Pan American Food Festival

Event:             Pan American Food Festival

What:              Food, dance and vendors

Location:        Daniels Spectrum - 585 Dundas St. E.

Date:               Aug 1-3, 2015 

It's a long weekend in Toronto and as usual there are a whole bunch of things going on in the city.  The Caribbean Carnival, The Food Truck Festival, and all kinds of other things going on.
It was such a beautiful sunny day on the saturday so I decided to check out the Pan American Food Festival at Daniel's Spectrum in Regent Park.

This festival is curated by local writer and self proclaimed "Food Geek" Mary Luz Mejia.  It was great to see her and also fellow Food Revolution Day Ambassador and local chef Mary Catherine Anderson who was helping out with the demos.

This is their 3rd Annual Festival.  I attended it for the first time last year.  It seems like they changed the focus and the set up quite a bit since last year.  Last year most of the food demos were inside the building and there was a stage for music that was the food demo stage this year.  They built a bigger stage at the end of the laneway with room in front for dancers and spectators.  It made a lot more sense this way I think.  There focus this year shifted to a lot more musical acts and dancers and 25 visiting Pan American Chefs doing demos and competitions.  But the only thing that didn't seem expanded was the number of booth vendors.  There seemed to be a lot more food vendors last year but the few food vendors were pretty regular contributors to local food events.

On the saturday I checked out 2 of the chef demos.  The first one was by Ryan Wilson-Lall from FRANK restaurant at the AGO in Toronto.  He made my most favourite dish that I tried at the Festival and tried for the first time.  It was his version of Chili en Nogado.  I have seen it made on television but never had a chance to try it before.  It's a pretty labour intensive dish with many different ingredients and layers of techniques and flavours.  Chef Ryan's version was a Poblano chili stuffed with a great balance of seasonings on pulled chicken and then topped with a white cheese sauce and then garnished with pepitas, cilantro and pomegranate seeds.   I don't know if I would ever spend that kind of time making it but I wish I had picked up the recipe because there were so many layers of flavours that you can't figure it out from just tasting it.  It was fantastic.

The next demo was from Master-Chef Columbia Chef Federico Martinez who is a young up and coming and very popular chef.  He made Posta Negra.  I am not sure why it's named that but possibly because the meat is turned almost black from the Coca-Cola, molasses, red wine and ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire sauce marinade and cooked in a pressure cooker or slow braised.
It is cooked until tender and shredded like pulled pork.  It is served on corn tortillas and topped with a pico de gallo that had coconut milk in it and also topped with an avocado mousse and some grated Mexican cheese.  I could smell this dish before I even tried it and it tasted just as good.  As you can tell from the picture above it was a bit on the runny side so the tortilla didn't hold up that well.  I would say to make sure you use a slotted spoon when you serve it or use a double tortilla shell.

There was also a few various vendors like jewellery, and clothing and musical instruments.

There is a lot of musical acts that unfortunately I am not familiar with so I don't know if anyone of them are well known but there was a Latin Grammy Nominee Caloncho who I hears is very good but I didn't hear him so I don't know much about him.  There are all kinds of dancing from Mexican folk dancers to salsa dancers and all kind of different costumed dancers to entertain the crowd.

It's a great festival to bring the family.  It's not too crowded and it's a great cultural experience and there are photo opps galore.  The selfie takers were kept busy.

If you read this in time I hope you can go and check it out and try some great food and dance up a storm with the beautiful dancers and musical artists.

For more info:  www.panamfoodfest.com
Twitter @PanamFoodFest
Facebook  PanAmerican Food Festival
Instagram @panamfoodfest

26 Cheeses from Spain

CHEESE FROM SPAIN: A TASTE EXPERIENCE

Who:           Media and food industry professionals

What:          Cheese and Wine Sampling of products from Spain

Where:        St. Lawrence Market Kitchen

When:         June 1st

Why:           To learn about cheeses from Spain

 I attended a very nice cocktail event at St. Lawrence Market hosted by ICEX Spain Export and Investment and the Trade Commission of Spain and organized by food writer Mary Luz Mejia.

It was all to showcase all of the delicious wines and cheeses from Spain.  There were 26 cheeses in all.  I couldn't possibly try all of them but I samples as many as I could.

You might be familiar with one of the most common Spanish Cheeses - Manchego and yes there were was a whole variety of them at different stages in the ageing process. I sampled many of them and I don't know if I can give you a favourite one as it's a taste preference if you like your cheese aged for 6 months, 9 months or the face that most of the Spanish cheeses are made from blended milks.

The thing about cheese that makes them unique and different is the milk that is used and the ageing process.  There were cows milk, goat milk and they use a combination of milks for a lot of the cheeses.  Then there are the added things that will flavour cheeses like coating it in rosemary or thyme.   In the photo below is a Drunken Goat cheese which has wine in it.

One of the cheeses that really stood out was this Vega Mancha Valdeon Blue Cheese.  Not only because it was one of only a few cheeses but the appearance stood out and the flavour wasn't what you might expect from a cheese that looks like this.  I found out that the outside of the cheese is coated in leaves unfortunately I can't remember what kind they were explained to me.  I thought maybe the cheese was smoked from the appearance but it was from it ageing with the leaves.
The blue cheese isn't like a stinky Stilton.  It was full of flavour but very smooth.
I could picture a cheeseboard in Spain with this cheese and some Spanish Olives and great country bread and some fresh figs and honey.  And I am sure there would be a glass of Wine on hand to match this cheese board.

 I also love Goat cheese and sampled one very mild and creamy Goat Cheese which I believe was called Monte Enebro.  I could eat this for breakfast on toast everyday and probably not get tired of it.

The cheese board in the picture at the top of this page was my cheeseboard that I loaded up when I got there so I could sample bites of different cheeses.  I might have been better off sampling one at a time and taking a photo so that I could remember each one but my photography brain kicked in and I wanted to make a nice board to take a photo of.  So I can't give you a detailed breakdown of the cheeses and at the same time everyone's tastes are different so you will have to try them for yourself to see which ones you prefer.

Besides the cheese samples Chef Martin Kouprie from Pangea restaurant prepared some tapas plates that included a pear and goat cheese pairing, a salad with cheese bits and panko crusted cheese bites and a few other things I wasn't sure exactly what they were.


Spain is on my list of places in the World I would like to travel to but unfortunately it's only a dream list at the moment but at least I am able to sample the foods from Spain here in Canada while I am dreaming of the places I would go and visit around the World.

For more information visit the website at:  www.foodswinesfromspain.com