Archive for August, 2007
Community, Slow Food Calgary
One fish, two fish… Slow Fish?
One of my favourite memories from my youth is the lazy summer days I spent fishing with my Grandfather. He knew all the best spots in our corner of the Bay of Fundy and how to time our expeditions with the tides. We’d pull into a cove, drop anchor and bait our jigging lines. The water was so clear and the bottom so undisturbed that when you really paid attention you could see the flounder scuttle slightly along the ocean floor. We’d cuss a little at them, an essential step according to “Pappy”, and then we’d jig’em up. I loved taking the wheel to steer the boat back to harbour while “Pap” filleted the fish flawlessly on the side of the boat and washed everything down with sea water. He finished just in time to dock the boat and I would be home and have the fish in a fry pan within 10 minutes.
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Events, Growers and Farmgate Sales, Local
6th Annual Feast of Fields
The sixth annual Feast of Fields was held at Rouge Restaurant (1240-8 Ave SE in Inglewood)on Sunday September 9, 2007. Nearly 300 supporters of eating local gathered in the historic garden with regional chefs and growers for an afternoon of conversation, food, music and prairie sunshine.
Music by Simply Sinatra serenaded attendees as they sipped lemonade and black currant punch, locally-brewed beer, Canadian wine, and coffee. Food for this year’s Feast was created by seventeen chefs and caterers, working with ingredients provided by over thirty local producers and growers to celebrate Alberta’s harvest. The growers and producers were on hand in the marquee tents to greet guests and discuss food (fabulous), weather (perfect), politics (unending) and next year’s crops (hopeful).
An information booth provided interested consumers with data gathered by the University of Alberta on food miles of organic and conventional produce, and researcher Kristi Peters shared her findings on foodsheds.
Slow Food Calgary thanks our hosts, Paul Rogalski and Olivier Reynaud of Rouge for their ongoing and gracious support. It is difficult to imagine a more perfect venue for Feast of Fields than the garden and orchards of Rouge. Thank you as well to the chefs and caterers who turn their hands to such tangible expression of good eating, and to our beverage suppliers for delicious libations. Slow Food Calgary is powered by hope, sunshine and volunteers– thank you to all who shared their hands, expertise, enthusiasm, artistry, interest and joyful engagement in all things locally and deliciously edible. In particular, Slow Food Calgary acknowledges and thanks the committed and hard-working growers of Alberta who participate in Feast of Fields, and in feeding us all.
Community, Local, Slow Food Calgary
Highway and Byway Shopping in Alberta
Foodie Tootles 2007
Each year, I sift through maps, lists and websites, drive dusty backroads and ride rock-hard highways, looking for good growers to visit. Each year, the magic vine that connects good eaters to good growers adds another tendril or two, via phone calls and enthusiastic emails, telling me about this or that little farm, about this beef or bison rancher or honey harvester. The thrill of finding great growers, especially sustainably-inclined food producers, is almost as great as walking the fields and crouching over berry patches in the high prairie sunlight.
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