Category: toronto

Stirring the Pot with Chef Chris McDonald

Christopher McDonald is one of Canada’s most respected chefs, known for a creative, first-principles approach to cooking, and an exceptional knowledge of the intricate relationships between food and wine.

Born in Toronto and growing up in New York and later Toronto, his childhood and early interest in food was conditioned by his mother Marion Grudeff’s career as a concert pianist and Broadway musical writer in New York. After returning to New York in 1979 to work in Dodin Bouffant, one of the city’s finest French restaurants, McDonald embarked on what would become a 15-year educational odyssey of learning both the spoken and culinary languages of the world’s great cuisines, studying at the famed La Varenne Cooking School, travelling to Verona, Italy, where he worked as the chef of La Bottega del Vino, and opening the kitchens of two world-famous luxury hotels in Mexico. His international travels also took him to San Francisco, where he cooked at both Stars and Chez Panisse, and to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he worked at the renowned Coyote Café for Mark Miller, for whom he developed the menu at Coyote Café’s Las Vegas incarnation.

In Canada, McDonald has been influential in bringing his experience to several acclaimed projects, acting as chef at the VIP lounge of the Ontario pavilion at Expo 86 in Vancouver; as chef de cuisine at Centro, a project that introduced the emerging California cuisine to Toronto; as opening chef at Santa Fe Bar and Grill in Toronto, a highly successful project showcasing his southwestern and Mexican culinary skills; and at Massimo Rosticceria in 1990, which drew on an intensely personal vision that grew out of his experience in Italy.

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Market Mondays – Blueberries

Here in the city, we’re lucky enough to have any number of markets where both wild and tame blueberries are available for a reasonable price. But for me, blueberries have the ability to make me really cranky. As a kid we’d trek off into the woods in the suburb of Halifax where I grew up, and fill huge buckets and jugs with the things to make pies and muffins and the famous Acadian blueberry grunt. Covered in mosquito bites, backs aching from bending over the low bushes and that awful feeling in the pit of the stomach caused by worrying that, at any moment, you’d come face to face with a hungry bear, picking was never really considered fun. We’d try anything we could to get out of going blueberry picking, but ultimately, at the first slice of Mom’s pie, it was all worth it.

Blueberries are native to North America and related to cranberries and bilberries. While there are a number of varieties, most are separated into either low bush or high bush types, the first being wild berries, mostly picked by hand, while high bush berries are larger, able to be harvested by machine and in a taste comparison are considered more bland than their wild cousins.

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Unleashed

I’ve probably given myself a bad reputation for being that crazy neighbourhood lady screaming at people to put their dogs on a leash. I’ve gotten into arguments with people about it. Of course, the kind of people who let their dogs run around leash free on city streets are usually not the kind of people (and yes, I mean “kind of people” in the MOST derogatory way) who you can talk logic with. They don’t believe their dog would ever hurt another creature and they think you’re whack when you point out that a leash would protect their dog from harm. “Oh, he always comes when he’s called,” they’ll reply. Then they’ll call the dog over to prove their point and the dog will give them a withering look and wander off in the opposite direction.

This morning we were out walking the dogs and walked past a nearby apartment. An older Asian woman was sitting on the curb of the driveway in front of the building, a yellow dog (some kind of lab/sheperd cross as best I can tell) sitting beside her. I’m watching the dog because I can tell it’s not on a leash, but it sits there until we’re almost past. And then it leaps up, runs across the driveway and through a flower bed and latches onto Petula’s head. I kick at it a few times, and scream at it, and it backs off.

Through it all the Asian woman sits there unblinking. She doesn’t get up, yell at the dog, or make any effort to hold it back. In fact, she says nothing at all, despite the fact that Greg and I are screaming bloody murder at her – until we threaten to sue her, at which point she just starts repeating “not my dog, not my dog!” Given her behaviour throughout, that might very well have been the case.

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When is a Wine Like a Woman?

Everybody’s Mad Men crazy this week, and so are we, even when it comes to wine. It probably wasn’t intentional but this past Tuesday’s class at the iYellow Wine School had striking parallels to two of Mad Men’s leading ladies. With a focus on full-figured reds and graceful whites, it’s hard not to offer up comparisons to the characters of Joan and Betty.

Led by sommelier Taylor Thompson, enthusiastic wine students filled the lovely back patio at cafe Taste to try a variety of Ontario wines that were either graceful or full-figured.

The cool and graceful whites included a Trius Brut from Hillebrand Estates Winery, a chardonnay from Flatrock Cellars and a barrel fermented chardonnay from Henry of Pelham. Thompson explained the different processes used for the two chardonnays, explaining how the barrel fermentation created an oaky flavour with notes of honey and a creaminess in the second wine compared to the minerality and buttery flavour of the first.

Reds can be graceful too, though, and a pair of Pinot Noirs from Cave Spring Cellars and Lailey Vineyard Winery were the next to be sampled. The Cave Spring pinot noir was bright and full of strawberry notes, very light in colour whereas the Lailey pinot was darker, with a nose of over-ripe fruit, and an earthy acidity. But on Mad Men, graceful Betty is known for her cold demeanour and to my palate, pinot noir tends to leave me a bit cold as well.

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Market Mondays – Summer Squash

Summer squash (aka. zucchini) can be both a delight and a bane to home gardeners. A delight because zucchini are a fruitful fruit (while treated as a vegetable in the kitchen, zucchini and all squash are technically fruit) – they’re easy to grow and the fruit grows quickly, they’re also a bane because they’re almost too prodigious and home gardeners tend to find themselves with more zucchini than they know what to do with. In the peak of the season some will even take to leaving bags of summer squash on their neighbours’ doorsteps under cover of night just to get rid of some of their harvest.

Curcubita pepo is a member of the melon family, with distant relations to the cucumber. Squash originated in the Americas and was introduced to Europe by Columbus. The zucchini that we know today is a variety of squash that was developed in Italy. While there are a variety of different shapes and sizes of summer squash (ranging in shape from the spaceship-looking patty pan to round fruit the size of billiard balls), they can all be treated as one would a zucchini for cooking purposes.

While it’s tempting for home gardeners to let their zucchini grow huge (and they will get massive if you let them), the squash actually taste and cook best when picked at 20cm in length or less. Overly-mature fruit can be both fibrous and watery.

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Sunday Brunch – Frida Restaurant

Frida Restaurant
999 Eglinton Avenue West
416-787-2221
Brunch for two with all taxes, tip and coffee: $50

We know our readers love the brunch reviews, but after a while it can all get a little tedious. Hollandaise sauce now runs in my veins. So we were delighted to head up to Eglinton Avenue and check out the brunch offerings at Frida.

This upscale Mexican restaurant is run by chef Jose Hadad, and besides a really interesting dinner menu, offers a diverse brunch card full of Mexican favourites.

We start with some of Hadad’s famous guacamole and chips ($10) – both made in house and available for sale to take home. Beautifully presented and drizzled with chili oil, it’s easy to see why Hadad’s Mad Mexican line does so well. Our server also brings us each a small dish full of chunks of melon and pineapple, a fruit amuse bouche, which is a lovely touch.

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To Market, To Market… To Market

Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of excuses as to why people don’t make the effort to shop at farmers’ markets, with the most oft-heard one being that there just isn’t anything accessible and easy to get to. This has changed considerably in the past couple of years, and downtown Toronto now has over 20 separate markets, with at least one market taking place every day of the week during the summer and early autumn.

Which begs the question – have we hit a saturation point? Are markets the new Starbucks with two on every corner?

On Thursdays in the downtown core, there are now three separate markets within walking distance of each other. The market at Metro Hall is the most established of these, with a selection of vendors who are predominantly farmers. There are many vendors selling the same in-season produce, but this tends to create a healthy competition that keeps prices reasonable. During the lunch hour, there are live performances, and half a dozen food vendors along the south end of the square selling everything from Caribbean food to crepes to peameal bacon on a kaiser.

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Thursdays Are So Tasty

There’s probably nowhere else that you can buy food from Susur Lee and Vesta Lunch in the same place. All for $5 a pop.

Tasty Thursdays returned to Nathan Phillips Square last week and runs every Thursday (11am – 2pm, although some vendors are not ready right at 11am) until August 26th. The premise is a simple one – bring in an array of Toronto restaurants selling food items for $5 or less. Bring in bands to entertain the crowds who have come looking for a cheap and interesting lunch. Presto, instant cool event.

The musical guests change weekly but the restaurants are booked for a month, with some sticking around for the full promotion. Each restaurant serves up samples of their most popular dishes, and at $5 or less, it’s easy to try a bunch.

Above – the guys from Vesta Lunch serving up Greek food.

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Market Mondays – Apricots

Like our friend the plum from last week, the apricot is from the family Prunus. Originally thought to originate in China from as far back as 3000 BC, the apricot came to the Western world via Armenia. Apricots are now cultivated in all parts of the world, but are still an extremely important crop in the Middle East, particularly Iran where dried apricots have been an important commodity for centuries. Check the packaging on dried apricots you purchase in the supermarket – they likely come from Iran or Turkey.

Apricots are high in beta-carotene as well as Vitamin A. They are high in fibre and the dried version of the fruit is considered a good treatment for constipation. High in the anti-oxidant caretenoid,  apricots may help lower bad cholesterol and protect against cancer. The kernal or pit of the apricot also has many uses; dried and ground, it becomes the basis for the Italian amaretti cookie, and apricot kernal oil is the main ingredient in the liqueur Disaronno Amaretto. Apricot kernal was also once incorrectly thought to cure certain types of cancer, but because it contains toxic levels of cyanide, it was not considered an effective treatment for that disease.

When purchasing apricots, look for fruits that are a rich orange colour and that are slightly soft to the touch. If eating apricots for their health benefits, note that the riper the fruit the higher the level of anti-oxidants.

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Babaluu – More Than Just Salsa Dancing

Many Torontonians have walked past it without even knowing that it’s there. Maybe the people who go there for the salsa dancing also have a bit to eat. But for the most part, Babaluu Supperclub (136 Yorkville Avenue) flies under the radar when it comes to dining. Which is too bad, because owners Nubia Solano and Pilar Galvis have put a lot of work into the “supper” part of their Latin supperclub.

Opened in 1994 in a space on Bloor West, the restaurant moved to its current location in 1996 when the original building went bankrupt. Solano, who was working with Trevor Berryman of Bersani & Carlevale fame, had put a lot of work into the decor of the original space and brought many of the gorgeous glass murals with her when they had to move a few years later.

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