For the past four years, the Ancaster Mill has helped feed hungry attendees at the Canadian Culinary Book Awards’ post-ceremony reception. Focused on Earth to Table cuisine, they source the local, seasonal ingredients from near-by farms and food artisans. To celebrate spring, the Ancaster Mill is featuring eco-friendly celebrity chef Michael Stadtlander.

Tuesday, April 19th
Cocktails 6:00pm
Dinner 6:30pm

Start your evening with hors d’oeuvres, followed by Chef Michael Stadtlander preparing a 7-course dinner with a specially selected wine pairing for each course.  Michael will be giving a narration of his food creations, each selected to feature the best of the season with the environment in mind.

The cost is $150 (plus tax & gratuity). The wine selections are included.

If interested, call 905-648-1828 to reserve a table.

The Ancaster Mill is located at:
548 Old Dundas Road
Ancaster, ON L9G 3J4

Need help blowing your horn? As a networking organization for culinary professionals across the country, Cuisine Canada is exploring new and immediate ways to support our members. With quick, easy and accessible information in mind, we have two new features to help members promote themselves or learn about food events in your area.

Events Calendar

Colour-coded by region, our Events Calendar lists professional development activities and events that promote or feature Canadian food. Here you’ll find listings for:

• Trade shows
• Food and/or wine festivals
• Food or agricultural seminars
• Food or agricultural conferences
• Calls for papers

To add an event to the calendar, email Amy Proulx at chair@cuisinecanadascene.com.

Monthly Horn Blowing

Starting this month, we’ll promote our member’s individual achievements. Whether these events take place in Canada or outside our country’s borders, as long as you’re talking about Canada and food, we’d love for you to share. Tell us about your:

• Book tours / book launch dates
• Product launches (food or cooking related)
• Radio / TV appearances / Live cooking demonstrations
• Events you’re judging
• Public lectures
• Culinary lessons
• Awards or nominations
• Special events at your store or restaurant

Want to tell us about your activity? Just leave the pertinent details (including links to an appropriate website) in the comments section.  To reduce spam, these comments will be moderated, so it will take a little time for postings to appear.

Food Day Canada
Saturday, July 31, 2010
6:00 PM Your time
Cities, restaurants and backyards across Canada

Until last year, Food Day Canada was known as The World’s Longest Barbecue. It is always held on the Saturday of the first weekend in August, which this year happens to fall in July. When I began the event in 2003, the goal was to collectively celebrate the food of Canada, specifically beef because of BSE and the devastation it caused to that industry. After that first event, I expanded the scope to include all ingredients harvested here. And every year since, I have challenged Canadians to barbecue /cook /use Canadian ingredient and share their menus on the dedicated website.

This year, we’ve built a new website and established a new web presence, while ensuring the stories from the past are all still available online for everyone to see.  These menus are a voyeuristic look into the real food life of Canada. Curiously, since launching the site this year, we’ve had hits from 46 countries around the globe, including Russia, all of Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Food Day Canada is our chance to create a day that showcases our extraordinary ingredients at a time when our farming/fishing communities are top of mind.  The only participation requirement is to cook great local/regional/national foods on Saturday July 31st and post the menus to the website (click here for the easy-to-fill-out submission form).

While the platform on which Food Day rests is virtual, there are also larger live events. Here in my own village of Elora, our local raceway will host a number of Ontario commodity organizations who are coming together to barbecue their products (pork/beef/chicken/vegetables/fruit) for the public — with lotsa good beer and a few cases of wine.  In addition, those same commodity organizations are committed to providing product for Ontario’s Food Banks for every Ontario menu posted on the website.  It’s win/win/win.

Also for the first time, this year, restaurants from across Canada are taking part. This handpicked group of 136 restaurants were carefully selected because they truly walk the talk. They include: Chives Canadian Bistro (Halifax, NS), Atlantica (St John’s, NL),  Bacalao (Clarenville & St. John’s, NL), Rossmount Inn (St Andrews by-the-Sea, NB),  Lot 30 (Charlottetown, PE), Inn at Bay Fortune (Fortune, PE),  Treadwell (Port Dalhousie, ON), Epic (Toronto, ON), Rouge (Calgary, AB) CharCut (Calgary, AB), Langdon Hall (Cambridge, ON),  C Restaurant (Vancouver, BC), Klondike Kate’s (Dawson City, YT) and a whole whack of restaurants in the Ottawa and Toronto areas.

Other national ‘days’ are about the eaters.  Food Day is about the farmers and fishers who feed us so very, very well. And about Canada’s chefs, who through their talent and innovation, bring the best Canadian ingredients to the table.

To celebrate, we are including some pretty neat awards as well. Mine will be given to a member of the general public whose menu shows the most Adaptability. Three other awards will go to  Chefs/Restaurants.  The judges for these awards are James Chatto, Michael Smith, Anthony Walsh, Sinclair Philip and Judy Creighton.

The goal is to build a full on food celebration in every corner of Canada that cannot be ignored.

Having a party never felt so good!

Anita Stewart

“Last year’s inaugural workshop was a roaring success, so I’ve expanded the workshop to 20 participants and I’m bringing in food writing experts from the US and Canada,” explains independent food journalist Jennifer Cockrall-King, workshop coordinator. “It’s part food-writing workshop, part food and wine tour in the incredibly vibrant Okanagan Valley when local products are at their peak and just before the wine harvest.”

2010 instructors include:

• Dianne Jacob is a California-based writing coach, editor, and author of Will Write for Food: The Complete Guide to Writing Cookbooks, Blogs, Articles, Memoir, and More. Re-issued in July 2010, the book won the Cordon D’Or International award for Best Literary Food Reference Book. www.diannej.com

• Born in Vancouver, Claudia Cusano is Italian by blood, and thus grew up with a love of food, family, and friendship. Claudia is the editor for NUVO magazine, a lifestyle magazine for the Canadian sophisticate. www.nuvomagazine.com

• Liane Faulder is The Edmonton Journal’s food columnist and appears in the Bistro section on Wednesdays, and on Saturdays in Lifestyle. She is also food columnist for CBC radio’s afternoon program in Edmonton, Radio Active. An award-winning reporter, Liane’s features have been published in Reader’s Digest, Today’s Parent, Venture and Chatelaine magazines.

• South Okanagan’s own Rhys Pender, is a wine educator, freelance wine writer, wine judge and consultant to the industry. In 2010 Rhys became the 4th Master of Wine (MW) in Canada. Rhys is a regular contributor on wine to publications Wine Access, Scout Magazine, CityFood and Montecristo. http://www.wineplus.ca/

• Cuisine Canada member Jennifer Cockrall-King is a food writer (www.foodgirl.ca) with over 13 years of contributing to publications in Canada and the US. In 2008, Western Living named her as one of the “Top 40 Foodies Under 40.” She teaches food writing courses with MacEwan’s Writing Works in Edmonton and at UBC Okanagan. And she is the producer of the Okanagan Food & Wine Writers Workshop because it’s just too good here not to share it with like-minded people.

Registration is limited to 20 writers in order to give each writer personalized instruction. The cost of the workshop is $650 — a few early bird spots are still available at $575 (email to inquire), and includes all professional development seminars, field trips, wine touring, meals and activities, excluding travel to and from the workshop and accommodations. Special workshop room rates are available at the host hotel, the Penticton Lakeside Resort.

Detailed workshop information is available on the Okanagan Food and Wine Writers Workshop Website, or by contacting workshop coordinator Jennifer Cockrall-King at 780-242-3663 or jennifer@foodgirl.ca.

Leaf Mustard

It is easy to fall into stereotypes.  It’s easy to think that Canada is so cold that we can’t grow exotic fruits and vegetables found in other countries. But as we highlighted recently, diversification into new crops, such as quinoa, is the new trend. All it takes is a few adventurous farmers to push the limits on what we can grow in Canada. Season extension, appropriate cultivar selection, and creative use of thermal resources has even allowed producers to grow tropical crops such as olives and lemons with great success.

The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, and the University of Guelph had a field day on August 18, 2009, showing the potential for growing a broader diversity of field crops. The variety of crops spanned the continents. From sea buckthorn, to globe artichokes, bitter melon, and goji, over 35 new field crops were introduced to Ontario growers.

Alan McKeown, Associate Professor at the University of Guelph, and one of hosts at the event commented, “Crop diversification is important to build economic strength, opportunities for growers and consumers, local production such as 100 mile diets, diversified food base for culinary uses including ethnic uses, and food security.”

“In order for all of the above to happen, there must be markets. Culinary professionals can help develop markets for growers and themselves by buying local in season, working with growers to ensure supply. They can ask growers to supply products they wish to use, if not available in Ontario or Canada. It’s a two way street between growers and the user of the produce.”

The Challenge
The challenge for producers is to fit into the value chain. Markets have to be in place for alternative crops. Producers have to be able to match quality parameters, and price points currently set by imported product. Before producers start growing novel crops it is vital to do extensive market research, besides the obvious research into crop management.  Post-harvest management, and appropriateness to culinary applications are as important as agronomic management when it comes to the success of a crop.

People in the culinary fields help producers by creating market interest and demand for locally grown products.  As much as there is the need for farmers to research potential markets, people in the culinary sector need to seek out new products, and highlight their unique qualities to the consuming public.  Lots of challenges, but many great opportunities.

Are there fruits or vegetables that you wished could be sourced locally? Have you grown a novel crop, and had success getting it to market?

__________________________________

Written by Amy Proulx

Meanwhile, Owen Roberts thinks the World’s Longest Barbecue is worth celebrating and tell us why at the Guelph Mercury.

Even Canadian Business loves the idea of a national food day and shares their thoughts in this article.

Do you think our food is worth celebrating? If so, show your support by posting and hosting. Just log onto Flavours of Canada and share your menu, then have great food with friends on August 1st.

Photo © Greencolander. Published under a Creative Commons License.

World's Longest Barbecue is August 1st this year

We’re about to hold the biggest food event in Canadian History and we can’t do it alone. You, your friends, family, co-workers and neighbours are hereby officially invited to join Anita Stewart and thousands of proud Canadians as we raise our forks and celebrate our regional bounty.

The Date:
Saturday August 1, 2009
6:00 p.m. – any time zone

The Location:
Anywhere in the world.

The Cause:
The World’s Longest Barbecue ™
This is our chance to show our unconditional support to all the extraordinary men and women across the nation who put healthy, delicious food on our tables.

The Plan:
Invite some friends over, fire up the grill and taste the true Flavours of Canada. Simply shop from your own region and throw a party that celebrates the farmers, fishers, brew masters and vintners of Canada. Sure, you can kiss the cook, but the real star of the show is our fabulous local food.

The Dress Code:
Totally casual. Shoes optional. Pride required.

The Catch:
There is none. No rules. No set menu. Just enjoy a meal based on real, local Canadian ingredients. Count yourself in! Simply log onto www.foodday.ca and post your menu. While you’re there, feel free to check out what other Canadians are cooking. You might be surprised what we grow here.

So pick a menu, invite your friends and let the Celebration begin!