GREY CUP ‘ALL ABOUT THE FOOD’
Local foodie shares tips
When it comes to Canadian pro football, Julie Van Rosendaal is the first to admit she’s more of a bandwagon jumper than regular cowbell-shaking fan.
“I hate that I’m the fair-weather type,” she says, “but my husband Mike follows it all season long, so he makes up for me.”
When it comes to Grey Cupwatching eats, though, few can hold a candle to the famed local foodie. “It’s all about the food,” says Van Rosendaal, a longtime Herald Swerve contributor, CBC food guide and cookbook author who counts more than 20,000 followers of her @dinnerwithjulie Twitter handle (you can also find her recipes online, dinnerwithjulie.com).
“You need a mix of savoury and sweet, but not just your regular potato chips and Doritos,” says Van Rosendaal, who, instead of her usual “crazy over the top nachos,” this year is planning a pork poutine pig out for her family’s watching of the 105th Grey Cup, a matchup between the Calgary Stampeders and the Toronto Argonauts.
“Also, it’s good to have foods with crunch,” she says, adding with a laugh, “to go along with beer.”
When we speak in the hours leading up to the big game for Canadian football fans, Van Rosendaal’s household isn’t the only one getting charged up for Grey Cup Sunday.
Across the city, fans are planning at-home parties, while others are booking tables at any watering hole with a few respectable-sized TV screens.
Those wanting to see the game in person have been jumping on planes and hopping into their cars and trucks, whether those folks are Stampeders fans or the usual coterie of green-covered Saskatchewan Roughrider fans who, no matter who’s in the Grey Cup each November, usually outnumber all other CFL fans in the host city.
Still, speaking as one who has seen the phenomenon up close, there is nothing quite like the spectacle of the Grey Cup Festival, or the Calgary contingent when it descends upon other unsuspecting Canadians in the days leading up to kickoff time.
“We’re here to bring the tradition of western hospitality to the Grey Cup,” says Sandy Dubyk, the spokesman for the Calgary Grey Cup Committee, the crew that’s been bringing flapjacks, square dancing and horse-inhotel lobby shenanigans to the Grey Cup for more than a halfcentury.
“We’ve got our red jackets on, we’re branding, we’re high-fiving the people of Ottawa this week,” says Dubyk, who has joined more than 60 other members of his committee to charge up the fiveday Grey Cup party that is part and parcel of the game each year.
It’s not all just fun and games, says Dubyk, who, when he isn’t serving up breakfast to strangers, works in the dean’s office at the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine. “We are trying to build community all across the country,” he says, noting that a few of his committee members have been volunteering for more than 40 years, paying their own way each November to be a part of the team.
“How many people can afford to bring their whole family across the country to the Calgary Stampede?” says Dubyk, who notes his team gets financial support from both the City of Calgary and the Calgary Stampede. “It’s something really special and we all love being a part of it.”
Doug Mitchell is another Calgarian who joins hundreds of his fellow citizens at the Grey Cup each year, even when his beloved Stampeders aren’t in the big game.
“We don’t have a lot of things that we as Canadians celebrate on a national level,” says the Calgary lawyer, former CFL commissioner and husband of Alberta’s lieutenant-governor, Lois Mitchell.
“It’s not just about the game on Sunday,” adds Mitchell, who’s also a part-owner of the Calgary Stampeders. “It is a slice of Canadiana we share, and I really appreciate how so many new Canadians are getting into it.”
Having been lucky enough to have a few Grey Cup writing assignments under my belt over the decades, I, too, have seen first-hand the camaraderie, kindness and fun of the Grey Cup Festival and game. It’s no surprise to see, year after year, Canadian pro football fans travel across the country in the thousands to participate in the festival.
This year, though, I’ll be watching the game at home, with my Stampeders-loving spouse (a season-ticket holder of more than a decade), along with friends who either love the game or just enjoy hanging out with football fans and plates full of lasagna and potato chips.
That’s exactly what Julie Van Rosendaal and her home crew will be doing, albeit a tad more gourmet-focused.
“You can’t help but get pulled into the excitement,” says Van Rosendaal, who adds with a laugh, “and for those relatives who aren’t that much into the game, I make sure I always have really good food on hand.”