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

Recently, Cuisine Canada members received an email informing them that the deadline for Cuisine Canada Board Member nominations had been extended. Unfortunately, not all computers could read the attached information and some members were left wondering when the new deadline is.

Uh… Tomorrow. That’s Wednesday, July 21st.

So, if you wanted to nominate someone and didn’t, now’s your chance.

The rules?. Cuisine Canada members may nominate themselves or another member (with their agreement, of course. Please, no surprise nominees). Just send the nominee’s contact information and a short biography to cuisinec@uoguelph.ca. Yes, it’s that easy.

Once elected, Board Members will meet via conference call. Their chief responsibility will be to maintain and build membership, manage the organization’s finances and to fulfill the mandate set forth in the Mission Statement.

The names of the new Board Members will be announced at the Annual General Meeting on  August 4th at the Fairmont Royal York in beautiful downtown Toronto. The time has yet to be determined.

Are you a member of Cuisine Canada and know someone worthy of claiming the 2010 title?  If so, check out the information on the Cuisine Canada website and send your letters of nomination to the University of Guelph by August 16, 2010.

While the nominator must be a member of Cuisine Canada, the nominee does not. Their contribution may be in any related field, which includes but is not limited to the following examples:

• Agriculture or viticulture
• Processing or the creation of a value-added product (any food product, including cheese)
• Winemaking, brewing or any other fermentation process
• Journalism/authorship/print media
• Hospitality/restaurant and foodservice/accommodation
• Research
• Broadcast media including radio, television and the internet
• Public relations/marketing
• Government/non-profit/other agencies

Be sure to include as much information as possible in your letter. If you previously nominated someone who didn’t win and want to nominate them again, you will need to write a new letter and include updated details.

Letters on nomination should be addressed to:

The Edna Award c/o Library Administration
Room 356, McLaughlin Library
University of Guelph
50 Stone Road East
Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1.

The winner will be announced as part of the Canadian Culinary Book Awards, this year on November 5^th at the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto.

“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.

Long in the works, a national honour for the food sector has finally been awarded.  The Nation’s Table is the Governor General’s award for excellence in the food and culinary sector.  Founded by Jean-Daniel Lafond, the award intends to celebrate the leaders and innovators who best exemplify social values, innovation, and cultural impact that we honour in our Canadian food system.

The inaugural inductees range from restauranteurs, chefs, food processors, and scientists.  Of note, awardees include long-time Cuisine Canada supporter  and member Rob McLaughlin, as well as past Culinary Book Award winner John Bishop.

A committee nominated by the Governor General’s office selected the current group of nominees. Future nominations will be generated by the public.  Certainly many Cuisine Canada members, with their remarkable contributions to Canadian culinary culture will be nominated in the coming years. Whose name would you put forward?

Whether it’s inferior olive oil passed off as extra-virgin,  cow’s milk cheese sold under an expensive sheep’s milk label, or mouldy tomato paste sneaking past quality control and into ketchup bottles,  food fraud is a growing concern.

In a recent article,  U of Guelph technology helps US monitor food fraud, Stewart Laidlaw writes:

The FDA called U of G, which has come up with a world-leading technology using DNA testing to sort out such frauds.

“We’re the ones writing the protocols for the FDA,” says U of G professor Robert Hanner.

Hanner is the global campaign co-ordinator of the school’s Barcode of Life project, which is working to genetically identify all the varieties of fish in the world. The resulting database can then be used to identify the types of fish sold to consumers.

Of course, fraud isn’t new, it doesn’t stop at the border, nor is it limited to fish. But if Canada doesn’t keep up with the US on food fraud issues, Hanner wonders if our own technology could be used against us.

What sort of anti-fraud measures would you like to see initiated in Canada? Should we follow the US lead, work together or create our own system?

Photo © geishaboy500. Published under a Creative Commons License.

Pat Crocker wins Best in The World at the Gourmand Awards in Paris for her book The Vegan Cook's Bible.

Cuisine Canada member Pat Crocker recently won a Gourmand World Cookbook Award in Paris, France. Her recent book, The Vegan Cook’s Bible (Robert Rose) took top honours as the Best Vegetarian Cookbook in the World.

For Crocker, this is  her second big Gourmand win. Her book, The Juicing Bible,  also won Best in the World in 2000.

Awarded the Gertrude Foster Award for Excellence in Herbal Literature from the Herb Society of America in 2009 and a Gold Medal from Books for Better Living, Crocker seems to know the recipe for success.

When asked how she felt about her recent honours, Crocker said, “To write a cookbook takes long hours alone in the kitchen and at the computer. Awards not only connect authors and readers, they feed the souls of writers. For me, this award isn’t just about The Vegan Cook’s Bible, it’s the result of years of writing for newspapers, magazines, and most recently, my blog as well as the cookbooks.”

Congratulations, Pat!

UPDATE:  According to Julie’s Twitter account, the book has raised more than $10,000 in its first few hours of existence.

Less than three weeks ago, Cuisine Canada member Julie Van Rosendaal sent an email out to the food writing community to see if there was interest in compiling a cookbook to raise funds for Haiti. There was. And today Blog Aid: Recipes for Haiti is available for purchase. The turn around time on this project is breath-taking. So is the passion behind it.

You can watch the project unfold on Julie’s blog, Dinner with Julie, but in a nutshell, it was a whirlwind of passionate energy. Chef Michael Smith contributed — despite his duties at the 2010 athletes village– as did 26 other bloggers/writers from around the world, including several Cuisine Canada members. One bone-tired art director gave 100 hours to the cause while, two companies came on board to match proceeds with donations, effectively tripling the funds raised. Proceeds raised before February 12, 2010 will be matched by the Canadian Government, which means proceeds increase to sixfold.

You can order (and preview) the book online. The hardcover version ($50) is here, and the softcover version ($25) is here.

Want more details? Here’s the press release.

Blog Aid Press Release

There’s less than a month left to submit nominations to the 2010 Canadian Culinary Book Awards. Deadline for submissions is February 16, 2010.

Hosted by Cuisine Canada and the University of Guelph, these annual awards recognize excellence and creativity in food and beverage writing and publishing. Not only do these awards promote our Canadian culinary food culture, they celebrate Canadian authors and publishers.

Are you eligible?

• Books must be written by a Canadian author who is either a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada.
• Books must be published by a Canadian publisher or self-published in Canada.
• Books must be published during the calendar year. For the 2010 awards, the book must have been published between January 1 and December 31, 2009.

Winning authors and their publishers will receive recognition through:

• our awards event in November 2010 at the Royal Winter Fair, Toronto
• our press kits for the media
• our national publication of the short list and winners list
• our Cuisine Canada Website
• our permission to use the Cuisine Canada / University of Guelph Canadian Culinary Book Awards logos to promote the award-winning cookbooks.

Below is a PDF outlining the awards categories, criteria and eligibility, and submission procedures, as well as an entry form. Click it to download the PDF.
2010 call for entries Canadian Culinary Book Awards

The entry form is also available online here at the Canadian Culinary Book Awards site.

How do you enter? Just fill in the form by computer, print it out, and submit it with your books. Please note that each nominated title must be accompanied by a $50 entry fee and seven copies of the book.

For further information:
Fiona Lucas, Awards Chair
fionalucas@rogers.com
416-781-8153 (evenings only)

We need your help. See the black bar above the blog post? One of the pages is entitled “Links”. Nice idea, but there’s a problem. It’s empty.  Here’s where you come in.

If you’re a Cuisine Canada member and have a website or blog (or both) we’d love to provide a link (or links) to you under Member Links.

Using the nifty form below, the whole process should take less than a minute. To send us your link information just fill in the form and:

• Make the subject line “Cuisine Canada Scene Links”.
• In “Your Message” section, include:
  • your name as you want it to appear on the page,
  • your job title
  • the name of your website/blog
  • your website/blog  URL

We’ll update the links page periodically, so feel free to use this format at any time.