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I heard about an interesting food web site today in an interview on CKCO News at Noon. The site – www.passeddown.com – invites visitors to submit favourite recipes that have been passed down in their families.
Dedicated to preserving food memories and sharing them with others, the site is the brain child of Adriana Salvia. She created the site in memory of her late father. Jennifer Mondoux participates as the site’s editor.
There is a helpful section on the site with tips and suggestions for submitting recipes and stories.
Here’s the recipe Adriana demonstrated in her interview today – Jim’s Greek Pita (Prassotiropita). It looked easy and delicious. And the story Jim submitted along with the recipe is very sweet.
Interested in traveling a road made from chocolate? Get on the right path by attending Follow the Chocolate Road at the Registry Theatre in Kitchener on Monday, February 9.
Folia, a baroque chamber music group, invites you to to attend an evening of music that will follow chocolate from the New World through its conquest of Baroque Europe. Interspersed throughout the evening will be chocolate trivia. And, appropriately, there will be chocolate tasting courtesy of Silver Spoon Fine Chocolates of Waterloo! How sweet is that!
The evening starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 for adult, $15 for seniors and students, and $5 for children 18 and under.
Tickets are available at the Centre in the Square Box Office (101 Queen St. N., Kitchener; Ph: (519) 578-1570).
The Registry Theatre is located at 122 Frederick St. in Kitchener.
COPIA - the American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts in Napa, California
Last February, I followed my nose – which is trained to sniff out all things chocolate – to Napa, California for Death by Chocolate, a day-long chocolate-themed extravaganza of tastings, classes, and cooking demonstrations, and a chocolate marketplace. The event was organized by and held at COPIA, the American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts.
Curious to see what was planned for Death by Chocolate 2009, I logged onto COPIA’s web site today, only to find the following message -
COPIA is currently closed. COPIA has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and is currently not open for business, visitation or future bookings.
COPIA is, or I guess I should say was, a venue created by American vintner Robert Mondavi to celebrate wine, food and the arts. It closed its doors on December 1, 2008. Up until then, it housed a food-themed gallery, Julia’s Kitchen restaurant (named after Julia Child), and edible gardens. It also played host to seminars about food and wine, photography and art exhibits, concerts and movie nights.
Although my connection with COPIA is limited to my experience at Death by Chocolate last year (which was great!), it appeared to me that the center served a vital role in the world of food and wine. However, it also seemed to be a controversial creation, not fully embraced by the local residents. It was also a victim of current economic conditions. And, no doubt there were many other reasons for COPIA’s demise.
You can read more about COPIA and its closure in the Napa Valley Register.
I spent this past weekend at the Seasons Christmas Show at the International Centre in Toronto. No, not shopping for Christmas decorations, gifts and baking. I was working at the Egg Farmers of Ontario‘s booth where we were giving out recipes for holiday baking and entertaining, and selling microwave egg cookers. (The cookers make excellent poached eggs, not to mention great stocking stuffers!) I’ll admit I did slip away from the booth a couple times to check out the show, but most of the time, it was work, work, work….
Our booth was located across the aisle from the Toronto Star Theatre, one of the presentation stages at the Show. Occasionally there was a lull in the activity in front of our booth; when no one was picking up recipes or asking a question about the nutritional value of eggs, I and the staff at our booth were entertained by the demonstrations on the cooking stage.
The presenters, who included Food Network‘s Chefs Anna Olson and Anthony Sedlak from FoodTV, as well as Elizabeth Baird, Executive Food Editor for Canadian Living magazine and Chef James Smith from George Brown College, attracted large crowds. As the weekend progressed, I made a few mental observations about the crowds and the high-profile cooks.
* Lots of talk, but not so much cooking! Most of the cooking dems went on for nearly an hour, but some presenters spent much of that time talking, not cooking. The crowds seemed content to sit and listen to cooking tips and techniques, food facts, and stories about what happens behind-the-scenes of a televized cooking show, despite witnessing a minimal amount of chopping, stirring and actual cooking.
* It tastes great – or so we’ve been told! Once the demonstration was over, samples of the finished dish were not typically provided for the gathered crowd to taste. Having done quite a few cooking demonstrations in my life, I know from experience that it can be a challenge to find a recipe to demonstrate for a large group of people that can also be easily sampled by the crowd. The problem is neatly solved by simply demonstrating the recipe but not offering samples of the finished product. This seemed to be the solution for a number of the presentations at the Toronto Star Theatre. I did notice that over at Canadian Living magazine’s stage, there appeared to be samples at each of the cooking dems.
The Lee Valley Early Christmas catalogue arrived this week. Yikes! A sign of the season, I guess.
It’s not that I’m surprised to see a Christmas catalogue. After all, Christmas is just a little over two months away. It’s just that there’s too much on the calendar between now and then. No doubt it will – as usual – be a mad race to meet the festive season deadlines (i.e. Dec. 25th!) and still remain sane.
Okay. So I just took a time-out to do some deep breathing and relaxation exercises. The thought of the impending arrival of Christmas had the heart rate and blood pressure up for a minute, but I think a few deep breaths and mental images of lying on a white sandy beach in Mexico have brought things under control. I think. Now, where were we? Ah yes, the Lee Valley catalogue…..
As I paged through the catalogue, an item sandwiched between a finger wrench and a tea ball infuser on an insert between pages 16 and 17 caught my attention. Called a Rimroller, the gadget promises to “effortlessly unroll rims on paper cups”. It was invented by Paul Kind of Ottawa, Ontario as a tool to roll up the rims of the gazillions of cups of coffee, tea, hot chocolate, etc. purchased at Tim Hortons during their RRRoll Up The Rim To Win contests. The Rimroller reveals whether you have won something or are invited to “Please play again” with a quick push down and a pull up motion, and more importantly, without chipping a tooth or breaking a nail (as one might do if performing this task manually!).
Although Tim Hortons provides tips on unrolling cup rims, or as their web site calls it – becoming a master roller, I invariably fight with the rims of my empty hot chocolate or hot smoothee cups to reveal the hidden message that will tell me if it’s my lucky day. The Rimroller, which conveniently doubles as a keychain, sounds like it would be a helpful gadget. Since there will likely be another RRRoll Up The Rim To Win contest in 2009 and the Rimrollers are just $2.50 each, you really can’t go wrong picking up one for yourself and some to give as stocking stuffers. (The catalogue price drops to $2.00 each if you purchase five or more.)
You’ll find more information about the Rimroller on the Rimroller website and in this CityNews report. Look for it here in the Lee Valley catalogue. Oh, apparently you can buy it at Zellers too.
Tired of telemarketers calling you in the middle of dinner or dinner preparation to ask if you want new windows, an assessment of your lawn, or the ducts in your house cleaned?
As of September 30, Canadians can choose how they wish to deal with calls from telemarketers.
To add your name to a Do Not Call list in Canada, visit https://www.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca/.
Certain businesses and organizations are still allowed to make calls to consumers including companies with whom you already have a business relationship, political parties, charities, and companies doing market research.
Once you sign up, telemarketers have 31 days to remove you from their call lists. Registration on the Do Not Call list is in effect for 3 years.
To those who choose to be on the Do Not Call list (and the list is long considering the flood of people who apparently signed up on Day 1) – “May the only ring you hear at dinner time be the dinner bell or the oven timer signalling that dinner is ready to be served….in peace and quiet!”
Every September I spend time promoting the goodness of eggs in the Egg Farmers of Ontario’s (EFO) booth at the Western Fair in London, Ontario and at the Plowing Match in ‘wherever’, Ontario.
The location of the Plowing Match (an outdoor agricultural show) changes every year. This year it was held in Teeswater. The only constant about the location is that the site will be a farmer’s field somewhere in the province. Oh yeah, and it will likely rain before or during the Plowing Match, turning that farmer’s field into a muddy mess and making it mandatory to have a vehicle with four-wheel drive to get on and off the site, and rubber boots to tramp around the site. This year was no exception, at least at the start of the week!
I’ve been going to the Western Fair and the Plowing Match for more years than I’d care to acknowledge. Thankfully, food choices have improved over the years. Where once you could just eat typical fair food like burgers, fries, pizza and chicken fingers, a selection of more wholesome choices are now options. This year in the Western Fair’s International Food and Travel Building, you could dine on pad thai, spring rolls, samosas, stir-fried vegetables, cabbage rolls, stuffed peppers, butter chicken and rice, and more.
At both events, however, the most popular choice still seemed to be fries. I’ll confess I also indulged – fish and chips at the Western Fair, and poutine (pronounced poo-TIN) at the Plowing Match.
Poutine - fries, cheese and gravy!
Poutine is a much-loved messy, mushy combination of french fries and cheddar cheese curds smothered in gravy. The dish had its origins in Quebec, although there is not unanimous agreement as to exactly where, when, why and how poutine became a diner’s delight. Similar dishes exist in other countries.
Some people consider poutine quintessential Canadian fare. Others go so far as to hail it as our national dish! Personally, I doubt that the majority of Canadians outside of Quebec have even eaten this triple combination, let alone would rank it as classic Canadian food.
I had only eaten poutine once before last week when I chose it for my lunch one day at the Plowing Match – in the name of research for this blog, of course. And, because as I stood in line at the Chez Guy food tent pondering what to order for lunch, it looked darn tasty! So I succumbed to temptation.
I had to stifle a gasp when the cashier asked for $6 for my potentially heart attack-inducing lunch. With my overflowing tub of fries, cheese and gravy and cheese in hand, I scurried off, head down, so as not to meet the gaze of anyone who might recognize me as the EFO nutritionist – the same person who had cautioned them (probably minutes earlier at the EFO booth!) that a diet high in saturated and trans fats could cause elevated blood cholesterol.
I headed for a quiet corner of the Plowing Match to sit and eat my ‘triple threat’ lunch. I first took a few pictures, then forked a mouthful of the gooey mess into my mouth. Sadly, the gravy and fries were no longer hot. I still managed to down about a third of the generous portion, then decided it was probably wise to consider my research complete. I did conclude that although lukewarm and rather salty, poutine was a tasty combo. I could understand how it could be an addictive indulgence.
Tip/Warning/Alert/All-Points Bulletin/Advice……whatever you want to call it! Please note: For the sake of your waistline and overall health, don’t become a poutine addict. I highly recommend not indulging too often. Why not? Consider the following example of the nutritional value of poutine when compared to what’s recommended for an adult consuming a 2,000 calorie diet.
The regular size portion (320 g) of poutine at New York Fries contains the following:
* 950 calories
* 50 g Fat (77% of the recommended daily intake)
* 13 g Saturated and 1 g Trans Fats (70% of the recommended daily intake)
* 1320 mg Sodium (55% of the recommended daily intake)
If you are curious to learn more about poutine, check out this CBC video. It first aired in 1991, but it’s still an interesting clip. There are also websites devoted to poutine recipes including variations of the original combination of gravy, cheese and fries. Here are a couple:
* Montreal Poutine
* National Post – poutine recipes from Bonnie Stern
Who hasn’t heard of the 100-mile diet, the eating regime that encourages consuming a diet of foods grown within a 100-mile (or 160 km) radius of where one lives?
This “diet” has recently been made popular by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon who lived the 100-mile diet for a year in Vancouver, then documented their experience in a book appropriately titled The 100-Mile Diet (Random House, 2007). There is also a blog, www.100milediet.org, which provides inspiration and recipes for eating locally.
Smith and MacKinnon will be visiting Kitchener on September 17 to talk about their book and their experience buying and eating locally. (More details follow.)
Eating close to the land – choosing to eat local foods as they come into season – is hardly a new way of thinking about shopping, cooking and eating food. In fact, this is the philosophy by which much of the world has eaten for a long time. In the global village we live in, where cultures readily mix and assimilate, travel is relatively easy (although it used to be a little cheaper!), and transport systems have made it possible to bring in foods from far-away places, it has become possible, in fact the norm, for at least some of the world’s population to eat a stunning variety of foods from around the globe. Although this broadens the options at meal time, it also means many of us have become quite removed from those who produce our food and the source of food in its original state. Sadly, if questioned as to where a particular food comes from (e.g. milk, beef), some of us would respond with a quizzical stare and uncertainty. “Uh…the store?” (It’s true. I’ve seen it happen.)
While Smith and MacKinnon can and should take much credit for popularizing the notion of eating locally, we shouldn’t overlook the many food/land/agriculture/environment-conscious individuals who have purchased, cooked and eaten in this manner long before it became fashionable. This short list is a sampling of some of those people:
- California-based Alice Waters and Toronto’s Jamie Kennedy are chefs who have promoted local dining in their restaurants for many years.
- Food writers Anita Stewart and Elizabeth Baird are among the many cookbook authors and magazine writers who, for years, have promoted the joys of eating the rich bounty of foods produced close to home.
- In 1995, my friend and fellow home economist Pat Hughes published Savour the Seasons, a cookbook written with her colleague Eleanor Cameron. It contained menus and recipes that reflected foods available seasonally. There are a host of similar cookbooks on bookstore shelves these days.
- There are many consumers who consistently shop at their local farmers’ market or purchase locally grown foods at their neighbourhood grocery store, grow vegetables in their garden (freezing or canning the surplus), and consciously attempt to eat according to the seasons.
I’m all for eating locally grown and produced foods as much as possible. I will admit, however, that I couldn’t live only on foods grown within 100 miles of Kitchener. There would be too many favourite foods I’d miss eating – bananas, mangoes, chocolate, oranges and olives, to name a few. But there are important benefits to buying Ontario-grown or produced foods as often as possible and enjoying foods as they come into season.
Here are a few reasons to eat locally. (You’ll find 13 reasons to eat locally at www.100milediet.org.)
- It helps support the local economy and our Ontario farmers.
- The food you consume will not have travelled a long distance and therefore should be fresh and flavourful.
- The fewer miles food has to travel, the lower the fuel costs and the less strain there is on the environment.
I’m fortunate that Kitchener-Waterloo is a small enough community that within minutes I can be beyond city borders and into the country where farm land is plentiful. It is easy to enjoy what rural and urban lifestyles have to offer, including the smell of manure that has wafted into our neighbourhood several times in the past few weeks. I try to consider the aroma a reminder that my agricultural cousins are busy doing their job to ensure we all have food on our tables.
I truly hope the “eat local” movement is not a passing trend. In an article written by Julia Aitken in the Toronto Star on June 18, 2008, manager Alison Fryer of The Cookbook Store in Toronto included the 100-mile diet as one of the top 10 worst trends she has witnessed in her 25 years selling cookbooks. Just one person’s opinion, of course!
If you live in Waterloo Region and would like to meet Smith and MacKinnon, they will be in our area on September 17 for One Book One Community events. You will find them at Your Kitchener Market from 10 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. where they will be signing copies of The 100-Mile Diet. There will be a 100-Mile Mini Market at the market that day as well. Copies of the The 100-Mile Diet will be for sale along with produce grown within 100 miles of the market. Exhibits will showcase the benefits of eating locally produced food.
Smith and MacKinnon will be reading from their book at 7 p.m. on September 17 at the Kitchener Public Library.
I first wrote about Canadian gastronomer Anita Stewart and her idea for a giant national barbecue in July, 2003. These are a few paragraphs about the Canadian culinary caper she dreamed up as described in my July 30th, 2003 Creative Cooking column in The Record, Waterloo Region’s newspaper.
BARBECUING FOR A CAUSE; ELORA FOOD MAVEN URGES US TO STAND BY OUR FARMERS
It’s being billed as the World’s Longest Barbecue and you’re invited.
This Saturday, as the clock strikes 6 p.m. from time zone to time zone
across our country, Canadians are encouraged to sit down to enjoy a beef
barbecue in honour of our beef farmers and in support of their industry,
which has suffered dramatically after a single incidence of mad cow disease
was found in Alberta this spring.
Saturday’s national event is the brainchild of Elora cookbook author and
culinary maven Anita Stewart. Her dream is to “link Canada from coast to
coast to coast in one massive, delicious outdoor celebration of support for
Canadian agriculture.”
Fast forward five years and Anita is still passionate about celebrating our national and local cuisine and showing support for those who produce the food we are fortunate to be able to eat and enjoy.
Tomorrow, August 2, at 6 p.m. (your local time), you’re invited to celebrate the 2008 version of the World’s Longest Barbecue – Canada Day 2. There is still time to plan a barbecue, invite friends and family, then visit Anita’s website to post your menu plans. Your menu doesn’t need to be complicated or time-consuming to prepare. Just visit a local market or grocery store to see what’s fresh and produced close to home and you’ll be able to put together a delicious meal. If you want to find out what others will be grilling up that day, you can read menu ideas from fellow Canadians on her site.
My menu this year? Although we won’t be able to celebrate the WLB exactly on August 2, when we do fire up the barbecue in honour of this event, we’ll be serving some pretty standard summertime fare including devilled eggs, beef burgers with all the fixin’s, grilled portobellos (for my vegetarian friends), barbecued spare ribs, creamy potato salad, broccoli salad, corn on the cob with herbed butter, and bumbleberry crisp made with apples, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and rhubarb, and served with homemade vanilla ice cream.
The latest book from Canadian culinary activist Anita Stewart
Anita is also a prolific author. You’ll find a list of her cookbooks/books about Canadian foodways on her site. Her latest offering is Anita Stewart’s Canada: the food, the recipes, the stories (Harper Collins Publishers Ltd, 2008). Not only a great read, it will provide inspiration for your WLB menu and other Canadiana-style meals this weekend and beyond.
You can read about Anita’s recent book tour on her blog.
Last week I spent four days in Quebec City. What a great place to visit! I count it as one of my favourite spots in all of Canada. For the many tourists who flock to the city (especially this year, the city’s 400th anniversary), its special charm is the area known as Old Quebec with its European-style architecture, narrow cobblestone streets, old brick buildings, boutiques, galleries, antique shops, and restaurants.
I stayed in the stylish Hotel 71 in Old Port and enjoyed casual dining at St. Alexandre Pub and Le Conchon Dingue, and a more formal meal at L’Echaude. The sugar pie at Le Cochon Dingue, a cheese burger at a small restaurant in the Petit Champlain district, and chocolate noisette gelato at a nearby confectionary, were favourite taste experiences.
Cheese burger and fries
Quebecers enjoy eating out and take their food seriously. There are plenty of restaurants, many offering table d’hote (you can choose a meal from a set menu at a fixed price). I found serving portions appropriate and my meals tastefully prepared and garnished. Since you “eat with your eyes” before actually tasting what’s set before you, a garnish definitely adds to the pleasure of a meal. The cheeseburger and fries platter I enjoyed at a small restaurant in the Petit Champlain area of lower Old Quebec (unfortunately I don’t recall the restaurant’s name) was garnished with a small salad made of long thin carrot strings, cucumber slices with the edges artistically notched, tomato slices, rings of onion, and strips of sweet pepper perched above a bed of lettuce. My late lunch looked appetizing, and since it was raining outside and I was inside and dry, seated at a table by the window watching the world scurry by, it tasted c’est délicieux!
