When Michael Stadtlander, Canada’s heralded king of cuisine, holds a festival to mark the beginning of a single plant’s growing season, you know it has to be a very special plant. Come Spring, chefs and connoisseurs from around the province gather to celebrate the harvest of the Allium Tricoccum, otherwise known as ramps or wild leek. Among the first of foraged delicacies, wild leeks personify Ontario’s locally grown bounty.

Wild leeks are decidedly different from the domesticated variety we typically come across. First off, they are slender shoots, no thicker than a green onion, with a delicate herb-like leaf. The flavour, surprising for its size, is strikingly bold. With grassy and spicy notes to the leaves (think arugula with a raw garlic punch), and a flavour somewhere between onion and leek for the stalk, this member of the Alliaceae (onion) family has a habit of standing out in a dish. And, it is precisely this salient presence that makes this plant so well loved.

Continue reading Ramped Up »

The Comrade
758 Queen Street East
416-778-9449

“You got your capitalist pig on my red flag.” “You got your commie pinko on my swank lounge.” Wait a minute… this is awesome.

“Holy crap” seems to be the shared sentiment when entering Leslieville’s new hot watering hole The Comrade. Think Shanghai-circa-1940’s meets Art Deco, and vogue as all hell. Opened in mid-January, The Comrade is among the latest in a string of hip developments to hit the Queen East strip.

Continue reading The Comrade Leaves You Wanting Mao »

Ah, the days are getting longer (yay), the weather is blissfully warmer (yay), and the birds are chirping away (would be nice if they didn’t start at 6am…but still, yay). Spring finally seems to be here.This season is all about the good times: weddings, school break, long walks, and the asparagus harvest. Okay, well, maybe asparagus is not the first thing that comes to mind. For me though, nothing says “end of Winter” like crisp, fresh asparagus.

Come May in Ontario, fruit and veggie purveyors around the province start stocking up on several delicious varieties of local asparagus. For the most part, we find the young and mature green variety and the white variety. There is also an elusive purple variety (which, if you happen to find some, feel free to send my way). Asparagus is a member of the Lily family, one the most tasty I might add, and is a nutritionally dense food, containing folacin, potassium, rutin, and fibre among other things.

Continue reading Stalking Spring »

Boom Breakfast and Co.
1036 St Clair West
416-657-3447
Breakfast for two with coffee: $30

Having lived in Corso Italia, otherwise known as St Clair West, for just about a year and a half now, I have been witness to a slow but steady gentrification of the neighbourhood. Thankfully, this has come in the way of new shops and restaurants, art galleries, and business and not giant eyesore condominiums (though one of these days they are bound to make an appearance). The one thing this neighbourhood has been lacking is a good all-day breakfast.

Up until recently, the closest thing St Clair West has had to a brekkie joint were a sprinkling of little bar-cum-restaurants that look more like a scene from The Sopranos than anything else (and not in the “wow, this looks like the Sopranos set” kinda way, but more like “wow, probably should of rethought some of those life decisions”).

Continue reading Ba Da Boom - Corso Italia Gets Served »

Pop quiz hot shot. It’s 1am, and the club is lame, you just had four shots of Jack and you’re in for a hangover tomorrow. What do you do? What do you do?

We, the many and proud, of the megalopolis that is Toronto, know that we can get just about anything at anytime. And, all dirty thoughts aside, that means there is always some good food waiting to satisfy those late night cravings.

Living in this city for just over a year and a half now, I can honestly say that I have a list of regularly attended late night eateries approaching the thirties. Of course, I am of the opinion that going to a bar on the weekend is really just an excuse to go eat after. Most normal people tend to have a list of 5 or so restos that make up their last resort food fixes.

Continue reading In Search of the Late Night Nosh »

I suppose its a pretty good indication you’re a coffee fanatic when you get a Bodum for your 14th birthday. Coffee has been a daily part of my environment since I was a kid. At the time, my often rowdy brothers and I were under the gentle guidance of a British au pair named Sue. Sue was about as cool a person as any kid could imagine. She was young, hip and had an accent. Naturally, everything she did was fair game for imitation. This included Sue’s particular eating habits. In the years that Sue lived with us, she existed, as far as I or any in my family could tell, exclusively on coffee – seriously, I never saw her eat a single thing. That devotion to coffee was something that stuck with me. And, its a tradition that I have taken on and kept to this day (of course I also eat A LOT of food).

Despite drinking upwards of 8 cups a day in university – thank you very much philosophy – it wasn’t until culinary school that I was able to really see coffee as the sophisticated drink that it is. Coffee is a chemically complex, versatile, and malleable product. In many ways coffee is like a vintage of wine, and having the right person brew your cup is like having a sommelier pour that perfect glass to go with dinner.

One fine summer’s afternoon, several hours before an impending dinner party, I found myself looking for a spot of green to fill an unusually bare corner of my otherwise cluttered apartment. As it happened, a rather large and fragrant rosemary shrub caught my eye. Firmly affixed in its new corner home, my attention reverted back from my gardening duties to the task of hastily throwing together a four course menu for 10. All was going well; in as much as whipping up 40 plates in a little over an hour can go (think Iron Chef with a much smaller kitchen!) Until, that is, it came time to prepare my dessert. These days, in the flurry of all things fusion, a raspberry poached pear with vanilla bean ice cream just seemed to lack that je ne sais quoi. Fortunately, serendipity and I have a healthy and ongoing relationship. Often in these last minute frantic cook-a-thons I find needed inspiration in my immediate surroundings. Thus was born, my now well loved standby, rosemary infused raspberry poached pears.

Like many pastry chefs, I take pride in coming up with new and often odd flavour combinations in my desserts. They are, as are their savoury counterparts, wholly dependant on what is ready available and market fresh. That said, herbs are a very effective means of spicing up most desserts all year round (and yes, pun fully intended).

Using herbs in desserts does require some thought. Rosemary, for example, has a pungent flavour that, understandably, doesn’t always lend itself well to sweet treats. To begin with, you must decide whether your herbs will compliment or contrast the central flavours of the dish. That done, you must then decide if are to play a major role, or simply add a subtle layer of flavour.

Ultimately, there is no all encompassing guide to follow. Like many fusion foods, herb infused desserts are often as much about trial and error as they are about thought out combinations. Some matches just work, and others, well, I think we’ve all tasted something at sometime that have sent us running to find our “happy place.”

Trying out new dishes should have a little uncertainly to it. After all, that’s what really makes cooking fun. Throw some of those leftover herbs into your next dessert. You might just find that your own new classic is closer than you think.