The grand finale of the Dining with the Stars televison series, is set at the Craik Eco Centre. This special event involved a surprise chef, Chef Moe Mathieu as he and his students from SIAST’s identity was not revealed to the other “star” guests for the evening until their arrival. These other stars were the chefs who had each participated in one of the previous episodes of Dining with the Stars. Chef Moe and his students surprise everyone with creating an entire menu of cold foods as he is determined to serve something entirely different from the other menus. A very elite set of diners enjoy converstation about their experience with the series, the relationships with organic farmers they have built and the resulting contracts that allow them to source local and organic raw materials for their respective restaurants. Other guests passionately talk about the need for healthy food for young families and residents of Saskatchewan who currently import 96% of their food. Chef Moe and his crew pull off an excellent finished product culminating in a multi faceted dessert that impresses everyone.
What happens when you take 13 of Saskatchewan’s best and most creative chefs along with a room full of local celebrities from the worlds of Arts politics and entertainment and introduce them to 17 dedicated organic farmers and the exceptional products they produce where you might just get yourself an invitation to dining with a
Stars uh I’m Hugh shankland um from Regina and uh we had a meal at the uh what was The Abbey restaurant uh some time ago hi I’m Pat and I work at the Bamber house in in wolley and we did U an evening with dime with the star and
We really found it really interesting I am milon deell uh chef at hotel Sask and I’m delighted to be here hi I’m Melinda loer I’m also with the hotel saskatchwan and I’m the director of catering hi I’m meel decas I’m the chef at C restaurants in Saskatoon and I’m
Glad to be participating in this event today hi I’m Mar France I’m the SF at kores and I’m very happy to be with you today I’m sad I don’t have a sexy accent like the rest of you Jenny Williams newground Cafe bir chills I always wanted to visit this place and I’m
Martin snow uh I had the pleasure of doing dining with the Stars at the creek and Cathedral beastro along with a compatriot that you’ll in be introduced to down the line hello my name is Ricardo Rodriguez and yes to from the creek vistro too and
My wife my name is Amy Joan I am your token media here tonight and I’m representing CBC radio and the Star Phoenix and wherever else I can publicize this fabulous dinner and I’d also like to say that this is my hometown so I’m so excited to be here
Thanks Amy my name is Anthony McCarthy I’m the executive chef at the sason club uh I had the Good Fortune if you like of of hosting the first event so I I kind of paved the way and uh ired out some Kinks for the rest of you guys so with
That I’d like to introduce uh Brent who uh is actually the manager of uh the ecenter and he’s going to tell us a little bit about the ecenter um Eco Center was built in 19 uh sorry 2004 uh it’s kind of a joint project
Between the town of c and the RM of c and it was built built militantly green they wanted to demonstrate put up a demonstration piece to say look at you can live environmentally friendly and you don’t have to give up give up your Creature Comforts so this is what they
Built and I’m not sure if you guys are aware of it but this is actually a straw baale construction facility um you might notice that the walls seem fairly thick and if you actually look over here against the wall you can see they’ve uh put a little little piece of plate glass
You can actually see what’s going inside the walls uh this entire place is done uh with an effort to save carbon credits or save uh save our environment so we have things like INF floor heat uh we have uh geothermal we have Earth tubes for for air exchange through here we
Have um like I said straw Bell construction we have composting toilets uh we actually filter our own water through here and by the time we’re done with uh solar panels and wind turbines um we expect it to be uh uh carbon neutral I know that we started off uh
These dinners um this dinner with all of you being informed we had a mystery chef and for those of you who know mo Matthew you know who our mystery Chef is now but I’d like Mo for you to come out and just tell us about your uh experience with uh
Becoming involved with dining with the Stars they said it was going to be a really tough uh group and uh a bunch of concerned pallets so I said uh I’ll take that challenge um they didn’t know what they were getting in for so um it was a
Pretty good thing to be part of uh I really appreciate what um what we’ve done as a group and all the dinners I’ve read all the menus went through back and forth and actually the the bad thing was we actually had to pick um menu items
That you guys hadn’t done before so try doing that cuz you guys did everything um I was really impressed with all the menus and I wish I could have been part of actually chewing on some of that stuff but uh it makes things uh kind of interesting for tonight um which I’m
Excited for it’s going to be kind of neat for us uh what we’re going to be doing tonight is a variation of all raw food a little different and I think with organic foods um it’s going to make the difference because uh organic foods carry so much more uh flavor uh not not
All the access it’s not picked out a season it’s not it’s not all these other things so I think the flavors are going to show through tonight and uh even if they don’t um it’s been fun right so uh thank you very much and we should probably get get this whole thing going
Let’s uh let’s go through my my crew um all these are students um in one way or another uh this is one of my first year apprentices bonica uh one of my of my first year apprentices Deb my second year Apprentice uh Lindsay um my son Ethan and another
Seconde Apprentice Dustin so all these people are involved in one way or another from learning from me so God help them thank you let’s get to it right um so what we’re going to be doing is I think I made five courses all small all is going
To leave you feeling healthy and maybe almost hungry at the end I’m going to try not for that but that it’s okay if that happens I’m telling you now just in case there’s a burger run afterwards so what we’re starting with actually is um uh organic radish with the radish greens
Still on it’s got a uh balsamic vinegar and uh chamina oil uh vinegar at that comes with a horseradish beet dust Golden beet Carpaccio in the middle and carrot juice so lots and lots and lots of stuff uh fairly pretty and it shouldn’t be terrible to eat there’s a
Little bit of the salt that goes right on the radish so it’s kind of that um my dad used to eat uh radishes just straight out of the garden with a little bit of salt on them and that’s kind of this thing I kind of said that would be
Kind of cool to do tonight so I I learned a lot of new things um I met a lot of new people um new producers especially uh names I hadn’t heard of um some products I hadn’t heard of uh so now I have you know several more organic
Items on my menu that uh at some point I probably would have I just got to have them on there that bit faster it was nice to meet local producers which I’m going to use a lot of especially we this Dawn actually came to me a few days back
And asked me what vegetable he wants me to grow I mean yes yeah and we had a big list for him he comes with the catalog and says this is what I can do for you and it’s a it’s lovely and this has really opened a lot of
Doors for everybody we do dinners like that in the restaurant generally once a month where the producers are there and we kind of get them to stand up and give them the Applause and it’s so good to give them credit because they’re a huge part of the chain of the story that ends
Up on the plate and it was just a wonderful time I kind of forgot to tell about half the guest that they were going to be filmed so that was kind of AO but it was a lot of fun and this dish just made me homesick for summer to cook
With all the all the ingredients uh from CIS katchan and uh the opportunity to show everyone that we don’t have to travel too far to put like great flavors on the plate great ingredients we always talk about French cuisine uh Spanish cuisine but when we come to scaton here
Like the chefs actually I don’t know you guys agree with me but we get inspired for what this beautiful Earth is growing for us just just great and also defend the philosophy of uh backing up the farmer like you know it’s working so hard uh to grow those products and for
Us to forget about the beat suppliers don’t going to mention any names but it’s like the relationship in between the farmer and the cook to bring it to the table to the guest it’s just just something that sometimes we forget I get speechless when I talk
About what this was like for me uh there’s been first of all the producers that we had working with us for our function you you’ll hear from Ricardo also were unbelievable I I got to work with some products that I’d never worked with before a yellow yellow potato that
Was I can’t even I get choked up even now hard to follow up on all that uh I got I’m not going to tear up but cuz I want to start that kind of evening but um yeah for me the the evening I must say that that the dinner we had at the
Abbey was the whole high point for me of you know two years at the Abbey really um it was it was the the one night when I really felt we achieved what I had initially dreamed of or imagined when we started for me it was affirmation that
Night was wonderful what I remember most was the music with fantastic you know spontaneous violin music and guitar music and beautiful serenading of people there and it was but really it was about the food ultimately being in contact with the producers and into the stores in Regina has just opened our eyes that
There is so much out there that we we can use I think I really like like how beautiful all the food that we serve that day and how other people in know restaurant was working with this same kind of food like local food and some organic and it was a really nice
Experience my best friends have like a farm organic farm and I really really like to bring it up and I think like maybe by starting like this we’re going to start a movement between all of us to make it better and to bring to saskat one and to the heart of everybody this
Is actually pretty cool we’ve done uh marinated carrots so we actually went down and got uh Chipotle uh chipotle peppers um from grandor Gardens at the market and we used a uh a vinegar to make up this really kind of spicy marinade so when you get into the
Carrots if you just eat the carrots by yourself you might blow your hair back a little bit so be careful it’s part of the dish so you have to eat the carrots with the Tomato because the carrots actually um marinate the tomatoes as well all right so when you eat it try to
Eat all the things at once or else it’ll be too overpowering um there’s a we made a Bean Salsa on the side blue corn organic tortilla chips and uh another organic salsa on top uh organic uh Tomatoes super super hard to find this uh this time of year um but uh the ones
That we could find um we made sure all the blemishes were off I think one of you uh tell me who it was after got the special blemish tomato so there’s a prize so I’m hoping everybody uh enjoys the meal usually this isn’t my kind of
My kind of salad but I found lots and lots of flavors in this that I wanted to pronounce so enjoy everybody thank you hemp hearts I’d never dealt with before um so they came uh came to my door one of the many packages I got from the
Different suppliers that were uh pass on to us and I’ve just loved them and just eating them straight out of the jar um you know by the Spoonful we we have them at home all the time now um there a staple in our house as as as well um on
The menu at at the club uh the thing that brings me back is I was working with uh two stars who I want to bring the best out of the products that they hated so they one of them was uh Jean he hated lamb I mean he didn’t he disliked lamb
And then was uh Roy Roy Allen he he was not a big fan of uh beats so and we made two dishes with it and they loved it so I hope I turned them around um I met with Mr Gormley at calories the Tuesday before to kind of talk about the menu
But had already been planned but and we had little all the ingredients on a little cookie sheet and little little square things and he said he was absolutely Amazed by all this these ingredients that were from our area just challenging people to try this and it’s really cool too that the
Customers will go with you on this journey we all very liky to have those ingredients that they grown here you don’t have to uh go too crazy with this beautiful ingredients it just comes all together and it’s very easy to cook with it I had the gift of of our vegetable
Producer actually sacrificing some of his seed garlic in order to provide us with an organic garden garlic for the function we we went with a music theme so we did a three beat soup which was really abor but you know we had three different kinds of be beats ended up
Actually at two beats because the one the one the one set of Beats was not really acceptable so we dispensed with that and we made it a two beat soup but you know the musicians thought that was pretty cool too actually this is a um pure of cauliflower and parsnip um
Really uh the there’s no butter no cream no nothing in this it’s killing me to cook like this actually I’m not going to lie to you it’s very different for me I I really I think bacon with a side of bacon is usually a good thing so this is
Very different and very neat for me so I’m I’m really excited by it uh puree of carrot and then that’s turned into ice cubes for you and that’s what the big glove of orange is in there for you so what’s going to bring this around for you though is the balsamic vinegar now
Balsamic vinegar is going to add that much needed acid that’s actually going to enhance the flavors a little bit so if you like that flavor of just purity of cauliflower absolutely get right into it it’s really neat uh very vegetable um and really fun to eat but if you want to
Reset the pallet and actually step it up and Notch little bit of vinegar on your uh spoon would be just awesome this is going to be the most vegetable forward dish of the night so I’m hoping well for you enjoy you as people who work in this industry never get an opportunity like
This to socialize in this way and to come together and to just um informally talk about what it is that you’re passionate about and this wonderful wonderful food that we’ve got and the tremendous producers I am kind of a little bit in heaven cuz I love macrobiotic food and raw food so I’m
Really excited sometimes it’s kind of I I feel spoiled and I feel like it’s hard to go back like Martin was saying like it’s really hard to go back once you’ve kind of gone there but I think that for the health of us the health of our children the health of our
World it really is the best choice and I think that any situation that people can become more aware of the options to them anything like this where we’re promoting something that’s so health-giving and so great for everyone um the more awareness and media the better not only do we live in
The center of Agriculture here but we are all part of the Agricultural process everyone who eats who eats is part of the Agricultural process because there is no reason for agriculture except for us to sit down today and enjoy a beautiful meal like this and I think as
As so many people sit down to dinner they’ve lost that connection with the farm and there’s such a wonderful opportunity to bring that connection back and showcase it here at the Craig ecenter basically what I’m looking forward to is um is having a cold meal where the chef isn’t mad at you and
Won’t talk to you hi everybody so this is uh this is the appetizer course um and what we came up with actually we uh had one of the chefs uh called me and said I don’t know if you’re the chef that’s coming but if you
Are my wife doesn’t eat meat and I I don’t know if I am but if I am I’ll make sure there’s a fish course so um uh so what we actually have here in front of you is a smoked uh pick roll filet um so just a little piece of pick roll that’s
A cold water and a comes from northern Saskatchewan it’s really really tasty fish we made a compost of apples um organic apples from Over the Hill Orchards this cider which happens to be all organic as well from living Sky Winery and some uh spice and some sweet and savory spices actually around that
Is um a squash a spicy squash puree uh please when you’re going through it the fish is not hot okay it’s it’s been smoked cold so when you get into it it’s going to have different different uh textures and flavors so uh not terribly terribly Smoky but also not terribly
Cooked all the way through so I hope you enjoy thank you there’s so much potential for for growth and for using our natural products um the hazelnuts that we had the night of our dinner I didn’t quite have enough and the last second one of my 75-year-old coffee row
Customers came in the back kitchen door with a bunch of hazelnuts that he had just finished shelling cuz he thought maybe I wouldn’t have enough and he had actually rescued them from his son’s lawn in nipin he was sweeping them off the lawn and he was going to take them
To the dump so Mike got in there and he was picking them out and brought them to me and actually shelled them that night so we have we have everything here that we need like Misha kushy the founder of macrobiotics said culture starts with Agriculture and I think it really is true because
You you know there’s all this discussion of Health but it starts with what people eat people are saying it’s really hard to eat healthy because it’s expensive it’s cheaper to buy chips we live in a society that equates chips and pop as food what the is that these conversations are so beautiful because
They remind us to get number one present because I think if we could just stop and do exactly what we need to do right now have a conversation eat some good food drink some wonderful wine and meet some people and not be worried about
What the hell do I have to do next we’ll actually stop and think about what are we putting in our mouth what are we feeding our children I was going to say uh better hurry up before your food gets warm um in in in this case what we have
Is two different types of tartar uh beef Tartar and beet tartar now anybody that doesn’t know what tartar is yes it’s raw beef and never ever ever do this unless you can shake hands with the guy that does the meat for you at least try it because it’s got different
Textures we’ve put in a lot of different stuff fresh horse radish is grated on top uh an egg yolk is served on top in the way of sauce instead of an U an egg yolk dropped on top so it’s very very scaled down for this application um the
Beet tartar is again raw beets so if you’re not a beef feeder please please each beats five years ago or six years ago now my husband and I embarked on this experiment to just eat local food in our own home and we did it really concertedly for one year and since then
We’re maybe not 100% anymore but the reason why I say this is because 5 six years ago when we told people people we were going to just eat the local foods from saskatch when their jaws dropped and thought we were nuts but you know I
Grew up on a farm here in saskatch and and the way you talked about going out in the garden and getting your own food and killing your own chickens and your own pigs and curing your own bacon was a way of life for me as a child that had
Been completely lost as i’ gone to the city and become a a career working girl so for me eating locally was a way to get back to my cultural Roots here in Saskatchewan so for me to sit back now and hear the discussion 5 years later where it’s the norm to discuss these
Things and everybody’s on the same page and we’ve gone to the next level which is kind of where the food Summit was at we all we’re all on the same page we want this to happen what has to happen next the people for whom this really matters can engage with the the the
Politicians and the policy makers hopefully in 5 years from now we won’t be having that discussion anymore about about you know serving Saskatchewan picked mushrooms in our restaurant that should not be an issue five years what you actually have is a bunch of different things you have four different
Fruit from over the hill orchids uh in Fort Capel all that stuff’s organic so they have their prairie cherries raspberries uh apples and their Saskatoon all those things are are there we have a Greek yogurt that sits right in front so that uh organic yogurt that
Sits in front a red clover syrup runs over top of that um that’s if you follow that trail it’s to the last honeycomb of honey in Saskatchewan so it’s actual real honeycomb you you can chew the wax but please spit it out it’s hard for the
System um so that’s really nice we made french toast that goes in the middle um and then we did Sun Orchard’s uh sour cherry organic um ice cream went on top so lots of people were involved in this it’s a 14 component dessert it also has on it the only Saskatchewan lemons that
Goes on to the berries and the lemon zest is amazing it’s really really tasty so um I’m hoping you’re enjoying it we had lots and lots of fun making this for you tonight and so this was kind of the crescendo of it all I’m really glad we got to do this for you
Wow I’ve eaten cold meals before with Silence from the cook so this one this one was was uh it can prove that you can eat a meal that is cold and still have good conversation you don’t realize how much you miss it until you taste what it
Really should taste like so I just say you guys did just a wonderful job and I love the fish dish I thought that was just excellent the dessert was a kind of kind of fruit explosion for me you know and I could T everything on each plate
And this was amazing all the flavors they come together I really like the soup the first plate that you combine the soups and the flavors there and it’s hard to try a cold soup and work around and I think that you you did an excellent Shob in all all of you guys
Excellent Shob in all the plates I have to say wow I’ve never had anything like that before raw except for salad but that was an an exceptional experience I can’t I can’t say enough about I thought it was all fantastic I mean I’m not really a raw food person I
Like food cook too but you did terrific job and every every dish was terrific as uh as I contest because IE one and a half of everything fantastic meal and my hats off to you Chef Mo and to all of your students you did a tremendous job executing this wonderful wonderful menu
Mo has been telling me for years that he’s a genius I clear Vina isn’t big enough V for you and and Mo and your team uh definitely did it serious is being wonderful and I’m pretty sure that all the chefs that we were uh sitting in
This table we did a wonderful job but I think you guys nail it nail the concept of bringing the true flavor of the ingredients I think you just got it there from the beginning the idea of like showing everyone who sitting in this table how important and how
Beautiful are the ingredients that we have in this land I think whenever you step out of your comfort zone you’re always rewarded so Mo you did that and all of you as well this is like the absolute most challenging season of the year to cook local food and you nailed it it’s
Awesome honestly with each course that came in it just got better and better and I have to say I mean the last course the dessert was amazing it uh one of the best meals I’ve ever had so thank you the Simplicity of everything was just balanced and delicious um I feel
Fantastic I don’t have any of the fog that you do after a turkey dinner and and I think it’s just all encompassing of the wonderful conversation the wonderful people here and the food was brilliant I loved loved every bit of it and the radish right from the get-go was
Perfect just perfect the the whole meal was fantastic vibrant colors I mean look at us here in March and and just the colors just bouncing off the plates um we should have just had a white tablecloth here actually just to really highlight them that bit more but today I
Don’t really um give much care about cooking but after today cooking with my dad and the whole team in the like for the first time in the kitchen I thought today was really really fun and I want to like Follow My Father’s Footsteps one day