Edible Tulip

For the Love of Salad

My salads inspire wide eyed curiosity at my office. They are dense, colourful, jam packed with varying flavours and textures, and a veritable concoction culled from my cupboard and fridge. They take up an entire shelf in the office refrigerator. It can take two hands to carry my tupperware to my office. But the snap crackle freshness that a salad provides me is just one of the simple ways I kick ass during my day. Even when I temped downtown in an office tower in mid-February gale force snowstorms, I still ate my lunch outside on a parkbench. In a down coat with fur lined boots. Having to work indoors will never turn me into a Manchu Wok food court fanatic. That I promise you.

Things to make salad assembling easier:

1. Wash all of your produce when you get in from the store. I dump it all into my double sink in water with a bit of natural detergent to take off any residue or pesticide or grubby finger goo. I drain it all in a big colander that fits over my sink and then I pack it in resealable large plastic bags. The lettuce I spin and put also into large sealed bags.

2. Kinds of lettuces. Sometimes I get the large bags or boxes of organic spring mix (mesclun lettuces) or baby spinach. It can help when I'm in a midweek time crunch and haven't done appropriate grocery shopping. Although, be forewarned, I bought a President's Choice box of spring mix, washed and cleaned as the package promised, and bit into an enormous twig with thorns on it. Can't get more organic and farm to table than that, I guess. Head lettuce I use too, for crunch, for a watery contrast to something rich like creamy blue cheese. Otherwise, green or red lettuce, romaine, endive, raddichio, arugula and dandelion are all excellent to experiment. Butter lettuce is, unsurprisingly, soft and sweet. Arugula is peppery. Dandelion and raddichio are bitter - great with savoury candied nuts.

3. What else? Cubes of hard cheese - Italian sheeps milk, Mozzarella, Mexican white queso, Asiago, sharp Cheddar, anything recommended by your local butcher! Crumbled bits of softer cheese, like creamy blue, different kinds of feta, halloum, goat's milk varieties. Any kind of nut - raw sunflowers, sesame seeds, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds. I buy these at my local strictly bulk store, along with cashews and almonds for sure fire stir fries. Pea shoots, alfalfa sprouts, ancient eastern blend sprouts... add total earthy tasting crunch. Toronto Sprouts is a good source and available at local specialty markets and Fiesta Farms grocery store on Christie Street. Cooked lentils, canned garbanzo or navy or fava beans, Italian tuna in olive oil, cooked rice from the night before, grape tomatoes, fresh whole sugar snap pea pods, avocado, cubes of barely ripe mango, cooked corn shaved off the cob, grated beets, hardboiled eggs, artichoke hearts, olives, chopped carrots/celery/cucumber/daikon radish...

GO WILD!!!

I'd love to hear what favourite ingredients other people add to cold salads?

Spring Began A Month Ago (or Rosedale Rant)

Violets on the north bank as I descended down the Old Beltline Trail in Rosedale on a hot day in mid-April. Simon, my dog, and I were actually looking to check out this dog area I had discovered online called Dog Patch. The website looked fantastic - an off leash rural playground with rivers and dales in a forested area near Don Valley Brick Works. I didn't much like the trail we took to get there, it was busy, not that secluded, and holy p'jesus was it ever obvious we were in Rosedale. Obviously Simon and I have been sheltered from dog prejudice because we tend to run the waterfront in the middle of winter, the marshy area around the Humber River where the fishermen flock, and the trails and parks and swamps and ponds and rivers and forests that extend for hundreds of miles beyond the outskirts of the city. I don't want to assume a stereotype and the idea certainly never crossed my mind when we began our walk but god almighty you'd think that the women who we ran into have never seen a dog over 10 lbs. Let alone a MIXED BREED. That looks like the wolf in little red riding hood. When he grins, I want to put a bonnet on his head. Simon is an exhuberant dog and the people we typically run into think he's one of the happiest, handsomest, most playful furry creatures they've ever met. Not so in Rosedale. On leash, Simon can pull when he sees another dog. He wants to say hello to everyone, human or canine, that we cross paths with. It appeared from our walk that most people in that neighbourhood have fluffy goofy (I won't say stupid) Golden Retrievers or lap dogs in booties (in spring, I might add). The exertion it must have taken to keep their dogs away from Simon and to also avoid making any eye contact with me must have enabled these women to scarf down a snickers bar after their walk in good conscience. It wasn't just one or two people we passed on the trail; it was EVERYONE. I kept whispering to Simon that it wasn't him; it was that I had worn my camoflauge capris and a tanktop and thus I had revealed us as interlopers. Simon did get into this enormous mucky creek toward the end of our walk and I was simply terrified/hopeful that we'd pass someone in an all white hiking outfit and he'd perform one of his more flamboyant shakes.

Re: Dog Patch. The places was desterted. One of the fences was buried under the weight of a mudslide from construction on a mega million dollar home up above. There was yellow caution tape wrapped around the entrances. A lock on the door. And a copy of a letter from the President of The Toronto Humane Society that had been sent to the Toronto Star about 6 months earlier denouncing the hysteria people have about dogs in public places and the very few incidents that actually do occur when people and dogs interact. I googled Dog Patch to see what went down. It looked like it had fantastic potential - an entirely cordoned off area in the middle of the forested ravine that included rocks and a water source. Did the ladies of Rosedale rebel? Was it too much like watching a cock fighting show? Too disgraceful to see dogs growl and hump and sniff as they are wont to do with one another in good fun. Dog Patch was a conjoined effort between the Toronto Humane Society and The City of Toronto to provide healthy dog play and interaction in a safe environment. Who shut it down?

As someone who has a rescue dog who has simply become the best dog in the world, I am saddened and discouraged that after all the Toronto Humane Society does for abandoned and abused dogs, that a positive intention and investment such as a fenced in dog patch would somehow cause an uproar.

Beaver Sighting at the Humber River

There's a resident beaver, so I've been told, who resides in a dam on the west side of the Humber River north of Bloor. If I'd known that before traipsing around in the sticks and marsh-like mud and muck that extends down into the waterway that is a true urban dilemma - a fast running body of water full of fisherman, 2 canoeists and a beaver but sadlly due south of a water treatment plant so the area of land where the water has recessed is tattered with depleted plastic bags, hospital latex gloves, cardboard, fishing string, and chunks of floating foam. It was in the high 20s today - the first real glimpse of warmth for months and the walk through the new buds and ground growth was almost explosive with happiness. The garbage strewn everywhere however is depressing. And worrisome. Someone at the park told me a friend's dog got giardia from the Humber and had to be put on I.V. I won't deny my dog one of the nicest walks in the city for fear of maybe contracting something but I did scratch my leg badly on something and then have to wade into the river to retrieve Simon's ball (big shout out to all the retrievers at High Park who CONSTANTLY fetch Simon's bobbing ball for him as it floats down the rivlets). And when the cuts began to scratch I instantly became concerned with Staph and E Coli infections seeping into my bloodstream. I'd rather eat a fish with a bit of mercury in it who has been lured from a sparkling clear creekbed than worry about contracting a viral infection from a fast moving river through the city.

So, anyway, we ran into a HUGE beaver just hanging out in a tangle of dried sticks and mulch. Simon didn't even see it. I was watching Simon as he went straight for the water, went out up to his neck and sat down to immerse his full body. He won't swim but he'll wade. He won't jump off a dock like a retriever but he'll race out as far as he can with his feet still touching the bottom to fetch a stick. So as Simon sort of flits about like a minnow I see this enormous brown furry blob scurry off just a foot to the left of where I'm standing. Things then went blurry. Simon was at my side, I was trying to leap over an enormous fell tree trunk and the beaver was idly pushing itself off shore. I'm not sure what would have happened had Simon and the beaver met face to face, I don't know how vicious the buck-toothed creature really is, but I have a feeling by the pure might of its muscle and its bravado, story to follow, that it would have grabbed Simon by the nose and tugged him out into the river. I would then have to had bit my hypochondria adieu and raced in after him. But no, the beaver slinked underwater, and re-emerged downstream. Simon at this point was only picking up the scent and back at the beaver's sly stage exit. I walked south along the river and couldn't see the beaver anywhere. After a while, I looked out into the middle of the river - which spans about 75 metres in width - and I see the goddamn beaver fighting against the stream. He's swimming upriver into a fast current and is only a few feet from being swept over a dam into whirlpools. He's having the fight of his life. I notice a Japanese couple on the other side of the river with their cameras out and pointing and holy shit this beaver's fot fans rooting for him on both divides. He dives down to evade the fastest part of the current, pokes his sleek head upstream, and then swims on an angle to the other side of the river where he pulls himself out of the river and collapses out of exhaustion. After my experience with Simon, the deer and the Old Mill residents a few weeks ago I get him on leash. We pass an older couple sitting on a bench. I'm still riled up from the beaver's triumph so I say "there's a beaver over there, on the other side of the river, see it, see it right there, that big brown thing, that's a beaver!" They didn't really even look in the direction I was pointing but they thanked me and wished me well. They were American. From the south, it appeared. So now I've gone ahead and ruined Toronto as being chic and urban and cultural to these people. They're going to go back to Alabama and tell everyone they went to Toronto and saw a beaver.

(sadly I didn't have my camera to legitimize my beaver tale. later in the afternoon, we walked in high park. despite not crossing paths with any wild life, we still found a way to get muddy and wet. see picture.)

Super Mutt

I've spent many hours on the internet trying to figure out Simon's genetic make-up. In dogs, their breed(s) are such an integral piece of the mystery of their personalities. Before I received Simon as a "foster dog", I was told he was Shepherd/Husky. (People stop me on the street all the time and throw out their own ideas. I think there's also some Border Collie in him, and maybe even some hound.) Now anyone in their right mind in an apartment in downtown Toronto* at the kickstart of the winter season would pause, for at least a second, to contemplate the undertaking of a dog with that mix. Because I know now, a little terrier or a miniature anything would have been much much easier - the dog wouldn't be able to squash a cat with a paw, it could be picked up and placed somewhere if misbehaving, a long walk would mean around the block, and I could tie it up for 3 minutes in front of the liquor store without my worrying it would jump on someone and claw their eyes out. Simon, in truth, has never clawed anybody's eyes out but he does jump up. It was such an annoying habit of his, based I believe out of insecurity, that the first few months I was petrified to pass anyone on the sidewalk, in a hallway, invite guests over to my apartment, have him in any circumstance where he could jump up, because he inevitably did. Some people are okay with it. Many are not. The point is he shouldn't do it ever. He's too big. And too unpredictable. After many months of working on this, he only jumps up around 3% of the time.

Training a dog is like packing a house up in preparation for a move. You start packing boxes and bags and days go by and yet the house is still full of stuff, there's hardly been an imprint of all of that work, let alone results. For the first 3 months, I worked Simon daily, commanding him to sit, down, stay 20 times a day. We would wrestle in front of his crate when on the 5th day he arrived he would no longer step foot in it. Even when his dinner was in there. He had decided the couch was preferable. I was in tears that night when through the saliva and vigour of both of us I succeeded in getting him in to the crate against his almighty protestations. I might have felt more badly but when his body went limp and he gave in he was in essence passing over the authority torch and I knew the significance of that.

It is difficult when you have a rescue dog who begins to take over your life. You have mixed emotions. Part of you feels like a saviour; the dog is a poor helpless creature who has been locked up in a cage, nearly euthanized, and devoid of attention and love. The instinct is to buy all sorts of expensive treats - dried liver, venison snacks, chicken jerky - get him a soft pillowy bed, give him lots of hugs and kisses, talk in a baby voice, and sacrifice your entire social life in order to make sure he isn't left alone. Do this, however, and your dog will whip your ass. He will jump up on your bed when he returns from a muddy walk. He will ignore you when you ask him to do something let alone command him. He'll growl at you if you try to take a toy away. He'll take over your life and make it so miserable you will lie in bed wondering how you spent hundreds of dollars adopting this awful creature, hundreds more securing his good health, endless hours making him chicken and rice for dinner, countless walks a day in weather no human should have to endure, and enabled yourself to almost get a concussion, a broken wrist, and the sorest ass in history from all that hiking in deep snow. I have been there. I have had those moments where I secretly hoped I could find someone else to adopt him. Maybe a nice family with teenagers who live in the country and he can ride around the back of a pickup truck. It'd be better for him, I thought. The reality is he is deeply attached to me. As I am to him. And he is unmistakably happy. The hard truth was that I was letting him rule the house and that was making me miserable and exhausted and losing weight. I am not good at confrontation. Even with a canine, apparently. I'm 115 pounds, Simon is 60+ pounds but his dead weight when he wants it to be is much stronger than anything I can muster. I learned pretty early on, although we still battle it out sometimes, that I had to turn into some sort of General, when required, and through patience and fairness, show this dude who's boss.

*(The reality of Simon's genetic make-up, that hyperactive hunting husky in him, means that the key to his good behaviour is simply exercise. For those who think it unfair to have a big dog in a city, when you enter into the rescue dog world there is no choice of an estate with a big backyard in Rosedale, or a home in the suburbs. These dogs require a lot of work and they are being fostered out because they have been unadoptable. A dog alone all day in a backyard is not necessarily a happy dog. Nor is one left to roam free in the countryside getting into all sorts of danger and mischief. I have undertaken the responsibility of making sure he gets out 4 times a day both for long, leisurely, urban leash walks and for ample play time where he can run hard for at least an hour a day. We have friends at the dog parks we visit but for the most part we try to include off leash trails and ravine meanderings into our regime. Luckily, my folks live north of the city and we go often and walk for hours along stretches of the Bruce Trail.)

The following dog books are my favourite so far for anyone looking to learn the basics of understanding dogs and how to effectively communicate with your dog. In addition to these, I ordered about 14 more through the Toronto Public Library and whipped through those too.

The Monks of New Skete. Divine Canine. The Monks' Way to a Happy, Obedient Dog. Everything You Need to Know.

Good Owners, Great Dogs. A Training Manual for Humans and Their Canine Companions. By Brian Kilcommons and Sarah Wilson. Published by Warner Books.

Why Does My Dog Act That Way? A complete guide to your dog's personality. By Stanley Coren. Published by free press.

Hip Ideas for Hyper Dogs. By Amy Ammen and Kitty Foth-Regner. Published by Wiley Publishing.

Simply Simon

I know it’s been 7 months since I posted. I feel like I’m creeping up out of the mulch. The landscape is different. Or at least I see it that way.

Last fall was one of the busiest most exasperating periods of my entire life. I felt burdened. Time was leaching away from me. My days had spiralled into a routine of over-thought chaos. So being my typical impractical self, I got a dog.

I’m convinced that some dogs are meant to be with certain people, and vice versa, and that the universe has a twisted way of making sure they find one another. I picked up Simon literally on the side of a busy road north of Toronto. It felt a bit like a covert operation – driving up to a tattered trailer home on a muddy lot amidst the sprawl of industry, sitting out front of the house because a sign reads “do not get out of your car until the owner comes out of the house”, watching a truck pull in and sit idly in the lot too, and then seeing a large man in a sweat suit with a long white beard emerge out of the front door. He was receiving the other dog. I was there to pick up Simon. And the truck belonged to the woman who was responsible for rescuing these two dogs from the Welland Humane Society before they were put down even though both dogs were only a year and a half in age and non-aggressive. She opened the back of her truck and Simon flew out. As I held his leash firmly, she ran through food, his background, her experience with him, what to do and not to do, all in less than five minutes. I brought Simon over to the car, obviously nervous about jumping in with a stranger, he required some coaxing, but then he got in and sat in the back seat looking out the window. Whimpering. Simon’s soft whine is a song I’ve come to know well although it’s abated as his confidence continues to grow.

The first month was probably one of the most hellish of my life. I have two cats. I live in an apartment. Fostering a rescue dog means these dogs are typically in dire circumstances and time is running out. Puppies you can mould and train to become the perfect family pet, these dogs are not. They require patience, discipline, unconditional love, and more of the same, until you think you don’t have an inch of patience left in your body, then they require love, and then when you try to discipline, they will test your patience all over again.

It became clear to me immediately that Simon had a few issues. He was afraid of Asians, in general. I live a block from Korea town. And so began our long walks along Bloor Street. As a person with various anxieties, I knew you had to face down your fears or they would grow and manifest into larger problems. He chased cars. While on a leash. Which meant his 60 lb. body flew up into the air and lunged towards moving vehicles, bicycles, motorcycles, buses, trucks, etc. He was frightened of children – they are often screaming and they run like prey. Umbrellas, homeless people, joggers, skateboarders, shrouded shrubs, neighbourhood cats, Falun Gong participants in white gloves, Rottweilers – Simon didn’t really like any of them. He’d circle, growl, and even attempt to bite.

The past 5 months, Simon and I walked through various snowstorms at 6 a.m., at midnight, after long gruelling days at the office… rain, snow, sleet, hail, -40 degree weather, we were out in it, 3-4 hours a day. During those initial walks I wouldn’t have dared let him off leash. He was a thrashing, yanking, hyperactive, skittish, unpredictable, stubborn mutt with the habits of a 60-pound squirrel. We would try to run together. Inevitably, he would run too quickly or in movement catch sight of something and pull in the opposite direction. And I’d get pulled down, or pulled up, muddy hillsides after my head had hit the frozen ground with all of the earth’s gravitational force. I fell a total of 4 body crunching times. There was the running away at the Kortright Centre, the running across an ice covered pond and falling in while in pursuit of geese (who were FLYING), the chasing of deer up into the backyards of estate homes near the Old Mill where owners, all female, all royally pissed off, came out to investigate this wild, drooling, wolf-like beast who was tearing up their back gardens chasing 5 deer and whose owner, that’d be me, stood there in an army-green rubber rain suit trying to call a dog who can go wilfully deaf. Not one of our better moments. There have been run-ins with pit bulls, encounters with policemen on horse, and too many discarded chicken bones pulled from his jaws. But there have also been moments of immense joy and fulfillment. He is a different dog now then when we first met. He's tamped down his neuroses, shed his anxieties, plays well with other dogs, mostly comes when called, is patient with me when I'm slowly waking up in the morning. When we're in the woods clawing through the thaw of 3 feet of melting snow or walking together through the thick of a busy urban sidewalk and he’s trotting along with his tail held proudly in the air and one eye cast in my direction there’s something very sweet that exists between us; like my neighbour said to me the other week, I see you two heading out into the day and you just look like you belong together. My thoughts exactly.

More food entries to follow. And a review of The Patisseries of Paris published by The Little Bookroom up next!

For the Love of August

Pablo Neruda in his Ode to Tomatoes writes: "...the tomato, star of earth, recurrent and fertile star, displays its convolutions, its canals, its remarkable amplitude and abundance, no pit, no husk, no leaves or thorns, the tomato offers its gift of fiery color and cool completeness."*

It has been a fertile summer for tomatoes in Ontario - hot with little rain. I tend to buy baskets of the small, vine-ripe tomatoes which I find have less chance than the big, beefsteak kind of being mealy. To be honest, I've never been a huge tomato fan. I've typically found them too acidic and oddly unsatisfying. The pasta dishes I prefer our often non-tomato based. But recently I've been exposed to the delicious simplicity of a straight-up pureed fresh tomato sauce tossed with fresh pasta and it was exquisite. I'm preparing my own fresh tomato pasta sauce and it's as simple as 1-2-3.

Adapted from Anna Thomas's The New Vegetarian Epicure:

Summer Tomato Sauce
Makes about 3 cups of sauce

3 lbs. ripe tomatoes
1 tbsp green olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp chopped fresh basil leaves
salt and pepper to taste

Scald the tomatoes in boiling water for 45 seconds and slip off their skins. Trim their stems and process briefly in a blender or food processor until thick and not too thin and liquid-like.

Heat olive oil in a saucepan and add the garlic. Stir for about a minute, then pour in the tomatoes. Add the basil and a little salt and pepper and cook the sauce on medium for half an hour or until reduced by a third.

Use immediately or keep, covered, in the refrigerator for several days.

Another delicious bounty of late summer are BEETS! The thought, the smell, the taste of beets have induced my gag reflex since I was a child. About a year ago, I tried a co-worker's salad that her boyfriend had made for her and it included grated fresh beets and grated carrots. The combination is a common item in many salads in vegetarian/vegan restaurants because of the earthy combination of their flavours but for me it represented something beautifully vibrant, locally harvested, dirt cheap, and rich in vitamins and minerals to add some zip to my lunchtime salads. This Sunday salad included organic raw pumpkin seeds, Mexican queso fresca cheese, grated Ontario beets, avocado chunks, sunflower sprouts and romaine and baby spring lettuce tossed in a light oil and vinegar dressing.

*excerpted from Selected Odes of Pablo Neruda, University of California Press c. 1990

Toronto Tree Tour

When I lived on a river that backed onto hectares worth of forest, the trees were my backdrop so I didn't give them much notice. I woke to their leaves rustling, walked beneath their majestic canopy, and stalked my cats who in turn stalked every living thing smaller than them. I have a dozen tree books from second hand stores and as much as I tried to educate myself with bark identification tests and leaf diagrams I still felt confounded when I came upon a tree I thought I knew in new different season. Call me a tree geek or a wanna be arborist. In the city, I'm devoid of much exposure to trees, so when I came upon a chance for a free Tree Tour in Toronto I leapt at the chance. I knew it might be odd. Who goes on a tree tour in downtown Toronto on the Saturday of a long weekend? Well, me, and apparently a sold out crowd of other nature lovers.

The tour was led by a quirky, witty, urban arborist and we met on the steps of 401 Richmond (which I've written about before but if you haven't been you must, must check out this space!). We proceeded inside and into the courtyard full of chirping birds, climbing ivy, and splindly tall trees growing skyward in search of sunlight. There was a spiral staircase that led to the rooftop and we were encouraged to climb or take the elevator. I am afraid of heights especially when you can see through a grate many stories below to the ground. But nobody made a move to the elevator and I sort of got swept in the crowd like I was being carried on the top of a mosh pit of elders and I began the climb. Once I got climbing I couldn't really turn around so I kept climbing. Anyone else that is afraid of heights knows that the higher you get the more intense the vertigo becomes - you begin to vacillate between pulling yourself away from the edge and wanting to leap into it. We emerged onto the rooftop garden and were embraced by a variety of potted plants, a naturalized green roof, an apiary for budgies, a greenhouse and a humbling view of sky, skyscrapers, and canopy cover all through the lens of green.

Bicycle Basket Lunch

Such a yummy picnic lunch to pick up on your travels through chinatown in Toronto. Pho Hung on Spadina on the outskirts of Kensington Market has a selection of small packageable goodies to pack into a bag or place horizontally in a bicycle basket. It was late morning when I swung into the busy restaurant and there were lots of people seated in the exterior room where the windows can be rolled down for breezy days or pulled up tight with the blinds at half mast on hot summer days. They seemed to be slurping down soups and noodles and various pork dishes in great delight. I was looking for something refreshing to have a snack before I started out on my organized Tree Tour of Toronto and I only had 1/2 an hour to eat so I ordered the large vegetarian cold spring rolls to go. 3 minutes later and $6.95 broker I left. I found a park somewhere south of Queen Street and east of Spadina to sit at a picnic table and dip my perfectly wrapped lightly mint and coriander flavoured spring rolls in a delicious tamarind sauce. Of course, 2 hours later I was ravenous but it got me through 2 exquisite roof top garden tours and a bike ride home.

Olé for the "Little Bull" - Torito Tapas Bar

Veronica Laudes, owner of Torito Tapas Bar with partner Luis Iglesias, zips around the cantina with her hair in two cute buns coiled under her earlobes. She's got the laughter, the exhuberance, the energy associated with Spain* and tapas - the midnight eating, the flamenco clackety-clack, the romantically seedy back-alleys of cities like Madrid and Barcelona. And although the place gives off that European edge (narrow interior restaurant, warm brick walls, bullfighting posters, festive vibe, hot hot hot Spanish-speaking bartender), it's a perfect fit for the grime of Kensington Market's Augusta strip. Torito can be easy to miss, especially in winter when the front patio is absent, so I've taken a photo of the sign - follow the bull's nose ring.

I was out for dinner with my brother View this photo to enjoy some one-on-one sibling time before he departs for a 2 year teaching commitment in the caribbean. While listening to him talk about his ocean view and the scuba diving lessons he'll be giving in his role as Phys-ed Teacher, I drowned myself in the best tasting ceviche I think I may have ever had (I've been across Spain and up the entire coast of Portugal and tried many a rubber ceviche in T.O.). It's made with tender white bass, lime, and coriander and served with a combination of fresh corn niblets and cooked corn kernals that taste alternately sweet and smokey. We drank Spanish white wines and moved onto crab croquettes - delicately pan fried sweet breadcrumb engulfed bites of heaven served with parsley aioli; grilled sardines served over fava beans and chopped fresh herbs - the sardines were just a bit too small resulting in a make up of 75% bone to 25% flesh, look out!; and a salad of arugula, fresh parmesan, sugared roasted almonds and the subtlest of dressings tasting. I have been to Torito before and can also attest to the delicious qual glazed with a light pomegranate reduction and excellent lamb sausages. Last night was too hot, too sticky, too appetite stifling to order much more than a few fish dishes and a fresh salad but hey, that's why we went out for tapas. Popular dishes around us on the patio were braised beef tongue and cheek, garlic shrimp, and what I can only think was roasted piquillo peppers stuffed with something white like salted cod being thoroughly enjoyed until the only thing to do was sop up the flavours with bread.

Everything is so fresh, so tasty, so perfectly done at Torito that it's hard to think back to a few weeks ago when looking for a place to eat down by Harbourfront in advance of catching a concert I ate at Lusso and had just about the worst most excessively overpriced meal I've eaten out in a long time and sadly all I had was a salad with grilled chicken and bruschetta. I prefer to stay away from the throngs of tourists and stick to grotty old Kensington Market and the good stuff.

Torito Tapas Bar. 276 Augusta Ave. Toronto. No reservations. #647-436-5874.

* Most people associate tapas with Spain and Spanish cuisine, as do I. I realize the owners of Torito are not Spanish; I believe they are Chilean and the chef, if it's still Carlos Hernandes, is Ecuadorian. Apparently there's been an in-city restaurant brouhaha about this. I do not care. Their food is delicious. Their menu is a sincere and genuine celebration of tapas. Now if only a couple of Swedes would open a Mexican restaurant in Toronto.

Cucumis Melo

The mighty melon is indeed a member of the gourd family which includes cucumbers, pumpkins and squashes/zucchinis. Even though hard-skinned, strong-stemmed gourds are mostly New World plants, the origin of the melon is Africa.

A bewildering number of cultivars have evolved from the wild melon plants, among the more popular: cantaloups/summer muskmelons (bright orange flesh with a netted, scaly exterior), honeydew (celery-green flesh, hard smooth skin), Ambrosia (looks like a canteloup but flesh is softer, more fragrant), watermelon (bright pinkish-red, grainy, slightly sweet flesh with a green and white hard smooth skin).

I bought my melon (pictured) at Fiesta Farms (mentioned in NOW magazine as a good, cheaper alternative to big box store produce) on Christie Street north of Bloor where their extensive Ontario produce (huge heads of Ontario broccoli with their 'hoods' still on!) looks fresh and bountiful. I assumed it was a crenshaw melon but as I researched melons I realized it was probably a muskmelon. It has scallopped edges if you put it on its stem end and cut through its middle. The skin is carved into perfect melon slices if you cut it lengthwise. I picked a melon that wasn't too ripe so the flesh is still firm, slightly crisp and watery and less pungent and perfumey than one that has become soft to the touch.

Melon is wonderful served in an antipasto fashion with slices of cured meat; the sweet crisp flesh undercuts the saltiness of the meats. It is also delicious served after dinner with a digestif. But I like it simply cut up and doused in fresh lime juice as the start to my day.

The 8,000 Mile Meal

Many pieces of my meal - the heart and soul of the dish I might add - came from delectable places far from Toronto although I didn't import these items at great environmental cost. No. They were brought back to Toronto in a suitcase from the alleyways of Paris and the historic towns of Czech Republic. It's August and the only month I believe fit for eating vegetables and fruits from entirely local sources. You can't avoid local produce. It's everywhere in the grocery stores and farmers markets - budding cauliflowers heads, green string brings, the first of the peaches and cream corn crop, the last of the raspberries. Some people however are still confounded by what our local produce looks like. A recent conversational exchange in my kitchen: "oh hey, I bought a dozen apricots too today" "Um, those aren't apricots, those are ONTARIO PEACHES!!!". They may look diminutive compared to their southern obese cousins but they taste much, much better: sweeter, juicier, riper. Apples too get that same abuse. People think the average apple is supposed to be the size of an adult fist. When really, Ontario apples that are not crossbred and coated in insecticide are on average the size of large plums. I remember talking to apple growers up around Meaford and Thornbury summers ago and how they kept stating that the grocery stores wanted larger apples because the consumer had placed quality on size of fruit. And we all know, size doesn't really matter...

This meal is a combination of whole wheat fusili with sauteed fresh corn and cumin, chopped fresh parsley and mint, diced tomatoes, green mammoth olives whole, Pate d'Olive noire from Les Delices de France, salt encrusted capers, Cereal Terra pesto vegetale from the Czech Republic, crushed herbes de provence from Paris and some swirls of extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar. Diced pieces of a perfect avocado made its way into the mix as well.

Come Out and Help Revolutionize Street Food in Toronto

Some people are just constantly s*%t out of luck with opportunity. Tom Kime is apparently not one of those people - he's the sort of person whose bio you read and it's just one fantastic adventure after another. He was a chef at several celebrated restaurants in London and Sydney before becoming the executive chef at the Fortina Spa Resort on the island of Malta. Mmm, Malta although maybe the island got claustrophobic because Tom jetted out of Malta and began traveling the world in search of traditional types of street food. He's written a book about his travels - part cookbook, part travelogue - "Street Food" chronicles Tom's tastings as he travels the globe (India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Caribbean, Southern Europe, Middle East, Africa) sampling street food from roadside stands, markets, carts, and wagons.

On the topic of street food, I think about my experience in Toronto and it comes down to hot dogs, sausages and buttered chile corn at Word on the Street. In some countries the food on the street is better (more interesting, more flavourful, more trustworthy) than the food served in restaurants. Unfortunately for someone visiting Toronto they would have a pitiful purview into the incredibly diverse breadth of Toronto cuisine if he/she judged the city by its street food. God forbid.

Apparently Councillor John Filion feels the same way because he's inviting Torontonians out to see and eat the possibilities of Street Food hopefully to come.

Here's part of the announcemount and I hope to see you there - I'm personally excited to try the 5 Spiced Chinese Melon Soup with Curried Shellfish from Rain!

Please join us for Toronto Street Treats Main Course Event-
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Where: Nathan Phillips Square

When: Friday, July 13, 2007
Noon to 2 p.m. Vendors selling examples of new Toronto street food to the public

Hosts: Councillor John Filion and Chefs from some of Toronto’s best restaurants, including:

Chris McDonald, Cava
Claudio Aprile, Colborne Lane
Didier Leroy, Didier
Food Share
Golden Turtle Restaurant
Indian Rice Factory
Izakaya Restaurant
Jamie Kennedy
Jumbo Empanada
Lemon Heaven
Pappas Grill
Guy Rubino, Rain Restaurant
Sunshine Shakes
Carole Ferrari, The Local Cafe
Viva Tastings

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Restaurant Menu Item(s) Price

Cava • Florentine Tripe Stew $2
Colborne Lane • Cereal $3
Didier • Ontario Green Asparagus $2
• Flamishe $2
Food Share • Sweet Potato Bundles $1
• Chili Lime Corn $1
• Fruit Skewers $1
Golden Turtle • Fried Spring Rolls (veggie/meat) $4
• Fresh Salad Rolls with Shrimp $4
• Juice $3
Indian Rice Factory • Dosa (Indian Crepe with Spicy Potato Stuffing) $6
• Faalsa $1
Izakaya • Tsukune $5
• Grilled Tofu $4
Jamie Kennedy • Curried Vegetables with Rice Hopper $5
Jumbo Empanada • Empanada $3
Pappas Grill • Chicken Souvlaki on a Pita $5
• Pork Soulavki on a Pita $4
Rain • 5 Spiced Chinese Melon Soup with Curried Shellfish $5
• Sugar Cane Jasmine Iced Tea Lemonade $2
The Local Café • Summer Salad Rolls $3
Viva Tastings • Strawberry, Sour Cream Brown Sugar Crepe $6
• Gruyere Cheese, Fresh Dill Cracked Black Pepper Crepe $6
• Assorted Salads with Savoury Hors d’oeuvres $6

Campell's Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive

I receive a fair number of emails to this blog. Some are downright odd, others are inappropriate, a few I don't have the knowledge to answer but the rest are from people out there in the world doing good deeds and wanting me to write about these things to spread the word. The internet after all is a fast and quick way to deliver news.

This week I got an email from Lauren. She's working with Campbell Soup Company in their annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive. In collaboration with the National Association of Letter Carriers (U.S. Postal Service), Stamp Out Hunger is the nation's largest food drive. The event happens tomorrow. It is ONLY for residents of cities and towns (and owners of mailboxes) in the United States. If you're an American please read the following and start packing those grocery bags!

35,000,000 Americans are at risk of hunger.

Get involved on May 12th!

How can you help?

Place bags filled with nonperishable food items next to your mailbox.*
Your letter carrier will pick them up and deliver them to local food banks!**
It's that easy to make a big difference.

*Donate items like canned meats and fish, canned soup,juice, pasta, vegetables, cereal and rice. Please do not include items that have expired or those in glass containers.
**If you live in an urban area check with your letter carrier or bring food to your local post office and they'll deliver it to local food banks.

Postscript: I'm curious whether or not Campell Soup Company has a presence in Canada (regional office, etc.). I'm also curious if we have a similar food drive initiative here in Canada that involves our Canada Post. I don't see why we couldn't orchestrate a similar food drive with an organization like Second Harvest. Second Harvest is an incredible organization working to "recycle" food in Toronto so there's not only a reduction in wastefulness of fresh food but it continues its cycle to various social services (breakfast programs, after school youth centres, women's shelters, emergency food banks, community hostels) which unfortunately there are many that exist in Toronto and most are constantly in need of fresh food. Fresh food isn't an option for a nation wide food drive or even a city wide food drive but non-perishables are. Anyone local have any ideas about organizing a food drive in the city of Toronto? I'd love to hear them.

Cookbook Review: I Am Grateful, Recipes and Lifestyle of Cafe Gratitude

Disclosure: I live in Toronto, Ontario. I do not have access to the abundant harvests available year round in places like California. It is also early spring in Toronto; we’ve only recently caught sight of the sun. Preparing food with raw ingredients that are organic isn’t always a possibility for me with items like nuts, avocados, strawberries, fresh coconut, and Irish moss from the coast of Jamaica. And while I love and source and eat fresh and raw foods daily, I cannot for my own well being even contemplate eating full time a raw food diet, both because of my geographic locale and because in the Ayruvedic spectrum I am a vata which means I am supposed to avoid uncooked foods! I ate once at the live food restaurant in Toronto, Live Organic Food Bar located on Dupont Street, and ordered the vegan sushi. It was an enormous serving beautifully plated and crafted out of untoasted nori filled with chopped vegetables and in lieu of cooked rice, blended parsnip. Let’s just say that about an hour after my meal, the 48 parsnips it probably took to fill the rolls had me doubled over in agony. Apart from all of that, I am a strong advocate of local and organic foods – I eat seasonally and I eat as low on the food chain as possible and as freshly as is reasonable given my climate and physical temperment.

I Am Grateful by Terces Engelhart with Orchid

Terces Engelhart has had a hard life. That much is obvious in the introduction to her cookbook I Am Grateful as she shares with the reader a personal saga involving two sexual molestations, 20 years struggling with anorexia and bulimia, three marriages and three divorces, one domestic violence situation, and three children. She refers to herself as a Hero and she has a dream where “Jesus came to me and asked me to serve at the Last Supper”, she encourages the employees at her restaurant, Cafe Gratitude (recipes from I Am Grateful were adapted from the restaurant menu), to train themselves in choosing their thoughts and she names the items on her menu things like I Am Loved or I am Adoring (and the staff won’t let you get away with pointing at a dish on the menu) and when your meal come it is placed before you with the pronouncement “You Are Loved” or “You Are Adoring” or whatever it is you ordered. Thus you ARE what you eat. If you order I Am Responsible then You Are Responsible, and so on. You have to ask for it by name thereby, in the view of Terces, you are practicing saying something new and affirming about yourself. But before you reject this book as out of hand vegan voodooism (which I almost did), let me tell you what I came away with once I’d put my own judgements aside: as a way to kick the ass of an eating disorder, the author starts a food business; she supports local farmers, sustainable agriculture, and environmentally friendly products; rather than give over to addiction and discouragement as a result of her difficult life, she chooses to create her environment around living, organic foods which reflects a commitment to self sustenance and the nurturing of others. These are all reflective of the way restaurants have come to treat their food/their menus as a value-based commodity.

Le Scandinave Spa

Down a path of cedar chips lined by white pillars of birch trees lies a remarkable getaway that is completely transcendant to its location at the base of Blue Mountain in Collingwood.

Le Scandinave Spa at Blue Mountain in Collingwood Ontario is a pretty incredible spot if you like quiet and relaxation, sitting in a solarium that smells like cedar with a view to a grove of birch trees, wet and dry saunas (finnish versus norwegian), and thermal and frigid outdoor baths which you are supposed to rotate amongst but I only went into the cold waterfall bath once - at 54 degrees F on a wintry spring day could you fault me?! The scene is very mellow. More women than men (the women come in gaggles for girl-time it appeared) but more men than I thought. The grounds are typical Ontario - cedar and birch with a view to the slowly rising slopes of Blue Mountain - and the facilities are warm, sophisticated, rustic: a large red barn type structure that houses the main reception area, fire place, eating lounge and cafeteria. There's lots of stone and wood and windows. People hang out in their bathrobes eating lunch, sitting outside by the fire, reading in the solarium. The downstairs in the main building has the change rooms (clean with lockers, shampoo, hair dryers, private showers) and the massage rooms.

Spend an afternoon if you can. A massage is a nice touch (literally!) but the baths are worth the visit. All you need is directions, a bathing suit, flip flops, a bathrobe, and the desire to chill out. There's a code of quiet around the grounds and in the baths and the saunas so there isn't much laughter or chatter, there were no kids when I was there. It was so mellow and so relaxing that amidst the sound of water falling and in conjunction with bursts of eucalyptus from the Finnish sauna (it's in a silo!) I could hear the buds bursting on the limbs of the trees encircling Le Scandinave.