Big Night at the Green Barn for The Stop

I was a very lucky girl on Wednesday June 3rd, 2015 because I was able to attend the most beautiful event BIG NIGHT AT THE GREEN BARN which was held at Artscape's Wychwood Barns on Christie Street.  The event was a fundraiser for The Stop.  In case you don't know about The Stop they have programs that promote growing, cooking, sharing and advocating for healthy food.  They have a greenhouse on the site and a weekly Farmer's Market on Saturdays. There is a community kitchen and a classroom for youth education.  Chef Jamie Oliver even toured the space and thinks that there should be more facilities like it.

Since Jamie Oliver loves it so much I kind of think it's my duty as a Food Revolution Day Ambassador for him to promote their fundraising initiatives so that their programs can continue to grow and thrive.  

As a food blogger this was a no brainer for me. A great community program, a beautiful venue on an perfect spring evening and sharing some outstanding food made by some of the top Chefs in the city.  What's not to love about that?  I had one fellow blogger at my table but I didn't know anyone else but I still had a really great time.  From start to finish the attention to detail on this event was fabulous.

You arrive to a tent with some amazing appetizers.  I went back for a second cone of the hot popcorn  shrimp it was so good from Vertical.  There was also Prosciutto from Paganelli's and all kinds of appetizers from Terroni.  You were greeted by servers with trays of wine and there was Steamwhistle Beer also available.

As you entered the room there were fresh Oysters and sauces provided by Oyster Boy.  I am not a huge oyster person but they were really amazingly fresh and the sauces were perfect pairings.

There was also ice tea and delicious coffee provided by Island Coffee.

During the dinner there was an auction where the auctioneer kind of heckled the crowd to raise as much money as he could for the Stop.  Some of the items included a custom made suit and a dinner for 10 by Chef Mark McEwan who was also one of the Chef's on hand providing one of the components of the dinner.

There was a raffle with keys that the winning key would unlock a box that contained a prize to win a trip on Porter airlines.  I would have like that one.

The Dinner

The Antipasto was Mozzarella Arancini rice balls made by Chef Lorenzo Loseto from George Restaurant.  Oozy cheese.. what else is there to say.

The Primo was Rabbit Creste de Gallo a slow-cooked rabbit, peas, arugula and fresh pasta prepared by Ted Corrado from The Drake.  I only had rabbit once and I didn't like it but I didn't even taste the rabbit in this dish it just tasted like a terrific pasta and peas dish.

The Secondo was a Braised Short rib, mascarpone polenta, smoked tomato passata, roasted Thumbelina carrots and sauce.  This was provided by Chef Mark McEwan and Andrew Ellerby from The McEwan Group.  Everyone loved the tender short ribs.

Dolce the dessert was a Sicilian cannoli with ricotta cheese, chocolate and amarena cherries from George Tahari from Noce.  They were fantastic and light.

There was alos a Limoncello soaked sponge cake, filled with custard cream  that was made by Sorrento Ristorante but we are all so full by that point that I literally only had a spoonful.

I had a really great Cappuccino from Reunion Island Coffee to finish off the meal and I was totally stuffed.

It was a really great night and I hope that it was also a great night to raise lot's of money for The Stop's programs.  I know that the key sales were sold out so that's a great sign.  Everyone pitched in their time to make this event a huge success.  There were even a couple of volunteers from Tiff there so it's nice to see my film and food people in the mix.

Great job everyone.  I hope I am able to go again next year.

For more information about the Stop's programs or to donate visit their website www.thestop.org

Celebrity Chefs Dish at the Delicious Food Show

I spent the whole day of Day 1 of the Delicious Food Show because some of my most favourite Celebrity Chefs were there doing Cooking Demos so I didn't want to miss any of them.

I started my day at 8am at a Media Breakfast and Press Conference with US based Celebrity Superstar Chefs Mario Batali and Tyler Florence and our own Iron Chef winning superstar Chef Chuck Hughes and also up and coming Toronto Chef Rob Gentile who owns 3 popular Toronto restaurants, Bar Buca, Buca and Buca Yorkville and soon to be partners with Jamie Oliver in his 1st Canadian Jamie's Italian restaurant that will open in the spring at Yorkdale Mall.  I chatted with Chef Gentile and he said that it will be located facing the Dufferin Street side near the TD Bank.

Chef Batali just released a new cookbook called AMERICA - FARM TO TABLE and he and was here to promote it in a quick stop.   So quick that he did his book signing in record time... and unfortunately I didn't get a chance to chat with him but I hope he comes back for the new Food and Wine Festival that was announced at the morning Press Conference for the 1st time next September.  Mario is a very busy man, he owns 26 restaurants and is also one of the hosts of The Chew television show which airs daily on ABC.  Chef Batali also did a cooking demo of Veal involontini and fried eggplant and angel hair pasta.  I picked up a couple of ideas but wish I could have tried a sample of the food.
               
Tyler Florence was also in town to promote his yet to be officially released new cookbook INSIDE THE TEST KITCHEN.  I have been watching Tyler Florence on Food Network for a long time and have always really liked his cooking style but I have a new found respect for him after listening to him at the show.  He really is ahead of the curve on where food is going.  Not about the latest in molecular gastronomy but in how to maximize the taste and techniques of cooking by finding better ways to make already known foods and recipes.  He took inspiration from Instagram and twitter for his current book and took suggestions for things he should TEST in his newly built Test Kitchen.  He shot all of the photos on his ipad for the book himself.. a man after my own heart as I take most of my food photos at home with my Ipad because you can do it quickly and see the details of every shot.  He would sometimes spend a week perfecting a technique and developed a way to cook a Turkey in an hour and a half and Risotto in half the time without sacrificing the flavour or texture.   Tyler is really tapped into what people want and understands that it's now a process of a conversation on giving people what they actually want.  He tapped into the whole Food Truck scene years ago,  way before it exploded the way it has and he is probably directly responsible for bringing attention to it and spreading the word on what Food Trucks really are.  He said that when he tried to pitch the show years ago people thought he was crazy and that food trucks were gross and nobody was going to want to buy food off a construction site type of food truck.  Well he proved them wrong.  When asked about what trend he would like to see go away he said the reality star television chefs.  We had to laugh because my friend Mary just competed in show called Pressure Cooker.  She agreed with Tyler though because his point was that you have to learn your craft to be a Chef and you can't earn it over night.  

I was really excited to get a copy of his new cookbook at the show where they had a few copies on sale.  The cookbook hasn't even been released officially yet and won't be in the stores for another week.
I flipped through quickly and was really impressed by the layout and design, the clarity of the recipes and the photos.  I know I will be using this book.

On to my most favourite, Chef Chuck Hughes.. yes I have said this many times but he reminds me why he is my favourite every time I see him.  He always goes above and beyond most of the other chefs.  Here's an example of his day at the show.   At 8am he welcomed the media and talked about what he would be doing for the Executive chef series workshop.  Then he did a book signing at 11am,  he roamed the show talking selfies with the vendors and people at the show,  he did his Executive Chef series class and after all of that he closed the show with his regular 1 hour long demo on the Celebrity Cooking Stage.   He wasn't supposed to do a book signing after the demo but he hung around afterward and posed for photos and talked to every single person that wanted to meet him.  A real class act.    I did get to try a bite of the dessert he made at the demo and it was as delicious as I knew it would be.  His mom and aunt were also there and an audience member even asked his mom a question.  Oh and I forgot to mention he answered questions from the audience while he was doing the cooking demo.

He had help from his friend Tracy who always helps him with his demos when he is in Toronto and also went with him to do Iron Chef,  that gives him the freedom to wander around and talk to people during his demos.  He always stops to take selfies with kids in the audience too.  My friend stayed to see him with me and counts Chuck as one of her new favourite chefs too.

The best part is that I keep going to see him more for his "stand up" act than the cooking as he is as hilarious as some of the best comics.

Then there is the more serious Mark McEwan.  Chef Mark is kind of a perfectionist Chef.  He will take a seemingly simple dish like the Lobster Poutine recipe that he was doing a demo on and elevate it to the highest quality he can get it.  Perfectly cooked fries, butter poached lobster and a bernaise sauce.  Chef McEwan also did a book signing and one of the Executive chef series classes.  He doesn't get hounded for selfies as much as Chuck does though.  He invited some of the audience up to taste the poutine at the end of his demo... it was a frenzy and I went up at the tail end and got the last couple of fries left and dunked them into the Bernaise sauce and it was delicious.  I didn't get any lobster but that was ok.  Chef McEwan's next project is the opening of a Mini McEwan store in the TD centre in April.

I didn't try a lot of the food at the show this year and plan to try and go back just to try more of the food.  It's a great way to try food from restaurants you haven't had a chance to get to yet.  I did try the "pork belly taco" from Hudson Kitchen.  It was a spicy sweet taco style in a crepe like shell.  Hudson Kitchen is one of the Celebrity hotspots on Dundas St. West.  I haven't had a chance to go there yet so at least I got to sample a bit of their food.

I also tried a sample of Ontario Pork Kimchi taco, for some reason it seems to be a trend to make some kind of tacos at events because that's all I have seen lately and there was at least a half a dozen Tacos available at the show.

One of the other trends lately has been salted caramel everything and smores everything.   I tried both a salted caramel and a bite of a smores popsicle by Parts and Labour.

What else will you find at the show... well maybe some hot Toronto Chefs sending out tweets and checking their restaurant reservations maybe.

Rob Gentile (Buca) and Matt from (Parts and Labour)

Some of the other foods to check out are really pretty and will satisfy your sweet tooth like these Macarons from AG Macarons and cute little mini fun cookies from Teeny Tiny Bakery.  They were so cute and fun and would be great for parties and gifts.  Von doughnuts are also there with an assortment of interesting flavours and one Halloween inspired doughnut too.













Other vendors included Christine Manning of Manning Canning who is trying to crowd source a community kitchen in Leaside.   There was also Louise tomato sauce,  Foodie pages gift boxes,  Slow cooking sauces and sausages and drinks by Parachute coffee and more.

                   

 Don't forget to check out the Crazy Plate Lady too.  She does hand painted plates of your favourite Chefs, food and other familiar things.  Great for gifts.  She is very talented.

 There is so much great stuff to check out so I hope you get a chance to go and try some of the treats and sit in on a chef demo too.

All about food at the Delicious Food Show 2014

The Delicious Food Show 2014 takes place this weekend at the Direct Energy Centre at  Exhibition Place this weekend.  It's only in it's 3rd year but it's amazing how prestigious and large it's become in 3 short years.  Last year they featured the Queen of Lifestyle Martha Stewart and this year they brought in Superstar Chef Mario Batali and fellow American Chef Tyler Florence.

Our Canadian Chefs are no slouches either, and our own Amazing Chefs, Mark McEwan, Chuck Hughes, Roger Mooking are also at the show this year.  And for those of you that followed the Cronut frenzy last year the creator Dominique Ansel  and right hand to Martha Stewart, Lucinda Scala are also coming to the show for a demo.

The first day of the show started off with a bang.   I attended the Media Breakfast that was chock full of super talented chefs.  Mario Batali (The Chew), Tyler Florence (The Great Food Truck Race, Wayfarer Tavern) , Chuck Hughes (Garde Manger, Le Bremner) and Rob Gentile  (Buca) attending a press conference for the media.

Rob Gentile's restaurant Bar Buca provided a generous supply of pastries and coffee for breakfast, it was an incredible spread that I wish I could have tried a bit of all of it.

The Media were given a mini tour of the show where we first met up with Chef Chuck Hughes who told us about the Executive Series where he will be teaching a hands on workshops for about 20 people. Other Chefs doing their own demos are Tyler Florence and Mark McEwan.  

We were then greeted by BBQ King Ted Reader at his converted fire truck where he served up some beer samples from his truck.  He will be serving pork ball donuts and beer at the show.   We moved on to samples from Von Doughnuts, Parachute Coffee, a demo of Parts and Labour's Smore's ice cream bar and Manning Canning and a bunch of other vendors at the Foodies on Foot booth.  It was hard to keep up with it all there was so much to check out.

    

At the press conference the Chefs and representatives from Informa Canada announced that in September 2015 they will be bringing the Food and Wine Festival to Toronto.  This festival is huge in North America and will be a great addition to the ever growing Food Scene in Toronto.

Some other highlights of the Delicious Show are Abbey Sharp's Kitchen Stadium and the Sandwich Smackdown.  

Abbey Sharp (Abbey's Kitchen), dietician, host and blogger is also the host of all of the Celebrity Stage Demo's at the show again this year.

I have been to all of the Delicious Food Show's since the beginning and it is probably my favourite food show because of the quality of the Chefs and food demos and the participation of a lot of Toronto's top restaurants.  It's where the Chefs and food lovers want to hang out.   I think the move to the Direct Energy building this year was a great move with the show having enough room for people to comfortably roam the food isles and sample all the goodies.

Most of the media left shortly after the Press Conference but I loved the show so much that I stuck around the whole day to check out the whole show,  so I will do another post to get into more detail about some of the other things I saw there.

KitchenAid's Culinary Showdown Event

KitchenAid is gearing up for another year of it's Culinary Showdown event on November 29th at the All Stream Centre to benefit the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.  

Last year I registered to fundraise to be able to participate in the Culinary Showdown but fell short on my fundraising and only raised $200 which earned me a White KitchenAid apron but I was shooting for enough to participate in the Event and join one of a bunch of great Food Network Celebrity Chefs teams that competed with the top fundraisers.  You need to raise $2500 to be able to participate in the Showdown but if you raise $1000 you are able to attend.  I would really like to fundraise again but I need everyone's financial support to reach the $2500 goal.  But imagine how much money they can raise in one night if every participant raises $2500.

Where else but on a Food Network television show can you have 5 Amazing Chefs help you cook an amazing meal to serve to fundraisers who raise funds for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.

Some of the confirmed chefs this year are the great Mark McEwan, Susur Lee, Vikram Vij, Lynn Crawford and Corbin Tomaczeski.  

I was invited to one of the pre events where they introduce the event and register people to participate.   With me not working right now I wasn't able to register at the event as there is a $75 registration fee which covers the cost of participation.

A breast Cancer survivor named Molly made a very touching and heart felt speech about her experience through her Cancer treatments to her joining the Run for the Cure.

The cocktail event was a lot of fun with Chef Mark McEwan and Chef Corbin in attendance.  Chef Lynn Crawford was scheduled to attend but had some car trouble and didn't make it.   There were many food bloggers and Gastroposter's in attendance.  I met a lot of Gastroposters that I hadn't met before and there were a lot of blogger friends there as well so it was a nice party atmosphere.  It was held on the 7th floor of the Bay surrounded by all the KitchenAid products including the limited edition Raspberry colored Kitchen Aid stand mixer where some of the proceeds goes to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.

When we arrived we mixed and mingled and munched on some really great appetizers provided by Longo's I believe.

Then a bunch of us joined each Chefs team to see which team could produce the longest pasta noodle.  I joined Chef Mark McEwan's team.   They both struggled to get the pasta started but it seems like Chef Mark had a bit more trouble.  Corbin managed to get his pasta going smoothly and had a really long and smooth pasta line and he won the challenge.   Last year Chef McEwan won so I guess it's only fair for Chef Corbin to win this time.  It was all in good fun anyway.

If you want to sponsor me or someone else or if you want to fundraise and participate yourself you can get more information here: Culinary Showdown

The Taste of Toronto - Pt. 2. last day

I had a bit of a frustrating experience going to the Opening Day of the Taste of Toronto Festival so I decided to go again on the last day to try and get the things that I missed and see if I would have a better experience.

The first day that I went I took the TTC.  I drove to Wilson Station then subway to St. George, transfer to Bathurst and streetcar to Fort York Blvd and walk around an uphill street to the entrance of the festival.  The weather was warm and then cooled down a bit.  There were very long lines and vendors ran out of some of their menu items.

My experience was a lot different on the last day.  I drove down to the festival by myself from home and met my friend who rode her bike there.  My friend's challenge was trying to find a place to lock up her bike.   My challenge was finding somewhere to park.  I drove through the Garrison Gate and was told the parking lot was full and to drive around and go to another parking lot.  I drove around and found nothing so I went back to the first lot and he said I could look and see if there was a spot if I wanted to.  I drove in and within a minute found a spot.  I wasted about 15 minutes driving around when I could have probably just parked right away and went in.   I still had to walk up the long uphill winding street to the entrance but it took me half the time to drive there than it did taking the TTC.

I went through the entrance and there wasn't a lineup for the media box office and I got my pass right away.  There were only a few people in line to get their Crowns topped up so my friend purchased $20 in crowns and we went in.  The good thing about the pass was that it didn't have to be scanned so there weren't any technical slow downs to walk through.   The first day I used a paid printed out ticket that had to be scanned to get in.

The day,  the last sunday was a very sunny and hot day.  There was a threat of rain but it didn't happen which I am sure the vendors were very happy about.  Everyone was hot and sweaty including Chef Mark McEwan who did a demo in the Electrolux Tent which was very warm because it didn't allow for much of a breeze to get through.  His demo was very well attended.  I stood through the demo as all of the seats were taken.  In my previous post I mentioned that I thought that there should be more seats for the cooking demos as that was the main attraction of the festival.

I didn't sign up for any of the Master Classes because I didn't feel that I needed to do a hands on demo for scrambled eggs and I would have taken the knife skills one but I wasn't sure if it was a beginner or advanced.  I think I have all the basics down and have taken a basic knife skills class already.

My friend had to leave early so we tried to make out seeing as many booths as we could and I tried to check out all the stuff I missed on the first day.

I was disappointed that I couldn't get fried chicken from One but this time there were only about 4 people in line when I walked up and was happy to see Chef Mark McEwan there again dishing the plates out.  I told him I came back just for the chicken.   The chicken was delicious and I really liked the coleslaw and the sauce but I have to say that I can make better biscuits.  They were a bit tough.  But I did feel like it was a nice portion, although my friend got a tiny piece of chicken.   I bet Mark would have made sure I got a decent piece after he knew that I was disappointed that I didn't get one on the thursday night.

The other thing that I didn't get on the first day was the Barque Smokehouse Barque O rama ribs or something like that.  They were very tasty and had a great light rub of bbq sauce on them.  We also sat in on owner David Neinstein's smoked chicken demo in the Electrolux theatre.  I asked him how to make decent smoky ribs at home without a bbq.   I am going to try his suggestion and do another post in the future on that.

The one thing on the last day is that everyone wants to sell all their food and not have to cart it all back or throw it out.   San Pellegrino had cases of canned juice and water and just left them out for people to pick up as they wished.  I saw a few guys carrying full cases of water around.  I thin they were left with a lot because there was an abundance of difference beverages at the festival.

There was a real ginger ginger ale that had difference natural flavours added,  my favourite was the Pure Leaf lemon ice tea and also the Nespresso bar.  I had both a hot cappuccino and an iced latte from Nespresso.  They also had a juice called BLOO which was a blueberry juice.  Very tasty.  There were a number of tea booths as well and there were a couple of beer stations and there were wine tastings set up.  I was happy to see a variety of drink options available which a lot of other festivals don't have.  On a hot day like sunday I was bouncing around trying a lot of the drinks.

Another dish I finally got to was the Ice Cream Sundae from Chef Carl Heinrich's restaurant Richmond Station.  I thought their booth was very cute.  It was craft papered walls and red and white checked table cloths on the booth with paper cut out of the Richmond Station name.   I took a photo of Chef Carl and the booth and the staff member asked if I wanted to take a photo with Carl.  I said no because by that time I had been sweating for about 3 hours so wasn't about to be in a photo.   I didn't get the ice cream on the first night for a few reasons.   First i didn't have time to stand in line, second I didn't think it would be that interesting and I was full by the time I could have eaten it.   On sunday I was so hot that it ended up being the last thing I ate and it filled me up and cooled me off at the same time.  It wasn't super special but it was nicely presented and tasted good.

I would have liked to try the Paella which was an amazing thing to watch them make in the giant paella pans that they had timers on display.

The other interesting thing that I tried was the liquid nitrogen mango ice cream that was demo'd in the American Express tent.  It's a really cool thing to watch the liquid nitrogen fog.

After the sampling I was pretty much done with the Ribs, chicken and the ice cream so I wasn't able to try anything else.

I ran into a friend there and my friend and the one I ran into left at 3pm and I still had crowns so I stayed for a bit longer and that's when I had the sundae.  I was ready to leave at about 4pm and ran into yet another friend who had just arrived.  I gave that friend my last 3 crowns but I don't know what they were able to get with it as I left right after that.

I had a bag full of San Pellegrino and a Bloo juice in the bag they handed out and walked back on the long road to the parking lot.  I have to say I felt a whole lot better on sunday then I did after thursday night.   I was so exhausted after the standing and the ttc haul on thursday that I was too tired to do anything on friday.  I feel fine after the last days visit, although the heat and the ice cream and coffee's didn't sit in my system for too long afterward.   I wish I could have gotten a few dishes to go to take home for dinner.   Maybe I should have picked up some Blue Goose or Baretta farms food to take home but I knew I probably wouldn't have wanted to cook but ended up making some sort of concoction bowl at about 8pm when I finally got hungry again.

So overall I still feel that there are good parts of the show,  the good being the caliber of chefs it attracted and the demos and the sampling was fantastic.  The tents were nice but it wasn't very weather friendly if it's really hot/cold or rainy.

Getting there and parking was my biggest issue.  Out of my 3 friends,  1 drove and had to park near the beer festival, 1 rode her bike and couldn't find anywhere to lock it up and the last one walked over from their condo nearby which is the best way to get there but that's not much of a reach for a festival like that.  On sunday I drove for a half an hour and paid for parking.

I think that they could have set up a free public parking spot just before the entrance since there was a pretty high entrance fee and cost for each dish.   It makes for a very expensive festival.

For me I paid $55 for 2 tickets and received 12 crowns with that and then topped up my card another $30 on the first day and then another $10 on the last day.  I didn't have to pay to get in again because I got a media pass after I had paid for the first night.   I paid $7 for parking on the last day and $6 for TTC on the first night.  I didn't buy anything else at the festival but I also didn't really eat a tonne of food but it does add up pretty quickly.  They were also selling cookbooks from Roger Mooking and Mark McEwan.  I already have the McEwan book and probably wouldn't have purchased it there having to carry it around and juggle food, drinks and books.  

Metro also had a virtual store where you could scan from 3 items and pick it up from a truck on the way out.  I don't think anyone did that.  I didn't see anything worth doing that for.

So if this becomes an annual festival I will be curious to see how it changes for next year..   The location, the logistics, the system or the vendors.  I will be prepared for whatever happens if they do it again next year.