Random Thoughts About the Crave Food & Wine Festival

Ottawa is back in the food and wine festival game this year with the debut of the Crave Food & Wine Festival. These are the impressions my wife and I had on Day 1 of the latest version of the premier food and wine event in the nation's capital.

• After the fiasco from the last Food and Wine Festival, I assume the Shaw Centre and anyone else working this event got whatever money owed to them upfront.
• Unlike the last time we went to one of these shows, there weren't long lineups to get in, which is a plus. We arrived at the Shaw Centre after 7:30pm and were surprised at how few people we saw on the way to the main hall.
• Sample tickets were $1 each, with the suggested amount to start with being 20 tickets. With the price of admission for two tickets being over $70, it is still the money grab it always was.
• The dress code for this was chic casual which explains the woman I saw in sweatpants there; she had a Gwen Stefani from her No Doubt days vibe going, so I guess it met the criteria.
• There was a decent crowd to be found once we got to the main showroom, with enough people cluttered around the various vendors that you would want to wear a facemask while waiting for food if you were so inclined.
• I expected more in terms of presentation when I heard they were turning the show floor into a  series of themed sections.  I really couldn't tell which section was which.
• As usual lots of people used this event as an excuse to dress up. The gentleman in the orange suit stood out to me for obvious reasons.
• Dawn: "What's with all the leather pants?"
• Biggest sample I had: a delicious pad Thai from Green Papaya served in a large container that would normally contain bowling alley French fries. Ten tickets/dollars.
• Something as simple as a sign indicating how many tickets something costs would have been nice.
• Standout samples include a banh mi from an Indigenous vendor, a slider from one of two BBQ vendors present, and some fish cakes that reminded me of the ones my Bajan mom would make.
• If they were frying up some chicken wings, I would have made an effort to see what was happening at the Hot Ones^® Ginger Goat booth.
• We didn't get tickets for any of the demonstrations they had (that's extra), but we could enter the room and watch from afar. Maybe that's why the video screens were the size they were.
• There seemed to be a lot of food-related photo backdrops set up for people to use on social media. They really want this to be a place to be seen at.
• It's a big hall, maybe a few more tables for people to eat from?
• "Is that woman only wearing pantyhose?!?"
• Previous food and wine festivals let you keep your sample glass. Not so this year.
• With the numerous security guards and two OPP officers milling around, it made us wonder what exactly did they expect to happen. Everyone must be still on high alert after the convoy protest.
• Overall, not a bad return, but there's a lot of room for improvement.

An Out of This World Corned Beef Sandwich

A good sandwich is one of the joys of eating. Delicious items stuffed in between two pieces of bread is such an obvious way to consume food it's hard to believe the Earl of Sandwich was the first person to ever do so. For my money, the best sandwich in the city is from Di Rienzo's. If I have to go on a long trip I've taken their turkey and prosciutto with Havarti, lettuce, mayo, tomato, and spicy eggplant with me as needed comfort food to deal with the rigours of traveling. An astronaut took this concept to the extreme in the sixties by bringing a sandwich into orbit with him. As we learned when Homer went to space back when "The Simpsons" was considered groundbreaking and risque, food particles in a weightless environment can gum up machinery. On his first flight into space, John Young took a corned beef sandwich a fellow astronaut gave him and zipped it into his space suit before he boarded the rocket for the Gemini 3 mission. At some point on the trip, Young pulled out the sandwich and showed it to his commander, who reminded him of the safety risk and scolded him for it. Young was more formally reprimanded when he came back to Earth, as part of his mission was to test new dehydrated food packets and some congressmen thought he was costing the U.S. millions of dollars by ignoring the actual food that they were up there to try out. In honour of National Sandwich Day, you can either recreate the basic corned beef sandwich Young smuggled onboard (he later remarked it was without mustard or pickles), or you can make yourself the deli mainstay that is the Reuben. 

Ingredients

rye bread (pretzel rolls can also be used)
butter
Swiss cheese
good quality corned beef
sauerkraut, drained
115 g mayonnaise
45 g ketchup
30 g horseradish
12.5 g granulated sugar
10 mL Worcestershire sauce
2. 5 g paprika
Kosher salt
black pepper, freshly ground if possible

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, ketchup, horseradish, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, and paprika until everything is combined. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Butter one side of a slice of bread. On another slice, spread the Russian dressing you just made on one side. Place some Swiss cheese, corned beef, and sauerkraut on the non-buttered side of the bread. Top the sandwich with the other slice of bread, dressing side down. Butter the top of the sandwich you've made.
3. Heat a skillet big enough for the sandwich over medium heat. Place the sandwich in the pan and cook until it is golden and the cheese has melted, 3 minutes per side.