The Yum Yum Factor

I am back from a ten day trip to Barcelona and man, am I fired up! I just spent 10 days eating and drinking and exploring, I lugged home three sizes of paella pans, cazuelas, spices, dried peppers, black sea salt and a brain overloaded with ideas.  Keep your eyes peeled for my upcoming posts about my trip, about what we ate, what we saw and where we went, but, for now, here is what is happening in the upcoming month: For our March Supper Club, I am going to do a bit of a Mexican/Greek mash up. There will be tasty cocktails, great food and great dining companions, as always, so go reserve your seat now Get your tickets for our March 18 Supper Club Opaaa! Upcoming Cooking Classes for March For the cheap and cheerful crowd, I have two What's For Dinner Classes at the Musgrave Loblaws in March. You pay $15 and get a $15 dollar gift card for your trouble. March 8 March 22 Also, my next series of Instant Pot classes this month will be taking place ...

Okay, Toronto Peeps, it's a new year and we are starting up our monthly Supper Clubs at The Kingston Social House, in Toronto's East East End. The first dinner of the year, this Sunday, January 21, will feature one of my favourite meals to cook and eat - my Peruvian Flavah dinner. We start with Aguadito de Pollo, a hearty chicken soup that is full of cilantro, white rice as well as black rice, chicken, aji amarillo all topped off with crispy chicken skin.

It's an Ugly Sweater Party!

Eva's Did you know that every night, more than 2000 Toronto youth are living in the street? Of those 2000, 79% of them site parental addiction, physical, psychological, sexual and emotional abuse as the reason they left home? 40% of homeless youth experience mental health issues but after 4 years of living on the street, that number grows to 705? Thankfully, there are places like Eva's Place, Eva's Satellite and Eva's Phoenix who provide Toronto's homeless youth with a safe place, support and opportunity. Their staff work directly with each and every young person who walks through their doors to come up with individual, personalized plans that will empower them to set and reach goals, both short and long term. It's a fresh start for the most vulnerable among us. You can make cash donations that supply these young people with personal hygiene supplies, TTC passes, food, safe shelter or a day of education counselling. You can volunteer your time, g...

Wow, October is a crazy month for me and if you live in the Toronto area, I hope you can join me for at least one of these great events! I have been super busy working for the last month at my catering bootcamp and have barely had time to think and now, this month looks like it's not going to let up. Cooking workshops, a drop in dinner and a Beau's Supper Club at The Kingston Social will keep me busy so I apologize in advance for the lack of new recipes to share with you but I will be back online in November with lots of new recipes to share. Drop in Dinner @ The Deppaneur Next Friday, Oct 13 I will be offering my latest drop in dinner at The Dep featuring a trio of very different ceviches - Octopus Aguachile, Asian Citrus Shrimp Ceviche and Vegan Hearts of Palm Ceviche with guacamole on a tostada. If you can't decide, get a flight of all three! Service starts at 6pm and we go until we sell out. Grab a bowl of Mexican Street Corn Chowder ...

Earlier this month I was invited to the Toronto Flavour Your Live Blending Event hosted by Aria Restaurant, here in Toronto.  I LOVE extra virgin olive oil and was intrigued by the whole blending thing, I made my way down to the venue to check it out because I am not missing out on a chance to have some science fun. Taking home my personal blend The owner and blend master himself, Giovanni Zucchi, led us through a tasting, showing us the proper tasting technique (very similar to wine tasting where you take a sip, coat your mouth with the oil then noisily suck air in through pursed lips and then spit it out) and helped us to identify different flavours and how they reacted on the palate. If you think all olive oil is essentially the same, think again. Some show clear notes of pepper, some are kind of sweet, some are more acidic and others are fruity. Professional olive oil tasters sip from blue glasses so that they can focus on the taste and the texture and not get hu...

Hurry up, get off your butt and get down to Fort York for the annual Taste of Toronto festival, on until tomorrow, Sunday June 18. This is one of the first outdoor food extravaganza's in Toronto and it's always packed with vendors offering old favourites as well as the odd new discovery.  The skinny: general online admission tickets are $21/session for adults, $10 for 12-17 and under 12 is free but it's $26 at the gate so make sure to use  this link  to buy them online before you get there There are premium VIP tickets that get you all kinds of extra stuff so you can see if those are sold out or not In the past, they used a "crown" system where you had to keep reloading a card with crowns (worth a buck each) but this year, the only way you can pay is with a debit or credit card. To be honest, I think it's a good thing because it's easier to budget when you are spending actual dollars and it means no more lining up to refill your...

So, on Monday, November 14, 2016, I will be at the Taste Canada Awards as a Taste Ambassador to see which Canadians will win recognition for their work - cookbook writers, bloggers and culinary writers compete in the Oscars of the Canadian culinary world! Out of all of these 55 incredible nominees, 22 will be awarded a Gold or Silver award in categories that span both English and French language publications. You can join me there for lots of great food, wine and rub shoulders with the who's who's of the Canadian Food Scene! If you can't join me, follow online on Twitter , Instagram and Facebook while I cover all of the excitement. Check out  www.tastecanada.org/tickets/  for tickets! Taste Canada Awards / Les Lauréats des Saveurs du Canada

Did you know that every night, in Toronto, more than 2000 youths are living in the street? Of those 2000, 70% of them site parental drug and alcohol issues, physical, psychological, sexual and emotional abuse as the reason for leaving home? 40% of homeless youth experience mental health issues but after 4 years of being on the street that number grows to 70%? This is why our community depends on places like Eva's Place, an emergency shelter for homeless youth between the ages of 16 and 24 in downtown Toronto. Eva's place not only provides shelter, but they also provide much needed support to help these young people either return home or to transition into more appropriate housing, finish their schooling, receive medial care, counselling and basic life skills training that you and I might take for granted. As well as the 40 bed emergency shelter, they run a harm reduction shelter called  Eva's Satellite   and Eva's Phoenix  for more long term housing and sup...

Taste of Toronto So, the weekend of June 23-26 was the annual Taste of Toronto at Fort York here in Toronto and it was bigger and badder than ever, with a giant roster of guest chefs doing cooking demos, presentations, wine tastings and food to try from a veritable who's who of Toronto restaurants. This year, due to construction inside the Fort, it was held on the grounds surrounding the actual interior area of Fort York and everyone I spoke to preferred it. There was a ton of shade and it felt more spread out and less crowded than in previous year. Tickets to the three day event were $29 online and you purchased your food and drink using a "crown" system. You loaded up a card with "crowns" with the word crown really meaning $1, probably in an attempt to take the sting off paying $10 for a small plate of food. This is not a cheap event and it's best to go in a small group that so you can not only divide and conquer to avoid lots of line ups but so ...