You won’t find any Heinz 57 or greasy French-fries here, but make no mistake, you’ll definitely get lost in your cheeseburger in paradise at Makers+Mongers, the Saturday evening social function at The Great Canadian Cheese Festival.
The Cheeseburger in Paradise theme, complete with a live Jimmy Buffett musical tribute, offers up a perfect partnership with Enright Cattle Company—providers of the highest quality beef to restaurants across Southeastern Ontario for a number of years and Official Beef Supplier to Makers+Mongers at The Great Canadian Cheese Festival.
The Enright purebred black and red Simmental cattle are bred on-farm, and are raised on farm-grown crops without the use of artificial hormones. As a result, the beef is truly a cut-above, noticeably more tender and tasty, and of course, trustworthy. As the consumer begins to lean towards sustainably produced food, Enright Cattle Company is leading the pack with its innovative practices and commitment to providing the best product.
Kara Enright, along with her husband Darold, and their two little ones, are fourth-generation farmers, based just south of Tweed, Ontario. While farming traditions are at their family business’s core, Enright Cattle Company is also a pioneer in new practices such as meat traceability, having introduced a barcode system that allows the farm to track each cut of meat it produces. Being able to track each cut back to the animal it came from provides a level of flexibility and efficiency not previously available to farms, as well as a superior sense of accountability to their consumers. In the event of a recall, for example, Enright is able to locate each cut from the affected animal and find out instantly where it has ended up. Beyond this type of scenario, traceability also allows the farm to replicate the conditions of exceptional animals in order to reliably produce outstanding beef.
If you find yourself too far from the scattering of restaurants around the farm’s Tweed outpost, the Enrights have recently begun offering online sales and weekly delivery options between Toronto and Ottawa. While you can select your cuts individually, Kara also offers a unique selection service: essentially, a beef concierge package, aptly named Kara’s Box, in $100, $200, and $300 increments. Cuts are hand-selected and paired with ideal recipes from pot roasts to grilling steaks, adding even more of a human touch to the Enright Cattle Company experience.
Enough about pot roasts, though: We all know that during summer, the main event is always burgers. If you haven’t taken a bite of a juicy Enright burger at one of their many partner restaurants, you’ll finally be in on the secret at the Cheese Festival’s Makers+Mongers gathering this year. Burger Revolution (of “You Gotta Eat Here!” fame, located in Belleville) will come together with their long-time beef supplier to create the burgers worthy of the event’s utopian title. Cheeseburgers in Paradise is a name that demands a heavenly menu, and these two Bay of Quinte makers are more than prepared to deliver.
On her first meeting with Burger Rev owners Jeff Camacho and Rayling Lei, Kara says that Jeff was immediately intrigued with the option of a local beef product. He began serving Enright beef at Capers Restaurant in Belleville, where he was the head chef at the time, and took the partnership further in opening Burger Revolution, which has since developed a cult following in the area.
“We work with a lot of very talented chefs from Kingston, Ottawa, Gananoque, Belleville, Prince Edward County, Trenton and Toronto,” says Kara. “Our chefs really support us and work with us to utilize the entire carcass. “We are always looking for ways to utilize the entire carcass, and we’re midway through a very exciting project that will allow us to do just that!”
The future of Enright Cattle Company is bright, as Kara and Darold work to create a business that’s sustainable and profitable for what will be the fifth generation of farmers, their two little ones.
The fifth anniversary of The Great Canadian Cheese Festival—the biggest artisan cheese show in Canada—takes place Saturday and Sunday, June 6 and 7, in Picton, Ontario, at the Fairgrounds. For complete information and tickets, please visit CheeseFestival.ca.
—Laura Voskamp
By night, Laura Voskamp is a cheese lover and freelance writer. By day, she’s Communications Coordinator for Bay of Quinte Tourism and Bay of Quinte Living.
