Sheryl Kirby

Sunday Brunch – Mildred’s Temple Kitchen

Mildred’s Temple Kitchen
85 Hanna Avenue
416-588-5695
Brunch for two with all taxes, tip and coffee: $50

I am a student of the theory of dressing up to go out. Maybe it’s because I work from home and yoga pants and a t-shirt are my regular uniform, but I always find it appropriate, when going out into the world, to make a bit of an effort. Some make-up, a cute outfit, polished shoes. It makes me appreciate a nice place so much more, and there are some restaurants, whether because of the architecture and design, or just the food and service, where it feels that one should dress up.

Not everyone shares my philosophy on this issue, however. So while I’ve pulled together a groovy 60s inspired-outfit to have brunch in the gorgeously cool Mildred’s Temple Kitchen, the rest of the clientele is still arriving in ugly flip-flops and cargo shorts. People in Toronto really don’t dress up for brunch, do they? At the very least, most of the gentlemen wearing hats have the courtesy to remove them when they’re seated – all except for one hipster douchebag who continues to wear a brown wool toque (it’s August, buddy, come on!) throughout the meal. Even the little boy who came in wearing a baseball cap has removed his headgear at the table. Stupid hipsters, making life ugly for the rest of us.

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Jam-A-Lama

I haven’t bought jam in years. I’m one of those crazy people who actually makes their own, despite it not actually being any cheaper than buying it from the store.

However, back during my organic phase [1], I did buy a lot of organic jam, and the main brand I turned to was Crofter’s.

So when a box arrived at my door unannounced – that is, there was no warning that it was coming [2] , I was a bit perturbed and then intrigued by the collection of “superfruit” spreads.

Crofter’s is a company from Port Perry, Ontario that specializes in fruit products – from jam to juice, everything they make is organic. I’ve been a fan of their stuff for many years, and if I didn’t make my own jams and preserves, Crofter’s would most likely be the brand I’d seek out; their stuff is all certified organic, comes in a diverse range of products and is not overly sweet.

However, I’m not a real fan of the idea of “superfruit”, which is what this new line of spreads (they’re not technically jams because of the sugar to fruit ratio) purports to be. The line of four flavours all start with a base of morello cherries and red grapes and then also include “superfruits” (fruit thought to have anti-oxidant properties) from 4 different continents. North America is represented by a blend of blueberries and cranberries; South America by maqui and passionfruit; Europe has black currants and pomegranate, and Asian includes raspberries and yumberries.

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It’s Harvest Season

It’s been a weird summer, especially for farmers, but those fruits and vegetables keep on coming regardless. This being the peak of the season, there’s no better time to enjoy a meal prepared from locally-sourced ingredients.

The Gladstone Hotel continues its Harvest Wednesdays series until mid-October with a variety of prix fixe dinners and tasting events featuring produce from Chick-A-Biddy Acres CSA Farm, as well as many other local producers of meat, cheese, produce, grain, honey, wine and beer.

If you haven’t made it out to a Harvest Wednesdays event yet, it’s not too late – the prix fixe dinners continue on August 26th, September 2nd, 16th, 23rd and 30th, and October 14th. These four-course dinners are $35 plus tax and gratuity and wine pairings are also available.

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It’s All About Who You Know

It would seem that Toronto’s underground dining scene really did fizzle after its 15 minutes of fame. A few months back, Charlie’s Burgers was the name on everyone’s lips as Chowhounders and other “foodies” (note – derisive use of terminology) fought to have their applications accepted for the right to pay $150 and upwards per person to eat a meal with strangers.

Sticker shock may have made the love affair short-lived, but all the while another truly underground restaurant has been chugging along, albiet with a short break when chef/caterer Karen Viva-Haynes broke her leg.

6° is Viva-Haynes’ answer to the underground restaurant scene. The twice-monthly dinners take place in her basement catering kitchen, and you have to know Karen, someone involved with Viva Tastings, or know someone who knows them, to get an invite.

The price is usually $75 – $95 for a 5 course meal, and guests bring their own beverages. An email goes out the day before the event that provides the menu – or at least key elements – so guests can bring wine or beer to pair with the food, which is focused on seasonal, sustainable, and local as much as possible.

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Sunday Brunch – Boho Bistro

Boho Bistro
392 Roncesvalles Avenue
416-516-7446
Brunch for two with all taxes, tip and coffee: $46

Didn’t this place used to be bigger? The pretty little bistro on Roncesvalles has a bit of a split personality – last year, owner Fergus Munster split the place in two and installed a classic pub called Liver Bird in the back half. The kitchen continues to turn out traditional bistro fare in the front along with some really brilliant gastro pub grub for the back room, and at brunch, it’s a combination of the best of both styles, jazzing up the classic brunch dishes with unique Boho touches.

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Margaritaville – Where Cupcake and Cocktail Collide

Here’s why purging your belongings every now and then is a good idea. Greg and I have been meaning to cull our bookshelves for a couple of years now. We live in a small apartment and shelf space is at a premium, which is to say that we’ve completely filled the four standard bookshelves in our living room. While I try to live with the rule of “something in, something out”, the husband is a bit more of a collector and the old bookshelves were beyond the point of full this past spring with stacks of books on beer piled in corners and selected food politics titles jammed in wherever they might fit.

So we started filling a box, looking at every item on the shelf, assessing whether it should stay or go. You get to keep that Clive Barker novel if I get to keep my dog-eared Nabokovs, you can keep the Michael Jackson beer books if I can keep those Marion Nestle tomes… but I can live without the Gordon Ramsay biography if you’ll part with all those old Wired magazines…

One of the things I refused to part with is my collection of 50s and 60s era cookbooks – not because I’ll ever use any of them, but because they’re cool in their own “gallery of regrettable food” kind of way. But in beside them I discovered a cupcake cookbook. Relatively new (maybe a year or two old), I remembered purchasing it but could not for the life of me remember why it got banished to the Siberia of books I never look at but must keep.

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Why the Hart House Craft Beer Festival is Better than the Festival of Beer

Every year, I say the same thing; “I’m not gonna go.” And every year, for a variety of reasons I end up going. Last year it was because The English Beat were the featured band on the Thursday “VIP” night. This year, it was because Greg whined at me. But every single year, I come home from Toronto’s Festival of Beer, swearing to never return.

This time I really mean it.

Okay, I understand that corralling thousands of drunken frat boys is a logistical nightmare, but the event has just never seemed to be on the ball. Getting in as media has always been a hassle. In part because they’re hiring rent-a-cops for security and nobody really seems to know what they’re doing but also, logic just seems to escape everyone involved. I’m not asking for a lot here, I’m not pulling a “do you know who I am” thing, all I’m asking for is appropriate signage and for the entrance we’re told to go through to not be a locked gate only to then be told to walk all the way to the other end of the event area to come back through a maze of fencing to pass through security at a spot less than 50 feet from where we started out. You make me walk all the way back to Medieval Times just so I can end up almost back in this very spot, I’m gonna keep heading north and go home.

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Stop Walking Past and Come on In

Caffino
1185 King Street West
416-588-9010
Dinner for two with all taxes, tip, wine and coffee: $110

I’ve walked past Caffino a hundred times – literally – without ever going in. When I worked in Liberty Village I would consider grabbing my morning coffee from there, but the Roastery was closer to work and on cold winter mornings, travel time really did count.

Even living 5 minutes away wasn’t compelling enough, especially when hot new places started popping up nearby. Their website didn’t help – the menu page never worked at all and the only thing I could find was a list of celebrities who had eaten there, which is more of a reason to stay away than make a beeline for the place in my book. (Their current website is no better – it’s just a splash page with a note about it re-launching in December ’08.)

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Sunday Brunch – Globe Bistro

globeswinedine

Globe Bistro
124 Danforth Avenue
416-466-2000
Brunch for two with all taxes, tip and coffee: $60

So here’s a conundrum… where to take visitors who are into eating locally for brunch? There are lots of dinner options out there, but brunch, if the restaurant is even serving it, seems to be a lot of the same old, same old.

Fortunately Globe Bistro fit the bill, and our friends from Buffalo were on board as soon as we started reading the locally-sourced menu to them over the phone.

Upon arrival, we immediately start off with coffee and The Baker’s Basket ($10); an overly generous basket of scones, cornbread and cinnamon loaf with strawberry and pepper preserves. The value for money theme of the warm and flaky pastries is one that runs throughout the meal. Despite using local products, which can cost more, Chef Kevin McKenna manages to offer up hearty servings at a reasonable price. We’re impressed with both the quality and quantity of the pastries – the basket is enough for four of us to split.

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Where Chefs and Farmers Come Together

chefmarket_stjohnsbread

The world of the professional kitchen is a far cry from cooking at home – in so many ways – but the most obvious is the scale on which restaurants work compared to the home cook. Chefs dedicated to offering dishes made from the best ingredients spend a lot of time tracking down the products – and producers – who can consistently provide them with a quality product.

For years, most restaurants have worked with restaurant supply companies or importers at the food terminal, and the idea of working directly with local farmers seemed painstaking and difficult. How could a chef know which local farmer could supply enough potatoes for their famous frites? Or which grass-fed beef was the best?

The idea of bringing chefs and local farmers together has gained momentum in the past few years as the local food movement has taken hold in the GTA. With more than 20 farmers markets for individuals spread out across the city, wouldn’t it be a great idea to set up a farmers’ market just for chefs? A place where farmers and chefs could meet, where wholesale orders of large quantities could be accommodated and where a chef could put in an order and it could be delivered to their kitchen door.

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