Girls night out at Paese Restaurant

Blogger Girls Night Out

Location:    Paese Ristorante, located on 3827 Bathurst Street (just north of Wilson Avenue)

Date visited:  August 6, 2016

Website:  http://paeseristorante.com/

Instagram @paeseristorante

My blogger pal Natalie (http://www.cookingquidnunc.com/) and I were invited to go for dinner at Paese Restaurant in North York.  I live in North York so it was nice to go to a dinner pretty close to home.  We brought along fellow blogger Shuang (http://www.theteleporta.com/) and my friend who lives within walking distance of Paese.  Normally Natalie and I attend larger blogger media dinners with about a dozen other bloggers trying to get their photos and food in within a limited amount of time.  This time we had a great Girls Night Out and took our time and all ordered different things so that we could sample a lot from their menu.  

A nice touch was that they seated us near the window.  This is an important thing because the rest of the restaurant had lighting that wouldn't have been flattering for food photos.  We really wanted to get some great photos because the food was presented so beautifully.

We shared this amazing Seared Scallop dish with grapefruit segments and shaved fennel.   This really is a classic pairing that works together to elevate the whole dish.   We really loved this dish and my friends were amazed at how good the fennel was.  I wasn't because I have done this before and it really makes the fennel shine.  The Scallops were perfectly seared and tender and seasoned to perfection.

We also shared the Polenta Fries.  We could have easily eaten an order of these each.  They were better than fries with a whole lot more flavour and crispy on the outside and creamy inside.

As my main I chose the Veal Scallopini.  For some reason I thought this would be breaded but it was just pan seared and served with a lemon beurre blanc sauce and green beans, grilled fennel and a piece of charred corn.  The veal was like butter.  I hardly needed a knife to cut it.  The whole thing was skillfully put together.

For Dessert I chose the Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookie and Affogato.  I really wanted the cherry chocolate cookie.  It had some sea salt on top.  Some people like that but I don't think it needed the salt.  It wasn't overly sweet and with the espresso and vanilla ice cream it was just enough.

And there was a whole lot more.  Some of the other things we all ordered were from (l to r):

Braised Lamb and Green Beans,  Seared Salmon with tomato salsa and fennel,  Mojito's and wine, A dark and white chocolate terrina,  Goat cheese and leek ravioli, charred broccoli, Charred Octopus, Foccacia bread and white bean spread, Pomegranate gelato, strawberry cheesecake, Caramel pudding.  And in the mix is Natalie taking a photo of her dish while Shuang quenches her thirst.

We all really enjoyed our meal and the place was really nice.  We had our own little private section because most of the people were seated on the other side.  They didn't know what to make of us when we tried to take photos of the inside of the restaurant. I think they thought we were nuts so we stopped taking photos so we wouldn't get them in any of them.

PAESE is starting a contest for you to EAT. SHARE .WIN on Social Media that you can enter starting August 15 and it ends on September 1st, 2016.

SHARE a photo of your Favourite PAESE meal on INSTAGRAM using the Hashtag #PaeseXO and don't forget to follow @paeseristorante on Instagram to see what everyone is eating.

A winner will be chosen on September 1st to WIN a Dinner for TWO at PAESE Italian Ristorante

If you go to Paese for the first time make sure you tell them that you read about it on my Blog.  I am sure they will take really good care of you.

Get away from the crazy downtown lineups and parking tickets and eat in North York where you can enjoy a relaxing meal and hopefully get a spot in their parking lot for free.

Supporting Jamie Oliver

This beautiful photo of Chef Jamie Oliver, his wife Jools and daughter Petal started a firestorm of Instagram comments on Jamie Oliver's feed after he posted this photo this morning.   When I looked at this photo I remembered it from one of Jamie's Christmas Special's where he is making Gravy using chicken wings and other things.  His wife Jool's holding their daughter Petal who is looking on intently.  There is nothing negative about this photo or what was going on when it was taken but there is always 1 internet TROLL (Hater) who can turn it into bashing Jamie Oliver for being aligned with a Commercial Brand.   This photo has nothing to do with that and I found myself getting angry that 1 person could post a negative comment on this feed of what was supposed to be a family inspiring photo of family during the Holidays.  This Troll who will be nameless as to not giving him further attention although I am sure you can figure it out,  was then jumped on by the rest of Jamie's supporters including me.

Why this issue got me angry...   I became a Food Revolution Day Ambassador a couple of years ago after having watched a number of Jamie's shows including the ONE that motivated me to join Jamie in his mission.  That show was Jamie's School Lunches and then subsequently Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution in the US.   You need to know what Jamie has done over the past few years to understand what motivates him to do what he does.   Let's start at the beginning.   Jamie has 4 children now but started his career as the Naked Chef cooking dinner for friends and family.  Once he got married and had his children he was exposed to the schools that his children were going to.  I am not a parent but I know that once you become a parent you will fight for the rest of your life to take care of your children.   As a chef Jamie saw what was being passed off as food in the School Lunch system of the schools in the UK.  and as a Chef who prides himself on making real food he was disgusted and tried to find a way to change the school lunches to healthier foods.  I am sure when Jamie stepped into this bucket of worms he didn't know how this would direct his future.  I can bet he just wanted to see kids eating proper food in the UK and in turn have his kids and their friends get a better start in life.   This project turned into something a lot bigger than Jamie could have imagined.   He had to fight the government system of subsidies and the stubborness of the school employees to make changes.  If you watched the series you would have seen Jamie break down in frustration.  You would think he would just give up but not Jamie, he moved onto the US where he teamed up with Ryan Seacrest for Food Revolution, a series of how he could affect change in families struggling with diseases like diabetes and suffering other health effects from the food they were eating.  So many of the stories made me cry and I felt like I wanted to do something to join his cause because I come from a family who didn't have a lot of money but my parents worked their butts off to provide a roof over our head and proper food on the table every night.  I come from a home where we didn't have annual vacations or fancy things but we had a fully packed refrigerator and meals that were generally mostly made from scratch every day.

Now families rely on drive throughs to get their daily meals and have lost the ability to cook for themselves and pass down recipes and memories from spending family meals together.   I have helped my mother in the kitchen as long as I can remember, starting with stirring the pot or getting things from the fridge to adding spices to taking over cooking a lot of new things.  

Jamie is trying to bring this back to families who are struggling with their children getting diabetes as a child from the dependency on cheap fast food that has no nutrients to them having learning and behavioural difficulties in school.  Cooking real food at home has a direct impact on things like poverty, health, education and crime.   Crime... yes this takes me back to Jamie's Fifteen a project Jamie created to get troubled youth off the streets and away from drugs and crime and into commercial kitchens instead.   Jamie's first incarnation was the restaurant Fifteen named after the 15 youths that started in a program he created to teach them how to work in a restaurant kitchen.  While it was a struggle and not all of the participants were 100% willing to change some were and some are still working with Jamie and his team to this day.  What if he didn't create such a program?  What would those that have succeeded with Jamie have done?  Who knows but I bet it wouldn't be feeding people and paying it forward.  

Jamie has now moved on to thinking bigger which means trying to get more money to do bigger things.  He has aligned himself as a spokesman for Woolworth's in the UK and Sobey's in Canada and other things to try and spread his message and reach.   While Jamie may be making a profit from his restaurants and books and products he isn't greedily stashing the cash into a mansion in the UK and fancy cars and clothes and lavish wasteful things.   He is trying to expand his brand for YOU and everyone else in the World.  

His new book is called SAVE WITH JAMIE and it's mission is to help YOU waste less food and make food that costs less and tastes better.   I have the book and have made this Gangnam style chicken wings
which turned out fabulous.  A little kick to the humble chicken wings.

Over the past couple of years I have tried to host events for Food Revolution Day in Toronto and have found it very difficult to get any attention and interest about the event because I was trying to direct my focus on the adults instead of the kids because there are already other local Ambassadors focusing on the kids programmes.   There is a lot of apathy and general why bother with this type of attitude.  I understand from a financial point of view sometimes it costs me more money to make food at home for certain things.  For example Chinese Food.  I am not going to make deep fried Chicken Balls or Tempura for myself or make a stir fry with a dozen ingredients because it will make up a stir fry that can feed a sports team and it isn't something that I would be able to store or freeze in a small one bedroom apartment kitchen.   But at the same time there are things I can make at home and freeze that I can cook once and store in the freezer for times I don't want to cook or don't have the time or am just plain sick of take out food.   I like to make Pulled Pork in a crock pot.  It basically cooks itself and I can store it in ziplock bags for all sorts of meals at any time.  I love to make Chili in the winter as well,  it's easy to cook and freezing doesn't hurt the flavour at all.
My fastest go to comfort and satisfying and easy meal is always pasta and tomato sauce.  I love Gnocchi and like to keep some in the freezer for a quick boil and douse with a bottle of Tomato Passata with added herbs and spices and sometimes vegetables. Easy "peesy" as Jamie says sometimes.

Back to the point of this post.  One guy on Instagram started bashing Jamie for his alignment with Woolworths for their support of Australian famers not making enough money.   Really.. what does this "loverly" as Jamie calls it, picture of his family got to do with Woolworth's and their policy.   Go talk to Woolworths if you have an issue about their policies.   While I agree that Farmer's should make a lot more money and should get subsidies from the government to grow and raise Organic Foods it's a case of a big picture of economics and who's running the food distribution system.   The farmer is a small cog in a big wheel and unfortunately they should be the big cog and the rest should be the small cogs but it just doesn't work that way right now.   Maybe you can join me and other Food Revolutioner's and help voice your opinion to make that change.  I always support farmer's because they are the people that provide food for us to live on.  I doubt everyone in the world is going to own a cow, chicken, etc and grow all their vegetables in their backyard and be self sufficient, it just can't happen anymore so we need to support the farmers and give them incentives to going back to the old farming techniques of cultivating the land and developing nutrient high quality foods with Organic standards.

This is why I support Jamie and his mission because I see the BIG PICTURE on how it contributes to the World and the future of people's health in the world.  

Please support one of these things to make a positive change:

1.  Support Jamie and all of the projects he is trying to do.
2. Join a Food Revolution Day event or become an Ambassador
3. Support local farmers
4. Shop at your local farmer's market
5. Buy Organic foods when you can.
6. Learn how to cook by watching Jamie's Youtube channel or from one of his cookbooks or TV shows.
7. Experiment with food and try and make new things.
8. Teach the kids around you about food and how to appreciate where it comes from.
9. Know what's in your food and where it comes from and how you can find out.
10. Write letters to your local politicians to voice your opinion.   They won't have a job if you don't vote for them so they work for you.

Follow Jamie on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook etc.  @JamieOliver 

What Martha Stewart doesn't know about Food Photography.

BAD FOOD PHOTOS

Recently Martha Stewart posted a series of really bad food photos on Twitter and people started bashing her photo tweets.  Why? Well because the food looked like some tired chef just tossed food in a rush on a plate and then Martha took a fast pic in bad lighting showing that same food.  Martha Stewart may be the Queen of Entertaining but she has a lot to learn about food photography and what looks good in a picture.  We can't all be perfect in everything.  While I myself have taken a lot of bad food photos I have also taken a few good ones just with my Ipad or a simple point and shoot camera.  The most important thing in taking a good food photo is LIGHT.  That's the most important thing in photography and the most important thing to make food look good.

Some of the Golden Rules of Food Photography:

1.  Use natural daylight if possible
2. Try and make sure the light isn't too bright to washout the contrast of the light on the food.
3. Don't ever use the flash on your camera straight on your food unless you are sitting in a pitch black room but even then your food won't look good.
4. Think about composition and framing and read up on the law of thirds if you don't understand that.
5. Make sure there is contrast in color on the plate.  Example of what won't work ever is White plate, white food and bright light.  It will just look like a plate of snow.   Same thing goes for black plate black food etc.   You get the picture*  black food on a white plate will give you excellent contrast but you have to know about lighting to make it look really good.

Here are some photos of Bad, Good, Better and Best in some of the shots I took recently and the differences in lighting.

1.  BAD

This photo was shot using my IPAD in an artificial lighted restaurant.  It's out of focus and kind of boring.  There is a bit of color but I couldn't have made this look a whole lot better with better lighting and more time paid to the way the Calamari were plated and the composition of the food.  It was a quick shot and not even as bad as some of Martha Stewart's photos of puke like looking boring dark food.

2.  Here's where the different lighting sources really shows the difference in how your food would look with different light sources.

The first photo of Martha Stewart's Biscotti recipe that I made plated on a white plate with silver pattern was shot after I made them and it was at night in my dark apartment so I tried to turn on a desk light to add more light  You can see the that it's too bright on the right where the light is coming from and then there is a huge dark shadow on the left.

This second photo was shot in my kitchen with the biscotti just placed on a white cutting plastic cutting board on top of a red one.   It looks flat and the color is bad because the lighting was the fluorescent ceiling lights in my kitchen.  The worst lighting for everything.

 This is the same photo but I used an Instagram filter to bump it up a little bit and it cropped it.  Better but not great.









This last photo was shot the next morning when the natural sunlight comes through my northern facing apartment.  I have limited times where I get maximum light quality and I got lucky that I had these 2 beautiful rays of light that just hit a nice spot on the biscotti.

What I also did was place the biscotti on textured boards.   First on the wooden cutting board and then on a slate board.  I moved it around until I liked the placement, the composition and the light that was coming through the window.

Now compare the first photo to this one and you can really see how a simple biscotti photo can go from a cookie that looks eh.. to a biscotti cookie that you want to eat.

GREAT

I think Chefs should take photography and food styling classes before opening their restaurants and maybe some other arts classes so that they can really maximize the way their food looks on the plate so that people can eat with their eyes first and really have the brain wake up to what they are about to eat.

I always love it when I go to a restaurant where there is beautiful lighting,  beautifully plated food and the taste of the food to match.   That's food perfection and a dream for any food blogger or foodie.

Chef's and Restaurant designers take note.    A restaurant trick many restaurants use is to serve on white plates so that the food colors stand out..  see back to beginning when I mentioned white food on white plates.   You can only do this if you toss on something extra with color, even if it's just parsley or paprika to break it up.

Oh by the way,  this last photo was just shot with my ipad and I used the Lo-Fi Instagram filter which is my favourite food filter.   No photoshopping or any other special lighting or correction.

I am constantly striving to make the food that I make look and taste better and try and find ways to experiment with taking the photos in the use of different backgrounds.  I use plates, platters, cutting boards, place mats and foam core or whatever else I can get my hands on that I can use to change up my photos.

So this post is for you Martha Stewart or all of the rest of you Martha Stewart wannabees or food loving photography challenged people.

I hope some of my quick tips help you eat with your eyes first from now on.

Happy snapping and eating.