Opera Briefs

26 September, 2012

I'm not sure how I feel about opera, and I'm not sure I'd pay full ticket-price of $60 a head to find out. In fact, opera's just not something I thought about very much - India has it's own classical dance + music + drama forms.

So I volunteered for Tapestry's shows over last weekend to find out more. It's always a great idea volunteering my way into things which I don't have previous exposure to - it gives me a chance to talk with the people involved & learn more than I would as an audience member.

Opera Briefs, the show I helped out with, was a good place to start, though it wasn't traditional opera. In fact, Tapestry New Opera helps develop, as the name suggests, new pieces. Big advantage: they're in English, and have contemporary-ish themes, so I know what's going on rather than trying to frantically Google my way through the classics.

Tapestry had a program called LibLab where writers & composers were paired off in different combinations and they wrote short sketches that could be developed into full-length pieces based on audience feedback.

The sketches were funny, poignant, and much much more intriguing than any short story I've read. I think it was a combination of the writers being fantastic (I felt pangs of envy throughout) and the performance artists being nothing short of brilliant. The music was appropriate too, but I've to say, it was hard to isolate it given the force of the writer + artist brilliance.

I'm hoping to catch a full length, more classic opera piece tomorrow, to contrast... if I manage to leave office early enough to get door-tickets. Fingers crossed.

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.

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!

Cartloads of Fun: Toronto Carretilla Initiative

9 June, 2012

The Event

Makeshift kitchen

I’m deeply interested in food (who isn’t?) and I have a passing love affair with art, having studied it in college (and more than gotten my fill of it with all the assignments we were made to do!)

Put both food and art together and… you usually get an inedible mess which looks pretty. But artist Rainer Prohaska’s Toronto Carretilla Initiative, a part of the Toronto Luminato Festival, immediately grabbed my attention. It combined food + art in a way which was both beautiful, as well as incredibly yummy.

The idea was to fashion an industrial-style kitchen  out of 10 Loblaws’ carts, in various areas of the city. The makeshift kitchen not only passed the Toronto Public Health regulations, but also enabled batches of volunteers cook up community meals of soups and salads. Installation art at its epicurean best.

Me at the Event

This was the first event I attended in Toronto and I loved the sense of experimentation and community in everyone present at the Distillery District’s installation. Our group of 10-12 people made Austrian Potato Soup that chilly Saturday morning, and it certainly seemed to warm up the watching crowd.

The recipe for Austrian Potato Soup

I added an extra touch of colour to the proceedings by promptly knicking my finger while cutting a particularly rotund potato. Lesson learned: knives in Toronto are sharper than they are back home! Bandage in place, I went back to work, and 40 minutes and about a 100 grated carrots, cut celery etc later, soup was ladled out in disposable containers to the eagerly waiting public.

What I loved: Cutting my finger wasn’t pleasant, but it did allow me to step back and look at the group. It was pretty impressive watching the efficiency between stations, and I really got to see the ‘art’ side of it.

What I didn’t love: My soup , an unexpectedly thick and textured warm bowl of goodness, vanished far too fast. But this was more my fault than the organizers’ :)

Overall: So much fun, and I definitely recommend this for anyone who’s even passing through Toronto.