Fall Suppers 2005 Recap!

The Ukrainian Village is the site of the Gardenton Fall Supper in South-Eastern Manitoba. It has kind of become tradition to kick off the fall supper season with this supper - the leaves on all the oak trees have just begun to change, the day is always sunny and warm, and you just know that you're going to have the best Ukrainian food in the province. The hall is small - seats about 100 - and a sweet guy named Mike is always there to greet you as you come in. The food is typical Ukrainian buffet - perogies, holubchi, potatoes, meatballs, fried chicken - but everything is prepared so delicately it's hard to think of this as a mass-produced meal. Highlights of this supper are the beautiful boiled cheese and potato perogies, the potatoes in cream and fresh dill, and the light pumpkin pie with real whipped cream. Sometimes you can buy some shredded Horseradish beets - Yum!

Silver, Manitoba is a Ukrainian town in the interlake area of Manitoba. Their fall supper is more of a dinner and dance than a come-and-go supper. The food was a little lackluster compared to the glory of Gardenton (Praise Gardenton!) but from what I can remember, it was a perfectly fine Ukrainian buffet with two kinds of holubchi, perogies, meatballs and homemade headcheese. The best part about this supper, though, was chatting with the locals about the best places to hunt for wild mushrooms - not that anybody gave up any real secrets - and dancing The Butterfly to a live band.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k2/froddard/thepiesofst.jpg (click on the link for a collage of St. Joseph... for some reason I can't upload these pictures properly...)

St. Joseph is a little French town south of Winnipeg. The feel of this supper is a little more razzle-dazzle than the down-home flavour of some of the other suppers. Don't get me wrong, there is still some damn fine home cooking here, it's just that St. Joe is so....organized! When you complete the buffet line (filled with crazy jello salads, hominy corn, beautifully tender roast beef and melt-in-your-mouth Tourtiere), there is a volunteer waiting to find your party a place to seat. There are at least another dozen volunteers scattered throughout the large hall that gesture with hand signals the availability of seating arrangements in the crowd. They run this place like clockwork! http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k2/froddard/Stjoseph004BW.jpg It can be a little tricky getting your pie after supper because those volunteers fill up any empty spaces so quickly. The pies are probably the highlight of this exemplary supper. Every year there is the same selection: Bean pie (kind of like a pumpkin pie consistency that tastes like caramel - Yum!), Sugar pie (much creamier than you might think), raisin, chocolate cream, apple, saskatoon, turtle, lemon and Cherry pie. St Joseph is pie heaven.

So there we have it - the highlights of the 2005 season.

This next weekend might be a little crazy - there are at least 8 suppers that I know of happening this Sunday alone. Please wish me and my cholesterol levels luck.