Mom & Dad in the Kitchen

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With Mother’s Day and Father’s Day on the horizon, some parents may be treated to a special meal prepared lovingly, but not so expertly, by their children – say a misshapen smiley face pancake with a strawberry nose, chocolate chip eyes, and whipped cream hair for breakfast. But we all know, for the balance of the year, it is the parents who slug it out in the kitchen to prepare endless meals to nourish a growing family. I’m a new parent myself, so when I came across a book about a father’s exploits in the kitchen, I took notice as a way to better influence the eating habits of the two fruits of my own loins. Hungry Monkey: A Food-Loving Father’s Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater by Matthew Amster-Burton is a stay-at-home dad’s approach to ensure his daughter’s palette grows beyond a puerile affection for grilled cheese sandwiches by introducing her to his favourite international meals. Read more

Asian-Style Slow Food: A Lesson in Chopsticks

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Chopsticks are the gentle cutlery. Choosing them for a meal means relinquishing the more violent actions of stabbing with fork tines and slicing with knife blades. Like surgery, using chopsticks involves delicate procedures and pinpoint accuracy to placidly move morsels of food to the mouth. Western utensils seem to be designed for an aggressive contact sport, but chopsticks allow for more of a tai chi routine. But, of course, that’s only for those who know how to use them well enough to not look ham-fisted. Read more

Food on the Street

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Street food in North America has been given a gourmet facelift over the past few years. No longer a venue for hot dogs alone, vendors selling from sidewalk carts and mobile trucks have gained fame and fortune with non-traditional street food menus. Documented in scrapbook-style, Mission Street Food: Recipes and Ideas from an Improbable Restaurant, outlines how two unlikely entrepreneurs kick-started this revolution three years ago by mingling fancy food with a rented taco cart in San Francisco. They were an internet buzz, they were a hit with food journalists, they sold out of food every night, and they transformed the restaurant scene. Read more

The Whole Pig … And Nothing but the Pig

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As Ontario pork producers, Martin and Teresa Van Raay have pledged an oath – to sell the pig, the whole pig, and nothing but the pig – by taking their already-successful pig farm and adding a new business approach by delivering whole, half, and quarter pigs to end customers. It is a unique concept that is gaining them recognition in the industry as recipients of two awards in 2011: the Premier’s Award for Agri-Food Innovation Excellence, and the Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the South Huron County Chamber of Commerce. Read more

Revival on Rye

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David Sax is a Toronto-born, Montreal-educated author who currently resides alongside the most successful delicatessens in New York. The number of delis in New York has been dwindling – numbering close to two thousand at its zenith in the 1930’s, decreasing to 150 in 1960, and currently home to only a few dozen – and Sax cannot believe that with outstanding food and rich history that they are experiencing such a downfall. Toronto also has seen a decline from several dozen delis twenty years ago to only six now. Unfortunately, like many family-run businesses in the shadow of corporate entities, delis are on the brink of extinction, shutting down at a rapid pace because of increasing rental prices and other operating costs. If the love of Jewish food could keep a business open, there would be no problems, but monetary constraints and slowing economy interfere. Sax set out to draw attention to his beloved restaurants with his book, Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of Jewish Delicatessen. Read more

A Bird for All Seasons

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There are few products that create a more memorable culinary image than a whole roasted turkey glistening with golden skin at the Thanksgiving dinner table. For over 60 years, Hayter’s Farm in Dashwood has done its part filling holiday platters with these traditional birds. In fact, Tradition is a word imprinted on their logo and the farm has been run in the most traditional of ways by passing down the family-run business through three generations. Read more

Living La Vida Local

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I recently travelled south to sample the flavours of Ecuador. But it wasn’t nearly as far as you might expect, not as far as the country itself in the northern part of South America, but a mere 60-minute drive southwest of London. With a Spanish name to match its philosophy, Lo Maximo Meats is an offshoot venture of Spence Farms near the tiny community of McKay’s Corners in the Municipality of Chatham-Kent. The people responsible for the Ecuadorian food I sampled are Canadian-born farmer, Paul Spence, and his wife, Sara Caiche, born and raised in Gauyaquil, Ecuador, who now shares her style of cooking with our part of the world. Read more

The Innocent Foodies Abroad

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It all starts with a determined, food-conscious bride baking her own wedding cake. From there the new book by Ann McColl Lindsay, Hungry Hearts: A Food Odyssey across Britain and Spain 1968-69, blossoms into an enjoyable account of a liberally-minded couple’s affair with food, life, and each other as they follow their whims to travel across Europe in a Volkswagen camper. Restless to take a break from their teaching careers, Ann and her husband, David Lindsay, set out to find what the world had to offer, but little did they expect such a series of food-related revelations, including a “gradual change from two innocents raised on white bread, tinned soup, and cherry cokes, to adventurous eaters, appreciative of baby eels and bouillabaisse.” Read more

At a Snail’s Pace

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Escargot will never be something I willingly choose from a menu. Not that I can’t stomach a few snails if I need to when pressured into a Survivor-style challenge, I just prefer my shelled food to come from salt water rather than the garden. My wife doesn’t have such hang-ups and has been begging me to try escargot for years, insisting I will love the buttery and garlicky morsels. I often remind her that before we met I had never eaten escargot, never even considered putting those dirty little things in my pristine mouth, and I have gotten along just fine. Read more

Live & Uncorked with The Thirsty Traveler and The Surreal Gourmet

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Without television cameras on them, Food Network stars tend to let loose a little. Londoners found this out firsthand when Bob Blumer and Kevin Brauch rolled into town for their Live & Uncorked tour, giving us a taste of some high-energy antics with food and drink not seen on their TV shows. Blumer and Brauch have both been fixtures on Food Network since its inception and the live performance was advertised as an irreverent, behind-the-scenes look at their culinary careers. If this performance were ever to air on television, there would be plenty of censoring – the alcohol was flowing generously, the four-letter words were flying freely, and there was even a titillating video display of Blumer making S’more shooters with a topless woman in a see-through apron on the Naked News. Not your typical Food Network stuff. Read more