Diversity Foods Executive Chef Ben Kramer gets La Cuisine ready backstage
WINNIPEG, MB – They will slice, dice and chop until they drop: 11,250 potatoes will get peeled; 10,000 onions will get chopped; 10,800 perogies will be consumed and 4,000 bison burgers will get flipped.
As the 41st annual Winnipeg Folk Festival gets underway today, University of Winnipeg campus chefs have taken over the backstage La Cuisine kitchen facility at Birds Hill Provincial Park. Executive Chef Ben Kramer, with Chefs de cuisine 
Aron Epp and Kelly Cattani are creating approximately 52,000 meals for Folk Fest volunteers and performers during the five-day festival. The trio of chefs have a dedicated team of Folk Fest volunteers to work with.
“A venture on this scale with 300 amazing volunteers coming together for the first time on the day of is all new to us,” laughs Kramer. “But we are pretty good at organization and logistics. The best part of this is being in a kitchen outside all day, and the team spirit. The people are great.”
Award-winning Diversity Food Services is a joint program between The University of Winnipeg Community Renewal Corporation and SEED Winnipeg Inc. Its main goal is to provide job opportunities for new Canadians, Aboriginal people, UWinnipeg students and community residents, while using sustainable practices to produce quality food. It is the first year Diversity Foods has managed La Cuisine at the Winnipeg Folk Festival.
Folk Festival visitors can also enjoy the experience of Diversity Foods in the Festival Village which has an outlet offering fresh food such as Dragon’s Bowl – rice, veggies, local kale and hemp seeds.
Kramer’s backstage menu includes mouth-watering meals such as chicken Thai basil with lemon grass, fish tacos with northern pike fresh from Lake Winnipeg (through Bearcat Fisheries), Moroccan night with chicken tagine, cous cous and hummus, and a full Sunday brunch. Local food suppliers include Manitoba’s Peak of the Market, Kroeker Farms (Winkler-Carmen) and Harborside Farms (Pilot Mound).
Treat 4,000 of your closest friends to Kramer’s chicken tagine by following this recipe.
Chef Ben Kramer will be tweeting and instagramming all weekend @chefbenkramer
MEDIA CONTACT
Diane Poulin, Senior Communications Specialist, The University of Winnipeg
P: 204.988.7135, E: d.poulin@uwinnipeg.ca
