The Local-Come-Lately

Slow Food Sunday Market: The People's Choice

2012-01-17T20:13:00.000-08:00

You might not expect the dead of Ontario winter to be a boon season for Slow Food Perth County, but this past weekend we were all over the place connecting our community with 'Good, Clean and Fair' food! In the process, we were spreading the word that the winter edition of the Slow Food Sunday Market was moving from its cozy home in the historic cellar at Anything Grows to a new venue - the soon-to-be-site of the Stratford Brewing Company!

To kick things off on Friday night the Slow Food Sunday Market sponsored the culinary showpiece at the high-profile Mayor's Gala - an oyster bar featuring sustainable seafood from one of our most treasured market vendors, Shawn Hartwell of Simple Fish Company (above, thanks to Stratford photographer Irene Miller for the great photo from the event). As many of you know from reading Shawn's recent heartfelt blog post, Simple's restaurant/fish market has had to close its doors due to [can I just say tragic] business woes. But you can't keep a good man down, and Shawn will continue to provide our community with Oceanwise approved fish and seafood this winter via his iconic stand at the Slow Food Sunday Market.

Saturday saw Shawn and others from the Slow Food family (that's Mark Lass on right) serving up a truly gorgeous 'Cream of OMG Mushroom Soup' at the legendary tradition known as Soup's On. This fundraiser for the Alzheimer's Society is one of my all-time favourite annual events on the Stratford culinary calendar. Immediately, the Slow Food Market station was swarmed by a soup-loving mob, who unbelievably plowed through 35 litres of soup in less than an hour!

As the saying goes... this wasn't my first rodeo, folks. I strategically brought along a muffin tin that could accommodate twelve of the most delicious and creative soups on offer at this massive food event! Honestly, is there anything better than attending a soup-making contest in the middle of winter?

Yes - WINNING a soup contest in the middle of winter! That's right, even though we were out of soup for two thirds of the event, Shawn's incredibly decadent creation (featuring locally-grown Shiitake 'shrooms from Weth Mushroom farm in Goderich) took home the coveted "People's Choice" award!

After a bit of a [linguistically apt but spiritually painful] "slow" indoor start following our triumphant outdoor season in downtown's Market Square, the Slow Food Market Committee made it our mission to get the word out about the winter market, especially its new 2012 location. We spent Friday and Saturday telling everyone within earshot at the Mayor's Gala and Soup's On about our move to the former home of Kalbfleish Motors at the corner of Erie & St. Patrick. But we also employed some mass media tactics, including a radio spot for CJCS/107.7 FM recorded by yours truly! [Is it just me or is the used-car-ad-esque background music kinda perfect for a market being held at a former Chrysler lot?]

When Sunday finally arrived the glass showroom provided a spectacularly bright and highly visible venue for the market.

All our hard work ultimately paid off in the best way possible, with a steady stream of traffic consisting of our faithful market patrons alongside many who were attending the winter market for the very first time. The vibe was ecstatic as folks shopped for beautiful food, chatted over coffee, and enjoyed some music courtesy of our market's resident crooner Antony aka "The Singing Farmer" aka "The Manic Organic" John.

Want to be involved in Slow Food Perth County? Start by coming out to our market and experiencing the "Good, Clean and Fair" vibe for yourself. If you want to get even more involved, please attend our Annual General Meeting at the Screaming Avocado Cafe (the alternative cafeteria located around back of Stratford Northwestern Secondary School on Forman Avenue) at 6 pm on Sunday, January 29. It's open to everyone - members and non-members alike - but make sure you bring along a dish for the potluck... and get your ingredients from the market!

You Gotta Eat... At Boomers!

2012-01-04T19:14:00.000-08:00

My longstanding lust for poutine (originating from my university years in Quebec) is no secret...

From the marvelous duck poutine I enjoyed last summer, to the accolades I showered upon Chef Chuck Hughes for his Iron Chef-winning lobster poutine at Savour Stratford, the poutine references have been a regular staple here at The Local-Come-Lately. The Canada Day Poutine Pageant (one of my early posts) showcased Stratford's true national pride with a downtown performance by Steven Page and a pair of poutines from nearby Boomers Gourmet Fries.

Well, Stratford's mecca for Canada's signature gnosh is getting nationwide attention this week, as it's featured on the very first episode of Food Network Canada's brand new show You Gotta Eat Here!

The premiere airs this Friday (January 6th, 2012) at 9 pm. Hosted by John Catucci, I reckon this new show will be Canada's version of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives (which is great because that's one of my longtime Food Network favourites!).

Boomers Gourmet Fries owner Sue Pasquale (above) couldn't be more stoked about being Canada's poutine poster child! I've been working virtually next door to Boomers for a while and so in honour of her impending slingshot to fries-curd-and-gravy superstardom I grabbed dinner there tonight. When I showed up Sue was rocking out to Hello by Dragonette and sharing stories of the shoot last summer and folks coming in to get autographed menus this past week!

The reason You Gotta Eat... at Boomers! is because of its famous gourmet poutine menu, that includes creative interpretations like Goat's Cheese Poutine, Cosmopolitan Poutine, and Hickory Sticks Poutine. I told Sue I wanted to try whatever John Catucci liked, so first she hooked me up with a Poutini (hand-cut fries, curd and gravy topped with onion rings and a three-olive garnish, above). Perfect for celebrating the New Year!

Sue is a fellow Italian, and I have the feeling John Catucci is too, so it shouldn't be a surprise that Boomers Meatball Poutine (above) will be featured in Friday's episode. In fact, the site for You Gotta Eat Here includes recipes from all of the establishments that are visited, and the recipe for Boomers is for Sue's Meatball Poutine (it takes 2 hours to make those tasty meatballs in marinara sauce, so I think I'll just swing over to Boomers whenever I get the hankerin' but don't have time to DIY).

Sue is planning for a fun evening on Friday... one of her friends has invited all of the customers who were interviewed for the show to come watch it with her! I'll be watching along with the rest of the country as You Gotta Eat Here celebrates Stratford's poutine treasure!

Raising Cane on the Stratford Victorian Christmas Trail!

2011-12-18T08:45:00.000-08:00

I've always been the kind of person who starts thinking about Christmas on Christmas Eve, when I traditionally do all my shopping. But when you live with a two-year-old and a four-year-old, it's hard not to get in the Christmas spirit early and often. Last weekend we all journeyed together along the Victorian Christmas Trail - the $20 pass lets you pick 8 stops from a choice of 16 of Stratford's most festive local spots, each offering a special gift to Yuletide travelers.

Our first stop in the morning was for caffeine - and a couple of hot chocolates and a gingerbread man! Balzac's Coffee hooked us up with a complementary bevvy to set us off on our adventure.

Right across the street from Balzac's is Chocolate Barrs, where confectionery artist Derek Barr was at work making giant candy canes by hand. There was a real Santa's Workshop vibe as we watched him and his team create these hefty tricoloured holiday hooks. The video (above) doesn't convey the whole experience: I think the peppermint oil vapours in the air (that's what gives candy canes their signature minty flavour) will keep my airways cleared for the rest of the winter!

Just off of of Ontario Street, Smallmart is a really cute little store full of kitschy and vintage stuff. This holiday season visitors to our bathroom will enjoy hand soap that smells like eggnog (above)! No tasting kids!

Lisa and I were in Barcelona not long ago and we fell in love with Spanish cuisine. When we visited Kitchen Connaisseur I immediately knew what spice mix I was going to pick for our gift: Spanish Spice Blend.

We sent Lisa in to Alexandra's Spa on Erie Street to get some Christmas pampering. She came out with some bath salts, some organic tea, and a voucher she can put towards a holiday treatment!

David from Turnbull & Stewart (left) was filling the store's showroom with incredible smells as he prepared some soup and hot cider for all the tourists who embarked on the Victorian Christmas Trail. Fisher (right) loved the Mary MacLeod's Shortbread owner Ken gave him.

Your Local Market Co-op was giving out popcorn that was still on the cob! We'll put it in a bag in the microwave and then string the popped kernels for tree garlands (unless we eat them first!).

The next day, I was at the Slow Food Sunday Market in the historic cellar at Anything Grows - everyone's favourite gardening & food boutique. Christmas Trail trekkers receive a set of four extremely-lifelike grasshopper magnets when they stop by... they made for eye catching ornaments on our sign (look closely above). By the way, for those seeking to stock up the pantry for Christmas with Good, Clean and Fair food, there is a special market this Friday, December 23 from 3pm-6pm at Anything Grows on St. Patrick Street!

After finishing our eight stops on the Victorian Christmas Trail there was only one thing left to do - hang the giant candy cane on the Christmas tree!

Merry Merry and Happy Happy to everyone this holiday season from the Stacey crew!

In the Classroom at the Stratford Chefs School!

2011-12-13T20:10:00.000-08:00

This week I headed over to Rundles, the stunning riverside restaurant that transforms every winter into a classroom for the Stratford Chefs School. I was invited to come evaluate student presentations as a guest judge!

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about the Winter Warm Up cooking class I attended at the Stone Maiden Inn with Chef Mark Brown. No wonder the comfort food I learned how to make that day was so good - we were in very good hands...

...since Chef Brown is an instructor at the Stratford Chefs School!

Chef Mark is a SCS Alumni (above, those are this years' students in the Rundles classroom) and now he teaches Food Costing & Culinary Math as well as Nutrition class. I believe the Stratford Chefs School is unique in its provision of business and industry training for chefs - graduates have been schooled in all the realities of the food service industry and many go on to open their own restaurants.

I came to help judge presentations by eight groups of future chefs. Each group of four created a catering company and brand image (e.g. 'Top Hat', above), and presented detailed quotes for a fifty person reception. The coolest part was the catering outfit the judges picked scored a real, paying gig in the new year (so in a couple of months I'll to follow this post up with one where I attend the event!).

The 'Saisonnier' catering company impressed with their seasonal "Food for thought" menu featuring mid-winter local product used in creative dishes. One of their strengths was their strategy to let us judges taste their creations for ourselves - the Red Beet Ice Cream (based on a recipe by Thomas Keller) demonstrated that winter food can be as vibrant and clever as any other season!

Another group who really impressed us called their catering outfit 'Carnival': from the perspective of creating the funnest party food scene these folks ran away with the prize. Their dishes elevated fall fair Carnie food to a whole nother level, with items like Foie Gras Cotton Candy pops (above) and Chick Pea Corn Dogs.

After the first four presentations were over, the judges had a little break. Chef Mark and my fellow guest-judge Emily Chandler (culinary consultant with the Stratford Tourist Alliance) chatted about the presentations in the front window of Rundles (above), with its spectacular view overlooking the icy river. Other judges included the events coordinator for Homer Watson House and Gallery in Waterloo and a former Stratford restaurateur who now manages 100 Mile Market, as well as my brother-in-blog Andrew Coppolino (from Waterloo Region Eats) who continues to reign as our area's King-of-All-Food-Media with his radio show The Food Show on 570AM and a regular TV spot on Grand River Living.

The second wave of presentations were equally impressive. 'The Traineez' name was inspired by the Chefs School students' vision of their educational journey as a train, "The school is like a train and it will take us where we want to go."

'Ragouter' (translation: "To give appetite") got serious brownie points from me by serving the judges a glass of really refreshing Featherstone Black Sheep Riesling (above); they explained how they based their choice on what they tasted during their in-person visit to the Niagara winery earlier this semester.

But out of all the groups I was most impressed by the simple but beautiful menu proposed by 'Dulcinea'. After visiting Barcelona recently I admit I have become highly-biased towards the Spanish tapas approach they chose, but I also noticed their low food cost. I really thought they had the potential to pull-off the challenge of catering a great reception with good value for the client (by which I mean killer food) with the important potential for them to earn profit.

We will see if the other judges agree - I will post the name of the winning group in the comments section of this post when I find out who got the gig, and stay tuned in February for my blog about attending the winners' event!

Caffeinated Cuisine: Dinner at Revel Caffe

2011-12-02T14:22:00.001-08:00

And when their ham and eggs need savor
Coffee ketchup gives 'em flavor
Coffee pickles way outsell the dill
Why, they put coffee in the coffee in Brazil!

- Frank Sinatra, "The Coffee Song"

Last Saturday night Lisa and I were at Revel Caffe for an amazing dinner. This might surprise folks who are familiar with Stratford's hip little Wellington Street spot, which is known for serving fresh-roasted Las Chicas Del Cafe coffee (and some beautiful baked goods to go with it!) but doesn't normally serve incredible four course meals. Owner and uber-barrista Anne Campion (above) hosted an event last year that featured coffee paired with creative desserts created by students from the Stratford Chefs School. But this year, she's pushing the relationship between food and coffee up another level, asking the question, "What does it look like when you actually start to put coffee in the food?"

The person Anne called upon to answer that question was Chef Jordan Lassaline. Jordan is an alumni and veteran instructor from the Stratford Chefs School, and I've heard nothing but great things about his cooking. This was the first time I had ever had the pleasure of enjoying an entire meal prepared by him (above, he's putting the final touches on the opening dish featuring savoury coffee gnocchi, spicy arugula and earthy mushrooms). Although I expected some really good food this dinner was truly above and beyond. I am officially a fan of this talented Chef. He also grows a mean moustache (part of the evening's proceeds were donated to the Movember campaign against prostate cancer, which was fitting since me, Jordan and about ten other dudes were proudly sporting mo's).

The second course was a pork tostada that brought to mind the tropical landscapes of coffee country. Chef Jordan's approach was evident here as the subtle roasted/citrusy tones of coffee brought out the sweetness of the pork atop the crunchy corn tortilla, "The idea was to highlight some of the flavours that are in the coffee without letting it take over, and still letting the other ingredients come through."

By the end of February, 2011, I had already declared two contenders for the Local-Come-Lately's 'Best Dish of the Year' (I encountered them at two Chef School dinners: the first was a Pickerel taco by Mexican guest chef Pilar Cabrera Arroyo and the second was a Crispy Seared Veal Tongue by France's Michelin star chef Alexandre Gauthier). My year-in-food has been absolutely phenomenal, but I gotta say this meal's Beef Short Rib main course is a runaway winner for the best thing I've eaten in '11. Rubbed in coffee and braised for hours in rich broth, the thick cut of beef slid off the bone and melted in our mouths. The Jerusalem artichoke puree and the Brussels sprout leaves provided a creamy and fresh pedestal for the sumptuous meat, which altogether made for an outstanding winter entree.

After a meal like that there's nothing better than a good coffee, and coffee we got! A scoop of ice cream was drowned in a hot shot of espresso - a fun juxtaposition of temperatures that really worked flavour-wise too. Chef Jordan created a bread pudding out of coffee house croissants, which was perfect along with a steaming hot cup of Revel coffee (just as I like it, in basic black).

The Revel House Band (with Anne's husband Dave on drums along with some of his fellow musicians from the Stratford Shakespeare Festival) entertained throughout the night with some coffee-themed lounge numbers (including the Sinatra tune I quoted above) and after dinner Anne joined in for a duet!

This is only the first in a series of dinners planned for Revel this winter and spring. On January 21 there is a meal themed on the trip Anne and Dave are taking soon to visit the Nicaraguan family plantation where all of the beans for the Las Chicas single origin roasts are grown. On February 18 there is an "Apres Neige" dinner planned that will pay homage to Anne's home province of Quebec (there will be snowshoeing involved!). Although both of those are already sold out (with waiting lists), there will be another meal in March and another in April (which will raise funds in support of my project The Local Community Food Centre, which will be up and running by then!). Don't miss them!

True Winter Comfort Food at the Stone Maiden Inn

2011-11-29T16:30:00.001-08:00

There are a lot of great Bed and Breakfasts in Stratford (in fact, the website for the Stratford & Area Bed and Breakfast Association lists no less than 72 B&Bs in our community!). But this weekend I discovered the bed and breakfast for food lovers staying in Stratford.

The first time I visited The Stone Maiden Inn was for the Savour Stratford festival's celebrity chef kick-off: Chuck's Night Out with Chuck Hughes! I was totally impressed by the food that night, as Stone Maiden Inn's own Chef Mark Brown led a kitchen full of Stratford Chefs School students and high school culinary arts students to create a series of unforgettable canapes: I vividly recall the vanilla poached lobster and the elk carpaccio.

I've always given loads of credit to the Stratford Chefs School for attracting and training some of our city's brightest culinary lights, and Chef Brown is a great example of the kind of outstanding talent that the Chef school cultivates. Besides being the star of the show at the only Bed and Breakfast in town with a true chef in the kitchen (at least as far as I know) Mark is also an instructor at the Stratford Chefs School.

Kim, the owner of The Stone Maiden Inn, is probably Chef Brown's biggest fan. In just two seasons since she took ownership she has seen her B&B skyrocket up the Stratford Bed and Breakfast rankings on Trip Advisor to a permanent spot in the top 12!

On Saturday Chef Mark turned the gorgeously warm and welcoming kitchen at the Stone Maiden Inn (I'm a sucker for a raised fireplace) into a cooking classroom, teaching two sessions for home cooks like me to learn how to make true winter comfort food!

The first "Winter Warm Up" dish he taught us to make was a creamy golden Butternut Squash Soup with apples and candied ginger. Mark is a Chef who really recognizes the value in using local food - as we began our class a farmer showed up at the kitchen door with some organic squash and maple syrup for our dishes! The bright yellow butternut squash reminded me of the Savour Stratford award Chef Brown received when he paired with grower Dave Koert for the festival's "Most Creative" dish: Butternut Squash Ice Cream on a Shortbread!

Chef Brown mentored me through the creation of a winter stew with beef tenderloin, shrimp, and dumplings in a spectacular sauce made with lobster broth and veal stock: if that won't warm someone up on a winter day I don't know what will!

And for dessert, what else? Homemade hot chocolate warmed our bodies and souls along with a couple of chewy snickerdoodle cookies with Chinese 5 Spice!

The best part was, when the cooking classes were done Kim invited Lisa and me to spend the night at the Inn! We spent a cozy winter evening in the comfort of one of Stone Maiden's authentic Victorian rooms.

We actually stayed in the Princess Diana room, which was humorously fitting since Lisa and her good friend Matty used to pretend to be Charles & Di for their own little Royal Wedding when they were 5 years old! [I guess that makes me Dodi?!?]

We woke to the smell of wonderful breakfast wafting from the Stone Maiden Kitchen. When we sat down in the beautiful bright dining room we were presented with two of Chef Mark's splendid fruit peel scones with a spoonful of house-made apple butter.

I think we might have actually had the best breakfast in Stratford that morning. Chef Brown spoiled us rotten with an Eggs Benedict featuring local smoked ham. I would have expected nothing less from Stratford's top B&B for food!

A Real Catch: Simple Fish Company Open House!

2011-11-16T17:42:00.001-08:00

Now admittedly there are some folks who get a lot of play here on The Local-Come-Lately. Probably none more than Shawn Hartwell, the culinary artist formerly known as the Chef at Simple Fish and Chips (although Paul "Fink" Finkelstein and Antony "The Manic Organic" John also definitely make near-weekly cameo appearances). When I type Shawn's name in the text box over on the right (where it says "Search Previous Posts") I get 11 results, including:

My third-ever post where I declared Simple Fish and Chips Stratford's most sustainable restaurant based on their all-Oceanwise and Canadian-caught fish sourcing policy.

My reviews of the incredible sustainable seafood fine dining series Simple hosted last winter.

My most recent post about the high school Culinary Arts trip to Cuba Shawn and I were mentors on last month.

And of course, who will ever forget the classic Local-Come-Lately/Simple Fish and Chips mash-up when I tried to eat the Mammoth Lobster Sandwich in honour of Simple's one year anniversary a year ago.

I hope I didn't alarm anyone when I identified Shawn earlier as "formerly known as the Chef at Simple Fish and Chips". He's not going anywhere, and neither are Stratford's best fish and chips. But this week "Simple Fish and Chips" officially became "Simple Fish Company", as Shawn and his wife Candice expanded their operation to also include a spectacular fish market!

Candice's belly is currently harbouring a little fish of their own - their soon-to-be-son is due in February (why do I think it's going to be a Pisces?).

For almost a whole year Shawn's been hooking me (and everyone else who goes to the Slow Food Sunday Market) up with pristine fresh fish as well as his perfectly seasoned prepared fish and seafood offerings like the house-made chowder, fish cakes and salmon burgers. Although Simple will continue to sell at the Sunday market (henceforth you'll find Shawn and the other "Good, Clean and Fair" vendors at the Anything Grows winter venue!) we can now get this beautiful product all the time at the Downie Street resto-market!

To celebrate the evolution of Simple Fish and Chips to Simple Fish Company Shawn and Candice hosted an open house on Monday with champagne and - of course! - loads of phenomenal fish and seafood! A nearby Indian restaurant lets Shawn use their tandoori oven to cook an Indian-spiced Sockeye salmon - one of my favourite fish dishes of all time!

Brendon "Caveman" Lyoness (another character who gets a lot of play on this blog) was going toe-to-toe with me slurping down fresh-shucked West Coast oysters.

In case anyone was worried about Simple changing too much, the Fish and Chips menu was still front and centre. It's scaled back a little (they're keeping it simple!) but everything you'd ever want is still up there....

...along with some creative new daily specials on the side chalkboard!

I know I'll be buying all the fish I serve to my family from Simple Fish Company, so the Staceys and another fish-loving household split one of Simple FC's $500 "Fish Stocks", which gives us vouchers we can redeem for $700 worth of sustainable fish and seafood (just not all at once!).

Shawn will be hosting workshops and demos to inspire people to eat and cook more sustainable fish and seafood on Mondays throughout the winter. This Monday (November 21, 2011) the session is free, so go check it out - especially if you missed the boat on the Open House!

Cuba: A Tropical (and Educational!) Food Adventure

2011-11-05T17:01:00.000-07:00

This time last year I was blogging about the week I'd spent on an epic food adventure with Paul Finkelstein and his Culinary Arts Class above the Arctic Circle in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. Accompanying Fink and his students as they hunted caribou on the frozen tundra with the village elders was definitely a highlight of last year (and even of my life!).

But... BRRRRRRR!!!

Perhaps it was in acknowledgement of the cold, long nights spent sleeping on the floor of Kiilinik High School last year that Paul invited not just me - but my whole family! - to accompany the Stratford Northwestern Secondary Culinary Arts students (aka the Screaming Avocado Cafe gang), as well as students in Paul's fellow Chef-Turned-Teacher wife Amanda's class at Mitchell District High School (aka the Twisted Carrot Cafe crew), on this year's food adventure to Cuba!

Also joining Paul, Amanda, and Northwestern Culinary Arts teacher Dean "Mr. E" Elief as mentors on this trip were Brendon "Caveman" Lyoness (a former student of Fink's at the Screaming Avocado Cafe, today he's a veggie grower and Slow Food Sunday Market vendor known as Caveman Crops), Shawn Hartwell of Simple Fish Company (Stratford's source for sustainable fresh seafood and fish and chips), and our Cuban ex-pat leader Jimmy (he's been living in Stratford for years but returns home to Cuba quite regularly).

The first day saw everyone getting acclimatized to this unique tropical environment. Sometimes it felt like we'd all stepped into a time machine to the past, especially when traveling in one of the country's emblematic classic car taxis.

Staples in Stratford sent along a huge suitcase full of school supplies for the students on the trip to give out to children in Cuba (the supply of just about everything in Cuba, even pencils and paper, is strictly limited due to a trade embargo imposed by the U.S.). On the first day we all visited two schools where our kids hooked the adorably uniformed Cuban students up with all sorts of markers, pens, colouring books, and pencil cases.

Everyone had such a good time all our students were invited to come back in smaller groups over the course of the week to help the Cuban kids out in their classrooms. When they came out at the end of class, all of the Canadian kids were stoked from the experience, and for many it was clearly life-changing. They were also impressed at the high level of education they witnessed in Cuba, where elementary school students study from 7:30am to 4pm, with nine 45 minute classes a day!

Now that everyone had a good feeling for Cuba and its wonderful people, it was time to get to know the local culture even better with some adventures-in-food!

As a market veggie grower, Caveman Brendon was front and centre when we visited a community garden near our resort. I've got a big thing for community gardens and urban agriculture myself (there are no better places to combine physical activity, nutrition, nature, and community).

But community gardens and urban agriculture projects are all over the place in Cuba because of necessity - the unstable and highly restricted supply of food imports Cubans endure has inspired them to pursue food sovereignty by growing their own! All the students on the trip pitched in and got their hands dirty after taking the lead from Brendon!

As much as Brendon's into gardening, Shawn Hartwell's into fishing and sustainable seafood. After scoring a hand-line and some hooks (totally Old Man and the Sea), Shawn led groups of students to the end of the pier near our resort to catch some fish alongside the expert local youths.

His mentoring started at the sea...

...continued to the market...

...and culminated in our resort's poolside restaurant area, where he gave the culinary students a demonstration on how to make a seafood stir-fry using locally-sourced ingredients (like lobster and octopus!) that could not have been any fresher.

On our second-to-last day it was time to balance the students' Cuban experience out with a little educational sightseeing.

We all visited a spectacular underground cave system near our resort that literally glittered with crystal-encrusted caverns and stalactites, stalagmites, and very rare sideways cave crystal formations known as helictites.

On our last night it was time for the trip's mentors to get together and have some fun trying some Cuban cuisine at a restaurant not far from where we were staying.

My wife Lisa and our two boys took a break from the pool and the beach to enjoy some seafood too! I definitely have to thank Paul, Dean and Amanda for inviting the whole Stacey crew along... it made the trip really special for me.

On our bus ride from the Toronto airport to Stratford, the teachers asked the students what they had learned during their time in Cuba:

"I learned about another culture."

"I learned to appreciate all we have here in Canada."

"I learned how to be a better person."

Paul Finkelstein's motto is 'Food as a tool for change.' Once again, he promoted positive change in the lives of students through a once-in-a-lifetime culinary experience, and I am personally very grateful to have once again been included in another of his adventures.

I wonder where next year's trip will be?

The Local Community Food Centre's Grapes of Wrath Fundraiser: 'It ain't kin we, it's will we!'

2011-10-21T13:02:00.000-07:00

Tom: Kin we feed a extra mouth? Kin we Ma?
Ma: It ain't kin we! It's will we!
(John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath)

I think it's incredibly fitting that my 100th blog post as The Local-Come-Lately happens to correspond with the very first Stratford food event I personally coordinated! And this wasn't just any event - it was the breakout fundraiser for The Local Community Food Centre, the not-for-profit food project I've been working on for over six months (I've been recently hired as the Director, and am now officially working at my dream job making a difference via food!).

The Local Community Food Centre involves the creation of 'A Place For Food' here in Stratford. When we open our doors in 2012 we're going to have: community gardens and a greenhouse to give people the chance to get their hands dirty growing their own food; a community kitchen for sharing and developing cooking skills and for cooking healthy drop-in meals to share with folks in need in our dining area; and a Food Distribution Centre where we'll be taking in large scale donations and purchases of healthy (and as much as possible local!) food from agriculture, retailers and processors to distribute back out to Perth County's food banks, community meal providers, student nutrition programs, and other not-for-profit food initiatives.

Although I wish I could take credit for the idea of creating a community food centre here in Stratford, that needs to go to Nick Saul, the Executive Director of The Stop Community Food Centre in Toronto (that's him with me above). The Stop has been working for over thirty years to address the problem of hunger in their west end community through innovative programs designed to promote dignity and to empower people to build community around food. They've been so successful in challenging hunger by helping people develop skills like gardening and cooking - and advocacy and activism! - that The Stop received funding and encouragement to create a network of localized versions of community food centres across Canada. After seeing all the great work already happening here around food - including the efforts already underway by the Perth County Food Security Coalition and The United Way of Perth-Huron to establish a Food Distribution Centre - The Stop knew Stratford was the perfect place to set up one of the pilots that will lead the way to the fulfillment of this ambitious and important goal!

Fortuitously, it just so happened that the same year The Stop and The United Way of Perth-Huron partnered to create a resource in Stratford to promote health and dignity among those in our community struggling to put good food on the table, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival's lineup included a play that evokes many of the same themes this project will be challenging: hunger, poverty, injustice and inequality. The Stratford Festival recognized these parallels between the theatrical adaption of Steinbeck's classic novel The Grapes of Wrath and the problems the food centre will be grappling with in our community today, and they generously invited us to build a fundraiser around this powerful and thought-provoking play, including a reception following the performance at the Chalmers Lounge of the Avon Theatre. Here is a video of me at the reception inviting the Director of that play (and Artistic Director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival) Antoni Cimolino to say a few words, followed by Nick Saul and Ryan Erb, the Executive Director of the United Way of Perth-Huron:

Of course, my first-ever event had to feature food by some of the best restaurants in Stratford. I was really touched by the willingness of my friends in the food community to support this new initiative by serving up an incredible selection of wonderful dishes for the reception guests to enjoy.

Paul Finkelstein (on left) and his culinary arts students from The Screaming Avocado Cafe (that's not them in the centre - it's Savour Stratford's Danielle Brodhagen with her adorable little girl Eloise) brought along some stellar Duck Mousse Spring Rolls (that's my dad digging into one, I would have been doing the same if I wasn't so busy hosting!).

Chef Janet Ashworth of County Food Co. (featured in my last post about the Savour Stratford Chef Challenge) provided the party with fun vegetarian delights.

Bijou Restaurant donated two offerings: I noticed a few of the Grapes actors who came up for the post-performance reception freaking-out about the veal cheek rilette crostinis and Chinese eggplant with goat's cheese and summer sausage.

Backstage Bar and Grill was on board immediately when the call went out looking for food sponsors to support us. Everyone loved their savoury tarts... the nearby Backstage also provided a great spot for all the volunteers to gather for a post-event drink.

Revel Caffe provided us with the best coffee in town and some biscotti. Revel owner and uber-barrista Anne Campion has already proven to be a real champion for The Local Community Food Centre: Revel raised funds for our project via one day's sales during their1st anniversary week recently! Thanks for the event's bevvies also has to go out to wine sponsor Pelee Island and beer sponsor Stratford Brewing Company.

One thing that will always be emphasized at The Local Community Food Centre is nutrition. I am so thankful that Sara Bradford of Nourish Whole Food Nutrition made us some of her Bliss Balls and Goodness Brownies (above) - sugar and gluten free desserts that were as healthy as they were yummy!

The star performance in the food department was definitely Shawn Hartwell (above) of Simple Fish and Chips (soon to be Simple Fish Co.!). As always, his portable oyster bar was a huge hit: book it for your next party!

Some smooth lounge music was provided by none other than my favourite singing farmer, Antony John (aka the Manic Organic of Soiled Reputation Farm).

The evening wrapped up with a draw for the winners of the Freezer Full o' Food raffle. First prize was a great little chest freezer donated by Turnbull & Stewart, which was filled with local meat by Slow Food Perth County and fish from Simple Fish Co. as well as condiments and gourmet products from Turnbull & Stewart. Congrats to winner Tim Creton (couldn't have been won by a nicer guy - a lot of folks probably know him as the friendliest veggie vendor at the Stratford Farmers Market and the Slow Food Sunday Market!).

I want to thank all the people who came out to this event to show their support for The Local Community Food Centre, including all the folks who attended, all the restaurants and suppliers who provided the amazing food and bevvies, the raffle prize sponsors, and of course the Stratford Shakespeare Festival for giving us the wonderful opportunity to create this fundraiser around this remarkable play. We raised around $5000 for the project, an achievement I commented on in an article in this week's edition of the Stratford Gazette:

"I’m happy to have raised that much considering we are still a very fledgling organization ... we don’t have a site yet but we have all this amazing support... I can’t even imagine what it will be like this time next year when we actually have an operating community food centre to show them the good work we can do.”

Savour Stratford 2011: Hosting with Fink!

2011-10-11T14:09:00.000-07:00

While I was telling the story of the Savour Stratford Perth County Culinary Festival 2011 weekend on my previous blog post, I mentioned a couple of Festival events I felt deserved a whole blog of their own. I guess I'm a little biased because they happen to be the two Festival programs I co-hosted with my good friend, Chef-turned-Stratford Northwestern Culinary Arts teacher Paul "Fink" Finkelstein.

As it happens, the timing for this post couldn't be better: Last week Fink was awarded the Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence in Ottawa, a distinction I feel is well deserved (and I should know - I nominated him!). This week, the first high-profile magazine article I've ever had published comes out on the newstands: I wrote it about the trip to Nunavut I accompanied Paul and his Culinary Arts students on last fall (check out the November issue of Canadian Living folks!). And then on this past Saturday the Globe and Mail published a front page article as part of their "Time To Lead" series about Canada's sad track record on providing students with healthy school lunches, a problem Fink and his students were celebrated for challenging by making meals from scratch and sharing their daily creations with the rest of the school at The Screaming Avocado Cafe (Fink: "If we don't change the way kids eat, we're doomed").

At the 2011 Savour Stratford Festival Paul and I joined forces once again to promote our shared goal of inspiring families to make good food together. We co-hosted a fun riverside Pass-It-On style open-air cooking class with about a dozen food loving families, guiding them through the creation of a timely morning egg wrap:

That wrap was just what I needed because literally ten minutes later Paul and I were in Market Square where we had an absolute blast co-hosting the Chef Challenge for two whole hours! For the first time, downtown's Market Square was used for Savour Stratford programming, with the Culinary Theatre as the central attraction (a really slick mobile kitchen studio we scored from the Niagara Food Festival).

Culinary Theatre MC Andrew Coppolino of The Food Show introduced the judges (above, Nick Benninger of Nick and Nat's Uptown 21, Bonnie Munday of Best Health Magazine, Montreal Chef Chuck Hughes of the Food Network Canada's Chuck's Day Off (and Iron Chef Champion!), and Jennifer McLagan, renowned cookbook author of Fat, Bones, and Odd Bits [btw thanks to photographer Will Bailey for the amazing Chef Challenge pics!]). The contestants were Janet Ashworth of Stratford's local food mecca County Food Co., who was up against Stratford Chefs School graduate Francisco Alejandri, who has been getting a lot of attention lately in Toronto for his Kensington Market Mexican Soul Food stall Agave y Aquacate. Let the first ever Savour Stratford Chef Challenge begin!!

Instead of going with just one secret ingredient, we challenged Janet and Francisco to work with FOUR ingredients all produced at Tanjo Family Farm near Milverton: bacon, quail eggs, duck, and Hungarian Partridge!

Both chefs immediately got down to business, with each conceiving of three dishes that showcased these superior local products (and that could all be completed in just one hour!). As the chefs put together their creations, Fink and I had some fun talking with the judges!

The gorgeous food that the two chefs pumped out in just an hour was astonishingly good:

Chef Janet's Beer Poached Quail Egg with Pheasant on Barley

Chef Francisco's Scrambled Quail Eggs with Bacon

Chef Janet's Savoury Shortbread with Bacon


Chef Francisco's Kentucky Fried Pheasant with Corn Bread

The judges loved everything they tasted, but had the difficult task of deciding which chef's food was the best.

In the end the difference between the two scores was a mere 7 points. You have to check out the video to find out who won!

As a final note, in one of the videos I mention that there will be a similar Chef Challenge series in Stratford starting up this winter, which will raise funds in support of The Local Community Food Centre, the new not-for-profit food project being established in Stratford via a partnership between The United Way of Perth Huron and The Stop Community Food Centre (I've been recently named its Director!). We're having our first fundraiser this Saturday October 15: a special Grapes of Wrath performance and reception at the Avon Theatre. Of course the food is going to be spectacular, including an oyster bar from Simple Fish, two offerings from Bijou, and duck springrolls from The Screaming Avocado kids (with great wine, beer, coffee and dessert included too). I'm calling on all the Local-Come-Lately fans to come out and support this incredible initiative that will include community gardens, a community kitchen, and a Food Distribution Centre to bring fresh, healthy and local food to the area's food banks and not-for-profits!

Savour Stratford 2011: "It's like Christmas for Foodies"

2011-10-06T19:16:00.000-07:00

As Stratford's official food blogger, I feel the need to apologize for taking so long to get my 2011 Savour Stratford Perth County Culinary Festival posts up (it's been almost two weeks - I'm so sorry to leave you hangin'!).

I've actually been enjoying some well-earned post-Festival vacation time, but the whole time I was away I was continually flooded with memories and moments from this year's sun-kissed two-day event, which was by many miles the best culinary experience I've ever been involved with. Although it would take a small book to chronicle everything that happened on September 24 and 25, I have some great highlights I'd like to share as I finally get the chance to tell the story of that beautiful weekend when our city became the centre of the Canadian culinary universe. As one blogger told me, "It's like Christmas for foodies!"

The weekend was actually kicked off on the night of Friday September 23 by none other than Food Network Canada celebrity Chef Chuck Hughes (of Chuck's Day Off).

Chef Hughes (above) hosted Chuck's Night Out at the opulent Stratford B&B The Stonemaiden Inn, which featured incredible canapes such as elk carpaccio and vanilla scented lobster created by a kitchen full of students from Stratford high school culinary programs as well as the Stratford Chefs School under the leadership of Stonemaiden's talented Chef Mark Brown. I tried to introduce myself to Chuck but couldn't get past the circle of (pretty much all female) fans looking to get a photo with him!

I helped kick-off the Saturday morning festivities by co-hosting a riverside Pass-It-On style outdoor cooking demonstration with Paul Finkelstein, and immediately after we hightailed it over to the new Market Square Culinary Theatre where we co-hosted an Iron-Chef style Chef Challenge (I got so much good video of those I'm going to follow this post up with a whole v-blog dedicated to them, stay tuned this weekend!).

Chuck wasn't the only celebrity chef in attendance at this year's festival... Chef Connie DeSousa of Charcut Roast House in Calgary (on the right) was one of the finalists from this year's wildly popular inaugural season of Top Chef Canada. On Saturday she presented a workshop on the art of charcuterie with our own celebrity pork farmer Fred deMartines of Perth Pork Products (on left).

The best part of that seminar was when we all got to taste for ourselves creations showcasing Chef Connie's acclaimed flair for making mouthwatering cured meat products (a selection above).

My afternoon included stopping in at the Stratford Chefs School Learning Centre, where I finally learned the best practice for sharpening a knife (slicing down against a steel with its tip anchored on the cutting board, with knife at alternating 22 degree angles).

I then went over to the the Kids Tent where I visited The Return of the Living Salad Bar... remember last year when I actually managed to make salads fun for kids by getting them to pick 'em fresh? This year Stuart Wilson's Food Studies students from Central High School (one above with a shirt encouraging kids to follow him!) delivered the program all weekend long using planters I've been cultivating all summer in my garden! Big thanks to Hellmans who sponsored this program with donated shirts and mayo so kids could create on-the-spot dressings.

The late afternoon saw Canadian BBQ champs Boss Hog serving up platefuls of ribs to hundreds of folks who all dined together in front of City Hall on long tables. The annual Saturday night BBQ, Blues and Brews event featured great street food like fish tacos from Simple. Fish and Chips and the new Loco Dogs with house-made condiments from Pazzo's (keep an eye for these high quality dogs on the streets of Stratford next year). The entertainment truly rocked with MonkeyJunk, one of the best blues acts in the country (best when paired with mass quantities of Ontario craft brewed beers)!

Sunday saw me and Jeremy Taft of Slow Food Northumberland holding down the fort at the first ever Slow Food Perth County Taste Pavilion in Market Square. The adorable little girl above - whose mom was raising funds for a Stratford Shakespeare Festival community revitalization theatre project in El Salvador by selling delicious traditional food - was so into the multisensory workshop she started guiding other kids through the exercises, challenging them to explore food using smell, touch, hearing, sight and of course taste!

Hanging out at the Slow Food Pavilion was great because it was right across from the Culinary Theatre, which saw a roster of great demos like the vegetarian cooking of Cork/Stratford Chef Denis Cotter, Chef Chuck, and Chef Connie, who was joined by her Charcut sous chef Kris Schlotzhauer (the proud return of a Stratford native, above on right) to show people how to make goats cheese from scratch after hosting Breakfast With Connie at the Stratford Country Club earlier in the morning.

But of course, the pinnacle of every Savour Stratford Perth County Culinary Festival is the Sunday York Street Tasting Tent. This year the stakes were raised as for the very first time there were awards for the best offerings in the tent as judged by Chef Chuck, Chef Connie, and a few other media personalities in attendance.

This heaping platter featured some of the best offerings at the tent. The two cocktails were from Down the Street - devilishly spicy Bloody Marys featuring tangy pickled veggies and the juice of heirloom tomatoes, all grown at Soiled Reputation Farm. On the bottom right is the smoked ham and brie created by Molly Bloom's using tender cold cut slices from The Best Little Pork Shoppe in Shakespeare. On the bottom left was organic mushrooms from Weth Mushrooms accompanied by a tomatillo salsa atop a crispy wonton created by Chef Aaron Linley of Bijou Restaurant.

Pazzo Ristorante was serving up some creative (and freaking delicious) fried risotto balls with braised pork and fontina filling topped with bacon jam, created in partnership with Church Hill Farm.

Nick and Nat's Uptown 21 would never show up at the Savour Stratford Tasting without blowing out all the stops. They were paired with Perth Pork Products, and came up with a dish that brought together pork done five - count 'em: FIVE! - ways. I'm a big fan of Nick's cooking, and it was not much of a surprise their dish got my vote for People's Choice.

In the end the winners were: Bijou Restaurant for Best Vegetarian Dish; Nick and Nat's for Best Meat Dish; Tea Leaves Tea Tasting Bar for Best Drink; Stonemaiden Inn and Koert Organics for Most Creative (for their killer Butternut Squash Ice Cream on a Shortbread); and People's Choice winners the Wildstone Bar and Grill and Miss Fosters Popcorn (I am kicking myself for not trying their Pickled heirloom tomato with garlic and herbed cheese on a fried wonton finished with micro sprouts, which by all accounts was spectacular!).

Actually, in the end the winners were the Stratford culinary community and its legion of food loving supporters. Massive props need to go out to everyone who helped make this year's festival the best one yet. The inspired leadership of folks like Savour Stratford founder Danielle Brodhagen has not gone unnoticed, as this week Savour Stratford received the 2010 Award for Culinary Tourism Leadership from the Ontario Culinary Tourism Alliance!

Garlic Festival 2011: 'If they don't like the smell they're not good people''

2011-09-18T15:04:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I spent an aromatic Saturday at the 5th annual Stratford Garlic Festival, one of the definite highlights on our city's culinary calendar.

Along with learning about garlic and all of its fabled history and wondrous medicinal properties, I had a mission: to search among the festival's 100+ vendors to find the craziest thing anyone there had made using garlic!

Local organic garlic farmer and festival founder Warren Ham of August's Harvest farm (that's not him above but that guy definitely shares his spirit) started the day off by presenting an interesting overview of the history of Allium Sativum, which originated in Kazakhstan and migrated to pretty much every great food culture throughout the world (trivia tidbit: people in Korea on average eat 50 lbs. of garlic per year, compared to 3 lbs. in Canada!). When a member of the audience expressed a desire to enjoy the flavour and health benefits of "the stinking rose" but not its aromatic properties, Farmer Ham set her straight, "If people don't like the smell of garlic, they're not good people."

Well, this festival was full of good people seeking to enjoy garlic in all its forms (including this family above, who were sharing their homemade bruschetta mix). And when I say 'all' its forms, I mean 'all' its forms... there were definitely some creative uses of this poignant ingredient as vendors pushed the envelope of what can be done with garlic. Let my mission begin!

I spent some time helping out Shawn Hartwell of Simple. Fish and Chips who was serving up his always-popular lobster rolls with garlic butter (the same filling I'd overindulged in for the "Me versus the Mammoth Lobster Sandwich" blog post last year) along with the Roasted Garlic and Potato Soup he was serving back at the Soup's On fundraiser in December (he used 20 lbs of garlic to make this batch, and assured people "It'll definitely keep the vampires away... and anyone you don't like").

Paul Finkelstein and this year's students from his Stratford Northwestern high school Culinary Arts program (aka the Screaming Avocado crew) were vending bruschetta and local goat's cheese to raise funds for their upcoming food adventure to Cuba (look for a blog post in November - I'm tagging along on that one!).

But let's move on to the whackier creations. The vendors at Jenny's Peanut Brittle were serving their crackin' Garlic Peanut Brittle (originally created for the Garlic Festival, but so good it's available all the time at Jenn & Larry's Brittle & Shakes on York St.).

For lunch I had the Garlic Fries with Cheese and Pickle being served by a Mennonite couple. I actually loved the tempura-style deep fried battered garlic, which was crispy on the outside but had a melt-in-your-mouth cooked garlic centre.

This dude definitely won the award for best hat.

Nudge-Nudge Here's The Fudge were selling bars and squares of their sweet-and-savoury Roasted Garlic Fudge.

These gents were in the festive spirit as they handed out Garlic Shooters (minced garlic with soda water and lemon juice). I slammed one back and was instantly cured of all potential ailments for at least a year.

But the winner of this year's Craziest Garlic Creation was actually the trophy being proudly held by my son Fisher (above). It's not Garlic Ice Cream (but that was there too!). It's Garlic-Egg-Salad-In-A-Cone, which was being scooped up by the Egg Farmers!

These Folks Got Some Junk In the Trunk

I had a great day at the Garlic Festival, and went home with a pound of Siberian Garlic - some to eat but I'll save some cloves to grow myself! This year's expanded two day event was bigger and better - and stinkier - than ever!

Savour Stratford Gets 86'd!

2011-09-07T20:58:00.000-07:00

Last week I returned to my old stomping grounds along Queen St. W. in Toronto to attend a fun premier of the 2011 Savour Stratford Perth County Culinary Festival (it's coming up on September 24th and 25th!) at The Drake Hotel.

Every Monday night Toronto food writer Ivy "Don't-Call-Me-Blogger" Knight hosts a hip event at The Drake known as 86'd Mondays where food lovers and industry folks are invited to enjoy her flavour-of-the-week, often while drinking profusely. [Did you know... to be "86'd" means to be involuntarily thrown-out and banned from a bar?]

Back in the day, Lisa and I used to live right across the street from The Drake. Circa 2000 it definitely wasn't a place where you could get killer sushi on a Monday night while hobnobbing with Toronto food insiders. Before it was completely renovated The Drake's street level bar used to be called "The Stardust Lounge". There was a 250 pound bench-press bar near the back with a sign over it that read "If you can bench this weight you get a free beer". There were also some pretty wild freak-out karaoke nights (I dug up a few Polaroids from Lisa's birthday in 2001 [above] - don't worry that's not our real hair).

The Drake's come a LONG way since back then [who hasn't?]. I was stoked to return to this old haunt to celebrate Ontario's primo food festival!

Shawn Hartwell of Simple Fish and Chips has been one of Stratford's 2011 summertime food heroes (above, he's also been killing it regularly in Toronto with his all-sustainable fish and seafood creations at events like the Food Truck Eats at the Distillery District and the Conscious Food Festival at Old Fort York). Shawn brought along his own serving bar and set up shop at The Drake's front window looking out over Queen W.

He served up a series of mouthwatering morsels: oysters poached in a Perth-County-pork-broth served on the half-shell; braised duck over a nest of phyllo pastry (above); and zucchini rolls with goat's cheese (also above, a la Prince Albert with the tip-ring of beet-pickled turnip).

Ivy introduced Savour Stratford's founder and champion Danielle Brodhaden, who told the crowd about what they could expect at this year's Festival. Then they got a taste of things to come, accompanied by beer from Stratford Brewing Company (served by 86'd's favourite farmer, our very own Mark Lass) and wine from Chateau des Charmes.

There is loads to look forward to at this year's Savour Stratford Festival. I'm going to be where I like to be - right in the thick of it all! I'm co-hosting the kick-off Pass It On style open-air cooking class with Paul Finkelstein on the morning of Saturday, September 24. Then we're both immediately high-tailing it over to the downtown Market Square's outdoor Culinary Theatre where we'll be co-hosting the first ever Chef Challenge Smackdown, which will be judged by Chuck Hughes of Food Network Canada's Chuck's Day Off along with the editor of Best Health Magazine. I've been growing beautiful greens for the Return of the Living Salad Bar, which will be available for public grazing throughout the festival at the Monforte Dairy Kids Tent.

The legend is true: I made the decision to move to Stratford after I heard how amazing Savour Stratford was in 2009. 2010 did not disappoint - but 2011 promises to be the best yet! Some of the ticketed events I plan to hit will be selling out soon, so visit the all-new website to book your spot, especially for "Chuck's Night Out" at the Stonemaiden Inn on Friday September 23rd and Breakfast with Connie on Sunday morning at the Stratford Country Club (that's Connie de Sousa of Charcut in Calgary, finalist from Top Chef Canada).

When I asked Ivy Knight if she was coming to this year's Savour Stratford festival, she assured me:

"I'm going to tear Stratford a new one."

That's the spirit.

Hangin' with the Homies: Soiled Reputation's CSA

2011-09-01T19:08:00.000-07:00

In my most recent post about the phenomenal "Salute to Stratford" BBQ feast I attended at Langdon Hall I singled-out Soiled Reputation Farm's Antony "The Manic Organic" John as the host with the most: he spent half the evening serving-up incredible dishes made with the gorgeous, colourful veggies he grew at his farm, then the other half of the evening saw him wowing the crowd with his vocal stylings. The post before that one was all about the amazing Slow Food Pork Party which was held downtown alongside the Sunday Market, where Antony took a break from vending at the always-busy Soiled Reputation market stand he tends every week with his wife Tina to sing a couple of tunes. He's a singer, an artist, a lover of birds, a hater of wind turbines and...

Delivery Dude!

That's right, Antony personally delivers a special selection of incredibly fresh and flavourful food to Soiled Reputation's Community Supported Agriculture clients every week. He endearingly refers to the 40 or so households who sign up for the weekly deliveries as his "Homies". One of the regular stops he makes on his Friday delivery route is at the house of my local-food-lovin' in-laws, who look forward every week to seeing what's included in the door-side cooler drop-spot, which is always different and never disappointing. They were away this past weekend, which meant that my family got to intercept their CSA installment - right in the middle of prime-time growing season!

Little did Antony know, a Fire Monster (aka Fisher) was waiting by the cooler to ambush him. He vanquished him of one of the few charentais melons in the van - a true seasonal trophy!

Although the produce the homies get changes from week to week, one thing they can always expect is a bag with a week's worth of Soiled Reputation's fabled organic greens mix.

Antony showed Fisher the bag of heirloom tomatoes included in the delivery - our little foodie-in-training was impressed by these colourful emblems of fine summertime eating!

The entire CSA delivery was full of gorgeous food, most of which was grown at Soiled Reputation farm outside of Sebringville (just above five minutes away from where we live in Stratford). Going clockwise, we received the aforementioned melon and bag of greens, a bunch of vibrant Swiss chard, a fresh baked loaf of organic sourdough bread from Chef Neil Baxter of Rundles, the technicolour heirloom tomatoes, a bagful of astonishingly fresh shiitake mushrooms from Weth mushrooms in Goderich, and a healthy baggie of haricort vert (they're just too delicate and tender to call 'green beans').

Antony is a great cook and the CSA delivery often includes some recipes he recommends for using some of the less familiar ingredients he cultivates on his extremely diverse farm (remember I spent a day working there last year?). This time there were no recipes, which was OK because I was really into the idea of treating the CSA delivery like a Black Box Cooking challenge - that evening I created a meal featuring a little bit of absolutely everything that Antony brought us!

The fresh baked crusty bread and heirloom tomatoes were made for each other, inspiring the composition of a classic summer bruschetta. The harmonious mix of bitterness, spiciness and coolness in Soiled Reputation's gourmet greens needed no alteration or accompaniment, and were served all on their own. The trick to making Swiss chard rolls is to cut out the stems of the brightly coloured greens, blanch them for a minute in boiling hot water, and then plunge them into ice water before rolling them them up; I filled them with a creamy shiitake mushroom and haricort risotto. Finally, the Fire Monster's melon bounty, which as Antony had suggested tasted kind of like a combination between a cantaloupe and banana, was cut into wedges and served with a scoop of ice cream.

Unlike some CSAs Soiled Reputation does not require you to pay in advance for a whole year of deliveries, and clients are given the chance to customize their orders (for example by getting them either weekly or once every other Friday, or by substituting the bread or mushrooms for another preference). Whatever you choose, after experiencing last week's installment it's pretty clear that it doesn't get much better than Soiled Reputation when it comes to CSA subscriptions - it's all grown with exceptional care and hand-delivered by the man himself!

The Best BBQ Ever: A Salute to Stratford at Langdon Hall

2011-08-23T19:57:00.000-07:00

I like a good barbeque.

I got some useful tips from Chef Ian McArthur back in June on how to grill great meat at the Game for Grillin' workshop at Turnbull & Stewart. All summer I've been biggin'-up the grilled lamb burgers Erbcroft Farm's been serving at the Slow Food Sunday Market. And then there was the time last week when Slow Food Perth County cooked a giant pig over open coals in downtown Market Square.

But last Friday evening, at the opulent country manor Langdon Hall (above) outside of Cambridge, I think I might've experienced:

The Best BBQ Ever.

Both for its picturesque setting...

...and its amazing food.

The incredible Salute to Stratford barbeque at Langdon Hall brought my official Spit-Roasted-Pig-Count total for the week to three (which in case anyone's keeping track brings my S-R-P-C for the past month to four since my friends James and Fiona also had a pig roast at their wedding early in August).

Not one but two of the famously happy pigs raised by Mark Lass at Lassdale Farms (above left and right, undoubtedly from the same herd as our Pork Roast porker) were performing the last of their crispy rotations when we arrived for this magical night of open-air homage to the Stratford food universe and its constellation of culinary stars.

Langdon Hall's status as the premiere destination for fine dining and high-end accommodation in our region is partly attributable to Chef Jonathon Gushue's strong relationship with Perth County producers and artisans, several of whom were among the special 'Hosts/Hostesses' of the event along with one of Stratford's best chefs.

Antony "The Manic Organic" John of Soiled Reputation Farm (above, with martini) was helping serve up some of the gorgeous vegetable dishes Chef Gushue and his team created using his incomparable organic veggies. He grew the veg, served the dishes... and as if that wasn't enough he got up later and belted out a set of crooner classics!

Check out the sweet-savoury-salty salad (above) made from (Soiled Rep's) Baby Beets, (Soiled Rep's) Baby Leeks and Bacon!

The Cheeses From Ruth station saw Monforte Dairy's cheese company owner Ruth Klahsen (above) cutting up selections of her finest goat and sheep milk cheeses for the sold-out patio crowd to enjoy paired with Langdon Hall's impeccable selection of VQA wines.

My brother-in-food Mark Lass (above on left, beside Gushue protege on right) was the host with the most since (as mentioned) his farm supplied both of the whole pigs that were roasted that evening (clearly Langdon Hall is aware that Stratford is the home of the annual Ontario Pork Congress).

Chef Aaron Linley of Bijou is another good friend who was on-hand to serve-up the summer season's bounty (along with his beautiful ruby red Korean BBQ sauce [which he normally serves with duck but goes great with roast pork]). He's my favourite chef in Stratford (and if you think any differently I invite you to start your own Stratford food blog and bring it on).

The Sides At The Grill included the unspeakably indulgent Truffled Mac and Cheese and man-sized BBQ Onion Rings (above).

Just when I thought I had tasted everything one could possibly hope to taste at the Best BBQ Ever I came across The Hut where one of Gushue's henchmen was serving-up Cornmeal-Crusted Perch alongside Grilled Trout and 'Beer Can' Chicken (so damn good, we all knew was it destined for fine dining someday, right?).

The Stratford folks were seated at the best table on the whole patio (above), situated under a massive, sprawling, downright Tolkein-esque Camperdown Elm tree. [Sorry but there are way too many people in that picture to list/link. But the company was outstanding and we were all proud to represent the evening's City of Honour... by eating incredible food until we simply could eat no more].

In fact, I was too full to try most of the offerings on the dessert table (above) although I was assured that the Chocolate and Espelette Cupcakes with Monforte Goat Cheese Icing were uniquely magnificent in their juxtaposition of sweetness with spiciness. I had to try the Caramel with Langdon Bacon Popcorn - one of those crazy combinations of things so good on their own they had to go well together!

The Langdon Hall BBQ Summer Series provided Stratford with the highest praise imaginable by showcasing the farmers, artisans and chefs that make our culinary community so special. The result was a night of eating I will always remember... I just absolutely loved every minute of it, and there's not much else even I can say.

This Little Piggie Went to Market: Slow Food Pork Party!

2011-08-17T20:25:00.000-07:00

You gotta admit, Slow Food Perth County is on a bit of a roll. We pulled-off the Canadian Youth Terra Madre back in May, when kids from different areas of the province and country came together at McCully's Hill Farm to have a good time around food. Then there was the recent coup that saw the reclamation of downtown Market Square by the Slow Food Sunday Market, which just seems to get better and better every week as more and more produce keeps coming out of the ground. But this past Sunday Slow Food Perth County staged what can only be described as a truly sensational feast as the entire city was invited to the market for the annual Pork Party!!

Did you smell something delicious wafting in the air late Saturday night? Was it smoky, or even... bacon-esque? That wasn't a barn fire on Pork Road - it was the Slow Food crew roasting a huge pig on a spit right smack dab in the middle of downtown all night long!

As it happened, on the weekend the Stacey family enjoyed a visit from my good friend Tyler and his family. Tyler (on left with "water" bottle) and I have been bros for almost twenty full years and late-night hijinks have been standard practice throughout those two decades. I couldn't have picked a better wing-man to help with the slightly twisted task of cooking a giant headless pig over open coals at midnight in the middle of Stratford's downtown, which every Saturday night turns into a somewhat chaotic Entertainment District. When I told Tyler (who was visiting Stratford for the first time) that we were going to spend the night roasting a pig he thought I was talking about something along the lines of a farm party - he hadn't expected to be swarmed all night by downtown inebriants asking hilarious questions like "Dude, are you guys selling hotdogs?!?"

The roaster was fired-up around midnight, and although Tyler and I hung out until after 3am props need to go out to the die-hards Brendon Lyoness and Liz Mountain who stuck it out all night, turning the foil-wrapped 150 lbs. pig a quarter turn every half hour for ten hours. The pig was cooked perfectly by the time the market kicked off at 10am and Mark Lass (on the right, he raised the pig on his farm!) helped haul it over to the serving table...

...where Phil Phillips (above on left with Liz on right) picked up his knife and began expertly carving up lunch.

The sliced pork was piled high into grill pans full of fantastic sauces including the Korean BBQ sauce donated by Bijou Restaurant, Pineapple BBQ sauce by none other than Chef Neil Baxter of Rundles and Smoked Cherry BBQ sauce by the Sunday Market's own Dave of Koert Organics. Paul Finkelstein (above, centre) helped serve-up the melt-in-your-mouth porky goodness alongside Farmer Lass and Gotta-Love-Her-She's-Still-Awake Liz.

Emily Chandler was helping people to choose from among the three types of fresh-baked bread provided by the brand new Downie Street Bakehouse and Your Local Market Co-op.

Dessert was a trio of peaches from the market's fruit vendor Bizjak Farm, sheep's milk ricotta from the market's cheese vendor Monforte Dairy, and cake by the market's stellar Lindsay's Bakery.

The whole Slow Food family was there for this annual celebration of real Perth County food! Danielle Brodhagen (above right) held down the ticket sales and Laurie Knechtel (above left) spent the afternoon doling out the spicy coleslaw donated by Shawn from Simple. Fish and Chips.

Laurie was interviewed by the Beacon Herald, and I could not agree any more strongly with her comments on what the paper deemed a "succulent success":

Knechtel said the group wants to dispel the Slow Food movement's image of being a bunch of elitists eating expensive food. She said the low prices for Sunday's roast and the accessible location showed what the Slow Food movement is really about and noted that visitors loved the experience.

"The feedback we've received is that they love the food, but what they love even more is eating together as a community,"

The general feeling of community conviviality was enhanced even more by the opening-up of a big can of bluegrass yeee-haah courtesy of the Blurry Pickers.

And of course, no Slow Food Sunday Market event would be complete without a performance from our resident crooner Antony "The Singing Farmer" John (aka The Manic Organic of Soiled Reputation Farm).

Congrats on the Slow-Food-flash-mob for putting together such a great event. There is another grassroots group in Stratford that's advocating to turn Market Square into a public green space, and after Sunday I have one recommendation for that redesign: Build a permanent community cooking area because we're going to put-on this event every single year from now on!

Savour Stratford: The Pool Party!

2011-08-09T19:03:00.000-07:00

Mid-summer last year, I blogged about the most delicious meeting I had ever been to, which was the 2010 Savour Stratford Perth County Culinary Festival all-committees get-together at the farm of Mark Lass, located in the countryside outside of Stratford at Punkeydoodles Corners (although the pin-point location of that meeting might not be totally relevant I always get a kick out that crazy place-name: "Punkeydoodles Corners").

The 2011 Savour Stratford Festival (check out the hip new website!) is only a month and a half away - this year it is taking place on Saturday September 24 and Sunday September 25. Last year, the SSPC Culinary Festival won the Ontario Culinary Tourism Association award for 2009 Culinary Experience of the year. This year, the best food festival in Ontario just gets better, with all sorts of new features, venues, programs, and celebrity chefs. And to keep everyone up-to-date on all the plans, Savour Stratford now has it's own blog (three guesses who's on the Communications Committee).

Last year's meeting was the best there ever was. This year's all-committees meeting was just as good as last year's food-wise - and there was a swimming pool!

Brendon Lyoness (aka the grower behind Caveman Crops) brought along a salad featuring his homegrown beets, lettuce and basil along with some local goat's cheese from C'est Bon. Brendon heads up the Farmers Market committee - over the entire two days of the Savour Stratford Festival a vibrant market takes place featuring the local harvest produced by the area's best farmers and artisans. This year for the first time the exemplary vendors from the Slow Food Sunday Market (including Caveman himself) will have their own space at the festival at Erie and York Streets!

The SSPC Culinary Festival's Assistant Director Amanda Cortes was at the party with her dad Rich, who brought along a chorizo and bean bake that was spicy in flavour, smooth in texture, and topped with some cool fresh cheese.

Latin flavours with local ingredients was definitely the theme of the pool party, and also included the salsa fresca from Your Local Market Co-op. Tasting Tent organizer Drea Kerr told me the market-fresh salsa will be part of the dish YLMC will be serving at the pinnacle event of the Festival, the Sunday Tasting Tent, where they have been appropriately paired with the Stratford Urban Farming Experiment (along with Drea, another one the folks who started the YLMC is Heather Walker, founder/coordinator of the Stratford Urban Farming Experiment).

You might recognize the Entertainment Committee's Nathan McKay from Justin Bieber's movie Never Say Never, where he was interviewed about the early musical career of his one-time neighbour (looks like he met a new corn-eating prodigy in young Henry, above). Nathan heads up the Entertainment Committee and has booked a stellar musical line up this year, including Emm Gryner, Dayna Manning, and Stratford Star's Jake Stern.

The entree for the evening was an incredible Beef Tongue Taco prepared by Savour Stratford founder/director Danielle Brodhagen's talented partner, actor Paul Amos. I've had this dish a couple of times and I absolutely love the kick of the Mexican spicing and the toothsome texture of the chewilicious beef tongue (mmmm, tongue - the taste that tastes you back!). Paul will once again be one of the volunteers cooking and serving at the Edible Embers Charity BBQ (he raises money for the Actors Fund), where for the first time students from the Stratford Chefs School have been loaned as consultants on each charity's menu.

Danielle proclaimed that the entire party had been fed by an offal cut of beef that cost them all of $2.50 from the aforementioned Lassdale farm. It's fitting that one of the presenters at the Stratford Chefs School Learning Centre is renowned cookbook author Jennifer McLagan (of Fat and Bones fame), whose new book Odd Bits - How to Cook the Rest of the Animal focuses on cooking with parts (I'm sure there are some more creative ideas for cooking with tongue in there!).

I visited Ruth Klahsen from Monforte Dairy earlier that afternoon and picked up some ice cream that was made with the same sheep's milk she makes her cheese with. Ruth will be teaching kids how to make their own ice cream every hour on the hour throughout the festival at the Monforte Dairy Kids Tent. I've started growing all sorts of crazy greens for this year's Return of the Living Salad Bar for the Kids Tent - it's going to be twice as big for 2011 and will also run throughout the whole two days (or as long as there are still greens for kids to pick and eat)!

Captain Caaaaave-maaaaan!

That's really just the beginning of the amazing programming that's going to be on the table at this year's festival. Celebrity chefs Connie DeSousa (Top Chef Canada finalist) and Chuck Hughes (of the Food Network Canada's Chuck's Day Off) will both be at the event (tickets for Chuck's Friday Night Pre-Party are going fast) and there will be a Best Chef challenge in the all new Culinary Theatre in the brand new Market Square downtown festival venue.

For more of a preview of this year's version of the best food festival in Ontario come to City Hall this Monday August 15 at 4 pm where the funky new poster designed by accomplished Stratford illustrator Jack Dylan will be unveiled.

Bakery Breadheads at Pazzo: "Daylight! Another day begins!"

2011-08-01T19:30:00.000-07:00

On Friday, for the first time in my life I showed up somewhere at 6:30 am and felt like I was late.

That's because Master Pastry Chef John Bex and his team at The Bakery At Pazzo had already been working for hours by the time I turned up to receive an early morning lesson in breadmaking from one of the best.

Chef John Bex is well known as the Master Pastry Chef instructor at the Stratford Chefs School, where he's been teaching students the art and science of baking for over twenty years.

This summer Chef Bex took on the baking duties for Pazzo Pizzeria (downstairs) and fine dining Ristorante (upstairs) when they were all moved next door to Pazzo's brand new Ontario Street bakery. The bakery also supplies restaurants like Bijou, Down the Street and The Annex with the best bread around. And the house-made bread, pastries, sandwiches and desserts are all available to the public via the store, located right in front of the open-concept baking space.

I found out that the secret to having Stratford's best bread is to do almost everything by hand and with a lot of care - no wonder one of the bakers had been there since midnight! I recognized this committed denizen of the graveyard shift as a recent Stratford Chefs School grad named Simon Briggs who'd cooked a Mexican dinner alongside Pilar Cabrera Arroyo I had the pleasure of attending this past winter. Simon and current Chefs School student M.J. were dusty with flour by the time I arrived. Chef Bex introduced them with a term I had not heard before, used to describe those who answer the call to work in a bakery:

"Breadheads"!

He then proceeded to guide me through the process of making the small and large loaves of focaccia bread they make at the bakery every day. [The experience of "playing the piano" on the focaccia dough kind of reminded me of the time I learned how to make bannock bread in Nunavut]:

While we waited for the focaccia to bake Chef treated me to breakfast with one of The Bakery's absolutely incredible croissants. Fluffy on the inside but nice and crusty on the outside, like the perfect croissant should be. Chef described how he made them every day by hand-rolling pounds of butter into some dough: "It's butter suspended in flour".

Respect

The foccacia loaves I helped to make were dimpled (from all the piano playing), perfectly browned and both seasoned and textured with salt when they came out of the oven:

The store opens at 8 am sharp, and the moment the door was unlocked three people immediately arrived to get a coffee and a fresh baked pastry.

The pre-office coffee crowd has some great choices for breakfast, including the aforementioned croissants (they also make them with double smoked bacon & mozzarella!?!) muffins, scones and gorgeous Brioche with Basil Oil, Fennel, and Roasted Red Pepper (above).

At lunch The Bakery has been setting folks up with picnics to take along the river - a great idea for people who want to catch Stratford Summer Music events such as the riverside Barge Music performances, which take place only steps away.

And to top it all off The Bakery also stocks their shelves with some of the best ingredients from around the world... I told the manager, my friend Alondra Galvez (also am alum/instructor from the Statford Chefs School), my story about Oleara San Giorgio, the beautiful olive oil that connected me to my unknown cousin last year - The Bakery has it!

The Bakery at Pazzo is a phenomenal place to grab a bite to eat or a loaf of bread to take home. The entire operation is run by Stratford Chefs School instructors, alumni and students (it will be the site of Chef John Bex's SCS pastry lessons this winter), and the Chefs' attention to careful preparation, handmade techniques, and the alchemy that is baking really shines through in everything they create.

Your Local Market Co-op: Joining the Movement

2011-07-23T20:01:00.000-07:00

About a month ago a group of local-food-loving social entrepreneurs in Stratford followed through on the noble idea to create a downtown store where people could get quality local food every day at a price that was fair to the farmer and the consumer.

These friends (above, left to right: Paul Roberts, Drea Kerr, Heather Walker, Chris Walker, and Kaitlyn Vere) sensed that the success of such a project would depend as much on social capital - the value produced when a community comes together around a goal - as it would on financial capital. I don't think they could have found themselves in a better place than Stratford to tap into the potential of community support for eating local... aptly, they adopted a co-operative business model for patrons as well and employees of Your Local Market Co-op to share in the benefits of sourcing and purchasing food for a collective.

I actually got to learn a lot about the co-operative food movement in Ontario on Friday when I spent some time with a few people who are experts in local food co-ops. Glen Valliere (left) manages purchases for the Ontario Natural Food Co-op, and he was accompanied by co-op developmental consultant Russ Christianson (centre) and Hannah Renglich (right) also from Ontario Natural Food Co-op. As part of a project that ultimately aims to create a network to support Local Organic Food Co-ops in this province, they are visiting 20 Ontario co-ops that grow, sell and/or support local and organic foods (sounds like a fun summer!).

It turns out that the phenomenon of co-operative food projects is not completely unique to Stratford - it is part of a broader co-operative movement that has seen no less than six new food co-ops appearing in this province over the past year alone!

I'd be impressed if the other new operations were as well established after just one month as Your Local Market Co-op is already: the experts admired how far along - and busy! - the store was after being open only for a short time.

I took a look around the store and found everything from their house-baked bread (above, it's already become famous) to their selection of local dairy products, preserves, and seasonal fruits and veggies.

It didn't take me long to make my decision: I went up to Drea (above) and demanded that she "Sign me up!"

My $120 subscription to Your Local Market Co-op entitles me to some real benefits: I get 10% off the already reasonable prices for groceries (see price list above), I get the newsletter and alerts when new products become available, and (I'm looking forward to taking advantage of this one now that pickling season is here) I get to share in the opportunity to buy bulk items at wholesale prices. The best place for people to keep up on Your Local Market Co-op's daily features is via their Twitter and Facebook accounts.

The Twitter and Facebook updates will also tell you about the daily menu being served out of Your Local Market's lunch counter. World inspired street eats change all the time, and have so far included Thai menus as well as items like Ragin' Cajun Chicken Wraps and Nachos. I had a beautiful Honeyboy & Garlic Pork Wrap (above) that had some marinated sweet cress, roasted vegetables and a chipotle BBQ sauce that added good little bit of kick - a high quality handheld lunch for a great price.

Finding an alternative to the highly centralized, corporate, exploitative industrial food system has never been more delicious, and as co-op developer Russ Christianson pointed out, "The people are the best part".

Brunch with the Bunch at Foster's Inn

2011-07-18T20:22:00.000-07:00

The main job of whoever's taking care of the Slow Food booth at the downtown Sunday market is to provide marketgoers with information about the food scene here in Stratford and Perth County. Pretty much every Sunday I've been on duty I've been asked to recommend a good place near the market to grab a bite to eat. I usually give folks a few options...

Ever since the folks from Erbcroft Farm started grilling lamb and waterbuffalo burgers out of their market stand (above) I've been telling folks to give them a try. They dress their burgers up with product sourced entirely from the market - from the buns by the Stratford Urban Farming Experiment, to the Monforte cheese, Loco Fields lettuce, and Koert Organics smoked cherry BBQ sauce. They've become a favourite among market regulars (especially the vendors!).

If it's later in the day I tell them where they'll often find me after the market, which is Molly Blooms Irish Pub. I've gotten in the habit of checking out the live jazz while kicking back after a hot day at the market with a couple of $3 Caesars along with some half price appetizers (usually I go with the mussels).

But sometimes the people asking for a recommendation are looking for a good spot for Sunday brunch.

I tell them they might want to give the new Sunday brunch they're serving over at the County Food Co. on nearby Erie Street a try (above).

This past Sunday, the tables were turned as I found myself looking for a spot to grab post-market brunch with my whole family, including my folks who were in town for the weekend. I decided to bring everyone to my go-to spot for a midday feast, which is right around the corner from Market Square: Foster's Inn on Downie Street.


Staceys... you've been blogged!

The servers at Foster's were super-friendly and hooked Fisher and Sonny up with some crayons and Hot Wheels to keep them occupied while the kitchen prepared our food.

Always a fan of Sunday cocktails, I sipped on a tasty Bloody Mary while my parents regaled us with tales from the previous night's adventures in babysitting.

Our food soon arrived, and there was something to please everyone. I love the creamy tang of the Goat's Cheese and Oven Dried Tomato Omelet at Foster's (above, so good I pretty much knew it was what I was going to get before I even looked at the menu).

My mom Stella and I are very much alike (refer to previous family photo for striking resemblance) and that includes our sharing the same tastebuds. Like me, she loves fish and seafood and true to form she ordered a salad entree with House Crab Cakes (above), which were crispy and well seasoned.

I might have taken things up another level by ordering a full-on Foster's Crab Cake Benedict... Lisa went for the Smoked Salmon Benedict (above) and I found it hard to stop myself from picking lovely pieces of cured salmon drenched in Hollandaise off her plate.

You can take Steve Sr. out of the country, but you can't take the country out of Steve Sr. He was impressed by the heartiness of the Grilled Perth County Ham with Extra Old Cheddar Cheese Omelet (above) - pork country at its best!

There are lots of options for grabbing food after hitting the Slow Food Sunday market in downtown Stratford. Foster's is also known as the best place in town to grab a steak and a favourite spot for authentic boutique hotel accommodation... its amazing brunch/breakfast makes it a true triple threat!

Duck Off!

2011-07-09T21:01:00.000-07:00

This week can be summed up in one word:

DUCK!!!

Yesterday on Twitter the hash-tagged word "#duck" was among the top Trending Topics of the day. The reason? On Thursday, someone somewhere issued a challenge (Twallenge?) to all Tweeters:

#replaceawordinafamousquotewithduck

I guess it "went viral", because for nearly forty eight hours the Twittersphere has been flooded by a flock of duck calls, a deluge of quackery ranging from the corny to the clever (you can decide which category the following fall into):

Don't ask what your #duck can do for you, but what you can do for your #duck.

Frankly my dear, I don't give a #duck.

Everything that happens, happens for a #duck.

I find your lack of #duck disturbing.

Utilizing duck at every single opportunity imaginable was more than just a Twitter trend this week - it was also a dining concept that Lisa and I were invited to experience on Monday!

We both absolutely love duck [does anyone not love duck? Please comment... I'm experiencing 'comment envy' from never-ending debates that seem to always be raging over at The Chew]. So the "Duck Off" dinner at our friends Jessie and Tim's lofty nest this week was like a dream come true - ten courses of duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck and... what was it again that we had for dessert? Oh right: DUCK!!

The Duck Off! dinner introduced me to a whole new undiscovered side of the Stratford culinary scene. Jessie, Tim and a bunch of other food lovin' folks (many of whom work in the Stratford restaurant industry) have been getting together every now and then for a themed dinner (not all that unlike the Charlie's Burger anti-restaurant phenomenon in Toronto).

The theme this time around was (as mentioned twenty two times above) duck. The rest of the concept was: two of the most talented lights cooking in the kitchens of two of Stratford's best restaurants would mentor two highly motivated industry non-chefs through the execution of an all-duck menu. I think the idea originally was also to have the sixteen diners rate each dish to determine a winner, but honestly everything was so superb it would have been an injustice if one pair had been discredited for anything to do with this incredible meal.

The first chef/apprentice team was Kaya - a graduate of the Stratford Chefs School of Turkish nationality who currently cooks at Rundles - and Pazzo's upstairs fine-dining-front-of-house star Amanda.

Their "Duck Nacho" set the tone for the alternating series of dishes they would be presenting us with: delicate, composed, commendably creative, and, most importantly, off-the-hook tasty.

The other kitchen team consisted of our host Tim - of The Church kitchen fame - and Sasha, who also works at Pazzo's.

What I really liked about the evening was the contrast between the two teams' approaches... Tim and Sasha were deliciously different in their comforting, rustic style when compared to the other team, which we immediately appreciated upon seeing and tasting their indulgent salute to the just-past Canada Day weekend: the Confit Duck Leg & Seared Foie Poutine (above). Do you even have to ask if the fries were cooked twice in duck fat?

The Foie Terrine and Scallop Sashimi with Salmon Roe and Sauternes Jelly was a perfect summertime dish and a great illustration of Kaya's attention to visual flow.

Our host Jessie (who's also part of the stellar Pazzo's team) was holding down the service side of this spectacular duck-fest, which included a series of universally wonderful drink pairings for each dish (I know I'm supposed to support Ontario VQAs but go get a bottle of Pinot Noir from Oregon's A to Z from 2008 - best glass of wine I've had in ages).

Tim & Sasha's Vanilla Scented Duck Breast with a Confit Potato Croquette (above) was at once exotically fragrant and down-on-the-farm homey.

We had the pleasure of dining with a few of Chef Kaya's friends/fellow Turkish nationals who had come up from Toronto just for this dinner; they told me that while the flavours of the open-faced wine leaf dolmo and Turkish coffee rub from Kaya and Amanda's entree did remind them of the food from Turkey, the use of duck took Turkish flavours to a level of fusion they had never before experienced.

The dessert was, as promised, a Duck a la Orange featuring Orange Candied Duck and a Duck Fat Crumble over orange scented caramel and cream.

On our way out we were also all treated to a piece of Foie Gras Bubble Gum - who knew?

I want to thank Jessie and Tim for inviting us to take part in this special mid-summer meal. The food was above-and-beyond in every way but somehow the holistic combination of meeting great new people and hanging in a such a hip and laidback scene added a whole other level to the experience.

To conclude, please allow me to misquote Jack Nicholas and Tom Cruise from the Oscar-winning film A Few Good Men:

You want answers?!?

I want the #duck!

You can't handle the #duck!!

Stepping up to The Ontario Table!

2011-07-02T11:40:00.000-07:00

Food author and activist Lynn Ogryzlo has presented our province with a challenge: If all households in Ontario spent $10 of their weekly grocery budget on food produced in this province, it would mean $2.4 billion injected into our economy.

But Lynn Ogryzlo has done more than just crunched the numbers to support our collective fulfillment of this important shared goal. She has also spent the last few years putting together an incredible resource for sourcing-out and cooking the unparalleled local food bounty we in Ontario are blessed with. The Ontario Table is the product of two years of research which saw Lynn and her husband Jon traveling to the various counties of Ontario seeking-out and speaking to exemplary local producers, taking pictures of them working on their farms, and then creating, tasting and photographing amazing dishes inspired by these precious products.

The result of all this hard work is quite simply the best book on local food in Ontario that has ever been produced. Visually spectacular, full of inspired recipes, and written with a strong sense of purpose, this is one of those books that you can use as a cookbook or enjoy as a good read outside of the kitchen. It is an honour that Perth County and Stratford are celebrated throughout this important work - Lynn Ogryzlo is clearly a big fan of our local food scene, "It's definitely a cultural, culinary and entertainment pocket tucked neatly into vast stretches of farmland. Home to some of the most innovative and dramatic (must be the theatre influence) farmers you'll meet."

Since no less than five of the Perth County producers featured in The Ontario Table are featured at the Slow Food Sunday Market, it was appropriate that Lynn chose our new downtown site as the first stop on her summer book signing tour! I spoke to her about her book and then she took to the microphone to tell our marketgoers about the $10 challenge and her vision for an enhanced Ontario food system:

Stratford's avid local food lovers lined-up to buy the book, which Lynn has made available for markets and farmers to sell as a means of raising funds in support of their important work. All of the proceeds from Sunday's sales went to Slow Food Perth County - Thanks everyone who bought a book! It will continue to be on sale throughout the summer at the Slow Food booth at the market.

As Lynn was signing her book she offered us all the opportunity to sign a tablecloth that she will be bringing along with her as she travels across the province (above).

I have a feeling Lynn was thinking of Antony John (Soiled Reputation Farm's Manic Organic, above) when she was writing about Perth County's "dramatic and innovative" farmers.

Fred and Ingrid DeMartines of Perth Pork Products (above) have the book opened to page 146, where the chapter on Pastured Meat is introduced by a great photo of Fred with one of his Tamshire (a cross of Tamworth and Berkshire heritage breed) piglets.

Slow Food Perth County's own Brendon Lyoness (aka Caveman of Caveman Crops, above) is featured in the book, where the story of his road to local food production via Paul Finkelstein's Stratford Northwestern Culinary Arts program is told on page 33!

It was a real treat for our community and market to be picked as the first stop on Lynn Ogryzlo's province-wide summer book tour. She will actually be back in September where she will be speaking about her book and her adventures in local food in the Learning Centre at the Savour Stratford Perth County Culinary Festival (which in her book she celebrates as "one of the best local food culinary festivals around")!

Pump Up The Jam: Canning & Preserving With Perth County Kitchens

2011-06-25T20:36:00.000-07:00

The only problem with local produce is... it's here, and then it's gone.

A mere two weeks ago, the Slow Food Sunday Market vendors Megen's Family Farm were selling truckfuls of beautiful asparagus to line-ups of appreciative consumers. The next week, alas, there wasn't a spear to be found.

The tragic irony is that when seasonal produce like asparagus and strawberries shows up there is a tonne of it, but there is only so much you can eat!

Every summer, it's the same thing for me... one day I look up and there is no more asparagus, and a few weeks later there are no more strawberries. And I say to myself, Dang, I really should've preserved some. I could've enjoyed it all year round. This week, thanks to Perth County Kitchens, I did just that!

Perth County Kitchens is a fantastic initiative by my sister-in-food Laurie Knechtel (above right), who sources-out certified kitchen spaces in our county for two purposes: to connect people who want to process food for commercial purposes with Health Unit approved facilities, and to hold community cooking workshops for the young and old to learn new skills and revive lost arts. Previous sessions have included fun pizza-making workshops for kids, and artisanal breadmaking class for ambitious do-it-youselfers. All the classes are different, but the one thing they have in common is that they use local product and all participants learn about where the ingredients were sourced. This week's class was about pickling asparagus and making jars of strawberry preserves - all sourced from the aforementioned Megen's Family farm - and was led by home kitchen talent Bev Rock (above on left).

I first heard about Bev Rock from the reporting of Maureen Argon, another sister-in-food who is also a sister-in-blog (see her two pieces on preserving with Bev here and here). Bev attributes her talents as a canner and preserver to her family upbringing, "A lot of the methods I use I learned from my mother and grandmother." She even brought along her grandmother's handwritten notebook with all of her secret family recipes (I snuck a peek, above).

The class was sold out, which made it easy for us to break into three groups and pump out three different types of strawberry jams: plain strawberry, strawberry rhubarb, and gooseberry strawberry (the rhubarb and gooseberries both came straight from Bev's garden!).

In between the strawberry and asparagus sessions we all took a break and enjoyed some jam on fresh baked bread Laurie had picked up from the newly-opened Your Local Market Co-op.

Laurie sourced out what had to be some of the last asparagus of the season from the Megens.

Bev showed us how to make pickled asparagus by placing them in a vinegar brine with green garlic from nearby August's Harvest, dill, and mustard seeds.

We made jars of pickled asparagus using the longer spears, as well as a bunch of jars using the smaller pieces that were trimmed off so the spears would fit in.

Everyone went home with three jars of strawberry jam (one of each kind) and three jars of pickled asparagus.

Besides the learning experience, and the practical benefit of being able to eat this precious seasonal and local food in the middle of winter if I want, the best part of the Perth County Kitchens experience for me was making new friends and spending time with fellow food lovers, working together to create something special. Perth County Kitchens really puts the "community" in "community kitchens", and I look foward to the next opportunity to take part in more of the sessions Laurie will be coordinating in the future. One of the best ways to keep yourself in the loop for upcoming classes is to follow Perth County Kitchens on Facebook.

Chef Denis Cotter: For the Love of... Veg

2011-06-13T21:16:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make.

I'm a closet vegetarian. Or, more accurately, I generally don't eat meat.

Right now, a lot of my regular readers are probably like, "Uh, aren't you the guy who's spent the last year telling us all about your joyous experiences eating: duck, lamb, beef, waterbuffalo, venison, chicken, pork, wild boar, caribou, muskox, seal, walrus, whale, elk, and pheasant?!? You sell heritage breed pork to raise funds at the market every week! Dude, you ate horse!!!"

OK, OK. I did all that. But I did it for the culinary experience and to celebrate our local farmers and chefs, not as part of my everyday lifestyle. Don't get me wrong, I really, really appreciate a nice cut of sustainably-raised local meat cooked properly by an expert. But when it comes to cooking at home on a day-to-day basis, the Stacey kitchen is free of meat.

[Other than fish, which, yes, I realize is not a vegetable, and which, yes, I know disqualifies me from being anything near a true vegetarian.].

When I'm cooking from the heart - at home for my family and friends - I'm cooking vegetarian, and so I was so delighted to get my hands on For the Love of Food - Vegetarian Cooking from the Heart, a cookbook by one of Stratford's most luminous culinary (and literary) talents - Chef Denis Cotter - who's renowned in his home country of Ireland as one of the best vegetarian chefs in the British Isles.

Chef Cotter, whose Cork vegetarian restaurant Cafe Paradiso is a perennial favourite among the Top 100 Best Places to Eat in Ireland, now has a total of four cookbooks to his name. His books (which include Cafe Paradiso Cookbook, Paradiso Seasons and Wild Garlic, Gooseberries... and Me) are really great reads as well as wonderful resources for creative, colourful and diverse vegetarian recipes and ideas.

Last week, Revel Caffe was host to the Canadian launch of Denis Cotter's heartfelt new book. Before signing copies, he gave a speech that included the announcement he's recently gained his permanent residency status here in Canada!

Those of us who attended the book signing were treated to a selection of really tasty dishes from the book as well as special recipes Denis is saving for books-to-come.

The superlative "Best Cheese On Toast In the World" Chef mentions in the video was, well... the best cheese on toast in the world (especially accompanying a champagne toast, above).

Fellow Revel Caffe regular Sam was offering savoury beet mini-tarts. Edible trivia fact: did you know in Ireland what we call 'beets' they call 'beetroot'? And that no matter what you call them they go great in a pastry tart topped with local goat cheese?!?

Revel Caffe owner/food lover Ann Campion (above) was serving my favourite dish of the night, a perfectly seasoned fried chickpea-flour-bread dish called Penelle (check out the Cafe Paradiso's website where the recipe for this beautiful appetizer is the June 2011 Recipe of the Month).

I can't wait to try out some of the recipes from this from-the-heart book. Now that we're in the middle of asparagus season, I think I'm going to try the Grilled Asparagus with Poached Eggs & Avocado-Cherry Tomato Salsa (pg. 36). Or maybe I'll try Love Soup (pg. 108)... Chef Denis (particularly well known around here for leading a Stone Soup collective cooking workshop at the Savour Stratford festival in 2009) shares the Italian Bread Soup recipe he uses to express his love for food and for his Canadian soulmate:

I like to think that the chef is a medium between the produce and the diner, but it is certainly true too that the chef adds part of his or her own love of their role in the process.

To cook with the same devotion to someone you love is a humbler act. It is focused on one very precious person and what you think will bring them pleasure or soothe their troubles. When that comes off, there is no punching the air or high-fiving, but a profound communion of two souls.
Over a bowl of soup, no less.

Signed copies of Chef Denis Cotter's latest book are still available at Revel Caffe. Once they're sold out, you should head over to Callan Books on York Street in Straford to get a copy of this wonderful work of writing, photography and culinary creativity.

Slow Food Sunday Market Goes... To Market Square, Where Else?!?

2011-06-07T20:34:00.000-07:00

Almost exactly a year ago, Slow Food Perth County was invited by Ruth Klahsen of Monforte Dairy to start a market in the back lot of her new artisan cheese factory location. The Slow Food folks didn't hesitate to take her up on her offer, and in late spring, 2010, the Slow Food Sunday Market was created to connect our community with local growers and artisans who exemplified Slow Food's 'Good, Clean and Fair' principles.

It was (I guess appropriately) 'slow' at first.

But then, as the summertime weeks went by and the produce started coming out of the ground, the market started generating a little more attendance. The market regulars knew they had stumbled upon something special - the only place in town where they could get Monforte Dairy sheep and goat's milk cheese, Soiled Reputation Farm's unparalleled greens, starter plants and herbs from Tim at Creton Farm, heirloom seeds and produce from Anything Grows, sprouts from Kawthoolei Farm, smoked offerings from Koert Organics, treats from Lindsay's Bakery, Erbcroft Farm Lamb, and Perth Pork Products - all in the same trip!

As winter approached, the loyal Slow-Food-loving marketgoers started to lament: "What will happen when winter comes and the market goes away?!?"

Then, like the true local food heroes they are, Rick and Allan from Anything Grows stepped up and rescued the market, offering to relocate it to their garden/food store's historic cellar on St. Patrick Street (formerly the site of Stratford's original brewery).

The Slow Food Sunday Market really thrived in its winter home. It became a destination where a lot of people just came to hang out and drink coffee and chat... usually about food. My kind of place. The roster of vendors expanded to include the Stratford Urban Farming Experiment's fresh baked bread, Feed Your Body's vegan creations, one-of-a-kind handmade greeting cards from Barb's Cards, and sustainable fish and seafood from Simple. Fish and Chips.

What next? It was only natural that the Slow Food Sunday Market would finally reclaim the historic Market Square (behind Stratford's City Hall) as a place for the community and its visitors to come together to access great food and enjoy our city's downtown space.

The dream of a Market returning to Market Square came to fruition on Sunday, June 5, 2011!!

The new market was piped-in with majestic style by the Stratford Police Pipe and Drum band:

The market continues to grow in its vendors. Sara from Nourish Whole Food Nutrition was serving-up spectacular rhubarb smoothies, and nearby Megen Family Farm literally sold a truckload of beautiful seasonal asparagus (next they'll have strawberries!):

Shawn Hartwell from Simple. Fish and Chips had some support from a giant local chicken who was very persuasive telling folks to consume more sustainable fish (and therefore less chicken!):

Antony "The Singing Farmer" John (aka Soiled Reputation's Manic Organic) was belting out the classics to the delight of the massive crowd that showed up for the historic event:

All I can say is: What a day! And many more to come - the market will be running downtown every Sunday from 10am to 2pm all the way until October 30!

I am so unbelievably proud to be part of a community like Stratford and a group like Slow Food Perth County, who have put food back where it belongs: in the heart of our city!

I'm game for grillin'!

2011-06-02T19:56:00.000-07:00

Finally, it looks like summer barbeque season has arrived!

Last Saturday I really got into the grillin' spirit when I attended a cooking demonstration at Turnbull & Stewart (Erie Street's kitchen equipment oasis). Here in Perth County we are blessed with a diverse selection of local proteins, including pasture raised heritage pork, beef and lamb, as well as more exotic meats like elk, wild boar, waterbuffalo, pheasant and duck. I've found that as a rule the more unique a product is the more challenging it is to cook properly, so I was glad to receive a delicious crash course in cooking high quality meat on the BBQ from a chef who really knows his way around a grill!

Ian McArthur is chef/owner of Food At Your Fingertips here in Stratford. He is an experienced caterer who also sells a really great line of his own creative soups at the Stratford Farmers Market every Saturday. He's also a huge fan of Perth County producers, "I think most people don't know how lucky we are here. We're just a stone's throw away from all these great products." As he seasoned and seared off some of the cuts he was about to grill for us, he explained his preference for wild and heritage breeds:

Ian shared with us some of the tricks pros use when cooking with these precious products. Carry-over cooking is when you take what you're cooking off two donenesses lower than what you're after, and then take it off the heat and let it rest while it continues to cook and absorb all of its juices. He also showed us all a great method for cooking a leg of lamb on a cedar plank.

I have to say I've never seen anyone more enthusiastic about local lamb than Ian. He told us all about how he was matched up with Erbcroft Farm to create a lamb dish for a recent fundraising event, and he found the meat to be so sweet it was a revelation: "It changed my life. It was by far the best lamb I've ever dealt with." I have to say I'm a big fan of folks like Chef Ian, who view sublime food experiences as ecstatic, life changing epiphanies.

After we all enjoyed some of the sweet/smoky cedar-planked lamb with a glass of Ontario red wine from Pelee Island Winery, Ian moved on to serve us a grilled tenderloin of heritage Tamworth pork from Perth Pork Products that was incredibly moist - a firsthand demonstration of the value of resting meat.

As a condiment for the pork was a Bobotie chutney Ian made, which was through-the-roof tasty. Based on the national dish of South Africa, it had all sorts of fruit like raisins and apricots and a really complex-yet-harmonious mix of East Asian/Middle Eastern/Mediterranean spices and flavours. Erbcroft lamb changed Chef Ian's life... well I think my first taste of Bobotie changed my life. I made sure to sign up for the follow up Turnbull & Stewart newsletter where we'll get all of the recipes for the food we'd tried that day.

The final dish was a particular favourite of mine (I'm a fan of game meat). The duck breasts Ian sourced for the workshop were phenomenal (they had to be about three inches thick!), and he cooked them to perfection.

One of the best elements of the dish was the "Honey Hot" barbeque sauce produced by another Stratford BBQ legend, Victor of Vittorio's Sauce. This sauce was developed specifically for poultry, and has a Chinese Barbeque recipe that is just the right amount of both heat and sweet. I am really looking forward to the Stratford Blues and Rib Fest taking place on June 24-26, which multi-BBQ-award-winning Victor is helping to organize. In Stratford you can of course find Vittorio's Sauces at... Turnbull & Stewart!

I came away from the informative and flavour-filled afternoon with a better idea of how to bring the best out of the amazing local farm meat products here in Perth County. I know Chef Ian knows where to find Erbcroft Farm lamb and Perth Pork Products every Sunday - we've seen him at the Slow Food Sunday Market all winter at Anything Grows. I'm sure we'll see him this Sunday, when the market moves outside to Market Square behind City Hall for the very first time!

Just in time for BBQ season!

'Go for it, have a good time!': Slow Food Canadian Youth Terra Madre

2011-05-24T20:41:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month, Slow Food Perth County joined forces with The Screaming Avocado Cafe (the 'alternative cafeteria' where Paul Finkelstein sets his high school culinary arts program) to put on the Slow Food Canadian Youth Terra Madre at McCully's Hill Farm, located just outside of Stratford near St. Marys. Groups of high school students from around Ontario - and even one group from Invermere, British Columbia! - came together to learn all about good, clean and fair food: Where it comes from, how it's made... and of course, how great it tastes!

The day was a little wet and a little chilly, but that didn't stop the groups who made it to the event from having a great time, or the participants from gaining all sorts of cool food skills and knowledge.

All of the pics from this post were actually taken by Alek, a delegate from a school group out of the Niagara region, who documented this full day of culinary capers. Thanks for the shots dude, they're all killer!

The morning started with a breakfast buffet featuring all sorts of amazing baked goods from Lindsay's Bakery, giant wheels of artisan sheep milk cheese from Stratford's iconic Monforte Dairy (pic above), and other good things like local eggs and The Screaming Avocado's fabulous focaccia bread.

Then some of the teens headed off on a bus for a little Perth County Farm Tour. They visited nearby Erbcroft Farm, a mixed livestock family farm where they saw everything from lambs to chickens to ducks (photo above).

Then they were off to visit the one-of-a-kind Perth Pork Products, where they got to see and hear all about their pasture raised heritage breeds like Berkshire and Tamworth, as well as their herd of wild boar, which included some super-cute boar-lets (above... but that doesn't sound quite right - anyone else know what you call a baby wild boar?).

Back at McCully's there were three amazing workshops that the participants worked their way through.

My longtime brother-in-food Jeremy Taft of Slow Food Kawartha-Northumberland (chef/owner of Haute Caribou Charcuterie) came all the way from Trenton to teach the youth about "Makin' Bacon". He showed the kids how bacon can be made right from curing the pork belly to the slicing (above). But he also showed everyone how to make a very special item they call 'Lardo' in Italy, which is an absolutely delicious pork product made from the rich internal fat:

Chef Joshna Maharaj (the favourite chef of Steven and Chris) traveled from Toronto (where she teaches cooking classes at The Brickworks) to show the attendees how to roll their own delicious and nutritious salad rolls (this being Perth County she showed them how to make a special version with pork!). I was personally awestruck watching Joshna teach these young cooks - she had such an amazing rapport and really spoke their language, "Go for it, have a good time!':

The third workshop was led by master forager Peter Blush (who by the way recently led a Slow Food foraging day that will be the subject of one of my upcoming posts). He took the kids out to the majestic sugar bush on McCully's Hill Farm and showed them how to sustainably harvest wild leeks (I wish someone had taught me that when I was sixteen!):

Everyone joined back up for an afternoon feast. But wait - this is Slow Food we're talking about here, so we actually have to trace the history of the pulled pork sliders served-up at lunch back a few days...

Phil Phillips is a young cook in Stratford who's got a big future ahead of him. He was featured on Fink - the Food Network Canada's show about Paul and his Screaming Avocado students' adventures-in-food a few years back. He took a whole carcass of local, whey-fed pork and butchered it (above) for use in the event's pulled-pork centrepiece creation (expertly cooked by Yva Santini of Pazzo's Ristorante and Shawn Hartwell of Simple. Fish and Chips, both of whom are treasured members of Slow Food Perth County).

Pictured above is the whole team, which included student chefs from the Stratford Chefs School!

Wait a second - that picture didn't include Yva (there she is above wearing a headband)!

All of the youth groups who came to the event brought along a creative potluck dish, and the result of all this grassroots cooking effort was a truly beautiful lunch!

Before they left, I presented all of the day's participants with a parting gift (courtesy of the Stratford Tourism Alliance) that would remind them all summer of their springtime experience at McCully's Hill Farm - they got to choose between a kit for growing tomatoes and another for growing basil! I made a suggestion: if you chose tomatoes you might want to get your best friend to pick basil - then you could both get together in August and make a Calabrese salad!

Teaching youth about food is what it's all about for me, and I couldn't find better people to collaborate with towards that goal than Paul Finkelstein (who happens to be the Youth Chair for Slow Food Canada) and all the great people who make up Slow Food Perth County.

But I will let the photograph-taking student Alek have the last say with a quote he provided that was also included in a write-up that's been posted on the international Slow Food site:

On Tuesday May 3, we gathered outside of Stratford to learn something from Slow Food. We got to tour around a couple of farms, one with pigs and wild boar, the other with ducks and sheep. We learned a bit about how farmers keep livestock for the culinary industry. We then went back to the McCully’s Hill Farm market where I got to do three different workshops: picking wild leeks, making spring rolls and best of all we made bacon! We met students from different schools and had an awesome lunch. It was a great day for me, learning about where our food comes from and how to keep it natural.

Delicious Debut Stroll: The Food Community Supporting Community Food

2011-05-13T14:53:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, May 1, 2011, I was a guide for a very special culinary tour. The Delicious Stratford Debut Stroll is an annual event (check out my post from last year) that kicks-off the restaurant season in Stratford while also raising funds for a great cause: the Community Hot Meal program provided every other Monday evening throughout the school year at Stratford Northwestern Secondary School's Screaming Avocado Cafe. Lucky participants got to preview the special prix fixe Delicious Stratford menus that will be on offer at many of our city's best restaurants all spring (3 course set menus start at $25 for lunch and $30 for dinner - what a deal!) while sampling some local beverages. I was honoured to be chosen as one of the "Culinary Connoisseurs" to guide a group of food lovers on this adventure, and I was particularly grateful for the opportunity to participate since the proceeds were going to the community meal where I happen to volunteer every other Monday!

The thing I like best about going on these tours is connecting with new people and watching as new friendships are made. My group (above) consisted of some Stratford locals, a few out-of-towners, and three babies (they brought their moms too)!

We started our tour at Foster's Inn, where we were all offered a melt-in-your-mouth Pulled Pork on a Crostini accompanied by a half-pint of delicious Mill Street Stout (above). Folks on the tour could even take a look at the Inn's rooms upstairs while they enjoyed their snack and beer. As their all-knowing guide, I recommended Foster's as the place in Stratford to enjoy a good steak, and told them about the wildly successful Dinner Concert series that's winding-up next week with a show by local Dayna Manning and Emm Gryner on May 19th.

Next we were off to The Sun Room, where we were all treated to a unique dish called Saltimbocca alongside a glass of the beautiful VQA wine this restaurant is known for serving (above). My group all tucked into their pork roulades (stuffed with a lovely savoury filling and simmered in chicken stock) while I rambled on about the great party we'd thrown at the Sun Room a few weeks previous for my wife Lisa's birthday!

We set off to our next stop right across the street at The Parlour where we were all treated to their signature Pavlova accompanied by a uniquely sweet "First Frost" wine from Huff Estates in Prince Edward County - not quite an "ice wine" but definitely great with dessert!

Then we traveled up Wellington Street to my favourite restaurant in Stratford: Bijou. We sipped on a Cave Springs Reisling from Niagara while eating a spectacular spring trio of Cauliflower and Butter Chicken Soup, Scallion Wrapped in Crispy Prosciutto, and Jicama Cured Rainbow Trout (above). The folks on the tour marveled at the delicacy of the presentation and the gorgeous infusion of flavours while I told them all about Chef Aaron Linley's triumphant victory I'd witnessed the week before at the Iron Chef night at Nick and Nat's Uptown 21!

We all cut back across town to try the incredible Citrus Cured Salmon Rolls that have become quite a trademark for Simple. Fish and Chips since their sustainable seafood dinner series last month. Then we were all finally wowed by a really tasty Puff Pastry With Wild Mushrooms and Melted Brie at Rene's Bistro.

The restaurants of Stratford really rallied in support of the Community Hot Meal initiative that day. Stratford has become known as a community that comes together around the cause of fighting hunger, whether that be through people's generous donations to food drives for our food banks, their volunteering at the many community meals offered throughout the winter, or when they participate in these kinds of great fundraising events...

I think it is because of our city's willingness to challenge food insecurity together that we were selected by The Stop Community Food Centre in Toronto to be one of the first pilot sites for a project that will eventually see Community Food Centres set up all across Ontario and Canada. The Stop has partnered with The United Way of Perth-Huron to create a place in Stratford where community gardens will be situated alongside a community kitchen for teaching cooking skills and serving drop-in meals. A Food Distribution Centre is also planned for the project, which will take-in large donations of food and redistribute the product to local food banks, community meals, and school nutrition programs.

The Local Community Food Centre is scheduled to open its doors in January, 2012, as "A Place For Food" in Stratford, where folks will be invited to access, grow, prepare, share and advocate for good food together. I could not be happier about this exciting new initiative, particularly since I've been hired recently as the Project Coordinator!

The Delicious Stratford Stroll confirmed what I already knew: Stratford is a place where good food is recognized as a right everyone shares. I look forward to working with the culinary community and the rest of our citizens to defend that right as The Local Community Food Centre comes to life. To stay updated, give @TheLocalCFC a follow on Twitter!

A Volcano With a Side Order of Beats: UFC 129 at The Pour House

2011-05-07T10:56:00.000-07:00

When local lads Reid Appel and Joe Gilchrist took over Sid's Sports Bar on Downie Street last year and transformed it into The Pour House, I started looking out for my chance to blog about their new operation. I heard they had come up with a whole new menu, and when The Pour House walked away with the title for Best Restaurant at the Heartburn Day Chili Cook-Off this past February I knew that the food was going to be above-and-beyond the usual sports bar fare.

But I decided to bide my time. I'd heard the Ultimate Fighting Championship was coming to Canada for the very first time in April... this historic sports event was the perfect opportunity for me to get a taste of the authentic Pour House experience, since The Pour House is known as the best place in town to watch UFC!

The card for the night included Canadians competing in every one of the mixed martial arts fights, so even though I don't really follow UFC closely I knew who to cheer for.

Joe Versus the Volcano

I also knew exactly what to order - the legendary Volcano! A pile of cheesy nachos surrounded by a ring of fiery wings. Some of their popular honey garlic wings were also in there - and all delivered to the table by Joe Gilchrist himself (above). A pitcher of beer and a volcano were on special that night - perfect for catching the fights with a few of the boys.

The wings were the best I've had in Stratford, but as the fights raged on we decided to go for it and order some more food - the roast beef on a bun was a knockout!

The no-holds-barred fights were pretty intense. One scrapper suffered what I can only describe as "Cauliflower Forehead", then kept on givin' 'er as if nothing was wrong until the final bell! A professional fighter actually joined us at our table to watch some of the action: pro wrestler Robbie McAllister (known for being a member of the tag-team duo The Highlanders) was in the house to see the fights...

Later, the action spilled out onto the sidewalk, where I got a sample of what Highlander Robbie will be servin'-up later this month at the One Fall Max Pro Wrestling matches in nearby Embro!

Bijou Chef Aaron Linley's Iron Chef Battle at Nick & Nat's Uptown 21: Where Isn't the Beef?

2011-04-24T22:22:00.000-07:00

Back in February at the Perth County Food Summit, I attended a panel discussion where Chef Nick Benninger was speaking about the restaurant he owns with his wife Natalie in Waterloo, called Nick & Nat's Uptown 21. I had come across their food before at the Savour Stratford Sunday Tasting Tent, where I vividly recall trying a truly kickass duck-on-duck dish that's been etched in my memory ever since. At this year's Summit, Nick revealed one of the secrets of his culinary success, which is his strong relationship with local farmers and his ability to adapt his menu to the ingredients they show up with seasonally.

He also talked about the fun Iron Chef challenges his restaurant's been hosting for the past two years to test other chefs' ability to take whatever farm product was at hand and create something memorable. After the panel I told Nick I'd love to come watch a Stratford chef battle it out at the NN Uptown 21 Kitchen Stadium... and last week Chef Aaron Linley of Bijou Restaurant was given the opportunity to throw down!

Without a doubt, Nick and Nat couldn't have picked anyone better from Stratford than Chef Aaron. He grew up here, graduated from the Stratford Chefs School in the same class as his wife/business partner/pastry chef Bronwyn, and together they created Bijou, which is quite simply the best restaurant in town. Aaron and Bronwyn's success is based on their ability to also adapt their menu to whatever ingredients are available seasonally using a combination of all sorts of culinary techniques and traditions. Bijou's ever-changing chalkboard menu is testament to Chef Aaron's versatility and creativity - two signs of a true Iron Chef.

I really wanted to try Nick's own cooking so I went down a little early with my friends Kimberley Payne, who is the Executive Director of the Stratford Chefs School, and Bob Friesen, the Chefs School's Recruitment and Admissions Officer. There was a lot of buzz that it was going to be Battle Wild Leeks (they've just come into season around here); every course on the Uptown 21's Prix Fixe menu (except dessert) had the option of a dish featuring wild leeks, so Bob and I decided to see how Chef Nick handled what we thought might be the secret ingredient.

Our first course was a Gratin of Wild Leeks, Berkshire Prosciutto, Dried Red Prince Apples, Ermite Blue Cheese and Bread Crumbs (above). The salty Prosciutto balanced the strong garlicky flavour of the wild leeks, and the strong blue cheese and tart/sweet apples also contributed some robust flavours to this definitely-not-shy dish.

The season's first fresh wild product was combined with a local ingredient that keeps great all winter in the second course: Wild Leek & Sunchoke Soup with Wild Leek Brown Butter (above).

I really like Nick's somewhat brash yet balanced cooking style - the Mushroom & Wild Leek Risotto with Parmesan Cheese and Lemon Truffle-Dressed Frisse (above) took no prisoners with its intense and indulgent combination of tart, cheesy, savoury, fresh, and spicy flavours. If he were competing, and it was Battle Wild Leeks, he would be a tough Chef to beat.

But Nick and Nat (above) didn't pick Wild Leeks to be their secret ingredient on Wednesday night. Chef Aaron and his competitors from Verses Restaurant in Kitchener were instead presented with the challenge of creating up to four dishes using (drum-roll please....)

All sorts of absolutely gorgeous cuts of grass-fed organic beef from Baer's Organic Beef farm in nearby Baden!

What a blast the competition was! A crowd of food lovers gathered around the somewhat intimate open kitchen, cheering on the chefs as they and their respective sous chefs raced against the clock to create the best possible dishes they could using Baer's ultra-lean cuts of beef. Judges included the Baers themselves along with Kristina Roman from Rosewood's Estates Winery in Niagara and Waterloo's king-of-all-food-media (and friend of the blog) Andrew Coppolino. A local high school media arts class was filming the whole thing and streaming it onto large screen TVs for the whole restaurant to see. And proceeds from the night supported the local food bank! This was my definition of a damn good time, and I had a front row seat for the whole thing!

Chef Aaron prevailed! I tasted a lot of what he cooked and I have to say he really rose to the occasion and brought the flavour of the beef out in four very different ways that all worked for their own reasons.

I do have to give props to the chef from Verses for pulling off the unlikely feat of a dessert featuring beef - her bone marrow beignets with ice cream were devilishly rich and I'm sure got top marks for originality from the judges. I think my friend Kimberley was particularly proud: all of the chefs and sous chefs competing in the kitchen that night were graduates of the Stratford Chefs School.

But the night belonged to Chef Aaron Linley - he really killed it. The best part is that every night is a kind of Iron Chef challenge at Bijou, as Aaron and Bronwyn bring out the best of all the special ingredients that come their way over the season. They've just renovated their kitchen, and I'll bet Aaron's added another culinary tradition to his impressive repertoire after their family's recent trip to Peru this winter. I couldn't recommend a better place to eat than Bijou or a better talent to represent Stratford's restaurant community than Chef Aaron Linley. And if you ever have a chance to go to one of Nick and Nat's Iron Chef nights - don't miss it!

A Revolutionary Tasting: Coffee and Dessert Pairings at Revel Caffè

2011-04-24T18:33:00.000-07:00

The Savour Stratford Tastings series for 2011 has carried Stratford food lovers through this long winter by connecting people who appreciate good food with the folks who produce it on a weekly basis. The More With Maple tasting allowed attendees to learn about maple syrup from the Hoovers, who had just finished tapping their trees days before. The Wine and Winter Dressings tasting saw us enjoying food cooked before our eyes by a chef using dressings he and his family created and bottled.

But I have to say, the tasting session I attended last week at Revel Caffè was above-and-beyond the culinary experience call-of-duty.

We Canadians love coffee. But there is obviously no way we can grow it locally. Now I like my local product as much as the next guy (ok, maybe a little more) but for me coffee is definitely one of those exceptions to the "buy local" rule.

But last Saturday I came to appreciate that there is at least one company roasting coffee in our region that reflects the same values that underlie the local food revolution: appreciation for family businesses where small scale producers grow an exceptional product with love and in cooperation with the environment. That company is Las Chicas Del Café.

Maria and Valeria are two sisters who roast coffee in London, Ontario. The special thing about their operation is that the beans they roast are grown by their father, Don Rey, on the family farm where they grew up in Nicaragua. Sometimes, after the years' harvest of beans has been picked and dried, Don Rey delivers them to Canada in person. This time, he and his daughters came to Stratford on the invitation of café owner Anne Campion, who wanted to connect her coffee loving patrons with the family responsible for growing and roasting the coffees we all enjoy every morning. The event was stimulating not just in in ts caffeination, but also in its education, as we all learned about the entire process that begins with farming coffee in Nicaragua and culminates with our steaming latte.

It doesn't get much better than learning about the coffee you are tasting from the people who grew it, roasted it, and served it, right?

Well, things were taken up yet another level as each coffee served was paired with a dessert created by students of the Stratford Chefs School to highlight the bean's unique flavour notes. The photo above is of (l to r) student chef Cortney Zettler, roaster Maria, student chef Amanda-Lee Chesley, and owner of Revel Caffè Anne Campion.

Anne and Cortney (above) started Saturday night off with a Whiskey Martini made with Revel Revolution beans paired with a Dark Chocolate Whiskey Truffle. The toasted crunchiness of the martini's full cappuccino bean mingled with the boozy, bitter-yet-sweet confection in a way that really brought out the coffee's bold strength.

The next dessert also matched a very strong shot of French Press Maracatu with a sweet companion. But this time, the strong flavours were balanced by a nutty saltiness in the form of Candied Walnuts and Pecans. I could've eaten a whole bucket full of this stuff, although I have to say I really appreciated the cleverness of the nuts being served up in coffee filters.

I don't ever recall having polenta as dessert, but the Lemon and Almond Polenta Cake paired with the citrusy Americano Blend opened my eyes to the versatility of this creamy Italian version of cornmeal. This was my favourite dessert of the evening, and I could see that farmer Don Rey also approved of the combination of the tart lemon curd with his deep, bright coffee as I watched him enjoy his from across the packed café.

The fourth pairing was a Milk Chocolate Mousse on Shortbread with a Coconut Twille, which was paired with the Revel Blend (above). Finally, a Creme Brulee was served alongside a shot of Revel Revolution espresso, which really highlighted the caramel flavour of that particular coffee blend.

I went home wired to the gills on caffeine and mentally stimulated by all the great stories of coffee growing, roasting and brewing that were shared that evening. I've been to a few "Meet the producers" events over the past few years, but I have definitely never experienced anything on an international scale like this. My congrats go out to Revel Caffè, Las Chicas Del Café, and the Stratford Chefs School for putting this unforgettable event together so successfully.

I Just Want to Celebrate: Lisa's B-day at The Sun Room & The Local-Come-Lately Turns 1!!!

2011-04-14T21:00:00.000-07:00

This week, I had a lot to celebrate. My incredible wife Lisa had an unforgettable 35th birthday bash at The Sun Room Restaurant, and...

The Local-Come-Lately turned 1!!!

I'll get to the Local-Come-Lately blog-iversary in a minute.

First I have to tell all about the great Dinner-Come-Disco birthday shaker we had at our good friends' Carly and Ryan's wonderful restaurant on Saturday night.

Lisa is an extremely lovable person. Of course, I am somewhat biased in that observation... but I'm clearly not alone in my affection: forty of our best friends from Stratford and beyond came for dinner on Saturday night.

Amanda and Paul Finkelstein (Paul above, digging into a Caesar Salad appetizer) were in the house.

Lisa and I had the roasted Duck Breast with Cranberry Compote and Blue Potatoes (above). Such a treat: Lisa had personally requested this festive dish for the custom birthday menu they'd put together especially for her (good news: it's available all the time!).

Others had the prime rib (my sister's above, perfectly cooked to medium rare).

A beautiful Asian-style noodle dish was also on the menu (above).

But nothing was more beautiful than Lisa that night (above). Her best friend Matty Ian (who also deserves a big "Happy First Anniversary" for his own just-turned-one-year-old blog about the Stratford social scene!) made her a colourful - and really delicious! - cake we all shared for dessert!

Once the fabulous meal was over we set up the DJ decks and the night promptly evolved into a booty-shakin' dance party (sorry no pics, too busy having fun)!

Only two days later, it was time to celebrate another milestone: the first anniversary of the Local-Come-Lately's very first post!

The first blog ever was on April 12, 2010. I wrote about the exchange between Paul Finkelstein's Stratford Northwestern High School culinary arts class and another group of foods students from British Columbia.

Little did I know back then that I would go on work with Fink and his students to put nine gardens in elementary schools across Stratford, and that I'd eventually travel all the way to Nunavut with him and his class on what had to be the most epic Canadian food blogger adventure of the past year [sorry The Chew I love you but you've got a long way to come].

So here are some highlights and stats from the Local-Come-Lately's year in review:

Nearly 10,000 visits!

Over 15,000 pageviews!

Visitors from 98 countries around the world!

812 followers of my Tweet cult!

56 followers on Blogger!

My Top Five most visited posts:

1) Cambridge Bay, Nunavut: Local Food Adventures Above the Arctic Circle [I linked it once above, and doggone-it I'll link it again!]

2) Getting My Hands Dirty at Soiled Reputation

3) The Stratford Guerrilla Gardeners Strike Again! [OK, I admit it - it was me and a few friends!]

4) Choc-in' Up Brownie Points on the Stratford Chocolate Trail [I love the pic of Lisa smooching me at the end!]

5) Arctic Charlie [about an Arctic-sourced 'anti-restaurant' dining experience I helped pull off with Fink and some other lovers of Northern cuisine, which is to be replicated next month at the James Beard House in New York City!]

Since I started my blog a mere 365+ days ago, I've had the best year of my life as a writer and a lover of all-things-food.

I'm not sure if my blog is good because I've had amazing food adventures, or if I've had amazing food adventures to make sure my blog is good.

Either way, I know that moving to Stratford a little over a year ago was the best decision I ever made (next to marrying Lisa) and that this is only the very beginning of the story of The Local-Come-Lately's Stratford culinary adventures!

Screaming Our Support: Japan Relief Dinner at the Screaming Avocado Café

2011-04-07T19:27:00.000-07:00

On March 11, 2011, one of the strongest earthquakes to hit anywhere in most of our lifetimes struck Japan.

The seismic shock caused a tsunami that pulverized the coastal regions of the northern island of Honshu.

The tsunami took out the cooling systems at the island's nuclear power plant, which promptly started to emit radiation.

The epic disaster's triple-ripple effect also triggered responses in communities many, many kilometers away from the quake's epicenter. In Stratford, many of the best chefs working in the local restaurant industry collaborated with Paul Finkelstein's Northwestern High School Culinary Arts class to create an Asian inspired meal in support of those who were victimized in Japan. 82 generous food lovers enjoyed this Stratford-culinary-all-star charity dinner at the high school's "Alternative Cafeteria", and and over $3,000 was raised!

Stratford Northwestern is a very progressive school. Besides Fink's culinary-arts-class-slash-cafeteria, a massive solar array has just been built in one of the school's courtyards, and next week Dr. David Suzuki is coming to speak to young people about environmental activism.

Since December, I've been working with Paul's homeroom students to grow greens and herbs in the school's heated greenhouse.

It's been a bit of a process of trial and error, but it's been a great learning experience for all involved, and the kids finally harvested their first few pounds of mesclun (mixed greens) just in time for the event!

In a month or two we should be harvesting tomatoes from the hanging buckets we recently suspended with the help of local organic farmer Dave Koert (above at right), who's been getting things ready for the organic garden in the other courtyard this summer.

Shawn Hartwell from Simple Fish and Chips (above, with student) used the greens we harvested at the centre of his citrus cured salmon rolls, which were served alongside cold soba noodles with mango.

A wonderful dish (with ingredients cultivated mere steps away)!

Karen Hartwick of Tea Leaves Tasting Bar (above) kept our glasses full of beautiful and authentic green tea from Japan.

Pazzo's Chef (and Slow Food sister) Yva Santini (above) was ladeling up a ramen noodle dish with a poached egg, all served in a delicate golden broth.

Mmmm. I loved when the egg yolk broke open and combined with the broth.

Chef Ian Middleton from Down the Street Restaurant taught Paul's student Cam how to season and grill strips of beef for the evening's entrée.

The beef skewers with spicy potatoes were also accompanied by some ultra-local winter product - baby pak choi grown in the school's hydroponics lab by the horticulture class!

Chef Bryan Steele of The Old Prune (above) cooperated with the Stratford Chefs School to bring us all an absolutely stellar dessert.

The fromage blanc with elderberry sauce and poached pears was a fantastic treat.

Supporting a good cause has never tasted so good. Some of the best chefs in Stratford - as well as servers and front of house from local restaurants and the Stratford Tourism Alliance - all donated their time and came together to provide an unbelievable dining experience and raise lots of money to help the folks in Japan.

I'll be back next week to help out when principal Deborah McNair and Paul (above) host Dr. Suzuki. I hope he comes to see the greenhouse!!

Maple Syrup: It's not just for pancakes anymore...

2011-04-04T17:16:00.000-07:00

Spring is here.

Or at least it's supposed to be here.

It was here for a while, and I can prove it! For a whole week around mid-March the maple sap was flowing in Perth County - the surest sign of spring there is - and I got a bottle of genuine 2011 'liquid gold' to prove it!

The biggest local food discovery I made over the winter was when I met Terry and Diane Hoover (above) of Hoover's Maple Syrup in Atwood (just south of Listowel). Every spring, these folks tap 1500 maple trees and run the sap up from their bush to their sugar shack using a vacuum pump (that can even trick the trees into producing by simulating ideal barometric conditions for sap to start running!). They are the only fully "Certified Organic" syrup producer I have ever come across, a distinction that is well earned due to their complete avoidance of chemical cleaners or any other chemical products in their production process.

When I visited the Hoover's operation last Saturday it was, alas, dormant. It was just a little too cold that day for the sap to be running. I was told that I should have been there earlier that week - a celebrity chef from the Food Network Canada (who shall remain unnamed but who also shot a show at Perth Pork Products last year) had shown up right when the sap started running. Only days before, she'd filmed a whole episode of her "field to fork" series at the Hoover's farm!

I was satisfied to hang out and have a chat with Terry about his recent TV adventures, and to pick up a fresh bottle of Medium maple syrup (and some maple candy for the kids), especially because I knew I'd be experiencing more maple later that day...

The More With Maple tasting session took place at Let Them Eat Cake's new location on Albert Street. There was a good crowd in attendance, including a large contingent of Toronto's most avid food bloggers (who I have dubbed "The Bloggerati"). The theme of the day was learning to use maple syrup as more than just a condiment for pancakes.

Terry and Diane introduced the event with a talk about all things maple. Everyone was treated to samples of Light and Amber maple syrup, and the consensus in the room was that the Amber was the finest (although I kind of liked the Light, which suggests that my original choice of Medium earlier that day was probably a good call).

Then it was time for the cooking demonstration. Chef Wendy from Let Them Eat Cake (a diminutive woman who wears a chef's coat with the badge "Kitchen Czar" sown onto it) presented a soup, a main course and a dessert that all used maple syrup to provide the dish with a sweet component.

The first creation Wendy demonstrated for us was a pureed soup made from maple-baked beets. This was remarkably easy and tasted fantastic... the sweet beets and the sweet syrup were countered by a dollop of rich sour cream, but the maple flavour still really shone through.

But it was the next demonstration that stole the show for me and the other bloggers. Before our eyes, Chef Wendy proceeded to put together a homemade smoker using a couple of aluminum foil roasting pans and wood shavings, then smoked a cured fillet of trout to perfection right there on the table top stove element!

When we all got to taste the smoked fish, the trout was wonderfully delicate and the maple glaze was a natural match for the maple smoke. Chef Wendy's technique is something I am definitely going to try, hopefully with a couple of trout I catch myself next month!

The final dish was a pear tarte created on the spot by the expert hand of Wendy. I reckon you don't get to be the chef at a place called "Let Them Eat Cake" without some serious skills in the pastry department... Wendy proved her mastery with this incredible dessert using maple pastry cream and topped with a pastry swan (just in time for the Swan Weekend!).

Slow Food Perth County is having our second annual Foraging Event at the Hoover's farm on May 14, 2011, from 10 am to 2 pm. Check out the website closer to the date for event details and come out for some fun picking fiddleheads and/or morels and/or wild leeks under the guidance of master forager Peter Blush. After we're going to have a picnic at the farm using foraged product... and I have the feeling some maple syrup will be involved!

Save Our Oceans - EAT OYSTERS! The Simple Fish and Chips Sustainable Seafood Dinner Club

2011-04-03T15:15:00.000-07:00

For the past two weeks I've been fortunate to attend the first two installments of the Simple Fish and Chips Sustainable Dinner Club series. Stratford is so lucky to be the home of the only fish and chip shop in Ontario that guarantees all of its product comes from sustainable Canadian fisheries. Our luck just got even better as this favourite spot for take-out and casual family dining has been transformed into a weekly venue showcasing sustainable fish and seafood created with an elevated (but still, of course, simple) culinary style.

Shawn Hartwell of Simple Fish and Chips has been hooking our town up all winter with incredible frozen fish and seafood from his stall at the Slow Food Sunday market at Anything Grows. This month, with his four part dinner club series, he stepped his mission to connect the people of Stratford with sustainably harvested maritime product up another notch.

I'm a huge fan of fish and seafood. You may remember my exploits as the first person to attempt to eat the Mammoth Lobster Sandwich in honour of the first anniversary of Simple Fish and Chips back in December. For the past two weeks, my dining experience at Simple has been slightly more refined, as Shawn and a couple of friends have presented the dinner club guests with a spread of gorgeous fish and seafood creations.

The first night saw Shawn joined in the kitchen with a fellow activist/entrepreneur striving to change people's consumer habits by providing them with the best quality fish imaginable. Dan Donovan is the owner and fishmonger at the new store Hooked Inc., which recently opened in Toronto's hip Leslieville area. While he and Shawn were putting together dozens of citrus cured salmon rolls (above) in preparation for everyone's arrival, Dan told me how he and Shawn connected with one another, "The currents of sustainable seafood brought us together." [Knowing Shawn well, I think that means they follow each other on Twitter...]

Dan spoke quite eloquently about the growing movement in consumer demand for fish harvested in ways that do not harm the oceans. My favourite part was when he told us all that eating farmed oysters actually helps clean the oceans, since they are natural filters.

That evening, we all did our part to save the aquatic ecosystem by slurping back a couple of fresh, raw Canadian oysters on the half shell (below).

Things got spicy with one of Shawn's signature ingredients: I never tried spot prawns before I had them Jerk-style at Simple last year, and my appreciation for this delicacy was amplified even more after trying them in a zingy tomato sauce at the first sustainable seafood dinner (below).

For the main, we were treated to a creamy green curry with giant chunks of Pacific Black Cod served over a bed of aromatic rice (below).

One week later, and Shawn was right back at it with a whole new dining-room-full of folks eager to taste and learn about sustainable seafood. Everything Shawn and Candace serve at Simple Fish and Chips is Oceanwise approved; Oceanwise is an information program developed by the Vancouver Aquarium to help consumers at restaurants and stores choose fish and seafood options that are ocean-friendly. The speaker on the second Monday dinner was none other than the Oceanwise representative for Eastern Canada, Theodora (Teddy) Geach, who informed us of the possible collapse of the global fisheries by 2048 if consumer habits don't change:

Teddy was right - the best way to convince people to eat sustainable fish and seafood is to let them taste the difference for themselves - we all had a few of this week's selection of Canadian oysters followed by some spicy mussels (below).

For the main Shawn served up some sablefish cooked in a sumptuous oyster mushroom sauce over rice, with some more of those special spot prawns on the side.

For both dinners, the dessert that was served featured some little sweet and savoury creations by Lindsay's Bakery (who you can also catch at the Slow Food market every Sunday), accompanied by some blueberry teas with liqueurs (featuring tea from Stratford's Tea Leaves Tasting Bar).

If you're kicking yourself that you missed these two amazing dining events, don't worry - there are two more! On Monday, April 4th and Monday, April 11th, Shawn and Candace will continue with their wonderful series. There are still seats available, but I would book ASAP since the first two nights were completely sold out and I imagine these will be too.

Dressed to Impress at Turnbull & Stewart

2011-03-24T19:45:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday afternoon I experienced the latest Savour Stratford tasting session: Wine and Winter Dressings.

The venue was the brand new demonstration kitchen at Turnbull & Stewart (located at 439 Erie Street in Stratford). Some readers may recall the last fateful blog mission I undertook at this paradise for kitchen supply - I met a food-loving cousin I never even knew I had when I attended Angelo Tramonti's olive oil information session. Ever since I have religiously returned to T&S to reload on his Sarafino Foods' extra virgin L'Ottobratico, produced by the olive oil company that's run by our shared relatives in San Giorgio, Italy.

This time, I was attending a tasting session being led by another entrepreneur specializing in oils. But this stuff wasn't bottled in Italy - it was bottled in Listowel!

Chef Mark Filman of Feige's Fine Dining in Listowel always knew his family's homemade salad dressings were world class. They probably heard it a million times at the restaurant:

"This stuff's so good, you should bottle it and sell it in stores!"

So, they did.

Chef Mark came to break-in Turnbull & Stewart's brand new demonstration kitchen (featuring a state-of-the-art Thermidor induction cook-top) by expertly cooking a series of three meat dishes using his Feige's Gourmet Salad Dressings (above) as marinades.

While we were tasting Chef Mark's well-dressed creations everyone also got to sip samples of four different types of VQA wine from 13th Street Winery in the Niagara region of Ontario (above). Two of the bottles - the 'Noirs' and the 'Gamay' - were so good I think I may just have discovered my new favourite local source for gorgeous red wine.

Chef Filman used the induction burner and magnetically-charged pans to sear all of the meats at a high heat, then sent them all into the oven for varying lengths of time.

They all came out perfectly, and the flavour combinations that emerged from his pairings of meat and Feige's dressings were creative and unique, but also very right. Pork loin was marinaded in Feige's Raspberry Dressing, and the fruity complement to the perfectly cooked pork was reminiscent (but better) than pork chops and apple sauce. Chef cooked and served up some tender, moist chicken breasts marinaded in his Honey Mustard & Poppy Seed Dressing. And the medium rare rack of lamb? Marinaded in the simple but superb Oil & Vinegar Dressing.

We even got to try a Caesar salad prepared using Feige's German Caesar Dressing. When I asked Chef Mark what made this sweet, creamy dressing "German", he immediately admitted, "My wife!"

Last time I came to Turnbull & Stewart's I met my cousin. This time I met a talented local photographer who enjoys taking pictures of food and people as much as I enjoy writing about them. Sean from Lucid Musings Photo is a really talented person who is even better at shooting family and personal portraits than he is taking pics of food (check out his Facebook page to see even more of his stuff). Which you know is saying a lot after you check out the photo-montage he put together from the shots he took at Turnbull & Stewart during that delicious afternoon of wines and winter dressings:

St. Paddy's at Molly Bloom's: The Secret Ingredient Is... Green!

2011-03-20T16:20:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday was my first ever St. Patrick's Day in Stratford. I am the kind of person who would be inclined to take St. Paddy's Day more seriously as a holiday than, say, Christmas and Easter combined. I spent St. Patrick's Day in Dublin in 1997, so I have a strong idea of what constitutes a 'Good Craic' when March 17th rolls around. All I gotta say is - Stratford sure looks good in green!

I've been known to take the whole afternoon off to raise a few (dozen) pints of Guiness in commemoration of Ireland's snake-hating patron saint. That wasn't an option this year, and I paid the price for my professionalism: when Lisa and I got to Molly Bloom's Irish Pub around 6pm, it was so packed that folks were lining up to get in!

The wait was worth it though - when we got inside the place was full of great party music, people in the mood to have fun, and pitchers of bright green beer!

Molly's is owned and operated by Rob and Candace Wigan (above), and they were in fine form that night (St. Paddy's is the equivalent of the Superbowl for Irish pubs!). We hung out with them and some other friends and necked a few pints of stout while we waited for a table to become available on this packed night.

LEPRECHAUN!

A great food-loving friend of mine from County Clare, Ireland, once shared with me some words of wisdom his aunt had bestowed upon him:

"Hunger is the best sauce."

We were hungry after the line-up and the quaffing session we'd performed while waiting for our table: the special Irish menu the kitchen at Molly's was serving up that night tasted about as good as food can taste!

I started off with one of my favourite things to eat, a steaming bowl of leek & potato soup. Simple and satisfying, in the true spirit of Irish pub food.

The lads in the kitchen got creative with the next dish - Irish Nachos. What makes Irish Nachos 'Irish', you ask? Instead of tortilla chips, the salsa, cheese, olives, and peppers were loaded over a pile of deep fried crosshatch-cut potatoes. As a sucker for any dish that includes fried potatoes, this was a real winner for me.

Someone at the table ordered a golden plateful of Guiness Battered Fish and Chips.

Another friend ordered Chicken in an Irish Whiskey Sauce. Sláinte!

But Irish eyes were truly smiling on the special Shepherd's Pie we were served. A perfectly seasoned mix of gorgeous lamb and ground beef baked under a layer of fluffy mash - this was pub food fit for James Joyce himself!

We were tempted to order dessert, but opted instead to get back into the spirit of Ireland (literally) with a few shots known as "Irish Car Bombs" (a jigger of Bailey's Irish Cream sitting in a glass of Guiness, downed all at once like a Boilermaker).


ANOTHER LEPRECHAUN!

My first St. Paddy's in Stratford was my favourite combination - a great party and a great meal!

Raising the Barr: From Cocoa Beans to Chocolate Barrs

2011-03-13T14:01:00.000-07:00

If you're like me, you might have just assumed that chocolate came from... um... hmmm?

Let me rephrase that: If you're like me, you might have wondered, Where the heck exactly does chocolate come from?!?

Last week I visited the only chocolate maker in Stratford.

Now, I already hear readers crying out: "But there's more than one chocolate maker in Stratford!!" To be clear: I'm not talking about 'operations that make candies using chocolate' here, of which yes there are more than a few in town (hence the success of the Stratford Chocolate Trail launched this past year).

No, for this blog post I met with an artisan who actually takes the raw ingredients used to make chocolate and creates this "Food of the Gods" from scratch.

Derek Barr of Chocolate Barr's in Stratford is a do-it-yourself kind of guy. In my post about the Chocolate Trail from last summer, I described him as, "a chef who prefers to work with confection as his medium." The combination of self-reliance and creativity is, in my opinion, the ideal skill set for culinary excellence. Derek Barr doesn't seem to care much for recipes combining pre-processed ingredients; he creates the ingredients himself and then sees where they take him. I distinctly remember being extremely impressed when I learned he'd created a whole line of ice wine jellies by reducing bottles of precious Ontario ice wine himself. And at the recent Perth County Food Summit reception, Derek's was serving up an all-local '60 Mile Toffee' he'd made from scratch using Robinson maple syrup/butter, C'est Bon goat's chevre/milk, and wild boar bacon from Perth Pork Products!

Last week, Derek Barr generously allowed me to shadow him as he created chocolate by first roasting, husking, and juicing the beans of the tropical cocoa plant. He's sourced out cocoa beans from Costa Rica, Venezuela and Madagascar, which he processes by hand as a true labour of love.

The bitter cocoa liquor Derek is extracting throughout the video is then added to raw sugar cane and powdered milk to create what we know as milk chocolate. Or it can be smoothed out by the introduction of some sugar and cocoa butter and transformed into, for example, dark chocolate with 80% cocoa ingredients.

Which is exactly what Mr. Barr has done with his most recent shipment of cocoa beans from Costa Rica. The latest Bean to Bar product is called Itzamna, appropriately named after the Mayan god of creation.

I found the flavour of this authentic chocolate bar intriguing. Having been brought up on milk chocolate candy bars, I think my mouth has been trained to anticipate sweet creaminess when it comes across this particular treat. But the from-scratch bar was very different - it was somewhat bitter and crisply crunchy. That's what real chocolate is supposed to taste like!

St. Patrick's Day is around the corner, and Chocolate Barr's also has a whole line of really fun Irish themed chocolates and candies like Guiness Truffles (above) and Irish Potatoes (below).

Thanks goes out to Derek Barr for sharing his method for creating chocolate from Bean to Bar with me. His painstaking efforts to keep it real are above-and-beyond the call of duty, and the products of his labour are absolutely heavenly.

First Things First: Chef Sursur Lee at Conestoga College Culinary Arts Fundraiser

2011-03-06T15:34:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my experience at the Perth County Regional Food Summit. One of the workshops I attended was a panel discussion called "Culinary Tales: Making the Most of Media Attention". On my post, I celebrated one of the panelists, Andrew Coppolino, as our local "King-of-All-Food-Media" due to his gigs as a radio personality hosting The Food Show on 570News, as the publisher of his own foodie site Waterloo Region Eats, and as the host of a regular TV spot called Foodstuffs on the local Rogers cable program Grand River Living.

Andrew is a huge fan and supporter of the Stratford food scene. He's also a great friend of the blog, which was confirmed when he 'Direct Messaged' me on Twitter last week and asked me if I wanted to come to a very special fundraising event being held in support of the Conestoga College Hospitality and Culinary Arts programs. I've encountered Andrew many times as he's covered the Stratford beat, and now he was hooking me up with the opportunity to come and share in a food blog adventure on his home turf in Waterloo, which is a little more than a half hour drive from where I live.

But this wasn't just any invitation. The person leading the students in the kitchen for this event was none other than the Toronto/New York/Washington DC/Singapore restaurant icon and legendary Top Chef Master himself: Susur Lee!

[But I have more to thank Andrew Coppolino for than just connecting me with event organizer Matthew Worden, the Sommelier and Maitre D' of Bloom (the culinary program's restaurant at Conestoga College). I came to this incredible dinner to cover Susur's visually-spectacular food for the blog, only to find upon arrival I had exactly zero juice in my camera's battery! This potential disaster was narrowly averted by the generous Mr. Coppolino, who took all of the dazzling photos I've included on this post.]

There might be only one blogger who I encounter on the Stratford culinary scene as often as Andrew, and that's Suresh Doss of Spotlight Toronto. Suresh also presented a workshop I attended at the Perth County Regional Food Summit this past month, where he discussed what the next steps were in the evolution of social media. I was really glad to learn Suresh would be joining Andrew and me at the event's media table - the man knows wine and food like nobody's business, and this was the first meal we've been able to share together.

The event was held in a uniquely improvised space, as Conestoga College's tradespeople-in-training (including gas fitters, plumbers, and electricians) were called upon to create a kind of kitchen stadium, replete with high definition video screens broadcasting real-time images being streamed by a team of roving camera people (clearly Conestoga also has a great media arts program!). As we mingled and enjoyed some appetizers (like duck spring rolls, above) I met the manager of Langdon Hall in nearby Cambridge and told her how much I'd enjoyed the Terroir dinner at Lassdale Farm I'd attended only a few days before, which had been prepared by the Langdon Hall kitchen team. I spotted Nick and Nat of Nick and Nat's Uptown 21 (which from what I gather is gaining a reputation as Waterloo's best place to enjoy a truly great locally-sourced meal) and made a deal with Suresh and Andrew that we'd all go to one of their upcoming Iron Chef events this spring.

Then it was time for dinner. I quickly learned that Susur does not take the phrase "time for dinner" lightly - it is his trademark to begin with a generous entree first, and he definitely came out swinging!

Chef Susur took to the microphone to introduce the first dish and explain his philosophy of starting dinner with the biggest course and then working back through smaller courses, "At my restaurants, I serve the most succulent courses first. That way, people don't want to eat so much bread." I have to say, bread was the last thing on my mind once I sat down and found a gorgeous rack of lamb (pic above) immediately placed before me by one of the hospitality students serving the meal. The flavours went from East to West, with Thai-seasoned lamb mingling with Middle Eastern chickpea puree and cumin tomato sauce, with a scattering of European sweet potato gnocchi. All I can say is that this dish definitely lived up to Susur's reputation: he puts the "world" in world class.

The next course was less substantial in size but even more complex in flavour. The Spicy Lobster Tart with Bonito (above, in mid-composition) was a puff pastry filled with zingy tomatillos and poached lobster, and finished with a heaping pile of incredibly fragrant bonito flakes. This dish hit my nose first and called upon me to dig deep for the spicy tomatillo and lobster chunks, then at its base everything was brought together by an unexpected-but-crucial piece of crispy pancetta. Described by Susur as a "Surf and Turf Tart", I was again impressed by the dexterity of his cuisine and deft skills of the students who put it all together.

The next course flowed from the previous like an ocean current, as we were presented with a Seared White Tuna With Lemon Grass and Yuzu Japanese Salmon Pearls. For this dish, Susur's unique style combined Nouvelle French with Japanese techniques, and the results were a welcome cool-down from the strong spices of the last two dishes. So was the fantastic wine pairing selected by front-of-house talent Matthew Worden: VQA afficionado Suresh pointed out the fruitiness of the Trius Sauvignon Blanc accompanying this course, which he accurately compared to a "Lychee bomb."

And now for something completely unexpected...

I've been blogging for almost a year now, and this story marks my 70th post to date. I'm not a sweet tooth, and I'm pretty sure I could go over all of my previous posts and not find a single one where I proclaimed a dessert to be the best part of my meal. Not in a million years would I have anticipated dessert to be the highlight of my first ever Sursur Lee dining experience.

But I was absolutely blown away by the final course of the night: a jiggly Vanilla Panna Cotta with Pineapple and Raspberry Ravioli with Spiced Passion Fruit Sauce (above). The chewy pineapple with the tart raspberry filling was sensuously enveloped by the creamy panna cotta, and the whole works were set off by the spicy-sweet sauce. Honestly, did that just happen?

The main came first, and the best was saved for last. I learned that Susur is the master of the unexpected as well as a genius when it comes to a meal's flow and visual affect. I also came to appreciate his commitment to mentoring the chefs of the future - taking part in the execution of this meal will undoubtedly be a highlight that will always be remembered by the Conestoga College Culinary Arts students of 2011. I know it's definitely been a highlight of my year, and I want to thank Andrew Coppolino and Matthew Worden again for asking me to come and report on this highly successful fundraising event.

While we're on the subject of fundraising for worthwhile culinary education causes...

Anyone remember this blog post from December, 2010, where I told my story about helping out with the Arctic meal Paul Finkelstein presented at the Toronto "Anti-Restaurant" Charlie's Burger (the dinner was inspired by the trip I took with Fink and his high school culinary arts class to Cambridge Bay, Nunavut)? At the end, I hinted that Paul had another venue up his sleeve:

"Next Arctic Culinary Diplomatic Incident stop: James Beard House in New York City!?!"

Well, James Beard House has in fact invited Chef Fink, Chef Louis, and some of his students to come to New York City this spring to replicate the meal for US foodies at this mecca of American culinary arts (Susur has cooked there several times). To raise funds to send the students and chefs to fulfill this incredible honour (it's like a rock band being invited to play Madison Square Garden), a draw is being organized with prizes that include a trip to NYC to attend the meal, a dream culinary weekend in Stratford (including a tour guided by yours truly), and a package of dinners at some of Toronto's best restaurants (including The Beast and Centro). For tickets and information keep an eye on the Screaming Avocado website this week!

A Truly Holistic Experience: Terroir V Dinner at Lassdale Farm

2011-03-01T21:35:00.000-08:00

For the past five years, Arlene Stein (formerly of Hart House in Toronto, presently with the Evergreen Brickworks) has held an annual symposium called Terroir, where hospitality professionals (everyone from chefs and restauranteurs all the way to farmers and authors) meet to share ideas and attend workshops to learn about best practices from some of the industry luminaries.

In past years, Arlene has held a special dinner after the event to thank the keynote speakers for travelling to Toronto to take part in her annual food biz convention. This year, she decided to have the dinner before the event. I think she may have made some arrangements at the Savour Stratford Perth County Food Summit a few weeks ago, since she chose my friends Mark and Chris Lass' Lassdale Farms/Wild Violet Pottery as the venue for an incredible dining experience.

Among the guests for this remarkable evening of Canadian dining were Fergus Henderson, a British chef who is well known as a leader in the popular Snout-to-Tail carnivore movement; Trevor Gulliver, Chef Henderson's business partner at the St. John restaurant in the UK; Mitchell Davis of the James Beard Foundation; David Kinch, award winning chef at the California field-to-table gem Manresa; and Mark Schatzker, author of Steak: The Book. Mark sourced out some Nunavut seal meat for the event that he offered to share with Fergus, Mitchell, and Trevor (left to right above).

Now I'm no industry pro, but I do know that the best dining experiences are those that stimulate the body, mind and spirit. The pottery barn where Chris Lass works - nestled in a vast snowy field - provided a gorgeous rustic environment. Her stunning, often iridescent clay creations - within which all of the food and drinks were served - added an earthy authenticity appropriate to the whole Terroir concept. Mark and Chris explained how the special kiln they built at the farm produces Chris' dazzling pottery (which even includes pieces made of clay dug up on the farm itself!).

Chef Kinch and Mitchell Davis were immediate fans of this talented local artisan!

Local farmer Antony John (aka Soiled Reputation Farm's The Manic Organic) was crooning the classics back in the barn, and we all tried some of the raw seal, as well as some local elk jerky, some skewered beef tips made with veal from the very farm upon which we were standing, and smoky duck prosciutto beside some oysters with seal merguez sausage (above).

All of the food for the evening was prepared by the kitchen team from Langdon Hall in Cambridge, who cooked in the great outdoors alongside a heaping handful of student chefs from the Stratford Chefs School (who need to be congratulated both for finishing their grueling first year a few days previous and for sticking around to prepare such a stellar meal for these serious VIPs).

I was able to take some video of the evening that included a clip of the adventurous Mark Schatzker offering to be the first to try the seal (I think "North of the Border" may have been a better song for that one Antony); as well as intros to the meal by Stratford Tourism's Danielle Brodhagen and winemarker Norman Hardie of Prince Edward County.

The meal included Arctic Char, Muskox and Caribou served family style in Chris' ceramic creations. Soiled Reputation vegetables provided a local complement to the northern delicacies to which our American and British guests of honour were treated, many for the first time.

The pottery studio loft was alive with conversation and buzzing with personality.

I found Chef David Kinch to be a real class act, which he demonstrated when he took the time to talk to the chefs-in-training who prepared our meal while we all enjoyed a spectacular platter of local goat and sheep's milk cheese from Monforte Dairy. Chef offered the dudes in the kitchen some of his invaluable culinary insights (above). Word has it he'll be in town for a week next year teaching at the Stratford Chefs School (I'm not going to miss those dinners).

I was disappointed that I wasn't able to attend the full Terroir V event at Hart House in Toronto on March 1, but I think I got the next best thing by being invited to share in this sensational winter dining experience!