'Kamikaze' Bruce Miller and 'Chief Burger Head' Andy O'Brien at The Works, Oakville

Andy O’Brien liked the burger so much he bought the company. The Works is rapidly expanding throughout Ontario, from its original locations in Ottawa. Like their restaurants, which stress locality, O’Brien and team do things differently from the way they select franchisees to how they train their staff and set up their casual, table-service restaurants: no bars, no TV’s, no reservations. After a burger lunch at The Works’ newest location in Oakville (I had a “Ring of Fire”, one of dozens of hand-formed burger combinations to choose from), I interviewed O’Brien for the video below as they prepare to open a Toronto location on the Danforth this spring.

GFR videos are generously sponsored by a grant from Beau’s All Natural Brewing Company. Malcolm Jolley is a founding editor of Good Food Revolution and Executive Director of Good Food Media, the non-profit organization that publishes GFR. twitter.com/malcolmjolley. Photo: John Gundy.

As the new year begins, we at All The Best have strengthened our resolve to provide lots of new, interesting dishes for our customers. We’re always looking for foods that taste delicious , of course, but also foods that offer good nourishment and help us feel good too.

We know that as far as nutrition goes, fruits and vegetables provide huge benefits – they’re essential for maintaining good health and protecting against disease. We’re recommended to have 7 to 10 servings every day. This can be a challenge, especially during our Canadian winter, when fresh local produce is in short supply and popular imports can be expensive.  All The Best can help. You’ll find that our weekly menus are packed with tasty vegetable options. This month we include our spicy tofu and spinach curry, maple roasted squash, sautéed garlic rapini, sesame-glazed bok choy, a dynamite roasted butternut squash risotto with walnuts, curried beet and apple salad, kale braised with tomatoes… and more.

Dark green leafy kale is one of our favourite vegetables at this time of year. A simple pan-steaming with olive oil and garlic quickly wilts the vigorous greens while preserving their hearty texture and assertive flavour.  A slow braising of kale with additions of such flavourings as onions, garlic, pancetta and sun-dried tomatoes yields greens that are tender and milder in flavour. Chopped kale is a delicious addition to a hearty bean soup.

To tempt you into more healthy kale enjoyment, we include here a recipe for a tasty winter salad of beets and kale. This dish is part of the seasonal menu of Cava Restaurant in Toronto. Chef Chris McDonald, creator and owner of Cava, was kind enough to share his recipe with us.

Cava Roasted Beet Salad with Kale, Currants and Montforte Toscano Cheese
Fresh, crinkly, deep green leaves of Lacinato kale (also called black kale ,’cavolo nero’) are ideal for this salad.

For each serving:
11/2 ozs (40g) kale, well washed, trimmed and cut in fine slivers
1 tsp (5ml) finely chopped shallots
1 tsp (5ml) currants that have been plumped in caper brine
Honey Vinaigrette (see below)
4 ozs (125g) roasted, peeled beets, sliced
1 tbsp (15ml) coarsely grated Toscano cheese

In a mixing bowl, combine kale, shallots and currants. Drench with well-whisked vinaigrette. Allow to sit for 5 to 15 minutes to allow the vinaigrette to “cook” the kale.

In the mean time, drizzle beets with vinaigrette and arrange on individual plates or on a platter. With a slotted spoon or fork, lift kale and garnish out of the vinaigrette and distribute evenly over the beets. Sprinkle grated cheese evenly over the salad and serve.

Honey Vinaigrette
1 ¼ cup (300ml) extra virgin olive oil
¾ cup (175ml) red wine vinegar
1 pinch freshly ground black pepper
3 pinches salt kosher salt
1-2 tbsp honey, to taste

In a bowl, whisk all ingredients together until blended. Set aside. Store vinaigrette in a covered container in the refrigerator: it keeps indefinitely. Makes approx 3 cups (750ml)

Tip: To trim kale, place each curly leaf flat on a cutting board and, using a sharp knife, slice down on both sides of the stalk and central rib with a sharp knife. Or fold leaf in half and rip out the stalk and central rib. Discard. Roll up the leaf. Cut across the grain into fine slivers (chiffonade).

Stay well and all the best for 2012,

Jane.

James Beard Award-winner Jennifer McLagan has always been a chef’s cookbook author, so it’s no surprise that in the months following the publication of her third book, Odd Bits, that her core audience would reach out and ask her to join them in an ad hoc series of dinners. To date, McLagan has been in Montreal at Grumman 78 (run in part by Pied de Cochon vets Gaelle Cerf and Marc-Andre Leclerc), Victoria at Dan Hayes’s London Chef studio for a dinner for the city’s chefs and Vancouver at a Vancouver Club event also featuring Karen Page and Andrew Dornernberg as well as Neil Taylor’s Cibo Trattoria.

McLagan is set to return to Montreal for a dinner at Le Morgon, where she and chef Patrick Plouffe will be filmed for a Radio-Canada TV show, but first she’s bringing it all back home for a dinner at Toronto’s Parts & Labour with collection of young cooks knows as The Group of 7 Chefs, on Monday, January 30.

The seven young chefs (Beast’s Scott Vivian, Buca’s Rob Gentile, Cowbell’s Mark Cutrara, Globe Earth’s Kevin McKenna, Parts and Labour’s Matty Matheson, The Stop’s Chris Brown, and The Tempered Chef’s Bertrand Alépée) will, naturally enough, cook seven courses using seven interesting parts on an animal. McLagan will be on hand to curate and speak to the meat.

Tickets are available here.

David Farnell and Lulu Cohen Farnell at Real Food For Real Kids.

For over six years now David and Lulu at Real Food For Real Kids have been revolutionary in changing the way that children eat, enjoy, and understand food.

Through providing a growing number of childcares, camps, and schools with healthy, nutritious, made-from-scratch, (often) local food, this passionate couple show that there is a world outside of the processed foodstuffs that are unfortunately the norm for so many a young child growing up in the Greater Toronto Area.

Last year Good Food Revolution visited them at their Dovercourt Road headquarters to find out the secrets behind their well-deserved success story.

If you are having trouble viewing this video please click here.

David Farnell gives a tour of the Real Food For Real Kids production kitchen.

Edinburgh-born/Toronto-based Sommelier, consultant, writer, judge, and educator Jamie Drummond is the Director of Programs/Editor of Good Food Revolution… and he had to get up SUPER early to film those vans being loaded up BTW.

Navigating the subtle differences between the wines of Burgundy can be a daunting task. Trying to determine whether to purchase a Beaune 1er Cru from the Clos des Mouches or Clos des Feves vineyard, in some abstract context can clearly leave one with more questions than answers.

Today, I’ll do my best to strip away some of the pretense and focus on a few ways to help you discover the kind of pleasure in Burgundy wines that has attracted leading wine enthusiasts for centuries.

Tune into the video edition of our Wine of the Week:

The 2008 Domaine Chanson Beaune 1er Cru “Teurons” is an outstanding introduction to the finest wines of Burgundy. It is available at LCBO Vintages shops across Ontario now and is a wine you can enjoy today, and for years to come. Simply click on the bottle (below) to find this wine at an LCBO Vintages shop near you.

Three things to know about how the grapes for this wine were grown: 

#1:  After a beautiful spring, the weather at the start of the 2008 summer was quite demanding.  August brought plenty of sun and wind, which aided concentration of flavours.  The harvest began in mid-September under perfect Indian summer conditions.

#2:  Pinot Noir is notoriously hard to grow – and even more difficult to grow well. The yields from Pinot Noir vineyards can be as little as 10% of what could be harvested from the same acreage planted to other red varieties, like Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz.

#3:  Many wine producers in Burgundy purchase grapes to make their wines. Chanson owns an unusually high percentage of their own vineyards, meaning they can control the important quality decisions throughout the production process. This wine is made from grapes grown on a 4 acre parcel of the Teurons vineyard, owned by Chanson.

Three things to know about how this wine was made:

#1:  Chanson Winemaker Jean-Pierre Confuron is one of Burgundy’s most talented and respected artisans. His touch is evident in all of Chanson’s wines with a distinct focus on extracting finesse, balance and minerality from the grapes they harvest each vintage.

#2:  Chanson has been making wine in Burgundy since 1750. Their roots as a quality wine producer are as deep as the old vines they own, scattered across this, one of France’s most noble wine regions.

#3:  Grapes enter the fermentation vats in whole bunches for improved temperature control, gradual release of the sugars, and a more refined tannic structure. Cold pre-fermentation maceration is followed by a long alcoholic fermentation for greater depth and expression of the wine’s structural elements. Finally, this wine spent 15 months in oak barrels before final blending and bottling.

Andrew Hanna is a third generation wine importer and Director of Sales & Marketing at John Hanna & Sons Ltd., one of Canada’s oldest independent wine merchants. He spends his days scouring the earth for handcrafted wines that tell a story about the people and places in each bottle, while sharing these delicious discoveries with wine lovers across Canada.

CONNECT:

We want you to join in on the fun, by heading over to the Be Happy Facebook page and taking the pledge to support healthy oceans or uploading a picture of your silly fish face. On “Fish Face Fridays” we will be highlighting the most popular fish face of the week, so get out there and get your friends to vote for your best fish face! Facebook fans will also have access to easy and delicious recipes and ideas for preparing seafood at home, ask questions from sustainable seafood experts, dive into fishy trivia, or get a laugh from one of our fishy jokes.

Jacob Wharton-Shukster and Chef Jonathan Poon at Chantecler, Parkdale.

Just the other day GFR popped into the soon-to-be-open Chantecler restaurant in Parkdale.

Owners Jonathan Poon and Jacob Wharton-Shukster took some time out of their busy day to chat about their aspirations for what promises to be a welcome addition to the neighbourhood.

If you are having trouble viewing this video please click here.

Edinburgh-born/Toronto-based Sommelier, consultant, writer, judge, and educator Jamie Drummond is the Director of Programs/Editor of Good Food Revolution… and he had such a big smile on his face the day this piece was recorded.

In his fine book, McCarthy’s Bar, the late English travel writer Pete McCarthy posits his Eighth Rule of Travel: Never Pass a Bar That Has Your Name on It. Fair enough, but this happy circumstance is going to crop up more often if one of your names is Pete and the other is McCarthy. I’ve found myself more than once in bars called Pete’s or McCarthy’s. Some names just turn up on pubs more often than others.

So on a recent afternoon while strolling along the Danforth after a. a funeral and b. a more than satisfactory lunch at Morgan’s on the Danforth, I hesitated at the front door of a pub called the Old Nick. In fact, I had intended to sup an ale at nearby Dora Keogh, but it was shut. At 4:20pm, no less. One of the more distressing trends for the afternoon toper is this increasing business of not opening pubs until respectable, hard-working, mortgage-owing people have completed their workday. What makes them so damn special, anyway? What about the rights of daylight drinkers? Especially at this time of year when there’s so little daylight to drink in.

The Old Nick was open. Given that, and recalling Pete McCarthy’s Eighth Rule, I went inside. I’ve been there before, of course, it being licensed and all, but not often and not lately. The draught choices are fine if not exciting, but the place was open and I had the chance of checking off my 144^th different watering hole of 2011 (don’t ask). Sat at the bar with a pint of Spearhead and a good book, I found myself feeling reasonably content, bordering on cheerful. Soon my metabolism had slowed to the point that I could properly absorb my environment, and my growing happiness was explained.

Your correspondent has spent a good deal of time in pubs. Like you, I’m sure, I have my likes and dislikes about pubs. For instance, I understand that many people feel uncomfortable in a drinking spot if there isn’t music playing. Well, when I say I understand it, I mean I acknowledge it. I can’t say I understand the phenomenon. Do we need stimulation all the time? Isn’t it enough to sit quietly and read or talk?

Apparently not. Over my decades as a paying guest of the global hospitality industry, I have been subjected to countless hours of aural garbage in pubs, bars, taverns, and taprooms here and elsewhere. I have listened, usually reluctantly, to music I would never knowingly play at home. Many years ago I worked in a bookstore where, on occasion, a staff member would play music that strayed from the official baroque repertoire the store owners insisted upon. One day a customer approached the cash desk and asked what it was he was listening to. The staff person cheerfully divulged the information, to which the customer replied, “Thanks. I wouldn’t want to buy it by mistake.”

I have sometimes asked bartenders what the music is, for that very reason. There can’t be much popular music of the last many years that I haven’t been exposed to, though I seldom know who the perpetrator is unless I ask. I’m not a particularly stuffy person in my musical tastes. In my day I saw the Beatles live, also Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix. Okay, that was some time ago. They were not just live, they were alive.

So, where does the Old Nick come into it? As I say, when my metabolism decelerated I realized that I was listening to music I liked. And it wasn’t just one song in a mix of horrors. No, it was Julie London, a chantoozie of yesteryear, and a whole album of Julie London at that, if they still call them albums (they certainly did when Ms. London was in her prime). This was smart music, music that made me feel smarter and made both the other punters at the bar look smarter. My only complaint was that it could have been a touch – dare I say it? – louder.

If you insist on inflicting music on your customers, why wouldn’t you have the consideration to make it at least unpredictable? Play me Bach. Play me a show tune. Play me the Watersons. Show me some whimsy, for Pete’s sake. The Greatest Hits of the 70s, 80s and 90s represent, I suppose, a sort of comfort food for some people’s ears – nothing you haven’t heard a few hundred times before. Doesn’t anyone eventually get just a tad bored listening to it? Apart from me, I mean. What if you had to work in this environment for an eight-hour shift? After all, we no longer force barstaff to inhale second-hand smoke, so why third-hand music? Once in a Washington bar, my wife and I seized control of the jukebox and inflicted our taste on the room. It almost certainly annoyed the patrons, but the bouncer thanked us on our way out, which was worth the significant pile of cash we had fed into the machine.

The obvious problem here is that the music in most pubs is not really meant to be listened to. Just as the beer served in a lot of these places is made for people who don’t particularly like the taste of beer, so the music is there as familiar background noise for people who don’t especially care about music. People who actually like music, by contrast, don’t want it played at them all the time because they can’t tune it out. Imagine having to listen to this stuff every time you want to enjoy a pint of ale. (Yes, I know, but ear plugs seem so antisocial.)

American bars are far more likely than ours to offer jukeboxes, which at least provide an element of democracy, if only that uniquely American form of democracy that gives power to those who can afford to ply the machine with dough. Jazz, in my experience, packs the best value. Once the sax player, the trumpeter, the piano player, the bass player all get their solos, seven or eight minutes have passed, all for the same price as some song by Nickelback. I have played Miles Davis’s recording of Round Midnight in a Chicago saloon and watched the barflies grow more sophisticated and intelligent after only a few bars. Publicans of the world: you want to attract a better clientele? You don’t have to get rid of the patrons you already have; just turn them into better (or at least better-looking) people by feeding them Miles Davis.

So I offer my thanks to the woman at the Old Nick who felt that a dull, damp afternoon called for a big dose of Julie London. She was right, and my day was better for it. Foolishly, I then went to the now-finally-open Dora Keogh (watering hole #145) and listened to whatever rubbish they were playing. The gentleman is a dope.

Nicholas Pashley is the author of Notes on a Beermat and Cheers: An Intemperate History of Beer in Canada. He can be stalked on Twitter @NotesOnABeermat.

There is so much lore about the Scottish food known as Haggis!  The jokes abound, some thinking that it was invented as a food to eat on a DARE!

Here’s an old chestnut:

Maître d’hôtel: ‘Are you here for a special occasion?’
Campbell: ‘Aye, we won the third prize in the annual Robert Burns Contest, a haggis dinner for two.’

Maître d’hôtel: ‘What were the other prizes?’
Campbell: The second prize was a single haggis dinner, and, if you won the first prize, you didnae have to eat the haggis.’

Haggis needn’t be feared.  When it is well made, it is a robust, filling and flavourful food.  It has been said that we “faint of heart” North Americans would enjoy this more if we didn’t know its ingredients.  I say, pish tosh to that!! It is a meal to be celebrated for its ingenuity in using sustainable and available meat.  Made with the offel (organ meats) of lamb/sheep, toasted steel cut oats, and “secret Scottish spices” it is probably the most affordable meal you’ll ever make.

If you decide that making Haggis isn’t your thing, then make sure to order ahead, as no matter how much we make, we usually always sell out!  Paul Bradshaw, the head butcher at our Eglinton location, spent time learning Haggis making from the best of the best in Scotland and has perfected his recipe over the years.  If you were ever going to try Haggis, his would be the one to try!

The consuming of Haggis is a tradition rife with rituals, including a bagpiper and a reading of “Address To A Haggis” by Robbie Burns. So don your kilt, polish the sporran, get out your finest ghillie brogues, and make sure to have your sgian dubh ready to cut open the Haggis.

Address To A Haggis 

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o’ a grace
As lang’s my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o’ need,
While thro’ your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An’ cut you up wi’ ready sleight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like ony ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!

Then, horn for horn,
they stretch an’ strive:
Deil tak the hindmost! on they drive,
Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve,
Are bent lyke drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
“Bethankit!” ‘hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi’ perfect sconner,
Looks down wi’ sneering, scornfu’ view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him ower his trash,
As feckless as a wither’d rash,
His spindle shank, a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro’ bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread.
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He’ll mak it whissle;
An’ legs an’ arms, an’ heads will sned,
Like taps o’ thrissle.

Ye Pow’rs wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o’ fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu’ prayer,
Gie her a haggis!

by Lauren Wilson for Viva Tastings, a ‘Certified Good Food Fighter‘

It may have been during the North American media buzz of late 2005/early 2006 that you first heard of the Thermomix, when food writers like Amanda Hesser, or here in our own backyard Jacob Richler, were all a twitter about this wunderkind of the kitchen – a single unit that will banish your Cuisinart, KitchenAid, steamer, blender, scale, and grinder, on top of giving you an additional burner for sautéing or simmering (and stirring for you while it’s at it).

Many of the world’s most celebrated chefs have a Thermomix (or two, or three) in their kitchens: Rene Redzepi, Ferran Adria (formerly at elBulli), Thomas Keller, and David Chang are among just a few of the heavy hitters who use them.  Here in Canada its been reported that Jason Bangerter of Auberge du Pommier, Martin Picard of Au Pied de Cochon, Michael Stadtländer of Eigensinn Farm and Claudio Aprile of Colborne Lane and Origin are using them, too.

But the REAL market for Thermomix is the home cook in Europe, where over 500,000 units are sold every year and where the machines are affectionately called Bimby or Thermi.  Even the pastry chef at the White House has got one of these babies, um, I mean Bimbies.

With a hefty price tag of $1,600, the Thermomix quickly came to be seen as the epitome of hedonistic foodie excess and elitism.  Just another expensive gadget that automates work and destroys the personal connection to food, critics say. Add to that the cultish vibe surrounding acquiring one – they are not even available in the U.S. and here in Canada you can’t just drop in to your favourite kitchen supply store to check one out, customers can only test and purchase the machine at hosted demonstrations (a la Tupperware parties of yore) – and soon Thermomix owners felt compelled to openly defend their choice to buy one.

Criticism aside, in actuality it’s a pretty amazing machine.  They do make life a lot easier for home cooks, and can pump out some pretty innovative and unique creations for professional chefs.  In the age of the world wide web, a large and very enthusiastic community has developed around their Bimbies – sharing tips, tricks, videos, recipes.  Vorwerk, the German company that makes the Thermomix, has even released iPad and iPhone apps for the machine.

Here at Viva we use the Thermomix to its full potential, running the gamut from cooking silky smooth soups that never need straining, to grinding the finest of powders (bacon powder!) and flours (wild rice! farro!), making perfect emulsions, and because of its precise temperature controls and even heat it’s a dream for tempering chocolate or making custards with no need to stand over the stove.

Below we’ve included a recipe for Viva’s Figgy Salami – all made in the Thermomix.  It’s a wonderful blend of dried figs and other fruits, nuts and ginger that would make a perfect accoutrement for your next cheese plate.  It can also be easily adapted to be made without a Thermi, but why not join us next Tuesday, January 24^th, to see this kitchen power tool in action at our upcoming Thermomix cooking class?

Or, if you have a Thermomix, this hands-on class will show how to optimize its power from piping hot soups to frozen desserts. You will create an entire meal utilizing the Thermomix for every dish, then sit back and enjoy the fruit of the Bimbi’s labour with a glass of wine.  Check out our website for more details and to register.

–

Viva’s Figgy Salami

Makes 4 12cm x 5cm logs

Ingredients:

500 grams moist dried figs, stem removed & quartered

100 grams chopped pitted dates

40 grams chopped dried cranberries

30 grams chopped crystallised ginger

35 grams slivered almonds

35 grams chopped unsalted pistachio nuts

70 grams roasted pinenuts

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 teaspoons Chai spice

2 tablespoons brandy or cognac

1 cup icing sugar, or enough to coat the ‘salami’

Method:

Add all ingredients and mix for 2 to 3 minutes on speed 6 until the mixture is well combined and resembles a thick jam. If the mixture seems too dry or stiff, add a bit more brandy and mix again. Divide the mixture into 4 equal portions and roll into logs resembling a salami (it should be quite sticky). They should be about 12cm long and 5cm thick. Cover these with seran wrap and leave to rest for about an hour. Sift some icing sugar on a cutting board or other surface and roll the salami in the sugar. They will look like a well aged salami. Put these aside wrapped first in parchment paper and then in seran in a cool dry place and let cure for two weeks. Roll again in another coating of icing sugar before serving. Serve on a board with some hard cheese. Guests can cut the salami into slices and add a piece of cheese. The perfect gluten free cracker!

–

Lauren Wilson is a jack-of-all-food-trades.  After cooking with Karen and Anne at Viva Tastings and eating up all the good bits of Toronto, she followed a trail of crumbs to Brooklyn where she is cooking, writing, and eating happily.

Photo by Fernando Soguero