Welcome to highplains.ca Welcome to Highplains.ca, the web site devoted to western Canadian cuisine, food producers, culture, and the work of food and travel writer Cinda Chavich. Whether you're a fan of beef and bison, a lover of the Rocky Mountains or an editor looking for top quality stories to publish, this is the place to visit. You'll find Cinda's latest stories, focusing on fine Canadian food, wine and destinations, excerpts from her award-winning books and recipes for everything from saskatoon pie to smoked prairie trout on miniaturefresh corn and chili pepper pancakes. Looking for a local cheese maker or organic grower? We'll publish profiles and link you to farmers, ranchers and food producers devoted to quality ingredients throughout the West, and across the country. So come to Highplains.ca for food news, information and inspiration. Enjoy! Food Stories A Prairie harvest There's always a special poignancy to harvest gatherings on the prairies. Prairie people are quiet and pragmatic about getting through another season on the farm. Like generations before them have learned, the world is a fragile place and success today may be gone tomorrow, swept aside like a dusty Saskatchewan storm. The people who gathered recently in Calgary around tables groaning with the fruits, meats and vegetables of their hard labours, know about that fragility first hand. They are renegades in the agricultural world - passionate food producers who put things like organic farming methods, environmental stewardship and flavour first in their attempt to eke out a living on land that explorer John Palliser once dismissed as uninhabitable . It can be a hard row to hoe. But, as the Harvest Dinner celebration at Calgary's regionally-inspired River Cafe proved, the benefits of eating locally are palpable. There's a stark simplicity about the prairies, and harvest feast is a reflection of place. There are no oceans teeming with salmon nearby or orchards heavy with fall fruits. Here in Alberta, regional cuisine is necessarily rustic, rooted in the traditions of First Nation people and the early British and European immigrants who struggled to produce enough food on these flat, endless drylands to sustain them through the isolation of many months of winter. (click here for full story) Wine Stories First nation fruit (OSOYOOS, B.C.) - Sam Baptiste has been a cowboy, a fruit picker, a company president and an Indian chief. But these days the 49-year-old member of the Osoyoos First Nation in south-central British Columbia is a wine growe r - and one of the best in this small but successful western Canadian wine region. The story of the band-owned and operated Inkameep Vineyard is like any good western yarn, stalwart souls struggling against the elements in a rugged landscape, with plenty of setbacks and hardships. But in the end plain perseverance triumphs. And a devoted but tiny group of band members proves they can product premium vinifera grapes for some of the best wineries in the land. (click here for full story) Travel Stories High art in Texas (MARFA, TX.) - Marfa, Texas, sits at the base of the Chinati Mountains, out in the flat, featureless desert where James Dean's last movie, Giant, was set. When Hollywood came to Marfa back in 1955, it was the biggest thing that ever hit this dusty Texas town, stuck as it is at the end of the rail line and a lonely, three-hour drive from the nearest major airport. But Marfa's glory days were fleeting - lean years left the once mighty ranching industry in decline and even Dean fans dwindled. Like the epic movie's abandoned set, a skeleton of the grand Reata homestead that still sits on a ranch just out of town, Marfa was crumbling in the desert sun. Then something happened that most long-time locals still don't quite understand – New York sculptor Donald Judd moved to town and Marfa (pop. 2,500) became the world Mecca of minimalist modern art. (click here for full story) top of page