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It’s speed-dating with food.
Seventeen restaurants, 22 food producers/farmers/ranchers, 18 wineries/breweries.
All in one vast banquet hall, the Delta South Ballroom.
Last week’s Indulgence event in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, arms the ticket holder with a program/guide, one wine glass and a cute plate clip for the wine glass, the theory being plate and wine can be held in one hand at the stand-up event, whilst eating and drinking with the other.
For 15 years, Indulgence — “a Canadian epic of food and wine” — has been a fund-and-friend raiser for the women’s volunteer Junior League of Edmonton organization.
It’s a big, let’s-get-acquainted evening, connecting chefs, farmers and discerning eaters. And it’s popular! This year, the 400 tickets sold out within hours.
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Two years ago, Hicks on Biz decried a recommendation from the city’s Renewable Energy Task Force, urging city council to allocate $83 million over five years to subsidize homeowners installing alternative energy sources – mostly solar panels.
I am all for alternative energy – providing, to use Edmonton Economic Development boss Brad Ferguson’s now-famous dictum – it’s “cleaner, greener, safer, faster and cheaper” than what we have now.
The greenies, I argued, should chill, sit back and let market forces do their work.
Here’s the great news.
All by itself, without using tax dollars, solar panel systems (with conventional electricity backup) have reached “grid parity” in terms of cost.
Over the life of your mortgage, using a good solar power system, you should end up paying less than what you now pay for “grid” power - the current coal-generated electricity flowing down EPCOR’s transmission lines from Wabamun into the city, into your neighbourhood and into your house.
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Reflecting immigration to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Asian ethnic cuisine has rolled over the Rockies in chronological waves to Edmonton.
First was Chinese, then East Indian and Vietnamese. Today, Indian and Vietnamese restaurants are in every neighbourhood, but Thai is where the action is … and now Korean is coming on strong.
Korean food has reached a popularity tipping point. In our family, it’s on the list for weekend Asian take-out.
Saturday early evening called for a quick take-out feast in the backyard before the gang took off in different directions. For my Filipina wife, two Eurasian daughters, Vietnamese almost-daughter, this white guy and various Caucasian boyfriends, Korean was the cooking of choice.
And, as it happens, Mama Lee’s Kitchen take-out had opened up nearby just a few months ago, on 51 Avenue east of Southgate Mall.
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A cluster of high-tech “ag-bio” (agricultural bio-technology) companies are emerging in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, global leaders in the science of pulling specialized natural compounds out of raw natural materials, then selling the highly-valued extracts, often to global giants, as vital ingredients for cosmetics, food or pharmaceutical products.
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The Weekly Dish talks about some of the basics in providing a satisfying dining experience ... and how many small restaurants are lacking in many departments!
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Neil Herbst is a tad bemused by the love that craft beers have received of late.
Not that the co-owner, with his wife Lavonne, of Edmonton’s Alley Kat Brewery is complaining.
For the last few years, Alley Kat sales have been jumping by 30% per year.
Fruit beers are now all the rage – thanks to the big breweries wooing female consumers with new tastes.
Alley Kat just happens to have 19 years’ experience brewing one of Canada’s finest fruit beers – the apricot flavoured Aprikat.
Aprikat sales, of late, have gone through the roof.
Alley Kat’s second fruit beer, the grapefruit-flavoured Main Squeeze, is not far behind.
Thanks to the interest in craft beers, Alley Kat’s other core brews – Full Moon, Amber and its recently revived Scona Gold – are showing up in just about every beer store in town, and are on tap in most of the city’s new mega-brew pubs.
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Since 2007, through the reigns of executive chefs the wise Yoshi Chubachi and then boy wonder Nathin Bye, The Wildflower Grill has earned a sterling dining-out reputation.
The Wildflower is not flamboyant, not over-the-top, not out-smoking or sous-viding anybody else.
It simply offers “new Canadian cuisine” at reasonable prices in a contemporary setting ... where diners can actually hear each other speak without shouting.
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It’s a question with an alarmingly simple answer.
How can Edmonton – without the natural beauty of mountains, seaside, lakes or badlands – attract significant numbers of out-of-province and international tourists?
We’re talking genuine tourists, not those visiting relatives or friends.
West Edmonton Mall attracts “rubber-tire” tourism – visitors driving to Edmonton. But the mighty mall doesn’t attract much in the way of international shoppers.
The answer lies in a four-acre chunk of undeveloped land at the west end of the 158-acre Fort Edmonton Park, nestled next to the Quesnell Bridge in the river valley.
The answer is “Phonan” (pronounced pa-ho-nahn) – the Cree word for a waiting or gathering place.
Close your eyes. Let your imagination wander.
Imagine a year-round First Nations exhibit/experience/living museum/theatre/themed trails, honouring our region’s past-and-present aboriginal community with cultural integrit ...
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The Genius Code
Surreal SoReal Theatre
C103 Theatre Space (formerly the Catalyst Theatre)
8529 Gateway Blvd. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
780 431 1750
Through Sunday June 8, 2014
Ticket information
Theatre review by GRAHAM HICKS
How the definition of playwright has changed.
It’s not just about words and scripts any more.
Enabled by new techniques, thanks to an understanding of what technology can do, it’s about another invisible supporting cast for the experience of emotion and mood and interior dialogue.
Jon Lachlan Stewart’s Genius Code, at the C103 (formerly Catalyst Theatre) through June 8, is all about taking the theatre experience, live on that stage, into new and quite exciting dimensions.
The words are relatively straight forward - the attraction, then love/hate affair between two tumultuous artists with vicious tempers and a tendency to self-destruction, mixed in with the silent witness of a third pal - a sound engineer/dj - to whom the lovers have given &nbs ...
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Bar Bricco
10347 Jasper Avenue
www.barbricco.com
Food: 4 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 3.5 of 5 Suns
Service: 3.5 of 5 Suns
Tuesday to Saturday evenings
No reservations
Dinner for two, just food — basic $50, loaded $80
The Red Ox Inn spawned Canteen. Hardware Grill spawned Tavern 1903.
Now, right next door on Jasper Avenue, Corso 32 has spawned Bar Bricco.
It’s Phase II of executive chef/owner Daniel Costa’s plan of three restaurants side by side, three styles of regional Italian cuisine — the gourmet Corso 32, the “snacks” of Bar Bricco, and, soon, an 80-seat urban trattoria/pasta house in what was the Transcend coffee cafe.
Bar Bricco’s “snacks” are all about the small-plates craze sweeping the city, but these are “snacks” in name only. The menu is divided into spuntini (snacks), salumi (cold cuts), formaggi (cheese) and condiment (mini-desserts).
Not just any snacks, but delicious truffles, high-end Italian chees ...
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