Food For Thought – Wednesday, February 10th

2010 February 10
by Sheryl Kirby

Here’s some food for thought for today…

Food For Thought – Tuesday, February 9th

2010 February 9
by Sheryl Kirby

Here’s some food for thought for today…

Food For Thought – Monday, February 8th

2010 February 8
by Sheryl Kirby

Here’s some food for thought for today…

Food For Thought – Friday, February 5th

2010 February 5
by Sheryl Kirby

Here’s some food for thought for today…

Food For Thought – Thursday, February 4th

2010 February 4
by Sheryl Kirby

Here’s some food for thought for today…

  • Britain is finally realizing that the cooking bug skipped a generation and now everyone from Chuck and Cammy to Heston Blumenthal have shown up to promote the Chefs Adopt a School program.
  • “…a long-overdue rising up of the masses against the elitist overlords of the culinary realm.” Or not. An indepth history of the restaurant reviewer, from Craig Claiborne’s standards to the skeezy practice of bloggers asking for free food in exchange for a favourable review.
  • And the sad, scary future of food media.
  • A BBC shows called Britain’s Really Disgusting Food is getting flack from fish processors over how they’re portrayed. (I’ve seen the show in question and while it is a bit goofy, the facts are still facts.)
  • I don’t care how much you love food or cooking or certain chefs – it is not a good idea to get their faces tattooed on your thigh.
  • Sweet merciful crap – I’m glad I don’t live in the US. The discrimination against fat people when it come to insurance and even work-related benefits blows my mind.
  • We know there’s a lot of processed food in our own culture, but Indian processed foods are also on the rise.
  • We spend a lot of time talking about local food here in North America, but that trend is picking up elsewhere too. In Israel, they’re cooking with freekah, a type of green wheat that dates from biblical times.
  • If you can never figure out how to rewrap your wedge of cheese from the cheese shop – here’s a cheat sheet from the pros.

At the Top of Their Game

2010 February 3
by Sheryl Kirby

I am generally sceptical when being served game meat. Having grown up eating wild caught stuff, the flavour of the game meat served in Toronto restaurants is generally subdued. Ontario law dictates that wild game meat cannot be sold to the public, so most of the venison, rabbit, elk, kangaroo, etc., that we eat here has been farmed. Farming has its pros and cons, of course, but one of the the most noticeable differences is the lack of a gamey taste because the animals are eating controlled feed instead of foraging in the forest.

This is a good thing, in a way, because it means that people will try game meat and not be put off by the strong flavour. But folks like me, who expect the strong flavour, often find game meat lacking. What is needed, then, is for the meat to be prepared at the hands of a skilled chef who knows how to nuance, accentuate and tease out the flavours. Last night, 9 sets of those skilled hands took on the challenge.

The Ontario Game Dinner at Hank’s was a benefit for Slow Food Toronto – money raised went towards sending Toronto chefs to Slow Food’s bi-annual conference in Italy.

read more…

Food For Thought – Wednesday, February 3rd

2010 February 3
by Sheryl Kirby

Here’s some food for thought for today…

Food For Thought – Tuesday, February 2nd

2010 February 2
by Sheryl Kirby

Here’s some food for thought for today…

Experimentation

2010 February 1
by Sheryl Kirby

The flavour combination of dark chocolate, dulce de leche and sea salt is not new. You might even say it’s a bit passé, but it could also be one of those things that become a classic, like chocolate and mint.

I had wanted thimble (aka. thumbprint) cookies, but I was also craving chocolate. And when my pal David at Circles and Squares Bakery tweeted about making dulce de leche brownies, the idea hit me.

This first batch is really a prototype – I made one pan and put the caramel into the thumbprints first, before baking, as you do when making the regular version with jam. This created a big oozing mess of melted caramel. Filling the prints as soon as the cookies come out of the oven works better – it melts just enough to smooth out, without creating too much of a river.

I also used 100% cacao chocolate, because that’s what I had on hand. It’s not readily available, but I don’t think I’d go below about 80% or the cookie will be way too sweet – otherwise the amount of sugar would have to be adjusted. And, I cheated and used dulce de leche from a jar, but the caramel is not hard to make.

read more…

Food For Thought – Monday, February 1st

2010 February 1
by Sheryl Kirby

Here’s some food for thought for today…