Okay, so I know you readers are divided on the topic of event recaps. Some of you hate them, preferring an event preview instead so you can actually buy a ticket and go – and for the most part, I agree. Who wants to hear about all the fun they missed? But others of you love the food pr0n, the piles of photos of gorgeously executed food and drink, particularity at events with higher ticket prices that might not be affordable to most.
Here’s our take on this – since the fancy events are usually charity fund-raisers we have no problem running a photo-essay after the fact, because it raises more awareness of the issues and the charity (even though the event is over, I’m sure The Stop would be happy to accept any donations our readers might want to make). And it also helps to promote the many wonderful restaurants that donated their time and product to such a worthy cause.
So if you hate the recaps, look away, and we’ll use the same images when we write the event preview article next year! But if you want to see the tasty treats offered to What’s on the Table guests, click on through and enjoy.
What’s On the Table is the annual fund raiser for The Stop Community Food Centre, an organization that offers not just a food bank, but a community kitchen, lunch programs, community gardens, cooking programs and more. The What’s on the Table event brings together top Toronto chefs, and local wineries to raise funds for The Stop. This year’s event, held this past week on November 4th, took place at the Wychwood Barns, where The Stop runs a kitchen and greenhouse. The event featured not only great food and drink but a regular and silent auction.
Top image – beef and whitefish remoulade from Jamie Kennedy Kitchen.
Chef Mark Cutrara from Cowbell brought not only these awesome Lyonnaise en brioche but a totally fab pig-shaped cutting board and little brioche cups that turned out to be family heirlooms.
Samosa from Amaya.
Chris Brown of The Stop served up squash pate and Niagara grape compote.
Buddha Dog made everyone feel like a kid again with their corndogs and sauces.
It may look a little weird, but Scaramouche‘s truffle and mushroom scrambled eggs were a huge hit.
Behind the scenes, Scaramouche’s Chef Keith Froggett and staff keep the eggs cooking.
From Chef Lorenzo Loseto of George – Serrano sausage, brioche and raspberry mustard.
Langdon Hall‘s pot au feu was hearty and filling and came with a choice of condiments as well as biscuits. Not pictured, me trying to steal Langdon Hall’s big slab of house-made butter provided for the above-mentioned biscuits.
Chef Donna Dooher of Mildred’s Temple Kitchen dishes up squash tagine with quinoa and plum chutney.
Short ribs and flat bread from Canoe.
My friend Mirella insists that we should drop the pretension and start calling it “cold cuts”, but Chef Ted Corrado of C5 does it up so fancy, I think it’s fair to call this charcuterie.
Gnocchi from Noce – made with red fife flour, squash, parmigiano cream, truffle squash cream, black walnuts and crispy sage. Yes, it was as wonderfully rich as it sounds.
On to dessert – Xococava offers up XOCOCakes – their interpretation of the Whoopie pie.
Soma‘s famous hot chocolate, waiting to be served.
Afrim Pristine of Cheese Boutique was serving generous cheese plates that included an amazingly flavourful 10-year-old cheddar.
People were going crazy for this chestnut cake from Frangipane.
And finally, more sweet stuff from Frangipane in the form of macarons, shortbread, cookies and marshmallows. I spent a fair amount of time in the dessert room.
As usual, while I got photos of all but a few of the dishes (apologies to Chiado and Amuse Bouche who also had beautiful offerings but were in areas with less than stellar lighting), I didn’t get around to trying more than half of them before I was full (I *know* dessert doesn’t come first, I couldn’t help myself!). There were also some passes hors d’oeuvres from ChezVous Dining and The Stockyards, as well as wines from Flat Rock Cellars, Cave Springs, Stratus, Frogpond Farm and Henry of Pelham, and coffee from Fresh Coffee Network along with tea from The Tea Emporium.
If you didn’t manage to make it to What’s on the Table this year, mark your calendar for next November – it’s an event that shouldn’t be missed -both for the great food to be had and to support the amazing work done by the folks at The Stop.