Category Archives: Meta

Hurrah! Time for picnics, fireworks and grilling up a mess of food!

What are your plans for today? We will be grilling a chicken, and having grilled veggies with it. (And maybe some pasta. I haven’t decided yet.)

Also, if you’re in the area, be sure to check out the St. Norbert Farmers’ Market. It’s open today for it’s first Wednesday of the season from 1pm-7pm. Free cake at 2pm!

And if you didn’t notice, or are reading this on an RSS feed, Winnipeg Eats now has a Twitter account. I often run across little bits of info that just don’t seem big enough for a whole blog post, and they end up slipping by. I’ll be using Twitter for these little newsbits: recall information in Manitoba, restaurant and food news, and whatever else happens my way. You can follow me at http://twitter.com/WinnipegEats, or you can read my five most recent “tweets” in the widget on the right side of the page on the blog. Enjoy!

Just a quick update! (School starts tomorrow! Eek!)

My profile for The Mondragon Coffeehouse went live on Friday. I love The Mondragon. We often meet friends there frequently for coffee on the weekends, and I am a big fan of the food and the atmosphere.

The Mondragon is located in the Exchange District, right next to The Fyxx and across the street from the Lineup.

Where indeed?

It’s been a completely insane summer. First of all, summers are typically crazy around here. Winnipeggers get a whole three months in which to get outside, enjoy nature and not get frostbite. (Ok, ok… four months. But one of those months is all rain or mosquitoes.) My husband and I try to take full advantage of the sunny, hot weather while we can. He claims he can save up heat and use it during the winter, but he hasn’t shown me how to do that yet.

Anyway, this summer was crazier than most. First, we bought a new car, and then went on a long road trip out to British Columbia to visit family. I’ve also quit my job (eek! scary!) and gone back to school (really scary!) to study technical communication. On top of everything else, we unfortunately had a death in the family as well.

So, I apologize for pulling the vanishing act. It’s probably not a problem for anyone who uses an RSS reader to get their blogs (something which I highly recommend doing, by the way; Google Reader is free and fantastic), but if you were coming here regularly looking for updates I am really sorry. Hopefully things are under control now (although I’m making no promises for December, when a lot of projects are going to be due.)

Anyway, this summer:

• I had a photo in Slashfood’s Feast Your Eyes feature. Basically, you just submit photos to their Flickr pool, and if they catch the editor’s eye you’re in. :)
• Maple Leaf Foods had a massive recall of foods from one plant due to a listeria outbreak. I will probably noodle on about this later, since I have some strong feelings on this subject.
• Also in recall news, White Rabbits have been recalled. Noooooooooo! I love those candies. Hopefully they can get this sorted out soon.
• Still speaking of recalls, it turns out that problems in Canada’s food safety network were identified in 2005, but the report from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency was never followed up on. Nice. I’m disturbed by this, but happy that it’s becoming an election issue.

Anyway, that’s how my summer went. How was yours?

Thanks for your patience! We’re back from our long road trip to the States, finally. It’s wonderful being able to see my family, but I’m happy to be home (and the cats are certainly happy to see us, too.)

One of the stops on our trip was to have Thanksgiving dinner with my mother’s family in Pennsylvania. Growing up, I had never given Thanksgiving a lot of thought as to what the holiday entailed. We either hosted a large number of family members at our house, or we travelled to someone else’s house where we became the visiting family. Large quantities of food were consumed, and the time was passed chatting and watching some of the various bowl games for college football.

Now, living in Canada, it’s interesting being able to see this American holiday from a Canadian perspective. At work, most of our clients are based in the States. As a result, we typically have the American holidays off. I was amused when I first heard my co-workers referring to the US Thanksgiving holiday as “bigger than Christmas,” but as I started to think about it I realized they were right. Christmas might be the most important holiday to the US economy, but Americans themselves place a lot of importance on Thanksgiving. After all, they usually only get one day off for Christmas, but Thanksgiving garners two days off (unless you work in retail).

I wondered about that for a while. After discussing it with my husband, we concluded that it might be due to a few things. First, Thanksgiving is a major holiday that has no religious implications, thus giving it a universal appeal. It doesn’t matter if you’re Christian, Muslim, Hindu or athiest, everyone can enjoy sitting down with family to a fantastic feast. After all, the “first Thanksgiving” was originally celebrated with the Christian pilgrims, a few converted Christian Native Americans, and a tribe of Native Americans who did not follow Christianity.

Secondly, Thanksgiving cannot be merchandised, no matter how hard companies may try. Oh, you can buy turkey decorations for your yard, and ceramic cornucopia centerpieces for the table, but the basic Thanksgiving boils down to family+friends+food=holiday. There are no gifts, except for the bottle of wine that your mother-in-law always insists on bringing. So unless you buy your friends, the only thing you need to spend money on is the food, as little or as much as you want.

Maybe it’s just a matter of perspective, but it just doesn’t seem that Thanksgiving is as big of a deal in Canada as it is the in the States. Oh, people will go all out with turkeys and whatnot, but it just seems to be lower-key here. I’m not sure why. (Maybe because it’s on a Monday? Or because it’s so far away from Christmas?) On the other hand, Christmas seems to be a much larger deal here than in the US. I guess it’s all perspective.

Anyway, welcome to December! It’s time to start planning Christmas cookies, hams and pot-luck contributions. Whee!

Before I started this blog, I was taking photos of our dinners. I posted a few of them to my personal journal, and got some good feedback. My husband took some of the photos to work to show his co-workers (and sometimes to help illustrate a particular recipe they were talking about), and the common reaction was: “Why are you taking pictures of your dinner?”

Well, I was doing it because it was fun, and it gave me a chance to practice my new photography skills. I continue to do it for the challenge. I know I’m a rank amatuer when it comes to this sort of thing, and I have the links to prove it! :)

* Simply Breakfast is, quite simple, breakfast. Jen of Simply Photo has taken a photo of her breakfast almost every day. Toast with marmalade, omlette with slices of tomato, or banana pancakes, she makes every single breakfast a work of art.

* Tastespotting is the metablog for all things food porn. Photos and links are submitted, and the results are displayed on the page. It’s a fairly high traffic blog, so you’re almost always guaranteed to see something new every time you visit.

* Finally, for some how-to there is the food photography page of professional food photographer Michael Ray. He has tips on taking your own photos, lots of great information on lighting, and basics about the profession and general photograpy tips. (He also has a page on food stylists… How do I get that job?)

My newest article for Food for Thought has been posted, featuring the Forks Market.

We love visiting the Forks, no matter what time of year it is. I think most Winnipeggers feel the same way, and it was nice to be able to (virtually) share the place with people who might not be familiar with it.

Oooh! That reminds me… I bought a little “drink box” of Three Thieves pinot grigio while we were down at Fenton’s last week. I’m curious to see how it’ll be. (And a small part of me wishes that it came with a straw glued to the side….)

Sorry for the lack of post-age recently. We’re slowly gearing up for our yearly vacation, and that has taken up a lot of my brain cells.

I read an interesting post a while ago (Oct 12?! good grief) on Tigers & Strawberries. Barbara wrote about the phenomona of “picky eaters” when it comes to kids. A recent study out of University College in London claims that genetics plays a role in creating picky eaters. Barbara disputes that, arguing that picky eaters are made, not born.

We don’t have children, so I can’t speak from direct experience, but I know that if we did have kids we would try to show them a world relatively free of “junk” food. If we didn’t want them eating Cheesy Poofs, we wouldn’t have Cheesy Poofs in the house. Simple. Once the kid was older, we’d have discussions about why some foods are treats, only to be eaten on occasion. I know that with marketing and outside influences, it’s getting harder and harder to control exactly what foods a kid will eat, but at least those first few years will be totally in your control.

My mother likes telling the story about me from when I was very young – one or two years old. (I don’t remmeber this at all, but who argues with mom?) My parents were your typical 70′s hippies, and my diet consisted of lots of vegetables and grains purchased from the local food co-op. Sweet was fruit, and chocolate meant carob. My parents left me in the care of a friend one night, and they said that I could have a cookie if I was good. When the babysitter tried to give me a cookie, I refused, and demanded that I get an apple instead. (I’m not sure I would do the same thing today, but at least I started off on the right foot.)

Anyway… Enough with the tangent. Barbara linked to another post on a blog written by Hugh Garvey. In it, Hugh advocates not cooking down to your kids, because you never know what they’ll end up loving (like his kids liking anchovies). This was further illustrated a few entries later, where Barbara posted photos of her baby happilly devouring pasta with eggplant, kale and carmelized onion. (That recipe looks fabulous, by the way.)

Eggplant, kale and onion? Ten years ago I wouldn’t have dreamed about eating somthing like that. I would have made a face and walked away, choosing something much more pedestrian. It wasn’t until I got married to a man with very adventurous tastes in food that I learned to at least try something before writing it off, and give it a chance – you never know what you’re going to like. I see people doing that all the time, especially at work. For potlucks, some people will bring in some absolutely yummy ethinic dishes: curries, cabbage rolls, or soups laden with strange meats and herbs… And they’ll sit mostly untouched. People will dive into the chili and ham & cheese wraps, but they won’t even think about trying something new. It’s sad, really.

So, next week, when North America is consumed with candy (and the aquisition thereof), take a night to try something new: a meat, vegetable, fruit or a spice that you never would have considered eating before. Even if it’s just something simple that you’ve never had before, like the dragonfruit pictured above, give it a whirl. I’ll try the same thing and post what I had and how I liked it.