400 Cookbooks and Counting

I read cookbooks with the passion and concentration of my husband, Jon nose-deep in the latest Robert Jordan mystery. I read them in bed at night. I take them on book tours. I buy them where ever I go. I have about four hundred of them. I cook a lot and read even more and have decided that since I like the two habits equally well, I will continue.

To me, cookbooks are fantasies of great meals in much the same way that travel books are fantasies of perfect vacations. They produce visions of perfect paellas and eye-rolling soufflés. As I pour through them, I can almost smell the house filling with the savoury smells of a cassoulet. I visualize my dinner guests dunking chunks of crusty bread in the dark wine and garlic-rich veal Marsala sauce. Of course, the dried out, even burnt reality of cooking, as we all know so well, is often far removed from the fantasy pages of my cookbooks.

Because I still have cookbooks stacked in the kitchen and almost every other room in the house, people have asked me which are my favorites. So, here are some that I'm working with now.

Pasta Classica by Julia della Croce (Chronicle Books). I bought this book on a trip to Florence, Italy so it is filled with many memories. It’s a basic recipe on how to make almost any kind of pasta you want from macaroni to spaghetti. There is a section of classic sauces and my favourite section, the one I use most often is the baked section. This book has taught me there’s more to baked pasta than lasagna. There’s a fantastic recipe for an eggplant and sausage timpano, the one that was served in The Big Night movie.

My latest love is Ottolenghi by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi (Ebury Press). Two Middle Eastern chefs offer recipes from their London restaurant. The dishes are full of remarkably meaty salads made from quinoa, cous cous and lentils. Irresistible vegetable dishes like Caramelized Endive with Sarano Ham I’ve morphed into caramelized fennel with proscuitto and I can’t count how many times I’ve made the Chargrilled Broccoli with Chilli and Garlic.

On a recent trip to London, England I discovered the series of Michel Roux cookbooks (Quadrille Publishing). I have the book on Sauces, Pastry and now Only the Best. Each one stretches my culinary muscles with simple dishes prepared elaborately. Sure there are some ingredients that aren’t common in Canada, but they’re easy enough to substitute.

Here are three of the ones I’m working with right now. Of course, my own cookbooks are the best of what I’ve learned from my 400 teachers, what’s worked, what’s easy and what I love to share with everyone who cares to cook.

Check them out http://on.fb.me/HWN1Ja

The Ontario Table $10 Challenge: A Year of Eating Local

This is my new magazine – or better put ezine. An ezine for those who are wondering is an on-line magazine. So why a magazine when the book, The Ontario Table is still so popular?

Last year I traveled across Ontario on a book tour participating in over 55 events from June to December. I met thousands of wonderful people, all interested in local food. As I talked to each one of them I realized there was a common theme in peoples understanding of local food. Most people think of local food as the fresh vegetables that come out of the garden in the summer months.

As I tried to explain that local food is everything that is grown, raised and produced in Ontario, some got it and others dismissed it. It made for interesting conversations. I realized there was a need for a tool that was more specific than The Ontario Table book. What was needed was a tool that would both educate consumers on what local foods are available and when and also give them some quick and easy recipes to eat local all the time. It needs to be both fun and surprising.

So here it is. April is our 4th issue and I hope you like it. It has become bigger than I could have imagined. We now have over 32 agricultural commodity groups working with us. In this issue we’re featuring Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers and Ontario Veal, Goat and Rabbit with others scattered throughout. In between are recipes, some identifying local ingredients with a comment or two on the ingredient. At the end you’ll find events that celebrate local food in different ways so you can get involved in a personal way. After all, local food is personal.

The official launch of The Ontario Table $10 Challenge: A Year of Eating Local will be at the Green Living Show, Direct Energy Building, Exhibition Place from April 13 to 15, www.greenlivingonline.com. I’ll be sharing a booth with the good folks at Rowe Farms (booth #1309). Please drop by and celebrate with me. We’ll have some delicious draws and who knows, you may be the lucky one.

Click here to download the on-magazine http://bit.ly/H5Of46
Click here for a preview in pictures http://on.fb.me/H6yQkD
Click here for launch invitation http://on.fb.me/H4kkEA

Road Trip with Cheryl

Went for a ride with Cheryl Barnes of Inn The Pines Market, in St Catharines. Cheryl runs one of the more popular farm markets in the region. She grows lots of vegetables on her 14-acre farm and for the rest, she gets fresh produce directly from large farms - right from the sorting tables, now you can't get much fresher than that!

On her farm, Cheryl grows garden veggies like celery, 30 types of tomatoes, 10 types of peppers, cauliflower, zucchini, and more. In addition to her vegetables, Cheryl raises chickens for eggs, cattle for beef and pigs for pork. Her friend, Dale Cable fishes and Cheryl sells fresh frozen perch from her stand.

Cheryl’s a great foodie. All summer long she’s putting food away like corn for winter corn bread or corn chowder. She has her pork bones smoked for winter dishes like soups and stews.

Today I’m shopping for the market with Cheryl and our first stop is at Pleasant Berry Blueberry Farm in Brantford. Tony and Grace Gdyczynski run the 2.5 blueberry patch. He's been growing blueberries for too long, he thinks 16 to 17 years. I have refrigerator of blueberries at home and I can't resist buying more, They're ultra sweet and bursting with blueberry flavor. It's both a U-Pick as well as ready picked. It's a very neat and pretty little patch. We load up Cheryl’s truck with blueberries before heading to the next farm.

Next stop was Welsh Brothers. Peter and brother Wayne are 3rd generation to farm this land with their children. We go from the office barn and drive out to the corn patch that is being harvested. We pass asparagus fields and pumpkin patches and more corn fields. They grow 500 acres of premium sweet corn and pick 5 acres a day. Planting different varieties of corn at different times insures a continual corn harvest until - weather permitting, Thanksgiving.

Out at the field, the picking machine is hard at work. We climb on board. Five to six workers pick furiously in the field and throw the corn into a suspended hopper that leads through the field. From the hopper a conveyor belt moves the corn to the sorting and packing line where another eight workers sort the corn and bag it. The bags are then piled high in a trailer that is pulled behind the sorting line.

The full trailers now go to the barn that houses 6 cooling rooms. Three to four trailers fill one room and the corn is rained on with ice water until the internal temperature reaches a very low temperature. This stops the conversion of sugar to starch and keeps the corn tasting fresher longer.

We pass another cornfield that's being irrigated with well water. Peter loves sweet corn but admits to being a traditionalist. He likes to boil it, but if he's hungry in the field, he’ll eat it raw. Of course the only corn you can eat raw is fresh local corn. For Peter, sweetcorn can be an entire meal and he loves eating it cold the next day.

Both Peter and Cheryl lament consumers tendency to pull back the corn husks and leave the corn because the rows of kernels aren't perfectly straight. In fact corn kernels are seldom perfectly straight and when striped corn is tossed aside, no one else wants it either and the farmer looses. Food, like people is far from perfect, but it's still good! Both encourage their customers to know their food and their farmer.

Next stop was Steve and Paula Fett, Fett Farms and they grow lots of potatoes; red, white and yellow. Now they’re growing gourmet fingerling potatoes from Russian, Pink and French to All Blue and White Creamers. Fett is a large enough farmer to sell to grocery chains so look for them in the grocery stores.

It may be a simple thing but Steve puts his red potatoes in red bags, yellow flesh in yellow bags and white potatoes in white bags. It’s a great way to spot Fett potatoes.

On the Fett farm they have a sorting table, washing station and cold storage for their potatoes are available year round – or until they last. Steve explains one of the biggest potato myths is if you wash potatoes, they won’t keep. They do, the secret to storing potatoes is a constant cool storage temperature. They’ll keep very well in a cold cellar but rarely will they keep under a sink (apparently this is where most people store potatoes).

With a quick lunch at Harmony Bakery we were off to Berkel’s Greenhouse for beefsteak tomatoes. The 8-acres of greenhouse Ted Berkel grows some cocktail and yellow tomatoes as well as his mainstay – beefsteak. Cheryl buys the large tomatoes that don’t fit into shipping flats. I guess you could call them the rejects, but they’re the perfect size for a thick slice of crusty Italian-style bread. Rub the bread with garlic and lay one thick slice of tomato on top with a bit of salt. Options are a bit of mayo and shredded basil leaves – it’s the quintessential summer meal!

We were done our day of shopping at farms, Cheryl had enough food to stock her shelves and I had enough to share with my neighbours. There’s lots of fresh produce out there right now, get out there and find your fill.

A delicious day in Niagara

Niagara’s best cherries are in!

When a farmer calls, I go running like a puppy. Sue Pohorly, farmer and owner of The Fruit Shack in the Village of Virgil called, “the cherries are in”.

On the Pohorly farm there are two giant hoop rows and inside are beautiful cherry trees that bear the big, black, juicy, ultra-sweet cherries at farmers in Niagara don’t grow because they split with the least amount of rain. But the Pohorly’s protect them with their own hoop house so they’re guaranteed to be big and beautiful.

I went running down and sure enough they were on the counter; I wasn’t the only one there for the cherries, the line up was out the door!

The Good Shepherd is back!

As I stood in line I saw freezers stocked with frozen meat; chicken from the Poultry Barn in St Jacobs and beef from Gerber Meats – this is the meat from Franz and Denise Gerber formerly of the Good Shepherd! If you’re a Niagara foodie, The Good Shepherd will need no explaining.

It’s as close as we’re going to get to the Good Shepherd, Sue and Frank Pohorly were standing in the room talking to customers and explaining the quality of their chicken and meat products. It’s barbecue season I thought as I put some incredible looking tenderloin in my basket along with some bone-in chicken breast (I think boneless is next to flavourless!), packed up my cherries and headed home – window open of course, so I could spit my pits.

Once home I began unpacking and found a little brown bag. Sue is known for her amazing butter tarts and inside the brown bag were two of them. Wow, I went outside under the shade of the large maple tree and sat down. I was ready. I sunk my teeth into the overly large tart and the insides oozed out. There were soft raisins, yummy pecans and caramelized bits around to top of the flaky crust. These are the best, but you’ll need to get to The Fruit Shack before noon because there’s never any left after that.

How are you enjoying your summer?

The Season Has Begun

It’s Niagara’s first agricultural crop of the season. Harvesting maple syrup starts around mid February and depending on the weather, lasts until the end of March.

“We need 3 days above freezing to get the sap running”, explains Ann Bering of White Meadows Farm in beautiful Effingham. The freezing and thawing temperatures starts and stops the sap many times.

Maple syrup starts as a sticky sap from the insides of a maple tree and is then transformed into a lusciously sweet nectar that is irresistible to all who try it. White Meadows Farm is in full maple syrup swing right now. You can visit the farm every Saturday and Sunday (holidays as well) from 8:30 am to 4 pm from now until mid April. Bring the kids for a wagon tour of the sugar bush and see how the trees are tapped, learn how its boiled down into maple syrup and end in the Pancake House with a full pancake breakfast complete with loads of sweet, fresh maple syrup.

throughout Niagara more chefs are using maple syrup in their dishes because it's a more complex sugar with more depth of flavour and has more nutrition than regular cane sugar.

White Meadow offers different grades of maple syrup; light, medium, amber and dark. The different grades have more to do with the time of the season than it has to do with processing. Traditionally, at the beginning of the season the sap is light and as the season progresses, the sap gets darker and richer. You'll find all four grades of maple syrup in The Sugar Shack, the on-farm retail shop. The dark syrup is almost black and the taste is reminiscent of molasses, but not as thick as molasses. The Sugar Shack is the only place you’ll find this rare and unique maple syrup.

If you’re looking to eat local this winter and you’re thinking nothing is happening in Niagara in February, think again. Not only is the sugar bush in full harvest, but White Meadow is also a cattle farm offering frozen beef in boxes with mixed cuts; ground hamburger, wieners, hamburger patties and pepperettes.

There’s even farm made baked beans (Ann’s own secret recipe!) and popping corn. From just over 2-acres of popping corn planted last summer, the Berings have more than 5 tons of popping corn in storage, ready to test, package and sell. Their popular maple kettle corn is made from their very own popping corn.

Inside The Sugar Shack you’ll also find the Berings famous maple barbecue sauce – perfect to glaze a winter roast or rack of beef ribs. There’s maple salad dressing, maple vinegar, maple mustard and red pepper maple jelly. They blend and mix their own pancake mix in two varieties; Buttermilk and Gluten Free and have a trio of fruit sauces all laced with maple syrup; cranberry, peach and wild blueberry.

They have maple granola, maple sugar candy, maple butter, maple tarts and of course with a barn brimming full of popping corn, you can pick up a big bag of fully popped maple kettle corn.

Get out to White Meadows on the weekends and enjoy the regions first of many harvests to come and don’t forget to bring the kids for some good, wholesome, family, farm and country fun.

The Talk of Local Food

Hey, what a great day in Guelph at Ignatius College. Ontario Farm Fresh ED Cathy Bartolic put together an amazing group of Ontario's local foodies to talk about the challenges and opportunities in local food. When lunch was served it was full of vegetables from Ignatius' on-campus gardens - delicious! Ontario Farm Fresh is an organization that assists farm marketers so I can tell you there's plenty of good things to look forward to in the 2010 season! Check them out www.ontariofarmfresh.com.

Dazzling Vegetables

What a fantastic weekend in the Waterloo region. The colours are turning brilliant, the air is brisk and the farmers' markets are filled with my favourite vegetables. I love fall root vegetables and so I was amazed to find Charbrie's Restaurant in uptown Waterloo. Executive Chef Lance Edwards does a killer job with my favourite vegetables.

I was touring around and met Trevor of Hurrle's Country Farm Market. This is a great market that let's you know where the food comes from with little signs. On the far east side of the market there's a giant 100-Mile map that pinpoints the source of the food. It was Trevor that recommended Charbrie's.

The restaurant has a calm, welcoming atmosphere and the prices are mid range. Jon and I started with the Charcuterie plate and a glass of wine. It was a great starter to wind down with, on the side there was pickled watermelon rind and pickled beet greens; wonderful tartness to counter the richness of the pork and pate.

On Charbrie's menu you'll notice a few odd red apples on some of the menu items. These apples identify the local dishes. Chef Edwards works with many of the local farmers in a loose co-op sort of way. He places a few orders, the farmers consolidate the orders and Edwards meets one farmer half way for his entire order. It's an informal network that's incredibly dependable and it works.

I had the Apple Cider Pork. It was wonderfully tender with just a touch of sweetness and fennel flavours on the outside and as wonderful as that was I pushed it aside for the vegetables. The smoked corn hominy was amazingly fresh and full of robust fall flavours and the roasted squash chimichanga was a great invention. Creamy, luscious flavours of feather light, sweet squash wrapped in a soft tortilla. These two vegetables are worth the trip to Waterloo.

Jon had the Lamb Piperade from Taylor Farm. Just as exciting was the braised red cabbage that sat on roasted sweet potato mash and served with ramp mustard that Chef says he picked himself from the back end of Hurrle's farm.

I love it when I discover a chef through his/her food. I'm not one to follow a chef because of his reputation, instead I love to seek out the great chefs that work behind the scenes. Those that deserve accolades because of their sheer, delicious talent.

Edwards claims that his kitchen is about 75% local and it's exciting to see that he can create such a delicious, inspiring, exciting and creative menu with local produce. His menu changes with the seasons; Sprin

g, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Can't wait to go back to try the Winter menu. Charbrie's Restaurant, 15 King St., Waterloo.

EATING LOCAL IN WOODSTOCK

Six Thirty Nine is an exciting new restaurant on 639 Peel Street in Woodstock, Ontario. Chef and Owner Eric Boyar is young and deliciously talented. I found Eric in the kitchen on his day off, so I sat at the Chef’s Table and he treated me to a new dish he’s putting on his menu.

The Chef’s Table is a beautiful wooden bar much like a butchers block with 4 bar stools that face the kitchen and large window that brings in the beautiful outdoor gardens. I perched myself at the bar and watched as the chef made a local dish from some fresh rainbow trout he’s just picked up that morning.

Boyar has a passion for flavour and that motivates him to go beyond what many chefs would. The back pantry is filled with baskets and bags of fresh vegetables he just picked up from the market and I love it – his bicycle is leaning up against the cupboards – he’s a wholesome chef who treats his customers to his wholesome cooking! But don’t be fooled, wholesome in my world never tasted this amazing.

He served me a bowl of Truffled Mushroom Soup and Duck Confit, I suppose in a chef’s kitchen you can never be without food. He started to prepare his rainbow trout dish.

Six Thirty Nine Restaurant was a home transformed in 2005 into a modern 28 seat restaurant with a sleek sexiness and welcoming appeal. Boyar is classically French trained and inspired by farms and fresh farm produce from his childhood of working on farms. The duck in the soup came from Everspring farm, the pea shoots from Sleger’s Organic Farm and the mushrooms from a farm on County Road 54.

As Boyar moved around his extremely well organized and neat kitchen one task flowed into another with the grace of movement of a dancer. He was amazing to watch, dusting the skin side off the trout sharing some tips with me. “Don’t dust the flesh side of the fish because crisping up that side tends to dry it out”. He warms a mixture of butter and olive oil in a skillet and lays the fish, skin side down and leaves it to work on the rest of the dish.

He takes some previously blanched vegetables and warms them in more butter and olive oil. He adds some home smoked bacon, chantrel mushrooms and when he’s content with his flipping them around in the skillet, he finishes it off with a tiny bit more oil and a handful of Swiss chard.

For now the dish is jokingly called Trout a la Eric and it’s an impromptu dish of his favourite ingredients. He pulls warm dishes from his oven and spoons a large smear of cauliflower puree on the bottom. On top of that he adds the vegetable mixture and to my surprise he adds some green and yellow beans he had going in another skillet.  On top of it all, he lay the trout fillet which was now cooked to perfection.

Now wouldn’t all of us love to have a chef cook amazing and brilliant dishes like this for us all. The meal was an interplay of textures and flavours that comforted the palate and soothed the soul. The beans were fresh and clean, the bacon veggies were savoury and warm, the cauliflower puree luscious and creamy and the trout clean with a bright buttery flavour. They all came together in one sophisticated mouthful.

As well as delicious the dish read like a geography lesson; trout from Goossens in Otterville, fingerling potatoes other veggies from Tim Creton’s Vegetable Farm in Tavistock, the beans and cauliflower from the market, pork belly for the bacon from Rudy’s Meats and the sprouts from Slegers.

Six Thirty Nine Restaurant is definitely work the trip to Woodstock. Book the Chef’s Table ahead of time and remember it only seats 4. In the summer they have a 16 seat patio in a beautiful garden.

Six Thirty Nine Restaurant, 639 Peel St, Woodstock, Ontario, 519-536-9602, info@sixthirtynine.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

A LOCAL VICTORIAN WINERY LUNCH

Niagara Cooks is celebrating local cuisine with a casual winery luncheon on the giant wrap-around porch of the beautiful Grand Victorian Inn in Niagara-on-the-Lake - right in front of Reif Estate Winery. 

Come and join the fun!

July 18^th, the local lunch starts at 12:30 p.m. and goes until approximately 2:00 p.m. and is being prepared by Robin Howe based on recipes from Niagara Cooks. I will be there to tell the stories of the growers and after lunch enjoy a winery tour and tasting.

There are only 6 tickets left so hurry and get yours - call Reif Estate Winery at 905-468-7738.

Menu

 

Select Hors d'oeuvres featuring local produce paired with 2006 Reif Gamay Rose.

 

Niagara asparagus in individual puff pastry with a Riesling sabayon and parmesan paired with Reif 2008 Riesling.

 

Local pork medallions with a Merlot reduction paired with Reif 2006 Merlot Reserve.

 

Lavender crème brulee  with Niagara rhubarb-strawberry compote paired with Reif Select Late Harvest Vidal.

$50 per person

 

 

For all you fiddlehead lovers, tonight was the fiddlehead feast at NorCliff Farm in Port Colborne. A fantastic chef flew in from New York City and cooked up dishes like coconut curry fiddlehead primivera - yum!