Edmonton

Edmonton, oh Edmonton. My liver is pickled and I smell like cow poo, what am I going to do about you? That was a fleeting attempt at poetics, which didn't go so well, but that happens on occasion, and I like to roll with it instead of erasing the potential embarassment. When you work on a feedlot, you don't smell yourself anymore, but later on you realize that other people likely do, so it would be perhaps gentler to society to wash. En route to Edmonton, we were delighted to find we would be staying with some family friends of mine. A delightful couple by the name of Ian and Terri Lynn, who were not at all grudging about having two dirty cooks in the house. When we arrived they were already cooking and sipping on prosecco, so that worked perfectly into our grand scheme of food. I didn't realize how long it had been since I had seen them until she didn't immediately recognize me at the door. This is only permissible because I am now sporting a righteous beard and most people think they are being invaded by vikings when they see me. After the initial fear of conquer and pillaging, they were extremely hospitable. We were shown to the basement suite, which was literally the entire basement to ourselves, and awesome. We both showered and when we came upstairs dinner was minutes away from ready. Ian was already prepping for tomorrows dessert and we were told to kick back and relax, maybe drink something, so we did. We're always happy to abide by that request.

We were slightly impromptu guests, so they had pork chops whilst we dined upon roasted chicken, all with potatoes and salad (from the garden, which I will extrapolate on later) to keep the estomach happy. Great dinner, and a decent start to our little Edmonton experience. After dinner we caught up a little and then decided to tear off to bed, as they were up beyond their typical curfew and we were exhausted still from Calgary.

The following day we spent the morning plotting, then hit the streets in search of gastronomic adventure. We took a bus and a train to downtown, where the 'Taste of Edmonton' festival was being held. It sucked. Like, badly. There was barely a person there adhering to any sort of quality, and even on it's face it was not the towns more prestigious places serving up fare. I hate to say it, but the taste of Edmonton is not Chinese and Indian food. That's the taste of Vancouver, and Edmonton can never steal it! We decided to give some of the food a shot. We invested in fish cakes, perogies, and bbq short ribs, deciding the latter two were representative enough of the region to be edible. In case you didn't know, all the prairies have a huge Ukrainian heritage, and they are proud thereof. The story runs that the Canadian government actually sent people to Ukraine promising as much free land as they could clear themselves, and a stipend to build a house. The Ukrainians swarmed at the opportunity. This was good because it meant the land was settled and the US couldn't just carve massive swaths of land out of Canada. O how crafty were thou, John. A. Moving on, the only good things at the Taste festival were the fish cakes, from some random Korean vendor. The perogies were more empty than full, and the dough was soggy, and the short ribs were barely tender and tasted like a sauce that you buy in a 40L pail at Costco. Depressing, but we were strong, and rallied. Then we left.

Wandering downtown Ed is a singular experience, it is at once boring and still somewhat exciting. Though the vast majority is cold, grey buildings, there are shots of flair, the art gallery and a few others. Another shot of flair was a random topless woman walking around downtown, acting like it was the most normal thing ever. I was impressed, that takes balls, of which she clearly has none by genetic default, so where she acquired them, I don't know. There was, needless to say, people running around and getting excitable, but whatever, it is legal after all. Shortly after seeing the exhibitionist, we found a shop called Healthfare. Pretty post-modern, nice interior, super sustainable build, and food comes with prices and calorie content. I don't care about calories, as most of you can probably tell by the food I've been eating, but it was a good thing to see, as it signifies thought about food, which is never bad. Unless its thinking about the pizza your going to devour all by yourself because your totally wasted, and even though you ate a big dinner your hungry for some reason. I swear I've only done that like, two dozen times. Anyways, Healthfare is a pretty decent spot, and we returned the next day to eat there, the food was pretty alright. Nothing mind-blowing, no epiphany food, but still likely some of the better food you can get at the price point, and fast as anything.

That night we returned to our abode, which was minus Ian, as he is also a chef and works proper chef hours, like 10-11. That sounds like a joke, but it's not. We made dinner for ourselves and Terrie Lynn, with a 'satay-sauce salad' and chicken fritters. Basically a peanut butter vinaigrette and chicken cakes the same way one would make crab cakes. Tasty. The greens were once again from the garden, which I must now delve into. Terrie Lynn is technically a doctor(having received her doctorate just this past thursday) and works for the university and consults in some field as well. Her proper title is actually farmer. Her back garden is jammed. Herbs, vegetables, berries and even a weird olive tree with no olives. I thought it was pointless too, but apparently it's decorative. The plot is no bigger than the average suburban back yard, but she has like 6 varieties of tomato, zucchini, parsley, basil, lemon thyme, marjoram, radishes, beets, raspberries and a ton of other delectables in there.
It's a wild scene to say the least. Every night we ate there, we ate something from the garden. They also keep a cool list of par stocks that they should have in their fridge, so they never really run out of wicked stuff to do with food. Upon Ian's return, we dove into some saskatoon berry pie. I shit you not when I say this was the best pie ever. It was so goddamn good it should have it's own post, which will follow this one, and just be a picture you can all look at in reverence. His secret is in his pie dough, and the fact that he doesn't make pies too sweet. I was so pumped about this pie I had to internally chill out, so I didn't scare my hosts off. Seriously, Ian should open a pie company, and become a millionaire. Before you become too astounded that a chef can make such a stellar, mouthwatering even now that I'm only thinking about it pie, you should know that Ian is a double threat, as he is also a classically trained pastry jock. Stupid good pie.

The following day, if I remember correctly, was market day, to be followed by relaxation day, then visit the farmer day. Market day was great. Edmonton has a large and well-established farmer's market, which was kind of a blindside hit for us, because we had no idea. However, we went there with the main intention of talking with Andreas and Mary-Ellen of 'Green's Eggs and Ham', as they were a contact of Ian's and dedicated to the local movement. We ambled through the market, watching people do yoga mid-street, listening to a jazz quartet play renditions of everyone's favorite techno, and admiring the produce on display. We were shopping for dinner tonight, which was to be the 'Tongue and Cheek' meal. Very Thomas Keller, if anyone gets that. We procured some veggies, cucumber, horseradish, and a few other tidbits. One thing we almost had to buy was this conical cabbage on sale at a cabbage vendor. It was seriously so pointed it appeared like a seashell, patterned by it's veins. Pretty amazing vegetable. We chatted with the farm folks, and decided we would visit them Tuesday to get a handle on what they are trying to do.

Afterwards we went and ate at Healthfare before returning home to the basement for some quality time with the computer. Fabian tried to drive to Safeway to procure more Clamato, but took a roundabout route which involved being pulled over. No ticket though, so good luck there. We slowly began dinner prep quite early, so that we would be well ready to plate and execute by the time Ian got home from work, early this time.
This dinner was pretty ridiculous. We did a similar salmon dish to Victoria's, because they sprung salmon on us last minute. With avocado, wasabi, toasted sesame, and grapefruit. It was pretty delish, but not as much as the following course. Shaved tongue with a cucumber and horseradish relish, as well as a potato and radish salad and "devil's salad" as the German calls it. Spicy beef cheek, with carrots in salad. The tongue was braised for about 3 hours, sliced super thin, then reheated with relish and stock in the microwave. It sounds ghetto to use a microwave, but this application was perfect. The meal was stellar, and a nice little cap off to our Edmonton exploits. The following day we relaxed until around 4:30 p.m. before heading off towards the farm.

Yukon Ho!(pt.2)

After leaving Whitehorse elated with the past couple days, the drive to Dawson did barely anything to calm us down. We had heard stories of Dawson being a city of freedom and borderline madness. To an extent, it’s true. The drive is really long, the city is small and beautiful, and Dawson sits on the joint of two rivers in the middle of nowhere. The two rivers are the Klondike and the Yukon, two very opposing forces of nature. The Klondike is crystal clear and sparkling, the Yukon is silt-filled and the color of fresh mud. Where they meet at Dawson there is a split, and the two colors run alongside one another, swirling in little eddies reminiscent of a cup of coffee.
The city itself is pretty picturesque, though it needs something to drive it forward. Right now, it sits on it’s laurels of the Gold rush so entirely that it is almost depressing. The people at the tourist information still wear traditional garb, and the buildings have been rebuilt to appear as they did when it was the infamous “Paris of the North”. The past is important to Dawson, because not only was it the most populated time, but also a time when, for purely mineral reasons, Dawson had the attention of a continent. It is impressive and depressing all at once. To see a city like Dawson, sprawled on a lakeside swamp and proudly full of history, is impressive. To see a city with barely a future prospect at all, whose largest economy remains gold mining and who can’t seem to find a further drive for something new, is depressing. I think global warming might help Dawson. That’s only sort of a joke. They won’t have to melt as much ice for gold mining, and the climate will be nicer in winter. This is not a small bear.

All in all, we had a great experience there. We met up with our favorite Albertans(so far) at the local internet café, and rocked out a dinner of Tom and Simones pig cheeks with them. Checked out the Dawson City Museum, which was intriguing to a point. To see the extremes to which people went to get here is awe-inspiring. Almost nobody found gold beyond the first people to arrive, so most of the massive voyages here were useless. These men had to haul at minimum 1000lbs of goods through the Chilkoot pass, which is not pleasant at all. The RCMP weighed your equipment, and anything less than 1000 lbs was not allowed to enter, as adequate provisions to survive a Yukon winter weighed in to a thousand. After the museum we decided to try some of the local activities. These include drinking, yelling loudly at bars, and general revelry. Post-hitting the town, hopping from bar to bar to gambling hall, then back to a bar appropriately called ‘the pit’, at which there was a great live band, including banjo. I was impressed. Me and Rob went swimming in the Yukon, which is a really bad idea if your drunk and it’s late, which we were and it was. The river is extremely fast moving and at least one hapless tourist gets sucked downstream every year. I think I was hoping in the back of my head it would be me. Would that ever be a story to tell. Anyways, neither of us were bad enough swimmers to be that lucky tourist, so we just froze a little. Once we got out we discovered it was once again almost 4AM. This no light shift thing is a difficult sell. At 2AM when the bars go out, the sun is barely going down. It bothers your head. I’m so geared to sleep when it’s dark, and don’t often check time, which doesn’t lead to a functional lifestyle in the Yukon. We checked out the dredges and gold mines the next day, looked for farms on the west side of the river, met some Australians gold panning, and called it the second night of Dawson. It was an interesting day. The dredges are huge beyond imagination, like a steamboat, just in the middle of a pit of gravel. They are the monster machines designed to get to the gold and take it out once the rivers had run dry. Gold panning is an exercise in monotony. The Aussies had been at it for hours, and got nothing but sore backs. We tried for five minutes, decided against it, and sat with them joking around for a half hour or so. Good sorts.

Whilst in Dawson we also saw the cabin’s of Robert Service and Jack London, Dawson’s two literary claims to fame. They were somewhat a pique of interest, but without the right timing, we missed to reading at Robert Services cabin and Jack London cost too much to look at pictures on the walls. We decided Dawson was to be cut short, and headed back to Whitehorse to get back to civilization.

Back in Whitehorse, though late, we went straight to Tom and Simones, who I had called earlier to let them know we would be back this eve. A note on telephone use in the Yukon. A 15 minute card anywhere civilized gets you one minute in the Yukon. When we arrived they were out, so we went down the street to make ourselves dinner. First we prepared an appy of beef liver with apple and radish salad. Fried liver on croustini with a little julienne apple salad to match. Damn decent canapé. Dinner was the chicken from slaughtered a few days previous. We rubbed it in herbs and seasoning and oil, and I built a big campfire to cook it in. We made roasted garlic polenta and buttered peas to accompany the chicken. However, we didn’t know how hot the fire was, so the chicken had an unknown cooking time. When I checked in my trust cooking companion(Harold McGee, ‘On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen”, possibly the best book I own) it appears that red hot coals at typically in the range of 1100 C. When we discovered this and the fact that the tin foil was cracking, we pulled it out to check. It was exactly perfectly cooked. The only issue was the skin, which was roasted beyond edibility. We peeled it, and ate what turned out to be a sumptuous feast. Just as we had finished washing out dishes, Tom and Simone pulled up, and we went to their house to punish a few bottles of wine. The wines were of the sort you don’t get without lots and lots of money. Chateau Mouton-Rothschild, Les Grands Vins de Leoville, Chateau Margaux and others. We opened the first bottle, which was corked. The second was oxidized and tasted a bit like caramel and cardboard. The third was an extremely nice bottle of wine and we punished it and one other before calling it a night. All the while we had poetry recited dutifully by the son of the house, and conversations ranging from food to clothing to anything. To fully demonstrate how much of a badass maniac Tom is, the next story must be first told and second believed. It is a true story. I now sleep on three bottles of wine that are each much older than me. Not light travel for them, but I hope they’ll do well. Tom traded us the three bottles for a promise. The promise is that we’ll create a book with recipes, each indicative of the local food we found to be of top quality in the province we made it. Basically recording, in the form of recipes, our campfire highlights. At the end, we are to send it to him by snail mail. We’re going to go a little bit all out on this project, as him, Simone and Graham went a little all out on being hospitable to us. It was an amazing experience for us in the Yukon, and I could have stayed a lot longer than we did. There are deadlines ahead, sadly, and the Stampede calls. The next morning we awoke, made a huge breakfast of ham and bacon and Tom’s signature potato pancakes, and headed South into the mountains. The Yukon was a phenomenal place. I’m jealous to all those who call it home. More jealous of anyone who call Tom and Simone a neighbor or friend who they see on more than two occasions. Thanks so much for the welcome, the experience and the generosity you showed us, I promise that recipe book is going to be the only thing that enters the Yukon that can rival the bad-assery of the Rudges. Yet another slew of people that I have no doubt I’ll see again in my lifetime, and can’t wait for when I do.

Yukon Ho!(pt.1)

I know, I know....your all so happy I'm done with my wine-gobbing and you want to know about food, and traveling, and other things that you should all be doing right now. Well here we go. After the Okanagan, we went to Kamloops. I don't want to knock anywhere in particular, because we are traveling fast and I'm sure we miss out on all sorts of stuff, but Kamloops sucks.

We found a cool park by the river there, and ate lentil salad, which was pretty alright by me. Afterwards we checked out the downtown, which equals nothing to do on a weekday, and decided to sleep early and hit the road the next day. The road led to Dawson Creek, about 929km away, and was a long one. Upon arrival we checked out the town, scoped a spot to sleep and passed out. Awakening, we took a picture with the Alaska Highway sign and hit the road again, this time for Whitehorse, which is around 1500 km further up the Alaska highway. We stopped around halfway at a wicked viewpoint and ate Weisswurst with sweet mustard and sipped a little Hefeweizen. Upon the realization that pretzels are also necessary with the meal, we jumped back on the road and kept this huge undertaking going. We stopped again to eat dinner (spicy spaghetti) and then made it to Whitehorse around 1 AM. To all you who would caution me against driving at night, fear not. Whitehorse is in the Yukon, and it's summer, meaning the sun was just starting to set when we pulled in. All in all it was a couple days of pretty constant vehicle usage, and our awesome ass van pulled it off without a hitch. We stopped just outside the city and bunked down for the evening. The next day was Canada day.

The parade in Whitehorse for Canada day was hilarious in so many ways it's difficult to describe. There were all sorts of floats, including a fire spitting monster truck, two full grown men on toy cars, and a phillipino and thai community float. People vaguely paid attention and it was all in good fun, but was over extremely fast. The good news was that it ended at the farmers market. Now, I know what your thinking, who the hell farms in the Yukon. But I'll tell you who, total badasses with nothing to fear. We talked briefly with a couple people before stumbling on Tom and Simone Rudge, who are probably the people I would most want to be raised by if my own parents didn't exist. At first they told us to go see Brian, a blind goats cheese maker, who also happens to operate in the yukon (badass enough for you?). Brian also makes halloumi cheese, which I'm a fiend for, and definitely was not expecting to find anywhere in Canada being made, much less so in the great white north. Brian was kind and one of my many regrets about not staying longer in the Yukon is not being able to watch him do his thing. The halloumi was amazing. After that we ate some of the best falafel sandwiches I've ever had, which is almost pure comedy because it's the Yukon. The gentleman doing them is from outside Haifa, and makes all the traditional garnishes fresh for the market. He was funny and the falafel sandwiches were transcendent. After that we visited Tom and Simone again to ask if we could come see what a farm in the Yukon is like. Tom basically said that if we don't mind slaughtering pigs, we could come tomorrow. That was about the best thing anyone could have said to us at that point, and we got really giddy. After jotting down directions, we said our goodbyes and went off to the Yukon brewery for a tour. This was an action filled day, maybe the most of the trip. The brewery was fun, they make some good beer and some mediocre beer, but the tour guide was a good natured joker and we got to taste every beer they had on tap, which made us happy, but not too happy.

After the brewery we decided hunger was getting the best of us and marched over to a nearby shopping mall to grab some bites. Needless to say there was Daikon radish, durian fruit and all manner of other exotic stuff you might have trouble finding in a major city there. It's mental to think about the transportation for these goods to get anywhere, but the added push to the yukon was enough for me to cast a dark eye on that super market. We settled on a slaw type salad with sesame dressing and seared halloumi cheese. For those not in the know, halloumi is a weird cheese, unlike others, it doesn't melt. It caramelizes. So you can sear it in a frying pan like a peice of meat. We were only too happy to do so. Whilst cooking in a park, another couple set up at the next bench and a random aboriginal guy said he could smell it from down the block and had to come check it out. His name was Louis, and we gave him a bowl to eat and he freaked out. He said he never eats anything without meat, and that this was bar none the best meatless dish he's ever had in his life. Thanked us in the native tongue and welcomed us to the land and such, it was a pretty interesting experience. After we'd eaten, and fed some to the Albertans at the next table, a gentleman down a ways on a picnic bench gave us a pork chop to try. It was his special marinade and was pretty good. This eating thing was getting to be quite a communal experience. The Albertans came over and chilled with us for a while, they were super cool so we decided to hit the town for Canada day. First we compared vans, at which they kicked our ass. Rob is an engineer, and his van is engineered to be a badass machine. Extra batteries, a self chilling cooler, the works. We hung out a bit longer before going to one dead bar after another, at one of which I won 25$ in bar tab. Then we found Foxy's, the rocking spot for Canada day. We got in and had a few rounds before deciding to go back to the vans for a nightcap. The nightcap lasted til 4AM and went through a bottle of gin. We had half concious arguments about Disney movies and conversations I'm sure I don't remember. We hit the hay late, but had to be at the farm at 10AM the next day, so I woke up early and hit the road while Fabian slept. He woke up when we pulled into the farm, around 20 minutes outside of town. The farm is called Aurora Mountain farm, and is amazing. They have goats, pigs, cows and horses, a market garden, chickens for laying and broilers. Their house is self built and operates off the grid, and the people who live there are each extremely interesting in their own right. When we pulled up they were making a pancake breakfast, which was when the first pangs of wanting to live there hit me. The only thing that threw me off was walking in and seeing a guy in a clockwork orange outfit at the table. Their son is going into fine arts in Dawson City, and happily got to go to town today because we were helping with the slaughter. He's a whipsmart dude with a good memory, he can recite Robert Service at the drop of a hat, and also can work a farm better than most of you, therefore he gets extra points in at least two categories. He also has a really hot girlfriend, so double bonus.

After breakfast it was down to business. The pig slaughter was something I was slightly apprehensive about with no good reason. The pigs aren't worried about it, why should I be? Basically it all goes down like this. The pigs get fed. Whilst gorging at their troughs, two of them get shot in the head and pulled away. The rest of the pigs care less than I do, and continue eating. It's really something that makes you change the way you think about the animal when you see it. They absolutely couldn't care less about their piggy brethren. They almost make people look compassionate, almost.

After the initial kill, they are hung up and drained of blood before being brought to the butchery area. There we burnt and shaved one, and skinned the other. Then we eviscerate them, cut them in half, and bring them to the local butcher. It was painless for the pigs, much less gory than I expected, and actually something I can definitely say I approve of. Now that being said, don't think that these are your supermarket pigs. These are slaughtered on farm with no inspector, so they can't be sold retail. People get these pigs off Aurora Mountain Farm because they know good pigs, and trust their farmer. Ideally everyone would get pigs like this. So after we help deliver the pigs, Tom took us around to a couple businesses in town that he likes. He's a slow food representative for the Yukon, and will be part of their delegation going to Terra Madre for the Slow Food conference this year. He brought us to the Alpine bakery, which is a huge stone hearth bakery in town, and we had a chat with the owner, who will be accompanying Tom and Simone to Italy later this year. After that we picked up some beer to go with dinner and went back up towards their farm. On the way there is a really beautiful coffee roaster, called Bean North, which we also stopped into. We got a private tour because one of the hands there gets pigs from Tom. This guy knew his coffee, and it was an interesting experience to see the process that turns raw beans into finished, retail-able coffee. Almost similar to wine, the flavour charts are immense, and depending on roast, country, mountain and other such details, some coffee drinkers can tell you exactly where it's from (or, apparently, what side of the mountain it grows on). It was a really educational walkabout.

We returned to the farm, where Simone had on a pork stock with all the bits people don't want(the best bits), and ate a quick meal of rice and braised pig with some greens. It was relaxed and the conversation was good, and Tom wrangled us into another slaughter the next day, this time poultry. We did, however, have to see the soccer match before the killing could begin. We legged it down the road, stayed at a camp spot near the river and a collapsed and forgotten house, and slept. Early rise again, this time feeling Canada day's wrath upon me, we drove to town to catch the match at a local breakfast place. German wins again and we head out another farm to get our quota for the day. Killing chickens is another process that is really streamlined and not difficult or grotesque. The farmers who have chickens in the area have all pitched on buying a slaughter line, and set up like a factory. There are a couple other newcomers, one couple who wants to get into farming, and a guy from the local butcher who wants to see where the birds come from. We were the first there, and slowly the others arrive. The first job is catching the birds and getting them into crates, where they are easy to access and can't escape from. The crates are them brought over to the slaughter line, and the chickens hung up, electro-shocked to unconciousness, and bled out, after bleeding they are scalded and then put in what resembles a washing machine with fingers, but it affectionately known as a plucker. They go from the plucker to an inspection table then into a cold water bath. From the bath they go to a primary butchery table, and from there to the evisceration table. Post-gutlessness, they are again dunked in cold water, and then packaged. It all runs very streamlined, even with us newbies running about. After a certain stage we stop for lunch before finishing the last details. Lunch is huge, includes dessert and everything. I think I’m almost too lethargic to do any more work after. Happily the remaining bits are just finishing and breakdown, so nothing too painful for a tired, full me to attempt. After everything is complete, we have a beer with Tom, promise we’ll see him on the way back from Dawson City, as he just announced he happens to have a bottle of wine he’d like to share. Then we hit the road, deeper into the north and full of zest and sleepless excitability.