Culinary Challenge 2015 Fundraising Launch

I got an invitation to go to the launch for the (CBCF) Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation's annual Culinary Showdown a Cook for the Cure event and then my friend sent me an email saying he wanted to go.  I have been to many of their events in the past and they are always fun but now that I don't have a car going to Cirillo's Academy is very out of the way to get to by TTC so I had to think about it.  The friend that asked me if I would go has never gone to these events so I thought it would be great for him to go so I agreed to take the TTC and meet him there along with another mutual friend of ours.  A couple of my food blogger friends also told me they were going so I was happy about that and one of them offered to give me a ride.  Even better I could skip the hour plus TTC ride.

The Culinary Showdown will be held on Saturday November 4th, 2015 at the Westin Harbourcastle Hotel.

On the day of the event I sent my original friend a text and then he told me he wasn't going.  Thanks for letting me know.  Now if I was only going with him I probably wouldn't have bothered to go because I know how the events are and wasn't planning on signing up for this year.   But because my other friends were going and I was getting a ride I ended up going.   CBCF does a series of cocktail nights at different locations just before the Culinary Showdown to get people to sign up to start fundraising and get them inspired and excited.  The night starts out with appetizers and drinks.

Chef's like Lynn Crawford might host one at her restaurant and Cirillo's Academy is always a supporter so other chefs will host their cocktail nights there.  It was Chef Corbin Tomaczeski who was the host last night.  Chef Corbin is very motivated to participate in fundraising for Breast Cancer research as he has a personal connection to this disease with 2 close friends.   He also had a 6 degrees of separation moment with a women at the event who was connected by where they live and a couple of other unusual circumstances.  This connection almost moved Chef Corbin to tears.  The woman had just lost her mother to cancer in April and has become the top fundraiser so far earning her a spot at the Culinary Showdown, she has raised over $8000 so far.
It is always emotional and fun event because there is always someone there who has gone through cancer and the Chefs always have a personal story to tell as to why they became involved.

Everyone knows someone that has been touched by Breast Cancer or other cancers.  I have lost many family members to cancer and have had a few friends go through cancer treatments.

After all of the sad stories and inspirational stories comes the fun part at these events.  This time there was a cooking box challenge with 5 teams.  I was on one team with my friend Mary (Mary's Happy Belly) and my friend Jenny (Ice Cream and Knishes) was on another team.
Our team was called team ambitious although it changed a couple of times and we were given a box with limited ingredients that we had to turn into a Chef worthy dish.
We had peas, green beans, pork tenderloin, polenta and rosemary.  We only had 15 minutes to create our dish.  Every team had a different box of ingredients resulting in a varied assortment of dishes to judge.  Our dish looked really nice but our polenta didn't have enough time to cook and it was too think.

My friend Jenny's team 1 had meatballs and wontons and they called their dish wonton nipples or something crazy like that.  It cracked Chef Corbin up when Jenny described the dish.

Unfortunately both of our teams didn't win but they chose 2 out of the 5 teams and Chef Corbin offered to pay for the registration of the teams.

The incentive to sign up that night was if you won Chef Corbin paid the fee but if you paid for yourself it was half price at $40 and they also gave you 2 tickets to the Taste of Toronto festival which are worth $50.  Normally the registration is $75 so I decided to sign up because just getting the Taste of Toronto tickets made it worth it even before trying to raise any money.

I participated in fundraising 2 years ago and only was able to raise $200 and some of that came by selling cookies.  I raised enough to get an apron but not enough to participate in the Culinary Showdown.  So this time I need YOUR HELP to raise at least $1000 to get me to the Showdown and if I raise $2500 I get to participate in cooking with the Celebrity Chefs.
There is also a cooking academy in the morning for the Top 50 fundraisers at the Showdown.

If you would like to participate in the Showdown or would like to donate to me or someone else that is participating in fundraising check out details on their website:  http://culinaryshowdown.ca/

My goal is to reach $2500 this year so that I can participate and join some great Celebrity chefs and cook up a storm.  If you would like to help get me in the game here is the direct link to my Page to Donate to help me reach my goal.

CLICK HERE to DONATE to my Personal PAGE:

Sharpening up my Knife Skills

Not long ago I went to a launch event for the Culinary Showdown, the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation's Cook for the Cure Event.  They were trying to recruit foodies and food bloggers to sign up to join the Culinary Showdown by raising funds that go towards the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.   The event was held at Cirillo's Culinary Academy, a beautiful cooking space that is used for events, classes and team building.  If you signed up that night for the Showdown you got a free Knife Skills Workshop at Cirillo's, so I signed up because I thought if nothing else at least I can say I actually took a Knife Skills Class.   Tonight was the night for the class.  There was about 25-30 people there, all comprised of people that signed up and have started fundraising.   Unfortunately I am nowhere near my goal of $2500 to be able to participate in the showdown but I am trying to raise as much money as I can.  If you want to help me out and DONATE a bit of money to the cause here is the link to my page: DONATE HERE

When we arrived we sample a bunch of tasty bites and beverages that they had ready for us to try and get warmed up and ready for the Class.

The owner of Cirillo's talked about the importance of sharp knives and how to sharpen them and did a couple of quick demo's of how to cut an onion and zucchini, herbs and mushrooms properly.  I think the Knife Skills class is more of a pre emptive safety class before some people compete in the Showdown because he told a couple of stories about how a couple of people got hurt at the showdown from lack of experience and I think a lack of common sense and skill.  I think it's in their best interest to have everyone have at least basic knife skills and then the rest is up to the Celebrity Chefs.

It was a really fun night.  After the quick demo we hit our own stations to cut up some vegetables.  The 2 girls at my station were really good and according to the chefs we were the pros.  I took my time because the last time I went to a Cutco event I actually cut myself because I wasn't used to the knives.  I made sure I didn't repeat that again.  One of my station mates is also a Gastroposter and I think we recruited the third person into becoming a future Gastroposter as well.

And Here are the results of our labour:

I would totally recommend going to an Event or Class at Cirillo's on Dundas St. West at Islington Ave. It's a beautiful place and you can learn a thing or two and have a great time.

Everyone should learn basic Knife Skills and in fact basic Cooking Skills never hurts anyone.

Go cut and cook... and don't forget to sponsor me for the Culinary Showdown....  

Pinknic Flash Mob for Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation

June 25, 2012  was the First Ever PINKNIC flash Mob event for Cook for the Cure and the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation and by Kitchen Aid Canada. It was held at David Pecaut Square.

There aren't many people these days that don't know someone that is affected by Breast Cancer or some other form of Cancer.  Everyone knows about Cancer and everyone needs to raise money to fund research and other cancer related initiatives.

This Event was a little different than most of the events I have been to because you didn't know where you were going until 2 hours before the event started and you had to bring your own food.   With a $20 donation for the registration fee you got to have a pinknic Urban Style with chic white place settings and Pink accents symbolizing the Breast Cancer Foundation.  They provided wine and lemonade and at the end of the dinner there were cupcakes and pink cake pops.   Other than your own containers there was no mess to clean up afterwards and you didn't have to eat your picnic meal on the grass which is a good thing since they told everyone to wear white.   White with grass stains or dirt isn't a pretty sight.   Unfortunately the people at our table didn't even bring any food so I think they missed out on the whole purpose of it and it made us feel a bit uncomfortable to be eating when they weren't.  We did offer them some food but they declined.

There were about 400 people in attendance.  An impressive number considering this was the first year.  It was a pretty well organized event.  I only had one thing that I would have like to see them do would have been to have one of the organizers do announcements once everyone had entered to welcome everyone and let them know what was happening.

There was a photo booth where they took some instant photos that they gave you a printout and had available on facebook.   This was our pic.

Chef Lynn Crawford who represents Kitchen Aid and has a food network show called "Pitchin In" and a local restaurant called "Ruby Watchco" was in attendance to inspire people to host their own cook for the cure events.  I have seen Lynn at a few events and she is always gracious in meeting people.

If you are interested in this event you can either attend next year or you can host your own event but if you want more information contact the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.

So what did we bring to this Pinknic?  Well we had a bit of a collaboration of things.    My friend who graduated from George Brown College Culinary program brought a mixed vegetable salad and I had made Quinoa and together we made a spinach, kale, asparagus and feta frittata, which turned out great.