Food Notes for June 15, 2009

I’m so glad it finally seems like summer in Edmonton! I do feel like I’m still catching up with things that happened in May though (namely, my DC trip), so thanks for your patience – my trip posts are forthcoming! In the meantime, here are my notes for this week:

• A day after Liane reported in Bistro that David Cruz left his Executive Chef post at Sage, she posted a follow-up post on her blog containing her brief interview with him. Great use of your blog, Liane! It seems that he felt that his creativity was stymied, and will be looking at launching his own venture in Edmonton some time. It will be interesting to see if Sage continues to appeal to the masses with a “safe” menu after Cruz’s comments.
• Kevin Ostapek, formerly of Flavours Modern Bistro, is the Chef at a new venture called The Bothy, a wine and whisky bar (5482 Calgary Trail). They will have cheese and charcuterie (yay!), as well as the city’s first enomatic wine system (which helps preserve the quality of by-the-bottle pours) – I’m looking forward to their opening!
• Kerstin’s Chocolates will be offering chocolate covered Berkshire-pork bacon for Father’s Day, from June 17-20. Need I say more?
• Speaking of liquor, Hanne of Supper in Stereo wrote a great piece for Vue this week covering some of the fresh summer cocktails available around the city!
• Transcend Coffee just hired a marketing director! There is definitely a demand to increase their ability to offer coffee education (their cuppings are booked solid until November), so I am eager to see how they experiment to meet the public’s interest in quality coffee.
• Century Hospitality is conducting a promotion that asks “local celebrities” to share their favourite burger recipes in the hopes that their burger will be chosen as a special addition to the Delux menu for a month. For July, CityTV’s Ryan Jesperson’s “Thai One On” burger will be featured.
• There was a good article in the Journal on the weekend that provides an overview of the northeast agricultural land debate, which City Council will vote to potentially rezone on June 22-23.
• Mack pointed me to an article of interest in Time about “cow-pooling” (buying an animal in bulk with others), of interest to me because my family and I will be receiving our first-ever 1/4 cow (grass-fed, hormone-free) this week, from my coworker’s family farm. It’ll be more beef than any of us have ever seen (heh).
• There was an interview with Michael Pollan in the Globe last week. Nothing particularly new, except his comments about the much-talked about documentary Food, Inc. Not sure if the movie will be screened in Edmonton, but I’ll keep an eye out.
• A curious blind tasting was conducted to see if a panel could identify dishes created by male versus female chefs. The verdict? The preconceived notions (such as women prepare more delicate dishes; men cook food to impress) were disproved.
• I passed by a new vegan/vegetarian product store in Chinatown called Whole Vegetarian Food (9738 107 Avenue,  780-756-6186) that just opened on June 12. The store owner eagerly ushered me inside to show me the contents inside the deep chest freezers, but I wasn’t in the market for goods that day. They do seem to have quite the variety though, including shelves of dry goods.

Inside Whole Vegetarian Food

• I’m just getting back into the cooking swing of things, and really, there is nothing like a trip to the farmers’ market for inspiration! Using some fresh veggies and herbs I picked up from the market, I made a batch of summer rolls to take to a meeting on Sunday (they travel well on the bus). The leftovers made a great side to my brown bag lunch.

Summer roll with carrots, bean sprouts, bell peppers, arugula, and cilantro

• Chris from Eating is the Hard Part made my day when he brought me a loaf of fresh challah bread (if you’ve been reading his blog lately, you will know that he has been participating in the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge). There’s nothing like homemade bread – the challah was great plain, but I also made French toast with it over the weekend, and it was delicious. Thanks, Chris!

Mack admires the challah

French toast made with challah and Greens Eggs and Ham duck eggs