The cool thing about being on a food book tour is that you can call up the top chef in Calgary and ask him to travel an hour south to cook lunch at a ranch for a few journalists and the organic cowboys and gals I wrote about in the Alberta chapter of my book, Apples to Oysters.
Okay, maybe The River Café’s Scott Pohorelic didn’t remember my name right off, but as soon as I mentioned the Diamond Willow ranchers, Scott started dreaming up gourmet chuck-wagon dishes. The good chef has spent his career inventing and reinventing Albertan cuisine and promoting quality local food producers. He admires the deep beefy flavour of Diamond Willow organic tenderloins as much as the ranchers’ environmental work.
According to local landowners, oil and gas companies from Tar Sands HQ in Calgary regularly send out pretty employees to chat up ranchers about allowing a little seismic testing here, perhaps a wee pipeline there. Diamond Willow and the Southern Alberta Land Trust responded with an emphatic call to halt all development until government and stakeholders come up with a land use plan for the area.
The eastern slopes of Alberta’s foothills, from south of Calgary to the US border, comprise the largest intact stretch of ancient grassland in North America. It’s also the pristine watershed that southern Alberta drinks from. The ranchers could be millionaires, but they became environmentalists instead. And on the day we arrived, the Diamond Willow producers were still reeling from the tragic death of the man who ran their new organic feedlot, just the day before. I offered to cancel lunch. The ranchers said no. They wanted to tell their story to the journalists from the city, to anyone who will listen. And they also wanted to celebrate my book. I used to think it was about good farming and good food but, after connecting with the Diamond Willow gang, let me up the pitch — it’s about the new heroes of Canadian cuisine. I love these guys.
And, clearly, so does Scott. The chef trudged out through the late April snow and wind, built a fire of diamond willow wood, which, according to locals, imparts a special flavour to meat. Then he grilled up two organic tenderloins, while a pan of short ribs braised with Saskatoon berries simmered in an ancient stove in the ranch kitchen.
River Café owner Sal Howell came along for the day to help, setting out a salad of local Poplar Bluff potatoes; green beans tossed with home-made butter and local organic chipotle peppers; baked beans made from Great Northern White Beans; tea biscuits baked with Red Fife wheat; a chimichurri made with local stinging nettles.
The field-work feast was incredible. So too was the conversation. For the better part of three hours, ranchers and journalists, elbows on table, chatted over lunch, plus second and third helpings. They talked about the challenges of growing food while the government dangles incentives to sew crops for biofuels. About the long-term cost of short-term development. About the real value of land. About good food, family and spring calving season.
Friend me on facebook | 
Follow me on Twitter | 
RSS Feed