You never know how an event will be when it's the first one ever held. I decided to attend an event called
FOODIES FOREVER this past week to check it out and see what it was all about.
It was hosted by
Cooking with Cutco and held at
Liason College in downtown Toronto. It was my first visit to Liason College so it was nice to check it out.
I went by myself and didn't know anyone there, but I still had a great time except for a minor little accident.
Yup, I cut my thumb. I was trying to cut an orange with a knife that was a bit too small for the task and ran out of orange and knife and only thing left to cut was my thumb.
So you are now wondering why was I cutting an orange for an event?
Well this event was a room full of food and event bloggers who were going to participate in a group event where everyone prepared the meal using knives by Cutco. I have never heard of these knives before even though they have been around for years. They normally sell them to cooking school students and have the students become distributors. Kind of like the Tupperware of Knives. But now they want to expand their reach through food bloggers to get other people that are interested in food to be aware of their knives and cookware.
For the event we arrived and mingled for about a half an hour with them passing around delicious appetizers and once everyone had arrived they split us up into teams and then we headed into the kitchen. The rest of my team consisted of a lot younger group of Asian girls and a couple of guys. They had a lot less cooking experience than I did and it seems that the person in charge of leading us did too. It was her first time doing this demo and she had to rely on pages of notes and seemed to be a bit nervous. It's funny that I am the one that cut myself because most of the other people in my group were very unsure of how to cut things and I was worried about them cutting themselves and then I did. Irony I guess. They had 3 different fairly simple recipes for us to put together using the knives so that we could all try them out. I don't have Iron Chef knife skills but I kind of know how to cut things. I don't cut myself very often. I think I might have cut my fingers maybe 4 times in over 30 years of cooking, so that's not so bad I guess. These knives were a little different than the knives I am used to an of course probably a whole lot sharper than mine are at this point.They were a really nice group of people and once I cut my finger it was up to them to finish all the cutting. I tried to help instruct and keep things clear.
We put together a Kale Salad with a citrus dressing and a Quinoa dish with vegetables and cut some baguettes to have with hummus. Once we finished making this food we went in to the dining room to eat it and listened to a couple of speakers while we were having dinner. After we ate these dishes we went back to the kitchen to make a fruit salad with an interesting poppyseed dressing.
And then back to the dining room to eat the fruit salad and then they had a draw for prizes, things ranged from some cookbooks to a tablet.
I ended up winning a Pop Up Telegram with
Chef Shahir Massoud from Black Sheep food co. A pop up telegram is basically a chef that shows up somewhere and prepares a meal. It could be anywhere. So I asked him if he could pop up at my Food Revolution Day party to help me out with it. It was like winning an extra pair of hands for me.
After the dinner they asked if anyone was interested in having a home party. I passed on that because most of my friends have either been cooking for years and have everything they need or they don't cook at all. Nothing in between it seems. I think it's a better thing for young foodies just getting together and learning how to make food, more suited to the group I was partnered with. I have done a lot of the home parties and found that I didn't have the kind of network that were interested in spending money on things so I already know it wouldn't work for me. But I met a lot of nice people and some other food bloggers and we had a really healthy and great dinner.
We also got to take home some
Chateaux Des Charmes wine from an Ontario winery who was the wine sponsor there, and we all got one of the smaller knives, some got a peeler and I got a filet knife I think.
It would have been a great thing for me if I would have been aware of it when I was in my 20's when I was working in a Hospital with lot's of people that did cook, but now that I am out of that environment things have changed. People cook less, get more take out or go to more restaurants.
30 years ago people would go out to eat maybe once or twice a week, but now they might cook something at home once or twice a week and that could even be something like making a frozen pizza.
There are so many fast food and upscale restaurants in this city and people have such busy lives these days that a lot of people have given up on trying to make a full dinner at home. People are more fragmented in their daily lives. I have been trying to cook at home more but I find it's an every other day thing. I made a big pot of goulash today that will probably end up going into my freezer and I still have some leftovers in my fridge so I don't cook everyday because it's just me and I find that when I do I don't do much else. In order to balance my life out a bit I will cook when I am inspired and eat out when I need a break. That is one of the reason's my blog isn't just about cooking or restaurant reviews. I like to shake things up a bit in the food world. It's the one thing in my life that I am able to change when I am in the mood to.
Oils like Olive, Hemp, Almond oil can all be used for conditioning your hair or as a moisturizer on your body. You can probably also use it to keep your cutting boards in good condition.
Salt makes a great copper pot scrub when mixed with real lemon juice
I went by myself and didn't know anyone there, but I still had a great time except for a minor little accident.
Well this event was a room full of food and event bloggers who were going to participate in a group event where everyone prepared the meal using knives by Cutco. I have never heard of these knives before even though they have been around for years. They normally sell them to cooking school students and have the students become distributors. Kind of like the Tupperware of Knives. But now they want to expand their reach through food bloggers to get other people that are interested in food to be aware of their knives and cookware. 
We put together a Kale Salad with a citrus dressing and a Quinoa dish with vegetables and cut some baguettes to have with hummus. Once we finished making this food we went in to the dining room to eat it and listened to a couple of speakers while we were having dinner. After we ate these dishes we went back to the kitchen to make a fruit salad with an interesting poppyseed dressing.
After the dinner they asked if anyone was interested in having a home party. I passed on that because most of my friends have either been cooking for years and have everything they need or they don't cook at all. Nothing in between it seems. I think it's a better thing for young foodies just getting together and learning how to make food, more suited to the group I was partnered with. I have done a lot of the home parties and found that I didn't have the kind of network that were interested in spending money on things so I already know it wouldn't work for me. But I met a lot of nice people and some other food bloggers and we had a really healthy and great dinner.
We also got to take home some Chateaux Des Charmes wine from an Ontario winery who was the wine sponsor there, and we all got one of the smaller knives, some got a peeler and I got a filet knife I think.
There are so many fast food and upscale restaurants in this city and people have such busy lives these days that a lot of people have given up on trying to make a full dinner at home. People are more fragmented in their daily lives. I have been trying to cook at home more but I find it's an every other day thing. I made a big pot of goulash today that will probably end up going into my freezer and I still have some leftovers in my fridge so I don't cook everyday because it's just me and I find that when I do I don't do much else. In order to balance my life out a bit I will cook when I am inspired and eat out when I need a break. That is one of the reason's my blog isn't just about cooking or restaurant reviews. I like to shake things up a bit in the food world. It's the one thing in my life that I am able to change when I am in the mood to.
Join Jamie Oliver and people all over the World for a Food Revolution on 
Alison Fryer the owner is somewhat of a Cookbook Author champion and the best PR person for celebrity chefs we have in this city. I see Alison everywhere these days, George Brown College for Chef's cookbook launches, Word on the Street where there are cookbook author chats, and on shows like Cityline and Breakfast television showing off drool worth cookbooks.
Today was especially fun because some of the best bakers in Toronto sent over a bunch of cakes to celebrate the store's 30 year milestone. Former employees and fans of the store dropped in to wish them another 30 years plus of success. 
A couple of weeks back I got together with a couple of members of the Food Revolution Day Ambassadors Team from Toronto and Vaughan and we created a video to promote this year's Food Revolution Day on May 17th. I went out and bought a whole boat load of fresh vegetables and we did a Blind Taste Test with a bunch of kids at the Petits Chefs Academy where our Vaughan Team Ambassador Denise owns a cooking school for kids. They were pretty smart and food savvy kids but I managed to stump them on a couple of vegetables. It's my mission for all kids to know what vegetables are and to try things they have never tried. How can anyone know what they like to eat if they have never tried it? We did a blind taste testing on 3 different vegetable dishes. Artichokes, Celery Root and Kale chips. They didn't like the artichokes too much but they loved the celery root salad and thought it was coleslaw and they ate all of it. 2 out of 3 isn't too bad. I wanted the kids to do a blind taste test so that they would try a vegetable without first judging it on how it looked. That way they only decide from the taste and the texture, although we did allow them to smell and touch it. I used a vinaigrette on the artichoke hearts so they didn't like the fact that it was oily. Oh well... next time I would try and spinach artichoke dip. I bet they would like that.
I was inspired to become an Ambassador after seeing what Jamie Oliver had done in the U.K. with the school lunches and then on to a school in the U.S. It made me realize that kids don't get exposed to a diverse array of foods other than what they can afford or what they eat in their homes or their friends and families homes. We need to bring back food education in schools and teach kids where their food comes from and what it is, what to do with it, how to preserve it, and what it tastes like. Food is a necessity for everyone's life, so I don't understand why this necessary knowledge isn't taught in most schools and why convenience food is subsidized but healthy food isn't. We need to reverse this so that childhood obesity becomes a disease of the past like the plague.
