The city of Edmonton has a tiny amount of food producing land and almost a million people. Many Slow Food Edmonton members will be attending a public hearing (open to EVERYONE who cares about keeping what is left of Edmonton’s agricultural land) to show their support for a regional food strategy before it’s too late!

The Greater Edmonton Alliance and a few other groups have been working for quite some time to get a “public presence” in the face of City Council. In brief, there’s a grassroots movement in Edmonton that want to push the issue that Edmonton has no regional food strategy, so our prime farmland (such as the farmland micro-climate in North Edmonton where a lot of our local produce that we buy at city farmers’ markets) is under threat of development. And we need to make sure that the city has viable farmland to feed the generations of Edmontonians to come.

So, if you care about Edmonton’s continued ability to feed itself with local, sustainable, clean and secure food, then show your support by coming out to the City Council meeting this Wed (November 12, 2008) at City Hall (1 Sir Winston Churchill Square, downtown Edmonton), 7 p.m. Bring your family, bring your friends and bring your neighbours!

Attend the public hearings on Wednesday, November 12 at 7 pm at City Hall to support local food production. The Greater Edmonton Alliance is asking for a halt on rezoning these agricultural lands until we have a clear picture of Edmonton s food needs and capacity for local production. Save our local farm land.

Some things to consider…

We have a long term strategic plan, a clean water strategy, a clean air plan, a detailed transportation plan, a smart growth development plan and even a pandemic plan for different scenarios.

Yet - in our planning we do not address our food supply in any significant way.

What’s at stake? -Losing the agricultural lands in North East Edmonton.
The food that we can buy at local farmers’ markets throughout the Capital Region are produced on these lands. This area has a unique micro-climate and contains the best soils in the province.

We have seen increasing food prices, food riots in other countries and diesel rationing here.
We know that local food is fresher, healthier, good for our local economy and our current production is limited.
We also know we all eat.

The Greater Edmonton Alliance is asking city council to hold off developing any additional agriculture land, until a regional food secure strategy is completed.

This is going to be difficult campaign to win. We need as many groups and individuals to show their support of this request to city council.

If you can not attend, please call your city councillor!
Ward 1 Karen Leibovici 780-496-8120
Linda Sloan 780-496-8122
Ward 2 Ron Hayter 780-496-8128
Kim Krushell 780-496-8136
Ward 3 Ed Gibbons 780-496-8138
Tony Catarina 780-496-8333
Ward 4 Jane Batty 780-496-8140
Ben Henderson 780-496-8146
Ward 5 Bryan Anderson 780-496-8130
Don Iveson 780-496-8132
Ward 6 Amarjeet Sohi 780-496-8148
Dave Thiele 780-496-8142
For info call: 780 432-1622
Greater Edmonton Alliance
www.greateredmontonalliance.com

This is a regional issue, even if you do not live within our city limits, please attend the hearing.
Feel free to bring your children, your spouses and your neighbours.
Please forward to anyone you think may be interested.

Stand up for local farming
…when it’s gone
…it’s gone!

Call your City Councillor and tell them that this land is important to our
city’s food security- for this generation and the next.

Public Hearings
Edmonton City Council
7 pm Wednesday, Nov. 12
City Hall

Contributed by Valerie Rodgers: photographer and record keeper.

Some members of the Edmonton Slow Food convivium escaped the summer city heat and drove through the prairie grasses, south of Edmonton, headed for Greens Eggs and Ham10 acre specialty farm owned and tenderly harvested by Andreas and Mary Ellen Grueneberg and their two daughters. A short way down the winding gravel path, Michael Caldwell, the master chef of the day, was hunkered down over an open fire creating magic in various forms with the farm fresh fowl and produce that only Greens Eggs and Ham offers: big, fat, succulent Cornish game hens, sweet tender baby corn chowder in a duck stock….and that was just the beginning!

Read the rest of this entry »

Eat local at the food and wine party of the season presented by Slow Food Edmonton.

Click here to see the poster!

Date: June 16th , 7pm
Location: Delta South, Edmonton

As always, there will be a Silent auction. Fine Wines by Liquor Select will be operating an on-site wine store!

To order tickets, call: 780-433-9739

Some of the participants will be:

Farmers and Ranchers
Ariana’s Farm Fresh Fowl
Belle Valley Farm
Carmen Creek Gourmet Bison
En Sante Fruit Winery
Fairwinds Farm Dairy
Four Whistle Farm Lamb
Full Course Strategies:
Alberta Pork
Greens Eggs and Ham
Hog Wild Specialties
Irvings Farm Fresh Sausage
Lola Canola Honey
Morinville Greenhouse Herbs
Mo-Na Mushrooms
Progressive Foods Barley
Sean Anam Rabbit
Spring Creek Ranch Natural Beef
Sunworks Farm
Thompson Valley Hemp
Waskwei Creek Whitetails

Restaurants
Bacon
Bricco
Cafe de Ville
Characters
Delta Edmonton South
Devlin’s
Hardware Grill
Harvest Room,
Fairmont Hotel Macdonald
Jack’s Grill
Il Portico Restaurant
Leva
Northlands
The Sugarbowl
Soul Soup
Suede Lounge
Wild Tangerine

Canadian VQA and Estate Wineries
Averill Creek Vineyards
Blasted Church Vineyards
Cave Spring Cellars
Cedar Creek Estate Winery
Domaine Pinnacle Iced Cider
Fork in the Road
Golden Mile Cellars
Gray Monk Estate Winery
Henry of Pelham Family Estate
La Frenz Winery
Mission Hill Family Estate
Mt Boucherie Estate Winery
Prospect Winery
Quails’ Gate Estate Winery
Red Rooster Winery
Sandhill Vinyards
Tinhorn Creek Vineyards

The 3rd Annual Northern Food night held at Edmonton Slow Food members Steve Cooper and Twyla Campbell’s house was a night full of tasty surprises. Northern Food Night (NFN) started in 2006 when Steve Cooper, who travels to Nunavut and the Northwest Territories on a regular basis, brought home a frozen hind end of a caribou. Twyla’s response was “Now what are we going to do with that?” In an effort to educate people about food products that come from Canada’s northern regions, Northern Food Night was born.

One of the surprises (and a great conversation piece) was the tray of Penguin Meatballs created by budding chef, Erin Campbell. With no Edmonton Oilers to cheer for this year in the playoffs, Erin, an outspoken Pittsburgh Penguins fan, grabbed the opportunity to say “Go Pens Go!” by creating this intriguing dish using ground caribou—because everyone knows that penguins (the animals) do not make their home in Canada’s Arctic. The original recipe (which calls for ground beef as the main ingredient) and contributed by Sidney Crosby’s mom, was taken from the Pittsburgh Penguins Family Cookbook, Goal Scorers & Gourmets.

The versatility of northern products was further shown in the making of other dishes such as grilled Korean style caribou chops, cedar-planked Arctic Char, musk ox chili, decadent yet delicate Northern Pike caviar on buckwheat blinis, melt-in-your mouth musk ox carpaccio, Thai mango & Davis Strait shrimp salad, and smoked Arctic Char rolls with a lemon and fennel cream cheese filling.

Slow Food Edmonton is fortunate to have some talented food industry people in its convivium. Hosts Steve Cooper, lover of fine foods and cooking enthusiast, and Twyla Campbell, freelance writer and food editor of Lifestyle Alberta magazine, prepared several of the dishes and received help from other Slow Food members as well. Lovoni Walker of Fabulous Food Creations Inc. prepared musk ox chops and Arctic char tartlets and supplied everyone in attendance with her beautiful cookbook, Simple Fresh Delicious. Chad Moss, master roaster at Edmonton’s Transcend Coffee, took on the task of preparing 10 pounds of walleye loins and served them atop Spanish style potatoes with a spicy aioli. City Palate Editor, Mary Bailey roasted a red wine marinated musk ox sirloin tip roast, and Carla Alexander of Soul Soup brewed up a wickedly delicious pot of spicy shrimp bisque. Gail Hall of Seasoned Solutions brought her famous chewy biscotti style Cantuccini to go with heavenly coffee made with fresh roasted beans supplied by Poul Mark of Transcend Coffee, and Dave Gardner of the Yukon Brewing Company was on hand to educate and satiate the crowd with the brewery’s internationally acclaimed beer. Canadian wines were also served to pair with the richly flavoured dishes: a robust 2005 Merlot from Sumac Ridge’s Black Sage Vineyard, Mount Boucherie’s 2006 Pinot Gris, and Quails’ Gate 2005 Old Vine Foch. Henry of Pelham’s 2006 Late Harvest Vidal and a Maple syrup/Canadian whisky liqueur called Sortilège (from Quebec) were paired with berry sorbet and Saskatoon crème brûlée created by Tara Zieminek. Oh, Canada! …you have some beautiful products!

An added bonus of the event is to make people aware of other Canadian foods that are available—not necessarily from the north—but found by members while traveling across the country or through connections in the local food industry. This year, Cyrus Shaoul introduced the attendees to Alpaca meat obtained from a local rancher. The meat was absolutely divine and very similar to beef in taste but without high saturated fat content found in many cuts of beef. More information on alpaca availability will be posted on the website in the near future. For now, anyone wishing to purchase musk ox, caribou, Arctic Char and other fine meats, can find them at Buffalo Valley Variety Meats in Edmonton.

Suppliers of products for NFN 2008:
1. Buffalo Valley Variety Meats (www.buffalovalley.ca), Edmonton suppliers of caribou, musk ox, and char
2. The Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation (www.freshwaterfish.com) - Walleye loins and Northern Pike caviar.
3. Transcend Coffee (www.transcendcoffee.com) – fresh roasted coffee
4. Kivalliq Foods (www.ndcorp.nu.ca/ndc/subs_meatandfish/kivalliq) – caribou
5. Iqaluit Enterprises (contact Jim Currie PH: 867-979-4458) – cold smoked char & shrimp
6. Kitikmeot Foods (www.nunavutmuskox.ca) – musk ox, jerky, whole char
7. Yukon Brewing Company (www.yukonbeer.com) - beer
8. Liquor Ex – #132-2833 Broadmoor Blvd., Sherwood Park, Phone: 417-0333 - wine
9. Laws Fine Foods (www.backeddys.com) – Back Eddy Spice

Photos by Michele King of Michele King Photography, Edmonton.

One of our members has recently created a Facebook group for Slow Food Edmonton. If you would like to join the Facebook group, please click here.

There will be a Slow Food Edmonton General Meeting on Sunday, Nov 4th at 3:00pm.
It will take place in the meeting room next to the food court at Organic Roots Food Market, 8225 112 St.
For a map to the meeting place, please click here.

All are welcome.

There will be speakers at the event, and we will announce them here soon.

Hope to see you all there!

Click here for a larger version of the poster.

It is called “The Power of the Land”. For more info on the event, click here!

Here are some photos that Bob sent me!

What a day! Thanks to all of the volunteers, attendees, and producers who made today such a great event. We’ll put up more info over the next few days, but here’s a today’s menu for a taste of what is local, seasonal and totally delicious right now in Edmonton.

The Beer and Venue: generously provided by
Edmonton’s Award-winning Craft-beer Brewery, Alley Kat Brewery

The Menu:

Hog Wild Specialties’ slow-roasted Wild Boar
Walden West Mustards

Little Potato Company’s Little Potato Salad with Creamy Bles-Wold yogurt-dill dressing

Kuhlmann’s roasted beets and onion with Lola Canola honey drizzle

Blue Kettle marinated Prairie Mushrooms and Greens, Eggs and Ham’s baby corn salad

Greens, Eggs and Ham mixed heritage greens with Blue Kettle vinaigrette

Tree Stone Bakery pain au levain breads
Johnson Dairies’ hand-churned butter

Pinocchio Ice Cream’s coconut ice cream
Fall apple tarts with a crumble topping by Sutton Place Hotel

Homestyle Beverages and Genuine Indian Head’s local fruit syrups in carbonated Edmonton water
Java Jive coffee

The food tasted even better because we were listening to live, local music by Edmonton’s own Terry Morrison and John Gorham

Special Thanks: Bob Robertson Communications for another great event logo design, City Palate Edmonton, Special Event Rentals, Fork Lifters – The Food Company, The Butler Did It, Zocalo, ATCO Blue Flame Kitchen, Kerstin’s Chocolates / Chocophilia, and all of our VIPs (Very Important Producers).

Here’s the Shopping Guide for the Event. Try to support these great VIPS.
The Food
Hog Wild Specialties (Mayerthorpe), www.hogwild.ab.ca; Phone: 1-888-668-9453, Products: European wild boar processed meat products: smokies, jerky, bacon, rack, tenderloin, hams, whole boar bbqs, etc.

Walden West Foods (mustards), 13303-124 Avenue, Edmonton, AB T5L 3A4; Telephone: (780) 454-3229. Email them.

The Little Potato Company, Edmonton, retails through Safeway, Costco, SaveOn, The Grocery People, The Produce People, COOP, Bon Ton, Northern Light Produce.
Organic potatoes, “Baby Boomers,” “Blushing Belles,” “Cherie,” “Piccolo,” “Amandine,” “Terrific Trio”

Bles-Wold Yogurt (Lacombe); www.bles-wold.com; Products: plain and fruit-flavoured yogurt, sour cream.

Pinocchio Ice Cream (Edmonton) 12814-163 Street; www.pinocchioicecream.com, Phone: (780) 455-1905; Products: ice creams & sorbets in 1 litre containers and 4 ounce cups.

Lola Canola Honey (Bon Accord); Phone: (780) 921-3657; Products: specialty honeys and bee products; on-farm bee-safaris.

Prairie Mushrooms Inc. (Sherwood Park); www.prairiemushrooms.com; Phone: (780) 467-3555; Products: Fresh Portabellas, white, crimini, oyster and shiitake mushrooms.

Tree Stone Bakery (Edmonton) 8612-99 Street; Phone: (780) 433-5924; Products: Artisan “pain au levain” bread, and milled organic flour.

Blue Kettle Specialty Foods (St. Albert); Phone: (780) 418-2878; Products: Salsa, chili base, pasta sauces, salad dressings / marinades, chocolate indulgence.

Kuhlmann’s Market Gardens & Greenhouses, 1320-167 Ave. NW, Edmonton, Alberta T5Y-6L6, Telephone: (780)-475-7500.
Market produce grown on the northeast edge of our city. Available year-round at the Capilano Farmers’ Market and seasonally at both the Downtown City Market and St. Alberta Farmers’ Market.

Greens, Eggs and Ham. Between Leduc and Wetaskiwin. Phone: (780) 986-8680.
Heritage and market greens and vegetables, free-range duck and chicken eggs, free-range cornish game hens and turkeys, and herbs.

Beverages
Alley Kat Brewery (Edmonton) 9929-60 Avenue; www.alleykatbeer.com; Phone: (780) 436-8922; Products: craft-brewed beers: Alley Kat Amber, Aprikat, Full Moon Pale Ale, Buffalo Beer, Charlie Flint Original Lager.

Java Jive (Edmonton), 9929-77 Avenue; Phone: (780) 432-9148; Products: Fresh Roasted Premium Coffees, Teas, Syrups and Accessories.

Homestyle Beverages Inc., RR#1, Bowden, AB, T0M 0K0; Telephone: (403) 224-3339 or Toll Free: 1-877-224-3339
Prairie fruit ciders, lemonades and syrups.

Genuine Indian Head Syrups, Old Strathcona Farmers’ Market on Saturdays. Table syrups and fruit concentrate beverage syrups in various local berry flavours.

Reasons to Eat Locally: Locally grown food tastes better.• Local produce is better for you. • Local food preserves genetic diversity • Local food supports local farm families. • Local food builds community. • Local food preserves open space. • Local food supports a clean environment and benefits wildlife. • Local food is about the future: By supporting local farmers today, you can help ensure that there will be farms in your community tomorrow, and that future generations will have access to nourishing, flavorful, and abundant food.

Mark your calendars for the third annual Wild Boar and Beer BBQ. We’ve changed the date to Sunday, September 16 this year because the summer had a number of Slow Food events already, and we’re looking forward to a wider array of local foods available at that time of the year.

For the past two years, this event has sold out over a week before, so please get your tickets early to avoid disappointment! We expect that we’ll be sold-out at least 10 days before the event. Tickets go on sale on-line on this site by July 15 and at Alley Kat by Aug 1st. Read the rest of this entry »