food blog!

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and blanch the kale, peas and green beans for about a minute each. Scoop them out and plunge them into an ice bath. Drain well. Bring the blanching water to a boil and cook the fregola in it until al dente, testing regularly; it takes about 12 minutes to cook. Drain the pasta, rinse it under cool water and set aside. In a small bowl, whisk the lemon juice, zest and vinegar, then whisk in the olive oil in a thin stream to emulsify. Add the mustard and season with salt and pepper, whisking to combine. Transfer the vegetables to a serving dish and toss with the pasta, adding tomatoes, if using. Add the dressing and mint and toss again to combine. Taste for salt, adjusting if necessary. Serve at room temperature. Serves 4.

Geoff Last

KEEP IT SIMPLE AND SEASONAL

Salmon Burgers These have become a staple around my house; try to find a nice soft bun for them as they’re quite delicate. If you don’t have a food processor, the salmon can be chopped by hand, it will just take a while longer. 1-1/2 lb. skinless, boneless salmon 2 t. Dijon mustard 1 T. lemon zest 2 T. lemon juice 1 T. hot sauce (Tabasco or Franks) 2 shallots, peeled and diced 1/2 c. Panko bread crumbs 1 T. capers, drained salt and freshly ground black pepper 2 T. butter or olive oil 4 soft buns for serving salad greens or traditional burger garnishes

Cut the salmon into large chunks, and put about a quarter of it into the container of a food processor, along with the mustard. Turn the machine on, and let it run – stopping to scrape down the sides if necessary – until the mixture becomes pasty. Add the lemon zest, juice, hot sauce and shallots and the remaining salmon, and pulse the machine on and off until the fish is chopped and well combined with the purée. No piece should be larger than a quarter inch or so, but be careful not to make the mixture too fine. Scrape the mixture into a bowl, and, by hand, stir in the bread crumbs, capers and some salt and pepper. Shape into four burgers roughly an inch thick. (You can cover and refrigerate the burgers for a few hours at this point.) Place the butter or oil in a 12-inch non-stick skillet and turn the heat to medium-high. When the butter foam subsides or the oil is hot, cook the burgers for 2 to 3 minutes a side, turning once. Alternatively, you can grill them: oil the grill first or the burgers will stick. Let them firm up on the first side, grilling about 4 minutes, before turning over and finishing for just another minute or two. To check for doneness, make a small cut and peek inside. Be careful not to overcook. Serve on a bun with traditional burger garnishes (lettuce, red onion, pickles, tomato and mayo) or on a bed of greens. Serves 4.

Caramel Apple Bourbon Pecan Cake

savour the fall harvest ...

3/4 c. pecan halves 2 large tart apples, like fuji, peeled, cored and sliced 1/2 c. plus 2 T. flour 3/4 t. baking powder 1 t. salt 1-1/2 c. sugar 1 stick (4 oz.) soft unsalted butter 3 large eggs 1/2 t. vanilla extract 3 T. bourbon

Emile Henry

1/4 c. maple syrup

FRANCE

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 10-inch pie plate and arrange 1/4 c. of the pecan halves in a pattern on the bottom. Arrange apple slices over and around pecans, in a single layer, in a pattern. Scatter any extra slices randomly on top. In a food processor, finely grind the remaining pecan halves and mix them with the flour, baking powder and 1/2 t. of the salt. Set aside. Whisk 1 c. of the sugar and the remaining salt together in a skillet, then add 1/3 c. water. Cook over medium-high heat, without stirring, until the mixture turns amber. Swirl the pan from time to time, if necessary. Immediately pour the caramel over the apples. With a mixer, cream the butter and remaining sugar together. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add vanilla extract, bourbon and maple syrup and mix to combine. Fold in the flour mixture. Spread the batter over the apples. Bake 40 minutes, until nicely browned. Cool for a few minutes, then run a knife around the edge and invert the cake onto a serving dish, one that’s heatproof if you intend to warm the cake before serving. Some of the pecan/apple bottom layer – which is now the top layer – may stick because of the caramel. Just use a thin spatula to transfer it to the top. Serve with vanilla or salted caramel ice cream. Serves 8.

A T

D A L H O U S I E

403.286.5220

S T A T I O N

www.zestkitchenware.com

Traditional Italian Grocer

Wine Recommendation

recipe photos by Geoff Last

Ojai Vineyard Bien Nacido 2013 Roussanne ($41) These burgers are on the fancy side, so they deserve a fancy wine. Ojai produces some of the best Rhône varietals outside of France; the roussanne is classically styled, offering notes of apricot, melon and minerals with nicely balanced oak and acidity. California’s South Central Coast is on a roll these days, delivering some of the best pinot noir and Rhône varietals in the state.

Geoff Last is the manager of Bin 905.

Est. 1963

403.277.7898 I 265 20 Avenue NE www.italiansupermarket.com

Three generations of service and quality

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

Enjoy a night of fine food and wonderful wine with Noble Ridge Vineyard & Winery

Exquisite hors d’oeuvres by ATCO Blue Flame Kitchen and a sampling of cheeses courtesy of Janice Beaton Fine Cheese.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6 6 - 8 pm | $65 Details at ATCOBlueFlameKitchen.com or call 403.245.7630

back burner SHEWCHUK ON SIMMER

Allan Shewchuk

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH

I have some good friends who head to Colorado every autumn to work as volunteers at the world-famous Telluride Film Festival. It’s an awesome gig because, after putting in a few shifts emptying trash cans, they’re rewarded with VIP passes to some of the event’s best premieres and parties. It’s particularly cool because these volunteer garbage men get to rub elbows and take selfies with the likes of George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Hilary Swank. Every year they regale me with stories of what an intimate gathering it is, and how this sleepy town comes alive with celebrities. Last year, however, there was one troubling change that was reminiscent of a scene from a bad film. It seems that suddenly, instead of Telluride being invaded by movie stars, it had been invaded by zombies. According to my friends, when they arrived downtown to take in the festival’s events, they noticed a large number of people just standing in the middle of the road like they were frozen in their tracks, with vacant stares and bloodshot eyes. At first they thought it was a publicity stunt for a new film about body snatchers or the undead. Then it dawned on them that these ghouls were all clustered in front of what looked like a new candy store. However, even though the windows of the shop were filled with lollipops, gummy bears and chewing gum, the “candy” being sold contained a newly legalized ingredient – marijuana. This town, which used to be “sleepy,” was now just plain “stoned.” I thought my friends were pulling my leg until I picked up a Sunday New York Times and was shocked to read that since the legalization of pot, a growing problem in Colorado has been restaurants not knowing how to deal with diners who ingested weed in a new form, like gummy bears, without knowing how strong it was, and who then fell face first into their plates about halfway through their meals. Unlike restaurant patrons who imbibe too many bottles of wine, these comatose cannabis customers could not be cut off by a server, so the only solution was to leave them to sleep off the high with their noses in their veal cutlets. I have to admit this is all Greek to me since I’ve never tried marijuana. And I’m not trying to fib and pull a Bill Clinton, who said he had smoked pot but never inhaled it. Then again, what do you expect from the guy who testified that whatever he did to Monica Lewinsky was “not having sexual relations.” But I digress. My whole life, it has bothered my marijuana-using friends that I have never gotten fried. On several occasions, they even tried to secretly dose me with the stuff – like the time in 1977 when I was driving three of them to see The Who in concert and they tried to get me to try their “special brownies.” I got suspicious mostly because they were so wasted after they had eaten half the pan that it sounded like a really bad Cheech and Chong routine was going on in the back seat. I knew for sure that the brownies were laced when they spotted a herd of cattle by the highway and started yelling “Oh, man! The cows aren’t moving! I am so freaked out!” I just plugged a Deep Purple tape into the 8-track and kept driving while they watched the sedentary livestock we were passing with diminishing excitement until they all fell asleep. Back to Colorado restaurants. I predict that some clever food entrepreneur will figure out that between the time marijuana-using customers ingest goodies packed with THC and the time they turn into zombies, there’s a “sweet spot” when those customers are stoned but not unconscious and will start to suffer from the most famous of marijuana side effects, the “munchies.” The secret will be to catch customers at the exact moment when they get this food craving and cash in. Smart hot dog and donair vendors long ago learned this about alcohol consumers and strategically placed their food carts within stumbling distance of the local watering holes at closing time. Based on my experience, anyone in the food business should be alert to the sure signs of when stoners are at their hungriest, and easiest to exploit – first, the moment when they start calling everyone “Man,” and next, when they become fascinated that whatever form of beef they have around them isn’t moving. Allan Shewchuk is a food writer and sought-after Italian food and wine guru. He currently has kitchens in both Calgary and Florence, Italy, but will drink wine pretty much anywhere.

CITY PALATE.ca SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015

COLOUR YOUR TABLE

ICONIC, VIBRANT, ENDURING PERFORMANCE Find a retailer at LeCreuset.ca or discover more at the Le Creuset Boutique in Chinook Centre.

Cookware | Bakeware | Tableware | Accessories