Flavourful Saskatoon, February 27, 2012

Foodie news and events in and around Saskatoon – women feed the world, cheese-making, granola bars, and philosophy - don't you wish you were here? 

Women and Girls Feeding the World, March 11
Attend Women and Girls Feeding the World, a celebration of International Women’s Day, on Sunday, March 11, from 1:30 to 4:00 pm at the Saskatoon Farmers’ Market.

There will be entertainment, education and refreshments as you share and learn about the importance of food and food security in the lives of women. (via @S_Beev - thank you!)

Executive Chef Dinner, Saskatoon Farmers’ Market, March 15
Ryan Marquis, Executive Chef of the Delta Bessborough, will be cooking up a storm at the Saskatoon Farmers’ Market's Executive Chef Dinner on Thursday, March 15.

Chef Ryan is a two-time winner of the Silver Medal at the Saskatchewan Gold Plates. His menu includes Caramelized Squash & Jalapeño Bisque, Roasted Beet Carpaccio, Rhubarb Wine Drunken Northern Pike with Lentil Salad and Layered Carrot Pâvé, and Folded Blueberry & Strawberry Tart finished with Maple Cassis Sabayon.

Tickets are available online or at the Farmers’ Market office, Tuesdays through Saturdays.

Cheese Making Workshop, March 21 & 22
The Saskatchewan Food Industry Development Centre’s first cheese-making workshop was so popular that they’re holding another one on March 21 and 22.

Locally-Made Granola Bars???
The Saskatchewan Food Industry Development Centre now has equipment to form, cut and wrap granola bars. If you have a food idea that would be a good fit for the Centre’s bar manufacturing equipment, contact the Food Centre’s Product Development Manager, Sara Lui at slui@foodcentre.sk.ca.



We Wish You Were Here
I am a strong supporter of local food products and local culinary entrepreneurs, so I've signed up for wewishyouwerehere.ca, an independent social media campaign to get together and tell the world what a great province we live in. We're not just the province with the funny name. We have forests and grasslands, fabulous restaurants, fruit wineries and distilleries, pulses and grains, and so much more. Join me at wewishyouwerehere.ca.


The Table Comes First
The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food by Adam Gopnik is a personal, subjective look at food and the place it holds in our lives. If you enjoy philosophical conversations, this book is well worth reading.

“The table comes first, before the meal and even before the kitchen where it’s made. It precedes everything in remaining the one plausible hearth of family life, the raft to ride down the river of our existence even in the hardest times. The table also comes first in the sense that its drama – the people who gather at it, the conversation that flows across it, and the pain and romance that happen around it – is more essential to our real lives, and also to the real life of food in the world, than any number of arguments about where the zucchini came from, and how far it had to travel before it got here. If our questions of food matter, it is because they imply most of the big fights about who we are – our notions of clan and nation, identity and the individual.”

And, if you have noticed the growing number of food bloggers in Saskatoon, perhaps it is indicative of our evolving food culture:

“But in Paris, and only in Paris, was there yet a real food scene – a mass of critics, diners, chefs, and above all writers who were talking and writing about food in new ways. They didn’t eat more in Paris. They couldn’t. But they did talk about it more than they did in other places, and then wrote about the things they said.”

Flavourful Saskatoon is a weekly Monday feature. I also post regular profiles of culinary entrepreneurs, new restaurants and new food products.

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