A COAST-TO-COAST PURSUIT OF FOOD
Duo returns from road trip with book full of recipes
When Lindsay Anderson and Dana Vanveller set out on their road trip four years ago, they simply wanted to visit every province and territory, meet some fellow food lovers and have a few adventures.
But one thing led to another, and before long they realized they had the makings of a cookbook, one that explores the idea of what Canadian food is.
The answer, they found during their journey, was both complex and delicious.
“It’s true no one dish represents every last part of Canada, but how could it, and why would we want it to? Canada is huge,” they write in the introduction to their new book, Feast: Recipes and Stories from a Canadian Road Trip (Appetite by Random House, $35).
“But there is such a thing as Canadian food, and it’s broad and diverse and so, so compelling.”
The pair will be in Calgary for a book launch at The Cookbook Co. Cooks on Mar. 2, starting at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $42 apiece and include a copy of the book, a glass of wine and nibblies. (Call 403-2656066 to register.)
And this summer, they’ll host events across Canada as part of the country’s 150th anniversary celebrations.
Originally from Sarnia, Ont., Vanveller has lived all over Canada, but has called Vancouver home for the past seven years. Anderson, who also lives in Vancouver these days, grew up in Prince George, B.C. and went to school in Victoria. She lived in Calgary for a time, too, working at The Cookbook Co. Cooks and Sidewalk Citizen.
The idea for the book began in 2013, when the two friends, now 31, were on a West Coast camping trip. “We started talking about how fun it would be to do a true Canadian road trip, not just Vancouver to Newfoundland, but to go to all 10 provinces and the three territories, too,” says Anderson.
They began meeting a few times a week, to figure out the logistics. “What would the trip look like? How would we fund it? Who would we visit?” Vanveller says as she recalls those early conversations.
The obvious angle was to explore their mutual passion for good food and the people who make it. They launched a blog, Edible Road Trip (edibleroadtrip.com), and they saved some money. Then they hit the road, eight months after they began planning.
“Lindsay was just finishing a job. I’d been at mine for a few years, and I was ready to move on. We didn’t have mortgages or kids,” says Vanveller.
“We figured if we didn’t have enough money to make it the whole way across the country, we’d stop for a while and make some more money so we could keep going.”
“The more planning we did, the crazier the whole thing seemed,” adds Anderson with a laugh. “But the deeper we got into planning, the more dedicated we became to doing it.”
Five months and 37,000 kilometres later (34,000 of those in a car), they hit their goal of seeing and eating well in all the provinces and territories. They’ve included such well-known Canadian recipes as butter tarts, Caesar cocktails, Nanaimo bars and Montreal-style bagels, alongside lesser-known treats such as goat yogurt fudge, braised Arctic hare, moose stroganoff and reindeer meatloaf.
And along the way, they met talented home cooks, food producers and some of the biggest players in the Canadian culinary scene.
“We were just two curious people driving through the country, and we were constantly meeting so many amazing people,” Vanveller says.
“It was just remarkable to see how big the Canadian food industry is, and at the same time, how small and close-knit it is, too.”
For now, Vanveller and Anderson are content to just enjoy the attention that the new book is getting. But they’re also starting to think about what they could do next.
“We’re capable of more than we ever imagined,” Anderson says. “We don’t know what’s coming next, but we do know we love big projects and adventure and travel. It’s a nice place to be in, to be thinking about the potential of so many ideas.”