Tag Archives: food artisans of alberta

August 1, 2019 · 5:14 am

Celebrating Food Day Canada 2019 and the bounty of Alberta this August

Alberta Beef from Hotel Arts for Food Day Canada celebrations- photo courtesy of Hotel Arts
Alberta beef – photo courtesy of Hotel Arts

Food Day Canada is one of my favourite days of the year. It’s always held on the Saturday of the August long weekend and it’s a time to celebrate the height of our country’s growing season and the abundance of local produce available.

This Saturday, August 3, I’ll be celebrating Food Day Canada a few fun ways. First, I’ll lead a Canmore Tasting Trail food experience for my company Alberta Food Tours (there’s still a few spots left on that tour but our Savour 17 SW food tour in Calgary is sold out that day) and then I’ll be attending a long table Beef and Barley Food Day Canada Dinner with partners Hotel Arts and Trails End Ranch. Tickets are only $125 per person and there are still a few left.

Here in Alberta, that’s just the beginning of the celebration of local bounty this August. We’ve also got a new festival called Alberta on your Plate, August 9 to 18, to look forward to and our annual Alberta Open Farm Days, August 17 and 18, with 160 farms across the province participating. Check out the links for these last two events and read on for more info about the Food Day Canada Beef and Barley Dinner at Trails End Ranch.

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June 27, 2019 · 1:34 am

Garden Greens with an Alberta Vinaigrette – from Food Artisans of Alberta

Murietta's Mountain Grill (we get a private room facing the mountains) goat cheese fritters or charcuterie board and wine tasting
Garden Greens with an Alberta Vinaigrette
from Food Artisans of Alberta: Your Trail Guide to the Best of our Locally Crafted Fare
by Karen Anderson and Matilde Sanchez-Turri

So often in Canada, we use imported ingredients for our daily cooking. This recipe takes a different approach. It uses a classic, imported French technique for a vinaigrette and and highlights some of Alberta’s signature ingredients to make our local – over global – flavours shine.

Now that the greens are flourishing in the garden, it seemed the perfect time to share and celebrate both this recipe AND the fact that Food Artisans of Alberta: Your Trail Guide to the Best of Our Locally Crafted Fare just turned one year old.

It’s been a great year with the book receiving the World Gourmand Cookbook Award for best Culinary/Food Travel writing (Canada). It was also recently short-listed for a Taste Canada award for Best Culinary Narrative.

I hope you’ll dig in your garden or farmers’ market for ingredients, dig into this dish and then dig into our book for more recipes and inspiration to explore Alberta, one food artisan at a time. The recipe follows.

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May 23, 2019 · 9:01 pm

The Prairie Farm Project – a dinner by Food Artisans of Alberta: Redtail Farms and friends

announcement of a farm to table dinner at Redtail Farms on June 8

Holy collaboration – this makes my heart sing. This is all about three young farming family in South Eastern Alberta doing what they do best and inviting you all out to enjoy a meal and learn more about them and how they raise the food they grow.

Here’s what The Prairie Farm Project is all about:

The Prairie Farm Project is a partnership of Alberta producers dedicated to providing nutritionally dense and ethically raised food to families. Members can sign up on a week-to-week basis — in the summer, receiving weekly shares of vegetables, with options to add on eggs, beef, pork, flowers, honey, and more, and in the winter, receiving monthly shares of pork, beef, and chicken, with the option to add on eggs, honey, root vegetables, and preserves. It’s completely dependent on what’s in season and what’s abundant.

Everything offered is raised or grown in a way that respects the environment and that honours Mother Nature. Unlike other box programs, you’ll have the opportunity to interact with your farmers and ask questions, because The Prairie Farm Project is committed to not just feeding families, but educating people on food production and farming realities. We called it a “project” because there is no model we’re following, and as time goes on, we hope to grow and evolve in a way that best meets our community’s food needs.

Get tickets to their dinner on June 8 at Redtail Farm in Castor, Alberta (bring your tent and camp out) or sign up for their food box subscription program here. Learn more about Redtail farm owners Ian Griebel and Dana Blume, and over 199 other Alberta food producers in the Gourmand World Cookbook award-winning Best Culinary/Food Tourism book  Food Artisans of Alberta.

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June 30, 2018 · 6:58 am

Talking Food Travel and Food Artisans of Alberta on CBC Radio’s Alberta at Noon

Local cheeses and charcuterie

People spend 25 per cent or more of their travel budget on food. We need to eat three meals a day and thanks to the influence of TV chefs like the late, great Anthony Bourdain, we want them to be authentically local. That means the food should be made with recipes that are historically relevant for the place we are travelling and that those recipes should be made from ingredients that originate there as well.

While Eric Wolfe, the head of the World Food Travel Association says that Spain, France, Italy and Thailand are still the top food travel destinations (and the top destinations period!) he also says that with some brand building Alberta could become an increasingly popular food travel destination. Listen to this CBC Alberta at Noon podcast to hear how my co-author Matilde Sanchez-Turri and I are working to help build that brand for our province as we talk about our new book, Food Artisans of Alberta.

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June 26, 2018 · 5:23 am

Food Artisans of Alberta

Food Artisans of Alberta book launch announcementToday begins an exciting week. After about two years of research, travel, photography, writing, editing and editing some more, the book I co-authored with my friend Matilda (Tilly) Sanchez-Turri,  Food Artisans of Alberta, is for real and is starting to hit the shelves of bookstores, cafes, cooking schools, food artisans and even the odd gas station around the province. It’s even for sale nationally through Indigo/Chapters. Continue reading →

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