Category Archives: Alberta

Edmonton’s Duchess Bake Shop is the Sweet Bomb

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Sinfully delicious confections at Duchess Bake Shop in Edmonton

Sinfully delicious confections at Duchess Bake Shop in Edmonton

If I had to choose just one affordable Edmonton eatery, my pound-for-pound champion would have to be Duchess Bake Shop, on increasingly trendy 124 Street. Yes, there is a smattering of fine quiches and open-faced sandwiches called tartines and batards, the latter topped with such things as roasted eggplant spread and hazelnuts.

But this five-year-old shop is the place to go for baked sweets and a pot of tea or French-press coffee. Even the names are decadent: apricot bourbon pecan Danish, rhubarb galette or a raspberry-studded confection aptly called l’amour.

These bombes are to die for

These bombes are to die for

Everything is fantastic looking and even better tasting. Indeed, I haven’t seen its equal in my extensive food forays throughout western North America. As owners Giselle, Garner and Jacob note on their website, everything is made daily from scratch, “using no mixes, no preservatives and no shortcuts.”

A nice touch is the elegantly dressed and solicitous young servers. And when was the last time you saw a barista wearing a tie?

Maybe it was a bow tie. In any event, Duchess, it’s time to take a bow, or curtsy. You’re my number one hit in all of Edmonton.

The elegant space is matched by the servers

The elegant space is matched by the chic servers

Duchess Bake Shop
10720 124 Street NW, Edmonton, Alberta
Tuesday to Friday 9 am-8 pm, Saturday 10 am-6 pm, Sunday 10 am-5 pm. Closed Monday
Duchess Bake Shop on Urbanspoon

A Rare, Medium-rare Burger at Calgary’s National

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Juicy, medium-rare burger at National in Calgary

Juicy, medium-rare burger and a side arugula-pear salad at National in Calgary

Here are seven words I wasn’t expecting to hear in a Canadian restaurant: “How would you like your burger cooked?”

You see, burgers up north are generally cooked till the critter is well and truly dead, devoid of the flowing juices one expects of another cattle product, namely a steak. It’s something to do with health regulations and fears of nasty e coli outbreaks.

Truly, I understand being on the safe side. But that hasn’t stopped many U.S. restaurants from offering flavourful medium-rare pucks, without accompanying trips to emergency.

Apparently, a way around these Canadian regulations is to freshly grind the meat in house and scrupulously clean the equipment used to do so. This allows National, a restaurant/pub with three locations in Calgary, to grind its chuck steak into burger meat and ask customers how they want it cooked.

I’d heard The National could be hit-and-miss about producing medium-rare burgers. But mine is perfectly tinged pink in the middle and all the more succulent for it. I add some American cheese and a runny egg, but really, this is a burger on a brioche bun that doesn’t need dolling up.

As if a medium-rare burger wasn't juicy enough, I added a runny egg

As if a medium-rare burger wasn’t juicy enough, I added a runny egg

You can get your burger with a side of what I’m sure are perfectly good fries. But just go for a sizable bowl of excellent salad, whether it’s arugula, pear and walnut or quinoa and bacon. If a burger’s not your thing, the open-faced short rib and oxtail ragu sandwich is also first rate.

The short rib and oxtail ragu is a good choice, too

The short rib and oxtail ragu with a quinoa-bacon salad is a good choice, too

National has an impressive 60 beers on tap, though at a rather pricy $8.50 a 20-ounce pint ($5 during weekday happy hour, 3-5 pm). But hey, this is Calgary, so the $15 tab for an unadorned burger is not surprising. And maybe worth it for one of the best in town.

The latest National outlet is in a bright, former Blockbuster video store in the West Hills shopping mall, with lots of windows, an expansive patio and shared, picnic-style tables.

National
180 Stewart Green SW, (and two other Calgary locations)
Weekdays 11 am-late, weekend 10 am to late
National Westhills on Urbanspoon

What are your favourite Calgary burger joints? Just hit the reply button at the top left of the page.

Five Best Calgary Stampede Breakfasts

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Mmm, pancakes. You can eat them every morning for free at Calgary Stampede breakfasts throughout the city

Mmm, pancakes. You can eat them every morning for free at Calgary Stampede breakfasts throughout the city

Beef and beer. The two primary food groups of the Calgary Stampede, right? Well, remember what your mother said about the most important meal of the day.

Yes, that means Stampede breakfasts. Yee-haw! They’re an important cultural component of the annual shindig—western hospitality served up with chuck wagons, sizzling grills and some two-step dancing.

Best of all, for budget-conscious road trippers, they’re mostly free. In other words, no chafing the back of your hand to pull the wallet from those crisp new blue jeans. In fact, one can carbo load gratis for all 10 days of the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth.

Mind you, there’s not a lot of variety to this diet: day after day of pancakes, sausages and orange juice. But did I mention, they’re free? About the only cost is a worthy donation to the Calgary Food Bank through the Put the Boots to Hunger campaign, affiliated with a number of breakfasts.

The only problem is trying to decide which breakfast(s) to attend. There’s got to be well over 100 of these flapjack fests on offer every year. Seemingly every community association, shopping centre, charity, corporation of note and, of course, politician hosts their own. So, as a public service, here are five Stampede breakfasts worth putting on your calendar.

1. Ismaili Muslim Community Breakfast – This will blow your mind. The best Stampede breakfast is hosted by Calgary’s Ismaili Muslim community. The food (especially the spiced eggs and lentils) is sublime, the temple tours enlightening and the organization so efficient I’d happily let these people run the world. Is it any wonder this is the faith of Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi? This year, the “breakfast” is taking place at sunset to mark the “breaking” of the “fast” (ie breakfast) of Ramadan.

Serving up great eggs and pancakes at the best, most unusual Stampede breakfast, hosted by the local Ismaili community

Serving up great eggs, lentils and pancakes at the best, most unusual Stampede breakfast, hosted by the local Ismaili community

Ismaili Muslim Community Breakfast
1128 45 Avenue N.E. (SE corner of McKnight Blvd and Deerfoot Trail); lots of volunteers to direct you to free parking and shuttle buses
Saturday, July 5, starts at 8:30 pm, breakfast served at 9:52 p.m.

2. Calgary Caravan Breakfasts – The Stampede Carvan Committee is a team of volunteers that puts on two-a-day Stampede breakfasts throughout the city. Besides breakfast, these folks arrange native hoop-dancing demonstrations and visits from the Stampede queen and princesses. Perhaps the best of these, from an intimate, community perspective, is at Britannia Shopping Plaza, where after wolfing down breakfast on a hay bale, you can work off the calories with a lovely walk on Brittania Drive overlooking the Elbow River.

Britannia Shopping Plaza
815 49 Avenue S.W
Friday, July 11, 9-11 am

3. CBC Calgary – The Caravan Committee also coordinates CBC Calgary’s early-morning Stampede breakfast, now in its 25th year, with co-host Calgary Co-op offering gluten-free options. Mingle in CBC’s sun-dappled parking lot while watching a live broadcast of the Calgary Eyeopener and grooving to some great musical talent.

CBC Calgary
1724 Westmount Boulevard NW (along Memorial Drive)
Thursday, July 3, 7-9 am

4. Community Natural Foods – As a health-food store, it’s not surprising that Community Natural Foods boasts the greenest Stampede breakfast. This ranges from gluten-free, vegetarian and organic options to encouraging participants to bring reusable plates. Think natural, local sausages, real maple syrup and the freshest orange juice I’ve had at any of these breakfasts.

Community Natural Foods – Chinook Station Market
202, 61 Avenue SW
Saturday, July 12, 7-10 am

5. Fluor Rope Square – If you’re staying or visiting downtown, just wander down to Olympic Plaza, across from City Hall. Each morning, the cooks go through 150 gallons of pancake batter and 500 pounds of bacon, all cooked on smoking griddles at the back of real chuckwagons. After wiping the syrup from your lips, try your feet at square dancing and watch the daily native parade.

Fluor Rope Square
Olympic Plaza (corner of 7 Avenue and Macleod Trail SE)
Saturday July 5 and Monday July 7 to Saturday July 12, 8:15-10:30 am

Unless you’re well connected, you may have to pull some wedding crasher stunts to get into the most exclusive Stampede breakfasts. I’m talking about private parties, where law firms, investment bankers, oil companies and the like treat their clients to a fine morning gathering, perhaps enhanced with a little sauce. Obviously, these soirees aren’t advertised. To get a glimpse of how this world turns, you may have to peer into the windows of participating restaurants like River Café, on Prince’s Island, which serves guests fresh pastries, free-range eggs and house-made granola. Of course, first-class pancakes are also on offer.

Great Summer Reads? Just Ask Judy

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Just ask Judy Gardner for great, unusual summer reads. She's sold more than 300 customers on this fascinating medical book.

Just ask Judy Gardner for great, unusual summer reads. She’s sold more than 300 customers on this fascinating medical book

Bricks-and-mortar bookstores will never disappear. Why? Because of people like Judy Gardner.

Now, many experts will tell you traditional bookstores are threatened by online giants like Amazon. The same folks happily predict the imminent demise of the printed book, with an ever-increasing number of people downloading electronic books to their tablets and e-readers.

Why, what could be more perfect than all your summer reading, at the cottage or on the road, stored on a device half the size of a paperback novel?

But online ordering and downloading misses a crucial ingredient: the personal relationship with a skilled bookseller, or should I say book selector. In this case, Judy.

Whenever I go into the Indigo Books store in Calgary’s West Hills shopping centre, I immediately go searching not for books but for Judy, praying it’s one of the days she’s working. If she’s there, I just say I’m looking for some books for, say, road-trip reading or Christmas gifts. I then simply follow her around the store as she makes recommendations that rarely, if ever, miss the mark.

There's nothing like a good summer book, even if it's reading by osmosis

There’s nothing like a good summer book, even if it’s reading by osmosis

In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell talks about mavens, people we rely on to connect us with new information. Well, Judy is one of those people. She reads widely and assiduously and has the rare ability to quickly size up a person’s reading habits and steer them to something they’ve never heard of but will undoubtedly like.

“It’s like being a chef and instinctively knowing what to put together for people,” she says. “I’ve been very fortunate that for more than 20 years (including a stint at former Calgary independent bookseller Sandpiper Books) I’ve been able to pass on my passion about reading books and to encourage people to take risks.”

Anyone can point you to the bestseller table. A more unusual gift is finding off-the-radar gems and convincing readers to buy them. Judy has sold more than 300 copies of one such book, God’s Hotel, a medical meditation by Dr. Victoria Sweet, with whom Judy has struck up an email correspondence. Talk about old-school viral.

A friend recently asked Judy for some travel and light summer reading and walked out of the store with 10 captivating books. One loyal customer buys a dozen of Judy’s recommended books every few weeks. If Judy’s going to be away, she’ll phone the woman to come in early to stock up on her reading material.

Of course, she’s “sold” books to her big boss, Toronto-based Indigo/Chapters founder and CEO Heather Reisman. “I’ve seen her enough times that, when she’s in town, she gives me a hug,” says Judy.

Regular Indigo/Chapters’ customers are familiar with Heather’s Picks. Well, just as importantly, here are some of Judy’s current reading picks.

This literally rambling book gets Judy's seal of approval

This literally rambling book gets Judy’s seal of approval

God’s Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine. By Victoria Sweet, who has worked at San Francisco’s extended-care Laguna Honda Hospital for 20 years

The Old Ways – A pilgrimage on foot along many of the British Isles’ paths and old roads by Robert Macfarlane

The Pope’s Bookbinder – A memoir by longtime Toronto antiquarian book dealer David Mason

Much Loved – Photographer Mark Nixon’s homage to aging and much-loved teddy bears and other stuffed animals

Medicine Walk– Canadian writer Richard Wagamese’s latest novel, about a father-and-son struggle

Spring Road Food Photos

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Pita place assembly line in Edmonton, Alberta

Pita place assembly line in Edmonton, Alberta

Some photos from recent road trips to Edmonton, Alberta and south to Utah

Getting ready to order in Edmonton's MRKT

Getting ready to order in Edmonton’s MRKT

St. Albert's elegant Glasshouse Bistro

St. Albert’s elegant Glasshouse Bistro

When you're attached to a greenhouse, it's no surprise to find live orchids in Glasshouse's bathroom

When you’re attached to a greenhouse, it’s no surprise to find live orchids in Glasshouse’s bathroom

Want some privacy with that uriinal?

Want some privacy with that uriinal?

No one does decadence better than Edmonton's Duchess Bake Shop

No one does decadence better than Edmonton’s Duchess Bake Shop

Old-style drive-in lives on in Great Falls, Montana

Old-style drive-in lives on in Great Falls, Montana

The locals hang out in southern Idaho

The locals hang out in southern Idaho

A fixer-upper in southeast Utah

A fixer-upper in southeast Utah

Face stuffing pastrami at Spero's House of BBQ in Malad City, Idaho

Mapping Road Trips

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Alberta may produce the best road map of any western province or U.S. state

To my mind Alberta  produces the best road map of any western province or U.S. state

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. In Alberta, that tired aphorism certainly doesn’t apply to a health-care delivery system that seems to change course every few years. But it’s definitely true of a provincial road map that has been pretty much unchanged over the decades. Which is a good thing, because it works brilliantly well. Indeed, I think it’s the best, most-user friendly official highway map produced by any state or province in western North America.

I love highway maps. They are the backbone of any road trip, from the preliminary planning stages to figuring out how far you are from the next town and pulling over for a bathroom break or meal. GPS devices, with their monotone digital voices, are great inventions, especially for finding specific addresses in big cities. But I can’t ever see them replacing paper maps for open-road motoring.

When I’m driving, I like folding up the map into a small rectangle that just shows the immediate road ahead. Of course, this eventually leads to paper tears along the creases. Better paper would help, but I just replace the maps for free every couple of years from a tourism or AAA/CAA office. One drawback of the latter’s offerings is they tend to put two states on each map, one on each side. I much prefer the official state maps, with the big picture of all the highways for that state on one side and the detailed city maps and other information on the other.

Having traveled extensively through western North America, I’ve had the opportunity to use about a dozen of these state and provincial road maps and compare notes. There are many things that go into the making of a good highway map. But by far the most important is ease of use.

When you’re driving, you have maybe a couple of seconds to glance down at the map in your lap, usually without the aid of your reading glasses. So it’s vital to be able to easily read the map. You’d think this would be blatantly obvious to the mapmakers. But some places do a spectacularly bad job of it, particularly if you’ve got aging eyes that don’t read fine print well.

They can all take a lesson from Alberta. The one thing mapmakers there have done particularly well is use a very light-coloured background, ranging from white in the prairies to the palest of greens in the foothills and a slightly darker yellowish green in the mountains. They’ve also used a fairly dark black font for towns, which is nicely enlarged and bolded for cities. A red font is used for provincial and national parks. What this means is it’s relatively easy to quickly find what you’re looking for.

My heavily used and marked Alberta road map is easy to read

My heavily used and marked Alberta road map is easy to read

By contrast, Utah, for instance, uses maddeningly light fonts for towns, mountains, forests…. everything. In Arizona, the background colours are too dark and the metropolitan names a jumble of large, almost overlapping print. Colorado also uses too dark a shade of green for mountainous regions, though, like some other western states, it does a nice job of highlighting scenic routes with bold dots. Idaho and Wyoming do deserve props for using weather-proof paper and bold black for their place names.

This enlargement makes it more legible, but Utah's road map is hard to decipher

This enlargement makes it more legible, but Utah’s road map is hard to decipher

Good luck trying to navigate with this map around Phoenix's suburbs

Good luck trying to navigate with this map around Phoenix’s suburbs

There's a lot of dark colours in Colorado's road map, but at least it does a good job of highlighting scenic routes

There’s a lot of dark colours in Colorado’s road map, but at least it does a good job of highlighting scenic routes

A few other things I like about Alberta’s map. Like some U.S. states, it provides population numbers in the index for all cities and towns. And the back of the map is totally devoted to detailed maps of all provincial cities and major resort communities. Interesting tidbits like the communities’ area and elevation are included here.

The back of Alberta's road map shows detailed maps of every city and major resort community

The back of Alberta’s road map shows detailed maps of every city and major resort community

The map for the neighbouring province to the west, British Columbia, does an even better job than Alberta of highlighting the names of its major communities. But it commits the unpardonable sin of splitting the map, so the more heavily populated southern portion is on one side and the northern portion on the other. And there’s no detailed maps for the two largest cities: Vancouver and Victoria.

It's the third largest city in Canada. Don't you think Vancouver deserves a more detailed inset map than this?

It’s the third largest city in Canada. Don’t you think Vancouver deserves a more detailed inset map than this?