There’s an old cliché that goes “there are plenty of fish in the sea”. This is meant to convey options and opportunities, but nowadays, it’s not a particularly apt analogy. Because fish stocks are dwindling due to poor husbandry and overfishing, and there aren’t a lot of fish in the sea anymore.

SeaChoice is a program by Sustainable Seafood Canada designed to mobilize consumers and industry to buy sustainable seafood, which is caught or farmed with consideration for the ocean’s ecological balance and the long-term viability of the fish. SeaChoice offers guidance to restaurants and consumers on what to buy and what to avoid.

Continue reading Not So Many Fish in the Sea »

Culinarium
705 Mount Pleasant Road, Toronto
647-430-7004

In the uptown enclave of Yonge and Eglinton, peppered with high-end foodie destinations from bakeries to gelato to dim sum, there is a new kid on the block, with a unique take on the upscale food experience. Offering Ontario-only food products, Culinarium, which recently opened on Mount Pleasant at Soudan, is a gourmet grocery store, the retail division of a company called Savour the Flavour. Their mission is “to provide authentic local food experiences by retailing Ontario’s finest locally-produced products and connecting those passionate about food with local food-producing communities via edible events such as cooking classes, tastings and farm tours.” After spending some time with Kathleen Mackintosh, the store’s founder, it’s clear that Culinarium’s unique mission is one driven by a true love of food.

Continue reading A Community Centre for Foodies »

What does local food look like in April? When the larders are getting bare and the first bright shoots of asparagus and lettuce are still just a twinkle in the farmer’s eye? Would it even be possible to put on an event and feed 300+ people on local food at this time of the year?

Turns out it’s not just possible, but really quite fabulous. The result was a delicious evening of not just local food but local beer, as the first annual Brewer’s Plate event paired some of Toronto’s top chefs with local craft breweries to come up with a dish that paired with and incorporated the selected beers.

Continue reading The Brewer’s Plate - Delicious Local Food - Plus Beer! »

The two restaurants at the Royal Ontario Museum - the high-end c5 Restaurant Lounge and the more casual Food Studio - may not seem to have a lot in common on the surface, but their respective chefs Ted Corrado (above left) and Caesar Guinto (above right) share a passion for filling their menus with as much locally sourced, seasonal and organic food as possible. Over the next few months, some of Toronto’s other top chefs who follow similar philosophies will be joining the pair for a series of dinners and events as part of the Green Gastronomy series.

Continue reading Going Green at the ROM »

After the long hard winter we’re just now starting to see the back of, there were times when I almost believed that it wouldn’t end - that it would be perpetual winter forever. Fortunately Mother Nature takes care of things, and just like it has for every other year since the beginning of time, spring has arrived. Which turns the heads of farmers and gardeners to one thought - planting.

Continue reading Farm to Home »

Last week we looked at the various consumer-oriented Toronto- and Ontario-based groups that advocate for local food. Today, in part 2, I’ve got info on regional groups in the GTA, Golden Horseshoe and beyond, as well as information on organic groups and organizations designed to serve the hospitality industry.

Regional Groups

Durham Farm Fresh - A guide to farmer’s markets, producers and growers as well as restaurants using local produce in Durham region.

Grown in Peel - Promotes local farms and produce in Peel region.

Hamilton Eat Local - A directory of local food information for folks in Hamilton. Includes info on community gardens, where to buy local produce and more.

Continue reading The Local Food Scene - Who Does What? Part 2 »

Although asparagus season is actually still at least a few weeks (okay, months) off, I keep trying to convince myself that any day now, I’ll run up to that display in my local supermarket’s produce section and the tag will say “Product of Ontario” instead of “Product of Peru”. Of course, when local asparagus becomes available, we’ll all know it - so many local organizations have popped up over the past few years to advocate for local food that they’ll be fighting to tell us all who has the first, best and cheapest asparagus around.

Despite working with and writing about many of the various regional food advocacy groups over the past couple of years, I still have a hard time remembering who does what. Which means that the average consumer in the Toronto area is probably even more bewildered than I am. Here then, is a brief primer, separated by category, of the various organizations, what they do, and where you can find them.

Continue reading The Local Food Scene - Who Does What? Part 1 »

Can organics feed the world?

This question was posed to the closing panel at this year’s Canadian Organic Growers Conference. Organic farmers, food producers, nutritionists and writers convened in Toronto this past Saturday to examine the issues and explore how organics is changing the world.

The day-long event included a keynote speech by Helge Hellberg of Marin Organic from Marin County California, who is hard at work to make Marin the first completely organic county in the United States. Hellberg, a Certified Holistic Nutrition Counselor recounted a visit to Marin County by Prince Charles, who is one of the world’s leading supporters of the organic movement to visit the Marin County farmers market. Hellberg’s inspiring speech set the tone for the day, as participants broke off into different seminars that ranged in topics directed towards farmers, food producers and consumers.

Continue reading Can Organics Feed the World? »

Local, traceable, and meaty are in, while equatorial fruit and small plates are passé.

A quick not-statistically-accurate-at-all poll of a few city chefs shows that the buying local trend hasn’t run out of steam, although being able to intimately map a food’s source is quickly gaining ground.

Continue reading Tapas Out, Meat In »

I’m not sure how I feel about Jamie Kennedy these days. He will forever be the arbiter of local food, lending his presence and his bed head hair to Greenbelt gatherings in the name of sustainability. No one can deny him this title. However, at the Gardiner Museum’s recent lecture, From the Ground Up: Nurturing the Art of Sustainable Living, nothing sounded new. Was I growing tired of his refrain?

The Gardiner Museum has never struck me as local food’s chief advocate. Ceramics, clay, delicate and pretty things just don’t mesh with the gritty, earthbound perspective of farmers, though the erudite moderator Lori Stahlbrand, founder and president of Local Food Plus, was quick to quash my initial hesitation with the simple remark that clay is part of the soil in which food grows. Oh. Ok.

Continue reading Green is the New Little Black Dress OR It Takes A Village to Make a Meal »

2007 has been a truly remarkable year for Toronto’s food culture. In the early part of the year, conferences and gatherings such as Slow Food Green Link, Terroir: A Sense of Place, and the Canadian Organic Growers Conference allowed local food producers, suppliers, chefs and consumers to come together and foster an increased sense of community, and the success of Harvest Wednesdays at the Gladstone and the recent Slow Food Picnic at the Brickworks showed that the momentum continues.

Over the spring and summer, the number of farmers markets within the city expanded dramatically from previous years, and a campaign for better street food led to an astoundingly successful lunchtime event at Nathan Phillips Square and a change to provincial legislation that should hopefully lead to a bigger and better variety of food being available from Toronto’s street vendors starting next spring. And in the media, the mainstream press jumped on the local and organic food bandwagons with an abundance of coverage, while the grassroots food media grew with newcomers like Taste T.O. and Edible Toronto joining stalwarts such as City Bites and Gremolata.

One might expect this flurry of activity to slow down now that we’re entering the cooler months, when the season’s bounty runs dry and the markets and festivals pack up for the year. But for the next few weeks at least, food will remain at the forefront of many people’s minds, as one of Toronto’s foremost arts collectives, Alphabet City (AbC), has made food the theme of their latest book - Alphabet City: food, published this month by MIT Press - and the accompanying multidisciplinary FOOD Festival which kicks off this weekend for a three-week run.

Continue reading F is for Food: Alphabet City FOOD Festival »

For those who haven’t gotten their fill of locally-sourced food this summer from their neighbourhood farmers market and events like Harvest Wednesdays and the Slow Food Picnic, you’ll be happy to know that even though the warm months are coming to end, there are still a few more chances to stick to a 100(ish)-Mile Diet before it’s back to several months of icky imported fruits and veggies.

One of them will be happening this weekend in lovely downtown Parkdale, where federal MP Peggy Nash (NDP) will be hosting a 100-Mile Brunch at The Rhino (1249 Queen Street West). Taking place on Saturday, September 22nd from 10am to 2pm, it will feature a bountiful buffet created by a number of local chefs using ingredients sourced within a 100 mile radius of Toronto. Renowned chef and long-time local food advocate Jamie Kennedy will be stopping by to say a few words, and all proceeds will be donated to FoodShare Toronto’s Good Food Box campaign, which distributes food and money to community kitchens. Good food cooked by good people for a good cause - what’s not to love?

Tickets for the brunch are $25, and can be purchased at Rhino and other area restaurants and shops including Café Taste, Tinto, Silver Spoon and Another Story Bookshop. For more information, call Kara at 416-769-5072.

On Sunday, September 16th, over 50 chefs, producers, farmers and winemakers will team up with Slow Food Toronto and Evergreen at the Brick Works to host a picnic celebrating the best of Ontario.

With the little snail as its symbol, the Slow Food Companion reads, “Slow Food links pleasure and food with awareness and responsibility”, and pleasure is what I was in search of. What followed, naturally, was in fact awareness and responsibility, but much to my delight, respect, discipline and passion.

For those who are new to the idea of Slow Food, you’ll be glad to know that it is indeed a revolution based on pleasure. Paul DeCampo, Convivium Leader of Slow Food Toronto and a man of youthful exuberance, tirelessly shares his expertise when we meet one afternoon. “It’s a little bit like apple pie,” he chuckles, “who’s going to say, No thanks, I’d like Velveeta please?” There is, however, the nagging notion that the pursuit of pleasure affords itself only to an elite few. While this resistance might seem to have plagued the movement in theory, in practice chefs are aligning themselves with Slow Food faster than its name would lead us to believe.

Continue reading Ready, Set, Slow Down »

Cynthia Beretta tells me she was raised on garden-grown food by an Italian mother who was “ahead of her time” when it came to eating organic.

The key to spotting trends must run in the family. When Cynthia and her husband Mike bought their first farm in Wingham, ON, in 1993 and converted it to organic to raise their livestock, there wasn’t much public awareness about a green lifestyle. But after moving to a bigger farm in King City and experiencing an organic craze about three years ago, the business at Beretta Organic Farms is booming.

Continue reading An Organic Kind of Life »

If you read any US-based food blogs, websites or magazines, you’ll know that Americans tend to go a little coo-coo about what they eat for the Fourth of July. Whether it’s a frighteningly patriotic and sickly sweet Flag Cake, or a meticulously planned backyard BBQ that goes to hell when Uncle Bill drinks one too many cans of Coors Light, it seems that you’re just not a real American if you don’t spend the holiday stuffing your face with something red, white and/or blue.

Up here in Canada, we take a somewhat less nationalist tone when it comes to what we eat on Canada Day. If you head out to a celebration in or around Toronto this weekend, you may find yourself sampling African-style seafood or Jamaican Jerk Chicken at Harbourfront, Mexican specialities or variety of delicacies from around the world at Yonge-Dundas Square, or - somewhat ironically - good ol’ American style BBQ at Centennial Park in Etobicoke.

Continue reading Celebrating Canada at Splendido & Sustainability at Scaramouche »