Food News

This morning I went to the Saskatoon Farmers' Market, mostly looking to buy a small spearmint plant, but unfortunately all I could find was applemint, chocolate mint, pineapple mint (???), gingermint, peppermint, and maybe another obscure variety but no spearmint. Oh well. I left relatively empty handed, except for some sort of cranberry bun-like thing which promised to be "Bread Like No Other"... it was pretty good anyway.

The BEST part though was getting to try a sample of coffee-braised beef short ribs from a new restaurant that is going to be running a few nights a week at the Farmers' Market during the summer. OMG it was seriously amazing and I can't wait to check out the restaurant. It's called Cultivate and is completely staffed and managed by a group of culinary students, with most of the food supplied by Farmers' Market vendors. LINKLINKLINK

In other food news, last night I checked out Schryer's Smoked BBQ Shack (warning - doesn't work in Firefox) on Millar and 51st. How long has it been open? It sounds like a couple years but I only just started hearing about it over the past couple months. Anyway, three smaller-appetite girls shared the "Smoked Out Sample Platter" consisting of (source: schryers.com):

- 1/3 lb of hickory smoked pulled pork
- 1/3 lb of hicory smoked beef brisket
- 1 quarter piece of hickory smoked prairie pride chicken (thigh and drum attached)
- 1/2 rack of hickory pork side ribs
- Large portion of skin on fries
- 2 pieces of Schryer's home made corn bread with butter
- 2 sides of Schryer's home made coleslaw
- 2 fresh baked buns

We forgot to take an after picture, but here's the before, on a platter that basically took up the whole table:

All that was left at the end were some fries, half a bun, a bit of cornbread, about 1/4 of the pork and brisket, and a bit of coleslaw. Recommended! Also their in-house smoked cheeses, of which they provide samples, were quite good too and actually probably better than I thought since I was trying it after eating a million pounds of meat and was so full and didn't really want anymore food anyway.

Wooooooo anyway you guys should go to these places!