Living La Vida Local: Honest Dumplings ATB Boostr Campaign

Posted in Food, Living La Vida Local, Shops by Diane

Hello my lovelies! It’s time for another edition of “Living La Vida Local” and I want to talk about Honest Dumplings and their new ATB BoostR campaign. I am a huge fan of crowdfunding campaigns in general as there is something about contributing to a new business idea that I love. I find pitches, ideas and just a good story really compelling and one of my favorite platforms to find projects is ATB BoostR. I particularly like ATB BoostR because it is provincial platform and I can find a lot of interesting local projects that I may not know about.

In this case, I was invited by Honest Dumplings to their crowdfunding campaign launch party last night. The party was going down in their new facility in downtown Edmonton (10552 114 St) – you can also visit the retail space there (for now – hours will increase in the future) on Thursdays and Fridays between 12-6pm! Their BoostR campaign runs until July 14, 2018 and they are seeking $10,000 to help get their dumpling factory going.

Continue reading →

2Aug2017

Alder Room: Keeping it Close to Home with Regional Ingredients

Posted in Food, Review, Taste Adventures by Diane

As Food Day Canada approaches (August 5, 2017), I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to highlight Alder Room, which does a fantastic job of highlighting what we can do with regional ingredients. The tasting menu at Alder Room is regionally and seasonally inspired, so it will probably be a different experience each time you go. The Alder Room website describes itself as follows, so that gives you a hint of what’s to come.

Alder Room is a modern, experiential restaurant; a place to interact with regional, seasonal cuisine and those who prepare it. Our menu is inspired by our connection to the land.

Alder Room can host up to 12 diners at its single 7pm seating (Wednesday to Saturday) and we arrived for our reservation on a Friday night. We had a group of four and there was another couple there as well, bringing the total number of people in our seating to 6. This was certainly an intimate meal and it definitely helped that the initial bites were served in the front seating area, where we would be able to chat while having champagne and snacks.

Before diving into the snacks, Chef Ben Staley (owner of Alta and Alder Room) gave us an overview of Alder Room’s philosophy and noted that he uses regional ingredients from Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. In particular, he indicated that he had a partnership with Vesta Gardens (in Thorhild) where they supply both his restaurants with produce. Each week, he heads out to Vesta Gardens to see what is available and tailors the Alder Room tasting menu to whatever is ripe and in-season.

Snacks (Clockwise L to R): Pickled carrots, Dried fermented peach, Quail egg rolled in vegetable ash, Fried sunchoke skin

Continue reading →

23Jul2017

Sunworks Farm Tour 2017

Posted in Food, Taste Adventures by Diane

If you know me, or follow me via social media (or on the blog), you can probably tell that I’m a pretty solid city slicker, so any time I get an opportunity to check out a farm to see where my food comes from, I’m down. Several bloggers (obviously including yours truly) were invited to visit Sunworks Farm on a beautiful Sunday to see how their certified organic farm operates and as well as to partake in a dinner catered by Quarter Section Food Co. using Sunworks products.