A Calgary Eater’s Guide to Surviving the Pandemic

B y CAMIE LEARD

Illustrationsb y ALISON MARTIN

A Calgary Eater’s Guide to Surviving the Pandemic

If there’s one thing we know about eaters it’s that no matter what, we’ll find a way to eat great food. We’re the people who will whip up Saskatoonberry compote with a stick and rock to complement the trout we caught with our bare hands for a post-apocalyptic creekside nosh. Fortunately, our spearfishing and rock mashing skills are not yet required. Calgary’s food suppliers and makers are just as passionate and ingenious when it comes to feeding the eaters. We may not be able to gather in large groups to enjoy the best our city has to offer (man, do we miss you guys!) but there’s plenty available for quarantined connoisseurs to cook, to eat and to drink. Here are some ways Calgary eaters can survive social distancing with a fully-pleased palate.

RAID YOUR PANTRY: You know you have a bag of barley hanging out at the back of the second shelf of your cupboard. Local food blogger and Savour Calgary contributor Bernice Hill (Dishnthekitchen. com) has a great recipe for barley arancini with shittake and seaweed on her site – and we’ve included it here for you too. Bonus: it calls for a ¹⁄ ³ cup of pinot grigio and someone will need to drink the rest. Hey, there’s a pandemic going on out there, we won’t judge you for drinking on a Tuesday.

RAID YOUR BOOKSHELF: Since we’re doing a lot of raiding, let’s not forget your bookshelf full of great cookbooks and other foodie fodder by Calgary authors.

Karen Anderson and Matilde Sanchez-Turri’s awardwinning Food Artisans of Alberta will inspire you and help you plan your first road trip once we’re back on the highways, windows down, tunes cranked. Gwendolyn Richards’ Pucker: A Cookbook for Citrus Lovers is sure to cheer you up AND get you your daily recommended intake of vitamin C. One cookbook you’ll want to have on hand during these dark days is Calgary

Eats by Karen Ralph and Gail Norton, which rounds up some favourite dishes by local chefs. Enjoy Chef Kayle Burns from Bread and Circus’ Bigoli all’ Amatriciana courtesy of Calgary Eats in the sidebar. While we’d rather leave the cheffing to the chefs, if we can’t dine with them, let’s dine with their help. All three of these books are available for virus-free home delivery on Amazon.

RAID THE INTERNET: Speaking of local food bloggers, Calgary has a bounty of talented cooks, writers, photographers, recipe developers and Instagrammers. In fact, some of our homegrown online talent is world renowned in online food circles. Savour Calgary associate editor Wanda Baker offers the delightful bakersbeans.com, foodie power couple Tara and Ken Noland say they bring in hundreds of thousands of page views per month to their Noshing with the Nolands blog, Our own Julie Van Rosendaal mustn’t go unmentioned with her very popular Dinner with Julie blog. If you’re looking for some visual stimulation and inspiration, visit @FoodKarmaBlog, @yycFoodJunkie, @HungryCoupleYYC, @FoodMammaCom and @Miss_Foodie on Instagram. Start there, and you’ll go down a delicious rabbit hole that will leave you hungry for more.

A Calgary Eater’s Guide to Surviving the Pandemic

SUPPORT THE TROOPS: The pandemic has not been kind to hospitality workers, chefs and owners. This unprecedented situation calls for unprecedented measures to come together and support one another. Programs like Eat Later (eatlater.ca) help eaters purchase gift cards to create some much-needed cash flow for restaurants now, while setting aside a promise to yourself to enjoy a great meal down the line. Some restaurants are taking things a step further. Nights and Weekends is fundraising for its staff by giving 50 per cent of proceeds from all gift cards purchased online directly to its staff with the other 50 per cent of proceeds for you to use once it re-opens. You will also receive a 20 per cent bonus gift card as a thank-you.

JOIN AN ONLINE FOOD COMMUNITY: Facebook has lots of local food groups including Bite Club and Calgary Food - Food YYC - or, start your own. My friend Jim invited me to eat out of cans together on FaceTime the other day. I haven’t taken him up on it yet. I think we can do better. Bite Club hosted its first online meeting in March with members cooking in their kitchens together over Facebook Live.

PREPARE A MEAL FOR SOMEONE ELSE: While you’re at it, save some for a friend or neighbour. Half the fun of cooking is having someone fawn over your genius. Just because they can’t do it in person, doesn’t mean you should be deprived of your due admiration. Consider putting together a care package with homemade goodies and dropping it off on a friend’s porch.

ORDER IN/TAKE AWAY: While we’re on the topic of delivery, Calgary restaurants have really upped their takeout and delivery game in the past few weeks. We’ve seen delights on Skip the Dishes and Door Dash we’ve never seen before. We’ve compiled a great list of great food on our website at savourcalgary. ca/covid-19. We’re constantly updating it, so check back often. In the meantime, I highly recommend the perogies from Heritage Bakery and Modern Steak’s new MBurger – save room, it’s huge.

FANCY DINNER FOR ONE: If you’re anything like me a couple of weeks into social distancing, you may not have done your hair, or shaved or changed your pants in a while. No judgment here. Why not turn your self-isolation into self care and throw yourself a dinner party. Cook something you love. Dress up, set the table, light a candle and bring out the good china. You deserve it.

Life in self-isolation can be positively primitive. I’m not going to lie, I found myself tearing the flesh from a cold KFC drumstick letting the crumbs fall where they may in front of the TV last week. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In all seriousness, we need community now more than ever. Find a way to break the monotony, break the loneliness, and break bread with someone. After all, we eaters know better than anyone how powerful food can be in bringing people together, even when we’re at least two meters apart.

SHOP LOCAL: Individual vendors at the Calgary Farmers’ Market, Avenida Food Hall and others are offering home delivery with fresh produce, meat and prepared food available. Blush Lane Organic Market delivers through spud.ca and Cultivatr.ca was Calgary’s original online farmer’s market. Bessie Box offers pre-packaged boxes of fresh meat and seafood from local farmers and ranchers for delivery around

Calgary. Watch savour.ca/ covid-19 for an up-to-date list.

Barley Arancini with Shiitake & Seaweed (vegan)

By: Bernice Hill

Ingredients ¹/ ³ cup finely diced onions 2 garlic cloves; minced Olive oil ¹/ ³ cup white wine (I used Pinot Grigio) 1 cup pearled pot barley 1 cup shittake mushrooms (or ½ cup dried; reconstituted and chopped)

3 cups mushroom stock ¼ cup nutritional yeast flakes (optional) ¾ cup fine seaweed stems; reconstituted in boiling water, then drained, and chopped (if desired) Salt and pepper Panko crumbs (or regular bread crumbs) Canola oil for frying

Bernice Hill

Method Add two tablespoons of olive oil in a medium pot on medium to high heat. Heat up mushroom stock in a separate pan. Add finely diced onion and sauté until translucent before adding the minced garlic. Barley Arancini

Continue to sauté for another minute or two. Add pearled pot barley and stir, coating the grains in olive oil. If the contents of your pan are sticking, it may require additional olive oil. Pour in wine and reduce so that the alcohol has a chance to burn off. Add heated mushroom stock, a 1/2 cup at a time, stirring until the liquid has absorbed into the barley in between each addition. In the meantime, finely

dice the shiitake mushrooms and sauté in a separate pan until soft. Set aside. To tell if your barley is cooked, taste a grain and if you can chew it (but it still sticks to your teeth) it is finished. Stir in the mushrooms, nutritional yeast, and reconstituted seaweed stems. Allow to cool thoroughly, ideally overnight. After the barley risotto has cooled, roll into balls and coat with panko. Heat oil in a large Dutch oven. Test oil by dropping a few panko crumbs in the hot oil. If they are ready they will slowly begin to turn golden brown. Ideal frying temperature is between 360° F – 375° F. Carefully put six balls in the oil and move them around so they brown evenly. It takes roughly about 8 minutes. Remove carefully allowing oil to drain from the ball before putting it down on paper towel. Serves 6

Made from scratch. All butter crust. Just like your grandmother’s !

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Bigoli all’ Amatriciana

Here, the magnificent guanciale (pork jowl) adds depth, flavour and punch to this spicy classic. Bigoli is a type of pasta made with water and hard durum wheat flour. It’s particularly popular in Rome and looks like a thick spaghetti and is perfect for absorbing sauce. You could also use Bucatini which is long and hollow like a pasta straw and like Bigoli is made with water and hard durum wheat flour. If you’ve never tried it this is your golden opportunity. Whichever pasta you decide on this is a satisfying and comforting meal. Bigoli

Ingredients 6 oz (170g) guanciale, diced Olive oil (optional) 2 large cloves garlic, chopped 1 tsp red chili flakes 2 cups San Marzano passata 1 lb (0.45kg) bucatini pasta Kosher salt, to taste ½ cup grated or shaved Pecorino cheese Crusty bread, sliced, to serve

By: Kayle Burns, Bread and Circus, Calgary Eats Cookbook

Method Heat a large frying pan over medium heat, add the guanciale and cook for about 5 minutes, or until golden brown. If the guanciale is on the lean side, add a splash of olive oil. Transfer to a plate and set aside. In the same pan with the fat, add garlic and chili flakes and sauté for 1 - 2 minutes over medium heat, until fragrant. Add passata, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add bucatini and cook for 10 minutes, until it’s still firm and about 80% cooked. Drain, then add pasta to sauce and cook for another 5 minutes, or until it’s al dente. Transfer pasta to a serving platter and garnish with pecorino and crispy guanciale. Serve with a rustic red wine and crusty bread. Serves 4

Dear customers, family & friends

To best deal with this unprecedented situation, we want to make sure we’re doing the very best we can – for you, for ourselves, and for our community. At Lina’s, we are focusing much of our energy on delivering groceries right to your door. Our delivery service is free for seniors, senior homes and within a 10 km radius. Products our customers can choose from are listed on our website and media channels. We have a lot of take-out options available as well, including our Italian mealsto-go, pizzas and heat and serve pastas. Italian wine is available, including Prosecco, Cabernet, San Giovese, along with beers and Spritz. Sante! We provide a great assortment of cheeses and meats, both imported and domestic. We continue to receive new unique items like Parmigiano Reggiano Vacche Rosse, a delicious organic 48 month aged cheese. Our store is fully stocked, our staff completely prepared. We want you to be happy and to feel safe when it comes to shopping with us.

We’ve created our Lina’s Survival Kit. It includes 2 types of pasta, a box of rice, 3 types of canned beans, 2 different canned soups, tomato sauce, pasta sauce, canned tomatoes, one pack of canned tuna, 1 kg of flour and treats such as cookies, chips and chocolate. You’ll find a special surprise inside, too! Email catering@linasmarket.com to send it as a gift for family, friends and neighbours, and don’t forgot one for yourself, too!

We want to say thank you for your daily support… it means the world to us. Be happy, be positive and stay healthy. Lina’s Italian Market is committed to you and your family. Una grande famiglia, tutti insieme! (We are all one big family).

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