Pizzaholics head to Vaughan's Pizza Fest

Pizza fans... Assemble! 

Vaughan Pizza Fest is bringing a living legend in the pizza making world to their 2017 event. Joseph Beddia, "Philadelphia's Pizza King," (Munchies) and the man who is credited for making the
"The Best Pizza In America" (Bon Appétit) will be serving up his delicious pies at the Woodbridge Fairgrounds (100 Porter Ave) in Vaughan, Ontario on July 15 and 16.

Beddia is famous for only serving 40 pizzas per day at his 300 square-foot shop in Philadelphia, Pizzeria Beddia. Fans line up for hours each day just to get a taste of his sacred pies. He will continue that tradition when he sets up at Vaughan Pizza Fest in just a few short weeks when 40 lucky ticket holders/day will have the chance to taste his handmade master-pieces on Sunday, July 16.

Prior to this though, fans will have a chance to purchase his new book: Pizza Camp: Recipes from Pizzeria Beddia; and meet the renowned pizzaiolo. This exclusive meet and greet and book signing will take place on Saturday, July 15.

Tickets for Beddia's pizza epiphany at Vaughan Pizza Fest, go on sale July 6th at 11:00am and are valued at $100.

These tickets include: One copy of Pizza Camp: Recipes from Pizzeria Beddia, One personal sized pizza prepared by Joe Beddias Pizzas (Chefs Choice) and two VIP tickets which offer front stage viewing of performances by David Usher,

About Vaughan Pizza Fest:

Vaughan Pizza Fest is a celebration of the great dish of pizza! It is also a festival of Craft Beer! The 2017 edition of the event takes place on July 14 to 16 at Woodbridge Fairgrounds in Vaughan, ON and features main-stage performances by David Usher, Stevie B, Men Without Hats, Spookey Ruben, Rusty, Mully Jackson, JOÉE, and Elissa.

For more information, please visit: www.vaughanpizzafest.com

Valentine's Day Gift Ideas for FOOD LOVERS

It's almost Valentine's Day and you haven't got a clue what to get for your Sweetheart right?

Well skip the lingerie because all it does is make them feel like they need to have a perfect body.

Feed them with Love and Yummy things instead.

I'm going to give you a few ideas of things you can get or do for and with the ones you LOVE and they all revolve around food in some way or another.


Here are 10 Valentine's Day Gift Ideas that will get you lots of LOVE for a little bit of money or a little more:

1.     Dinner Reservations to a restaurant that has a Prix Fixe Valentine's Day Menu if you book far enough ahead of time.  It's not very creative but the creative part comes in choosing the perfect restaurant that caters to your loved one's tastes.   Some suggestions for restaurants in Toronto include:

1a.   Susur Lee has special menus at two of his restaurants, both BENT and LEE have Prix Fixe 4 course meals for $95.00 and I can tell you that if you are lucky enough to see Susur during your visit it will be well worth it.  The food and the service at his restaurants is world class.  Susur is the master of Asian Fusion and the restaurants are beautiful.   It's a bit pricey but this is a restaurant to impress someone special.

1b.   THE BEVERLEY HOTEL on Queen Street West also has a $60 per person menu and the Chefs at the Beverley are very creative with their food so if you are looking to try something new then that's a good place to go.

1c.    DESTINGO has a 4 course "Be Mine" menu that includes Aphrodisiacs.  I haven't been there but I have heard good things.

1d.    LUMA at the Bell Tiff Lightbox on King St. West has a 3 course meal and if you are taking the TTC it's a great one stop shop where you can go and have dinner and see a movie in the same building.

1e.    Want to feel like a Celebrity?  How about going all out at ONE Restaurant,  one of Chef Mark McEwan's restaurants in Yorkville.  Their Valentine's Day menu is $100 per person and you can do a bigger splurge and book a fancy room in the Hotel for desert.

Ok I will move on from fancy restaurants now to a few other things.   What if you want to stay in instead, here are a couple of ideas for that.

2.     You can order a Heart Shaped Pizza from BOSTON PIZZA,  it's a charity initiative so it's a good thing and it looks cool.  The pizza's aren't the best in the city but it's the thought that counts here.

3.     If you are a good cook then it's always a good thing to cook your best dish and do the dishes afterward or if you have a little bit of cash to burn you can hire a PRIVATE CHEF and they will do the fancy cooking for you.

4.     You can also set up special monthly delivery specialty item boxes from places like the CARNIVORE CLUB, popular for men,  or FOODIE PAGES has all kinds of curated products, or you can even set up a healthy Organic Food delivery from FRESH CITY FARMS and I have mentioned them before but AMAZING CLUBS CANADA has all kinds of things like Wine of the Month, Cheese of the Month, Chocolate of the Month and a whole lot more.

5.     What if your special someone loves to cook.  I just got a heart shaped candy red LE CREUSET pot that I just love.  It's a pot that you can cook and serve in and it will last forever which is probably more than I can say for some relationships.

6.     There are lot's of sweet things that are outside of the regular chocolate box too.  Although a high quality box of chocolates is always a good thing it's still nice to show that you are original and like to do things a bit different than everyone else.   How about sending a dozen Red Velvet cookies in a bouquet from ZELCOVIA COOKIES,  cookie bouquets start at around $50 plus taxes.

7.     And there are Cake pops you can get for Valentine's Day from the POP SHOP.  I'm going to pick some up next week.

8.    I found a company that will deliver special Valentine's Day Cupcakes to you too. They are called TORONTO CUPCAKES.

9.   What about signing up for a Cupcake Decorating class with your date.  LE DOLCI has special classes all the time and it's a great thing to do if it's a new person in your life or you are getting predictable.

10.   And there are Macaron classes too.
My friend Mardi of EAT LIVE TRAVEL WRITE specializes in teaching Macaron classes but I can see from her site that she is all booked up for a while but you can book a workshop for a future date and give it as a future date.

Ok.. I can probably think of a few more but this should get you started in the right direction.  If you have any other creative ideas that you stumble upon in your research please let me know and I can add them to the list for next year.

I have made it as easy as I can for you by providing the links to these places so that you can save lot's of time scratching your head trying to come up with the perfect gift for your Food Loving mate.

Please feel free to LIKE my Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/starvingfoodie and post any special finds or photos of gifts you purchase from info on this Blog Post.   Or you can just like my Page and you can be notified when I have special events and other special things happening.



I will be spending my Valentine's Day at my friends home.  He has hosted a dinner party for all of his single friends and family for the past few years.  He makes heart shaped bread buns and personalized cookie lips like these.  And he goes all out in the food and the decor and always has little Valentine's Day treats to take home.  I have been requested to make my Smoked Cheddar Mac & Cheese to bring along to the dinner in my Heart Shaped Le Creuset pot.  Although it might be too small if he has invited a lot of single folks.

So get cracking on those gift ideas and let me know how it goes.

I hope you all have a great Valentine's Day whatever you do.   MUAH!

D.I.Y. Cooking from Scratch-Bread & Pasta

I have been using my time without a full time job to take the time to do some
D.I.Y. from Scratch recipes like our Grandparents did before everything came in a convenient package.

1.  BREAD

People used to bake their own breads or get it from their local Bakery.  When was the last time you saw a local Bakery in your neighbourhood?  More than likely you get your bread from a huge supermarket that gets it shipped from who knows where and if you are lucky they might bake it probably from a ready made dough on site.   There is nothing better than the smell of freshly baked bread.  It makes your place feel like HOME.

I have been trying to perfect a No Knead dough recipe that has been going around.   What I need to perfect is how to make it without spilling flour all over myself and my kitchen.  I think I got the bread almost perfect now.  It's not exactly no knead in my books because you still have to semi roll it out and then form a ball and it's a long process.  It takes about 20 hours of resting time and approx. 25 minutes to bake.   But this is what it looks like after taking it out of a dutch oven.

2.  PASTA

The next thing I attempted is to make Pasta or specifically Orrechiette which is "little ears" in Italian.
I used a combination of Semolina flour and all purpose flour but I think I should have added eggs to make it a bit lighter.  It turned out a bit chewy.  I used equal parts of semolina and flour and then added
water.  I will try it with just semolina next time and see how it turns out.

What I realized from this experiment is that it's a whole lot easier to just pick up a box of great pasta as it's less of a mess and a whole lot less time consuming.   But  when it comes to making GNOCCHI the DIY way is way better than the frozen version as it makes Gnocchi that are as light as pillows instead of frozen rocks.

3. PIZZA

And the last thing in the Bread and Pasta attempt from scratch was a Pizza dough and pizza made from '00' flour from Italy.

This is another one that I haven't perfected yet but it did work.  When I was a kid my best friend's mom who was from Italy used to make fresh pizza dough on a saturday night and we would cut up the toppings and put it on the pizza and then she would bake it off for us.  It was the best Pizza I ever had anywhere.  It was light but had a crunchy bottom crust, more like a focaccia bread but it was delicious with fresh toppings and crushed tomatoes 

instead of a commercial sauce.

I want to get to the point where my homemade version brings me back to that great tasting pizza dough that I remember as a kid.   It wasn't the wood oven type of thin crust but a thick and light crust that just tasted fresh and great.  This one take a lot more elbow grease to knead the dough even if you use a mixer you still need to stretch out the dough.

Although it's a whole lot more work trying to make these things from scratch the one thing you get when you make them is the Pride that you DID IT YOURSELF and if you master these recipes you will know that you can whip up an amazing dish just with a little flour, some water, maybe some eggs and add a little tomato sauce and cheese and you have some GREAT FOOD.

Everyone should know HOW to DIY some basic
recipes that our Grandparents made on a regular basis and didn't even think they had an option to do it any other way.

Teach your kids or grandchildren these skills so they don't die off with future generations.

The way things are going with our foods and the trust factor of mass producers it's nice to know that you can try and get a few ingredients and make things yourself and know what is going into them and control what you eat and how it's made a whole lot more.   While I doubt we are ever going to grow our own wheat and grind it, this still reduces the risk of what goes into our bodies.    Of course if you have an opportunity to have a garden or a farm then you know that you have the option to control a lot of what you make from scratch.

I am not suggesting you spend all day in the kitchen making everything from SCRATCH but I am suggesting that you KNOW HOW to DIY and know how it's made and know that you CAN DO IT.

I know that I CAN and have the choice to do it or not now.   DIY and feel the Pride!

FOOD GUILT

I started to get hungry at about 5pm and couldn't decide what to eat because my fridge is starting to get a bit empty and I didn't want to spend a couple of hours figuring out what to make, prepping, cooking and then cleaning up.  So I went over to the mall thinking I would get something there.  I wandered around trying to figure out what to eat and started thinking about WHAT NOT TO EAT.  I live in an area that has an over abundant amount of Sushi and Korean and other Asian type of restaurants.  I started thinking about Sushi.  I love Sushi Pizza and love raw Tuna and Salmon but I started thinking about a couple of things.

1.  Tuna isn't a sustainable fish.
2.  Lots of fish has mercury in it and also sometimes a risk if eaten raw.

Even though I was craving a Sushi Pizza and some tuna tartare I decided to skip that because I need to limit that to eating it less often.

Then I went down the street to get something and passed The Burger's Priest and thought a burger might be good for dinner.  But then I had a couple of issues with that.

1.  I just saw on the news another case of Mad Cow Disease and thought that there is always a risk of eating meat that clears the system but shouldn't.
2.  Eating red meat is bad for the environment because it takes so much resources to process beef.
3.  Eating red meat adds risk for heart disease.
4.  Eating charred red meat can also be toxic as some people have said in the past.
5.  Eating a burger has fat, and is placed in a white bread processed bun and topped with high salt and high sugar laden condiments.

Skip that idea.

Then I thought about getting Chinese Food.  Had a look at the food in the food court and changed my mind because:

1.  Most of the things that looked good were breaded and deep fried.
2.  Chinese food sometimes contains MSG.
3.  Chinese food is high in sodium because of the Soya sauce and other sauces used sometimes.
4.  A lot of the food didn't look very fresh and was mostly high fat meats and bland or sauced up vegetables.

Skip that..

Then I thought about having Greek Food,  probably the best of the bunch but I wasn't in the mood for that and in thinking about it there are still a couple of issues but not as bad as some of the other things.

1.  Pita bread is made with processed white flour and doesn't have much nutrition.
2.  Feta cheese is high in sodium and can be high in fat but luckily not loaded on to salads too much.
3.  The salad they use is typically just iceberg lettuce so there aren't a whole lot of nutrients there.

Skipped that because I just wasn't feeling it.

So after an hour of wandering around and trying to figure out what to eat I was not at the point of "I need to eat something now" stage.  So I gave up on the What is the best thing to eat hunt and broke down and just got the typical:

FAST, EASY and CHEAP dinner.   but Oh did I ever have a lot of guilt eating it, but at the same time it tasted so good.

What did I eat?

 

Yup I gave in and at a Pepperoni Pizza from Pizza Pizza.   The only saving grace on my food guilt was that I at least did it as a charitable act.  This week if you order a medium pepperoni pizza from 

Pizza Pizza they donate money to charity.

I never get Pepperoni Pizza's and would probably have gotten more veggies and skipped the pepperoni but after eating it I can see why so many people order Pepperoni Pizza's.   Because they taste GOOD.

I still have food guilt because the pizza had white crust, more processed bad white stuff, and then there's the mozzarella cheese,  let's add some more fat to the pizza and then there is the Pepperoni.. the worst offender of the lot with most likely some sort of beef and most likely nitrates and who knows what else in it.   The only semi healthy thing on this pizza was the tomato sauce but if it came from a can then there is always the BPA in the can and whatever else they used in the processing of it.

FOOD GUILT..   It's really bad but I can see why so many people give up on their diets or are challenged when they try and become Vegans.

I love Food,  I love a variety of Food, and I love Food that is sometimes bad for me.   

Sometimes it's just a lot harder to find fresh, organic, local, healthy, unprocessed, un junked food when you are hungry.   So if you are like me,  you just crumble and give in to your screaming stomach and eat what it wants instead of what you brain knows you really should be eating.

Maybe there should be a Food Confessional where people could go to confess their Food Sins.   Oh Yeah.. that's what this Blog is for.     

Feel free to confess your Food Sins here in the comments section.

There is always tomorrow to do better.