FOODIE FESTIVITIES
Delicious weekend ahead for cheese lovers and vegetarians
Whether your tastes run to triplecream brie or vegan cream pies, there’s a delicious destination for you this weekend.
In Picton, less than a three-hour drive from Ottawa, the fifth annual Great Canadian Cheese Festival will feature more than 150 cheeses from 40 Canadian artisan cheese producers, including the now almost-impossible-to-obtain Laliberté, the triple-cream brie that recently won best cheese in Canada.
That festival, which regularly attracts about a third of its visitors from Ottawa, also includes a strong contingent of Ottawa-area producers and products.
To celebrate its fifth anniversary, the first 1,000 visitors to the festival on Saturday will receive a bag of fresh-made curds from the St. Albert Cheese Co-operative. On Sunday, chef Norm Aitken from Empire restaurant will compete against three other chefs to see who can make 250 grilled cheese sandwiches the fastest (and the first 1,000 visitors that day will eat the sandwiches for lunch).
In addition to the cheese producers, including 10 new to the festival from Quebec, the Prince Edward County festival will include about 40 other artisan foods, beers and wines. About a dozen Ottawa-area artisan food producers will be there, including Top Shelf Preserves, Seed to Sausage charcuterie and Almonte’s Hummingbird chocolate, which will debut a blue-cheese truffle, made with Lanark’s Back Forty’s Highland Blue Cheese and Hispaniola chocolate.
“I think that makes it the biggest collection of artisan foods in Ontario as well as the largest artisan cheese show in Canada,” says founder Georgs Kolesnikovs, who has seen the festival grow from about 2,200 visitors the first year to close to 5,000 last summer.
Meat Press, a new charcuterie and sandwich shop to open in Hintonburg at the end of June, will debut at the show. Etienne Cuerrier, formerly a chef at Soif wine bar in Gatineau, says his shop will feature house-made charcuterie and preserves and bread he’ll bake daily, starting with a levain made from apples.
Kolesnikovs says many people buy cheese to take home since they can get artisan products from B.C.to P.E.I. that they can’t find elsewhere, often at half the price retail stores charge.
While events such as the Dairy Farmers’ Cheese Grand Prix are limited to cheeses made from cow’s milk, Kolesnikovs’ event includes cow, goat and sheep’s milk cheeses.
Back in Ottawa, the sixth annual Veg Fest will feature all kinds of foods made without any animal products.
“You’ll be able to sample and buy products from companies like Garlic Garden, which makes hummus and Zengarry cashew cheeses, and also taste foods from local restaurants such as Asian Stars, The Table, Hareg Café and La Belle Verte,” says Pamela Tourigny, who co-founded the festival in 2009.
In addition to more than 80 exhibitors, Veg Fest will also feature speakers, including Steve Jenkins, who became a social media sensation with his quest to raise funds for a sanctuary for his pig Esther (estherthewonderpig.com), and Kristin Lajeunesse, who quit her job and set out to eat at every single vegan restaurant in the United States.
Cooking demonstrations will be held at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. both days, and include:
Ron Farmer of The Green Door preparing seasonal local vegetables such as asparagus and stinging nettles
Erin Daminato, the “fritter queen” at Strawberry Blonde Bakery, making vegan cream pies
Amanda Lunan of Auntie Loo’s Treats demonstrating how to make vegan scones.
Auntie Loo’s will also debut new vegan macaroons.
“I’ve been working on a recipe for these for four years,” says Auntie Loo’s vice-president Kate Veinot. “I finally cracked it last week and now I’ve started to play with the flavours. We’ll probably have pink-lemonade and salted-caramel-chocolate-peanut-butter ones for sale at Veg Fest.”
Tourigny says the festival isn’t just for vegans.
“It’s an opportunity for people to see, all in one place, all the different options that are out there. It’s just a fun event with really positive, non-judgmental energy.”