If you’re hungry for good food, meeting a foodie luminary and learning how to make or grow your own edibles, head to the Dig In Horticulinary Festival.
Running May 1 to 6 at St. Albert’s Enjoy Centre, it features celebrity food expert Mary Berg from Gusto TV who will be among the chefs cooking up gourmet delights for a gala dinner.
“Her personality is so high energy. She makes cooking fun and personable. For an event like this, she has enough personality to engage with us and keep it lively,” said festival chair Dawn Fedorvich.
This celebration of dining also features two culinary bicycle tours, hands-on workshops and free weekend demonstrations on various topics including edible flowers, tool sharpening and growing your own tea.
Every year organizers tweak Dig In, and this year they’ve partnered with four local restaurants for the inaugural Dig In Dining Week. The participating eateries – Appetite Global Cuisine, Glasshouse Bistro, Ohana-Ya Japanese Restaurant and Riverbank Bistro – have created a signature dish from locally sourced ingredients exclusively for the festival's duration.
Appetite Global Cuisine has a complete four-course menu featuring bison steak with mushroom sauce.
“They’re in the Campbell Industrial Park. They’re a casual family restaurant with a professionally trained chef with high quality food and a high quality menu,” said Fedorvich.
Over at Glasshouse Bistro, the lunch-only restaurant is serving a turkey sandwich with house-smoked Hillview bacon, herb aioli, market greens and sharp cheddar.
Ohana-Ya instead is fixing a teriyaki rice bowl.
“They’re going to have a Japanese beef bowl that showcases a local producer. By using local beef, they show how local products can have an international flavour.”
And Riverbank Bistro plans on serving beer-braised beef short ribs with potato salad, grilled broccolini and a maple whisky jus.
“I’m super excited to have them participate. They do classic dishes and the quality is superb, just delicious. I had their short ribs in maple whisky jus and the meat was so tender you could pick it up with a fork,” Fedorvich said.
Anchoring the festival is the traditional five-course Saturday night dinner that will be capped at 100 diners. Berg has prepared a menu centred on Surf ’n’ Turf, a golden beet borscht soup, and latke with smoked trout.
“This year Mary is including some gluten free and vegan options,” such as mushroom risotto with tarragon tempura in place of Surf ’n’ Turf.
Tuesday and Wednesday are slated as the culinary bike tours. The Tuesday tour, roughly 270 metres and titled The Shops at Boudreau, includes Hicks Fine Wines, XIX Nineteen, Deluxe Burger Bar and Mercato.
Wednesday is a bike tour dedicated to the enjoyment of good food while burning calories. The tour starts at Riverbank Bistro for the appetizer. Cyclists then ride along the Sturgeon River to Black Diamond Distillery and the Beer Factory in Riel Park before heading back to Macarons & Goodies on St. Thomas Street for dessert.
Saturday and Sunday are the focus of 12 free cooking and gardening demonstrations.
“Mary is doing a cooking demonstration on Saturday at 3:15 p.m. Just after Mary, Black Diamond Distillery is sharing recipes for putting herbs in cocktails and mocktails. And on Sunday, we have Alex Czjaka. He was on the Kids Baking Championship (Food Network) and he’s from Edmonton, so we thought we’d invite him and he accepted.”
The 12-year-old cook, the first Canadian accepted on Kids Baking Championships, will show viewers how to make delicious red velvet cupcakes using beets.
Another Sunday cornerstone is six hands-on workshops where participants can learn to make sourdough bread, fresh cheese, a bee hotel, get the scoop on barbecuing, jazz up salad bowls and use food as medicine.
“You need to come down and be immersed and participate in something fun. You get to create and eat delicious food.”
Tickets for the dinner, culinary tours and workshops are available at www.diginstalbert.ca
