Meet Your Makers Event

Over the weekend my husband and I went to this event produced by Northern Lands (@northernlnds), which was held at the Shaw Conference Centre (@EdmontonSCC). These were Canadian wine, craft beer, and spirit producers as well as some of the best chefs from the area. It was a fundraiser for the High School Culinary Challenge and The Edmonton Community Foundation Grateful Palate Fund.
We are definitely going to take in this event again when it comes back. They say in 2 years, or maybe sooner...who's with me? Anyone want to join us?

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I was looking forward to this event so much that it didn't occur to me to actually take pictures of our food until I was part way through, so you'll have to take my word for it that there were many other vendors of both of food and beverages. We didn't try everything, because we got to the point where we both had had enough to eat and drink.  Their food was amazing. I love to cook, and I like to play with my food, but next to these amazing chefs, I know nothing.  As much of the food as possible was sourced locally, which I really liked.
 Those skewers were "Nouveau Beef-on-a-Stick 3 Ways". My husband said "I can't believe I ate flowers, but it was so worth it!" And my favourite wine of the night was Burrowing Owl Cabernet Franc.

I can't wait to try to incorporate some of the amazing flavours and textures into my cooking. Something all of them were well-versed in was layering flavours, so each bite gave a different, distinct impression of the food that somehow worked so well together. Those little meatballs were the first thing we tasted, and they were one of my favorite tastings. That bottle of beer tastes like caramel. And the pasta was stuffed with ricotta and black truffle moliterno. It was melt-in-your-mouth amazing.

Another thing that struck me was how everything was prepared so distinctly. Those bites on a spoon were easy to eat and delicious, with rabbit and wild cherry terrine. That beer actually tasted like blueberry, and that interesting little thing on the end was a tapioca cup filled with rabbit mortadella and other interesting ingredients. I would love to know how to make that tapioca cup. It was light, airy, and salty. Really an ingenious way to serve an appetizer.

This crustini was prepared with beef shortrib, organic ricotta, among other things. The view from the Shaw Conference Centre was just beautiful, and made the evening perfect. The plate on the right was a pigs-head mortadella with boar bacon and house-made pickled asparagus and beets. We're on the hunt for some wild game now! I can't wait to experiment with some of those flavours again. The most exotic I've gotten is cooking with bison, but we're going to try to find some goat, wild boar, and rabbit.

This first plate was a jar-jar pork, garnished with lots of fresh cucumber. I loved the flavour combination of them together. Those knives, from Knifewear are going to be on my wishlist. Doesn't it look like you can make amazing food with those beautiful knives? The last picture, a bit blurry (so sorry!) was so tasty, a Filipino dish with sweet potatoes and lentils, fresh cilantro garnished, and served with rice.

As you can see from these pictures, the event was very well put together, very well organized, and everything I was hoping it would be. Not one thing the whole evening was a disappointment. Our hotel that night was the Delta Centre Suite Hotel, located in Edmontont Centre West, walking distance from the event. We had excellent service and a really great room.

I hope you'll join us the next time it comes to town!