City Cider Festival

26 September, 2012

You'd think I'd notice when temperatures dropped from 33 to 14 and the sun stopped setting at 9 so it got dark out by 6:45. But honestly, the first time I noticed that summer had given way to fall was when I saw that *I* was the most scantily dressed person on the road and everyone else already had on their jackets and pants (I did a double-take when I saw pants on the road, I haven't seen anything full length for the last 3 months).

It gave me a jolt of pride really, given that I'm person who turns off the fan every now & then in Chennai. I'm assured that I'll feel the cold come winter, particularly when my nostril hairs freeze. That's an exact quote, not a witticism. Apparently it's a well documented physical phenomenon, one that I'm quite looking forward to after hearing the stories.

Anyway, long leadup to the fact that fall's here! And that means it's time for cider, soup, garlic (each of which have a festival dedicated to them!) and all the glory of comfort food. Bring. It. On.

Not Far From the Tree organized Toronto's 2nd City Cider Festival at the lovely Spadina Museum orchard a couple of Saturdays ago*. I love NFFT & anything they do (and I'm not alone in this - their founder Laura Reinsborough is one of the speakers at TEDx Toronto this year), so I offered to help. Awesome decision, as always.

Can you imagine anything more idyllic than picking apples from the orchard, then letting people press their own cider on the orchard grounds, while jesters and dancers wander around, and musicians play in the background? Oh yes, you can see the castle of Casa Loma in the background too. Talk about picture-postcard perfect. It really made me feel like I was getting the full Toronto fall experience.

More than 600 people came to the event, we churned out 200 liters of cider, and a fantastic time was had by all. I loved the turnout from families with kids, it's just such a great event to expose them to. Check out pictures here.

*Yes, I'm way behind schedule, as acknowledged and compensated for over the last 2 days.

Social Media & The Global Poverty Project

August 28, 2012

Despite all my best intentions, I never seem to write about the panel discussions and informational meetups I go to. Maybe it's because it's hard to condense one hours' worth of debate on digital media into one blog post... especially when there are no hard and fast conclusions that come out of it. Still, meetups with the Social Media Ref were thought provoking, and I really enjoyed the Non-Profit Technology Network's latest workshop on using social media for social justice (details over here)

d'Arcy Lunn, the Canadian Campaign manager for The Global Poverty Project's Polio campaign, led the group, with a quick overview of global poverty and the things that the Global Poverty Group had been doing in the digital space to get the word out etc. 

One of the biggest problems with digital campaigns is that they're short-lived and superficial - peoples' interest shifts to the next thing that comes along etc. So I was hooked by the fact that for an upcoming concert in New York, tickets are free, but people earn their way in by reading articles, sharing them, signing online petitions etc - and these people are kept  on a database which ensures they get follow-ups about other projects which need similar action. It'll be interesting to see how that works.

Another aspect that had me hooked was d'Arcy's emphasis on Google+ being a great medium for projects like this - the GPG's making better use of G+ than most for-profit organizations I've seen, and it's definitely working fantastically for them. I've worked with Google.org to build out search & display campaigns for non-profits, and also used Google Pages to build simple sites for some projects, but I think adding social to the mix definitely broadens any project's scope.

... There are so many ideas that came up while I was talking to the group, but like I said at the beginning, it's hard to figure out which ones to put down, and they rarely make sense out of context. That said, I thought this particular meetup was worth writing about, just to get the word out about GPG (their website's here). 

Busker Fest 2012

25 August 2012

When I landed in Toronto, I was all touristy-eyed about attending the city's most talked-about festivals... in most cases (as with Luminato which I wrote about here) I had no clue what the festival was actually about, but I thought the name sounded promising. Similarly so with the Busker Fest (I started wildly thinking about snow sleds and dogs, which, actually, isn't too far fetched, if all that people tell me about Canadian winters is true).

Turns out what actually happens at busker fests is almost as awesome - buskers are essentially street performers - everyone from jesters, to jugglers, to magicians, tightrope walkers, fire-eaters, what have you. Entertainment medieval style. Nothing I say is going to do it justice anyway, so I'm just going to let the pictures do the talking.

 

 

I pretty much wandered through with my mouth agape and eyes wide open for the most part, so all the pictures above aren't mine, they're from Busker Fest Toronto's Facebook page. The full collection's here.

Now here's what I found truly amazing: all of this stuff was available for free. The audience didn't have to pay to watch, the performers weren't paid to perform. Some of them came from other countries, just for the joy of performing. Any money they made was from tips. And not one person who watched any show walked away without leaving a tip. I think that's what made the whole thing completely phenomenal for me. 

All proceeds from the theater in the area, as well as donations made from those attending the event, went towards supporting Epilepsy Toronto. I'm definitely going to volunteer as well as attend next year, it's a great event that ensures people who attend willingly donate what they can.

Hot Yam!

August 8, 2012

You'd think that staying in an area fairly close to schools would mean access to somewhat cheap food in the vicinity, right? But despite being in the shadow of U of T, we're still very much in Downtown Toronto, the area of the overpriced restaurants. I wondered how students afforded it, and did a little digging around. Voila, there emerged Hot Yam!

Hot Yam! (I love the exclamation at the end, very Yahoo!) is a student volunteer-run group which prepares a 4-course vegan meal every Wednesday with mostly local, mostly organic food. Priced at a whopping $4, no tax. 

The lunch, served at the Center of International Experience, typically draws in a crowd of 80-100, some nice enough to get along their own Tupperware boxes so that the group of 10-12 volunteers have a slightly easier time cleaning up.

I personally loved volunteering at Hot Yam!, it felt a lot like having your own little restaurant with a staff of really passionate foodies. Cooking for 100 people is surprisingly easy when you divide the work up into prep time on Tuesday and cooking time on Wednesday, and have an uncomplicated menu (spicy red lentil soup, bulgur pulao, kale salad, baklava)... but the clean-up afterwards is as much of a pain as it is in my own home. 

The repeated dishwasher runs and surface sanitizing was made slightly more exciting by the fact that a food & health safety inspector actually checked your work afterwards and told you if you'd passed. I'd heard many horror stories and was looking forward to the inquest, but on the day, the inspector was distracted by the baklava and only asked us for the recipe before beaming all around and exiting. I've to admit, I was a tad disappointed. But the baklava really was all kinds of yummy.

Many people said it'd been the best Hot Yam! meal of the summer, and I was glad I got to work on it.  Hot Yam!'s out for the rest of the month while the student-volunteers write their exams & then go on vacation (thank God I'm past that phase of my life!) but it'll be back mid-September. Again: $4.  4 courses. Best deal in the neighbourhood!

Peachy Saturday at the Hot & Spicy Food Festival

July 21, 2012

On the day you're married, people in India say, "Congrats!" They wait till the honeymoon's over before asking where your progeny are. No rush or anything. 

Much as I'm reluctant to have kids of my own at the moment, I love other peoples', particularly for short durations of time. I'd a complete blast volunteering for Not Far From The Tree's Kids Zone at the Harbourfront Centre's Hot & Spicy food festival.

I introduced Not Far From the Tree in this post, but to recap, they're an organization that helps tree owners pick their fruit. Four volunteers had been on a farm pick lately, and ended up with - wait for it - three. thousand. peaches. They decided to put the fruit to good use, and donated a lot of it back to the organization.

Which meant that come Saturday, we'd whole wagon-fulls of peaches waiting to be consumed by the kids who came out to the Hot & Spicy festival. The peaches were neither hot nor spicy, but they were ripe and sweet, a complete delight. We had the kids wash their hands (and the fruit!) in big tubs of water, before carefully cutting them into little pieces with plastic knives, mixing them in sugar & spices, and then sprinkling the whole mixture onto pre-made tartlets. 

The kids were completely absorbed in their work and made my heart melt about forty thousand times per hour.Some of them were really really young, and I was thrilled with how interested they were in cooking & eating. Mini-foodies! They also loved the idea of climbing trees to pick fruit ('Do you get paid too? Is it hot? Are the trees really tall?')

Earlier in the day, there'd been a bike-powered blender which turned the peaches into smoothies as the kids cycled in place. I'll have to get one of those for my kitchen, talk about a productive workout!

And then, of course, there was a side show - both the kids who'd come to cut, and the college kids who were helping out, were fascinated when they heard how old I was. Most flattering.

All in all, a Saturday brilliantly spent, though the food festival itself was a bit of a disappointment. I couldn't track down the Farmer's Market I'd been really keen to check out, and when I asked around, it seemed no one else had either. The kids told me there were plenty of super hot sauces around though, and they were glad for the peachy respite from it all :)

Fruit of Their Labour: Not Far From the Tree 5th Anniversary

June 27, 2012

The Event

I studied at KFI, a school where there were plenty of trees just waiting to be climbed… so many, in fact, that we were encouraged to ‘adopt’ a tree each, and watch it grow over the year. Our school also had a farm where we used to visit and help out, and I always felt like I knew exactly where the food on my plate was coming from (and that I’d contributed to getting it there, even!)

Given that background, you can probably understand my immediate attraction towards Not Far From the Tree. If you haven’t heard of them yet (and I’m confident you will, in the following years!) they’re a group that makes good use of Toronto’s abundant supply of fruit by helping tree-owners pick and harvest their bounty. I haven’t been able to go on a fruit pick yet because they get filled up so fast, but a friend of mine led a cherry picking one, where she got 1/5^th of 1/3^rd of the harvest (1/3^rd goes to volunteers, there were 5)… I got a portion of her portion and that was enough to keep me knee-deep in cherries for a week!

I was really happy to help out at Not Far From The Tree’s 5^th Anniversary event, where they shared their incredible accomplishments to date with their volunteers.

Me at the Event

I got to 401 Richmond and fell in instant love with the old fashioned brick building and the incredibly green rooftop deck. Apparently that garden used to be open to the public until recently, which is a pity, because it’s gorgeous and I can picture myself whiling a good evening away over there. It was definitely the perfect location for this party though, with the vegan snacks, gelatos and cupcakes fitting right into the décor.

Since there was a big sign at the door of the building saying the garden had been closed to the public (again, wince!), I was on door duty telling volunteers that the garden was still open especially for them and that they could go on up to enjoy the fruits of their labour! It was a fun job, I ran into some people I’d met at The Stop’s Night Market the previous week, and even the talented gentleman who’d designed the NFFTT tee I was wearing. It was definitely a happy crowd that cut that birthday cake with fond memories of their first ever pick, and I’m looking forward to the day when I can blog about my first ever pick too :)

What I loved: Location, location, location. NFFTT’s new office is going to be hosted in the same building where the party happened and it looks idyllic. It fit the group very nicely together, and I got a huge kick out of Steamwhistle’s beer display at the event. They’d also had a fun van at The Stop’s Night Market the previous week, and I love how they seem to be associated with groups that I wholeheartedly support!

 

What I didn’t love: It threatened to rain off and on, but that was the only cloud (literally!) on a beautiful evening. It was also a bit sad that some people who got to the party early left before the actual cake cutting, or came after the treats from Magic Oven were all gone.

Overall: So glad there were slots open for a volunteer opportunity! I’m waiting to pounce on the next email that comes in and (hopefully) register myself before anyone else can :)

Summer Solstice Event: The Stop's Night Market

June 20, 2012

The Event

 Having fake-alertedly attended one 'summer solstice' kickoff, I double checked my calendar and confirmed this was the real deal. The Stop is an amazing Community Food Center with a mission to eliminate world hunger. This event, in particular, had a $50 entry to an all-you-can-eat-and-drink Night Market extravaganza in the alley behind Honest Ed's.

27 restaurants & beverage-providers) (including Woodlot, Steamwhistle, and Ursa) generously loaned their chefs' services, and 27 designers worked on creating unique food stalls for them. Toronto sure knows how to put food and art together! (Here's what I'm talking about, if you haven't read it yet). Brockton General's carboard... Pegasus?...was a show-stopper, noone was sure what bird/animal the cart was, but it brought in the hungry and the curious. Cowbell's ice block stall was a literal show stopper, with the heat + the ice combining to create watery chaos.

Me at the Event

I tried to buy tickets for the event, but they were sold out. So I volunteered my way in :)

Pro-tip: It's a great way to get behind the scenes, meet the talented people orchestrating these events, and do your bit towards making them work. Plus, you learn so much about yourself! I for one did not know I knew how to untangle cable wires and make lights actually work. Also, in India, you don't really do part-time restaurant work, the way a lot of college kids here do. It was the chance of a lifetime for me, it's always been my secret dream to work at a restaurant for a bit. What an awesome avenue to do it, we waited on 1000 people who brought in more than $50K that night.

What I loved: I loooooved how many vegetarian options there were. I cannot stress that enough. What I also loved: At one point, the chefs and the beverage providers realized they could swap wares, so they set up beer runs and taco exchanges. It was great fun being in the middle of it all, and bringing smiles on the faces of the chefs who were ensuring everyone else there was smiling too. Additional bonus: vegetarian customization for the helpful volunteer who brought them what they wanted! 

What I didn't love: Sadly, because it was a $50 flat fee, there was quite a bit of wastage. People just kind of took a plate, took one bite, and threw away the rest. There were full glasses of beer (what a sin, seriously!) and entire plates that had just been left behind on tables and strewn around the grounds. Maybe next time it should be a pay $50 and get to eat at any 5 stalls or something.

Overall: I definitely hope this is a recurring event, it's a great way to kick off the summer!