TasteTO – Page 19 – Sheryl Kirby

Four Scores With Delicious, Healthy Dishes

Four
187 Bay Street, Commerce Court South, concourse level
416-368-1444

Fine dining and healthy eating have never exactly gone together. Luxurious sauces, marbled steaks and decadent desserts are a far cry from the salads without dressing and those awful “diet plates” of cottage cheese and melba toast that we tend to think of as low calorie meals. And pious health food restaurants serve up hefty portions of morality but the food at those places has never been known for being especially tasty.

Four aims to change that.

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Can Organics Feed the World?

Can organics feed the world?

This question was posed to the closing panel at this year’s Canadian Organic Growers Conference. Organic farmers, food producers, nutritionists and writers convened in Toronto this past Saturday to examine the issues and explore how organics is changing the world.

The day-long event included a keynote speech by Helge Hellberg of Marin Organic from Marin County California, who is hard at work to make Marin the first completely organic county in the United States. Hellberg, a Certified Holistic Nutrition Counselor recounted a visit to Marin County by Prince Charles, who is one of the world’s leading supporters of the organic movement to visit the Marin County farmers market. Hellberg’s inspiring speech set the tone for the day, as participants broke off into different seminars that ranged in topics directed towards farmers, food producers and consumers.

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Sunday Brunch – Yitz’s Delicatessen

Yitz’s Delicatessen and Catering
346 Eglinton Avenue West
416-487-4506
Brunch for two with all taxes, tip and coffee: $30

One of my very first jobs in Toronto was at Eglinton and Avenue Road, and ever since then, I’ve loved going to Yitz’s. Between the Eglinton location and the old Switzer’s on Spadina Avenue, these two restaurants often made me wish I had my very own Jewish Grandmother who would stuff me with blintzes and latkes and matzo.

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Sunday Sips – Le Face Cachée de la Pomme Neige

I’ve neglected doing much writing about wine because I know very little about the subject. And when I do plunge into the unknown depths of varietals and oak-aging, I find myself completely overwhelmed. Which is why I thought I’d be able to manage to sound like I knew what I was talking about by sticking to fruit wine.

But not so fast, because when it comes to apples, the definitions get as confusing as with grapes, and sent my Google-fu into overdrive.

The product in question is Neige, an “ice cider” from La Face Cachée de la Pomme in Hemmingford Quebec. Technically speaking, any product made with apples is considered a cider. What we know as hard or alcoholic cider tends to be light, slightly sweet, but not overly so, and effervescent; usually from natural carbonation (although some ciders have carbonation added). Through further fermentation of the cider and the addition of sugar, yeast, pectin and acid, cider can become a more viscous and sweet dessert wine.

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Craving Some Valentine’s Chocolates

Craving Chocolates
119A Roncesvalles Avenue
416-538-1212

Valentine’s Day is commonly thought of as the biggest holiday of the year for chocolate sales, but statistics show it actually ranks third or fourth after Easter, Halloween and Christmas. Due to shopping habits related to the day, however, Valentine’s generates more one-week candy sales than any other holiday. Apparently shoppers are better prepared for the other holidays (something about women doing the bulk of the shopping as opposed to men), and Valentine’s Day purchases are more last minute. Which is a shame, because it means an awful lot of people are getting big ugly boxes of sub-par candy, when a little planning could mean a better product.

Tucked away behind a flower shop on Roncesvalles Avenue is exactly the kind of place where people should be buying their Valentine’s chocolates.

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Life’s a Bowl of Cherries

Although I try to eat a mostly seasonal diet, I’ve got to admit that in the dark months of January and February, I start craving fruit. Not just apples and pears, but bright juicy summer fruits like berries. At least once every winter I break down and come home from the grocery store with a bag of cherries, just because I really, really need them, even if they’re nowhere as good as the local cherries we get in the summertime.

Given that this week is the first National Eat Red Week (February 4th – February 10th), I don’t feel so bad about indulging in some cherries. Particularly since local tart cherries are available both dried and in juice concentrate form year round – Ontario is the sole producing province of commercially-grown tart cherries, most of which are the Montmorency variety, and over the past five years, the average annual crop has been an average of 10 million pounds.

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Sunday Brunch – Sunset Grill

Sunset Grill
1 Richmond Street West (and other locations)
416-861-0514
Brunch for two with all taxes, tip and coffee: $23

People like breakfast. They want it hot, fast and familiar. They’re even willing to stand in line for it if that combination can be guaranteed.

Thus is the business plan on which the Sunset Grill is based. And it seems to be working. Starting with one all-day breakfast diner in the Beaches in 1985, this local chain has grown to 15 locations and counting. Most are known for their line-ups, especially on weekends. That’s a lot of bacon and eggs.

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Cheers to Winter – Celebrating the Icewine Harvest with iYellow Wine Club

It’s so very easy to become a snob in this industry. Whether it’s food, wine or beer, a little bit of experience can evolve into an awful lot of ego, and makes the atmosphere at any event having to do with food, and especially wine, more than a little intimidating for newcomers. Which is no doubt why the words “wine tour” conjure up images of high-society folks with haughty expressions and snooty attitudes sipping and slurping and generally thinking very well of themselves.

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This is Where the Magic Happens

My dogs always know when the pizza guy is coming. They go crazy when the door buzzer rings and run around the house in a frenzy. Pizza is their favourite food and they believe it is their dog-given right to the uneaten crusts. They are less happy when the pizza comes from Magic Oven, though, since their share of the crust is minimal indeed. I love my dogs, but when I’m having a healthy pizza with organic ingredients, my pups are outta luck because I’m eating the whole thing.

Which is to say, this ain’t your average pizza.

The concept behind Magic Oven’s gourmet pizza was developed when owners Tony and Abby Sabherwal took a trip to California and visited over 100 pizza restaurants in 16 days. They were enthralled with the use of fresh, high-end ingredients and were determined to recreate the delicious pizzas they had tried in Carmel By the Sea back in Toronto. Continue reading “This is Where the Magic Happens”

Yes Chef: A Kinder, Gentler, Prettier Chef School

There’s an ongoing joke in the restaurant biz, where executive chefs are regularly asked – who cooks the food when you’re not there? The answer is always given with a smirk – the same people who cook the food when I am there.

Presumably most foodies are wise enough to know that the product emerging from restaurant kitchens is the work of an entire team or brigade of staff, not just one person. Brigades can range in size from two or three people in small, family-run restaurants to hundreds of staff in large hotels. From dishwashers to sous chefs, sauciers to pastry chefs, the average restaurant runs on the concerted effort of many people, and that’s the just the staff at back of house.

Which means now more than ever that a career in just about any aspect of the culinary arts is a hot commodity. Canada’s hospitality sector currently employs over 1.7 million people and will require another 300,000 professionals by 2015 to remain competitive. Sure, some people have a natural talent for cooking, but for most, the key to landing jobs in the top restaurants is more easily attained through proper training.

In Toronto, that means the George Brown Centre for Hospitality and Culinary Arts.

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