Here's what's cooking around town today...
In Koreatown, value never goes out of style. Eating good food on the cheap at Bloor & Christie. [Inside Toronto: Menumental]
Quebec comfort food - most likely found in a jar. [Gremolata]
Margaret Webb's Apples to Oysters has been out for a year or so now, but another review to remind you to check it out can't hurt. [Cuisine Canada Scene]
Who needs meat when there are so many beautiful veggies out there? [Fiesta Farms]
Just like we figured - people who care about calories will pay attention to restaurant calorie information, people who are eating food because it's cheap and fills the hole probably won't. [Pistachio]
The Kingsway neighbourhood reflects the cultural diversity of greater Toronto, especially when it comes to restaurants. [Examiner.com]
Where do your eggs come from and why is it so hard to find real free-range eggs? I'm afraid to tell Elizabeth where the baby chicks she refers to in her post were going, but truly ethical eggs are hard to find (thank you, Ontario's quota system), and yes $5 - $6 a dozen is about the standard price when you can find them. [Blog From Our Kitchen]
An interesting take on the new year's resolution - salad every day for a month. [Recipes For Trouble]
And in Food For Thought - 150 facts about fish and chips, GMO corn is not so great for rats and mice, changing the dialogue about food and farming. [Save Your Fork]
You're right, Sheryl; I DON'T want to know! It's too horrifying to realize that we are so barbaric.
$5 to $6 is standard, eh? Do you happen to know how much of that actually goes to the people who are keeping the hens?
(Mmmm, thanks for the reminder about Gamjatang (pork bone soup))
I would guess it depends on whether you're buying eggs from the farmer directly or from a store. There are people selling free range/run eggs at Dufferin Grove, and Green Barns. The guy at SLM (who recently passed away but his family is still running the booth) does free-run (inside a barn). In those cases, it's all going direct to the farmer.
Both Loblaw and Sobey's (and their discount off-shoots No Frills and Price Chopper) offer organic free-run eggs for around $5.49 a dozen. While they're not free-range, and not as ideal, I buy these when I can't get to a market, just because if these stores see that people are buying these products, they'll continue to carry them or make a better effort to carry more.
But... to be truly ethical, you'll need to do some research and find a farmer (if one even exists) that lets the male chicks live to become capons, otherwise all eggs, even free-range, are technically unethical in that the male chicks are killed as soon as they can be sexed. Unless they're allowed to grow to become capons and sold as meat, they're useless (and a waste of money) to any farm operation. This doesn't happen very often because laying breeds tend to not be as meaty as breeds raised for meat. So those little baby chicks on the conveyor belt - likely male chicks headed to a grinder, or if they're lucky, a gas chamber. Sorry, but it's a hard fact of the egg business, and even if you go for the backyard hen option as we've been discussing on my personal blog, you're gonna be wanting females, not males.