Taste Canada Book Awards 2014

2014 Taste Canada Winners

On October 20, 2014, Taste Canada–The Food Writing Awards announced the winning entries in its four categories for both English and French language books.

The winners were announced at the Award Ceremony and Gala Reception on October 20th, 2014 at Oliver & Bonacini’s Arcadian Court in Toronto, hosted by Ricardo Larrivée, cook, author, television star and lifestyle entrepreneur.

2014 AWARD RECIPIENTS

Culinary Narratives/Narrations Culinaires

The Stop: How the Fight for Good Food Transformed a Community and Inspired a Movement
 Saul, Nick and Andrea Curtis
 Random House Canada

Les saveurs gastronomiques de la bière
Lévesque Gendron, David et Martin Thibault
 Éditions Druide 

General Cookbooks/ Livres de Cuisine Générale

The Flavour Principle: Enticing Your Senses with Food and Drink
Waverman, Lucy and Beppi Crosariol
 HarperCollins Publishers

Dans la cuisine de Danny St-Pierre
 St Pierre, Danny 
Les Éditions La Presse

Regional/Cultural Cookbooks

Toronto Star Cookbook: More Than 150 Diverse and Delicious Recipes Celebrating Ontario
 Bain, Jennifer


Appetite by Random House

Single-Subject Cookbooks/Livres de Cuisine Sujet Unique

Gastro Grilling: Fired-up Recipes to Grill Great Everyday Meals
Reader, Ted 
Penguin Canada Book 

Les Règles d’or des épices 
De Vienne, Philippe et Ethné
 Éditions du Trécarré

2014 Hall of Fame Inductees

Taste Canada’s Hall of Fame Award for 2014 was conferred upon Michel Lambert, author of the multi-volume tome: L’Histoire de la cuisine familiale du Québec.

The Hall of Fame Posthumous Award went to Mona Brun (1920-2013), the British Columbia-born cookbook author and television personality.

Taste Canada acknowledged the great contribution to the culinary community of Toronto’s Cookbook Store, which closed its doors this past winter after 31 years in business. 

New National Chair

Taste Canada also announced the appointment of a new National Chair, Donna Dooher, a chef, cookbook author, restaurateur and industry champion who will be assuming her new duties immediately stepping in for Karen Gelbart, who is departing the role of National Chair after serving for the last three years.  

Taste Canada also announced the creation of a new award, The Food Blog Award, to be presented and administered in partnership with Food Bloggers of Canada for 2015.

There was a lovely reception with some great food provided by:

Chef Joshua Dyer (EPIC, Fairmont Royal York Hotel)
Chef Matt Dean Pettit (Rock Lobster)
Chef Brad Lomanto (Cambridge Mill Restaurant, Landmark Group)
Chef Michael Robertson & Chef Jamie Meireles (Oliver & Bonacini)
Chef Ted Reader (Ted’s World Famous BBQ)
Chef Vanessa Yeung (Aphrodite Cooks)
Chef Tawfik Shehata (The Toronto International Centre)
Chef Andrew Richmond (La Carnita)
Chef Dufflet Rosenberg (Dufflet Pastries)
Cheeses by The Cheese Boutique, breads by Fred’s Bread, wines by Niagara College Teaching Winery and beers by Samuel Adams.

 

WIN a Grill Pro BBQ Smoker from Ontario Gas BBQ!

THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED

BBQ SMOKER GIVEAWAY!

Are you a Grill Master?  

 Here's your chance to WIN this Amazing BBQ Smoker!

Ontario Gas BBQ (OGB) is giving away 5 Grill Pro Traditional Horizontal Offset Smokers! 

On Friday, October 10^th, 2014 to Saturday October 25^th, 2014

Join Duff & Ted's Up In Smoke Extravaganza 

Print out a ballot found on Ontario Gas Barbeque’s website Click here.

Fill it out and bring it to the store between 12:00PM and 12:30PM on Saturday, October 25^th, 2014.

Prize Details 

There are 5 Grill Pro Traditional Horizontal Offset Smokers (MSRP $199.99) up for grabs.

Draw Details

Date:  Saturday, October 25th, 2014

Time:  10:00AM-3:00PM

Location: Ontario Gas BBQ, 3310 Langstaff Road, Vaughan, ON L4K 4Z8

The 5 lucky winners will be drawn at the Ontario Gas BBQ Store. Ted Reader will draw names five times. The first draw will be at 12:30PM and the last at 2:30PM.

The draw will happen in the parking lot of Ontario Gas BBQ. 

Ted Reader’s Hoptimus Prime Fire truck will be there giving away FREE pulled pork sandwiches to the first 200 people who attend the event and donate a minimum of $5 to Camp Bucko – a camp for children who are burn survivors.

**Winners do not need to be present at the time of draw**

Ontario Gas Barbeque is a privately owned Canadian company and is currently the World’s Largest Barbecue Store. 2012 marked the 30th year Ontario Gas Barbeque has been serving the Canadian barbecue enthusiast. A large portion of the business is the distribution of original equipment parts for many major manufacturers across Canada, so they like to say "We know barbecues from the inside out."

They are not just "Gas". Ontario Gas BBQ displays and stocks well over 150 different barbecues... propane, natural gas, charcoal, electric, smokers, pits etc, etc.

 Ontario Gas BBQ is also the home of the great Charcoal Room, which is now larger than most of their competitors’ stores! This room features Charcoals of the World. They now stock over 10 brands of premium hardwood charcoal. No additives, no chemicals, no softwoods. On any given day they have charcoal from, Canada, United States, Mexico, South America, Africa and Indonesia.

Website: Ontario Gas BBQ

Twitter: @OntarioGasBBQ

Facebook: Ontario Gas BBQ

 

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.