Sophomore years can sometimes feel like the morning after… Not in Saskatoon! Gold Medal Plates took over spacious Prairieland Park for our second-ever Saskatchewan event and it was a fabulous triumph any way you look at things – from the mind-boggling amount of money raised to the mood (very high energy but eagerly attentive) and the VIP reception – but especially to the excellent food. Chefs from Saskatoon, Regina and Prince Albert really lifted the bar high above last year’s mark and set the room abuzz with admiration. Speed-skating immortal Catriona Le May Doan was the MC, eliciting great stories from the pack of Olympic and Paralympic athletes who paraded onto stage. Excellent, get-up-and-dance music was provided by Jim Cuddy, Barney Bentall, Anne Lindsay and the inimitable Alan Doyle. And, once again, Hailey Pasemko, mixologist extraordinaire from Nita Lake Lodge in Whistler, produced her stunning cocktails. Her Victoria gin-based G.B.G.V. (Victoria gin, fresh grapefruit juice, fresh lemon juice, vanilla and basil) particularly caught the city’s fancy (the basil leaf and vanilla syrup really lift this cocktail to dizzying heights) but all three of her creations ended up as the talk of the town. A huge thankyou to Hailey for travelling with us, working so hard, squeezing a hundredweight of citrus in every city and generally thrilling the cities of Western Canada with her luxe textures and layered flavours.
This was indeed a night to remember for chef Trevor Robertson of the Radisson Hotel, Saskatoon, who won the bronze medal. He chose to prepare a “deconstructed osso bucco,” slow-braising the meat but leaving it juicy and rich as well as superbly tender, carefully removing the bone and then rebuilding the boneless shank inside a sheath of cawl fat. He removed the marrow from the bones, turned it into a creamy foam then piped it back into the bone which became a second element on the plate (somehow, “whipping” the marrow made it seem less heavy but every bit as rich). The third component was a crisply fried arancino ball of toothsomely textured Italian rice pressed around a spicy Italian sausage that was in turn filled with a heart of buffalo mozzarella. An asparagus mousse panna cotta with a rosemary cream sauce continued the Italian theme. The final touches were a dab of roasted red pepper paste and some cubes of an intense jelly made from the wine Chef Robertson picked. Tangy, fruity, big and delectable, it was the 2007 Nk’Mip Cellars Qwam Qwmt Syrah.
Our silver medal went to chef Ryan Marquis of the Delta Bessborough hotel, Saskatoon, who also won silver last year. His dish seemed to elevate the level of the competition when the food runners brought it to the judges (as we sat in our splendour in the centre of the great room, our round table spread with scarlet satin and Union Flags in honour of the coming Olympiad). Chef chose to cook rabbit saddle sous vide which left the truffle-scented meat very pale and interesting, juicy and yieldingly tender. Tucked in around the bunny were some perfect, pan-seared chanterelles (Saskatchewan has the best chanterelles in the world – and that’s official), streaks of red beet purée, a pool of intense truffled-balsamic reduction like some supercharged jus, and dots of a pungent green onion emulsion that made all the judges coo. As a kind of post-modernist component, a transparent plastic tetrahedron held a super-creamy cauliflower purée strewn with crimson beads made (by subtle molecular methods) from chef’s chosen wine. There was also a yummy rye and sesame cracker which I used as a spoon for getting the last of the cauliflower parfait out of its gaol. The plates were hot, the parfait chilled, the rabbit warm: Chef Marquis aced the textural component and also the wine match – the smooth, fruity 2008 Adieu Pinot Noir from Le Vieux Pin winery in the south Okanagan: it worked particularly well with the red beet.
Our gold medallist pipped the silver by only a couple of percentage points – though Vancouver has taught us that that can be a substantial margin. Chef Anthony McCarthy from the Saskatoon Club won bronze last year; this time he vaulted over Ryan Marquis to bring home the bacon – or, more precisely, the foie. Chef McCarthy had been planning this dish for the best part of a year, so when the morels were in season last spring he bought a thousand of the biggest and best and froze them with all the care and precision afforded to Walt Disney’s head. He thawed them for us and filled them with foie gras and a brunoise of black winter truffle and coated them in a superfine grinding of last summer’s corn before cooking them off. I loved the texture and the flavour of the morels and the way the molten foie gras squirted out into my mouth. Beside this superlative treat was a sort of agnolotti made with a dense gnocchi-like pasta and filled with slow-braised organic beef, oozed through with some creamy, sweetly blue cambazola cheese that had melted into the forked meat. There was a swipe of supersmooth squash purèe and a token salad-moment of embryonic broccoli and radish microgreens, a stripe of finely minced parsley in oil and a classic demiglace so perfect it would have made Escoffier reach down from heaven and pat Chef McCarthy on the toque, had he been wearing one. The wine was an unusual blend of Cabernet Franc and Syrah from Nichol Vineyards in Naramata – a wine I really enjoyed, especially since it scored a bull’s eye matching with the braised beef and the demiglace. Great work.
So thank you, Saskatoon! Once again you came to play and to party and to support GMP and our wonderful athletes. Having now eaten my way across Western Canada, I can say that the standards have risen for our competition in every province. I’ve noticed a radical commitment to sourcing local, seasonal and sustainable ingredients, to interpreting those ingredients within every imaginable cultural idiom, to an ever-increasing awareness that wine or beer or a cocktail can be a part of the work of art rather than some kind of front-of-house afterthought. Which leads us, coincidentally, I assure you, into the report about the wines that showed up at our party in Saskatoon. In the words of Gold Medal Plates National Wine Advisor, David Lawrason, it was
A B.C. Wine Showcase
The chefs of Saskatchewan presented one of the most stylistically diverse menus of the campaign, so it was no surprise that a broad range of wine styles emerged as well; with all but one being from B.C. Unfortunately no winemakers were on hand for the pouring, but they were represented by the staff of Cava Wines and Spirits, the only private wine store in Saskatoon, who were well versed in the particular wines they poured.
For the judging of Best of Show Wine I was joined by Cava owner Cameron Rizos, who acted as an invaluable liaison in getting many of the wines “imported” into Saskatchewan. And as fate would have it, Cameron was hosting an Australian winemaker Shane McLaughlin who volunteered to judge as well. No stranger to Canada or international sport, Shane was on Australia’s national rowing team in the nineties, and competed in the Commonwealth games in Canada in 1994. He now makes wine at Canonbah Bridge in New South Wales.
There was no unanimous decision on the best wine of show but the bright peachy and honeyed Orofino 2010 Riesling from the Simikameen Valley placed in the top three by all three judges. The runner up was Nichol Vineyard 2008 Cabernet Franc Syrah, a stylish, subtle and complex blend that faithfully showed its varietal and regional roots. Third place went Le Vieux Pin 2008 Adieu Pinot Noir, a firm, complex pinot named Adieu because it will be the last vintage – with the vineyard in the south Okanagan being replanted to reds more suitable to the sandy soils and hot climate.
Other wines donated to the chefs pairings included Tantalus 2009 Riesling, See Ya Later 2010 Gewurztraminer, Laughing Stock 2009 Blind Trust, Haywire 2010 Pinot Gris, Nk’Mip 2007 Syrah, Ganton & Larsen Prospect 2008 Pinot Noir, and finally, the only Ontario wine, Peninsula Ridge 2010 Cabernet Franc Rose. Le VieuxPin 2008 P’tit Rouge was poured to all during the Celebration and Awards portion of the evening.