Sheryl Kirby

Sunday Brunch – Morning Glory

morningglorysandwich

Morning Glory
457 King Street East
416-703-4728
Brunch for two with all taxes, tip and coffee: $30

Morning Glory is one of those neighbourhood joints that fly under the radar. A popular Corktown breakfast spot since December 2003, it now tends to get overshadowed by Gilead Café, just around the corner. But on the Sunday morning we visit, the flow of customers is good, with many headed for the small but cute patio out back.

Inside, wooden tables sit in front of the church pews that line one wall. It’s a wee spot, only 20 seats, and the kitchen is smaller than what I work out of at home. A staff member washes dishes by hand while another pulls back an undersink curtain to pull out an iPod attached to the stereo system. It may look all retro and kitsch but they’re embracing technology.

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The Savvy Shopper – The Real Meaning of Local

When someone refers to a pub as their “local”, no doubt we all imagine the same thing; a place where the atmosphere is homey, where the staff greet them by name, and where they probably know at least one other person in the room. Imagine the set from Cheers and that would be just about right.

We call these establishments our Local because it’s probably within walking distance from home – geographically it’s nearby.

When it comes to food, however, local is about more than geography. We are comfortable in our local pub because we’ve formed relationships – with the staff and owners, and with the other patrons, who are more than likely our neighbours. But even when we make an effort to buy local food, to support local producers, we don’t often get that same connection.

It’s hard – farmers are out in their fields, bakers manning their ovens, fishers on their boats. Building relationships with the people who make our food isn’t as easy as it’s made out to be. And I say that as someone who works in the industry and gets to spend time a lot more time with local food producers than the average consumer.

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Missing You

Harvest Wednesdays at the Gladstone Hotel started a couple of weeks ago. They did the first tasting event (similar to a cocktail party where all the growers and partners were present so guests could meet the people who grew their food) and the first prix fixe dinner ran this past week.

Normally during the tasting event and during each of the two seatings for the prix fixe dinners, Gladstone Hotel president and owner Christina Zeidler stands up and says a few words about how Harvest Wednesdays came about, how the partnership between the CSA farm and the hotel works every week to get the food from field to table, and about the general principles they try to follow.

Christina was away last week and I was incredibly honoured to be asked to take her place and do the presentation for the two prix fixe dinner seatings. As TasteTO is a media partner for the event, is was a logical choice, but they still could have gone with a Gladstone staff member. There’s an ongoing joke that because Greg and I are there so often and that we know so many people on the staff, and because we’ve been involved with Harvest Wednesdays for a few years now, that we are considered honorary staff members.

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Sunday Brunch – Nyood

nyoodsmokedsalmon Nyood
1096 Queen Street West
416-466-1888
Brunch for two with all taxes, tip and coffee: $50

Those folks that make the clam and tomato juice are on some kind of campaign to make the Caesar Canada’s official cocktail but they’ll get no support from me to do it. The very last thing I want to even think about when sitting down for brunch is the salty burning combination of vodka, clamato juice and celery salt (or whatever it is that goes around the rim of those things). Seriously… no. So we’re not off to an auspicious start when our group of four sits down at Nyood for brunch on a recent rainy Sunday to be presented with an amuse of teeny versions of Nyood’s cherry tomato Caesar. Three of the things sit and taunt us throughout the meal and the lone Caesar drinker at the table is happy to stop after just one.

Coffee, please, all around, and keep it coming. Which, thankfully they do, and it’s even decent stuff.

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The Savvy Shopper – Made With Whole Grains

We all know that we should be eating more whole grains. Fibre is critical to a healthy digestive system and whole grain carbs like whole wheat, brown rice, quinoa or oatmeal help to slow digestion and provide longer-lasting energy.

It would seem that processed food manufacturers are excited to be helping us out – so many products now tout labels that say “Made with Whole Grain”. Isn’t it wonderful that we can eat a handful of cookies and be getting our daily recommended amount of fibre at the same time?

Not so fast. Just because there are some whole grains in the cereal, bread or cookies you’re buying doesn’t mean they’re necessarily good for you. Check the nutritional labels of your purchases. Ingredients on processed foods are listed by quantity, so we’re looking to see that the first ingredients include the term “whole grain”. In the case of a cereal, we want to see “whole grain oats” or “whole grain wheat”, and we want those ingredients to be the first ones on the list, not down with the preservatives we can’t pronounce. Unscrupulous manufacturers may continue to make their products with refined white flour and toss in a small percentage of whole wheat flour as well. Technically that product is “made with whole grain”, but it’s not 100% whole grain.

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Here We Go ‘Round the Mulberry Bush

Everybody on the intarwebs has been all over the serviceberries this past week or so. Also known as Saskatoon berries (we called them Indian berries growing up in Nova Scotia), they became the meme of local food foraging junkies and everybody had to have the things – right NOW! Except that it seems that nobody actually knew what a serviceberry looked like because they’re actually all over the place, and by the time most people had discovered that they did indeed know the whereabouts of a serviceberry bush, the birds had gotten to most of the berries and devoured them.

Another local berry popular with the birds and overlooked by people (until some local food expert points out that they’re tasty) is the mulberry. Similar in shape but slightly smaller than a blackberry, the mulberry is a popular tree in Toronto neighbourhoods – except during actual berry season when the berries fall off like small purple hailstones and turn everything in their vicinity purple. Beloved by both birds and squirrels, any sidewalk or paving stones underneath a mulberry bush get stained doubly so – once from the berries themselves and again from the bird crap.

It was this telltale purple sidewalk that alerted me to the mulberry bush in the front yard of a house along my regular dog-walking route. The tree was loaded, the sidewalk was covered in the things, and I figured if the owners were just going to let the berries go to waste on the ground, they wouldn’t mind if I helped myself to a few that were hanging over the sidewalk.

I picked about a pint’s worth (didn’t want to be greedy, and the birds were becoming increasingly unimpressed with my presence); not enough to make jam, but definitely enough for a batch of mulberry scones.

Floral Study in Blue

Further to my post about wildflowers, I decided to gather some when Greg and I were at the farmers’ market at Liberty Village last weekend. There’s a low fence around the parking lot where the market takes place and on a whim I plucked a few cornflowers, some huge red clover and a head of Queen Anne’s lace from the scrubby unmowed grass. I came home and popped them in a small vase and took some quick photos, hoping that I’d get some good ones; the colours match my shower curtain and I’ve been looking for some decent artwork to hang in the bathroom for a few years now.

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The Common Cow

There’s a show running on the BBC in the UK at the moment called What to Eat Now. It’s a 4-part series about eating seasonally, and the first show of the second season (the first season ran last autumn) was about barbecuing. Divided into segments, the host Valentine Warner does a little bit of cooking, a little bit of foraging, and also interviews local food experts.

One of the segments on the first episode was about a herd of cows being kept on the Midsummer Common in Cambridge. With students and local residents walking, cycling or even rowing past, the herd of 11 Red Poll cows, as well as a bull, appear unfazed. The rare breed of East Anglian cattle were chosen for their exquisite taste as well as their gentle temperaments (they have no horns or “polls”) , and aside from the occasional drunken university student giving chase, it appears that most of the locals have become quite protective of the cows, even putting up protest when a local butcher shop began to advertise their meat for sale. (Which might be unnerving, but that’s the point of raising cattle, one would think.)

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Afternoon Tea – Still a Lady’s Domain

kinged_sweets

Le Meridien King Edward
Victoria’s Restaurant
37 King Street East
416-863-9700
Afternoon tea for two with all taxes and tip: $65

Afternoon tea often gets categorized as something fussy and old-fashioned. Perhaps it’s the dainty china, or the teeny pastries or even the sandwiches with the crusts cut off. It also has a reputation as being very girly, its origins firmly ensconced in British tradition dating back to 1661 when Catherine of Braganza brought the custom with her from Portugal when she married Charles II.

In modern usage, many places serving afternoon tea have taken to calling it “high tea”, a custom that makes tea aficionados screech with horror. For my part, I make a point of avoiding places that claim to serve “high” tea yet roll out tiered trays of scones and pastries – if you don’t, as a restaurant, even know what meal you’re serving, that doesn’t leave me with any faith that you’ll be able to do it well.

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Miss Shirley’s Urban Wisdom – Riding the Elevator

In wide use since the mid-1800s, elevators enable people to gain access to areas of multi-floor buildings without having to use the stairs. This device is incredibly useful for anyone moving large or bulky items such as boxes, baby strollers, shopping buggies, beer kegs, large dogs or refrigerators.

Although the western world has lived with the elevator for over 150 years, it appears that some basic rules and etiquette continue to be neglected. Miss Shirley will enlighten you.

First, when you approach the elevator and press the button to call the car to your floor, step back once you have done so. While it seems like the most basic of common sense, if you stand directly in front of the doors, the people already on the elevator will not be able to disembark. Which means you won’t be able to get on, you stupid nimrod!

Second, once you have entered the elevator, select the floor you want and move as far into the car as possible so that others getting on behind you have room. Do not, Miss Shirley will repeat this, do NOT block the goddamn doorway. If you desire to remain close to the door, either because you are phobic, someone else on the elevator smells bad, or because you are getting off before everyone else, wait and let the other people on first. Miss Shirley, who lives on the 2nd floor of her building and who is usually accompanied on her elevator trips by two large dogs, often lets others onto the car first so that she does not have to push past them 30 seconds later to disembark. Also, elevators are not like airplanes – if for some reason the door closes before you can get on, the elevator will be back in a couple of minutes.

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