Monthly Archives: June 2010

I didn’t think I liked waffles that much. For me, they weren’t a common food item growing up, and when we did have them they were usually pretty dry and banal. So I have to admit that I wasn’t all too excited when I first heard about a waffle van in Edmonton – intrigued, certainly, but not excited.

Well, now I’m excited. I’ve tried Eva Sweet’s waffles, and they are freaking delicious. They make the perfect snack food when you’re craving something just a little sweet. If you order a plain one it comes in tinfoil and you can eat it on the go – and portability is pretty huge when it comes to street food. You can also get them with toppings, though these aren’t as traditional, and they are certainly much messier.

Bamir Basha in his waffle van (photo c/o Bryan Birtles, Vue Weekly)

Eva Sweet is as close as you’re going to get to a traditional Belgian Liege waffle in Edmonton. (Most people are probably familiar with the Brussels waffle, which is a less sweet, more savoury version of the Belgian waffle.) I encourage everyone to try one of them – the van is parked outside the WCB building on 107 Street and 99 Avenue every day from about 7am to 2pm. Last Saturday it was also set up at the City Centre Market, and you’ll probably see it pop up at various festivals and markets throughout the summer.

For more info, check out my profile of Eva Sweet in this week’s Vue Weekly, as well as the Eva Sweet website.

• Because pink wine is so passé: it’s all about orange wine now, baby.

• And if wine isn’t your thing, how about some homemade infused vodka, perhaps with such exotic ingredients as wasabi and soy sauce, or black truffle? I think I’ll skip the one made with whale bile though, thanks anyway.

• File this under “Well, duh” – women are better beer tasters than men.

• Not the Riesling! Nooooo! – A proposed plan for a 525-foot-high bridge, dropped smack in the middle of Germany’s prestigious Mosel region, could mean the end of a huge tract of centuries-old vineyards that produce some of the finest Riesling in the world.

please, let's not destroy these gorgeous vineyards

• Apparently Starbucks isn’t happy with having a coffee shop on every corner – now they’re experimenting with a wine/coffee “theatre.”

• In related news, whether they’re serving you wine or a grande, half-sweet, sugar-free, cinnamon dulce, non-fat, chai tea misto, that Starbucks barista totally hates you.

• Why does this fish have three eyes? Genetically modified salmon, coming to a grocery store near you.

• Edmonton’s own beer aficionado, Jason Foster, will be hosting a couple of beer seminars this summer (complete with beer samples from Alley Kat and Amber’s!), one on July 6 and one on August 3. For more info, check out the post on Jason’s site, here.

• As part of the Edmonton International Jazz Festival, there will be several jazz artists performing at various venues around town, including Jeffrey’s Cafe & Wine Bar, Blue Chair Cafe, The Copper Pot, and Yardbird Suite.

A couple weeks ago, while browsing through the fresh produce at the Old Strathcona Farmer’s Market, I stumbled upon Just a Splash – Kirsten MacNeil’s table of homemade wine jellies. “Wine jelly?” I asked myself. “I must know more!”

simple packaging belies the complex contents...

Wine jelly is just that – jelly made from wine. Kirsten uses several different wines to make her jellies, and she has most of them available for sampling. I was really impressed with their flavour so I purchased a couple: I decided to be a purist and stick to the single-wine jellies, so I bought the Shiraz and icewine versions. However, I think I’ll definitely be back for more of her other combinations (she uses fruit and herbs in some of the other ones).

The jellies are made with only the absolutely necessary ingredients – wine, sugar, pectin, and fresh herbs or fruit (depending on the recipe). No preservatives, no artificial colouring. They have a very distinct wine-y character – I wasn’t really able to pick up any signature Shiraz aromas in the Shiraz jelly, though it definitely tastes of a full-bodied, fruity red wine. Similarly, you can taste that the icewine jelly is made from sweeter, dessert-type wine. The Shiraz jelly has a runnier consistency than the icewine jelly, likely owing to its lower sugar content and higher alcohol level. Still, they are both very pleasant in their own unique ways.

I'm gonna go ahead and declare this a presentation win

I find that the wine jellies are a little too sweet to eat just by themselves – but they are absolutely phenomenal with cheese and crackers. I dolloped the icewine jelly over some stinky blue cheese and it was heavenly! The Shiraz jelly went quite nicely with old cheddar and smoked gouda. I also tried some of the Shiraz jelly in a breakfast sandwich with egg, cheese, and ham – I know it sounds a little weird, but it was really tasty! You could get really creative with them, and experimenting with different pairings is highly entertaining. (Though occasionally really, really weird tasting.) I imagine you could also incorporate these in a variety of desserts, and they would probably add a really interesting dimension of flavour.

Icewine Jelly, meet Danablu. I just know the two of you will get along smashingly.

Curious to know a bit more about Kirsten and her jellies, I emailed her a few questions. Read on for her responses!

When did you start making wine jellies?

I started making the wine jellies years ago, but only for personal use – then I decided to go commercial with them this April.

Where did you get the idea to use wine to make jelly?

I was a sales rep for a major Canadian wine company for eight years and have cooked with wine for years; I put wine in EVERYTHING!

What types of wine do you use in the jelly?

I primarily use Peller Estates wines, from Canada.

What is your favourite wine jelly? How about your favourite wine to drink – is there a difference?

My favourite is the Caramelized Onion Roasted Garlic Red Wine jelly. I don’t have a favourite wine; I love to pair wine with whatever I am eating.

Is there a grape/type of wine you tried to use to make jelly, that just didn’t work? What wines make the best jellies, and why?

The only jelly that I decided not to put wine in is the Rosemary Mint (it tasted like mouthwash). I prefer to use single grape varietals as opposed to blends, so the flavours really shine through.

Any other comments?

I am continually creating new wine jellies and have a fantastic time experimenting with new ingredients and flavour combinations, so please keep visiting me at the Farmer’s Market and see what new jellies I have!

have you ever actually examined Jäg's logo? it's neat

Seems you guys have as much of a taste for spirits as you do for wine! I invite you to check out the inaugural article of my new spirits column in Vue Weekly, aptly named Living Proof. Actually, the column isn’t new – they ran it for several months previously, but it stopped at the beginning of 2010. I’ve revived the column’s spirit (pun fully intended), and it is set to run monthly.

Each piece will focus on one spirit at a time, delving into its origins, modern adaptations, and uses as a drink/cocktail. The first one features Jägermeister, that staple bar drink of college-age kids. However, there’s more to Jäg than Jägerbombs – read the article to find out what!

I’m open to suggestions for future Living Proof spirits, so let me know if you’re dying to read a profile of something specific!

(More shameless self-promotion: also in this week’s Vue Weekly is my profile of the Feats Festival, a festival of dance that starts this weekend.)

• Last week a huge mudslide buried several vineyards and orchards in the southern Okanagan; it also destroyed five homes. The vineyards were on the famous Golden Mile, which means that these were good vines that got buried. A tough start to the growing season for many wineries.

aerial shot of the slide, courtesy of CBC.ca

• The British government spends a LOT of money on wine. Why am I thinking that the only things in the cellar at 24 Sussex Drive are a few bottles of cheap rye and an aged case of Molson Canadian?

• Culinary Anthropology: check out this totally hilarious video journey through the world of drive-in movie theatres. Looks like I missed out on a great time.

• A great little piece on why you should never send food back in a restaurant. Ever. (For the record, this is something I would only consider doing in an extreme case. You just don’t want to piss off the people who are handling your food.)

• File this under Completely Repulsive: it’s National Insect Week in the UK, and apparently some people choose to celebrate this by eating dishes with various creepy-crawlies languishing within. Chocolate-covered ants are one thing, but meal worm salsa?!

*blargh*

• The Sugarbowl‘s next Alley Kat cask ale night is this Thursday, June 24, hosted by local beer guru Jason Foster. Check out his review of the first cask ale night, and if you’re planning to attend this one, get there early – last time, the cask was drained within 90 minutes.

• Also on June 24 is a four-course wine and food dinner at The Copper Pot – check out the menu here.

• Edmonton’s newest wine bar, LIT Italian Wine Bar, just opened its doors; I haven’t visited them yet but it’s on the agenda. I noticed their website has finally got a bit of content on it, including their food menu (the lobster gnocchi sounds fab) and wine menu (Italian wines galore!).

• Gurvinder Bhatia of Vinomania is hosting a four-day wine and food tour of the Napa Valley and San Francisco. I did a similar trip on my own a couple years ago, and I can fully vouch for the awesome-ness of these places, especially for foodies and oenophiles.

• Finally, this last piece isn’t really related to food and drink – on the surface anyways. But internet trolling is an issue that affects every single person who surfs the web, and Mattathias Schwartz’s article on trolls is easily the best exposé I’ve ever read on the subject.

an extremely accurate depiction of most internet trolls

A couple summers ago it was Tetra Paks ; last summer it was the Shuttle, and this summer it’s a triad of innovative packaging: the Octavin, the Wineberry Box, and Le Froglet. I wonder what next summer will bring?

alternative packaging of summers past...

Undoubtedly the standard glass bottle will retain its position as the classic wine container. However, I completely agree that alternative packaging has its place in the world of wine. Inevitably this place is usually housing simple bulk wines that are meant to be consumed immediately after release. Convenience and portability are key factors; there is a good reason why these are all released during the summer months, when people are looking for something to bring to barbecues and picnics. Additionally, these packagings are hailed as being more environmentally sound than traditional glass bottles, as they are often made from post-consumer recycled materials and are lighter in weight, thus consuming less fuel during transportation.

This year’s first innovation in wine packaging is the Octavin Home Wine Bar, which is a rather self-important name for something that is essentially just a bag-in-box wine gussied up to look a little more chic – you won’t find any neon colours, cartoon critters, or generally tacky layouts on these suckers. Now, the unfortunate aesthetics of bag-in-boxes hasn’t kept them from becoming extremely popular: over half of all wine in Australia is sold in this format, and sales remain steady and/or increasing throughout the rest of the world as well.

But many wine producers recognized that some people are a little hesitant to proudly display these garish wine boxes in plain sight of their judgmental dinner guests, so they came up with this alternative. Admittedly, the Octavin wouldn’t look too bad perched on the edge of your kitchen counter for the couple weeks it would take you to drink through it. And the several types of Octavin wines are described as “super-premium artisan wines” – though this remains to be seen. (Or rather, tasted.)

yep, definitely nicer than that cartoon-adorned box of Chateau DrunkMonkey, or whatever it's called

Next up is the Wineberry Box, which is pretty similar to the Octavin – it was created to make bag-in-box wine look nicer. And I do quite like the rustic look of the unfinished wood that comprises the solid walls of this package – it definitely wins the durability contest. Wineberry offers a host of French wines that can be ordered in box format: they represent bulk wines from pretty much every major wine region in France.

this thing is so sturdy you could sit on it - all your picnic requirements in one convenient package!

Lastly, we have Le Froglet – a single-serve wine-filled plastic glass, complete with a stem; is that supposed to confer an air of credibility, or something? I suppose Le Froglet represents the ultimate in ease of wine opening (only rivaled by wine in a pop can): just tear off the foil top and swig away. Alternately, I suppose you could use the straw from a juice box and stab it through the top, which would be even classier. I predict that these are going to be short-lived.

uncannily similar to those pre-packaged single shooters lurking beside the cash register in less reputable liquor stores

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your opinion of the subject), none of these are as yet available in Alberta. I’ll post an update if I learn of any changes.

This wine single-handedly captures the essence of an Albertan summer; all full-blooded Albertans should be required to taste this wine. Sticky poplar bud resin, clover, alfalfa, canola, sun-baked fields – you can definitely taste the flowers from which the bees collected their pollen. These are extremely herbal, earthy aromas and they are not for casual sipping. The mouthfeel is round and full, with some sweetness mid-palate and an amazing rush of acidity – the wine finishes almost completely dry, which is definitely not what you would expect from something made from honey.

en santé mellow gold mead

Mead (honey wine) is an ancient alcoholic beverage; some archaeological evidence suggests that it is the oldest alcoholic drink, dating back almost 10,000 years to sites in northern China. The tradition of mead-making has survived world-wide throughout the millennia; this mead was bottled only last year. This wine’s young age is the reason behind its extremely pale colour: aside from a slight yellowish hue, it almost looks like just a glass of water! With time, however, the wine will undoubtedly darken into a golden yellow – and those earthy, green aromas will also mellow out, just like the name suggests.

This mead is one of several fruit wines made by en Santé, Alberta’s first organic fruit winery. The winery’s founder, Victor Chrapko, was one of the main lobbyists who persuaded the provincial government to pass a law enabling cottage wineries back in 2006. (I’ve written about en Santé before; check out this article for a profile.)

While you’ll be able to find en Santé’s wines in various liquor stores throughout the city (and I definitely recommend trying some, or all, of their line-up), their mead is often not available. They make it in small batches and it often sells out fast. However, you can usually snag a bottle straight from the winery if you pay them a visit, or from their booths at the City Centre and Old Strathcona farmer’s markets.

This wine is too intense to drink on its own. Well, perhaps if it was really chilled – I cracked open the bottle at room temperature, which allowed the aromas to present themselves fully. However, it is definitely more refreshing if you chill it first. I recommend serving it with some food – it’s great with any kind of cheese, especially old cheddar, aged brie, or blue cheese. It would also be yummy with most savoury desserts (something like a sabayon, or fruit gratin, or dessert quiche, or savoury pudding).

I can’t stress how unique this wine is. For me, it is required tasting for anyone who is at all interested in fruit wines. It’s a great example of the similarities and differences that occur between wines made from grapes and wines made from other fruits/honey.

I was right. The Jasmine tastes better with Hendricks gin. LOTS better. Though, it’s still not as good as it is with the G’Vine Floraison. (Dammit, I need to get a bottle of that – it should be released in Alberta any day and I’m waiting with bated breath.) But the Hendricks is a helluva lot better than Tanqueray or Bombay, unsurprisingly. The latter two gins just had too much juniper bitterness, and they are a little rough around the edges, effectively masking the lighter pink grapefruit aromas that arise out of the coupling of gin with Campari, Cointreau, and lemon juice.

Hendricks has subtler aromas and flavours of cucumber and rose petal, which worked much better in the Jasmine. And I managed to actually make a half decent lemon twist, which I proudly twined around the side of my glass in celebration of actually pulling off the creation of one of those bloody things. Observe:

it's the cadillac of lemon twists

Yes, stalwart mixologists and cocktail drinkers will argue that adding an actual chunk of lemon peel to this cocktail is wrong – but I am neither, so I draped the whole thing over my glass and relished every damn minute of it.

Now that I have some Hendricks in my ever-growing cupboard of bar supplies, I’m going to have to make some sort of fabulous drink featuring its signature aromas (i.e. cucumbers and roses – weren’t you paying attention earlier?). I’ve heard that muddling some cucumber at the bottom of the glass before mixing in the gin and ice (and/or tonic water) is lovely; it’s kind of a caipirinha-esque drink. But I think I’ll one-up that by incorporating rose petals in some way. Whatever I end up doing, it will be good – or at the very least, alcoholic. So stay tuned for the exciting results of my possibly disastrous Hendricks-cucumber-rose-caipirinha-ish cocktail!

And for those of you who either can’t remember the Jasmine recipe (or are too lazy to look up my previous post), here it is:

1 ½ oz. gin
½ oz. Cointreau
½ oz. Campari
½ oz. fresh lemon juice
lemon zest

Combine the spirits and juice in a shaker filled with ice. Shake. Pour through a tea strainer into a chilled glass. Spray the oils of the lemon peel over the surface of the drink and rub the peel around the rim of the glass before serving.

Now this is what Beaujolais should taste like. Bright red berry aromas of strawberry preserve, some pomegranate and rhubarb, a little bit of mineral and warm, dry earth. A light palate that nonetheless has a surprising backbone of stony tannins, enveloped with enough acidity to really get your gastric juices flowing. There’s none of that sickly sweet, DuBoeuf banana / piña colada shit, which has become the tragic hallmark of too much Beaujolais.

2008 Henry Fessy Régnié Château des Reyssiers

Before purchasing this bottle I had no prior knowledge of Henry Fessy‘s wines. However, the fact that this is a Cru Beaujolais reassured me that it had to taste better than your average generic Beaujolais. Cru Beaujolais refers to a wine that comes from one of Beaujolais’ ten crus – designated appellations in the northern part of the region that produce superior-quality wines than the rest of the region. These ten crus are, moving roughly from north to south: St-Amour, Juliénas, Chénas, Moulin-à-Vent, Fleurie, Chiroubles, Morgon, Régnié, Brouilly, and Côte de Brouilly. This wine came from Régnié, the newest Beaujolais appellation (declared in 1988), which tends to make lighter and fruitier (but still balanced and well-structured) wines than most crus.

I probably shouldn’t belittle Georges DuBoeuf too much, however. (But as for belittling the wines sold under his name…) DuBoeuf almost single-handedly created the Beaujolais boom and the craze for Beaujolais Nouveau. (There’s too much to discuss regarding Beaujolais Nouveau so I won’t get into it here; if you’re curious for more info check out an article I published a little while ago on the subject.) Through his efforts Beaujolais became a veritable commodity; his name is positively synonymous with it. DuBoeuf controls over 10% of all Beaujolais wine, and his name is on the label of over 15% of Beaujolais sold anywhere in the world.

the face that launched a thousand hectares...

Though Beaujolais fell out of fashion in the late 1990′s, the region has recently undergone a revival in popularity – and more importantly, a revival in quality – since the 2003 vintage. Even some of the cheap wines are tasting better, though I still recommend that people stick to buying Cru Beaujolais since it’s a much safer choice.

Almost all non-Cru Beaujolais bears those signature banana, pear drop aromas that I mentioned earlier. This isn’t so much the product of the grape variety (all Beaujolais is made from a single variety, Gamay) as it is of the production processes. Most Beaujolais is made by carbonic maceration, in which whole bunches of grapes are dumped into a fermentation vat: the bottom 10 to 30% of the grapes are crushed and begin fermenting, releasing carbon dioxide gas that swathes the bunches above and causes them to undergo intracellular fermentation, which produces those candied fruit aromas.

A particular yeast strain (71B, for the enquiring minds), is also often used in much Beaujolais (including and especially the DuBoeuf wines). This yeast also promotes the production of banana candy aromas.

Now, I suppose there’s nothing particularly wrong with a wine that smells like it should be garnished with maraschino cherries, pineapple chunks, and those little paper umbrellas, but they are certainly not to my taste. The Gamay grape makes for wine that is eminently drinkable, but there’s no reason for it to be nigh unrecognizable from a glass of Welsh’s grape punch.

Back to the Fessy: with its lovely strawberry flavours and high acidity, I knew instantly what to make for dinner – roast chicken with strawberry-rhubarb sauce. Though I think I made the sauce a bit too sweet, it was still delicious. Food and wine pairing win!

see? doesn't that look tasty?

• I don’t really care about football, or any other sport for that matter, but a wine drinking game like this just might convince me to watch some – even the World Cup.

• File this under “Essential Life Skills”: how to fill a watermelon with vodka.

• Wine-ology = figure out which wine you should be drinking in June based on your astrological sign. I was a little perturbed, however, to find that I should quit my job, break a wine bottle over someone’s head, and drink jammy Zinfandel all month long.

• But shouldn’t it be sparkly? Apparently the tween vampire craze has been profitable enough to warrant the release of a “blood” drink called Tru Blood, which all those emo kids can swig while staring dreamily at their posters of Robert Pattinson.

• Well gee whiz, Chuck – why didn’t we think of this earlier? We’ll just make beer out of the Deepwater Horizon spill. That’ll solve all our problems, sure.

• Sadly, my computer is not kind enough to give me this error message when it decides to preemptively close my web browser and automatically erase my recent history.

• I was aware of the biblical reference, but I didn’t know that manna from heaven was actually real food – or that it is used in current times, in both food and drinks. It is an insanely unique food that cannot be cultivated, only gathered, as it appears randomly in nature - I can see why ancient peoples thought it was the result of divine providence. I just wish the same thing would happen with dark chocolate. Or Grand Cru Burgundy.

• Sick of all those weeds in your garden? Eat them. That’ll show ‘em.

• These pancakes are so cute they might even convince me to eat them! Maybe. But probably not.

• And finally, here is a different, if rather rude, perspective on foodies. Fellow foodies, please don’t be offended. He has a point, I’ll give him that – but seriously dude, if you don’t like food blogs then just don’t go to them!