It’s wonderful that we have so many opportunities to wine, dine, indulge and celebrate in Winnipeg. But trying to keep up to date on all these foodie goings on, in spite of post-its, email reminders, scraps of paper, bookmarks and the like, is a huge task in its own right.
But then I discovered Google calendar. As I encounter new events I bang them in and there they all are at a glance by day, week or month. Web accessible, I can call up the details from almost anywhere and decide what I’m going to do. Plus it sends me reminders.
If it works for me, it can work for anyone, so I thought why not share my compilation of discoveries with fellow bon vivants. That’s why I created Savour Winnipeg in the first place. So here it is…a calendar of food events around Winnipeg.
Time’s a wastin. Check the main nav or side bar for the newly added Calendar option, or click this link and start exploring Winnipeg.
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calendar, food events winnipeg
David Punter, retired professor of Botany at the University of Manitoba, prepares to lead the Manitoba Naturalists Society on a field excursion.
I’d almost forgotten when the call came.
We’ll be meeting at the Southdale Mall McDonald’s at 1:00pm.
It occurred to me I wouldn’t know how to identify them, but they were an unmistakable group.
The telltale clipboards, cargo pants and wide-brimmed hats told me I’d found my people.
The Manitoba Naturalists Society’s mushroom picking campaign was about to roll out.
I had only a vague idea of where we were going (the fungherati closely guard the location of their caches). Nevertheless I piled into a car with three strangers.
Leading the procession, David Punter, retired Professor of Botany of the University of Manitoba.
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edible mushrooms, funghi, manitoba, musroom picking
The Winnipeg Leisure Guide hit stands August 12.
Available direct to Winnipeg Free Press subscribers, and through arenas, civic pools, libraries, leisure centres, and 200 local retailers, it lines up hundreds of activities to keep Peggers busy through the fall.
Given that two of my favourite leisure activities are cooking and eating, I’m always thrilled to see what’s available in the cooking section which has been expanding year after year. It’s buried in the adult leisure segment, but I’ve extracted the food pages and posted the image below.
At the the very back of the guide there’s also a special foodie interest lineup (although they’ve titled it “foody”) at the Assiniboine Park Conservatory. According to the guide: “The foody series incorporates delectable food samplings prepared by local chefs sprinkled with historical and horticultural tidbits, topped off with expert pairings from the Manitoba Liquor Marts.”
I’ve posted the excerpt for this section too, but PDFs of all the Leisure Guide sections are available at http://www.winnipeg.ca/cms/recreation/leisureguide.stm
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Cook, Eat, Learn
cooking lessons, winnipeg leisure guide
I’d been meaning to make another batch of burgers and suddenly it hit me. I didn’t have to settle for the pre-packaged ground mystery meat to make those burgers tonight because I was the proud owner of a food processor. I could chop, mince, shred, grate and blend whatever I wanted.
In this case, I hoped to strike a textural balance with a tasty, fatty meat, mostly minced, with some nice juicy chunks throughout. So I swung by a mega mart (it was close and I was biking) to see what I could find. I’d seen burger recipes that called for ground chuck. So that, I thought, was a good starting point.
There was an impressive selection of cuts, but no chuck. Knowing only that fat is a friend of great burgers, there were several apparently viable options. But I didn’t want to end up with something tough as shoe leather that lent itself more to braising than barbeque.
When in doubt, ask about. As luck would have it, a fellow in a white smock with a clipboard was counting inventory.
You must be an American, he said.
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burger, butcher, ground beef
Stay Active. Eat Like a Champion. March is Nutrition Month.
That’s a tagline at Nutrition 2009, a website created in partnership with the Dietitians of Canada and Dairy Farmers of Canada.
At the core, it captures what I think is a pretty healthy attitude towards food. If you eat a balanced diet that follows Canada’s Food Guide for Healthy Eating, and get 30 minutes of activity per day, you can enjoy those little indulgences without the guilt that all too often accompanies them. In fact, a good nutritionist will tell you there’s room for all foods (it’s just that a few of them…often the really tasty ones, are what they call sometimes foods). Visit the Nutrition 2009 website, and learn more about what you can do to promote a healthy and balanced lifestyle.
Or use Nutrition Month as an excuse to introduce some healthy new ingredients into your repertoire. Instead of that hunk of beef, try locally raised Elk or Bison that offers more protein and less fat per serving. Or go completely vegetarian one night a week. Try out the recipe finder at Manitoba’s Peak of the Market website. Specify the veg you want to use, and it’ll find you delicious recipes that feature it.
Or expand your food savvy with quizzes at Health Canada, Nutirition 2009 , or check out Shamona Harnett’s Test Your Food IQ column in today’s Winnipeg Free Press.
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nutrition month
One of the handiest resources I’ve found in my online foodie travels is the Menu Manitoba website. As the name suggests, it’s an online compilation of menus from hundreds of restaurants in Winnipeg and surrounding area.
If you’re looking for some new ideas on dining digs, or can’t find a restaurant menu elsewhere, chances are this site can help you out.
Visit www.MenuManitoba.com
Eat, Learn
Winnipeg restaurant menu
There’s been a ton of renos and rebuilds at the Madison Square shopping centre near Polo Park lately. No exception, the Liquor Mart has undergone a face-lift and is now one of the swankest in the fleet.
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bison, mise, MLCC, terry gereta
Legend has it that a group of Dutch exporters and French vintners thought to maximize shipping (and profit) by distilling their wines. At the final destination they would reconstitute the product, approximating the original.
They were mistaken. Shipped in oak barrels, the wine’s flavour was irrevocably altered.
However, they had quite by accident discovered a new spirit. Deriving its name from the Dutch word brandewijn, or burnt wine, it was immortalized as brandy.
Today, two French regions are considered the unequivocal masters of this spirit—Cognac and the slightly lesser known Armagnac.
Of the two, Cognac remains king but connoisseurs contend that Armagnac is a superior quaff.
Eager to learn what all the fuss was about, I headed for the MLCC flagship store at Grant Park…and disappointment.
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Drink, Learn
armagnac, cognac, fentons winnipeg
