Eat Alberta 2014

I'm a little late with this, but tickets are still available! I volunteered for Eat Alberta back in 2011 (the first year) and am happy to be able to volunteer again this year - Their fourth conference! Here's the info:

'Eat Alberta is pleased to announce our fourth hands-on food conference, taking place on Saturday, April 26, 2014 at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT). This year’s theme is “Seed the Possibilities”.

Eat Alberta is a non-profit association, managed entirely by volunteers. Our annual, one day, workshop-style conference features a mix of hands-on learning, food tastings, and presentations that focus on local and regional Alberta foods. Participants come together with farmers, chefs, foragers, botanists, and bakers to learn about what is produced in our province, how to prepare it, and what it tastes like.

This year’s conference features fifteen different presenters and fourteen different sessions, many of which are new to Eat Alberta. Participants will have the opportunity to learn about jowl bacon, pumpkin ravioli, cider-making, Alberta cheese tasting, and much more. The full list of sessions can be found on our website.

Our keynote speaker for 2014 is John Schneider, from Gold Forest Grains. He will give his thoughts on how to re-focus our attention on food advocacy and real-life ways to pressure law-makers to improve our food and agriculture systems. He will also offer a glimpse into life on his farm, and how he produces food for his family.

The day will close with three “Seedy Business” discussions –  5-10 minutes presentations on backyard bees, backyard chickens, and raw milk – followed by “Taste of Alberta” tasting boards and a wine down.

Tickets for Eat Alberta are $150 each and include the keynote and lightning talks, four sessions, breakfast, lunch, the “tastes of Alberta”, and the wine down. Registration opens on Tuesday, March 25.

For full event details, session descriptions, presenter bios and more, please visit our website at - http://www.eatalberta.ca'

See you there!

Meal Planning Saga: Week Eight

Last week was certainly highlighted by adventures around town more than our 'home cooking', though the butter chicken was pretty incredible...

Sunday - Once again, a roast chicken. There's just something about it that works well on a Sunday evening.

Monday - Braised beef with mashed potatoes. Inspired by our visit to Somerville Wine and Cheese we placed this roast in the slow cooker for about four hours with red wine and tomatoes. Next time a fattier cut of beef is certainly in order, but the flavours here were great all the same.

Tuesday - Chicken and vegetable soup.

Wednesday - Italian sausages with salad and roasted veggies. Digging through (I mean... 'organizing') our freezer a couple weekends ago, we found a neglected package of sausages that we were excited to barbecue. No go - the door to our balcony was frozen solid, and this time no hair dryer could fix it. So we simply poached and pan cooked them instead.

Thursday - Alley Kat was certainly the highlight of the evening here, and afterward a stop at Langano Skies finished things off nicely.

Friday - Slow Cooker Butter Chicken from Meal Planning 101. This was the most viewed recipe on Kindra's site in 2010, and for good reason - it was simple to prepare and incredibly flavourful. There's no doubt we'll be doing this one again. We grabbed some naan from the E-Zee Market on 109th to round the meal out. (We've walked passed this place hundreds of times but only recently went in to find an incredible selection of spices, curries and other dishes made fresh daily.)

Saturday - A few things were on our minds Saturday, namely heading to Queen of Tarts to check things out, and later in the evening to Refinery at the AGA. First though, I was distracted by the excellent snowflakes falling on Saturday morning.

Leaving the snowflakes outside, we were stunned as we entered the Queen of Tarts' space. It's both beautiful and well stocked, with products from The Jam Lady, Mighty Trio and others available amongst their desserts, breads and lunch items. I urge you to check out Sharon's pictures and thoughts here. We actually ran into Sharon and Mack while there, along with Valerie, which was great. I also ran into Liz, an amazing lady who I took both baking and chocolate classes with at NAIT last year.

Before getting into the tarts themselves though, Brenna and Catherine came over for some pre-Refinery pizza. A veggie for Catherine consisted of roasted red peppers, feta, bocconcini and tomato sauce, while the rest of the discs were made into white pizzas with roasted butternut squash, sage, prosciutto, bocconcini and Gruyère (that last one was the perfect sweet salty combo and a reminder of warmer fall days). We also drank a couple beers that I intend to post on a little later.

And for dessert - the Queen of Tarts' tarts. As expected they were lovely. The lime was rich while tangy (Brenna and Catherine both swooned) and the chocolate hazelnut tart was dense and chocolate-y, with an amazing sandy, hazelnut crust. Post dessert we ventured back downtown for a couple drinks, some new exhibits and an attempt at dancing in public.

And hello week nine.