In addition to restaurant patrons, sports fans are feeling more hopeful lately, with NHL games returning in August. In Edmonton, one of the hub cities, the league is looking for restaurants to take part in their bubble, but that would mean that those restaurants have to close their doors to the general public and only allow NHL staff, players and family members to eat there.
Also in Edmonton, 86-year-old Mariano Trivelin is making waves online with his cooking show that takes viewers through Italian recipes. In addition to this, he is also donating proceeds from his merch to charity.
If you want to cook with more seafood, this is a particularly good time to find frozen spot prawns. Due to the decreased demand from Asia, like the cancellation of the Olympics in Japan due to COVID, seafood that is usually exported has nowhere to go but to stay in the domestic market.
For the times when you don’t want to cook or visit a restaurant, fast food is always an easy alternative. And with Burger King’s move to reduce their cows’ methane outputs by feeding them a diet that includes lemongrass leaves, fast food just became less of a guilty pleasure.
Ottawa and Nunavut are celebrating their respective changes as rules loosen surrounding COVID-19.
Edmonton restaurants weary about entering the NHL's bubble
It was recently announced that the NHL will be returning, but only in two hub cities —Edmonton and Toronto—to try to limit the spread of COVID-19.
With this, there will be teams living in one of these two cities for the duration of the season. These players are in a bubble (consisting of individuals from each team, including ownership, players, coaches, executives and staff) to reduce their risk of getting sick, but they can't just stay in their hotel rooms 24/7. So, the NHL looked to some Edmonton restaurants and proposed that they enter the NHL bubble.
For the restaurants, this means shutting their doors to the public once again. Some restaurants have already passed on the opportunity to be part of the NHL bubble, as closing down to the general public may actually cause them to lose money.
Read more from CTV News.
Eighty-six year-old Edmonton man educates Youtube fans on Italian cooking while raising money for charity
Home cook, Mariano Trivelin, is getting some serious notoriety as of late, thanks to his Youtube cooking show. Mariano is an 86-year-old man living in Edmonton, who hosts his self titled show, "Mariano's Cooking."
The Youtube channel was originally created to promote the fourth-generation family business,Capital Fine Meats, but the family wanted to inject more personality into their cooking series, so naturally, they thought of featuring nonno. It took off and became a sensation. With no formal training, except for a brief stint as a cook with CN Rail, Trivelin cooks up tomato sauce, Italian wedding soup and tons of other Italian recipes.
Trivelin has garnered so much attention that even Food Network Canada chef, Massimo Capra, said that he is going to make meeting Mariano a priority.
His family is using his new found fame for a good cause, by selling Mariano’s Cooking merchandise and putting the proceeds towards the Capital Care Foundation.
Read more about Trivelin’s cooking series from Global News.
Cancelled events in Asia lead to spot prawn excess
Canadians who thought they missed out on spot prawn season or didn’t have their fill of the sweet shrimp would be excited to find the crustacean in the freezer aisle in the near future. Although the spot prawn's fishing season has come to an end, there are tons of frozen product ready to be sold.
Usually, Canadians only buy 20 per cent of spot prawns, harvested from the coast from Vancouver to Alaska, but due to the circumstances surrounding Covid-19, Canada will have more than its fair share available to us and are encouraged to buy them in support of the industry. The Asian market is the biggest fan of the spot prawn, with 1.5 millions pounds of it being exported in a year. In addition to this yearly 1.5 million, there was even more shrimp frozen and stockpiled in preparation for the Lunar New Year celebrations and the Tokyo Olympics, but with events being cancelled, there is now an excess of spot prawns with nowhere to go. Subsequently, the wholesale price for frozen spot prawn has dropped by up to 70 per cent.
This is not the first fishing sector to be negatively affected by the collapse of the Asian food export industry, as other seafoods like geoduck and lobster have also suffered a great deal.
Read more from the Vancouver Sun.
Burger King begins feeding their cows lemongrass to reduce their methane output
Aside from ethical issues, one of the biggest concerns with cattle is the methane that they emit, which contributes to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and climate change as a result. Burger king is fighting this hurdle by feeding their cows a diet that includes lemongrass, which they claim decreases the cattle's daily methane output by 33 per cent.
This burger is aptly named the "Reduced Methane Emissions Beef Whopper" which uses the beef that came from the lemongrass fed cows. At the time of writing, these special whoppers are only being sold out of Miami, New York, Austin, Portland and Los Angeles.
Read more about this from the Globe and Mail.
Ottawa and Iqaluit loosening restaurant and bar restrictions
It can be hard to keep up to date with where restaurants are allowed to open and what rules they must abide by, so here is an update on the newest news surrounding Ottawa and up north in Nunavut.
In Ottawa, dining in may be permitted as early as Friday, following the green light by the Ontario government. Previously, restaurants in Ottawa were not allowed to have diners inside of their establishment and had to rely on takeout or delivery and patio service. Like the rest of the country, tables inside restaurants still must adhere to social distancing protocols. The general emotions towards this announcement are positive, as restaurants are excited to invite patrons back to enjoy themselves.
In Nunavut, bars and restaurants re-opened in late June, but were required to adhere to a mandatory last call for alcohol at 9 p.m., in addition to obvious distancing protocols. It was recently announced that these businesses will be allowed to go back to their regular hours, serving alcoholic beverages until their usual last call. But, even with these regulations loosening, the government is reinforcing the fact that social distancing is still mandatory.
Read more about Ottawa's move indoors from the Ottawa Citizen and about Nunavut's last call rules from Radio Canada International.
Food writer Amy Rosen calls for dining out in support of local restaurants
Amy Rosen, food writer and the owner of Rosen’s Cinnamon Buns in Toronto recently made a compelling case for people to make dining out in a pandemic a priority.
After months of cooking in our homes, learning how to bake, meal prep and new recipes, Rosen noted that it may seem daunting to get back out there, but it is a necessity.
Restaurants are struggling, and if restaurants shut down, she believes that a vital part of a city's culture and heritage will go with it, just like it would for cultural and heritage preservation if museums and galleries were to disappear. She goes on to point out that some of her best memories in her hometown of Toronto in addition to those travelling, have been made in restaurants.
Whether you are there to be nourished or to enjoy the art of dining, she notes that we need to go out now, so that we can enjoy these feelings later.
Read more about this from Macleans.
