food writers

Delicious Solidarity: Celebrating the 15th Anniversary of Food Day Canada

Posted on August 1, 2018 by cvanbrunschot

In 2003, when international borders were closed to Canadian beef by our largest trading partners, Canadians responded with the World’s Longest Barbecue. Chefs across the country came on board, sanctions were lifted over time, and that show of solidarity with our beef farmers morphed into Food Day Canada/Journée des terroirs, a nationwide party held every August long weekend in celebration of Canadian food.

Fifteen years on, with our blustery neighbour once again preoccupied with building walls, and our food producers under fire (from those, I believe, who would be allies if they better understood the reality), I have to agree with Food Day Canada founder, Anita Stewart, when she says that “Today we face similar, perhaps even graver, challenges”.

And I’m definitely on board with her call to all Canadians to not linger on lament but to throw a party instead, to “honour our own ingredients”.

Perhaps it’s my usual giddiness at the bounty that’s all around us at this time of year, but my personal Food Day Canada will be a celebration of delight as much as solidarity. I’ll be pulling out some sweet discoveries that I made for my Canada Day barbecue in 2017.

I’ll start things out with my favourite summertime cocktail, the Dominion Dram, created by Calgary mixologist, Myles Petley. This drink has me gleefully picking new spruce tips in my backyard, and features a gin with botanicals traditionally used by the First Nations of the Arctic tundra.

We’ll nibble crostini baked from Canadian wheat flour, topped with aged Ontario cheddar and a drizzle of birch syrup that I sourced from a producer on the shores of Lake Winnipeg. We’ll crunch through more than we should of Lobster Roll Bites (riffed from the delectable lobster rolls of Atlantic Canada, via George Brown culinary school alum/instructor, Annabelle Waugh).

My husband will rule the grill with his famous West Coast Salmon (from a recipe shared by an old friend in Nanaimo) and *Nish Kabobs created by Aboriginal Television’s Chef David Wolfman (another George Brown notable. *Note: “Nish” is slang for Anishinaabe First Nations). With a few more mouths at the table, we might add Quebec Maple Pork Skewers to the platter, or some Bison Cherry Burgers (always a family favourite).

I’ll turn to Chef Wolfman again for Three Sisters Corn Relish salad, loaded with zucchini, onions, and peppers from my favourite Calgary Farmers’ Market producers. And there will be heaps of Alberta-grown greens, carrots, and cucumbers, and sweet tiny tomatoes picked fresh from my garden pots.

Still to be determined are which Okanagan wines to drink. So, too, is dessert – although it’s likely to feature the just-ripened fruit from my Juliet sour cherry tree (bred for Canadian prairie hardiness by the diligent researchers at the University of Saskatchewan).

Before the Plate film — “Before the Plate” directed by Sagi Kahane-Rapport; produced by Dylan Sher (Photo credit: Before the Plate)

To mark this 15th anniversary of Food Day Canada, Toronto’s CN Tower will light up the sky, and the film Before the Plate will make its sold-out premiere at that city’s Isabel Bader Theatre. (This documentary, which takes one plate created by Chef John Horne at Canoe restaurant and traces each ingredient back to its Canadian source, includes revelations about modern farming and distribution that are sure to surprise. Watch for it – this doc is destined to appear at film festivals and indie cinemas everywhere).

Chefs will be hosting Food Day Canada events across the country; look for one near you from the list of restaurant partners at fooddaycanada.ca.

SO REGARDLESS OF WHAT YOU’RE INCLINED TO CELEBRATE – be it solidarity with our country’s farmers, delight for Canadian-grown/raised/fished/foraged/brewed/distilled/aged or otherwise-crafted ingredients, or simply a glorious long weekend in our oh-so-short summer – be sure to rustle up some culinary treasures from your local farmers and food artisans this weekend or hustle down to the digs of your favourite chef-creator of Canadian cuisine. There’s a patio or deck with your name on it somewhere and a cornucopia of Great White North flavours close at hand.

Wherever you are, be sure to share your discoveries on your favourite social media platforms using the hashtags #FoodDayCanada and #CanadaIsFood.

(And for my Alberta homies, there’s a brand new resource out there to help you find all that delicious local goodness. Food Artisans of Alberta by Karen Anderson and Matilde Sanchez-Turri combs every corner of the province to highlight the best growers and producers harnessing and nurturing our unique terroir from land and water to plate, jar, and bottle. Once you read their stories, you’ll want to track them down – and much of their fare is closer than you think! Find this guide at bookstores, cafes, cooking schools, food artisans – even the odd gas station around the province – or online at Chapters/Indigo.)

Leftovers Black Box Challenge – Week 2: Slaying your Dragons

Posted on January 24, 2018January 20, 2018 by cvanbrunschot

They’re B-A-A-A-C-K!

Ataulfo mangoes. They popped up this week in the supermarket, drawing my hand like bears to honey. Their flesh was supple, their scent sweet. Need I tell you that some of them ended up in my kitchen?

Those of you who have been following me for awhile will know of my irrational weakness for ataulfo mangos. The fragrant golden fruits with their parrot-beak tops have become symbolic to me of all those impulsive purchases I’ve made at the grocery store or the farmers’ market with no plan as to how I’m going to use them. They’re one of those things at high risk to shrivel away before I figure something out. (Bet you know what yours are!)

But no worries. This week the mangoes disappeared quickly. One made it into a refreshing Mango Cucumber salad taught to me by Josefina Gonzalez Luigi of Cocina con Alma cooking school in Cozumel. The others morphed into a creamy mango pudding from a Dairy Farmers of Canada ad lifted from a long-forgotten magazine.

They reminded me, though, of the importance of knowing my weaknesses and preparing a line of defence for them. ( See #4 of my Food Lover’s Real Life Guide to Reducing Food Waste – City Palate, Nov/Dec 2017). I’ve learned to keep a stash of recipes for the things I know I’ll buy on impulse – and also for the things I throw out most often.

But how to build this arsenal?

I’m a big reader of food magazines (no surprise there), so I routinely rip out recipes. Those that address my particular nemeses get filed away where I can find them when crisis calls.

Of course, an online search will also offer up a legion of solutions to the ingredient conundrum – with the bonus that they might take me to new culinary frontiers. Unfortunately, exploring those frontiers for new treasure can be a rabbit hole from which there’s no definite return, neither of time nor reward. Poorly-construed recipes abound on the web, so unless I’ve got the experimentation time to discover a new favourite food blogger who speaks to my heart, I stick to reputable sources that multi-test their recipes. Any “keepers” get filed on my laptop where I can find them, or printed off to join the rest of my stash.

These days a trip to the virtual or brick-and-mortar bookstore will reveal a cornucopia of titles focused on a single ingredient or a single food category (the public library catalogue is a great resource, too). My favourites include Sharon Hanna’s and Carol Pope’s The Book of Kale & Friends – great for dispatching an abundance of kale (obviously) as well as garden herbs – and Julie Van Rosendaal’s Out of the Orchard – indispensable for tackling those flats of Okanagan fruit that sing so loudly from farmers’ market stalls.

Market-based cookbooks can also be a great reference for addressing food waste vulnerabilities. Two valuable new titles that made it to my shelf in 2017 include Chef Lynn Crawford’s Farm to Chef: Cooking through the Seasons and David Tanis’ hefty tome, Market Cooking.

But, no, the mangos were not a problem this week. Leftover spinach was my Achilles’ heel instead. And based on the responses I’ve received from many of you, tired greens are your frequent problem-child as well.

Fortunately, my leafy-greens armoury is a stout one. And I’ve learned to view every dish as a possible repository for foliage. Greens thrown on sandwiches. Tucked into tacos. Stirred into soup. Or curry. Or eggs. Or stirfries.

Let’s not forget that, sautéed with a few spices or a handful of favourite garnishes, they can make a tasty side dish on their own. My first sampling of the Sautéed Kale Salad at the former Ox & Angela’s restaurant in Calgary (now Ox Bar de Tapas) made me a firm believer in that. Consider combinations like these with whatever greens you have on hand (and a little garlic to amp up the flavour):

half a jar of roasted peppers or sundried tomatoes; garnished with goat cheese;
shallots or red onions fried with bacon or pancetta;
yellow onions sizzled with cayenne; topped with sesame seeds and a drizzle of sesame oil.

My favourite go-to is perhaps the easiest: swiss chard fried up with garlic, salt, and hot pepper flakes and served with a squeeze of lemon.

The biggest trick is to leave the container of greens front-row-centre in my fridge where I won’t forget it. I almost lost track of mine this week after a couple of lacklustre side salads. But I scavenged it in time, and the remainder anchored a nutrient-dense frittata served up for my supper with some good bread.

Here’s the frittata recipe that saved the day (with a basic egg-and-cheese base into which you can dump pretty much anything). Feel free to add it to your personal leafy-green recipe arsenal.

And if you’ve got some great strategies of your own, please do share (at the bottom of this post). Or write to me with your biggest leftovers millstones and I’ll address them in future posts if I can.

In the meantime, keep a steady eye on your Black Box – and watch for me next week.

SPINACH FRITTATA

Serves 4

1 Tbsp (15 ml) butter or vegetable oil

1/2 cup (125 ml) onion

2 garlic cloves, minced

6-8 handfuls of baby spinach (if you have less, that’s fine)

Pinch of nutmeg

Egg Mixture

8 eggs

1/4 cup (50 ml) milk

1/2 tsp (2 ml) salt (use less if your cheese is salty)

Black pepper to taste

1-2 cups (250-500 ml) of your choice of cheese(s)

Preheat oven to 350F (180C). Grease a 9-inch (23 cm) glass pie plate and place on a baking sheet (to catch any drips).

Heat oil or butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion; cook until soft.

Stir in cloves, spinach, and nutmeg and cook until spinach is wilted. Remove from heat.

In a large bowl, combine egg mixture ingredients. Stir spinach mixture into bowl.

Pour into prepared pie plate; stir to distribute ingredients evenly.

Bake in centre of oven until top is golden and centre is set.

Leftovers Black Box Challenge – Week 1: Inspiration

Posted on January 15, 2018January 19, 2018 by cvanbrunschot

(*Black Box Challenge (def’n) – a competitive event frequently seen on TV food networks, whereby chefs attempt to create the best dish from a collection of ingredients not revealed to them – i.e., hidden in a black box – until the event begins)

It’s all Julie Van Rosendaal’s fault.

This quest that I’ve set myself – to minimize my own food waste by looking at my fridge contents as a sort of Black Box Challenge – yeah, you can blame it on her.

Long before I began volunteering for LeftOvers Calgary and long before I discovered the deplorable figures about food waste, Calgary food writer Julie Van Rosendaal had me started on a quiet culinary journey. (Unbeknownst to her).

I’m a big fan of her weekly CBC Radio column. How can you not love her infectious enthusiasm for how easy it is to put good food on the table? Her on-air coaching helps me tweak my own kitchen technique. She has a phenomenally-intuitive approach to cooking that I wish I could emulate (big on throwing in “a little of this, or a little of that, whatever you’ve got around”) . But I remain a firm kitchen chemist, sadly shackled to recipes and careful measurement.

Until one day, she said something that clicked a cylinder into place: “When you’re planning your meals, start with what’s in your fridge”.

Too often, she explained, we decide first what we want to make for dinner, then go out and buy the ingredients for it. This means that what’s already in our fridge runs a high risk of staying there, while the new groceries create a fresh crop of odds and bits that will be our next leftovers problem. Why not reverse that process, she suggested: start with what you already have and use it as a foundation for your next meal.

A seed had been planted.

My transition sprouted slowly. One day, a yam at the bottom of my potato bin set me scanning the indexes of my favourite cookbooks for yam-anchored side dishes. On another, some tired lemons had me trawling the web for citrus-infused mains. Small successes brought me a disproportionate amount of satisfaction -not just for throwing less out and doing my bit to save the planet, but for the pure pleasure of creativity. And one evening I knew I was hooked for good.

Busy with deadlines and with no time or inclination to go the store, I opened my fridge to the dispiriting vision of limp celery sticks – leftover crudités from a weekend dinner party. A freezer dive produced two tiny chorizo sausages and half a bag of raw shrimp – vestiges of previous taco nights. Celery, shrimp and sausage got me to thinking about jambalaya – and soon I was digging into my favourite cookbook by Chef Michael Smith .

His recipe called for both green and red bell peppers; my crisper held the better part of a single red. Good enough. A sample rice packet picked up from last fall’s runners’ fair could fill the medium-grain rice requirement and some dried thyme could substitute for filé powder. I was temporarily stymied by the uncharacteristic absence of canned tomatoes in my pantry. But I made do with a few tomatoes shriveling on my kitchen counter – and threw in my last couple handfuls of spinach for good measure.

And the result? My man raved about the jambalaya I produced that night. I couldn’t disagree. I had created a delicious dinner from nothing but leftover bits – and the thrill of the challenge made me a firm convert to the delights of “Black Box” inspiration. (Thank you, Julie! You might not have coined the term, but the inspiration is all yours).

Note that I haven’t given up my recipe crutch. And I still plan most meals on desire and a long grocery list. But at least once a week I start my menu-planning with a peek in my fridge – and the amount of food I throw into my green bin has dwindled to a trickle. In my personal battle against food waste, fun has proven SO much more motivating than guilt.

I’ve included my jambalaya rendition for you here (Or as close as I can remember it. Feel free to improvise).

And as promised in my November post, I’ll spend the next few weeks sharing the leftovers challenges that crop up in my fridge and the strategies I’ve devised to deal with them. I hope through this series that you, too, will be inspired to tackle your own Black Box – and that, like me, you’ll discover it to be a new culinary muse.

In the meantime, check out Erin Lawrence’s article in this month’s issue of City Palate for more on the food waste conundrum (you’ll find it on page 22).

And watch for my post next week with another recipe or two!

Improvised Jambalaya

Serves 2

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

4 ounces chorizo (or other spicy sausage), sliced into thin rounds

2 stalks (or so) of celery, chopped

1 onion, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1-1/2 tsp paprika

1-1/2 tsp ground cumin

1-1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1 cup of medium-grain rice

1/3 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined

2 or 3 tomatoes

3/4 cup water (or chicken broth, if you have it)

Heat a large heavy pot over medium-high heat. Add vegetable oil and sausage, and sauté until lightly browned (2-3 minutes).

Add celery, onion, pepper, garlic, paprika, cumin, thyme, and cayenne. Continue cooking until vegetables have softened (4-5 minutes).

Stir in the rice, coating the grains with oil and lightly toasting for a minute or two. Stir in shrimp, tomatoes, and water or broth, and bring to a full boil.

Reduce heat to simmer. Cover pot with a tight lid and cook for approximately 20 minutes. Turn off heat and rest 10 minutes without removing lid. Serve with pride.

(*If tomatoes are not very juicy and mixture becomes dry before the rice is fully-cooked, add more water or broth, replace lid, and continue to simmer until done).

— Catherine —Van Brunschot

Food and Travel Writer

Delicious Solidarity: Celebrating the 15th Anniversary of Food Day Canada

Leftovers Black Box Challenge – Week 2: Slaying your Dragons

Leftovers Black Box Challenge – Week 1: Inspiration