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Grilled Cheese Tastings

Monday, April 26th, 2010

Photo by Robin Kuniski, www.robinkuniski.com

I recently went to a fantastic event at Janice Beaton Fine Cheese here in Calgary. I must first of all admit that I have a huge addiction to cheese. And probably because of Janice Beaton I’m becoming more of a refined cheese addict. No longer will waxy, orange squares suffice. If I’m going to eat cheese – it darn well better be good.

So Janice Beaton Fine Cheese has opened a grilled cheese counter in their store. Not only did I go to a launch event, but then I went back a mere 4 days later to get a grilled cheese for lunch (please don’t tell my personal trainer & nutritionist).

These grilled cheese sandwiches are amazing! Have you ever had gorgonzola in a grilled cheese? Try it – delicious! And pair it with a beautiful zinfindel (not only were they doing grilled cheese tastings but they were pairing it with wine!) The entire evening took us to a new level of happy. (For the record it was gorgonzola, procuitto & a red wine fig spread)

Janice Beaton Fine Cheese and the accompanying restaurant also work to buy locally wherever possible and supporting suppliers in our province – this is especially true in Farm.

From an event perspective, I’m always hoping to bring in the Janice Beaton team to do cheese tastings – but now also grilled cheese tastings. Don’t we all want some comfort food when we are travelling? What could then be better than gourmet comfort food?

Although, I’ll warn you – you’ll never go back to using waxy, orange cheese in your grilled cheese sandwiches again.

Some other favourite combinations? Paillot de Cevre, Roasted tomato and Basil Pesto or the Oka Classique, 3 year cheddar, Tomato chili jam and arugula.

Go to Janice Beaton now. Don’t wait – amazing grilled cheese sandwiches are waiting.

Posted in Buy Local, Event Management, Green Meetings | No Comments »

Please Let Me Know When You are Recycling

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

My earlier post on Starbucks and recycling prompted a friend of mine to tell me that I was wrong. Ok – he didn’t phrase it exactly that way but he did point out that I was missing information.

In some Eastern Canada jurisdictions (which are obviously way more “green” than Calgary at the moment) – food establishments are REQUIRED to recycle. So they have bins for people to sort their waste into recycling containers. (Thanks Dave for this info!)

The problem is that people DON’T DO IT. That’s sad isn’t it? With everything available to them, people don’t take a few seconds to recycle.

So these food establishments then have to pay someone to sort through the garbage and sort out the recycling. It is often easier for them to just pay someone to sort rather than have their customers try to do some of it.

Next step in my travels: San Francisco International Airport (really – there is a recycling connection here)

The waste containers at SFO all say “Contents are Recycled” (or something like that – I should learn to take pictures if I’m going to start blogging about it).

I think this is brilliant. Clearly SFO is like the Eastern Canadian food establishments and paying someone to go through the waste and sort out the recycling. And I as a customer at SFO feel really good knowing that they are probably able to reduce their waste by a LOT by not relying on people do recycle themselves. Because people have proven that they don’t always do it.

SFO has a climate action plan – read it here.

According to SFO’s website:

The airport is committed to drastically reducing its environmental impact over the next decade. We’re working to reduce our contributions to global warming, improve air and water quality, reduce noise impacts, and preserve natural resources.

During the past several years SFO has met many milestones in environmental achievements and resource conservation including the implementation of a green rental car program, the renovation of Terminal 2 to achieve LEED Silver certification, and the conversion of all Airport operated shuttle buses to biodiesel use, among many others.

Thanks to SFO for leading the way – but also for letting me know! So much of all of this is letting the consumer know what actions you are taking to be green.

As meeting planners – we often don’t toot our own horns about our green meetings. Let’s make sure we do as there are people who care about the environmental steps we are taking.

Posted in Event Management, Green Meetings, Venues | No Comments »

Terry Fox Run and the Four Seasons Hotels

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Did you know that the Four Seasons was one of the first hotels to provide personal size shampoo?

I’ve been reading about Isadore Sharp, the Chairman and CEO of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. In 2008 he was inducted into the Marketing Hall of Legends. In the article it says in 1980:

Sharp initiates the corporate sponsorship program for the Terry Fox Marathon of Hope, after sending a telegram to the Fox family with a commitment to organize a fundraising run. “You started it,” Sharp writes to the family. “We will not rest until your dream to find a cure for cancer is realized.” (Marketing, February 11, 2008)

Today the Four Seasons is still commited to advancing cancer research. Their dedication to their community, cancer research and sustainable tourism are all talked about on their website.

Thank you to the Four Seasons for supporting the Terry Fox Run almost 30 years ago. It has become a monumental event that takes place in hundreds of communities across Canada.

We often look at luxury resorts as places for the rich and powerful – but we should never overlook the great things they do in the community.

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Buy Locally

Friday, February 5th, 2010

This is going to be bad – I’m writing about food in that time period between lunch and dinner. It’s kind of like going grocery shopping while hungry – it never ends well. When I’m picking menu choices I always try to do it either right before or with lunch. That way when I’m reading about “warmed goat cheese with a hazelnut crust served with fresh-baked pita chips” I’m either already eating or just about to.

Holding a green meeting isn’t a trend that is going away and one way to be “green” is to buy your food locally. Of course hotels don’t let you bring in bread from the local bakery but you can work with your venue to get them to develop a “100 mile meal”. Granted this can be a challenge at times in Canada as you just aren’t going to get a fresh orange within 100 miles of Grande Prairie, Alberta in February.

But ask! Not for the orange, but for local. I don’t know why they don’t scream this from the grandstand rafters, but the Calgary Stampede has a fantastic catering division that buys local. Their sales and events teams even toured local farms and growers to understand where the food is coming from.

Canadian Rocky Mountain Resorts (http://www.crmr.com/) is another great example. They are an interesting example of vertical integration with a bakery in Canmore baking bread for all their hotels and restaurants, a wine shop in Calgary sourcing for all their wine lists and a ranch producing their exquisite game meats.

Buying food locally just makes sense. It tastes better (not having been on a plane for 10 hours to get to your table), it gives back to the local economy and it was probably produced in a more sustainable way so it is better for the environment in the long term.

Be realistic about your options here but talk to the chefs about what you would like. I’ve also found a bonus in that when I ask the chef for a 100-mile meal I get a unique menu for my group – which means my attendees are less likely to say “I had this same chicken lunch at an event last week”.

Posted in Buy Local, Event Management, Green Meetings, Venues | No Comments »

Provide next steps for recycling.

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

I’m bothered by the lack of recycling at Starbucks. And hotels that serve Starbucks. When you put paper cups on the coffee break station I will always pick the paper cup because it is BIGGER. So I can get more than 5 sips of tea out of my cup before I have to refill it. But then there is no place to recycle my paper cup.

The Fairmont Banff Springs has compostable coffee lids made out of corn – which is great if you provide me with a place to put my compostable coffee lid but I don’t think they do much good in the regular garbage dump (maybe I’m wrong on that – please let me know). It’s a good start but missed that next step.

So I googled Starbucks and recycling and I found out that they are committed to having fully recyclable cups by 2012. They have a pilot project going on now in New York City and the current cups are already recyclable by some organizations standards and ARE recycled in Seattle. And Starbucks is committed to the cause and they got to these steps by holding a conference. http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2009/05/15/starbucks-cup-summit-does-cost-recycling-runneth-over

Starbucks held a “Cup Summit” and gathered 30 cup, cupstock and coating manufacturers, recyclers, waste managers and university researchers to help solve their recycling program.

It’s the ideal meeting. Do you have a problem? Gather the best to talk it out. Want to make a change? Put a group of people with different backgrounds and let them use their collective knowledge to come up with something innovative, put new spins on it, inspiring each other to be their best.

And the follow through for your “green event”? Make sure that if you have paper cups or compostable lids that you have a place for your attendees to recycle or compost them. Go the next step to making sure the efforts you put forward are end-user friendly.

Posted in Event Management, Green Meetings | 1 Comment »