My favourite strawberries are locally grown ones. Their flavour and richness just doesn't compare to the store bought ones that are so large, white and flavourless. Once you taste a local strawberry (at room temperature preferably), there's no turning back. Yes, you have to wait each year until they are avaialble to truly appreciate what a real strawberry tastes like. If you have a freezer, buy lots of them, quick freeze them individually on cookie sheets and then store in airtight bags or containers. Whle fresh is still the best, frozen srawberries are the next best.
Fresh Strawberry Tart
Here's one of my favourite recipes using fresh strawberries. It's easy and delicious!
In the spring, it's rhubarb and in the fall, it's zucchini. How do these items mysteriously show up on your doorstep and what do you do them them? Well, let's talk about rhubarb and in in the fall I'll talk about zucchini.
Rhubarb is one of the hardiest plants to grow in this climate (Edmotnon, Alberta) and it's almost a given, that regardless of the type of winter we've had (and this year we had a doozie), it will grow it's gorgeous leaves and stalks. It's rhubarb time in this part of the world and I have the pleasure of presenting a cooking demonstration at the Devonian Garden's Rhubarb Festival yesterday. Despite the pouring rain, we had a good turnout. Here are some pictures and the recipes I shared with the audience. The recipes are easy, and if you don't have time now to put the recipes together (I'd start with the stewed rhubarb, because you can freeze it successfully), just wash the rhubarb and cut it into 1" lengths, put it in a plastic bag and freeze it until you have the time.
Gail setting up equipment to make stewed rhubarb
Gail speaking to the crowd about her new culinary tour to the South Okanagan, September 16 to 18, 2011
I look at the calendar and shake my head. Did Jon and I return from our eight week westfalia journey at the end of May? Was I really away? I must have been, because I'm into my third week of being back and I feel like I'm still on vacation. You know, that state of mind where you stay calm? I'm hoping this will feeling will last. although, it's been pretty busy since I've been back.
On June 1, I hosted a fabulous demonstration cooking class for thirteen staff from Grant MacEwan Univeristy. It was their pd day and it started off at Seasoned Solutions with a cooking class using local ingredients (of course) that became their lunch.
Market Loft Cooking Classes started on June 4 and continued on June 11 ( will continue through the summer -- for dates of these classes, go to www.seasonedsolutions.ca and click on loft cooking classes). These classes start off with a shopping tour of the Farmers' Market on 104 Street, stopping to speak to the vendors whose products we're using in the market class. we shop for about 45 minutes and then it's back to the loft to begin cooking a three course meal (paired with lovely Canadian wine of course!) and voila, a gorgeous menu is created: Roasted Pepper and Tomato Soup, Individual Beef Wellingtons with Lemon Garlic Potatoes, Roasted Asparagus and Sauteed Cherry Tomatoes. Dessert was a Pear and Rhubarb Clafouti. The total class length is four hours.
Roasted Pepper and Tomato Soup
Here's the recipe for the Pear and Rhubarb Clafouti. It's a simple french styled country 'pie'. The 'pastry' is more of a crepe or pancake batter. Traditionally made with stone fruit, this pie works really well with sliced pears, apples, strawberries, raspberries etc. The stewed rhubarb is an added bonus and takes less than 30 minutes to prepare. You must have friends that have too much rhubarb -- well, here's your opportunity to do something with it. I'm also doing a demonstration cooking class at the Devonian Gardens this Sunday June 19 from 2:30 to 3:30 pm in the pine facility. Why not come out and join me!
Tonight I'm hosting a cooking class that I donated to Theatre Network's Spring Fling fundraier in March. Ross Reekie and friends are coming by to cook up a storm using locally sourced ingredients.
So, life continues on. Yes I was away and look forward to the next time, but it's also good to be back.
May 27 and 28
Our stop in Medicine Hat must include a tour of the Medalta Potteries, now part of a museum complex, located in the Historic Clay District of the city. It’s undergoing expansion, scheduled for completion in early August. The site includes artist in residence studios and gift shop that carries Medalta reproductions and original Hycroft dishes. I can see a culinary tour to this part of the province….local food on local dishware!
Thank you to Barry Finkelman, General Manager and Executive Director, for the tour and to introducing me to one of your staff, Joyce Yamamoto, a friend from Toronto who moved back to Medicine Hat and who I haven’t seen in about 25 years! It’s a small world indeed.
Gail at Medalta, Gail, Joyce Yamamoto and Barry Finkelman, the kilns, pottery in the museumIs that sun I see in the sky? The rain has stopped as we head out of Medicine Hat to Hanna, Alberta, to say hi to our friends, the Biggs at TK Ranch. This is a busy and successful family operation that raises animals to produce beef, chicken, lamb and pork products that are completely antibiotic and hormone free. Just a note about their beef – it’s natural grass fed and grass finished. This is an important distinction from other beef producers that are grass fed, but finished on grain.
We tour the ‘maternity ward’, a separate pasture of pregnant cows and cows have just had their calves. We also have a peak at their hogs, an area that is under expansion.
Gail getting feed for the hogs, Julia Biggs feeding the hogsAfter a scrumptious breakfast of homemade buckwheat waffles, whipped cream and fresh fruit salad, we begin the last leg of our trek back to Edmonton.
It’s been a great seven weeks of travel with new experiences and food adventures. Thanks for following the blog and I hope you’ve been inspired to either travel, eat out or cook!
May 23, 24, 25 and 26
It’s been raining solid for the past two days. We stay overnight in Shelby, Montana. Not much to report, but we’re impressed with the tourist information centre. Of all the stops we had at tourist information centres (and there were many), this was the only one that gave us each a thank you for visiting gift pack of travel toiletries!
Because of the weather, we decide not to go to Waterton Park and cross the border into Canada at Del Bonita. We head to Cardston to tour the Remington Museum. Thank goodness the displays are indoors, where we could stay dry and wander through the displays of over 240 carriages.
We continue on to Ft. McLeod, past rising waters and flooded farmers fields. No need for irrigation in this part of the province, at least at this time of year. I call Anita Oudshoorn, the owner of Fairwinds Farm, the producer of one of my favourite goat cheese products and agree to stop in the following day.
Fairwinds Farm has grown from its small beginnings 12 years ago. They have 400 goats to milk now and an expanding production facility. Currently, production includes goat milk, yogurt, chevre, feta and hard cheese and if all goes well, I may have convinced Anita to produce Greek goat yogurt under their banner! It was well worth the visit, to finally meet Anita and see their operation.
Yogurt production at Fairwinds Farm, Gail and AnitaOn to Lethbridge, still through pouring rain. At Anita’s suggestion, we stop for a late lunch at Miró in downtown Lethbridge. The restaurant is owned by chef Miro Kyjac, originally from Czechoslovakia, and is in it’s eighth year. It’s located off the downtown square, in an historic brick building, with warm red walls, contemporary artwork and a beautiful original pressed metal ceiling. Their wine list is recognized by the Wine Spectator since 2005.
I order the soup of the day, Lentil. It’s a very welcoming bowl of vegetable broth, whole lentils and lingering flavours of celery, carrots and onion. Soup is followed by an Eggplant and Goat Cheese Lasagne. It’s three layers of grilled eggplant with generous amounts of Fairwinds Farm goat cheese on two layers, topped with a fresh tomato sauce that’s a perfect balance for the dish. It`s an appetizer, but could easily be a light entree. I would go back just to have this dish again. Jon orders the Penne with Smoked Salmon and Crème Fraîche. It’s a hit with al dente pasta, tossed with salmon that’s been freshly smoked. The flavour is sweet and strong but not overwhelming and balanced with the cream sauce. Our server, Tessa, convinces us to have one of the house made desserts and we settle on the White Chocolate Crème Brûlée. It’s lovely, and presented way that I prefer, in a wide dish that’s not deep, so there’s lots of burnt sugar covering the ½” thick creamy custard.
Lentil Soup at Miro, Eggplant and Goat Cheese Lasagne, Penne with Smoked Salmon and Crème Fraîche, White Chocolate Crème Brûlée
We arrived at the Connestoga campground yesterday and today we’re headed into town on our bicycles to do an historic tour. A highlight is the stone castle built by BR Sherman in the early 1890s of sandstone from the nearby Castle Mountain slopes. The house is now a museum, stocked with items of the era and some of them original to the Sherman family.
Historic Buildings in White Sulphur Springs, MontanaWe stop in for a bite at The Corner Stone Deli and share two sandwich platters. Foods are prepared from scratch as much as possible and cooked fresh to order. The Reuben is served on thick sliced marble rye with loads of house cooked juicy corned beef, sauerkraut, swiss cheese and 1000 island dressing. A note about the corned beef: it’s slow roasted for 4 hours, wrapped overnight to rest and carved the next day. The result is very moist and tasty corned beef that’s not pumped with salt water or sulphates to make it moist. The Grilled Chicken is another generous sandwich topped with avocado, sliced tomato, romaine and red onion. I love the use of avocado on sandwiches in the states we’ve been to – this has been a great food discovery. Both sandwiches are served with a dill pickle spear and JoJo’s fries which are had cut chips (think kettle). These are scrumptious and addictive thin potato chips, light and crispy. You can hear these fries sizzling in the background. I was also intrigued by the Mexican coke on the beverage menu. It’s made in Mexico with cane sugar, not corn sugar and is served in an old-fashioned glass coke bottle with a metal lid that needs a bottle opener. I’ve got to have one (just wish they had some dark rum…). I don’t care what anyone says, coke made with can sugar does taste better than what they are producing in Canada and the US.
Reuben Sandwich made with house cooked Corned Beef
Coke made in Mexico in a real glass bottle!
Our meal included a lovely chat with Linda Pauley the owner, about local food versus processed food. Linda recommends that I read The Unhealthy Truth which I’ll check out when I get home. If you’re ever in White Sulphur Springs, Montana, do stop by this restaurant it’s worth it for the food and conversation.
In Montana there are less that one million residents. Considering the area of the state, that works out to be just 6.2 people per square mile on average. As you can imagine people are not evenly distributed around the state; they tend to clump up in the bigger cities like Helena and Twin Falls. That means that businesses in the rural area and smaller centres find that their customers are pretty few and far between. If there is enough traffic for a particular type of business then it is unlikely that a competitor can find enough new customers to squeeze in. It also means that existing merchants sometimes have to expand their business beyond its initial offering to make ends meet.
That can lead to some pretty innovative retail combinations.
For years I have told the story about the business in rural Washington called Tony’s Towing and Tavern. That seemed like an unusual combination at the time. Now it seems more normal after witnessing the retail combinations evident in White Sulphur Springs MT. Now, I am not poking fun at the good people in WSS. Overall they are a very friendly type and it was one place on our trip where I didn’t feel the need to lock the car doors. This is more a tribute to the pioneer spirit that built the town and continues to fuel the creativity of members of the Chamber of Commerce.
The first business you find when you enter from the south is the local nursery. It sells the usual assortment of bedding plants, fertilizers and gardening supplies. Like many similar operations they sell some rustic home décor and decorative items. But to meet the needs of the coffee drinkers in WSS they also opened the first espresso bar. It’s as strange to see an espresso bar in a nursery as it is to see potting soil in a Starbucks.
On the search for a crucial ingredient for our daily gin and tonic, we had trouble locating the local liquor store. The grocery store (which is on Main Street but you have to enter from the alley) had wine and beer as usual in the US but no gin. The clerk’s directions did not resolve our search. Finally, a second set of directions got us to the ‘General Mercantile Store’ which clearly sold a whole range of family fashions and sewing notions. Once inside we also found a fully stocked Liquor Store. “Pick up a bottle of gin and a sweater for me at the store on your way home.” They also stocked ice fishing equipment but none of the clerks could explain how the strange rig was used.
We found that the local real estate broker also owned and operated the local deli/bistro and the recommended breakfast place sold a full range of ammunition to reflect the diverse interests of the owners.
When customers are scarce then you find a niche market and fill it as a way to maintain your cash flow. Clearly there are few rules in the County to restrict the range of goods offered in any particular business establishment. I guess you should expect that in the free-wheeling state of Montana.
That’s what I am thinking about.
Jon Hall
The rain has caused havoc with highway travel and we finally get to Jackson Hole after a major diversion due to a mud slide.
Jackson Hole is a western town indeed with a history of cowboys and gunslingers (Butch Cassidy passed through these parts). We stop in at the Wort Hotel for a bite to eat. The Wort family is well known as the family that started this town. Pa Wort arrived in the late 1890’s to homestead and in the 1900’s wanted to establish a town centre that included a restaurant, hotel, and community centre. While the hotel didn’t get finished in his lifetime, his sons completed it in the 1940’s. It was destroyed by fire and re-built. Dark wood lines the walls and the bar is solid wood as well. Pictures of stars from movies filmed in Jackson line the walls (the movie Shane was shot here).We dine in the hotel’s restaurant and order a Wort Blue Cheese Burger with Bacon, hand cut fries and signature coleslaw. It’s a big burger at 8 oz. and we decide to, share the meal (that was a good idea). This was a good choice – moist, thick burger, topped with blue cheese, thick cut bacon, tomato and lettuce. Jon wanted a burger and was not diappointed by the one we had here.
Jon standing by a bank of snow along the hwy through Teton National Park
It’s time to leave and start our way through Teton National Park and then Yellowstone, stopping at Old Faithful, to see this well-known geyser. We arrive just before 7 and we’re in luck as the next eruption of the geyser is at 7:05 pm. We watch, wait and there she blows! Over 130 feet high and 204 F. The eruption lasts for about 5 minutes. Eruptions are approx. 93 minutes apart.
Old Faithful geyser erupting at 7:05 pm
Old Faithful geyer erupting at 8:40 pm from a different viewpoint
We walk over to the Old Faithful Lodge to check it out this historic building. These are original log structures built around WW1. I convince Jon that we should check out the overnight rates and we do. They are very reasonable and we take a budget cabin for $67 dollars, which overlooks a river, a ‘baby’ geyser and wildlife (bison). We walk back to the Old Faithful geyser viewing station and watch it erupt with the sun setting behind it. It is a beautiful sight. We then strolled to another lodge on the sight, called Old Faithful Inn. This was the first building on the property back in 1904. It is original log wood construction with four floors. We stop in for a night cap and enjoy our beverages from the mezzanine, overlooking the lobby and in the background live piano music. With stops like this one, it’s not hard to say that life is pretty darn good.
Old Faithful Lodge at night and in the daytime
Gail standing in the doorway of a cabin at Old Faithful Lodge
For any of you readers out there who have gone on a vacation in your own vehicle and have had vehicle problems, you’ll be able to relate to this day’s tale of woe. We’ve had a few problems with our 1986 VW Vanagan on this trip and luckily, we’ve landed in cities were there are VW experts. These shops are rare and are becoming harder and harder to locate. But luck was on our side when we encountered problems in April while in Berkeley, CA and today when we were in Ogen Utah. BC Automotive specializes in VW work and luckily they could take us in right away. With parts and work involved it could mean being in Ogden for the next 4 or 5 days. So we prepared ourselves for this. But, when the car was up on the hoist, Kerry, the mechanic, diagnosed another problem which meant less cost, but still the same length of time for the repair as parts needed to be ordered. The part would be ordered in the morning and shipped to the shop for Monday. We were able to drive the van that night, stopped for a bite to eat at Rancherito and then stayed in a hotel as it was raining pretty hard.
We returned to the shop at 9 am Friday and got some great news. Colton, parts guy extraordinaire, had already ordered the part we needed the night before (not realizing it was the part we needed, but just filling in inventory of parts that had been used recently). The van would be ready by 10:30 am Friday and we could continue on our journey north. A very big thank you to Kirk the owner of BC Automotive and to his staff Colton and Kerry. This is the type of shop that people with VW from miles around, other States, and yes even Canada, come to for service. I can understand why indeed!
We’re on the road heading to Lava Hot Springs for two reasons – the hot springs and a Thai restaurant that gets good ratings. We arrive at the Riverwalk Thai Café mid-afternoon and decide to go for a late lunch/early dinner.
The food is good, but I admit, we have better Thai in Edmonton. The Spring Rolls are large deep fried rice paper rolls filled with bean thread noodles and vegetables served with a homemade sweet chili dipping sauce. Tasty, not greasy and quite filling.
We share the Stir Fried Broccoli and Chicken. It’s a lightly seasoned dish and could have used a bit more oomph. I will admit that the dish was plentiful, lots of thinly sliced chicken medallions and fresh broccoli that’s not overcooked. We decide to order the Thai Chicken with Cashew Nuts as take out for dinner later that evening. This was an outstanding dish with loads of chicken, cashews, celery, carrots, onions and bell pepper.
Spring Rolls and Chicken with Broccoli at the Riverwalk Thai Restaurant in Lava Springs
Next it’s over to the State owned hot springs for a dip in the pools. Something I need, as it’s been raining and on the cool side.
We’re back on the road to head to Star Mountain RV Resort in Thayne Montana.
We depart Vegas on May 17 and head north overnighting in an RV campground in Beaver Utah (at over 6,000 ft above sea level). It's late and we're hungry, so I fix up a quinoa jambolaya -- not bad for a one pot camping dish. How can you go wrong with lots of sauteed onions, peppers, bacon, fresh sausages and chopped tomatoes all stewed and tossed with cooked quinoa? We settle in for the evening.
Low and behold, we wake up to a load of heavy snow!
Our VW covered in snow at Beaver, Utah
Breakfast at the Timberline Café, in Beaver (it’s too cold to put anything together in the campervan) and I experience my first order of ‘biscuits and gravy’. This is a common breakfast item in these and southern parts. Do I want a full order (two biscuits) or a half order (one biscuit)? I ask, "Does it come with any protein?" It doesn't, so I order a half order of bacon (in my world, bacon is protein when on vacation...). Well, as you can see from the picture below, a half order is pretty big and pretty beige (except for the itty bitty piece of kale in the corner). Carboydrates aside (and yes, I got enough for the rest of the week), this was very tasty. A homemade baking powder biscuit (scone) that's flaky and high, thick gravy mixed with pieces of chicken and hash browns that are awesome, more like a rosti or latke of freshly grated potatoes fried up to order. On a cold morning, the carbohydrates did the trick of keeping me warm. Hmmm, hmmm good!
Gail's first experience eating biscuits and gravy
Jon's order of French toast and bacon
We head to Salt Lake City and thank goodness leave the snow behind for pouring rain and tour the Mormon Temple Square. Non-members can’t go into the temple, but we did tour the church, tabernacle and welcome centres.
It’s still raining when we get back to the van. With time on the meter, we stop at a coffee shop that also houses Utah artists crafts, called Utah Artists Hands (at 61 West 100 South, SLC). Thanks Pamela, for preparing a superb Americano for me, latte for Jon and convincing me to buy two Magic Cookie Bars for our afternoon snack break as well as suggesting some places to stop on our travels. Personal testimonials for places to see always seem to result in great experiences.
It’s still pouring as we head to our campground for the evening. We try out our camper indoor stove for the first time since we have owned our VW. We don't want the van to get too infused with cooking odours so we usually cook outside at a picnic table using our Coleman stove. It’s too cold and wet tonight. The indoor stove works really well as I pan fry up some steaks purchased at Whole Foods and prepare a fresh guacamole, using an avocado given to us by a camping neighbour in Carpinteria (the avocado was grown in his own backyard back home). Simple good food for a simple day. Let’s hope for better weather tomorrow. This campground has some natural hot springs that we need to try out before we depart.
Enlightened Epicurean, Chef, Writer and Educator
I'm back from a two month sojourn with my husband Jon. We travelled over 11,400 km in our Westfalia van and visited over 40 cities in Western Canada and the United States. Check out previous blog postings for my food experiences and Jon's thoughts on life in between food stops. We're back in Edmonton and my food experiences still continue to amaze me!
