Gastropost dinner with food friends

I have been a Gastroposter since it first started in 2012.  Gastropost is an online community where foodies follow weekly Missions to snap photos of their culinary adventures and a few selected photos will appear in Saturday's National Post Newspaper.  Gastropost is a division of Postmedia Lab that focuses on people's passions.  Gastropost is dedicated to food passions.

At last count I had my photos published in the National Post probably over 50 times.   I will try and get an updated count.  I am one of the few people on their Inspiration team which means we get the missions a week in advance and submit our missions by email to inspire the rest of the community to follow suit and submit their versions of the weekly mission.   Every week submissions are submitted by tagging #Gastropost on Twitter, Instagram or at the beginning we started with Tumblr.

I try and submit to every mission and have probably only missed less than a dozen at this point.

I have been to many Gastropost dinners at restaurants and have also won food related movie tickets and other prizes that Gastropost has held over the years.  They don't do contests every week but every once in a while there is some kind of food related incentive for Gastroposters that up's the challenge a bit.

I have participated in these Missions as a challenge to try and find new foods or to improve on my photography and food styling skills.  Sometimes it's helpful when I don't know what to eat and the missions will give me a direction of things I could eat and post.

After many years of participating I have never visited the place all of these missions originate from until last night.  A small group of Gastroposters were invited to the Postmedia office to have a delicious dinner catered by Dundas Park Kitchen and wines by Rosewood Estates and chat about what our participation in Gastropost has been like and to provide feedback on what we we would like to see in the future.  I can tell you that if some of those ideas come to fruition there will be a lot more group meetups that will be a lot of fun.

Hosted by our Community Manager Amanda, some people my know her as one of the bloggers from Fat Girl Food Squad.  There was also a few people from Postmedia Lab who asked us some questions and Chef Alex Tso from Dundas Park Kitchen and Krystina Roman from Rosewood Estates Winery.

Chef Tso provided a delicious summer fresh menu of platters of salads and desserts from their Sandwich and Bake Shop.  The platters included the most delicious ceviche,  guacamole, salsa and multiple salads with chickpeas, potato salads, carrots, asparagus  and fantastic grilled beef and chicken.  For dessert there was a selection of Frangiapane tarts of cherry and blueberry, pretzel chocolate chip cookies, macarons and cupcakes.

Krystina from Rosewood Estates brought 3 different wines including a Mead wine which I never heard of before but I am no wine expert to be sure but I was curious and has a small taste and I have to say that I am not a wine drinker and only cook with it but the Mead wine was mild and sweet and would be a great pairing for dessert courses when you want something lighter.

The interesting thing about the Gastropost community is that we all share the love of food.  Gastroposters get a gastrosketch when they are published in the National Post and sometimes it's hard to identify fellow gastroposters from their Gastrosketch's and their twitter handles.  Last night I met a few new Gastroposters who I will now be able to identify by their sketches and handles.
We usually have an instant connection when we meet and there has been a few times where people have come up to me at food events who have known me from my Gastropost submissions.  I guess as one of the inspiration team everyone in the community see our photos.

I have meet a lot of great people from all the Gastropost meetups and a few have become friends that I see at other food events around town.

Thank you to the Gastropost team for a delicious meal and a nice intimate get together and I hope that it brings lot's of interesting things to the Gastropost community in the future.

Great Canadian Cheese Festival road trip to Picton

It was a beautiful summer weekend this past weekend with the sun shining and the skies so blue and the perfect time to take a road trip to Prince Edward County the new mecca of Artisanal food to attend the Great Canadian Cheese Festival.

I couldn't have asked for a better weekend to go for a drive to sample a whole lot of Ontario and Quebec cheeses, wines, chocolates, preserves and pickles, cider, craft beer, honey and all kinds of other treats.

The festival was located at the Picton Fair Grounds in Prince Edward County, Ontario  I have to tell you that we were kind of lucky that we found it with the directions I had.  A few more signs would have been helpful.

Admission to the Festival is $50 for the day but I had a weekend pass although I only went on the saturday. You could purchase drink tickets for 10 for $10.

We got a little distracted by the Big Apple Shop on the way to the festival so we didn't get to the festival until about 2 o'clock in the afternoon.  I thought they closed at 5pm so I kind of took my time going through the Taste Ontario Pavilion so by the time it was 4pm we jetted outside to try and breeze through the other booths outside and in another building.  I tried a whole lot of cheese and preserves and dips, spreads and other things so by the time I got to the outdoor ones I was kind of stuffed.  We managed to sample a couple more of the vendors that were still closing up shop for the day but we did miss a few that I would have liked to try including Seed to Sausage which I had once at a blogger conference and would have loved to have been able to bring some of that home.

I brought a cooler bag and had a small cheese ice pack, fitting I think.  But I didn't want to buy too much cheese so I only picked up 3 of the ones I really liked that were all different from each other.

I purchased these cheeses to take home

1.  St. Albert 5yr old Cheddar this is an award winning cheese and so smooth

2.  Best BAA Dairy Mouton Rouge - a soft washed rind cheese that melts in your mouth

3. Fromagerie Terroir Bellechasse - Fleur Saint-Michel - a garlic coated cheese that you fry

Some other things I tried that I thought tasted great or were interesting included Dehydrated cheese which will be launched in stores in August.

The lovely Phyllis Cook's Kitchen had some spicy pepper jellies that would really be great pairings with all that cheese.  Phyllis is going to send me some for a giveaway so look for that soon.

After all of that cheese I really needed a thirst quencher and picked up some Very Berry Ice Tea from Pluck Teas.

We tried the Black Garlic in jars.  It was pretty strong but the vendor showed us an appetizer he was going to make for the ticketed events that looked like it would have been a great use for it.  It does need to be mixed into something because it's intense on it's own.

There were a few vendors that were familiar to me from shows I have been to in Toronto and also from the preview I went to last month.  Vendors like Pluck Teas, Jewels under the Kilt, Whisky & Spice mustards, Best BAA Dairy, Seed to Sausage meats, the Shortbread Company and Cow's Cheese and a couple of other cheese vendors.

Can you believe that 5000 wine and cheese lovers hit this little festival in Picton each summer.  It runs all weekend and since I haven't been to this festival before I didn't know what to expect so we didn't book a room to stay over to return the next day and then we decided to stay over and we couldn't find a place to stay except for some guy that had a room in his cottagey house for $150 a night and I can tell you that it was worth more like $25 bucks for the night so we passed on that and decided to drive to Kingston instead and we stayed at the Ambassador Hotel and Conference Centre because we wanted to go on the Thousand Island cruise on the sunday.  The cruise departed at 12:30pm and it was a 3 hour cruise so by the time we finished that the cheese festival had already ended so we didn't have a chance to go back.

We tried to check out a few B&B's in Picton and did a whole lot of driving around Picton.. about 5 times.  We were looking for the Drake Devonshire Inn but for some reason we kept missing the sign but finally found it but it was fully booked and even the dining room was fully booked but we had a chance to check it out and it was beautiful.  I hope to get back there eventually.  Anyway on our stops at B&B's and Inn's we stopped at Merrill Inn and the lady there told us that 5000 people go to the festival every year and they book their rooms a year in advance to get their preferred location.  There aren't any large hotels and only small B&B's and Inns in Picton.  

We decided to wing it this year because we didn't know what to expect and as it turns out we met up with my friend's friends in Kingston for the cruise and that turned out to be a great day as well and if we didn't wing it we might not have done that.  Sometimes a plan is good and sometimes you got to just go with the flow.

I would recommend that you hit up the Cheese Festival early in the day and not dilly dally on the drive there like we did and bring empty bellies ready for lots of cheese sampling.  You have to purchase tickets for the wine but all of the cheese samples and most other samples were included in the pass price.  I did pay $2 for the Ice Tea and of course the cheeses that I purchased.

We didn't purchase the extra ticketed events because we didn't know how long the main festival would take.  Now that I know I would probably go to the festival early and then leave some time for a ticketed event.  

I hope if I return next year the weather is as great as it was this weekend and I have a chance to try a lot more vendors samples.  

I know there was a bunch of food bloggers from Toronto that also went to the festival.  I didn't see them when I was there but I know the were either there before me or after me so I know they will probably have info on some of  the things I missed.  

You know a festival has potential when a bunch of Toronto Food Bloggers drive a couple of hours to Picton to check it out.

There was a big Mac and Cheese festival in Toronto that had thousands of people attend but I am so glad I skipped that one and took in some fresh country air and fresh local products.

Check it out next year but plan ahead and bring a cooler so you can take home some yummy products.

http://cheesefestival.ca/

Big Night at the Green Barn for The Stop

I was a very lucky girl on Wednesday June 3rd, 2015 because I was able to attend the most beautiful event BIG NIGHT AT THE GREEN BARN which was held at Artscape's Wychwood Barns on Christie Street.  The event was a fundraiser for The Stop.  In case you don't know about The Stop they have programs that promote growing, cooking, sharing and advocating for healthy food.  They have a greenhouse on the site and a weekly Farmer's Market on Saturdays. There is a community kitchen and a classroom for youth education.  Chef Jamie Oliver even toured the space and thinks that there should be more facilities like it.

Since Jamie Oliver loves it so much I kind of think it's my duty as a Food Revolution Day Ambassador for him to promote their fundraising initiatives so that their programs can continue to grow and thrive.  

As a food blogger this was a no brainer for me. A great community program, a beautiful venue on an perfect spring evening and sharing some outstanding food made by some of the top Chefs in the city.  What's not to love about that?  I had one fellow blogger at my table but I didn't know anyone else but I still had a really great time.  From start to finish the attention to detail on this event was fabulous.

You arrive to a tent with some amazing appetizers.  I went back for a second cone of the hot popcorn  shrimp it was so good from Vertical.  There was also Prosciutto from Paganelli's and all kinds of appetizers from Terroni.  You were greeted by servers with trays of wine and there was Steamwhistle Beer also available.

As you entered the room there were fresh Oysters and sauces provided by Oyster Boy.  I am not a huge oyster person but they were really amazingly fresh and the sauces were perfect pairings.

There was also ice tea and delicious coffee provided by Island Coffee.

During the dinner there was an auction where the auctioneer kind of heckled the crowd to raise as much money as he could for the Stop.  Some of the items included a custom made suit and a dinner for 10 by Chef Mark McEwan who was also one of the Chef's on hand providing one of the components of the dinner.

There was a raffle with keys that the winning key would unlock a box that contained a prize to win a trip on Porter airlines.  I would have like that one.

The Dinner

The Antipasto was Mozzarella Arancini rice balls made by Chef Lorenzo Loseto from George Restaurant.  Oozy cheese.. what else is there to say.

The Primo was Rabbit Creste de Gallo a slow-cooked rabbit, peas, arugula and fresh pasta prepared by Ted Corrado from The Drake.  I only had rabbit once and I didn't like it but I didn't even taste the rabbit in this dish it just tasted like a terrific pasta and peas dish.

The Secondo was a Braised Short rib, mascarpone polenta, smoked tomato passata, roasted Thumbelina carrots and sauce.  This was provided by Chef Mark McEwan and Andrew Ellerby from The McEwan Group.  Everyone loved the tender short ribs.

Dolce the dessert was a Sicilian cannoli with ricotta cheese, chocolate and amarena cherries from George Tahari from Noce.  They were fantastic and light.

There was alos a Limoncello soaked sponge cake, filled with custard cream  that was made by Sorrento Ristorante but we are all so full by that point that I literally only had a spoonful.

I had a really great Cappuccino from Reunion Island Coffee to finish off the meal and I was totally stuffed.

It was a really great night and I hope that it was also a great night to raise lot's of money for The Stop's programs.  I know that the key sales were sold out so that's a great sign.  Everyone pitched in their time to make this event a huge success.  There were even a couple of volunteers from Tiff there so it's nice to see my film and food people in the mix.

Great job everyone.  I hope I am able to go again next year.

For more information about the Stop's programs or to donate visit their website www.thestop.org