Tag: TasteTO

Assessing the Haggis

I was just about haggised out after putting together last week’s round up of Robert Burns activities and dinners. Then Chef Martin Kouprie of Pangaea (1221 Bay Street) sent me a message on Twitter. He was holding a haggis competition for his kitchen staff; the winning dish would be served in the restaurant on Robert Burns Day. Would I like to come and be a judge?

I was of two minds; my experience with offal – all organs and all animals (I’ve only recently learned to like foie gras) – hasn’t been good. But then I remembered the advice of Vogue food writer Jeffrey Steingarten, that you must try a food at least ten times before you can determine that you truly don’t like it. I’d had haggis once before and found it repulsive, but here was an opportunity to try seven additional versions of the dish, created by seven different professional cooks who would be pulling out all the stops to make the lowly stuffed sheep’s stomach into gourmet fare.

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Cooking With Love at the Wine Bar

 

Wine Bar
9 Church Street
416-504-WINE

It seems clichéd to start a piece about a new restaurant and roll out the “food = love” metaphors. But in the case of the Wine Bar, it seems apt, given that the principals involved are two couples who have saved what has become known as a landmark dining spot from what might have potentially been a corporate overhaul.

When word came out in the summer of ’09 that Jamie Kennedy was selling his Church Street Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar restaurant due to financial troubles, nobody knew for sure what might happen to the place. Kennedy offered the place to staff members first, and Chef Scott Vivian (who had run Kennedy’s Gardiner museum restaurant) along with his wife, pastry chef Rachelle Cadwell (who had been head of pastry for all of Kennedy’s operations) decided to take over the place and make it their own. Along with Vivian and Cadwell, Ted and Mary Koutsogiannopoulos (who had previously run Joy Bistro) came on board to remake the restaurant, now simply called the Wine Bar.

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TV Party Tonight!

Okay, not tonight. Thursday, actually. But if you can hold off until then, the folks at Grace (503 College Street) will serve you up a TV dinner like no other, paired with some kick-ass cocktails and a big screen TV showing old episodes of M*A*S*H and I Love Lucy.

As a follow-up to their incredibly successful summer BBQ series, owner Lesle Gibson and Chef Dustin Gallagher wanted a weekly winter event with the same fun and casual atmosphere. Something kitschy and communal that evoked the warm homey feel that Grace is so well-known for.

This past Thursday, Grace Upstairs was graced by a 33-pound brined and roasted turkey in order to re-create the first ever Swanson TV dinner, made available to the public in 1954. It was accompanied by authentic mashed potatoes (right down to the frozen pat of butter); mixed veg that included peas and organic carrots; stuffing made from mushrooms, apples, garlic, sage and onion; housemade cranberry sauce; turkey jus; and apple crumble made with apples from Algoma orchards.

And because it was bigger than your average TV dinner (we joked that it was one of those “Hungry Man” versions), a compartmentalized Indian thali tray worked perfectly.

Gallagher popped in and out (regular service was still taking place in the main restaurant downstairs), leaving the TV dinner service in the capable hands of cook Bryan Lavers.

Lavers explained that they spent a lot of time researching the various brands and types of TV dinners, right down to digging through the boxes in the frozen food section of the grocery store, and hoped to recreate them all, suggesting upcoming weeks will include pork chops with mushroom gravy and biscuits, fried chicken, roast beef, and ham that they plan on curing themselves. He said they’re still working on perfecting the Salisbury steak, which is apparently harder to recreate out of quality meat than they thought.

A slight wrench got thrown into the plan when a vegetarian showed up (old school TV dinners don’t come in vegetarian versions), but owner Lesle Gibson graciously found a replacement in the form of Gallagher’s famous mushroom gnocchi.

For $20, this hearty meal of a main plus dessert might be a bit more money than the plastic microwaveable tray from the supermarket frozen food aisle, but the quality and quantity of food certainly makes this a great deal no matter how you look at it. Paired with a glass of wine or one of Grace’s outstanding Manhattans, this might just be the coolest meal deal in town.

TV Dinner Thursdays take place every Thursday at Grace Upstairs, starting at 6:30pm. $20 gets you the TV dinner feature of the night. Tax, tip and beverages extra.

Fondue Yu

I’m not sure how, but fondue passed me by in the 70s. My folks had all the other trendy appliances of the day; crock pots, electric frying pans, but the communal dining experience of dipping bits of food into cheese, oil or chocolate never happened in our house. When Greg arrived on my doorstep in 1994 he came with a fondue set, a leftover wedding present from his first marriage. It sat on a shelf in a closet until we sold it at a yard sale.

Sure, there was the occasional party where someone put out a fondue for guests to nibble at. These brief attempts at the process were frustrating – I’d end up losing more than I managed to eat. I assumed the tradition of losing your food in the pot and buying a round of drinks meant that the fondue was just an excuse to get drunk. Because booze and fondue go hand in hand.

A classic winter comfort food, this Swiss creation was invented to use up bits of stale cheese and bread during the long cold winters. A splash of wine, or maybe beer, thinned the melted cheese enough to dip bread and other items into it. The shared pot came from not only a lack of utensils, but a need to stay close to the warm fire, as well as a sense of community and sharing. And while the food cooked, more beer and wine was consumed all around.

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Toronto’s Terre Madre Day

Over the past few years, Slow Food activists have taken part in a bi-annual event in Torino, Italy called Terra Madre. First held in 2004, the event brings together food activists from around the world in a giant conference and marketplace where people can exchange ideas and information. There are conferences, symposiums, dinners and markets, all with a focus on sharing ideas about how to promote sustainable food. Terra Madre takes place during the even-numbered years (2006, 2008… another coming up in 2010), and this year, Slow Food decided that it would be a good idea for individual convivia to hold local events – both as a great way to support local food producers, and because, well, not everyone can afford to get on a plane to Italy.

Organized and paid for by Slow Food Toronto (monies raised at the Picnic at the Brickworks allowed them to pay participating farmers and producers to take part, a rarity in the world of markets and trade shows where the producers usually have to pay to participate), this year’s Terra Madre Day took place at the FoodShare warehouse.

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The Charms of Buca

Buca
602 King Street West
416-865-1600
Dinner for two with all taxes, tip and wine: $150

The recession might have played a role, but Toronto seems especially caught up in the idea of rustic food. We’re uninterested in molecular gastronomy and sundaes sprinkled with gold leaf; we crave real authentic food like (someone’s) Mama used to make.

In the world of Italian food, the leader of this pack has long been Terroni, where Cosimo Mammoliti built his business on food so authentic he wouldn’t allow changes or substitutions. When Pizza Libretto opened last year, some thought (and still do) that the pizza there was better (I’m still trying to get over the soggy centres on the two pizzas I had there) but both now have some serious competition from Buca.

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Find All the Flavours at One of a Kind

It’s Black Friday in the US, and Buy Nothing Day for those who oppose all that consumerism, but here at TasteTO we espouse a a kinder, gentler approach to the inevitable holiday shopping. We call it “Buy Something Good Day” (no, seriously, it’s an alternative day I made up about 10 years ago), and the premise is to neither go hogwild in the line-ups fighting to get cheap crap, or to boycott shopping completely, but rather to shop conscientiously, buying only what you truly need, and when buying gifts, to source beautiful products from local independent artisans so your dollars go back into the local economy and support craftspeople.

There is no better place to do that than at the One of a Kind Christmas Show and Sale, which runs at Exhibition Place until December 6th. With something like 700+ artisans offering everything from clothing and jewelry, toys, furniture housewares, food and art, there’s something for everyone.

Of course, we’re mostly interested in the food-related items and we arrived early yesterday morning to peruse the aisles before the event opened to find a fab selection of great stuff. Follow the clicky for an array of gorgeous food-related goodies.

Above image: Peas in a pod – handmade serving dishes from Wellington Pottery.

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Follow the Scent of Cookies to the Happiest Place on Earth

 

Mary Macleod’s Shortbread
639 Queen Street East
416-461-4576

Some people say Disney is the happiest place on earth. I’d say those people are wrong. I have proof that the happiest place on earth is on Queen Street East, just past the Don River, where Mary Macleod and her small team of bakers make the very best shortbread ever.

Don’t believe me? Take James’ Beard’s word for it – on a visit to Toronto in the early 80s, the acclaimed chef declared Macleod’s shortbread the best he’s ever tasted.

Mcleod emigrated to Canada from Scotland in 1955 when she got married. She shares a story of meeting her mother-in-law for the first time; her reputation for being a great cook had preceded her, and her mother-in-law had asked that she bake an apple pie. Not used to the differences in North American flour compared to the softer, more delicate products used in Europe, Macleod’s pastry was a disaster, and she set about researching the different flours and how she could add other natural ingredients to manipulate the dough to work more like the European products she was used to.

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What’s On the Table – In Pictures

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.

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The Life-Changing Mole

I am befuddled by people who don’t like food. It’s partially why I hate the term “foodie” so much – who doesn’t like food? Who among us isn’t a “foodie”? But I guess it’s fair to note that some of us care a bit more than others. Not just fuel to keep us alive, food is beauty and art and love, all rolled into one. A perfect meal can be as emotional as a first kiss or a last goodbye.

Which is why I found myself sitting in Frida restaurant last week, barely able to hold back the well of tears.

Having just eaten what might possibly be one of the best meals of my life, I found myself clinging to Chef Pilar Cabrera Arroyo’s hand, unable to let go, uttering “thank you” over and over again. Yes, I’d had a fair amount to drink, including a gourd of mescal, but the sheer brilliance of Cabrera’s 30-ingredient authentic Oaxacan mole will likely remain one of the highlights of my food writing career.

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