What’s Cooking - Wednesday, April 30th
Posted by Sheryl Kirby in news and media, what's cooking on April 30, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Well, the big news this week was the Hogtown visit by potty-mouthed chef Gordon Ramsay. Here doing a book tour (and checking locations for a possible new restaurant) Ramsay had a busy schedule of interviews with pretty much every major media outlet. Except us. Oh, we asked. Didn’t quite lower ourselves to begging and pleading, though, and scored a consolation prize of a review copy of his latest book instead of some face time, but we did ask. I’ll keep my ranting to a minimum about how blogs and online news sites (on any topic) ARE TOO real media, but I can’t help but be a little put out that a devoted fan like myself (who has actually seen every episode of the UK series The F Word) didn’t get to burn toast with Gordo.
At the Toronto Star, food editor Kim Honey cooks a recipe from Ramsay’s book and bungs up the toast. The accompanying video seems a little sketchily edited, and at one point Ramsay asks if he’s been punked. Honey’s a great writer, but if you can make toast and actually set fire to it in a toaster oven (is that even possible? Don’t they have smoke alarms in the Star test kitchen??? Were they spoofing the highly-scripted shenanigans of Ramsay’s shows?), maybe food writing is not so much your forte. Rita DeMontis of the Toronto Sun chose not to cook for Ramsay but instead presented him with a spread of locally made delectables. Thankfully Beppi Crosariol of the Globe and Mail spares us the coquettishness and offers a straight-up interview with info about the potential new restaurant (corner of Yonge & Bloor if he doesn’t choose Vancouver instead), and fans who are so devoted they have the Hell’s Kitchen logo tattooed on their back. Yowza.


As with wine, its sibling in fermentation, there was a time when beer was commonly made, transported, stored and served in wooden casks and barrels. These containers were generally sealed with pitch or resin, making them impervious to leakage, and also preventing the beer from picking up any flavours from the wood.
Yesterday I watched Heston Blumenthal on the Food Network figure out a way to make ice cream hot on the outside but still cold in the centre. After much experimentation and chemical intervention, he found a way to do it, and I congratulated him through the screen, pointing out that he was now qualified to run the deep-fried ice cream station at ChiChi’s.
Over the past couple years, there has been a sort of culinary renaissance taking place that is reaching it’s prime in today’s food scene. Beer is now being seen as equally complex and diverse as wine and is now standing in the spotlight with one Toronto restaurant leading the way. My embarrassment for being a non-drinker sitting inside a restaurant designed to share the joys of beer quickly diminished as Chef Brian Morin, owner and executive chef of 


As much as I may enjoy reading the Globe & Mail, I’ve long recognized that I’m not a member of their prime demographic, at least from a financial standpoint. I don’t read the business section, ignore the jewellery and car ads, and can’t afford to eat at many of the restaurants reviewed by Joanne Kates.
In honour of Earth Day this week, Catherine of Sugar and Ink offers 
Summer must be coming, ’cause this week there’s a sudden spike in the number of food and drink events happening in and around the city, ranging from beer dinners and wine tastings to charity events, lectures and book signings.
There used to be a time when newcomers to Toronto added a meal at Toby’s to their list of things to do that would make them a real Torontonian. The previously ubiquitous chain is now down to one downtown location and according to Steven Davey at NOW, 