Happy Canada Day!

Hurrah! Time for picnics, fireworks and grilling up a mess of food!

What are your plans for today? We will be grilling a chicken, and having grilled veggies with it. (And maybe some pasta. I haven’t decided yet.)

Also, if you’re in the area, be sure to check out the St. Norbert Farmers’ Market. It’s open today for it’s first Wednesday of the season from 1pm-7pm. Free cake at 2pm!

And if you didn’t notice, or are reading this on an RSS feed, Winnipeg Eats now has a Twitter account. I often run across little bits of info that just don’t seem big enough for a whole blog post, and they end up slipping by. I’ll be using Twitter for these little newsbits: recall information in Manitoba, restaurant and food news, and whatever else happens my way. You can follow me at http://twitter.com/WinnipegEats, or you can read my five most recent “tweets” in the widget on the right side of the page on the blog. Enjoy!

Grilled Salad and Bruschetta

In our short summer, nothing beats pulling out the barbecue and getting your grill on.

Now, I’m not the grill-meister in our house. That title belongs to my husband. To be honest, I’m a little afraid of our grill. It’s a gas grill with a broken ignition switch, so there’s a bit of a trick to getting it lit. But, as Dave says, there’s something primal about a man playing with fire to cook his food. That, and he really enjoys doing it, so I leave it to him.

I’m not sure where I first saw this as a suggestion, but a few years ago I learned of a way to grill a salad on the barbecue. I was intrigued. When I realized that the recipe called for actually placing lettuce on the grill, I knew we had to try it. And after we tried it once, we knew that the maxim cited by grill-meisters everywhere was true: Everything can be grilled.

(I don’t have a picture of this recipe, since – well, it isn’t terribly photogenic for one thing. It also should be eaten warm, which precludes spending ten minutes arranging wilted lettuce leaves on a plate. If I do happen to get a photo of it, though, I’ll update this post with it!)

This recipe will serve two for a dinner salad, or four for a side dish. You will need:

* one head of very fresh romaine lettuce
* a pound (or so) of fresh asparagus
* one medium eggplant
* two large portabello mushroom caps
* 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
* about 3 TB balsamic vinegar
* olive oil
* freshly ground pepper

It would help if you have two people working on this: one person working the grill, and the other person prepping stuff and keeping things warm inside. After everything was cooked and chopped, it went into a big bowl covered with foil.

1. Wash the head of romaine lettuce, keeping it intact. Rinse down between the leaves. Wash the rest of your produce too, since the sink will be occupied in the next step.

2. With a large knife, slice the head in half lengthwise, from the top down through the root. Place both halves face down in the sink to drain.

3. Slice the eggplant into round slices, about 1/2 thick. Brush with olive oil. (I tried drizzling it, but the oil just seeped right in. Pour the oil into a separate dish and brush it on.) Grill the eggplant over medium heat, 3-4 minutes a side. Remove from heat and quarter. Keep warm.

4. Snap the hard ends off the base of each asparagus stalk. Drizzle the stalks with oil, and roll them around to get them well-covered. Grill the asparagus for about 3-4 minutes total, just until they are tender. Remove from heat and slice into 1″-2″ pieces. Keep warm.

5. Drizzle the cut sides of the lettuce with olive oil. Turn face down on a plate, and brush on more oil on “backs.” Place face-down on grill. Timing is critical here: you’re looking at 1-3 minutes per side for the lettuce, or just until the dark green bits are wilted. Grill on all sides, watching it carefully so the lettuce doesn’t turn into a soggy lump. Remove from heat, and slice into 1″ pieces. Keep warm.

6. Brush portabellos with olive oil and grill, about 4 minutes a side. Remove from heat and slice. Add to the salad.

7. Once everything is in a big bowl, toss with Parmesan, balsamic vinegar, pepper, and more oil if needed. Keep warm while you toast the bruschetta.

And that’s it! Grilling the romaine gives it this rich, almost cheeseburger-like taste. Also, the variations on this are endless, depending on what you have on hand and what’s seasonal. We have replaced the portabello with chicken breasts (marinated in lemon juice and garlic, grilled and sliced), and the eggplant and asparagus could be replaced with any grillable vegetable: zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli, peppers, bok choi, sweet onions, etc.

Anyway, back to the dinner! While I’ve made bruschetta before, that was more of the Western style: toasted bread topped with stuff. At it’s most basic, bruschetta is just toasted bread with garlic and olive oil. Served with the salad we just made above, this was sort of like making our own, gigantic croutons.

You will need:

* one large baguette (the kind you always see poking out of shopping bags in illustrations)
* a clove of raw garlic
* olive oil

1. Slice the baguette into slices that are about 1″ to 1.5″ thick. I cut on the bias (diagonally) to make it look pretty, but that’s not necessary.

2. After cleaning the grill, place the slices on the grill over medium heat.

3. Keep a close watch on your slices! You’ll want to grill them for about a minute to a minute and a half a side. If they start to blacken it’s time to flip!

4. Peel your garlic clove and slice in half (either way, whichever is easier.)

5. After they are toasted, rub each slice on both sides with the cut side of the garlic. Then drizzle the slices generously with olive oil.

You’ll have certainly gotten your daily requirement of olive oil from this dinner, but it’s so good. None of it makes for very good leftovers, though, so plan accordingly.

Almost time for St. Norbert Farmers’ Market!

Time’s been getting away from me here (I’ve been having some job-related drama), but I wanted to point out that the St. Norbert Farmers’ Market opens this Saturday! It will run from 8am-3pm, rain or shine. (Starting in July, it will also be open Wednesday afternoons from 1pm-7pm.)

I also wanted to point out that the market’s website, which had been an unnavigable mess in past years, has been completely redesigned – and it looks great! Be sure to check out the harvest schedule, which lists which fruits and veggies are available in different months, and the revamped list of vendors at the market.

Opening day festivities start at 10am this Saturday, but some of the best deals (and best strawberries!) are best grabbed right when the market opens. See you there!

Restaurant inspection reports in Winnipeg in need of an overhaul

Ok, so, on Saturday, a couple found – yeah, it’s gross, just go read the article if you want. Basically, a previously living mammal was found in a woman’s stir fry from the St. Vital food court.

Now, Winnipeg has this great resource called the Diner’s Digest. It lists all of the closures and convictions of Winnipeg restaurants in the past 12 months… But it doesn’t yet show the closure of The Sizzling Wok on Saturday due to the – um, “incident.”

Now, first of all, the Diner’s Digest looks like it’s only updated a few times a month. So if your favourite eatery got a conviction a few weeks ago, you wouldn’t find out about it until a month or so after the fact. The lag time between closure or conviction and when it appears in the Digest is a worry to me. Transparency in government is great, but only when it appears in time for you to act on the relevant information.

But I’d also like to see the city of Winnipeg move to a more public and visible way for restaurants to show how well they’ve fared in their inspections. Many jurisdictions are starting to move to a grading system for restaurants, and they are required to post their rating at the door or counter. Parts of the UK has moved to a five-star rating system with their Scores on the Doors program, and Northampton has reported a rise in the number of restaurants receiving five-star ratings. The Toronto area has moved to a green/yellow/red card rating system, much like the Los Angeles County A, B or C ratings.

So, rather than waiting a few weeks to post how a restaurant did in their last inspection online, why can’t the inspector just hand the owner or manager a card to hang in their window? Restaurants with great ratings can play it up, customers get instant information on how well a restaurant is doing in their health inspections, and City Hall can make some noise about how they’re making more information available faster to the citizens of Winnipeg.

Or… you know, they could keep their Diner’s Digest a bit more up to date. I’ll take either one at this point.

*Edit: It is now June 3, 2009. The Diner’s Digest has STILL not been updated with the closure of Sizzling Wok. It’s been almost a month now.

If people are supposed to trust the information that the government gives them, the information needs to be kept up to date.

Reality check: Swine flu

I have heard this about a hundred times today, so I figured I’d climb on my (very short) soapbox for a moment to speak my peace.

There has been a lot of news recently about the swine flu outbreak over the past few days. I will agree that there is a cause for concern, but I hope people use this opportunity to be cautious, not for panic.

Flu is transmitted from person to person by flu viruses. While it’s possible to get the virus when someone coughs or sneezes near you, the most common form of transmission is by touching something with the virus on it, and then touching your face or mouth. Thus, it’s important to wash your hands frequently, especially when out in public.

What is driving me absolutely bonkers is the people who think that you can get “swine flu” from eating pork.

You can’t. You cannot get swine flu from a pork chop, bacon, ham, ribs, or any other pork product. From the CDC website FAQ about swine flu:

Can people catch swine flu from eating pork?
No. Swine influenza viruses are not transmitted by food. You can not get swine influenza from eating pork or pork products. Eating properly handled and cooked pork and pork products is safe. Cooking pork to an internal temperature of 160°F kills the swine flu virus as it does other bacteria and viruses.

The CBC has a great article explaining the difference between swine flu and avian flu, how virus mutations happen, and how humans can get infected with swine flu.

Anyway, that’s it. I just wanted to provide an antidote to all the people running around tossing out their BLT sandwiches, and to give a little perspective on the situation.

Pistachio recall hits Winnipeg

There were some new recalls today of nut products tied to the pistachio recall in the US. Two of the recalls affected products sold here in Winnipeg.

The specific recalls are as follows:

• Red pistachios sold at the Frontier Fruit & Nut kiosks at Polo Park and Kildonan Shopping Centre. They were sold in assorted sizes, some with no brand name. These nuts were sold between November 11, 2008 and December 30, 2008. (I believe this was the gift nut and snack stalls set up in the mall during Christmas.)
• Red pistachios sold in 150g packages at The Almond Tree in the Forks Market. These were sold between November 12, 2008 and April 15, 2009.

These products may be contaminated with salmonella, which is never any fun to get, so please don’t eat them if you happen to have any in your possession. Either contact the store or dispose of the nuts.

CFIA doesn’t know how many inspectors it has!

This just blows my mind.

You’ve probably already read the articles on the reports issued this week on the listeriosis outbreak last summer as a result of tainted Maple Leaf meats. These reports, compiled by Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada, shows that there was a breakdown in communication between the involved organizations.

This isn’t terribly new news. The confusion surrounding the whole issue last summer made it apparent that no one knew what was going on. It wasn’t until Maple Leaf stepped up and said that they were at fault, they were fixing it, and everything else that they needed to say to repair their public relations, that the public finally understood what was going on. Where was Health Canada? Where was the Public Health Agency? What are we paying these people for?

Anyway, that’s old news. What floored me this morning was the revelation that the CFIA can’t say for sure how many meat inspectors it has.

The CFIA cited a supporting chart showing the number of inspectors now tops 3,000, up from about 1,900 a decade ago. But this includes employees who don’t do meat inspections.

If they have a chart, they must have numbers with which they made the chart, no? Otherwise they’re just making shit up.

The CFIA also blames their data capture for not being able to say for sure how many meat inspectors it has, since some inspectors serve multi-purpose roles. This confuses me. I’ve worked on data capture. Unless their system is completely borked it should be a simple process to pull out how many inspectors filed inspection reports at meat plants.

Wait, it gets better.

Bob Kingston represents CFIA inspectors as the president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada’s agriculture union. He said there are only about 200 “multi-purpose inspectors,” and each one submits monthly expense claims coded to show the amount of time they devote to each commodity program. He suggested the CFIA is “trying to hide” the real number by hiding behind this excuse [regarding data capture].

Kingston estimates that the total number of food inspectors is less than 1,200, excluding trainees and supervisors. Of these, he said about 200 are processed meat inspectors.

Only 200 meat inspectors! Awesome!

So the CFIA went on to clarify their statement because some senators apparently got upset when they said they didn’t know how many inspectors the agency has. (Wonder why?)

The CFIA also clarified that its 3,030 inspectors includes those working in all areas of inspection under the CFIA’s mandate. The number of inspectors working in federally registered meat facilities is approximately 1,400, the agency said. And between March 2006 and March 2008, overall CFIA staff has increased by 13.7 per cent.

Now they have a number? Why didn’t they have it before? And why don’t I trust it?

Ok, that’s the cynic in me. And yes, this article is from March 25. But here’s something else to chew on.

In one of my classes, we were assigned to look for a statement from a spokesperson, and we would be analyzing the statements in class. I decided to look for a statement from a CFIA spokesperson, so I started searching the CBC News site. Here’s what I found:

March 30: “No one from the CFIA was available for an interview.”
March 25: “…CFIA refused to make a spokesperson available to discuss its recall policy.”
March 25: But according to an internal memo obtained by the CBC and Toronto Star…

…etcetera. Pretty much every single “statement” made to the CBC by the CFIA was either in a news release, an emailed statement sent after the reporter called, or in a document obtained via the Freedom of Information Act. Then there’s this:

Canada’s food watchdog is withholding files documenting its handling of the recent nationwide listeria outbreak, citing the high volume of freedom-of-information requests and limited staff resources.

As part of a joint investigation, the CBC and Toronto Star first made requests for the files in August. The files detail meetings between the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, meat processor Maple Leaf Foods Inc. and public health officials. None of the files has been released and the CFIA is seeking extensions that could hold back the release of records for more than a year. Standard extensions typically range from one to two months.

A *year* to get records? Especially at a time when food safety in Canada is under such scrutiny? Unacceptable.

Food inspection and safety in Canada needs a complete overhaul in order to gain back the public’s trust.

Early spring blues: craving asparagus

This is a depressing time of the year for Winnipeg gardeners and foodies, especially ones who do a lot of stuff on the internet… Like me.

The snow has finally melted off my garden, exposing the disaster of shredded leaves and stubble that is left from last fall. (The leaves were put on the garden on purpose, and will be dig into the soil as soon as it can be worked. The stubble is there because – well, hey, I was busy last fall.) The ground is still too damp to do anything, although if I had some raised beds I could be planting the first of my spring lettuce right now. It’ll be a few more weeks before I can start some serious gardening.

Meanwhile, the food blogosphere is starting to revel in the treasures of (a much earlier) spring, especially things like grilled asparagus. It’s at this point I start whimpering, since we won’t be seeing fresh local asparagus for another month or so.

Asparagus *is* one of the things that I would like to grow. My parents have always grown their own asparagus in Ohio, and getting those first spears from the garden was a treat. Of course, by the end of asparagus season you were totally sick of seeing, tasting or smelling asparagus, but that happens with every type of prolific vegetable when you grow your own. (Remember the late summer inundation of zucchini?)

The problem with asparagus is that it’s a perennial, so you have to plan ahead and find someplace where it can live for a long time. This location also has to be in full sun or close to it, which is a problem for us. I love our elm tree, but sometimes the shade it casts causes issues.

Anyway, now I’m waiting for our first influx of fresh spring vegetables, and my favorites: asparagus and the first sugar snap peas. What are you waiting for?

Ground beef recall

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has issued a warning to consumers not to use lean ground beef from certain Safeway stores in NE Ontario, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. From the press release:

Lean Ground Beef affected by this alert was sold in packages of approximately 0.450 kg, with the first part of UPC being 201670. Product label bears Canada establishment number 573 and the product was prepared for certain Canada Safeway stores in Northeastern Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

The affected packages bear a Best Before or a Freeze By date of March 19 and were sold from March 13 to March 19, inclusive and are no longer available for sale. Consumers who may have previously purchased this product and still have it in their freezers, are advised not to consume this product.

The release also said that the company, Vantage Foods in Winnipeg, is voluntarily recalling the meat, but as of 10:30am this morning the company’s website doesn’t mention the recall.

Check your freezers and cook your meat, people!

Wild Rice and Corn Stuffed Peppers

While I was dutifully going through the cupboards looking for things to use up, I came across many bags of wild rice. A few minutes with Google later, and I found this wonderful recipe from Redacted Recipes.

As is usual my first time around with a recipe, I didn’t change very much. I decided to use only green peppers, because I was afraid that the sweetness of a red or yellow pepper would clash a bit with the stuffing. (That seemed to be a good choice.) I also used only wild rice, instead of the wild and brown rice mix that Ann used. Hey, I had all this wild rice to use up! Finally, instead of dried basil I used a cube of frozen basil.

Boy howdy, we’re doing this again. And one of the best parts of the recipe is that it worked out perfectly. I have this problem, you see, whenever I cook something “stuffed.” Stuffed zucchini, stuffed pork chops, stuffed eggplant, stuffed mushrooms… No matter what it is, I always end up with more stuffing than I have volume to stuff.

But this recipe came out exactly even. Just as I was scraping the last little bit of stuffing out of the bowl, the fourth pepper was filled right to the brim. I know that it had as much to do with how big my peppers were as it did with the recipe, but it sure made my day.

This recipe ended up in the “do again!” folder. I’m looking forward to trying this with fresh local peppers from the farmers’ market. Only two months away…