(bi) weekly linkage: liquor laws, eating local, iron chef uptown finals and more!

Shall we dive right in?  I get a little over-excited sometimes and want to get straight to the new things that I have been enlightened by recently.  The internet is a vast place filled with useless information, here I boil it down and let you know about the things you may have missed of late - and shouldn't have!

First I must beseech the local decision makers to get on the band-wagon that our provincial government has decided to jump aboard!  I look forward to strolling the garlic festival and Savour Stratford with a frosty beer in hand!

As food trends come and go restaurants are always looking to the future to see if they are making the right decisions for their guests.  You decide: has eating local become annoying?

Finally BBQ season is upon us, with a vengeance.  I look forward to warm evenings spent grilling something delicious!  But besides all the great things to eat we of course need some suggestions on what to drink with BBQ deliciousness.

To get everyone in the mood for some sun and remind us yet again why we love this great abundant countryside in which we reside, how about a video?

In case you haven't been paying attention: there has been a great event re-occurring just down the road in Waterloo at Uptown 21.  Iron Chef Uptown was hosted Wednesdays for the past 2 months where a number of Stratford's own chefs were featured battling against the best restaurants of the Waterloo region.  Tomorrow night is the final and it features one of Stratford's greatest chefs: Aaron Linley.  If you can't make it to Waterloo (tickets are $5 with all proceeds going to the food bank) then watch from home and cheer really loud so Aaron can hear you! (link is live in real time so if it's blank for now, just wait until tomorrow night @ 9:30pm)

To get you psyched for what the secret ingredient could be please enjoy a ridiculous video from our 'honourable chairman'...

Weekly Linkage! Horse Meat, Flavor Flav, Walmart in Stratford and more!

So happy Walmart's coming to town.  I enjoy purchasing food from Chinese farmers.  Supporting foreign products is pretty much my mantra.  "Out of work yet?  Keep buying foreign!  Who cares?!?"  I also enjoy the idea that I have a large carbon footprint (it makes up for other, smaller body parts that I may or may not feel inadequate about).  If we can lower the average wage in our city, decrease the quality of product and kill a few local businesses while we're at it, all the better!  As long as I can buy my ketchup, hemorrhoid cream and Wrestlemania videos in one place.  Plus now we can be part of this!

On to the links!

One thing Walmart doesn't sell (yet) is horse meat.  Good thing too, or people might get as upset at them as they are with Monday's Top Chef Canada episode (which features a challenge in which one contestant must use horse meat to create a dish).  I'm not going to touch on the potential health risk of eating a poorly regulated animal like horse (note: guess I just did).  What I don't get are the people who are upset because they feel eating horse is offensive, and yet eating beef is no big deal.

The amount of food we waste is absolutely shocking.  For those of you who won't click on the link, the most appalling number: North Americans waste 200lbs of food/year per person.  This does not include food loss (food that vanishes during the production and distribution process), but only refers to edible food that we throw away because we don't want it, or we've let it go bad.  This equals about one third of the food in the world.

McDonald's, ever the bastion of minimizing waste and small carbon footprints, is attempting to fool you into thinking that they care about creating healthy food for any other reason than to increase their profit margins.  The Walmart cafeteria is launching a 'Made Just For You' menu.  It's awesome how even the 'chef' says it's not about getting rid of the negatives, it's about the 'presence of positives'.  Next time I get a double Big Mac meal, I'll be sure to offset it with a Mango Pineapple Real Fruit Smoothie, which I'm sure won't have much sugar in it at all...

Flavor Flav is doing his part to not contribute to crappy food, albeit only by failing in his attempt to open a fried chicken spot in Las Vegas.

A profile on Canada's only female master sommelier.

The locavore movement has made it's way to the cocktail community.  Not sure if we have any distilleries anywhere near here, but we certainly have access to garnishes.  Some pickled ramps in a caesar perhaps...

Obika has opened in Toronto.  Sushi spot you might ask?  No, it's Ontario's first mozzarella bar.

The Toronto Sausage League had its inaugural competition this past wednesday.  No, it is not an all-male bowling league, it's an event in which two chefs go head to head, determining which one can make the best sausage dish.  Over the next five months, the challenge will be held weekly, eventually crowning someone champion and giving them the proud title of Sausage King.

The Local Come Lately has a stop by stop recap of the Delicious Stratford Debut Stroll, for which he was a guide.  It looks like this summer will have some pretty amazing dishes offered by some of our incredible local chefs.  Can't wait to start eating!

Please follow the chew on Twitter @chewstratford or be a friend on Facebook.

(Bi) Weekly Linkage! People's Food Policy, Wine and an App for Stratford

Ugh...so the last 2 weeks have been a little hectic/crappy as I've started a new job/been sick off and on.  Sick days in the restaurant industry are kind of frowned upon, despite the obvious and valid reasons why it's probably the one industry that you should never show up sick to work for.  Alas, tight profit margins lead to tight labour costs, which lead to cooks and servers working with the sniffles.  What it's meant for me is less blogging as, alas, I am not a professional blogger (despite the suggestions of some), and need to favour real-life commitments over the blog sometimes.  I'll definitely do my best to restore this to a weekly post over the next few weeks, apologies for missing last week.
Enough whining!  On to the links!

A question that likely wasn't asked on yesterday's Savour Stratford Industry Wine Tour: "Is there fish bladder in this wine?"  The answer is: "Probably not."  It is commonly used in the final stages of wine filtration though and Health Canada wants it to be listed as an ingredient.  The trouble is, they're stupid.  The reason for that is, none of the bladder (or egg-white or milk solids) used actually remains in the wine.  Think about a consomme, which chefs often use egg whites and other protein-rich items which collect the fat and other impurities at the top, allowing the clear consomme to be drained out the bottom of the pot using a spigot.  Same basic idea.  Health Canada is being paranoid.

 Ramps are almost done, but asparagus is here!  If you want to learn how to forage (likely not for asparagus), go here this weekend.

Have a million bucks?  Then you can buy this anonymous person's sweet wine collection.  (Sweet as in 'awesome', not 'sugary').

A mouth-watering recount of one man's dinner at Noma, the top restaurant in the world (according to San Pellegrino).

When religion and food collide: a Toronto Star article on a few chefs who create delicious food while conforming to some strict religious beliefs.  A very interesting read, regardless of your beliefs.

10 Things That You're Doing Wrong at Restaurants.  Adam Roberts speaks the truth!

I believe one of our fine chocolatiers and The Milky Whey should get together and do this.  Or something like it.

Have you ever heard of the People's Food Policy?  No?  That's a shame and you should read this.  Why?  To help us avoid things like this.  Skip down one screen after you click on the link and read their 'context', 'process' and 'proposal' sections.  Then go sign their pledge.

The James Beard Foundation Awards happened on Monday.  Jose Andres won outstanding U.S. chef.  Here are some cool clips of chefs being interviewed all Oscar-red-carpet-style.  There's something funny about chefs in fancy suits.  I don't know exactly what it is.  It doesn't seem natural, like if you patted them down, you'd unload a bunch of Sharpies, a thermometer, a peeler and some spoons (just in case they need to taste a sauce at the James Beard Buffet).

A STRATFORDIAN WAS INVOLVED IN A DOCUMENTARY THAT WON A JAMES BEARD AWARD.  Sorry.  Just wanted to make sure you kept reading.  Seriously though, the winner for Television Special/Documentary was called Milk War and was narrated by Stratford's own Colm Feore.  It's a film highlighting some of the controversies surrounding the Canadian government's regulation of locally produced foods.  Pretty darned cool.  (Tying into an earlier link: what's Health Canada's problem?)

Sticking with exciting local news: Stratford's Slow Food Market will be outdoors in the market square this summer.  Apparently there were some questions, but I think there is no question that this is a great idea to get people into the downtown and to enhance the sense of community in general.  Now, if only I could wake up before 2 on Sundays....

Last but not yeast: Stratford has an app!  It's called Visit Stratford and it's available on iTunes, totally free.  It has a handy GPS locator to help you find all the cool stuff in our fair city.

Bonus video just because, it's Anthony Bourdain talking about celebrity chefs:

As always, feel free to friend the chew on facebook, or follow on twitter (unless you're Steve Walters, he hates me).

Weekly Linkage: Gross Food, Gross Fish and not-gross-at-all Bijou

Maybe I'm wrong.  I'd love to be.  I'd love for someone with knowledge of the facts to correct me (perhaps in the comments section of this post).

I consider Stratford to be a clean city, with beautiful parks and with a distinct absence of the litter and general grime that other locales suffer from.  The grass is green, the flowers are beautiful, the trees are healthy, the water.....is not (well, at times it's green, but beautiful and healthy?  No.)

Perhaps it's too motionless, perhaps it's all the duck/swan poop.  Whatever it is, to me it appears disgusting.  And yet people fish in it.  Now, I know the derby this past weekend is facilitated by the Optimist club 'stocking' the lake with healthy fish from another location. This doesn't alleviate my gut feeling of disgust at the thought of people eating the fish from that water.

People are often shocked at the concept of the '5 second rule' in restaurants (the idea that if a piece of food hits the floor, as long as it's picked up within 5 seconds, it's still ok to use).  While I'm sure that rule is NEVER put into practice in ANY restaurant in our lovely city, to me this derby is a far more disturbing practice.

I mean, these fish effectively marinate in a poop brine for hours, sometimes days - as this morning there were families fishing in the rain, 2 days after the derby.  They are then caught and (I fear) cooked and eaten by potentially unsuspecting families.

Please tell me I'm wrong.  That I'm an ignorant idiot.  Show me some facts that dispel my fears.  I'm actually begging here.

On to the links!

Sticking with the gross food theme: this is an older article, but still quite relevant given the success of shows like Outrageous Foods on the Food Network.  It talks about the gross food movement.  You know, like shrimp and ham cake, 9lb burgers and the mega bacon sandwich.  It's sort of like if Maury Povich or Jerry Springer were chefs, these are the things they'd make.

Even worse (better) is when people cram food into them quickly.  At least this year, women will have a chance to compete in the Nathan's Famous hot dog-eating contest (though for a quarter of the prize money).  I applaud Nathan's for giving both sexes equal opportunity to act like pathetic fools.

Hopefully all that processed meat won't kill them.

Worried about radiated seafood from off the coast of Japan?  Be thankful you don't live in Britain, where since 1952, a nuclear plant on the Irish sea has dumped about 44 times the amount of cesium-137 into its waters than Fukushima has dumped into the pacific.  I guess that's good news?

This device doesn't measure radiation, but it will tell you if your meat has expired.

In case you weren't aware, this past weekend was easter.  Here are some interesting facts about the eggs you painted.

A celebrity chef who will not snub Toronto!  I always liked David Chang better than those other guys anyways.

A bunch of food related 'best of' and 'top 100' lists came out recently.  The San Pellegrino Top 100 restaurant list does not include any Canadian restaurants, which is bad news for Langdon Hall, who had finished 77th last year. The seventh annual Canadian Cheese Grand Prix results are in.  Also, some guy named Grant Achatz was the only food related entry in the Time 100 list.  Never heard of him.

On a sombre note, one of the most enigmatic and fun to watch Canadian TV chefs passed away this week.  Ken Kostick was just 57.

Lastly, but by far not the least, this past week saw chef Aaron Linley and Steve from Bijou Restaurant battle Paula and Ben from Verses Restaurant in round 2 of the 3rd annual Nick and Nat's Iron Chef, Uptown!  Aaron did Stratford proud as he defeated the competition in 'Battle Organic Beef'  As he does, The Local-Come-Lately was there to intrepidly report the goings-on.  Please read his article, complete with a kick-ass  video capturing the action!  Congrats Aaron!

Weekly Linkage: Drunk Babies, "Monster Whopper", Wine-Smuggling and more!

With winter now upon us, it seemed appropriate to include a couple of wine related posts in this week's linkage as during the winter, drinking wine is one of my favourite hobbies.
Wait.  It's April.  You'll excuse my confusion, as I look outside Stratford appears to be in the middle of a January-like squall.  Let me start again:
With spring now upon us, it seemed appropriate to include a couple of wine related posts in this week's linkage as during the spring and summer, drinking wine is one of my favourite hobbies.  Seriously though.  Where is spring?

I need to rant a little bit, bear with me.  I know Japan has quite a few pressing issues at the moment, but this doesn't bode well for the future health of their country.  Seriously Burger King?  The "Meat Monster"?  1,160 calories, 69g of fat, 24g of saturated fat, 2,300mg of sodium and 1.5g of trans fat.  Idiots.  I mean, isn't there any sense of responsibility towards the health of your customers here?  Oh, wait, you're a corporation, I forgot.  Your only moral compass is that which individual governments impose on you.  Thank goodness Japan has less stringent regulations for you to exploit.  Jerks.

Moving on to more local, less corporate and far healthier topics: Jennifer Bylok did an awesome article profiling our Slow Food Market for Spotlight Toronto.  It's great to see a good thing get publicity.

An article discussing why you should feel good about eating Ontario farmed trout.  If that article inspired you: Lyndon Hatcheries is a local farm (New Dundee) that offers Rainbow Trout and Arctic Char.  They also have a spring-fed pond in which you can catch your own.

Heading a bit further down the road you can find Ontario's first high fat butter.  84% fat, barrel-churned goodness!

Daniel Boulud has snubbed Toronto (again), this time for Montreal.

Remember Terry David Mulligan?  Apparently he is willing to go to jail in protest of a ridiculous liquor law that forbids anyone from crossing a provincial boundary with wine, beer or spirits.  Always wonder why it's harder to get a B.C. wine than a South African?  This is part of it.  Go Terry!

Applebee's and The Olive Garden are taking steps to reduce the number of toddlers that are accidentally served alcohol in their establishments.  Bravo.

Back to Spotlight Toronto (because it's awesome), this time an article by Suresh Doss (because he's awesome), in which he goes shopping at an LCBO with sommelier Joel Wilcox.  The video embedded in the article is the first episode in a series entitled "Shop With A Sommelier".  Well worth a watch.

Last but not least, I'm sure you must have heard by now that there is some sort of election happening in Canada next month.  My intention with this blog is to talk food, not politics, but occasionally the two can mix.  Here's an absolutely awesome article that cuts through the b.s. and offers a party-by-party breakdown of food policy.  If you are reading this blog, you need to read this article.

P.S. follow me on Twitter @chewstratford, or be my friend on Facebook.

Weekly Linkage: Bacon, Beer, Coffee and more!

Ah springtime!  Warm(er) weather, sunshine and swans, all signs of better days ahead.  This weekend marked the first signs of patio action at a few places in the downtown.  Sadly, the greatest patio of them all (old Othello's) will remain closed, leaving Peter to search for an alternative canvas to display his floral art.  Another sign of spring: the first of the seasonal restaurants are back as Down The Street has opened its doors this past weekend and the food was as good as ever (post to come soon!).

On to the links!

Big Stratford food/tourism news this week as three local festivals will receive over $180,000 from the province as part of their 'Celebrate Ontario' initiative. 
 
A potential ban on toys given out by fast food restaurants in New York city.  I'm no politician, but is there some way Stratford can do this?

Some pros and cons regarding the so-called 'molecular cuisine' movement that peaked a while ago and has been brought back into focus due to the release of the epic cookbook 'Modernist Cuisine' by Nathan Myhrvold.  If you enjoy the technical side of cooking and haven't heard of this book penned by the former CTO of Microsoft, you need to read about it here.  It's being called the most important cookbook of our time.

Nothing says spring (or summer, fall and winter for that matter) like a delicious beer: 
Here's a link to A Year Of Beer!: top Ontario microbreweries.
Why do craft breweries sell up?  Jordan St. John attempts to answer.
This guy consumed nothing but beer and water for 23 days...and still went to work!  A true hero.

Waterloo Region Eats' Andrew Coppolino did a great post on Kitchener's top coffee spots.  Stay tuned for The Chew's take on Stratford's best brews.  'Iron Barista: Stratford vs. Kitchener'  What do you think?

Speaking of iron: Iron Chef Uptown returns for 2011.  The first match is this Wednesday.  Stratford is being represented by both Bijou Restaurant (April 20th) and the Stratford Chef School (May 11th).  Kudos to Nick and Nat's Uptown 21 for organising and hosting the event.

Never thought I would say this, but can there be such a thing as too much bacon?

Lastly, Top Chef Canada premieres tonight!  Sadly, there are no Stratfordians competing, though I'm sure it's only a matter of time.  Here's a link to an awesome Spotlight Toronto post on a recent mock quickfire challenge between the Ontario chefs competing.  There are some pretty amazing pictures plus a video of the event (the video's not properly embedded, but it gives you a link).  Enjoy!

Weekly Linkage: Trends, Ronald McDonald, Tipping, Cheese and more!

Here are a few things food and/or Stratford related that have caught my eye recently on the interwebs.  Some are new, some are old, some are local, some are not, but I think they're all pretty interesting.  The plan is to do this weekly.  Hope you like it!

First off are a couple links offering opinions on some items we've discussed in previous posts:

• Jay Rayner (one of the best food columnists in the world, in my opinion - and a top chef judge!) has his take on unruly children in restaurants.  If you missed it, here's part one of The Chew's take.
•  A very interesting article on what makes us tip.  Large breasts and candy?  hmm...
• Mark Schatzker at the Globe and Mail talks about his experience with sending food back.  He consults a chef, an American and his wife to get their opinions on the matter.
• Local food plus talks about the Certified Local Sustainable tag and how it relates to items with multiple ingredients (ie. can local apples be combined with sugar and spices from further away and still be called local?)  

And the rest...

After a brief sojourn out of the spotlight, Ronald McDonald has decided to resume his career brainwashing small children.

Toronto Life has an article outlining their take on the past year's food trends.  Also (a feature I look forward to every year), their best new restaurants 2011 is out with some interesting profiles.

Want to lure the Chew? set out some of this!

Finally, if you haven't seen this Stratford Festival promotional video, now you can!  I think they nailed it.  Can't wait for summer!