Well that was a lot of fun! Last night I judged the San Pellegrino Almost Famous Chef Competition. 6 culinary students competing to win the Canadian Regionals and progress to the finals in California.
It was a nail biter! There were leaders and early favourites in the kitchen, but it wasn’t until the last plate was served that I had a decision on who I thought did the best.
Continue reading "Judging the San Pellegrino Almost Famous Chef Competition" »
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!
Continue reading "We Have a Winner! #AFChef #FoodObession Contest" »
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):
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:
Okay, one final post about the Taste Ontario Taste the World evening at Longo’s… this time a round up of the posts about our guests impressions of the evening, the store and the food. 
Taste Ontario at Longo's from Sarah B. Hood on toronto tasting notes...
New Loblaws, Bulk Barn, and Matt Kantor at Longo’s from David Ort on Food with Legs
December Restaurant & Event Catch Up from Stephanie Dickison on One More Bite
Bon Eats’ photoset from Taste Ontario, Taste the World
Taste Ontario, Taste the World at Longo's from Bonita M on Bon Eats
Tasting Toronto’s photoset from Taste Ontario
Matt Kantor Taste Ontario at Longo’s from David Ort on Spotlight Toronto [David shares the Chicken Tajine recipe we shared with guests in this post.]
Taste Ontario, Taste the World with Alexa Clark & Chef Matt Kantor from Stephanie Dickison on One More Bite
Sampling Some Great Cooking at Taste Ontario by Joey deVilla on The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century [Joey includes ALL the recipes we shared with guests in this post.]
Longo's Taste of Ontario - a set on Flickr by Janeen & Alex Leynes of Foodists.ca
Specialty cheeses, local produce, and more: Longo's Taste Ontario, Taste the World event
by Stacey Fowler of Tasting Toronto
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
Have you ever noticed when you are focused on something you see it everywhere?
When I received the California Walnut Blogger Challenge package, I saw them at the end of every grocery line, in the new Canadian Living cookbook (in a fantastic pasta with rapini, gorgonzola and walnuts) and in one of my favourite fall salads, the Waldorf.
The California Walnut Blogger Challenge was to share an original recipe using at least 1 cup of California Walnuts, so I thought I’d share one I’ve been working on for a while now. It’s a recipe for a coffee cake inspired by one I’ve love from Planet Coffee in Ottawa.
As you may have noticed, all these dinner stories seem to start with some sort of life-event making dinner challenging. Isn’t that always the way? I know I’m not alone.
Friday night we were headed out of town. A quick train trip to visit family and I was really excited to snag wings at the Longo’s Maple Leaf Square store to eat on the train for dinner. I hadn’t realized until Friday how close they were to each other and hadn’t tried out the new entrance from Bremner into Union Station. It’s practically around the corner from the departure area. So great for zipping over and getting dinner to eat on the train.
So that is exactly what I did.
Friday’s deal: Chicken Wings
Because life is never boring, Thursday night’s dinner deal lined up with a HoHoTO sponsorship team meeting. Of course that means a great opportunity to feed a group!
So, guess who brought the pizza? (Okay, it was Gerry because I was busy getting things lined up for our meeting.)
Gerry picked up three 16” pepperoni pizzas at the Elizabeth Street store and cycled them over to the office.
Word of advice: you shouldn’t put pizzas in a bike rack and cycle them over to a business meeting and expect them to look like pizza when you arrive. Won’t happen. Gerry adds “pizza was a mess”. Still tasted great though!
Well, remember how my best friend and his daughter were visiting on Tuesday? Well they were still visiting Wednesday. Wednesday morning anyway. It was a lovely visit with lots of catching up, but it meant my day was little offset. Essentially I started work at about noon instead of nine.
One of the benefits of working for yourself is that this is an option. One of the downfalls is that Longo’s was sold out of chickens when I went in to buy one at 8:30pm.
Tuesday was by far the most challenging meal in this series.
Not because Longo’s sushi is challenging but because my best friend and god-daughter arrived that night with a serious craving for Indian. Sushi, as most of you know, is not a traditional Indian dish. Not even a close approximation of any South Asian cuisine.
I decided we’d get the Longo’s Sushi, share it as an appetizer and then head out for the much craved Indian. So working on a tight schedule we zipped over to the Longo’s at First Canadian Place to get it. Unfortunately the Longo’s at First Canadian Place doesn’t offer the Tuesday Sushi Dinner Done Right special. (Note: neither does the Brookfield store!)
I asked about it both in person from the cashier: "it's only at the big stores"; on twitter to @longosmarkets “it's a lease condition” and finally through official channels who replied:
“We do not offer the $6.99 Tuesday special, unfortunately, because those 2 locations Brookfield and First Canadian Place do not have on-site Chefs due to the limited space of the store and therefore do not offer the same program as all our other locations” AHA!
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