Today in the food sections…

In the Toronto Star, Jen Gerson reports from the Guelph Organic Conference at the University of Guelph where farmer and author Michael Abelman insists that we have to change our attitude and start thinking of farmers the same way we do chefs - like rock stars.

“The hysteria over arugula or heirloom tomatoes, the explosion of farmers’ markets, the desire to meet face-to-face each week with the person who grew your nourishment goes deeper than just food. It may just be part of a desperate longing to be part of the real world,” Ableman says.

Abelman also discusses the progression of the organic movement into stores like Wal-Mart. Organic nay-sayer Alex Avery, a big-agri representative, attempts to debunk the organic trend, calling it elitist.

Also in the Star, Susan Sampson, the Fare Lady, takes a tour of a real butcher’s shop with the guys from The Healthy Butcher. I already knew that most home cooks weren’t really interested in butchering and trimming their own meat (When was the last time you used a boning knife? Do you even own one??), but it turns out that most grocery store butchers aren’t either.

Josh Rubin interviews Perry Mason from Scotch Irish Brewing about his Sgt. Major’s India Pale Ale, and Gord Stimmel features wines from Italy.

Finally, Jennifer Bain reviews the new Charlie Palmer cookbook, Practical Guide to the New American Kitchen, which is even more practical than you could imagine, as it’s got a splatterproof coating on all the pages. Spills wipe right off.

Over at the Toronto Sun, they’re getting ready for Superbowl Sunday, with recipes and articles about Superbowl snack food.

In fact, Super Bowl surpasses New Year’s Eve as the top party occasion, says Hallmark, and the American Institute of Food Distribution states SuperBowl Sunday is the second-largest day of food consumption — the first being the American Thanksgiving.

With an estimated 800 million viewers world-wide, you just know supermarkets everywhere are bracing themselves for the mother of all smorgasbords.[sic]

Rita Demontis offers up some healthier, heart-smart superbowl fare like boneless Buffalo Wings and 7-layer dip.

And finally, for a little something sweet after all of that pork and pizza and cheese, Elizabeth Baird provides a recipe for a really yummy-looking lemon sponge pudding.

Before we even officially launch this site, I want to make something perfectly clear – while TasteTO was created in order to celebrate all of the wonderful food choices we have here in Toronto, we should never ever forget that there are a lot of people in our city who do not have those options. Sure, we’ll be running reviews of nice restaurants, and features on wonderful products and ingredients, but it would be remiss of us not to report on other food issues that affect Torontonians aside from whether this year’s truffle crop is as good as last year’s.

An article in yesterday’s Toronto Star advocates a meal subsidy for people on social assistance, calculating that a family of four receiving benefits has only $396 left after paying rent to cover all of their bills for the month, including groceries.

For instance, the average monthly rent for a three-bedroom apartment for a family of four in Toronto is $1,272. That family would receive $1,668.35 per month in social assistance benefits, child-related tax benefits and GST tax credits.

That would leave only $396.35 for food and other basics, far short of the $538.43 a month called for in the Nutritious Food Basket, which is based on the Canada Food Guide.

$396 – I bet that’s less than what that family of four would pay for dinner at one of the city’s high-end dining establishments. And that total has to include other bills such as utilities, transportation, medication, and clothing.

There’s an imbalance taking place that seems terrifically unfair.

Not to mention that the Nutritious Food Basket relies on a lot of basics and a decent knowledge of cooking for it to work economically. There’s no room for snacks and treats, even cheap ones.

“It’s based on purchasing basic food ingredients,” McKeown said.

“You have to have the skills to cook from scratch all of your meals. … It’s not a rich diet. It takes no account of any kind of pre-processed or prepared food or eating out. It’s just the basics.”

Many would argue that if you work hard for the salary you make, you have the right to spend it any way you see fit, and a two or three or four-hundred dollar meal is your right if you can afford it.

But everyone should have the right to safe, healthy, nutritious food. Ensuring that people eat well now prevents illness and eliminates medical costs in the long run. Children learn better with full tummies when they can concentrate on their school work. Healthy employees take fewer sick days. All of this is well-known. I don’t have the solutions, and I’m not trying to preach, but doesn’t it seem amazingly illogical that we don’t have a subsidy like this in place already? That we’re allowing people to go hungry or forcing them to go to food banks?

And that’s just the folks living on social assistance. The working poor trying to live on Ontario’s crappy minimum wage don’t fare any better.

I’m not trying to make anyone feel guilty about their own food purchases - I’m not going to stop treating myself to those $6 single-estate chocolate bars that I love so much - but I’m going to find a way to ensure that TasteTO does its part to advocate for this meal subsidy, for lunch and breakfast programmes in schools, and for a higher minimum wage ($10 should be just a start) so that everyone can afford a delicious and nutritious meal, not just the folks making the big bucks.

Beer of the Week, as the name suggests, is Taste T.O.’s weekly beer review column. The focus will be primarily on craft beers brewed in Ontario, as well as some interesting imports available at the LCBO, The Beer Store, and at speciality beer bars and restaurants in Toronto.

For this inaugural instalment of Beer of the Week, it seemed fitting to take a look at a beer that is synonymous with Toronto for many drinkers. Since its launch in 2000, Steam Whistle Pilsner has become one of Canada’s fastest growing craft beer brands, but even as their popularity has spread beyond our city’s borders, they’ve still managed to build and retain a reputation as Toronto’s hometown beer.

It’s a reputation that has been well-earned, as Steam Whistle founders Greg Taylor, Cam Heaps and Greg Cromwell were all employees of Upper Canada Brewing, one of Toronto’s first microbreweries. When Upper Canada was bought by Sleeman and the original brewery closed down, the three friends moved on to other things, but the brewing world pulled them back in, and they began concocting plans in 1998 that led to the launch of Steam Whistle two years later. With it’s iconic 1950s-style branding and the picturesque brewery in The Roundhouse where they host numerous art and social events, it didn’t take long for their painted green bottles to become ubiquitous around the city.

Ah, yes, the green bottles. It’s hard to deny that they look snazzy as hell, but they are also one of the reasons that some beer aficionados have a problem with Steam Whistle. ‘Cause if there’s one thing that can ruin a beer - especially a light lager like Steam Whistle - it’s putting it in a green (or clear) bottle. Leave it sitting under light for even a little while and the beer will become light-struck or “skunky”, which is obviously not an ideal state for beverage enjoyment. In fact, the very first Steam Whistle I tried in the back room of the Rivoli soon after its launch was completely skunked, and it took me a couple of years to give it another shot.

When I did try it again, it was on draught from a fresh keg, and I found it to be an enjoyable and refreshing pint. The colour has a nice golden hue, the aroma holds some inviting grassy hop notes, and the flavour is fresh and clean with a mellow maltiness and a nicely hopped finish. The flavour isn’t quite as full as some of the classic European pilsners like Czechvar and Urquell, and it also has a less prominent hop character, making it less bitter. But if you can find a place that has it on tap and keeps it fresh, it pairs well with many pub foods, and provides a fine accompaniment to warm afternoon on a patio.

I still stay away from the bottles, though…

Here’s what those other Toronto blogs are talking about, foodwise…

Over at BlogTO, Tanja gives her take on the recent move by Queen West icon Tequila Bookworm. Located in the old Epicure digs, the new spot is different, but good, and the food remains delicious. There’s also a post about an event at The Gladstone for Naturopack’s, Get it to Go Green campaign which encourages restaurants to use sustainable containers for take-out items. We’re totally behind this initative here at TasteTO - we’d like to be able to eat take-out without worrying about the packaging.

At Torontoist, they’re also talking about the biodegradable coffee cups, and Amanda Buckiewicz does an extensive search on where to get haggis for Robbie Burns day. Lucky for us, the event had already taken place by the time we got to linking to the post, so we’re all safe from haggis for another year.

Suresh at SpotlightToronto writes about Winterlicious, including his picks for this year. His post about the pecan pie from Pusateri’s and the porn-o-riffic photos of their pastry counter will surely have everyone lined up for treats. He also reviews Maro, the much-debated restaurant in Liberty Village (other reviews range from awesome to horrible), and finds it to his liking.

Blog-a-log is a weekly look at what’s on the minds of Toronto food bloggers. If you’re in Toronto and have a food-specific blog, let us know. We’ll give you a link from our Links page, and we’ll include your culinary adventures in our weekly round-up.

Lots of food blogging in the wide, wide world of web this past week, where the recurring theme among Toronto food bloggers appears to be chocolate…

All Things Dolce has fun with squid, bakes up a really awesome looking potato pizza, and cooks a roast beef with firemen!

TasteTO tech monkey Greg Clow debates whether beer is the drink of snobs or slobs over at Beer, Beats & Bites.

James Chatto of Toronto Life takes a visit to Verity, a local women’s club, where he attends a wine tasting.

Over at Confessions of a Cardamom Addict, Jasmine reveals the content of her grocery cart. She’s also hosting February’s Sugar High Friday meme (a round-up of blog posts and recipes dealing with something sweet), where the theme is seduction. Ooh la la! She also posts her contribution to this month’s SHF - chocolate by brand. Yum!

Speaking of sweet stuff, there’s always something tasty to drool over at Cream Puffs in Venice, where Ivonne shows us her contribution to the chocolate-themed Sugar High Friday, and keeps up the chocolate talk with a book review and recipe from Essence of Chocolate: Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate by Robert Steinberg and John Scharffenberger.

Seems everyone in the blogosphere is enthralled with chocolate this week, and The Domestic Goddess joins the crowd with a post about the progress of her chocolate knowledge and some lovely Portugese Chocolate Tarts.

Primitive diets and some pivotal research by Dr. Weston Price are on the mind of Tracey at Fear and Loathing in the Kitchen.

Hungry in Hogtown isn’t in Hogtown at all, but instead is travelling in Spain, eating really, really nice chocolates.

Tasty Mexican food and her new bread maker are topics of discussion over at Ruth’s Once Upon a Feast.

Over at Save Your Fork (hey, wait, that’s me!), I’m talking about trans-fat free Crisco and the Treat of the Week is lemon-pepper brownies.

Yummy soup, grocery delivery and a chicken named Charlie are what’s going on over at Tomato Kumato.

And finally, more chocolate at sweet pleasure as Sam takes part in Sugar High Friday with some of the most elegant creations I’ve seen in the blogosphere.

In The Toronto Star this week, Amy Pataki may not like everything about Globe Bistro, but she sure does like the lobster:

The Yarmouth lobster ($38) is much better now that it is no longer cooked sous-vide. The tender claw and tail meat instead is poached in butter, the sauce is based on clarified butter, and the “yukon potato cloud” served alongside is a dollop of vastly buttery mashed potatoes. It’s all about the butter.

Also in The Star:

• Linda Barnard attends the retirement party for Rita and Ernesto Fuda who recently sold their Italian deli, La Salumeria, after faithfully serving the Yonge-Davisville community for 20 years.
• Peter Calamai interviews Max Nelson, a University of Windsor professor who earned his PhD in classical studies by researching - and brewing - ancient beer.
• Marion Kane makes us miss Marks & Spencer by writing about their Fair Trade Extra Strong Tea.
• Sarah Sampson claims that “a kitchen without a food processor is like a farm without a tractor”.
• In the Business section, Sharda Prashad profiles Ace Bakery, the charity-minded folks who kick-started Toronto’s love of artisan bread in 1993 with a small King Street West storefront, and have managed to grow to become one of the country’s largest speciality food producers without compromising their quality or their vision.

Over in The Globe & Mail, Joanne Kates is unimpressed by current Queen West hot-spot Coca:

[T]he lowest low is almond oil confit salt cod with spinach and olive oil velouté and bric nests. I like salt cod a lot, but salt cod must be soaked overnight in cold water to pull out the salt with which it’s preserved. Otherwise, it tastes like the salt cod at Coca: so salty as to be inedible. Under and around the inedible cod, they’ve pooled spinach emulsified with olive oil, another bad call because when you intensify the flavour of spinach (which this technique has done), it’s too strong. On the side are bric nests. Bric is a phyllo-like dough. In this instance, the nest of naked bric has the approximate texture and flavour of uncooked rice noodles. Not exactly a culinary hit.

Also in The Globe:

• Lucy Waverman shows that Korean food doesn’t have to be all about kimchee.
• Beppi Crosariol uncorks some Argentine reds.
• Domini Clark reviews interesting winter-themed beers from five local craft breweries.
• Peter Cheney chats with some local restaurateurs who aren’t too happy about the LCBO’s new bottle deposit & return program.
• Sarah Elton looks into the seemingly endless renovations at Lahore Tikka House.

And in the National Post:

• Amy Rosen explores the international flavours of the city’s bar scene by visiting Sutra Tiki Bar, Bar Italia, Pravda and a few other spots.
• Jacob Richler looks for the perfect bowl of chili (although he prefers to spell it “chile”).
• Michael Vaughan vents about an over-attended Napa Valley Vintners trade tasting, and chooses Rustenberg 2004 Chardonnay as his pick of the week.

In this week’s edition of Gremolata:

• Malcom Jolley interviews Gurth Pretty, author of The Definitive Guide to Canadian Artisanal and Fine Cheese.
• From the archives (issue 031), an interview with David Wood of Salt Spring Island Cheese Co.
• A request for readers to send in their restaurant service stories - good or bad - to be included as part of a panel presentation at Terroir: A Sense of Place, a symposium for food industry professionals taking place on March 6th.

The February, 2007 issue of Toronto Life has hit the stands, and the cover story is a ten-page overview of the city’s take-out scene. Some of the editors’ top picks include Koreatown taqueria Tacos El Asador; the best smelling place in the Distillery District, Brick Street Bakery; and current Chowhound darlings, Mother’s Dumplings (trust us, the praise is well-deserved!). Although as noted in Sheryl’s earlier post, it’s curious to see almost of full page of praise lavished upon the yet-to-open Atelier Thuet.

Elsewhere in the issue:

• On The Block gives the rundown on St. Clair West, with props given to Patachou, Filippo’s, The Rushton and Pain Perdu.
• James Chatto profiles the sous-chefs in some of Toronto’s top kitchens.
• David Lawrason is big on South Africa, choosing Delheim 2003 Shiraz as his pick of the month.
• Chris Nuttall-Smith likes Coca. A lot.
• David Sax dishes on Marc Thuet’s $250 wild game dinner, featuring birds that the chef personally smuggled into Canada.
• Liz Allemang searches for Toronto’s best poutine.
• Claire Tansey’s lead time is showing, as she profiles Mark Cutrara, the (now ex-)chef of Globe Bistro.
• The deconstructed sukiyaki from Kaiseki Sakura is lovingly described by Chris Johns.

Statistically, January 25th is the coldest day of the year, and Kathryn Borel of Eye Magazine wants us to go eat… sushi? Not just any sushi, though, as this week Borel directs her readers to her favourite neighbourhood sushi joint, Oishi Kada. With apologies all around to chef and locals who are used to having the place to themselves, Borel can’t help but sing its praises, despite the fact that her review will likely ensure the place is too packed for her to ever get a seat again.

It’s a small space – seating only 17 – so the appetizer list and hot entree-type dishes are kept simple for quality-control purposes. Still, the kitchen pulls off a menacingly crispy deep-fried gyoza ($2.95), its porky innards fragrant with ginger and scallions. Rice don bowls ($7.45) are not the most elegant food-things, but the chicken and beef are nicely tender, the rice fluffy, the onions caramelized and the top coating of egg neatly scrambled. Same with the udon ($6.45-$8.45): there’s your broth, slurpy round noodles, enoki mushrooms, nori, scallion, broccoli and heart-shaped boiled egg. Components for belly-warming, not brain-blowing.

Oh, wait, there’s the hot stuff. Mmmm… noodles.

Also hot in Eye this week are their top 5 picks for Winterlicious. As the annual restaurant festival occasionally comes under fire for serving up mediocre grub with too much attitude, following their advice might be the way to go to ensure a meal that is memorable in a good way.

Over at NOW, Steven Davey offers up four Ns to Jean’s Vegetarian Kitchen, a Thai-Malay place recently opened on the Danforth by a pair of Toronto restaurant veterans.

The pioneering husband-and-wife culinary tag team have quite the resto history, having launched one of the city’s first Thai-Malaysian eateries, Rasa Sayang in the Market, back in 82. As Thai fever swept Toronto in that decade of conspicuous consumption, the couple relocated to classy digs on Eglinton West as Sawasdee in 87, to eventually sell up and retire in 94.

Bored, the Seows resurfaced on the Danforth at the turn of the millennium with modest Jean’s Fine Foods. Health issues caused the genial Seows to take a sabbatical in 02, but they rebounded briefly in 04, only to retire again the following year. Now guess who’s opened the only Thai-Malay vegetarian joint in town?

Davey also offers up the news and gossip in his Fresh Dish column which this week turns out to be all about sandwiches. Seems the folks from Jules and Tournayre have paired up to open Jules Café Patisserie on Mount Pleasant. And for lovers of the Sandwich Box in the Queen West Market building across from CityTV, there is now another location at Richmond and Bay.

Elsewhere in the issue, Graham Duncan reviews Tandoori Flavour at Spadina and College and determines that cheap grub aimed at college kids might not be especially palatable to the rest of us.

Only somebody who has just been weaned off cheese strings and Yops would consider this anything other than tolerable Indian food. Admittedly, it’s cheap. It’s so inexpensive, even the staff are surprised. After checking the bill twice, the guy behind the counter laughed and said, “Yes, that’s the right amount. It’s cheap!”

Duncan also offers some suggestions for wine in his regular Drink Up column; a nice Côte du Rhône for under $15, a spendier kosher Chardonnay that made him very happy, and a nod to wineonline.ca. Take that, LCBO!

It’s unwise to come between a girl and her croissants.

For months now, Toronto Life magazine has been talking about chef Marc Thuet’s swankified food shop in Liberty Village, Atelier Thuet. In the January issue, they provide a map, talking about the shop and the wonders to be found therein. Coming back from a Marlies game in early December, the husband and I ventured through the dark wet laneways of Liberty Village, hoping to get a glimpse of the place. We couldn’t find it.

A few weeks later, I headed over to Dominion and figured I’d try my luck again in the daylight. There, hidden around a corner and down a laneway was a raw empty space full of stacks of wood and some surly construction workers. My only clue that I had found Atelier Thuet was the poster-sized liquor license application in the window.

But… had I found the right place? Toronto Life waxed poetic about the shop and the wonderful treats available, so it must already exist, right?

Maybe not. One of the failings of ink and paper media is the necessity of a long lead time. That Toronto Life article about Liberty Village was probably written in September based on the premise that Atelier Thuet would be open by press time. Not even close.

When the February issue of TL arrived in my mailbox, with another article about the delights to be found at Atelier Thuet, my croissant cravings shifted into overdrive.

Marc Thuet’s spanking new Liberty Village spot isn’t quite your average takeout joint. The constantly changing menu features both hot and heat-and-serve fare and includes Thuet’s fantastic breads, preserves and 60-day dry-aged beef.

Since I needed groceries from Dominion again, off I went, this time with the husband in tow, to assure me I wasn’t imagining things. More progress has been made. Through a tear in the paper covering the windows, we could see shelves, a long counter and plenty of drywall dust. No croissants yet, no fancy dog biscuits, no famed charcuterie. But progress. Meanwhile, I’m sure Dominion is making a killing selling those dry nasty croissants to each and every Thuet pilgrim who stumbles in, tired and hungry from wandering Liberty Village in search of the most perfect buttery croissant in the city.

Atelier Thuet
171 East Liberty Street, unit 155
To find it, head east on Liberty from Atlantic to 171 East Liberty. The most visible tenant of 171 East Liberty is King West Fitness – if you’ve gone east past the gym, you’ve gone too far. Alternatively, walk across the parking lot of the Liberty Village 24-hour Dominion to King West Fitness. Unit 155 is down a laneway that runs west from the gym entrance.

And for chrissake, if you go and it’s open, let me know!!!

In The Globe & Mail this week, Joanne Kates seems to like Globe Bistro, although she has some reservations:

Chef’s enthusiasm goes a long way. His Berkshire pork belly with scallops is a clever play on surf ‘n’ turf, one perfect gilded scallop with a hunk of crisp pork belly and a scoop of what he calls mustard foam, which is really a yummy mustard mousse. Chef’s technique lags somewhat behind his ideas, but not far enough to disappoint terribly. It’s just that Susur, Jamie and Mark don’t need to worry yet.

Also in The Globe:

• Caroline Alphonso reports on the poor state of school lunches
• Lucy Waverman provides several salad & soup recipes
• Tralee Pearce tackles beer & cheese pairings
• Beppi Crosariol suggests some South African wines.

Meanwhile, in The Toronto Star, Amy Pataki tries to visit Fumetti, but:

[T]he fuchsia doors are shuttered. Hearing noise in the side alley, I find two men hauling out the empties from the adjoining club. They tell me the chefs decided at New Year’s to close for a week. A week later, still closed.

[Chef Sergio Andreas] Fiorino claims the owner “ran out of money” after taking over the project from embattled entrepreneur John Cheong.

So instead, she went around the corner to Crush, where she says new chef David Gaunt has successfully taken things in a new direction:

“David has the best suppliers. He seems to know everyone,” says [owner Jamieson] Kerr.

Those contacts are all over the menu, making it read like the stocklist of a fine delicatessen. There’s milk-fed piglet from St. Canut Farm in Quebec, 20-year-old sherry vinegar and top-drawer affiorato olive oil from Puglia.

It wasn’t like this last time I ate at Crush. Opening chef Masayuki Tamaru channelled French classics, but now, Gaunt’s cooking sweeps broadly through the Mediterranean with stops closer to home for such provisions as Niagara prosciutto.

Also in The Star:

• Marion Kane chats with Madhur Jaffrey about her recently released memoir, Climbing the Mango Trees.
• Susan Sampson grates some horseradish.
• Gordon Stimmell, like Crosariol, is all over the South African vintages.

And finally, in The National Post:

• Philip Alves reviews the chip trucks at Nathan Philips Square.
• Mary Vallis profiles the infamous Serial Diners.
• Michael Vaughan makes it a hat trick for South African wines.
• Siri Agrell shows us what a night at Edward Levesque’s Kitchen is like when Edward Levesque ain’t there.
• Amy Rosen talks with Peter Fowler, the man behind restaurants ranging from Loose Moose and Jack Astor’s to Far Niente.
• Jacob Richler eulogizes Momofuku Ando, the inventor of instant ramen noodles who died earlier this month. The starving student in all of us raises a Cup-O-Noodles in his honour.

In this week’s edition of Gremolata:

• Malcom Jolley interviews Canada’s newest superstar chef, Ricardo Larivée
• Konrad Ejbich checks in with his monthly wine recommendation: Angels Gate Winery, 2004 Angels III
• The advertorial feature on Goats Do Roam wines is expanded to include information about The Goatfather, Vintage 2005