Savour Food – Cool things no. 12 – @offthebeatenpal – coming June 6th – a PBS TV show about Alberta cuisine and culture

Off the Beaten Palate is a fun TV show that I got to work on in September 2012. I was hired by Travel Alberta to act as scout, guide and production assistant for a TV crew based out of New York and Toronto. We spent a week visiting ranches, farms, restaurants and some of Alberta’s most iconic tourism destinations exploring the link between our cuisine and our culture. Travel Alberta’s whiz kid Jessica Harcombe-Fleming had worked on the project for several months and I just had to come in and put some icing on the big fat cake she had baked. She’s amazing.

Basically, from 5:30 a.m. to about 11 p.m. for a week straight, I drove the crew around, acted as their schedule “fixer”, props specialist, food stylist, caterer, photographer, social media coordinator and story consultant. It was a great privilege to find myself in this role and the crew headed by host Michael-Ann Rowe were amazing to work with. I loved my time with them and I loved introducing them to all my friends here in Alberta. I even got to be in the show. How fun is that? Pretty fun!

I hope you will all tune it to the broadcast. It will be on Detroit Public Television (DPTV) on June 6th at 7:30 ET. That’s Channel 81 on Shaw TV in Calgary. You can get more details here. You can watch lots of fun promo reels here.

I’d like to thank everyone who made this beautiful show possible and who bent over backwards to help us show the world how great Alberta’s Cuisine and Culture truly are. We had a week of perfect weather and every time I look at the rough cuts of the show or the promo reels I feel incredibly blessed to live in such a beautiful part of Canada. The Alberta show is part of a three-part Discover Canada series especially filmed for American Public Television. I hope all our southern neighbours will in the words of Mae West, come on up and see us sometime!

Of course, the best part of all for me is that being involved in this project has just made me Savour Food and Savour Life in Alberta more than I already do! Here’s a few more photos I took last fall just to give you a sample of what’s going to be served up in this fantastic Taste Award Nominated show.