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Toronto Life - The Dish

The latest restaurant buzz, including what’s opening, what’s closing, and where to eat, drink and be seen

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QUOTED: Galen Weston on just what he thinks of the competition

Farmers’ markets are great….One day they’re going to kill some people though.

—Loblaw executive chairman Galen Weston at the Canadian Food Summit, reflecting on the importance of food inspections (to be fair, he later added, “I’m just saying that to be dramatic though”) [Toronto Star]

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Montreal’s Joe Beef takes first place in the annual Piglet Tournament of Cookbooks

Kudos are due on two counts today for Montreal meat mecca Joe Beef. Reason No. 1: the operators of this long-lauded restaurant (David McMillan, Frédéric Morin, Meredith Erickson) have penned a volume—The Art of Living According to Joe Beef—that just took first place in the third annual Piglet Tournament of Cookbooks.

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Raw milkman Michael Schmidt files for appeal 

After that whole hunger strike/willing to die/ready for jail drama, we have to admit we were a little underwhelmed when we heard that Michael Schmidt merely filed for an appeal through proper channels on Monday. The ex–dairy farmer was initially found not guilty of 13 charges relating to the sale of unpasteurized milk products and operating a plant without a licence, but that acquittal was overturned earlier this year when the Crown won an appeal. He was fined $9,150 and given a year’s probation, though Schmidt has refused to pay. His lawyer is arguing that Justice Peter Tetley misinterpreted the law and ignored several Charter violations. Read the entire story [National Post] »

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Q&A with Chuck Hughes: the hunky Garde Manger chef on tattoos, Mexico City and poutine appropriation

(Image: Yves Freypons)

Since Chuck Hughes opened Garde Manger in 2006, he’s been steadily rising in the celebrity chef world (he even bested Bobby Flay on Iron Chef America back in March). Five months ago, he opened his second restaurant in Montreal, Le Bremner, and then rushed south to shoot Chuck’s Week Off, in which he ate his way across Mexico. When we caught up with him at the Chef’s Challenge fundraiser this weekend, the Montreal native really seemed like he was warming up to the idea of opening up shop in the soulless Big Smoke.

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Q&A with Bobby Flay: the Iron Chef talks to us about comfort food, Toronto dining and his Thanksgiving dinner for 55

Bobby Flay is a busy, busy man. In between flipping burgers with President Obama and opening up new restaurants (he launches his ninth Bobby’s Burger Palace next week), he finds time to shoot five TV shows and write cookbooks (he’s penned nearly a dozen). As if that weren’t enough, he also races horses and raises money for charitable causes. We caught up with the Iron Chef, who was in Toronto this past weekend hosting the Chef’s Challenge, a fundraiser that supports breast and ovarian cancer research at Mount Sinai hospital. Here’s what he told us:

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Raw milkman Michael Schmidt refuses fines—and embraces jail time

After he professed a willingness to die to see the sale of raw milk legalized, it should come as no surprise that food freedom crusader Michael Schmidt is prepared to go to prison for his cause. Schmidt was in court in Newmarket last week for sentencing on convictions related to the sale of unpasteurized milk. The judge—who seemed entirely sympathetic to the cause—handed down a relatively gentle fine, but Schmidt, ever the hard-liner, refused to accept it.

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With Bobby Flay at the helm and six celeb chefs on deck, this year’s Chef’s Challenge fundraiser proved a relaxed affair

Host Bobby Flay has a refreshment (Image: Yves Freypons)

At last year’s Chef’s Challenge, the famously potty-mouthed Gordon Ramsay ended up throwing the chefs off the stage after a skillet caught fire. This year, the annual fundraiser for Mount Sinai’s breast and ovarian cancer research was led by grill master Bobby Flay, meaning there were no fires—although there was a good deal of impaired cooking by the end. Mark McEwan was swigging limoncello from the bottle, while Flay downed prosecco and Lynn Crawford tried to curry favour with the judges with some frozen mojitos. Who knew the night would end in such delightful debauchery?

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Q&A with Nathan Myhrvold, the author of Modernist Cuisine, 2011’s most talked about cookbook

(Image: Renée Suen)

Unless you’ve been hiding under some kind of rock where no foodies are allowed, you’ve probably heard of Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, the stunning six-volume, 2,400-page, 50-pound, $625 cookbook that came out early this year. Nathan Myhrvold, who spent five years working on the tome (three-and-a-half of them with a team of 30 in a 20,000-square-foot lab), was in town this week to speak to about 250 food and science nerds at an event hosted by The Cookbook Store at the Isabel Bader Theatre. A staggering polymath, by age 23 Myhrvold had already acquired a pair of master’s degrees (economics and geophysics) and a Princeton PhD (theoretical and mathematical physics), before working with Stephen Hawking at Cambridge, holding the chief technology officer job at Microsoft, running a patent empire called Intellectual Ventures and dabbling in photography, paleontology and, of course, cutting-edge food. We sat with Myhrvold over breakfast to talk about the surprising success of Modernist Cuisine and what the future holds for the project.

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QUOTED: Jamie Oliver declares last night’s meal at Buca the best he’s had all year

The once Naked Chef was in town last night for a speaking engagement at Roy Thomson Hall to promote Jamie Oliver’s Food Escapes, his new show that’s a somewhat less potty-mouthed version of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations. Judging by a tweet from this morning, he was more than a little impressed with the food he ate last night at King West rustic Italian restaurant Buca:

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Less than two weeks until Bobby Flay touches down for the second annual Chef’s Challenge cancer fundraiser

Bobby Flay, the Iron Chef star famous for his devotion to the grill, will be heading north this November to host the second annual Chef’s Challenge: The Ultimate Battle for a Cure next week. Last year, under the supervision of the infamously potty-mouthed Gordon Ramsay, the event raised a whopping $1.1 million for Mount Sinai Hospital’s ovarian and breast cancer research. This year, their goal is simple: surpass last year’s total (with less swearing, presumably).

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Raw milkman Michael Schmidt ends month-long hunger strike 

Raw milk advocate Michael Schmidt is back on solid food today after finally getting his wish: a talk with Dalton McGuinty to discuss the rights of farmers. The Durham man and “modern-day Gandhi” was in a meeting with McGuinty’s chief of staff when the premier apparently waltzed by and decided to chat. Quite droll, Dalton—a man has been (quite possibly) dying to meet you and, while that’s no reason to give in to his demands, you eventually do it out of whimsy? The emaciated protester has also been invited to speak with the Liberal caucus, which sounds like a nice gesture, but Schmidt was told there’s essentially zero chance they’ll budge on the sale of unpasteurized milk. Read the entire story [Metro] »

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GALLERY: At this year’s What’s on the Table benefit, Toronto’s top chefs came out to support The Stop

(Image: Jenna Marie Wakani)

On Wednesday, 550 Toronto foodies and philanthropists gathered in the Wychwood Barns for What’s on the Table, the annual fundraiser for The Stop Community Food Centre. The sold-out event featured 35 food and drink stations representing a staggering array of top Toronto restaurants, including Canoe, Scaramouche, Niagara Street Café, Parts and Labour, Jamie Kennedy Kitchens, C5, Ruby Watchco, Noce, Cowbell, George and the Gabardine, with desserts from Frangipane, Nadège and Soma, and drinks from Steam Whistle, Henry of Pelham, Frodpond Farm and Château des Charmes, among many others, not to mention two contestants from season one of Top Chef Canada.

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Zane Caplansky flaunts his delicious meats on Dragon’s Den, walks away empty-handed

A proud Zane Caplansky outside his first food truck (Image: Caroline Aksich)

Toronto diners watching Dragon’s Den last night got to see a familiar face: Zane Caplansky, owner of the eponymous College Street deli renowned for its smoked meat sandwiches. Before divvying up some luscious-looking sammies, he pulled a tarp off Thundering Thelma, his big blue food truck, and made his pitch. Caplansky described his vision of an entire fleet of Thelmas, offering up 15 per cent of his company for $350,000.

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Chuck Hughes anointed next big celeb chef by Grub Street, contemplating Toronto restaurant

(Image: Shaw Media)

Montreal chef and tattooed, all-around heartthrob Chuck Hughes could be the next primetime celeb chef, according to New York magazine’s Grub Street. The blog offers a slew of reasons why the easygoing host of Chuck’s Day Off is about to take off: he’s gotten plenty of exposure through the Cooking Channel (Canadians have watched Hughes on Food Network Canada for even longer); the cuisine at his Montreal restaurant Garde-Manger fits in with the current mini-trend of interest in French-Canadian food; he crushed Bobby Flay on Iron Chef America (with lobster poutine, no less); and he’s got a slot on the upcoming Next Iron Chef.

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Raw milkman Michael Schmidt ready to die over spilled milk 

Still defiant in the third week of his hunger strike, dairy farmer Michael Schmidt told the Toronto Star yesterday he is willing to die to defend the sale of unpasteurized milk and other products to the public. “I will go right to the end,” he said at a Queen’s Park news conference. “I wouldn’t do that if I wouldn’t have tried for the last 17 years to establish a dialogue.” Schmidt read from a letter addressed to Dalton McGuinty, promising his self-imposed starvation will continue until the premier meets with him. The Durham farmer claims he’s lost over 30 pounds during this second hunger strike, drinking only raw milk and water for 19 days (though he’s skipped the milk for the last 10). Schmidt then cranked up the dramatics: “I came from Germany,” he said. “I have seen the aftermath of a situation where people didn’t rise up when there was still time to rise up.” Say what you like about his politics and rhetoric—it’s clear the man is dead serious. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »

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