Moving our Imaginations with Music

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Some big name children’s entertainers came to Chatham’s Capitol Theatre in November. Big name, that is, if you’re like me and have spent way too much time with the Disney Junior channel on television (only between bouts of Treehouse, of course, while secretly wishing it was TSN or The Food Network). I’m happy to say these performers are real people, too; they aren’t puppets, or animated characters brought to life with costumes, or puffy purple dinosaurs. They are a four-man musical troupe – Rich, Dave, Scott, and Smitty – known as The Imagination Movers. They play instruments and sing upbeat songs, scattered between comedic skits that encourage children to solve problems by exercising their imaginations. Not that there’s anything wrong with these other forms of non-real entertainment, but as a father, I take personal satisfaction in seeing my children’s role models graduating to characters that are flesh and blood, after the last few years of admiring Elmo. I admit, I like Yoda and Chewbacca from Star Wars, but Han Solo and Luke Skywalker are who I aspire to be. Read more

Savouring and Celebrating the CK Table

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Picture an outdoor dinner party, surrounded by the fields of a local farm, featuring food that was grown or raised within relatively close proximity, or – as the farmers might say – within spitting distance. The local residents eating the meal can pinpoint on a map of their municipality where the food came from. During the meal, the diners mingle with the farmers who supplied the food and cooked it on site with their own hands. It just doesn’t get more local or more delicious. Read more

A Harvest of Canadian Food Writing

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With the autumn harvest of regional foods behind us and the fresh sprouting of spring gardens still months away, it’s time to embark on a harvest of a different sort – the culling of good Canadian food writing to sustain a restless mind through the winter months. Or, if you find yourself in the throes of Christmas preparations, this list could help alleviate the gift-buying anxiety for any of those patriotic foodies in your life. Read more

Sensual Eating

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We all know certain foods taste wonderful, but we rarely take the time to consider why they taste this way – the saltiness of your favourite potato chip, the spicy tingle of a curry, or the pleasant bitterness of coffee. Not to mention the flip side of the flavour equation and those foods we can’t stand to cross our tongues. Good or bad – that’s where science comes in. In her book, Taste What You’re Missing: The Passionate Eater’s Guide to Why Good Food Tastes Good, a professional food developer, Barb Stuckey, demystifies the science behind our food and makes gastronomic chemistry accessible to non-scientific-minded people who are just looking to eat good food. Read more

The A, Bee, C’s of Honey

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When it comes to learning, there is no better way to make things stick than to have fun while doing it. Clovermead Apiary, just north of Aylmer in Elgin County, has taken their role as an educator about bees and honey very seriously while having loads of fun along the way. With honey running through their blood, the third and fourth generations of the Hiemstra family have kept the family business thriving. Chris Hiemstra, along with his wife Christy and their three children, take pride in inviting other families to share in the joy of beekeeping by engaging in fun and educational activities on the farm, including informative Bee-Line Tours of the apiary and fun-filled activities in the Adventure Farm. Their working farm has been turned into a destination for family outings with a zip line, a pedal go-kart track, wagon rides, and friendly farm animals. And while you’re here having fun, tidbits about beekeeping stick to your brain, just like honey to toast, as the Hiemstra’s offer an education about these fascinating insects. Read more

Putting It All On the Table

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Adam Gopnik is an American who has made a career of writing essays about France, mostly for The New Yorker and in his best-selling memoir, Paris to the Moon. His latest book, The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food, tackles one of France’s most endearing subjects – its cuisine. Gopnik introduces his topic by saying, “More people talk about food now – why they eat what they eat and what you ought to eat, too – than have ever done before.” And he’s not referring to dieters going on about calorie counts and trans fat content. These are the gourmets, the foodies, the chefs, the locavores, and the cookbook authors that have cropped up since food has taken on such a central role in cultural media. Much thanks can be given to Food Network for making food centre stage alongside the super-star deified chefs that sing its praises, giving rise to the foodie culture that cares about taste and quality above all else, but Gopnik wants to learn if we really know the true meaning of our food. Read more

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