Put on your parka and come eat with us as we launch our Craving Kensington tour for 2018
by Callandra Caufield
What a winter. Crunchy snow, a blizzard or two, and more than our usual share of grey days. There’s only so many nights one can read a book beside the fire. If you are ready for a change, put on your warmest boots and your oh-so-Canadian toque, and come on out and join in the fun of our Calgary Food Tours’ Craving Kensington neighbourhood food tour.
“What exactly is a food tour?” In brief, a food tour is an eating, sipping, guided walking tour with just enough history, culture, and food stories to make you sound really interesting at your next dinner party. The ulterior motive of all of our Alberta Food Tours is to help you fall in love with our local farm to table food scene. When you buy a ticket to come on a tour – because of who we work with and support – you are helping create value for Alberta’s soil, food and people. That’s what our purpose is. That’s what drives us. Well, that and a how much fun it is to eat, engage and explore on our tours.
Take Kensington for example. Did you know that it was Calgary’s first suburb? Now it is in the heart of the city and though you think you might know it, there are still plenty of hidden gems to discover. With us, you’ll get to go behind the scenes, do some hands-on learning, and be treated to private tastings.
Without giving away too many details, you’ll start off at local pub that uses Alberta ingredients to make ALL of their food from scratch. You’ll move on to a favourite tea shop that you might not find on your own, and then you’ll find yourself in the back of the house at one of Calgary’s busiest bakeries. The neighbourhood cheesemonger hosts a private after hours tasting and you’ll finish the night with a feast hosted by an Italian family that have been in business for over 40 years. By the time you’re done this tour, you’ll have forgotten all about escaping to a sunny vacation and will be happy to stay in Calgary and cozy up in Kensington.
Besides meeting other food lovers from Calgary and around the world, this tour also offers the chance to meet one of our five Craving Kensington food tour leaders. Karen Lewin is our history buff. She won a Tourism Calgary White Hatter award for being the city’s Best Tour Guide in 2017. Jenny Elliot is our resident food loving yogi, chef and spice expert. Karen Anderson is a cookbook author and encyclopedia on Alberta’s food scene (seriously, ask her anything). Barbara Connolly is a world traveler that loves to show off her own city, and me, I’m Callandra, the Alberta Food Tours’ Operations Manager and desperate wannabe urban gardener who managed NOT to kill her basil plant last year. We are all passionate about this tour.
So, whether you grab a friend or six, bring a date, or come solo – be prepared to make new friends and eat, engage and explore with us. Our Craving Kensington tour launches Thursday, February 15th, from 6-9pm and carries on until the end of November. You can get your ticket here.