FESTIVITIES IN FULL SWING AT GRANARY ROAD MARKET
Venue offers a host of family activities, plus spots to eat, drink and be merry
With Christmas markets in full swing, there’s a new entrant into the seasonal shopping blitz this year — Granary Road at 226034 112th St. West in the MD of Foothills. If that address seems incomprehensible, take Highway 22X west of Spruce Meadows to 37th Street S.W. Head south on 37th (which is 96th Street W. in Foothills parlance) to 226th Avenue. (Note: Red Deer Lake Meats is located at the corner of 96th and 226th.) Then head west a couple kilometres and you will see the Granary Road development to the south. It consists of a huge market building and an active learning park (which is closed for the season). The entrance is marked by five red granaries.
Granary Road’s Christmas market runs throughout this weekend 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and again Dec. 22-23. (The market itself is also open on Dec. 21.) There are free hayrides, carollers, a petting zoo, photos with Christmas alpacas, ice skating, family activities and, of course, Santa. Plus numerous opportunities for shopping with over 30 regular vendors on site and more Christmas vendors in the mix. (Check out granaryroad.com for the full details.)
All this shopping and hayriding and alpaca-ing is bound to work up an appetite so there are many opportunities to chow down at Granary Road, from Cruz Tacos and Chocolate Lab to Sofritto’s pizzas and Perogy Guy’s perogies. One group that has come into Granary Road in a big way is Canadian Rocky Mountain Resorts (CRMR) with a butcher shop, a bakery, a wine shop and three food outlets.
CRMR’s Urban Butcher provides fresh, top-quality meats including cold-smoked beef — it’s smoked but still raw — pastured pork and organic chicken. Master butcher Bob Choquette does double duty cutting meat and acting as operations manager while chef Lancelot Monteiro, formerly with CRMR at Bar C, creates the prepared foods. The Loft Bakery offers a range of breads and pastries from baker Abdesamed Ezzedini and pastry chef Tiffany Lucarelli, including an excellent sourdough loaf. And Bin 905, an offshoot of the busy Mission shop, offers about 400 labels at Granary Road. The main shop has about 10 times the selection, but Bin 905 manager Geoff Last has selected a “best of” list for the satellite location.
Facing the active learning park and a large indoor-outdoor seating area is The Loft Kitchen with a variety of grab-and-go sandwiches, salads and quiche, including a 12-day brined, sevenhour braised porchetta prepared by chef Douglas Harvey. It’s juicy and tender and layered into bread from the bakery, a fine sandwich.
CRMR’s main kitchen is flanked by The Loft Bakery and The Loft Kitchen on Granary Road’s main floor. And with 12-metre ceilings, the market provides enough headroom to plant a large lounge overtop the kitchen. The Loft Lounge draws from all the other CRMR operations — charcuterie, beef skewers and a bison burger from Urban Butcher, fresh breads and desserts from the bakery and wines from Bin 905. Executive chef Thomas Neukom has created a casual menu that includes a Tuscan tomato salad ($14), a meat loaf with heirloom tomato-onion sugo, Parmesan, mashed potato and vegetables ($18), vegetable focaccia ($8.50) and a 32-hour chicken broth with fresh noodles, egg, scallions, carrots and slowroasted pork belly ($15). So there’s no shortage of dining options.
One note about The Loft Lounge: Although it’s a lovely spot, it is unfortunately located near the air-handling system so it can be a bit loud. They’re working on it. And it’s easy to ignore while enjoying a glass of wine and a snack between hayrides.
For a fine cuppa and some finger sandwiches plus mincemeat tarts and cranberry-buttermilk scones, check out Heritage Park’s Holiday Tea Dec. 28 to 31. Two seatings (11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.) are booked each day in the Famous 5 Centre of Canadian Women for $29 for adults and $21 (plus GST) for children under 12. The Famous 5 Centre is a replica of the Tudor Revival-style house that Nellie McClung lived in from 1923 to 1932 in the Beltline. It will be decorated in a 1930s Christmas theme.
Heritage Park has other food-related activities on the go, including cooking classes featuring recipes from past decades and craft beer brewing workshops with Big Rock’s professional brewmasters. Go to heritagepark. ca for all of its programs.
Need a little coffee to stuff your Christmas stocking and help a good cause at the same time? Monogram Coffee has partnered with local songwriter-vocalist Ellen Doty to create “Favourite Sweater” coffee for the holidays.
Until Christmas, this Guatemalan roast will be available at all Monogram shops (Altadore, Fifth Avenue Place, Britannia) with $5 donated to the Calgary Drop-In & Rehab Centre from each bag sold.
In addition to the beans, each bag comes with a free download of Doty’s version of Favourite Sweater (with Dude’s frontman Danny Vacon) from her upcoming album to be released in March. Doty, a confirmed tea drinker until Monogram crossed her path, will also perform a concert at the DI on Dec. 19 at 3 p.m.