November 23rd 2008 - Posted in events and festivals, Food, health and nutrition, nuts and legumes, toronto
Comments Off 
I’ve never really thought about almonds. Oh sure, they’re a tasty nut, good as a snack or in baked goods. They come in a variety of forms; whole, blanched, sliced, slivered, ground and even milk. They can be eaten out of hand, added to pastries or to savoury dishes. But last week I attended an event that was all about the wonders of the California almond.
November 20th 2008 - Posted in books, Food, memorable meals
Comments Off
Some say Vancouver is overtaking Toronto as the ultimate Canadian foodie town. I don’t travel much, so I can’t vouch for that personally, but love of my city forces me to say, “Is NOT!!” However, Vancouver is definitely attracting some spectacular talent, and I was lucky enough to attend a luncheon recently featuring the dishes of West: The Cookbook
While Geraghty is a UK boy, with training in some of Europe’s Michelin-starred restaurants, West features all the culinary delights of what is local in British Columbia. This, of course, means plenty of fish and shellfish, BC-raised beef, and local fruits and vegetables as well as local foraged delicacies such as chanterelle mushrooms.
Geraghty and his team, as well as a contingent from Top Table and Tourism Vancouver, flew across the country last week, ingredients in tow, to offer some of Toronto’s food writers a west coast treat. Five courses plus canapes were also paired with BC wines.
Canapes
BC Mushroom Arancini
Vancouver Island Octopus with Pemberton Beets
Ballotine of Foie Gras and Salt Spring Island Goats Cheese
Galantine of Theissen Farm Quail and Jasmine Poached Raisins
paired with Sumac Ridge “Stellar Jay” 04, Okanagan Valley
I didn’t get a chance to photograph the canapes, but they were all wonderful. I particularly like the octopus.
November 14th 2008 - Posted in Food, products, public relations, The World at Large, toronto
Comments Off
I understand that, for a business, marketing plays a key role in achieving success. It’s fine to make a product or write something or make a piece of music, but unless people know about it, you tend not to sell much. I also understand that most advertising, as its basest level, is about manipulation – make people want what you have. Make them believe they can’t live without it. And it used to be that advertising was pretty straightforward – run an ad in a magazine or on TV, or maybe a big billboard. Free samples, gift with purchase and other programs that made consumers feel as if they were getting something extra also worked well.
Since the Intarwebs became popular, marketing has kind of been thrown on its head. And while it may take longer than hitting a million viewers all at once with a TV ad, viral marketing directed at “community influencers” is becoming more and more popular. Recommendations from people in “the community”, under the guise of friendship, trust and camaraderie, pull more weight than an ad in a magazine, which can seem insincere.
Bloggers are a key target area for viral marketing campaigns. Sending a promotional product or book to a blogger with high site hits is a cheap and easy way for marketers to have the (usually positive) word spread about whatever it is they’re trying to sell. Marketers depend on the blogger to be naive about the marketing machine; to be flattered, and have feelings of obligation, and in turn write a glowing review of the freebie. Since getting free stuff is fun, most bloggers know better than to rock the boat by writing a negative review, or if they do share their true feelings on a product, it’s usually tempered with political correctness and apologies for not liking it.
November 11th 2008 - Posted in holidays, home decor, The World at Large, toronto
Comments Off
Yes, that is exactly what it looks like. A black and silver Christmas tree – one of two types available at Honest Ed’s in Toronto. This one, at 7 feet and $99, is the nicer of the two, but even the 5 foot version at $59.99 was pretty cute (no twigs or pine cones on the smaller one). There was a time when I’d have killed for this puppy. Even now, years after my Goth phase has passed, I stood in the store going “Eeeeee!!!!” and fondling the silver-tipped branches.
It would be either a joy or a complete pain in the ass to decorate – finding lights on a black wire would be near impossible unless you shelled out the big bucks and bought them from a window-display place like Visualizer.
But imagine the tree decorated in silver, red and purple, with all the little Goths gathered around it on Christmas morning, hoping that Sandy Claws had left them a Sisters of Mercy CD, or a pair of bondage pants, or a new cape, or maybe a gift certificate to one of those fancy dentistry clinics where they give you fangs… it would be the best Christmas EVAH!
November 3rd 2008 - Posted in eating locally, Food, health and nutrition, politics
Comments Off
Most readers may not be familiar with the rapier pen of one A A Gill, a restaurant and television critic for the UK Times. Gill has recently had it in for the various UK chefs working to promote healthy, local, seasonal eating in Britain, and appears to take special exception to food journalist-turned-farmer Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Hugh F-W runs a farm, shop and restaurant operation called River Cottage in the Dorset area, and currently has a series on the air in the UK called River Cottage Autumn, in which he delves into the seasonal delights of local UK food, from the garden harvest, to fish in season to the fine art of foraging.
Gill reviews an episode of River Cottage Autumn in a recent television column, ostensibly killing two birds with one stone. But he’s not especially nice – to Hugh F-W, or to the millions of people who happen to revel in the joy of a home-grown tomato.
Why should poor, fearful folk have to put up with a bucketful of organic new-age anxiety to go with the anxiety their imperfect lives manufacture all on their own, especially when it’s created by a home-made television presenter in a Beatrix Potter set? The idea that ideal people should strive to live like 18th-century crofters is intellectual silage. The enthusiasm may be charming, but this fetishising of food is part of the problem, not the solution. Shirley Conran once said that life was too short to stuff a mushroom. She was wrong. But you’d have to live an awfully long time to make making your own baked beans on toast worthwhile. Self-sufficiency is not an admirable goal, it’s small-minded, selfish, mean, mistrustful and ultimately fascist. It ends up with people waving shotguns at strangers over their garden gates. We live in a complex, mutually reliant society, and the answer to our problems is not each to his own cabbage patch.
