Last year, the inaugural Luminato festival of “arts and creativity” was a tremendous success. In a few short weeks, the festival will again kindle the beacon of culture in Toronto, but with one major difference. This time, the art of gastronomy will be included. The event will be called One City, One Table. It takes place on Saturday, June 14, from noon to 9 p.m. in the Distillery District.
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Making progress
A tasty young rumour appears to be true—that Gordon Ramsay will be opening a restaurant in Toronto. He is currently in negotiation for space in rather a cool venue: the new condo tower planned for 1 Bloor Street East. Perhaps he’ll also turn the project into a TV show.
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Hog wild
Chalk one up for the nerds, the diehards, the people who stay to the bitter end of every party. At Pangaea, on Thursday, Michael Tkaczuk of Serrano Imports introduced an extraordinary prize to the city—the famous dry-cured hams of the Ibérico pig (also known as the Pata Negra or Black Foot pig) of southwestern Spain. I remember the night, years ago, when Tkaczuk first brought Serrano ham to Toronto—a soirée at Bouchon. Even then he had his sights set on the superior and world-renowned Ibérico, but it takes time to persuade Canadian bureaucrats of the virtue of foreign delicacies. Now we can taste.
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Cause and Effect
Thursday night saw the spectacular start of the 2007 Gold Medal Plates campaign with a sold-out crowd of over 600 guests at Toronto’s most glamorous venue, The Carlu. Gold Medal Plates, if I may I remind you, raises money for Canada’s Olympic and Paralympic athletes. Our goal this year is a million bucks, and with events scheduled for seven Canadian cities, I believe we can do it. As ever, it’s the goodwill and generosity of the country’s leading chefs that bring in the high-rolling public—plus the chance to hobnob with elite athletes. Never more so than last Thursday. The multitude was in a generous mood during the silent and live auctions, inspired by an extraordinary evening of excellence in Canadian athletics, cuisine, wine and—as a new departure for GMP—music. Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo performed three times during the evening and almost stole the entire show when he sang a duet with Steven Page of Barenaked Ladies.
Another Glass of Milk
Wednesday, December 20, 2006, dawned cold but bright, a winter sun in a clear blue sky. I walked up to Queen’s Park around 10:15 and stood about in front of the Provincial Legislature, watching dutiful schoolchildren line up around statues and a group of men in overcoats stamp and nod and blow into their hands. I guessed they might be there for the same reason I was—in support of Michael Schmidt and his freedom-of-choice position on the sale of raw milk—but I was too shy to approach them. They were well-dressed and might have been a counter-demonstration, suits hired by the Milk Marketing Board to disrupt the Gathering of the Righteous by standing around and looking supercilious…
The Good Fight
Toast’s comments to my November 27 posting resonate more loudly now that Michael Schmidt is on a hunger strike protesting the law that forbids the sale of raw milk.
Charcuterie
So I made it to Cava on Monday evening—the new restaurant’s fourth night of existence. That’s far too early for a fair review but I was there on my own buck for once and curious to see what Chris McDonald has achieved. The four-square room is very simple—its old concrete underfloor polished up like some abstract grey-on-grey terrazzo, green and white walls that are destined, one hopes, for adornment, and a long bar down the eastern quadrant. Chris was behind it, looking calm and cheerful in his chef’s whites, and he stayed there all evening, playing delicate riffs with a knife and a Serrano ham—high priest of his own umami shrine. It was good to see that Avalon’s gorgeous crockery and monogrammed Champagne flutes have found a new home, the latter now used for cava and Waupous dry cider from Prince Edward County, a change which kind of summed up the difference in intent between the two restaurants. The tables are small and wooden with no linen but a broad slate band across the middle to take the heat of a cast iron casserole. They also have an odd little hole in them—just the right size, it turned out, for a customized retort that ends in a metal loop into which the server can slip a paper cone. It came into play twice during the evening—once for popcorn with a delicate butter-caramel chewiness that eventually gave way to a slow-building chili heat, and again for herbed frites that I venture to say might be the best in the city.
Sour Grapes
Congratulations to Jennifer McLagan, Toronto-based writer and food stylist. Her book, Bones, just won the James Beard Foundation award for best cookbook on a single subject. Jennifer chose not to be present at the great gala in New York, preferring to linger at her other home in Paris where, she tells me, the lilacs are currently in blossom, asparagus and strawberries are everywhere and the first cherries from Provence have now arrived. I don’t blame her for staying away. Everybody said one of the other two books in her category, Charcuterie, by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn, was a shoo-in, and though Jennifer is well-known in Canada and her native Australia, she cheerfully admits to being “a nobody” in U.S. culinary circles. So she thought to spare herself the lonely ordeal of ending up an also-ran at the Beards.
