| Bad Dogs, industrial espionage, muskox, $5,000 coffee makers, the odd nap, 10,000 visitors and nearly 1,000 booths. HostEx, Canada’s largest food and hospitality show, held recently in Toronto, is open only to industry services and suppliers. For someone not in the industry, HostEx is a high-pitched wonderland, a peek at the machinery and mayhem that animates restaurants. Chefs clatter their way through product demonstrations, exhibitors call out to clients, and hale and hearty let’s-make-a-deal laughter mingles with the rib-tickling sales pitch for juicy roast beef slices. The sounds bounce off aisles of state-of-the-art refrigeration and cooking units, echo through tunnels of dishwashers large enough for a three-year-old to play in, ping off the china and glassware, and peak with the hiss of a beer bottle being cracked open on beer-sampling row.
While many Alberta businesses attend smaller shows in Calgary and Vancouver, a handful have ventured east to seek additional fortunes. If current trends continue there will be more venturing, because Alberta is the hot market in Canadian food service these days. As a province, we are the country’s biggest spenders. The Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association, which puts on HostEx and tracks Canadian food spending, says the average Alberta household spends $1,882 annually on restaurant meals.
But for Albertans who run restaurants, the reality is pre-tax profits averaging 3.8 per cent. And that’s better than the national average of 3.3 per cent.
With those kinds of margins, HostEx seminars like " There’s Got to Be an Easier Way to Run a Restaurant" draw crowds. Bill Marvin, self-appointed restaurant doctor, begins his talk to an audience eager for quick restaurant fixes.
"What did you learn from your staff today?" Dr. Bill intones. "Because if you didn’t learn something from them, you didn’t grow."
I glance to my right, where a stony-faced Albertan in thick-rimmed eyeglasses considers the doc’s metaphysical musings with a meditative concentration. I gaze more intently, past the glasses to his eyes, which are closed in slumber. The pace of the show? An early morning flight? Who can say?
But it’s time to get back on the floor, where, among the booths for party streamers, food flavourings (lamb, anyone?) and eight-head-capacity lettuce spinners, I see an open cash machine. Not open with $20 bills afloat, just with big plastic bags of promo literature for Calgary-based DirectCash. Started in Calgary in 1998, DirectCash surpassed CIBC this past spring as the largest ATM network in Canada.
Across the aisle is Bad Dog Theatre Company. Back in its pre-"pup"-escent days, Bad Dog was Theatresports Toronto. "We certainly have a lot of people that trained at the Loose Moose," says Kerry Griffin, Bad Dog producer and performer. "We have a lot of influence that comes from improv in Calgary."
Bad Dog serves up improv workshops to promote team-building and get restaurant staff thinking on their feet. "Even things as simple as remembering orders and being entertaining as you’re serving somebody," says Griffin.
Not so simple, I protest. Have you ever been a waiter?
"We’re actors," throws in Martha O’Neill, another Bad Dog. "What do you think?"
I think "Waiter, bring me muskox" sounds like improv. But down a few booths, Hills Foods of Coquitlam, B.C. is angling finely sliced dried muskox, or "Mipkuzola," by splicing a new English name from Inuvialuktun (mipku, meaning dried meat) and Italian ("zola," a tip of the hat to bresaola – Italian dried beef). The meat comes from Banks Island, population 100,000 wild muskox, 100-plus Inuvialuit. The Inuvialuit do the hunting and, until recently, Edmonton Meat Packers did the processing. Another Alberta tie-in? The muskox undercoat is used by Jacques Cartier Clothiers of Banff to create luxury woollen goods.
Musing on muskox’s depth of flavour, I’m drawn by a sign touting "The World’s First SelfCooking Center." The intriguingly named SelfCooking Centers (SCC) are produced by Rational, a German company whose products can be found in such Calgary kitchens as The Westin Hotel and the Calgary Winter Club. The SCC’s touch-screen displays are straight out of anime and irresistibly cute –plump roast chicken, perky fish, crusty little loaf of bread. So adorable, I break out my camera to take a shot of the panel. A nervous brunette appears to ask me what I think I’m doing. "It’s OK, she’s media," I hear, as a jolly chef sweeps into the scene to deliver an even jollier spiel.
The SCC is an oven the way Everest is a mountain. It bakes, grills, poaches and more – french fries cook with up to 80 per cent less fat than a deep fryer. Roast a batch of 16 1.2 kg chickens in 30 minutes by sticking a probe in the chicken, then pressing the chicken button. Done. You don’t set temperature, cooking time, humidity or anything else – the SCC adjusts it all automatically. Walk away, plan your menus, take a nap if you want. Forget about having to check things.
Lest you think this is cooking for dummies, you can fine-tune things like how dark or light you want your croissants. Once you’re satisfied with the results, pop out the memory stick from the USB port. Anyone can download your specifications into another SCC to get the same recipe results, even if they use a different language, as the SCC will display in any of 46 languages. Gone is the old Easy-Bake Oven fixation. Santa, I want one of these.
The SCC is not the only industrial culinary lust object coveted by regular folk. Daren Schwengler is pretty jazzed about his product, too. He represents Calgary-based Espuccino Imports, which offers "the ultimate super-automatic espresso machine" from WMF Coffee Machines of Germany. A push of a button delivers the perfect espresso. Espuccino has the sole distributorship for all of Canada. Las Vegas, too – a territory the American WMF preferred not to take on.
" I think they just thought Albertans seem to fit in better in Vegas than people from New York," says Schwengler.
A steady stream of attendees stroll into the booth, asking to see the machine in action, and Schwengler casually directs them to press a button – espresso, cappuccino, mochaccino – and make their own drink. Over the steam and froth, everyone looks impressed. And it’s not just businesses doing the buying.
"In Calgary, we’re selling $5,000 machines into people’s homes," says Greg Alford, a WMF sales representative. Crazy caffeine addiction – or just plain crazy? Who drops that kind of coin on a coffee maker for the house?
"It’s someone who is a customer of a gourmet coffee shop who is saying, ‘I just love coffee.’ And there’s this whole generation of people that might buy a kitchen in their new house, but probably only use the coffee machine."
Just the kind of people the restaurant industry dreams of.
The women of Bordeaux
Bordeaux fans take note! A group of six female winemakers from Bordeaux are hosting a tasting and dinner in Calgary on Thursday, November 17 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. The event is called "The Feminine Face of Bordeaux," and is stopping in Calgary, Toronto and Montreal. This promises to be one of the best wine dinners of the year, so don’t miss it. Contact Richmond Hill Wines at 686-1980 for details.
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