I love the summer!!!

The summer of 2012, I love it, so far it is one of the best. It already started with a great Canada Day, beautiful weather, awesome atmosphere, great bites to eat with the food trucks downtown at Olympic Plaza and later home, enjoying ribs on the BBQ with the whole family. Then of course the Stampede took over Calgary. We always tell our family back in The Netherlands that Canadians certainly know how to party, one festival comes after the other, summertime seems like one endless party.

Stampede, maybe due to the weather, maybe due to the extra money invested because of the 100 year anniversary, I don’t know but wow it was awesome!! Gary and I even bought cowboy heads, we now proudly wear our plead and head and say Yahoo as if we were born to do so. Of course we enjoyed some of the Stampede food, we had Elephant Ears, which tastes a lot like a Dutch “oliebol” and of course, it was sooo hot, we had ice-cream.

The weekend before we already attended a Stampede BBQ at Rafter Six, organized by the great people of the Dutch Canadian Business Club. Nice burgers and a great salad and dessert bar. And most of all, a lot of fun. Dutch “gezelligheid” (coziness) build around a very Canadian BBQ.

In the mean time, while enjoying the sun (and the shade), I am working hard on two of my favorite projects: The Culinary Treasure Hunt and Meaningful Meals.

The Treasure Hunt is going to be a great success. Casel Marche and J. Webb have donated their space and coffee for the launch party! Their location is great for this event, ample parking space and centrally located. So mark it down in your calendar: October 13, between 8:30 and 10 am, The Culinary Treasure Hunt Launch Party at Casel Marche on 17th Ave! Sign up starts here at July 16. Cost: $10 per team of two! All proceedings will go to Brown Bagging for Kids Calgary. More information will follow! Stay in touch!

I also like to brag a bit about this event, and this week, July 26, I will get the chance to brag for 90 seconds at the Awesome Calgary Foundation Award evening. The Culinary Treasure Hunt is one of the 4 finalists for this months $1000 award. So keep your fingers crossed, and if you have some time to spare, come and support me at 6 pm in the DaDe Art Gallery in Inglewood!

Meaningful Meals is looking for Board Members! This week I will meet with Mike Kaumeyer who started Break Bread a while ago with the same intentions, to get people to eat together again. It has been a very surprising and interesting discover that something I always felt was important now suddenly is backed up by research and scientific proof. It definitely motivates me to continue working on this. The first step is to develop a board. So if you know any one who is interested or if you like to be involved yourself, please contact me at anneke@culinarycalgary.ca