Tag Archives: Anna Olson

PEI Fall Flavors Event: Le Festin acadien avec homard

September heralds the beginning of the annual PEI Fall Flavours Culinary Festival and what better way to start it off than with a feast featuring lobster and Acadian fare!  Le Festin acadien avec homard  event was held on September 2, 2016, in conjunction with the annual Evangeline Area Agricultural Exhibition and Acadian Festival in Abram-Village in the western part of Prince Edward Island.

The PEI Fall Flavours Culinary Festival features signature events hosted by celebrity chefs and the main events feature one or more of the Island’s locally-produced foods.  If you follow the links at the bottom of this posting, you will find stories and photos from past events that featured Island beef, lamb, lobster, potatoes, etc. I especially like the events that feature both regional fare and entertainment and “Le Festin acadien avec homard” scored high on both counts.  For visitors to PEI (and many do come in September especially for the Fall Flavours Culinary Festival), it’s an opportunity to learn about local culture and sample locally-produced foods.

PEI’s Acadian population in Abram-Village sure knows how to throw a good party with great food and lively entertainment.  A quartet of talented local musicians comprised of Louise Arsenault (fiddle), Hélène Bergeron (keyboard/guitar/stepdancer), Caroline Bernard (singer/keyboard/guitar), and Rémi Arsenault (bass) provided toe-tapping Acadian music throughout the evening.

PEI Musicians Performing at Le Festin acadien avec homard event, Abram-Village, PEI, 2016
Musicians Performing at “Le Festin acadien avec homard” Fall Flavours event, Abram-Village, PEI, 2016

The event was hosted by celebrity chef, Anna Olson, who is no stranger to the PEI Fall Flavours Culinary Festival as she and her husband, Michael, return to the Island annually to participate in the culinary events.

Chef Anna Olson
Chef Anna Olson at “Le Festin acadien avec homard” Fall Flavours Event, Abram-Village, PEI, 2016

Anna hosts three cooking programs on Food Network Canada:  “Bake with Anna Olson“, “Fresh with Anna Olson“, and “Sugar“. Ever the good sport, Anna was put through her paces before MC Georges Arsenault declared she had passed the test to be made an honorary Acadian.  She learned some French and she was taught some stepdancing moves!

Chef Anna Olson
Chef Anna Olson

Here was the menu for the dinner:

Menu for 2016 Le Festin acadien avec homard
Menu for 2016 Le Festin acadien avec homard

Upon arrival in the dining hall, guests were greeted with a complimentary glass of Benjamin Bridge’s Nova 7 wine.

Benjamin-Bridge Wine
Benjamin Bridge Wine

Benjamin Bridge Winery from Gaspereau Valley, Nova Scotia, was this year’s Festival Wine Sponsor as it was in 2015 when I discovered their delightful Nova 7 wine. The Nova 7 is a beautiful light-bodied  effervescent wine with a gorgeous pinkish color, and appealing aromatics with lovely floral and fruit notes. It’s a great wine for sipping or for pairing with a wide range of foods from seafood to spicy foods to desserts. It made a fine accompaniment to the foods served at this dinner.

Benjamin Bridge Wine
Benjamin Bridge Nova 7 Wine

Fresh steamed mussels were served as hors d’oeuvres. According to the Mussel Industry Council of PEI, the Island produces about 45 million pounds of mussels each year. This translates into approximately 80% of the entire mussel production in  Canada. In fact, fresh PEI mussels are shipped to the USA and as far away as Hong Kong, Japan, and Kuwait. It’s very common at PEI gatherings to serve steamed mussels.

PEI Mussels
Steamed PEI Mussels

The dinner was held in a large community hall and served, family style, at long tables.

PEI Fall Flavors Culinary Festival event
“Le Festin acadien avec homard” PEI Fall Flavours Culinary Festival event 2016 in Abram-Vilage, PEI

Servers, in traditional Acadian attire, brought the prepared dishes to each table.

PEI Fall Flavors Culinary Festival
“Le Festin acadien avec homard” PEI Fall Flavours Culinary Festival Event, Abram-Village, PEI, 2016

Guests then passed the dishes, from one to another, around the table, serving themselves.

Lobster Dinner
Serving lobster at “Le Festin acadien avec homard” in Abram-Village, PEI

The four-course dinner began with a bowl of Chicken Fricot, also known as chicken soup. This is a very popular Acadian dish.

Chicken Soup
Chicken Fricot, a popular Acadian soup

The Fricot contains very few ingredients and I believe it is the summer savory that gives this brothy soup its wonderful tasty flavor.  Made only with chicken, onion, potatoes, water, summer savory, salt, and pepper, it’s hard to believe just how tasty this soup really is! It was especially good with the French biscuits that were in baskets on the tables! French biscuits (Galettes blanches) are a cross between a yeast roll and a traditional tea biscuit.

Biscuits
French Biscuits

The second course consisted of two long-time Acadian favorites: Râpure and Acadian Meat Pie.

Acadian Meat Pie and Râpure
Acadian Meat Pie (left) and Râpure (right)

Both are made with simple easy-to-come-by ingredients.  The Râpure is made with pork and/or chicken, onions, potatoes (both mashed and raw grated), eggs, summer savory, coriander, salt and pepper.  The ingredients are mixed together, placed in a greased baking dish and baked in the oven.

Traditionally,  Acadian meat pie was made with pork. Today, however, it is common to have a mixture of meats in the pie – pork, beef, chicken, and/or hare, for example. Again, the ingredients for the pie filling are very basic – the meat, onion, summer savory, cloves, salt and pepper, and some flour for thickening.  The filling is encased in pie pastry and baked in the oven. Molasses is often served with the meat pie. Meat pies are common fare for Acadians on Christmas Eve although, on PEI, the pies are commonly now eaten throughout the year as well.

The third course was Island lobster in the shell served with homemade potato salad.

Shellfish
PEI Lobster

It’s very traditional on PEI to serve potato salad with lobster and this salad was a true old-fashioned homemade PEI potato salad full of flavor.

Salad
Potato Salad

And, for dessert, fresh blueberry pie made with in-season local berries.

Pie
Blueberry Pie

This was a fantastic evening of fabulous food and lively music. I thoroughly enjoyed this event and it was an opportunity for me to try some Acadian foods I had not had before.

Follow these links for other stories I have written on previous Fall Flavours Culinary Festival events:

PEI Shellfish Festival (2012)
Farm Day in the City (2012)
Savour Victoria (2012)
Toes, Taps, and Taters (2013)
Lobster Party on the Beach (2013)
Applelicious (2013)
The Great Island Grilled Cheese Challenge (2013)
Feast of the Fathers (2014)
Lamb Luau at Crowbush Cove (2014)
Feast and Frolic Dinner (PEI Int’l Shellfish Festival) (2014)
Beef and Blues (2014)
A Taste of New Glasgow (2015)
Beef ‘n Blues (2015)
Chef on Board (2015)
Cooking with Chefs Anna & Michael Olson in Brudenell, PEI (2015)

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Lobster
PEI Lobster served at “Le Festin acadien avec homard” PEI Fall Flavors Culinary Festival

Applelicious — Dining in an Apple Orchard in Arlington, PEI

On Saturday, September 14th, I headed to Arlington, west of the City of Summerside, for another PEI Fall Flavors signature event – “Applelicious – Meal in the Field”.  This is my second Fall Flavors event this year.

What better place to erect a huge white tent as the venue for a sumptuous dinner than in the middle of fragrant Arlington Orchard with trees laden with bright red apples.

Fall Flavors is a month-long food extravaganza on PEI, with culinary events occurring at various venues across the Island.  Each signature event features a local Island food product on the menu.

This is the fourth year that Applelicious has been held and always in the Arlington Orchard location.  Mitchell Rennie of the North Cape Coastal Drive Region says a number of factors were considered in selecting the facility for the event:  “We needed a facility that was open to the idea of having large-scale events in their orchard and we wanted an area where we could get into the middle of an orchard for the atmosphere.  These factors led us to Barry Balsom’s facility“.

As its name suggests, this event focused heavily on PEI apples.  This being a signature event for the Fall Flavors Festival, it was hosted by a celebrity chef – in this case, Anna Olson.  If you are a fan of Food Network Canada, you will likely have seen some or all of Anna’s shows that include “Sugar”, “Kitchen Equipped”, “Fresh with Anna Olson”, and “Bake with Anna Olson”.  Author and co-author of several cookbooks, Anna is also a freelance writer for several publications as well.  For this event, Anna also brought her husband, Michael, to the Applelicious event and the pair made fine hosts for the evening.

Chefs Anna and Michael Olson
Chefs Anna and Michael Olson

I have often picked apples at Arlington Orchards … yes bushels of them!  However, I had never eaten a meal in the middle of an apple orchard so this event intrigued me.  How could they produce a four-course meal in an orchard with no buildings, electricity, or running water!  No worries as it is amazing what our Island culinary teams can do when put to the test.

The evening started off with an oyster, apple cider, and cheese reception along with a meet and greet with Anna and Michael Olson.  Of course, as many of you will know, our Island oysters are world renowned and are always popular.  In keeping with the theme of local foods, the oysters came from the bays around Arlington.  Anytime you see an oyster shucker in action, foodies are generally not far away, ready to sample these sea-fresh tasty morsels. To enhance the oysters, Anna created five different apple-themed toppings especially for the reception.

World-famous PEI Oysters
World-famous PEI Oysters

There were several kinds of apple cider to sample along with a selection of PEI Amalgamated Dairies Limited (ADL) cheeses.

Apple Cider and Cheese
Apple Cider and Cheese

Anna was very obliging to pose for endless photos throughout the evening and to sign the menu cards that were at each place setting as well as her cookbooks that were for sale during the evening.

I never cease to be amazed at the elegance that can be created inside a tent.

 

At one time, a meal in a tent meant paper plates, plastic cutlery and glasses, and picnic tables.  However, take a look at the white linens and fabulous tablesettings that greeted guests to Applelicious!

Look at the simplistic baskets of apples that were each table’s centerpiece.  These were so appropriate for an event that featured apples.  Nothing more was needed to adorn the table and, of course, the contents of the centerpieces were all edible, too.

Here was the menu for the evening:

Applelicious 2013 Menu
Applelicious 2013 Menu

Part of culinary tourism, and a feature part of the signature events of Fall Flavors, is the educational component.  Not only are culinary tourists seeking out great food and dining experiences, but they want to learn something about that food, where it came from, and how it can be prepared.  For this event, Anna and Michael started their first demonstration of the evening with how to prepare potato crepes (using fine PEI potatoes, of course) and pickled melba apple slaw (with apples from Arlington Orchard) which was very delicious.

For the second demonstration, Anna showed how to make pastry and gave tips on how to make the perfect apple pie – did you know that the best apple pies are made with a combination of different varieties of apples?  That sprinkling some rolled oats over the bottom pie crust before adding the apple filling will help to keep the lower crust from becoming soggy with the juices from the apples as the pie bakes?

Part of Anna’s role in the evening was to plan the menu and provide the recipes.  As you can imagine, dinner for 185 guests (many of them tourists) – particularly in the middle of an apple orchard – takes a team effort.  For this, the culinary team of Shaws Hotel and Restaurant in Brackley Beach, PEI, provided the culinary/catering services for the evening, taking Anna’s recipes and preparing them for guests all, of course, under the guidance of Anna.  Anna indicated during the evening that PEI grows varieties of apples that weren’t familiar to her so she had consulted, in advance, with orchard owner, Barry Balsom, and researched the Island varieties when preparing the recipes so that Island apples would be featured in the menu items.  During the evening, both Anna and Michael circulated amongst the tables, stopping to chat with guests and sign menu cards.

While much of the prep work for the meal with done off-site, one mobile kitchen was brought onsite and all plating and final cooking occurred in the catering section of the tent or just outside.  Generators, of course, were needed to supply the electricity.

Dinner's Cooking!
Dinner’s Cooking!

Two musical groups provided the entertainment during the evening – the Gallant Family Band (seen in the photo below) and the quartet “Milk and Honey”.

So, now, let’s look at the menu items and dinner presentation a little more closely:

Beverages:  Bottles of Maritime-produced Sparkling Apple Juice were placed on each table.

First Course:  Smoked Salmon on PEI Potato Crepes with Apple Crème Fraiche and Pickled Melba Apple Slaw

Second Course:  Chowder Crab Cake on Autumn Greens with Dolgo Crabapple Vinaigrette

Main:  Pork Loin with Bacon Oyster Stuffing with Caramelized Onion & Paula Red Apple Glaze, Potato & ADL Old Cheddar Gratin, and Harvest Vegetables

Dessert:  Gingerbread Cake with Jersey Mac Applies “Foster”

 And, the finale:  Classic Apple Pie

 

Tickets for this event were $69.95 + tax (CDN$).

I am often asked what is the best month to visit PEI.  Admittedly, I am biased since, being a native Islander, I think anytime is good to visit our fine province.  However, if you are a foodie then, hands-down, my recommendation would be to visit us in September when the whole month is filled with fabulous culinary events across the province.  Whether you are an Islander, or planning a trip to PEI in September, I highly recommend you check the Fall Flavors website for event and ticket information to any of a number of great culinary events.  Be sure to book your tickets early as the signature events usually sell out.

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Strawberry Time on PEI

Fresh PEI Strawberry Jam on Tea Biscuits

There is nothing quite like the scent of newly picked strawberries straight from the field!  It’s a hallmark of Summer, particularly in climates with short growing seasons such as that on PEI.  Some years, we are lucky to get a couple of weeks out of the “strawberry season” but, this year, weather conditions have permitted it to be extended to about a month.

Fresh From the Field PEI Strawberries

I remember when I was growing up, the early morning take-offs to the nearby U-pick berry field so we would be in the line-up for its 6:00am opening for fear of not being in time to get the best “pickings” of berries.  Out would come the big, huge plastic bowls, hats, and bug spray and off to the field we’d go to get berries for eating, for jamming and, of course, “to put away” which meant crushing and freezing them for uses throughout the year.  There was no such thing as imported strawberries in the Winter from other countries as there is today….although I’ll argue those don’t have the flavour our local ones do!  Indeed, there would always be the “reviews” as to the quality of the berries – “they were so large, they had no flavour”, “they were so small, they were “poor” this year and not worth picking”, or “they had too hard a core in the center” – and, of course, the weather was never quite right for their growing no matter the conditions!  It seemed there was no “perfect” berry!  Yet, people picked pounds and pounds and buckets of them every year.  Going to the berry field was somewhat of a social event because that’s where everybody in nearby communities congregated in early July to get those berries!

I don’t freeze a lot of berries and take up freezer space with them but I do purée some for specific recipes I know I am likely to make throughout the year.  I freeze them in recipe-specific proportions and label them with the recipe name.  I like to make strawberry jam – sometimes I think more for the wonderful scent in the kitchen when it is cooking than for the need to have several bottles of jam available – although that’s a nice side benefit!  When I make my jams, I use smaller bottles – i.e., the 1-cup and ½-cup sizes.  These are ideal sizes for sharing and gift-giving and, let’s face it, who minds getting a treat of homemade jam.  Even if you make your own, isn’t it always nice to taste another cook’s jam?

I like strawberry jam on toast, scones, as a dollop on warm custard and, yes, even in my dark fruitcake that I make in the Fall.  But, one of the most marvelous ways to enjoy strawberry jam is on fresh homemade biscuits still warm from the oven.  For some reason, the flavour of strawberry jam always seems more true when the jam is served on a plain tea biscuit along with a nice cup of freshly brewed tea.  Perhaps this is why, of all the varieties of jams available, strawberry is typically the quintessential variety found on traditional afternoon tea tables.

 

Strawberry Jam Ingredients

The recipe I used to make strawberry jam this year comes from Anna Olson of the food network. This recipe does not make a large batch of jam – it yields approximately 6 cups.  It is a fairly sweet jam and I think the amount of sugar could be reduced by ½ cup to 3½ cups (instead of 4 cups the recipe calls for).  However, degree of jam sweetness is one of personal preference and much depends on the variety of strawberries being used and how much natural sugar the berries already contain.  This is not a super-thick jam and it does not use pectin.  I found I had to boil it longer than the recipe directions said.  In fact, I boiled it near an hour to get it thick enough for my liking.  The flavour is really good and authentic.  One thing I do is use a potato masher to crush up some, but not all, of the berries because I like some chunks of berries in my jam but not so many that it makes it difficult to spread.

Preparing Ingredients for Strawberry Jam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making Strawberry Jam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bottles of PEI Strawberry Jam

One of my favourite pastimes is to relax and enjoy an afternoon tea.  No better way than with a cuppa, fresh tea biscuits, and newly made strawberry jam.  It’s a great way to enjoy the fruits of jam-making labour!

Fresh Strawberry Jam on Tea Biscuits

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