Event - Taste of the Hill

After all of the jam packed Toronto street festivals I have visited this summer I decided to visit one more in the GTA and see if there was a difference.   I decided to go to the TASTE of the HILL after seeing my friend Denise who owns the Petits Chefs Academy in Vaughan was going to have a booth set up there.  It was a sunday afternoon and the subway was closed from Eglinton to Bloor and street closures happening for Buskerfest and the South Asian festival on Gerrard, the Taste of Manila on Bathurst and all the other construction blockages in town so I decided to high tail it away from all the blockages and traffic jams in the city and headed up to Richmond Hill for a change.  To be honest it was a whole lot easier getting to this festival for me than it was getting to any of the other festivals in Toronto.   I went from the 401 East to the 404 and north to Elgin Mills and poof I was there.  I think it took less than 1/2 an hour to get there.  It takes a lot longer for me to get downtown on a normal day.

 It was the perfect weather to be at an outdoor festival, although I did see a few people with umbrellas or sitting in the shade during the afternoon sun.

This festival was all about the multi-cultural family in Richmond Hill and they had activities for kids such as my friend Denise's mini cooking class for kids and there were Watermelon eating contests and lots of varied cultural musical acts.

Before I get to the food I have to mention that when I got there I found that there was FREE PARKING because it was held at a community centre but the festival was held outside.   Not only was it free, it was easy to get in and out and they had young cadets managing the traffic flow.  I wish more festivals did this.

The festival was totally free except for the food vendors.

The Food.

What I had was very good.  I got a skewer of pork from Liko's for $2.50 when I first got there.  It was delicious.

After wandering around and hanging out with my friend Denise for a while I went back to get more food.  Unfortunately since I drove all highway to get there I didn't have a chance to stop at a bank machine to get more cash so I only had just over $10 left for food.   I had just enough to get a combo meal from Touro Brazilian Streakhouse but it was totally worth it.  A full and healthy meal of Brazilian Beef that is roasted over coals and black beans, rice and the bbq'd pineapple which has become one of my favourite things lately.

Other food vendors on site were the Caplansky's food truck, Kettle Corn vendor, an Italian vendor, an Indian Food Vendor, fries, ice cream truck, and a few others.  It was a nice variety.


There were plenty of chairs in front of the two moveable trailer stages and picnic tables behind them.  Lot's of room to sit down and eat or watch the entertainment for a change.   The food was spread out around the whole area instead of crammed in one place so people could wander around through the whole event.

It was all held on the grass outdoor space of a community centre so it was easy to walk around and not as hot as concrete would have been.  There were a few shade trees that a few people huddled under as well.

I only found one thing that was missing.  There was a booth set up for Scotiabank but there wasn't a bank machine in site.  Because I had limited cash I would have liked to hit up a bank machine and pick up some vegetables at the little farmer's market that was set up there.   Since it was cash only for everything I had limited funds to spread around.

The only sad thing was that it didn't have a huge turnout.  It was respectable but they could have had room for a lot more people.   I have seen worse festivals with more people in Toronto.












It was a nice event though.  Very chilled and still great for a family.   Probably not of interest to teens and young adults though.

Looking for Local food at the Green Living Show

Denise Livotti owner of Petits Chefs Academy in Vaughan and I visit the Green Living Show at the Direct Energy Centre in Toronto to chat with Agatha Podgorski of the Ontario Culinary Tourism Alliance about supporting local farmers and chefs from all over Ontario.

Agatha and Denise

 Foodland Ontario presented the Culinary Adventure Pavillion section at the Green Living Show  this year.

"The Ontario Culinary Adventure Pavilion raises awareness of the environmental and health benefits of choosing fresh, sustainable and local farm foods all year round, and showcases Ontario’s unique culinary tourism industry".

I wanted to connect food and being green and how the 2 things are in sync.

Denise and I tried some of the food that was presented at the show and found it all very delicious.

There were also lots of teas, hot sauces and other various food samples at the show to try.

Perch Tacos from Hooked

Bacon buttertarts by Madelyn's Diner

Porchetta sandwiches from Niagara Speciality Foods

Orange soda braised turkey on a bun from Port Restaurant

Chocolate from Chocosol

One booth that I really liked was the TerraCycle booth where they had rows of plastic containers containing things that can't normally get recycled but they have set up a service for consumers to send a box of specific items to them free of charge and they recycle them into products like bags etc.  All of those juice boxes and shampoo bottles can have a second life now and not sit in landfills that are ever mounting around the globe.  

I enjoy going to the show to see new and innovative products that combine great design and a practical approach to making things better in the future.

Food Revolution Day 2013 - Toronto

A couple of weeks back I got together with a couple of members of the Food Revolution Day Ambassadors Team from Toronto and Vaughan and we created a video to promote this year's Food Revolution Day on May 17th.  I went out and bought a whole boat load of fresh vegetables and we did a Blind Taste Test with a bunch of kids at the Petits Chefs Academy where our Vaughan Team Ambassador Denise owns a cooking school for kids.  They were pretty smart and food savvy kids but I managed to stump them on a couple of vegetables.  It's my mission for all kids to know what vegetables are and to try things they have never tried.  How can anyone know what they like to eat if they have never tried it?  We did a blind taste testing on 3 different vegetable dishes.  Artichokes, Celery Root and Kale chips.  They didn't like the artichokes too much but they loved the celery root salad and thought it was coleslaw and they ate all of it.    2 out of 3 isn't too bad.   I wanted the kids to do a blind taste test so that they would try a vegetable without first judging it on how it looked.  That way they only decide from the taste and the texture, although we did allow them to smell and touch it.   I used a vinaigrette on the artichoke hearts so they didn't like the fact that it was oily.  Oh well... next time I would try and spinach artichoke dip.  I bet they would like that.

I was inspired to become an Ambassador after seeing what Jamie Oliver had done in the U.K. with the school lunches and then on to a school in the U.S.   It made me realize that kids don't get exposed to a diverse array of foods other than what they can afford or what they eat in their homes or their friends and families homes.  We need to bring back food education in schools and teach kids where their food comes from and what it is, what to do with it, how to preserve it, and what it tastes like.  Food is a necessity for everyone's life, so I don't understand why this necessary knowledge isn't taught in most schools and why convenience food is subsidized but healthy food isn't.   We need to reverse this so that childhood obesity becomes a disease of the past like the plague.

I am going to edit a bit more video from the day but here is a short clip just to get you inspired to Join us on May 17, 2013.

http://vimeo.com/62916016

Food Security Solutions -think vertical

I started thinking about the food sustainability problem lately and how we would be able to solve it.   Everyone seems to consume food like it will be around forever.   What if the farmers stopped farming because the older generation that have been carrying forward all the farming practices and family farms start dying off and nobody wants to carry it on because they can't make enough money to support the farms?  Then what?  Do you want to eat all Genetically modified foods in the future?  I don't.   We need to start thinking about solutions and figure out a way to support the farmers.  Without food there is no life.  It's that simple.

I have been reading a lot of articles and talking to a lot of people about the eco systems in working on my documentary Eco Losers and have been trying to think of solutions instead of just stating the problems.   Problems without solutions go nowhere.

One of the things I saw recently at the Petits Chefs Academy in Vaughan was this Vertical Garden Tower.
https://www.towergarden.com/online-store/tower-garden-growing-system  while I was there filming a little for the Documentary and also there as one of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution Ambassadors to film the event for a video.   Denise the owner is also a food revolution ambassador and was hosting a kids cooking class for Food Revolution Day.  I noticed the vertical tower and she said that she just started distributing them.   I thought it was interesting but didn't connect much to it until I started thinking about growing plants on my balcony.   I live in an apartment and don't have enough light on my balcony to grown the herbs I would like to grow like Basil and Cilantro and in my travels around while working on the documentary I saw a community garden and started thinking about the community garden concept.    I  am certainly no gardener and don't have much of a green thumb and don't have the energy or time it would take to maintain a community garden and with living in a very dense apartment/condo neighbourhood I thought there probably isn't the proper space in the area to create a community garden anyway.   In thinking of a bunch of issues and gathering all the problems and solutions for a bunch of eco problems I thought the best solution would be to have mandatory rooftop gardens in every apartment or condo building.   What if we had government mandate that any new building permit for a new condo had to have a minimum area for a community garden or a green roof.    What if there were incentives for already existing buildings to convert spaces for condo/apartment community gardens?   What if the top floor of every building was converted to a CSA (community supported agriculture) garden where everyone in the building would receive an allotment of the harvest from that garden.   What if it was run like a coop and if you participated in maintaing the garden you would receive the allotment or if you were a senior or had a disability or just didn't want to participate in maintaining it you could contribute financially and pay a fee so that someone else could maintain it for you.

If drug dealers can turn houses into grow ops then why can't we convert apartments into Green Gardens that can feed the residents of the buildings?   You say it will never happen... but why not think about finding a way to make it work?  If we don't do anything we won't be around to make these decisions anyway.  

Can you imagine how much farm land it would take to feed all the condos in downtown Toronto?  What if every condo had a vertical garden tower in the building that could provide fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs to the residents instead?

Remember how life started, everyone had a house and a farm to grow their food or if they didn't have a farm they traded services to the farmer in their community to get their food.   But the point is that it was in their community.   People didn't get food from another country.   We need to start thinking about independent community gardens that are self sustaining and can be maintained under any circumstance.

Wouldn't you love to have a beautiful green rooftop garden in your condo or apartment to go to and breathe clean air and see nature.  Recent studies have shown that being in nature is extremely good for your health.  What I really noticed when I was working downtown was that I was really missing trees and nature.  The concrete jungle on a hot summer day isn't where you want to sit and have your lunch.   A nice tree shaded bench is more like it.

While I don't have the power to make these changes on my own, maybe you do.   What if city bylaws were changed to make these changes mandatory?   What if building owners received incentives to make changes to their buildings to include a green space?   What if balconies could be equipped with vertical garden towers?

I don't know if any of this can happen or how to make it all happen but I think it's worth thinking about and maybe working towards.  If someone like Donald Trump all of a sudden decided that all his properties would become Green imagine the power of that change.   What if Trump tower in Toronto had a green roof that provided all the food to all of the guests at Trump Tower?   Imagine how many trucks wouldn't have to drive to downtown Toronto to deliver food.  

If you think we don't have to think about reducing the amount of transport trucks driving our food across the world to provide food for us then think about the weather that is happening in the world these days.  In Toronto alone we hit record breaking temperatures in May.   My birthday is in May and I have never seen my birthday be as warm as it was this year.   While I like the warm weather I wonder what it is doing to the planet and whether it's going to get to the point where everywhere in the world is over 100 degrees or more everyday.  What will happen then?   You think I am exaggerating.. well have you seen An Inconvenient Truth? Al Gore's Documentary.  The planet is shifting and things are changing and at the current rate of population growth and the over abundance of destruction of the rainforests and oil dependence we are changing the way our planet functions.   There will come a point where it's irreversible.

If you have the power to do something to reverse the problem then I think you need to do what you can.  Right now I don't have a lot of financial power but I have the power to inform and think about ideas for change and hope that someone reading this can take my suggestions and push the changes forward.

I am not a political person at all but from all the people I have been speaking with in connection to my documentary I see the need to do something.   If everyone did something....anything... then together a difference can be made.

Food Revolution Day -in Toronto

Stand Up for Real Food on MAY 19th

This coming Saturday I will be a Food Revolution Ambassador hopping around the GTA filming, cooking and participating in Food Revolution Day Events.

Starting with a Cooking Demo at The Stop's Farmer's Market at the Wychwood Barns where chef Christine Tizzard will be demonstrating free healthy food demos to the Farmer's Market attendees.  I will pop in to film a bit of video of the event.

Next I will try and pop into Mardi's Pass it on Cooking class at the Kitchen Studio at the Cookbook Store where I will take some photos and video.

The next destination will be at the Petits Chef's Academy to film their event and also to film Logan a 3 year old boy who is the son of The Eco Losers.  The Eco Losers are Heather and Paul who are trying to lose weight while reducing their eco footprints.  They want to create a better world for their son Logan.  He has shown an interest in cooking but not so much in the eating so they want to encourage his interest and have him participate in a free hands on cooking class at the academy.  I will be there to film him in his future chef training for the Eco Losers Documentary.  There are still a few spots available if you have some budding mini chefs.

And finally I will be hosting my own Dinner Party where I will make some great Vegetarian Lasagna and some fresh market salads using some of Jamie Oliver's line of Pasta and sauces.

I am one of a team of GTA Ambassadors trying to spread the message to people all over to Get Real and get back to cooking real food and spread the word to pass it on to everyone you know.

For more information and to host or join an event go to the website at http://www.foodrevolutionday.com

This is Adell who is one of the GTA Ambassador's who has been working tirelessly to host an Event for new mom's and has also been instrumental in the GTA team getting events off the ground by helping everyone to get things they need for their events.

   

STAND UP FOR REAL FOOD on MAY 19th - FOOD REVOLUTION DAY