Cooks the Books Competition

Taste Canada presented Cooks the Books Student Chef Battle
at Mildred's Temple Kitchen on October 18, 2018.

www.tastecanada.org

#cooksthebooks

Part of the Taste Canada Awards is the Student Chef Battle that happens before the awards where students from 9 teams from various cooking schools battle against each other and our judged by some Food Industry pros. 

PARTICIPATING SCHOOLS:

Assiniboine Community College – Brandon, Manitoba
Centennial College – Toronto, Ontario
Conestoga College – Kitchener, Ontario
Fanshawe College – London, Ontario
Liaison College of Culinary Arts – Kitchener, Ontario
Liaison College of Culinary Arts – Toronto, Ontario
Thistletown Collegiate High School – Toronto, Ontario

The Judges were: Cookbook authors Christine Tizzard and Dennis Prescott and recipe developers Annabelle Waugh and Jennifer Emilson

Although I wasn't a judge an didn't get a chance to taste any of the dishes they were impressive creations that can stand up to most of the best restaurants in Toronto.

The Winners were:

The Silver Medal was awarded to  Celina do Souto and Sydney Lutz from Conestoga College (Kitchener, Ontario) for their Braised Beef Cheeks with Roasted Squash & Maple Milk Foam recipe.  

The Gold Medal was awarded to Jessi Coulter & Kaitlin McCarthy from Assiniboine Community College (Brandon, Manitoba) for their Cast Iron Seared Hudson River Arctic Char with Smoked Maple Birch Glaze, on Heritage Grain recipe. 

Whole Life Expo 2018

 http://www.wholelifeexpo.ca/

Nov 9-11 Metro Toronto Convention Centre

This week I spent a Sunday afternoon wandering around the Metro Toronto Convention Centre checking out all of the booths and talks at the Whole Life Expo.

I have been to this show in the past and it's a great place to check out new things in Healthy living and listing to expert speakers like Doctors, nutritionists, Chiropractors and more.

 I sat in on a few talks like the one above with Dr. Levine who talked about many different health care issues and had tips on how to deal with certain conditions.  Dr. Levine runs the practice Vita Health a clinic with Chiropractors, physiotherapists and other health care practitioners. 

Another talk I sat in on talked about the benefits of magnetic jewellery and other products and they had a draw and gave away free bracelets to the attendees.  I got the pretty bracelet above.  Nice bonus for listening to an informative talk.

I have been to many shows and have seen many health care products so I was looking for things I haven't seen before.  The 3 products above are things that are new and pretty amazing.

The box of Mocha is my new favourite thing.  It's Mocha coffee packets that you just add water and it takes like your favourite coffee shop fancy coffee.  It tastes really good but it doesn't have the bad effects of drinking the regular coffees and has healthy Reishi mushroom as one of the ingredients.  It's PH balancing and for me I can skip the dairy and other coffee effects.  A box of 15 was $35.  I have been drinking them at work.  Great way to skip the coffee lineups.

I also bought the Flora Apple Cider vinegar with Elderberry.  Apple Cider vinegar is already a great healthy product but they have added antioxidant elderberry to it and additional a boost of flavour.  Great for salad dressings.

With a spin of a wheel I won the Peanut butter cup chocolate with no actual nuts.  I haven't tried it yet but this would be great for kids in schools since it's peanut free.

The booths were filled with Samples, information and deals.  I got my posture and alignment measured at the Vita Health booth and they had a special of a $50 for a full consultation so I decided to book a visit to their clinic because I was already planning on going to a Chiropractor this week so I visited their Yonge and St. Clair location and walked into the very serene space above and had a consult with one of their very nice young Chiropractors.  I will go back next week for the results of the different scans that they were able to do.  Trying to work on my health before the New Year's resolutions this year.

For more information about the products listed and a full vendor and speaker list please visit the Whole Life Expo website at  http://www.wholelifeexpo.ca/

The festival is produced by Vitality magazine so you can find a lot of this information in their magazine as well.

Toronto Soup Festival at Fort York

I checked out a fun event recently at Fort York.  TORONTO SOUP FESTIVAL was an outdoor event with proceeds going to Second Harvest.  With a few soup vendors like Fidel Gastro's, Fat Rabbit, Ted Reader and Neruda there were a host of different types of soups.  I enjoyed the corn soup and Fidel Gastro's Leek and Potato soup.

 

There was also a Free to enter Farmer's market at the entrance that we stopped by on the way out.  I picked up an amazing loaf of sourdough bread that I ate every last crumb of.

I think my favourite thing to eat at the festival was Craig's Cookies though.  One was still warm and gooey.  Not soup but went so well after some warm bowls of soup.

A really cool thing they did was hand out spoons attached to lanyards that you could wear around your neck while leaving you hands free in between soups.

Fidel Gastro's Matt Basile

Fat Rabbit's Trevor Lui

 

Music by Corey Music

A popular place to hang out was around the fire pit. It rained for a bit so people left for cover but when it stopped they all flocked back to it.

There was fun entertainment for kids an adults with great music by Corey Music and a bouncy castle for the kids and games like Giant Chess and bricks to move around on the grass. 

A perfect place for a fun selfie was in front of the Huge Stock Pot that had steam coming out of it at different times.

It was the first year at the Fort York location.  It's a bit tough to get there but it worked out pretty well on the Saturday but not sure how it was on the chillier Sunday weather.

It's a bit pricey with a single ticket for $25 which includes the spoon and entrance and I think 2 tickets but there was a $45 price for a 4 pack which is a bit better.  Most items were between 3 to 5 tickets and each ticket was $1.   I don't know if they will do it at the same location next year but it's a fun event to hang out with a group of friends and family.

Website:  http://soupfestival.ca/