UW chefs best in Canada — again

A quartet from UW’s food services department whipped up pork tenderloin, strawberry timbale and a few other treats to win the gold medal in a competition for Canadian campus chefs this summer.

The honour came at the annual conference of the Canadian College and University Food Service Association, held in Kingston June 24-29 with a general theme of “sustainability”.

The team of (pictured left to right) Denise McMaster, Sharron Pruss, Roland Lynn and James Peacock “scoured Kingston to use their local system”, says Heather Kelly of food services, “buying flowers, fruits, vegetables at a local farm market, purchasing locally baked bread. They also used fair-trade organic chocolate in the dessert.

“This year’s sustainability theme struck close home with us because we have been successfully running a seasonal farm market on our campus with locally sourced produce.”
Says Kelly: “Our lead chef, Roland, took his inspiration from our campus farm market to develop this fresh market menu. He wanted it to be earthy, as close to natural as possible and focused on building intense flavours using raw ingredients to enhance the taste experience and please the palate.”

So here’s the prize-winning menu:
• Appetizer: Ontario Spring Vegetable Roll with Asian Slaw – a blend of fresh vegetables with a hint of local goats cheese complemented by locally grown Asian vegetables and accompanied by Hellmann’s Sesame Thai dressing… skilled knife techniques minimise the use of energy-using machines and allow the nutrition value of each item to be at its peak.
• Entrée: Stuffed Pork Tenderloin with Cherries and Green Apples – fresh spinach, sweet potato, cherries and green apples as the basis for this stuffed Ontario pork tenderloin glazed with local maple syrup and Knorr’s apple demi-glaze.
• Vegetarian Entrée: Roasted Quinoa and Sweet Potato Tian – a blend of high protein and ancient grains with vitamin-enriched sweet potato topped with colourful peppers and garnished with Hellmann’s red pepper and basil sauce.
• Vegetable: green bean parcels fresh from the earth, lightly blanched and finished with Bertoli olive oil.
• Potato: Pesto infused roast potatoes, roasted for full flavour and enhanced with Knorr pesto paste.
• Dessert: Warm Strawberry Timbale, a concoction of fresh Ontario strawberries and crisp blueberries paired with a fair-trade, organic, molten chocolate centre and enhanced with a sauce using Lipton African sunset red tea.

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Library showcases Euclid collection

The special collections department on the bottom floor of UW's Dana Porter library has an exhibition this summer showcasing items from its unique Euclid collection. The display, entitled “Making Euclid Easier,” features examples of the many efforts made by editors and teachers to make the ancient founder of geometry more understandable to students and scholars. Highlights include UW's earliest edition of Euclid's Elements of Geometry, dated 1505, and a first translation of the Elements into a modern language (1543).

Susan Mavor, head of special collections, says this volume (pictured, left) is remarkable for its intellectual importance, binding, grand stature, and stand-up diagrams that are intended to help make Euclid’s concepts more comprehensible. As well as other early editions, the display includes an edition of Elements described by Ruari MacLean as “one of the oddest and most beautiful books of the entire [nineteenth] century” for its use of colour to illustrate mathematical concepts. The collection as a whole, says the library’s e-newsletter, was recently described by a scholar visiting from Scotland as being “one of the world’s great Euclid collections.”

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Faculty retirements 2007-08, part one

For the record, here are notes on some of the UW faculty members who have retired in the past year. Information comes from the human resources department as well as other sources. Some of these professors will still be seen on campus in contract or adjunct faculty roles.

Arnie Dyck (left), school of computer science, retired September 1, 2007. He had been a member of faculty since September 1969.

Patricia Wainwright, department of health studies and gerontology, retired September 1, 2007, ending a UW appointment that began in September 1982.

Michael Sharratt, department of kinesiology, retired December 1, 2007. He joined the faculty in September 1974, and held the position of dean of applied health sciences from 1997 to 2005.

Richard Bodell, department of economics, retired September 1, 2007. A specialist in mathematical economics and natural resources, he had been a UW faculty member since 1983.

Neil Ostlund, school of computer science, retired December 1, 2007, after a UW faculty career that began in September 1982. He is now heading Hypercube Inc., a UW spinoff company based in Gainesville, Florida.

Dwight Aplevich (right), department of electrical and computer engineering, retired March 1, 2008, after a UW career that began in September 1969. Most recently he was serving as associate dean (co-operative education and professional affairs) for the faculty of engineering.

Jeanne Guelke, department of geography and environmental management, retired July 1, 2007. She came to UW in July 1992 as dean of environmental studies, a position in which she served for five years.

Barbara Sivak, school of optometry, retired July 1, 2007. She started work in 1972 as a laboratory demonstrator, and subsequently became an assistant professor.

Karin MacHardy, department of history, retired September 1, 2007. She had been a member of faculty since July 1986.

Jerald Lawless, department of statistics and actuarial science, retired September 1, 2007, after a UW career that began in July 1972.

CPA staff

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