Joey Eaton Centre Opening in Toronto

Well I wasn't planning to attend the opening of the new Joey at the Eaton Centre, but as I walked by in my grubby clothes, not so fresh from an all-day bus trip and an unsuccessful shopping expedition at Canadian Tire, I became aware of wide-open windows from which were issuing the sounds of clinking glasses and animated chatter – not to mention a considerable flock of foodie friends clinking and chattering away. So I changed my plans and marched in, grubby clothes and all, and am now able to report on a venue I didn't really expect to be so taken by.

The story so far: Joey is a mainly western Canadian chain operation that opened its first Toronto location at the Shops at Don Mills in September 2009. I wrote about that launch at the time, and also interviewed Executive Chef Chris Mills.

The Joey experience is slick and sparkly. The food is a snappy mix of various cuisines (butter chicken and burgers, sushi and spaghetti); the serving staff would not look out of place at the Victoria's Secret fashion show, and the cocktails are of the no-holds-barred variety. Which is to say: I don't think I fall into their target demographic.

Now, any slightly upscale Toronto restaurant faces a big challenge; there are so many great meals to be had here for $10 to $15, especially so if you're talking about Italian, Chinese, South Asian, Japanese, Middle Eastern or African cuisines. So, to be honest, at the price point (burgers about $15, pastas $17 to $20, steaks $23 to $35), I would be unlikely to visit Joey for the food alone. I'm not much of a cocktail drinker, either. But...

...picture the room above filled with happy, excited people having a really good time. Then imagine that you're sitting in a big banquette next to a huge open window with bustling Yonge and Dundas unfolding right in front of you. Toss some genuinely tasty Bombay Butter Chicken or a well-handled steak into the mix, with maybe a premium Canadian beer ($6.25) or something from the well chosen by-the-glass wine list (likely $10 to $20) or something indulgent from the cocktail menu ($6.49 to $10.99), and you're probably paying somewhere between $20 and $45 (plus tax and tip) for a genuinely entertaining urban experience.

I was also more than a little impressed by a brief conversation with one of the young women recently hired as a server; she was transparently happy to be working there and praised the organization warmly for its professionalism, especially in regard to the training she had been given about the food.

So if you should spot me through that big window one day as you're leaving Canadian Tire, and I'm snacking on a Panang Prawn Curry Bowl and sipping a deliciously dark, fizzy, orange Aperol Spritz, don't be all that surprised.

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam with Organic Sugar

Every once in a while you hit the utter sweet spot with a batch of jam. This one is so good that I'm torn: I think it would do very well in the Royal Winter Fair preserves competition, but I would be very sad to send any of my few precious jars away. I'd rather eat them (maybe with a spoon!) or give them to dearly loved friends and relations.

In case you think I'm exaggerating, here's the recipe.

Perfect Strawberry Rhubarb Jam with Organic Sugar
Makes 4-5 cups

• 2 pounds organic sugar
• 2 quarts fresh, just-ripe ripe local strawberries
• 2 cups washed and diced fresh, just-ripe ripe local rhubarb (thanks to Amy of Playing in the Dirt!)
  
• 4 tbsp lemon juice

1. Sterilize jars.
2. In a wide, deep non-reactive pot over medium-high heat, combine all ingredients and mix well to dissolve sugar.
3. Bring to a full rolling boil and boil, skimming and stirring occasionally, until mixture stops frothing up to a large volume, the scum pulls back to sides of pot and the jam thickens so it dribbles rather than pours off the spoon. It will have reduced in volume by about half, the rhubarb will mostly have dissolved, and the strawberry chunks will be well integrated into the mixture rather than bobbing on the surface.
4. Pour into hot sterilized jars, seal and process at a full rolling boil for 5 to 10 minutes. Refrigerate any jars that do not seal.
5. See how long you can last without eating it!

The Bowery Launches on Colborne Street in Toronto

The Bowery has taken over the Six Steps space at 55 Colborne Street with striking decor and a menu so seasonal that it's going to have to be updated about every 48 hours. A launch on Tuesday night allowed food reporters (including David Ort of Food With Legs) to view the space and sample some of the fare.


The food is masterminded by Executive Chef Tawfik Shehata (pictured, right, who used to be at Vertical) and Chef de Cuisine Jason Maw (Starfish and Boba). It's amazing that Shehata has the energy to open another new place so soon; it was only last November that he launched The Ballroom, the buzzy hipster bowling alley in the former Montana's space across from the Chapters/Paramount complex at John and Adelaide.


Despite the daunting phalanx of Absolut Orient Apple bottles in the emergency-orange cabinet at the entryway, The Bowery's wine list ought to be a draw. It's a not-too-long international selection with whites from California, France, Australia and New Zealand, and reds from South America, the US, Australia, France, Italy and Spain.

All this goes alongside a solid showing of interesting Canadian (mainly Niagara) labels like Megalomaniac, Malivoire, Foreign Affair, 13th Street, Tawse and Southbrook. There are also a Tawse Cabernet Icewine, a Tawse Late Harvest Gewürztraminer and a Fielding Late Harvest Gewürztraminer among the after-dinner drinks, with some Taylor Fladgate ports.

There's a modest by-the-glass offering (cheekily classified as "Cheap", "Decent" and "Good"), and a note that almost any wine on the list is available by the half-bottle.



As for the food, whereas the decor suggests a quasi-New York-esque 20th-century vibe that matches the name (for the old Dutch south end of Manhattan, which became synonymous with tough, hardscrabble street life), the menu is straight 2010s Toronto. As mentioned above, Shehata and Maw are staking out a ruthlessly local/seasonal turf that includes ingredients like spot prawns, asparagus, morels, strawberries, rhubarb and peas... several of which will be out of season as early as next week.

They're also using lots of lovely seafood, mainly sustainable (I'm wondering whether Hooked is their supplier). Besides the delicious spot prawns, Lake Huron pickerel, BC Lingcod, branzino and Albacore tuna are featured.

It's hard to judge a dinner menu when it's served as finger food in a bustling party environment with terrifying cocktails, but from the starters list, we tried bite-sized portions of the Grilled Octopus with tomato confit, tomato chips, Niçoise olives, baby arugula, polenta and squid ink aioli. My arugula had been heated to the point of crispiness, so its characteristic taste was lost, but the polenta had a delectable fried texture and the overall flavour was dark, smoky, umami. It will be priced at $15.

I'm going to guess that the pizza will be popular. Their crust may not quite be the equal of Queen Margherita, but it's pretty darn good all the same: thin and crispy outside; tender inside, piping hot and topped with an interesting choice of items. At the launch,we were able to try the Pizza Capricciosa (seen above) with buffalo mozzarella, tomato sauce, mushrooms, marinated artichokes, candied prosciutto and green olives. It was pleasantly sweet-salty, and the prosciutto chunks had a very good brown sugar-bacon flavour and chewy texture.

Asparagus Pizza with pickled spring onions, asparagus, thyme, chèvre, mascarpone cheese, and mushroom puree was smoky, rich and buttery. I believe the pizzas will be priced at $19 for dinner or $15 for lunch.

With its custom wood grill, The Bowery could be a contender in the eyes of serious meat eaters too. We were treated to tastes of Grilled Rib Eye with lemon shallot honey vinaigrette and shaved Parmesan cheese, which was certainly delicious, if a tad artery-clogging. On the regular menu it will be served as a 24-ounce cut for $40.

We tasted samples of Strawberry Semi-freddo with pistachio praline and macerated strawberries, which will be a dessert item at $9. Local fresh strawberries are among the best foods in the world; the custard sauce was tasty but not particularly ravishing, rather like very good melted vanilla ice cream.

Not listed on the menu but delightful were cubes of watermelon with slight concavities in one side (exactly like pool cue chalk), filled and drizzled with cherry vinaigrette and mint.


The decor is heavy on glossy tiles, with brilliant orange subway tiles on the walls and those tiny vintage-flavoured black octagonal floor tiles. (Warning: the tall bar seats are apt to skate alarmingly across the glazed surface!)

Incomprehensibly, there's a flatscreen to the rear of the bar that was tuned to CP24 during the launch. I'm hoping that the plan is to use it for something more thematically appropriate – a custom slideshow, or movies set in gritty Manhattan locations like On the Waterfront and Musketeers of Pig Alley would be more in keeping.

On the other hand, there are plenty of delightful, quirky design details around the room. This elegant cast iron pig was much admired.

World Jam Awards Call for Raspberry Jam!

I'm trying to resist this new challenge, but I'm not at all certain I'll be able to keep myself from entering the first-ever World Jampionships in Blairgowrie, East Perthshire, the "Berry Capital of Scotland". In this inaugural year, the fruit of choice is the regal raspberry, my very favourite (and that of Albus Dumbledore too, if I recall correctly). Raspberries make such a lovely jam that the hardest part may be mailing two jars to Scotland; however, I have no doubt that the competition will be ferocious.

There are three categories: Aristan (commercial), B&B / Hotel / Restaurant house jam, and Homemade. In each category, awards will go to best in Scotland, best in UK and best "overseas". The judges will base their decisions on Appearance, Set, Aroma, Taste, Flavour and Texture. The entry form has the full rules. There's a £5 entry fee for the Homemade category (more for the professional categories). The deadline is August 12, which should allow even us northern cooks sufficient time.

The organizing body, a local tourism initiative called "Love to Eat", is also searching for a "Junior Jampion", whose three-ingredient recipe will be made up into jam and labelled with the competitor's own design. There's a separate entry form for the kids.

Thanks to Amy of Playing in the Dirt for pointing this news out to me!

Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook: Book Review

In its opening chapters, Barry Estabrooks' Tomatoland seems to be following the same road as Arthur Allen's wonderful Ripe: The Search for the Perfect Tomato. Specifically, this road is a bumpy track across the Atacama Desert, where an intrepid group of food adventurers are pursuing a fabled Lost Tomato of Peru (AKA Solanum pimpinellifolium, a genetically important wild tomato variety).

But no sooner have we become engaged in this quest for tomato breeders' gold than Estabrook jumps the track and, instead of keeping up with these horticultural Indiana Joneses, carries us away to even more gripping and dangerous territory: the evil empire of Big Tomato, where the innocent are enslaved, beaten, imprisoned and even murdered for trying to escape from the appalling press gangs of Florida's tomato fields.

He crafts thrilling true-crime documentary from court transcripts as he tells of daring infiltrators who engineer midnight escapes, and brilliant legal battles reminiscent of Erin Brockovich or Silkwood that centre on the efforts to establish an evidentiary connection between tomato pesticides and three tomato pickers' children born without arms or legs in one small area within a few months of one another.

In case you're now about to give up tomatoes forever, know that Tomatoland also documents the brave and dedicated crusaders who are trying to reform the commercial tomato industry and increase the potential for small-scale and organic tomato production... not to mention the ones who are trying to make sure every tomato sold in a North American grocery store is a tasty one.

Tomatoland, How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit by former Gourmet magazine contributing editor Barry Estabrook (Andrews McMeel Publishing LLC, 2011) is the most exciting and inspiring food book I've read for years. If you haven't already done so, this is the book that will make you swear off grey, cardboard winter tomatoes for good.

Sausage Stuffing Mysteries of Charcutepalooza

Having jumped the gun and stuffed sausages last month for the Charcutepalooza challenge, not realizing we were only required to grind sausage meat, I had hoped to build on my stuffing knowledge this time around. Instead, I feel that a bout with Maple Breakfast Sausages has only left me with more questions than answers.

Since I had already tried a stuffed sausage recipe from Charcuterie, I pulled this recipe from Home Sausage Making by Susan Mahnke Peery and Charles G. Reavis. In fact, it's pretty close to the basic Garlic Sausage recipe in Charcuterie – minus the garlic but with sage, mustard powder and maple syrup.

I persist in finding it easier to grind with the old-fashioned manual grinder than with the electric one. We bagged the ground meat in three batches as it came out and popped it into the freezer so none would sit very long on the counter.



The whole thing does make me feel a little too much like Mrs. Lovett, and I do wish that it were possible to see raw meat contamination; as it is, I find myself imagining it's everywhere, and compulsively scrubbing surfaces at every opportunity, which is far from my usual kitchen behaviour.

To fill the casings, I once again used the Waring Pro electric stuffer/grinder. Whereas last time the stuffing went quite smoothly, this time my co-stuffer Niamh and I experienced a range of challenges. We got a lot of big bubbles into the sausages, and managed twice to burst the skins (which didn't happen last time). I had soaked the casings for quite a while first, and they came from the same source as before, so I'm puzzled.

Also, we didn't manage to solve a problem I encountered last time: some of the sausages refused to hold their seal, leaving us with filling pushing out one end. Were we filling the casings too full? Was I twisting the links too tightly? Did I use too big a pipe to fill them?

Niamh is keen to try again, so perhaps we will answer these questions ourselves. Meanwhile, I plan to read up on other Charcutepaloozan experiences to see whether I can find the answers to these and other intriguing sausage questions.

Photos by Niamh Malcolm (for which many thanks!)

Food Sustainability Events: Recipes for Sustainability & Hungry For Change

On Saturday, June 18, Films That Move invites everyone interested in food sustainability to a networking and information event called Hungry For Change at George Brown's Centre for Hospitality & Culinary Arts (300 Adelaide East). Representatives of many different groups will be there for a chance to connect with volunteer opportunities and engaging local projects. Footage will be shot at the event for a documentary about food activism in the Toronto area.

Hungry for Change starts with a reception at 10 a.m, followed at 10:30 by a more formal welcome and screening of short movie clips. A panel discussion starts at 11:30, with:

• Mark Cutrara of Cowbell
• John Higgins of George Brown Chef School
• Chris Wong of Young Urban Farmers
• Darcy Higgins of Toronto Youth Food Policy Council
• Olivia Rojas of Regent Park Community Health Centre
• Lauren Baker of Toronto Food Policy Council
• Meredith Hayes of FoodShare

A community market with free food samples runs from 12:30 to 2; it's a chance to meet and chat with people from the local food scene. Admission is free; register online for free tickets.

On Monday June 20th,7 p.m., Toronto Green Community’s Speakers Series presents Recipes for Sustainability at 40 Orchard View Blvd, Room 200. Emily Martyn of Toronto Green Community will discuss local food politics and several food sustainability initiatives around Toronto and the rest of Canada. Admission is $10 (free for Toronto Green Community members).

Call for Preserves and Baking for the Book Bakery

Can you spare a couple of jars of jam or a dozen cookies for a good cause? Alana Wilcox of Coach House Books, author Derek McCormac and "rogue editor" Michael Maranda have announced the opening of a different kind of bakery, and they could use your help.

Following the lead of Matthew Stadler's Publication Studio in Portland (which has sister projects in Berkeley, Vancouver and a "centerless terrain in the middle of North America"), Publication Studio Toronto, AKA the Book Bakery, is an artist-accessible printery that will operate out of a Parkdale storefront basement to produce small limited editions of odd and idiosyncratic books.

The publications will literally be handmade. Some will be created for particular events; many will be more about art than words. A selection of the output will be sold through TYPE Books on Queen West. The Bakery's first three projects are Why We Fight by Pasha Malla; Selected Business Correspondence by Andrew Kaufman, and It Must Be As Tall As a Lighthouse: A Valentine, with words by Tabatha Southey and drawings by Will Alsop.

The Bakery already has its printing equipment, but to raise money for paper and sundries, they're holding a launch and fundraiser starting at 7 p.m. on June 29 at the Burroughes Building (639 Queen West, third floor, at Bathurst). The Book Bakery Fund-Fair will feature carnival games, a celebrity author kissing booth, raffles, books and prizes, as well as readings by Matthew Stadler, Andrew Kaufman, Pasha Malla and Tabatha Southey.

In the community spirit of the event and the project itself, the Book Bakers would be grateful for modest contributions of preserves or baking. If you are going to attend the event, you can bring them along with you; otherwise, contact Alana Wilcox for more information.

Please Support the Fight Against Women's Cancers

A break from the normal routine: my sister (pictured above, with her daughter) is walking the 32-kilometre (roughly 20-mile) Shopper's Drug Mart Walk to End Women's Cancers in memory of our grandmother Jeanne Mallory. Alex, who teaches pole dancing and hula-hooping, is doing it as part of Pink Pole Power, an initiative that uses pole-dancing energy towards the good cause of fighting cancer.

Here's my sister's donations page. If you feel able and inclined, please drop in and donate even as little as $5 towards her $1,500 goal. This great interactive thermometer shows you how she's doing.

Thanks!

A New Rack for the Jars!

I'm ridiculously pleased about yesterday's project, which I've been daydreaming about for six months. These salvaged jars, which mainly contain dried herbs from the garden, have been cluttering up my kitchen surfaces since last fall. Now they're tidily out of the way, and I am far less likely to murder the cat by mistake (by dropping a jar on her head).

I did have to buy a new bottle of wood glue for five bucks, but otherwise, I had all the bits and pieces of materials, tools, fastenings and paint in the basement. And to make my brother happy, I even used a level to position it.