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The comprehensive index of every blog post, magazine story and restaurant review that appears on Torontolife.com
Less than two weeks after the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan announced it was taking its majority share of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment off the market, the fund has turned around and sold its long-time cash cow for $1.32 billion. (For those following along, OTTP bought it 17 years ago for $180 million.) The buyers should sound horrifyingly familiar to any Toronto sports fan: Rogers and Bell.
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It’s almost time. After seven weeks of batch-up challenge near disasters, product rebrandings both savvy and dubious and the requisite reality TV tears, faithful viewers of Recipe to Riches will finally be able to vote for their favourite winning dish on the show’s website starting tomorrow. The grand prize winner will walk away with a cool quarter million dollars, and their dish will join that “prestigious President’s Choice line of products” that host Jesse Palmer is always talking about. But before the official tally gets under way, we thought we’d seek the counsel of our trusty tasting panel, which has been dutifully testing each dish week after week, and let our esteemed readers weigh in as well.
This week’s episode of Recipe to Riches featured a show first that also happens to be a show last: a Toronto contestant. It also featured a little sparring between marketing judge Tony Chapman on the one side and Laura Calder and product developer Dana McCauley on the other over the appropriate brow-level for the products: the latter two wanted to see food they might serve at a dinner party, leading Chapman to declare, “Neither one of you is the mass market!” As with any reality show, it’s always more fun when things get heated between the judges. After the jump, our recap of the savoury pies episode and the results from our tasting panel. Read the rest of this entry »
(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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The impish comedy men Don McKellar and Bob Martin can’t get enough of the crazy—or of each other. Twitch City, the cult sitcom about an agoraphobic television addict? McKellar starred and shared the writing with Martin. Slings and Arrows, the behind-the-scenes satire about a theatre festival headed by an artistic director perpetually on the verge of a nervous breakdown? Martin wrote, McKellar co-starred. The Drowsy Chaperone, the wedding present–turned–Fringe hit–turned–Broadway show about a musical-obsessed shut-in? Martin starred, Martin and McKellar wrote, and they both won Tonys.
Recipe to Riches’s four GTA contestants: Tikka Smiley, Diana Petrini, Wayne Reid and Rosy Soobrattee (Images: Food Network Canada)
It seems there’s an insatiable appetite for competitive food shows (we certainly can’t get enough). The latest offering is Recipe to Riches, a new Food Network Canada series hosted by The Bachelor’s Jesse Palmer that highlights ordinary Canadians with ostensibly exceptional recipes. Contestants compete in several categories, each with a $25,000 purse, before battling for the grand prize of $250,000. Not a bad pay out if you ask us (it also happens to be the biggest prize in Canadian TV history). The winning dish will also be transformed into a President’s Choice product. Yesterday, the show announced its full line up of judges and 21 contestants, including four home cooks for the GTA.
Top Chef Canada junkies experiencing withdrawal during the inter-season hiatus have been able to get their fix of season one host Thea Andrews all over the dial of late, with the former sportscaster and Entertainment Tonight correspondent popping up on scripted shows (which we expect to see more of, since the show is slated to get a new host next season). A couple weeks ago, she appeared on an episode of the Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood: Miracle Day as one of the show’s many cable anchors:
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Nicholson at this year’s Toronto Taste (Image: Renée Suen)
First it was Rob Rossi. Then Steve Gonzalez. Now a third Toronto Top Chef Canada contestant has announced they’re leaving their current gig to follow their culinary muse. This morning, Andrea Nicholson of Great Cooks on Eight announced via Twitter that this would be her last week at the restaurant. Nicholson plans to travel, focus on her company, Killer Condiments, and then pursue her “long-awaited dream” (mentioned back in episode 10) of opening her own restaurant. We’ll be watching closely.
ADDRESS: 1384 Stephen’s Bay Rd.
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Lake Muskoka
AGENT: Karen and Cameron White, Re/Max Hallmark Realty Ltd., Brokerage
PRICE: $4,950,000
THE PLACE: This 9,500-square-foot residence, with 11 bedrooms and three Jacuzzis, is basically a Rosedale mansion built on Lake Muskoka’s Stephen Bay.
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The nightmare team of Darryl Crumb and Jamie Hertz at the Edward Day Gallery (Image: Food Network Canada/Insight Productions)
TOP CHEF CANADA
Season 1 | Episode 2
Week two of Top Chef Canada celebrated that most essential of Canadian values: moderate ambition. Last night’s episode—brought to us by the Dairy Farmers of Canada and featuring two cheese-themed challenges—consistently rewarded those not-too-tall poppies who found the sweet spot between being flat-out bores and overexerting flame-outs. Thankfully, episode two turned out to be way cheekier than the somewhat polite premiere—there were plenty of chefs shooting their mouths off and clowning around in their underwear (sweet abs, Patrick Wiese). Here, our recap of the dizzying highs, the grotty lows and the creamy centres that turned out just right.
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(Image: Adam Rankin)
Do you find it ironic that you had to move from Calgary to Toronto to host a conservative-friendly TV news show?
No, for the obvious reason that Toronto is the media capital of Canada. But from a philosophical point of view, there is a tremendous number of conservatives in this city, starting with the mayor, almost half the MPs in the province and institutions like the National Post and Toronto Sun. Toronto is more liberal than Calgary, but so is every other place in Canada. I think it’s the opposite of ironic. I think it’s exciting.
You were known at one point for driving a Hummer. Do you still drive one?
No, I’m close enough to walk to the Sun’s studio on King Street East.
What’s your take on Rob Ford? Is he doing a good job so far? Read the rest of this entry »
I was encouraged by his election, and like everyone else, I’m trying to figure out if it signifies a larger trend. I think it does. It felt like a Tea Party rejection of the status quo. It felt like a rejection of elites, and I like that, because that’s one of the themes that Sun News will surely reflect.
For two hours yesterday, Steve Paikin did his community service of herding the four cats party leaders onto a stage and forcing them to answer questions. The leaders—Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff, Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe—proceeded to ignore those questions and talk about whatever their aides told them to talk about. Throughout the night, Ignatieff would try to bring things back to “the original question,” sounding like he both respected voters and thought maybe his opponents were easily distracted. There were no truly devastating moments, though there were some odd ones: Ignatieff at times seemed to pause mid-sentence and give his internal CPU a reboot, while Harper at one point kept saying “Mr. Speaker,” which just reminds us of how practised these guys all are at shouting at each other.
The real debate, though, isn’t won on TV. It’s won in the minds of the pundits of the nation. How did the debate go on that front? Here, our roundup.
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As the media keeps reminding us, today is the day everyone in Canada starts paying attention to the federal election. Tonight at 7 p.m., the leaders of the four major political parties will debate the issues of day (or, you know, avoid debating them) in English, unscripted and on TVs across the nation. We don’t believe that Canadians didn’t care about the election before now, but we can certainly see that this is a pivotal moment in the campaign. The clash will allow Michael Ignatieff to take on Stephen Harper one-on-one (if only for six minutes); it will give Jack Layton the chance to dominate the conversation; and it will give Gilles Duceppe the opportunity to roll his eyes. If none of this sounds particularly enticing to you, we present another reason to tune into the showdown tonight. Here, our Leaders’ Debate Drinking Game.
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Forget Pandora. James Cameron has set his sights on a new frontier: 3-D TV. The Avatar director has teamed up with cameraman Vince Pace to form the Cameron-Pace Group, which will explore the widespread adoption of 3-D technology for episodic television, sports and advertising. While this might sound like something out of Star Wars or CNN’s lame 2008 presidential election coverage, Cameron, already a champion for 3-D cinema, feels that 3-D will become a major player in television programming in the next five years.
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This week, Canadians get to watch two debates among the leaders of the four official parties in the House of Commons—the English one is tomorrow night, and the French one the night after (apparently there’s a sporting event of some kind on, so the French debate was moved up a day). As with the last several English-language debates, Steve Paikin will be moderating the showdown, but unlike in 2008 this will be an entirely Green-free event. What can we look forward to when four white men get onstage and redefine “diversity” to mean “Jack Layton’s moustache”? Some ideas, tailored for Torontonians:
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