Our good friend and excellent chef Brad Smoliak has just published his first cookbook. Fittingly (because he’s a master with the grill and barbecue) he was asked by Lone Pine Press to put together a collection of contemporary and tasty recipes for The Canadian Barbecue Cookbook.

The recipes are fabulous –grilled perogies, or cedar-plank grilled arctic char anyone? — and the full-colour photography in this 160-page book will make you want to run out and whip up a feast on the bbq right away. There are recipes for delicious marinades, rubs, salsas, meat dishes, and sides for any barbecue-centric meal. There are also chef-tips galore to make sure your fire-cooked masterpiece receives rave reviews.

The book is available at bookstores and other locations across Canada for $19.95. Here’s a recipe we plucked from the book to whet your appetite.

Here’s a classic “Brad Smoliak” recipe, straight from the book, his “Argentinian-Ukrainian Chimcurri Sauce” (page 128-129)
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It’s been a while in the making, but Sweetgrass Market in South Calgary opened on June 14.
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We’re working on our next issue, and we’re researching dairy farms on the Prairies. We came across this video clip and we thought we’d see if we could post the clip on the Website. Vital Greens Organic Dairy is in Picture Butte, Alberta and they make outstanding organic chocolate milk and butter (among other dairy products).
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We’ve been active members of the Slow Food movement for almost a decade now. I’m continually impressed at how this grass roots organization with so many “moving parts” manages not only to keep up with the trends, but actually set the trends.

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In our current issue, our “Fork in the Road” column highlights some great coffee places on the Prairies. Well, just about a week after our issue rolled off the presses, Chad Moss, one of the baristas at Edmonton’s Transcend Coffee, pulled off a few perfect pulls at the first Regional Prairie Barista Championships. That means he will go on to represent our region at the national competition in October.
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We get some pretty strange items in the mail sent to us at The Edible Prairie, mostly sent to us as public relations campaigns (entire flats of canned soups, chocolate bars with “tasting” instructions, etc.). This one, though, tops our list as the strangest item we have ever received: a potato.
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There’s a discussion going at our Slow Food Edmonton gang. We’re looking for “iconic prairie honey or honies” and we thought that this bit of news from Jerry Kitt from First Nature Farms that we thought would be worth posting:
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It’s been a long time in the making, but Art and Cherie Andrews’ patience has finally paid off. On May 9, 2008, they officially opened Alberta’s first meaderie…that is honey winery. Unfortunately we weren’t able to attend the opening, but our friend chef Wade Sirois was there and he posted his thoughts on his blog, www.attheroot.ca.

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In the up-coming issue of The Edible Prairie Journal, our Fork in the Road column covers a number of great independently owned and operated “Third Wave” (think Post-Starbucks) coffee places. The issue is at the printers and will soon be in the mail! It has profiles of our favorite places to refuel and get caffeinated: Transcend Coffee in Edmonton, Caffe Artigianoin Calgary, plus a few other listings for great coffee stops on the prairies.Today, we received news that the Canadian Barista Academy is helping to organize the first ever Alberta Regional Barista Championships in Calgary, May 24 & 25. The top three from our region go on to Montreal to compete in the National Championships in October and then on to the World’s Championship!  You can find more information on the Canadian Barista Academy Web site. And of course we’ll keep you posted on the results.

Many of you will remember the article we wrote about Edgar Farms asparagus in Issue No. 7 (2006). For those of you who don’t, yes, asparagus grows on the prairies.
Edgar Farms in Innisfail has 17 acres of it! (Check out the great website at Edgar Farms with video, recipes, and other fun things.)
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