I grew up in England where folks take their bacon very seriously. On a return visit to London, I remember standing awestruck in front of a large display case in the basement food court of Selfridges (the big department store on Oxford Street) that was stacked with twenty or more different kinds of bacon all identified with a sign noting place of origin, breed of pig and nature of cure and smoke.
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Hosting Top Chef Canada will be Chef Mark McEwan, no stranger to TV or the ordeals of the stove, joined by the über-entertainment-journalist, and Toronto native, Thea Andrews. I caught up with the dynamic duo at a Food Network event at the Art Gallery of Ontario on April 7.
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In a restaurant context, good food means to me good ingredients cooked in a way that allows the ingredients to display themselves and show through. In a broader context, good food to me speaks of how the food is grown. How the food is grown has an enormous impact on how food tastes. I don’t think that taste can be separated from agricultural ethics or practices at all. It is absolutely essential that good food in the broadest context be food that is grown in soil, treated properly from seed or stock and is not a form of commercial farming.
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The menu at Pizza Pide is extensive, with 20+ baked flat bread with toppings items. I stick to #1, the pide lahmacun. Lahmacun translates roughly as ground meat on bread. In this case it’s super finely minced beef with bits of oinion and bell pepper along with Turkish herbs and spices spread loosely across a super thin flatbread crust that manages, somehow, to retain a millimeter thin centre of chewiness in between razor thin, but crisp crust. This is good.
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Marc Kent has been with Boekenhoutskloof since its beginning in the 90s. As a young winemaker, his leaner and more food-friendly style of South African wine making caught the attention of top international critics like Jancis Robinson almost right away. Kent makes and oversees a full range of wines, from the premium estate Boekenhoutskloof labels, through to the Cabernet Sauvignon blend “The Chocolate Block”, The Porcupine Ridge series (which, as a “Vintages Essential” is nearly always available in Ontario) and the entry-level Wolftrap. Kent is committed to sustainable viticulture and is moving towards biodynamic practices in the vineyard as well as the cellar.
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