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We Have a Winner! #AFChef #FoodObession Contest

The winner of my #AFChef Food Obsession contest is Alex! 

Alex won a $150 Gift Certificate for Lee Restaurant courtesy of San Pellegrino and theSan Pellegrino Almost Famous Chef Competition!  Alex entered on Facebook (as did many of you) and said his current Food Obsession was:

Street Food and or small hole in the wall type restaurants that offer none of the modern North American white table cloth atmosphere. It is all about the food and you can often tell you are near the place because of the awesome smell or the long line up of chatty happy patrons waiting to order. Examples include roadside chip trucks with rockin’ condiments, small ethnic takeouts that give out a wall of awesome food smells when you open the door. Market stalls that offer cool cheap food and if you have less than a hour for lunch, you probably don't have enough time to get your food because the line is too long. Unusual ethnic fare that you are not very familiar with that you find at a music or street festival. Yummm

We had some great entries with obsessions ranging from Pat’s mushroom obsession complete with a Flickr set, to Sandy’s Hot Meat obsession that stems from living with vegetarians. Thank you all for sharing… now I’m obsessing too! 

Contest: #AFChef Food Obsession

I have a well documented obsession with Paprika. I like it sweet.  I like it hot. I like it smoked.  I like it from Hungary. I like it from Spain. I love the wide range of uses for the sweet, spicy, rich, flavourful delight that is paprika.  

Ooops… this is supposed to be about your Food Obsession. 

What is your Food Obsession?  What is it that gets you going on and on?  What food, ingredient, dish do you find yourself fantasizing about?  It is the flavour, the texture, the colour?  What is it that excites your mind, body and soul and makes this your Food Obsession?

You know you want to tell me.  Go on, it’s safe. I understand.  

In fact, I’ll even reward you for spilling the beans.   In celebration of the San Pellegrino Almost Famous Chef Competition, San Pellegrino has given me a $150 Gift Certificate to Lee to give away to one of you.  Well, one of you who is brave enough to tell me about your Food Obsession.  I won’t judge. Well not you anyway.

Here’s How to Enter (aka the hoop):

Judging the Almost Famous

I am delighted to announce that I’ve been invited to be a Judge at the San Pellegrino Almost Famous Chef Competition.

This is the 10th anniversary of the S.Pellegrino Almost Famous Chef  Competition and it brings together students from 73 culinary institutions across Canada and the United States to compete to be named the San Pellegrino Almost Famous Chef, up to $22,000 in prizes and a career-changing apprenticeship with a master chef.

There are 10 regional competitions and I will be judging the Canadian Regionals held on January 30th at the Calphalon Culinary Center in Toronto with:

• Chef Jonas, Lee Restaurant, Toronto
• Annabelle Waugh, Food Director, Canadian Living Magazine
• Emily Richards, Food Columnist, Metro Newspapers

2 Years – a lifetime or an instant?

I’ve been going through some old photos today and found this one

This is the wine I purchased for the dinner I won from Matt in November 2009.  If you read the stickies you’ll see what is for the dinner and what is for later, and what I was “supposed” to put back.

But it’s the not volume of wine in this shot that gets me, it’s that it was taken in November 2009.  Just barely 2 years ago. When I had just met Matt.

Just met him 2 years ago and since then we’ve become friends, built a kick-ass supper club, taken over countless venues, fed a lot of people,  consumed countless bottles of wine,  gotten some great press (okay mainly Matt but still), eaten some amazing food, took over a grocery store, stayed friends and are about to launch something new and exciting together which I’m bursting at the seams to tell you about… but I have to wait a couple more days.

It just surprising to realize we’ve only known each other 2 years. Time is a funny thing.

Ivy’s Favourite.

Okay, so I didn’t win in Monday’s 86’d Food Photography Awards, but I did place in Ivy’s Favourites! 

Ivy decided not to be a judge, but instead to select a set of her favourites from those not short-listed by the judges.  She picked 5 favourites from each of the 6 categories and my photo entitled Strained was one of her 5 favourites in the Things category!

And funnily enough it was the one I was most hesitant to enter.

Guess next year I’ll select more images including the 3 themes in the shortlisted images: humour, body parts and lol-birds. I.e. photos that tell stories.

Food Photography Awards

As part of her 86’d events Monday nights at the Drake, Ivy Knight is running a Food Photography Awards Night tonight.

I submitted 5 of my photos from 2011 for the contest and will be at the Drake tonight to see all the other fantastic images submitted!

Here are the images I entered in the contest:

The categories are as follows:

Take The Blue Line

Take The Blue Line -- Originally uploaded by LexnGer

A little photo play out in the cold with the TTC and the Olympus filters. I
should, of course, be a little more focused on crossing the street safely!

Booty Camp: Jannah Pwns The Knees

Going back to Booty Camp  was a hobble.  Week 1 had left me searching for my knee braces, limping and taking the stairs two feet at a time, very, very, very slowly.  The thought of returning for squats, jogging and deep knee bends made me kind of quesy.

But I went. 
Sports bra, clean sneakers and all.

I took it slow, low and not bouncy.   Jannah encouraged me to push it a little further and I was trying to figure out how without whining even more.

Then in the middle of class I saw a Jannah have a “lightbulb”, to quote Gru.

All of a sudden her suggestions for alternatives weren’t just low impact, they were … well...  creative alternatives that used the strength of my legs without putting strain on my knees.  Using a chair instead of the floor for lunges.  High knee marching instead of frog jumps.  Multi-staged push-ups against the wall followed by a low impact jumping jack instead of Burpees.

A Little Behind

No, this is not a Booty Camp post, but simply an acknowledgement that I have a back log of stories, events and experiences to share with you.

This is not even an standard "I should post more" apology post with all the self-inflicted guilt and stress that comes with it.

This is a warning!

Seriously, there is going to be a flood of content coming at you and I don't want to you to be surprised - unless of course it's delighted surprise. In which case, please leave a comment and tell me all about how delighted you are.  It would be a nice change from all your comments about Uggs, Mortgages, SEO and Lexapro (which unfortunately is neither about me nor about professionalism.)

So... steel yourself for the onslaught of stuff coming at you!   (or go and look at a cute behind, since I know that's why some of you click through. Isn't it! Fess up!)

[yes this is one of the 2012 Pickle Poses from the Public Pickle.
More going up on Flickr and a post coming]

Moving Into The Birthday Season

Moving Into The Birthday Season -- Originally uploaded by LexnGer

Start the New Year Right, Stalking Shot

Start the New Year Right, Stalking Shot -- Originally uploaded by LexnGer

It has become a tradition for me to take a New Year's Morning stalker shot
of Gerry and this year's shot turned out well I think.

Just creepy enough with an edge of love.

So nice to start another year with this wonderful man, great partner and
fantastic friend.

Longo’s: And The Winner of the Favourite Cook Photo Contest Spectacular is….

With Rochelle campaigning HARD for her photo to win and her diligence paid off as she garnered over 300 votes!  She even incited people to go vote because it was a photo of her in her holiday lingerie.

Here’s how she described Festive Breakfast:

My flatmate snapped this photo of me cooking breakfast. We had rudely been awakened by our fire alarm at 5:30 so we thought we would make the best of it and eat breakfast together. Not sure if I'm my favourite holiday cook but it was captured in the moment.

Unfortunately, we don’t have prizes for 2nd place, but with over 180 votes Steven Da Local Chef Wilson showed very well too!

Steven described Prepping in The Garden as follows:

 

Prepping in The Garden was taken by my wife as I was preparing the  family lunch. It was such a beautiful day outside I couldn’t bear to stay inside, so I took my prep work outside.

Thank goodness for flatmates, wives and Gerry or we’d never have photos of our favourite cooks in action!!

Congratulations Rochelle!  I’ll email you with details on picking up your prize at Longo’s Maple Leaf Square tomorrow!

 

Thanks for all the great photos submitted by the talented: @tongueandcheek @DaLocalChef @andreat76 @rochlatinsky @ruyoung @Digiteyes @BetsyYeung @katesalter1 and a couple more.

Note: this post and this event were both part of my Longo’s Taste Ontario Ambassador series.  For more information on my relationship with Longo’s read about my Foodie Adventure: Longo’s Taste Ontario Ambassador! and my disclosure statement

Longo’s: Vote in the Favourite Cook Photo Contest Spectacular

I need your help to pick the winner in the Longo’s Favourite Cook Photo Contest Spectacular  Winner gets a New Year’s Eve Surf & Turf Spectacular Dinner from Longo’s.  That will include four steaks, bag of shrimp and lobster tails and a selection of other Longo’s goodies.

The Winner will be announced Dec 29th after 3pm based on the most votes received. So I need you to vote!

Please vote on your favourite(s) - up to 3.

Now it’s time to vote for your favourite photo of their favourite cook in action!

 

Photos submitted by the talented: @tongueandcheek @DaLocalChef @andreat76 @rochlatinsky @ruyoung @Digiteyes @BetsyYeung @katesalter1 and a couple more.

Note: this post and this event were both part of my Longo’s Taste Ontario Ambassador series.  For more information on my relationship with Longo’s read about my Foodie Adventure: Longo’s Taste Ontario Ambassador! and my disclosure statement

Dramatic Walkabout in Chinatown

I was recently given an Olympus Pen Lite (E-PL3) to test and evaluate (the white one on the bottom left).

And while I haven’t had much time lately to play with it due to the Pickle, HoHoTO and the holiday, I have been using it regularly.  It has actually become my go-to camera and I’ve and found myself reaching for it before my SLR because of it’s size.  It’s small and easy to carry around in my hand while I walk, which means I’m shooting more again even though I don’t have time to process all the images and play with all the features.

I have, however, fallen in love with the dramatic mode! (On the camera people!) It's an Art Mode (Art 6) that jacks up the contrast and saturation. And you can use it in manual setting shooting as well as the quick Art and Scene setting when you want the camera to do the thinking for you.  There are 5 other Art Modes, but this one gives the kind of intensity and boldness I like in many of my street shots. Without any post processing. 

And, as it turns out, makes shooting snow at night in Chinatown great fun! 

Longo’s: Photo Contest – Favourite Cook Photo Contest Spectacular

ENTRY DEADLINE EXTENDED until 8pm Dec 28th

As my Longo’s Taste Ontario Ambassadorship comes to a close, I wanted to wrap up with one big photo contest that you can all enter! 

Late December is all about cooking, whether it’s rum balls, latkes, turkey, bibingka, black cake, tourtière, gingerbread or momos, so in honour of all this cooking and all the people doing the cooking, I’m holding the:

Favourite Cook Photo Contest Spectacular

Send me a photo of your favourite cook in action - a rockstar chef garnishing a plate, your mom sieving the gravy, your sister making latkes, your boyfriend at the BBQ, the local fry cook frying your egg, or even your kid nephew trying his hand at icing a cake.  We don’t judge who you pick... though we will judge your photo.

I talked to the folks at Longo’s about what kind of big blowout giveaway we could do and they told me about a new New Year’s Eve deal they are about to announce (shhhh it’s all under wraps until Dec 26th).   So, the winner of this contest will be getting a New Year’s Eve Surf & Turf Spectacular Dinner Kit - include four steaks, bag of shrimp and lobster tails and a selection of other Longo’s goodies.

Judging will be done in a second post where all photos submitted will be displayed for voting. Voting will run from Dec 27th to 3pm Dec 29th.   Everyone can vote, you, your friends, your favourite cook. But more on that in the voting post on Dec 27th.
(more details below the fold)