Food Revolution Day at Hendrix Toronto

TODAY is the DAY for My Food Revolution!  Although the official FOOD REVOLUTION DAY  was yesterday I am doing my part by having a huge public event at Hendrix Restaurant Equipment and Supplies today.  

Yesterday was a very busy day.  It started off with going to my old high school for fellow Ambassador Susan's massive Squash it sandwich making with about 1200 kids at Northview Heights Secondary School and linked with neighbouring schools.  Then off to pick up vegetables from Fresh City Farms and over to Hendrix Equipment to get organized and then a long wait in traffic to pop over to Sobeys to pick up all of the rest of the items for my cooking demo and back home to organize and prep everything.

Today Susan and I are back in the Kitchen at Hendrix Toronto to make my own recipes.  Sorry Jamie Oliver but I didn't think bashing vegetables in a high end cooking supply shop would go down very well so I tried to adapt my veggie recipes for this event.

I will be making Flatbread or Pita, whatever you want to call it but you can call it delicious and fresh. I will also be making quick pickled onions and grilling up some vegetables and adding a herb and spice mixture for flavour.  The grilled vegetables will be packed into the fresh flatbread sandwiches for an awesome grilled sandwich.  Add a bit of feta or parmesan to kick it up and you have a vegetarian sandwich that won't have you missing the meat.  I will also make a spicy carrot soup using Good Food For Good's new Chilitomate sauce which has some Mexican inspired flavours.

Have a taste along with some fresh lemon and mint infused water or some Hot Tea from Pluck Teas.

At 3pm there will be a draw for some great prizes like a Jamie Oliver cookbook, Aroma Espresso Gift Cards, Sobeys gift cards and aprons , Fresh City Farms gift certificate  and a few other great things.

None of this would be possible without the help of my great sponsor partners.  It has been a pleasure working with all of them over the past few months.  

Sobeys, Fresh City Farms, Hendrix Equipment who I spoke with on almost a daily basis, Aroma Espresso Bar, A Vogel Canada and Pluck Teas.

I was planning on a Wonky Veg Cooking Demo but all of the vegetables I picked up look perfect but you can make these recipes with perfect looking vegetables or ugly vegetables that will turn out beautiful.

If you attended my cooking demo thank you for coming and I hope you enjoyed it and get into your own kitchen and share these recipes with your friends and family.

The goal of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution Day is to get people back into the kitchen and to get food education into the schools so that kids and their families take control of what they eat and eat real food to tackle the growing obesity and health related diseases that are making kids of this generation live shorter lives than their parents did.

You have the power and it's in your kitchen.   Get Cooking and Sign Jamie Oliver's petition on change.org/JamieOliver so that Jamie can take it to G20 leaders and show them we need food education in our schools and that it is a very important global issue.

Food Revolution Day RECIPES-LindaMatarasso 2015

Food Revolution Day Toronto 2014

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution Day Global Day of Action just took place around the world on May 16th but there were year round events leading up to the big day and a week full of local Toronto Events including the 2 events I hosted for Food Revolution Day this year this is about the 1st of the 2 events.

This year I wanted to host a public Workshop Event where I could open it up to parents and their kids to learn how to make a complete meal from scratch.  Something that had simple ingredients and wasn't complicated to make but required a little time and patience.  I decided on Italian this year because it uses the freshest most simplest of ingredients with the biggest flavour impact and generally keeping in mind people's tight budgets these days.

I hosted my Italian Getaway Cooking from Scratch Workshop at the Depanneur in downtown Toronto and kids under 12 were able to attend at half price. 

With the help of fellow Ambassador Chef Mary Hubert and one of the Depanneur's resident chef's Emily Zimmerman and a couple of my friends Linda and Martina to help me get things set up and ready for an educational and fun night where I was able to teach a group of people how to make fresh Ricotta cheese, a classic Italian Tomato Sauce and Ricotta gnocchi which everyone participated in hand rolling to produce enough for everyone to sample with the tomato sauce.  I also showed them how to make a quick grilled asparagus side dish and options for making the asparagus.  And to complete the meal I set up a quick Cherry Amaretto dessert bar where everyone could make their own Cherry Amaretto Parfaits in Bernardin Mason Jars.

In a fast paced 3 hours everyone was able to learn how to make a complete meal and enjoy their efforts at the end of the Workshop.  I also had a raffle draw where a lucky winner received a basket of Jamie Oliver items and some things ready to take home to continue their culinary skills.  Each participant also took home a Jamie Oliver cookbook which was generously provided by Harper Collins Canada and there were also some kids packs that included Sarah Elton's cookbook Cooking from Scratch and some great little Sobey's aprons and measuring spoons that were provided by Sobeys. Everyone was also able to take home a Bernardin Mason jar of some freshly made Tomato Sauce and if they didn't eat their dessert on the spot they were able to take their Parfait's home as well.

Everyone had a great time and learned a few new culinary tricks as one participant said he wanted to learn.

They were very interested in attending more Culinary Events at the Depanneur in the future and I think some will take the recipes that were provided at the Workshop and continue to make them on their own at home for their families.   That's what Food Revolution Day is all about.  Getting inspired by food and learning new things and passing them on.  

My Food Revolution Revelation

When I was a kid it was normal for kids to have stay at home moms who cooked meals from scratch and all of the kids were a normal weight.

This is a photo of my class in 1969.   I'm the one with the bad haircut in the orange sweater, my mom probably made it.

Things have changed a lot in the last 30 years.  

Now parents sometimes work 2 jobs and spend hours commuting to work and have less time to prepare sit down meals with their families. It’s the fast food generation.

This is the first time in history that parents are expected to live longer than their kids.

Over 3 years ago I started watching Jamie Oliver start his mission to bring back nutrition into schools in the U.K. and the U.S.  I watched his struggle to teach people about the importance of eating real food and how the cheap processed foods are affecting kids and it made me sad to see kids struggle with their weight and parents that didn’t know any better.

I became a Food Revolution Day Ambassador after seeing something on social media about it.  I wanted to see what I could do to help. I grew up watching Julia Child on TV and any cooking shows I could find to learn about all kinds of food.

I have also had the experience of gaining weight; losing weight and gaining it back.  I worked at a hospital for many years where I learned about the food and health connection and saw first hand my father struggle with Cancer and Heart disease before passing away at 65.   I read all the books, watched all the documentaries and have been cooking with my mom since I was a kid. I know what to do and still struggle with eating healthy.

The one thing I realize is that it’s a struggle to stay in control of food because sugar, fat, salt and the chemicals that are added to our food are addictive.  We are the generation of Food Addicts.

3 years ago I started my 1^st Food Revolution Day event by having a dinner party at my house with a few friends.   Last year I had a Mexican Fiesta hands on cooking experience at a Cooking Studio. This year I’m teaching a hands-on Italian Cooking from Scratch Workshop at the Depanneur in Toronto.  I will have kids and parents this year and will try to get them excited about real food.  They will learn how to make a basic tomato sauce, fresh ricotta and handmade ricotta gnocchi with grilled asparagus as a side dish and an easy no bake cherry amaretto dessert.

I will also be participating in Sobey's Potluck Challenge and will have friends over and will share in making Jamie Oliver's Rainbow Wraps and tweet photos to help the Children's Aid Society.

About the Author:  Linda Matarasso lives in Toronto, is an Administrative Professional, Filmmaker and writer of Starving Foodie - a blog about all things related to food. She’s a member of Food Bloggers of Canada, and a Food Revolution Day Ambassador for Toronto.  

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