Utter Butter Showdown at the Drake Hotel

July 31, 2012

One of the best things about my marriage is that we're both struck with healthy doses of wanderlust. Combine that with my usual love for food, and you have me getting moon-eyed about trying out local delicacies wherever we go.

Picture from FiestaFarms.ca

In Toronto, it's kind of hard to determine what a 'local' delicacy is, because there's so much diversity, and food from all over the world is represented fairly authentically. I've asked people what I should be trying, and the answers are varied - maple syrup, poutine, steak. Nearly everyone makes a mention of desserts, and there's one dessert in particular that people in Ontario fondly turn to - the butter tart. 

The earliest noted recipe for the butter tart dates back to 1900, when it made an appearance in the Women's Auxiliary of the Royal Victoria Hospital Cookbook, published in Ontario. Since then, it's been revised and refined with each chef adding their own touch to the filling and pastry of this otherwise remarkably simple dish. Butter, sugar, pastry. What's not to love.

Tarts being set up

When I heard about a butter tart Blue Ribbon showdown at the Drake Hotel, I knew I had to go. Hosted by Ivy Knight, gastronome and food writer, the event brought together 8 delicious tarts from chefs all over TO - and let the audience judge which was the best in a blind tasting. Not only did this give me a chance to sample tarts from  ACC, Bestellen, the Flaky Tart, the Gabardine, Origin Liberty Village, and even the George Brown Chef School, but also, it gave me a chance to fell all Masterchef-like, which is always fantastic.

The Drake Hotel itself is charming, with an ambiance that instantly has you feeling at home. I particularly loved the boxed-in flatscreen showing old cartoons, and the shelf of books/records behind the DJ. It's a theme that many pubs attempt but very few manage to get quite right. It was definitely the perfect backdrop to the decadence of stuffing your face with 8 tarts loaded with butter and sugar, all within the hour.

Some were drippy, some were caramely, and every single one screamed indulgence. My personal favorite was a not-too-sweet somewhat solid filling held in place by a melt-in-the-mouth tart shell, known, last night, as number 6. 

Heather Mordue from @BestellenTO walked away with the best tart of the night, with a well-deserved second place going to Allison Jones from @AirCanadaCenter. As for me, I walked away with a stomach full of happiness. That should really be the tagline for butter.

The Joy of Doing Absolutely Nothing: Visit to the Toronto Islands

July 23, 2012

Ever since we got to Toronto, I've been philandering around town checking out my new home-city. My husband, on the other hand, has largely been to work. And back. And repeat. (Hey I've to get some sadistic kicks out of being in between jobs :)) 

To make up for the lost time and reward me for being such a patient uncomplaining dedicated wife (my words, not his, unfortunately), the husband whisked me off for a surprise all-day picnic on the Toronto Islands this Sunday. He'd bought flowers home on Friday, and done the laundry on Saturday, so this was the absolute icing on the cake. Yes, I'm aware that I'm super lucky :) He's a ridiculously good husband.

From Toronto.ca

We turned our mobile phones' data off, picked up some books, and went off to have a touristy picnic on the Toronto Islands. Over the course of the day, we walked the 7-ish km between the three islands, read a lot, and reveled in doing absolutely nothing. The islands themselves are beautiful - you can see the city if you look really hard, but largely you see trees on one side, the beach on the other. It's a writer's haven. I should take along a journal next time.

Visiting the islands gave us a chance to see, in person, how much the coastline of Toronto had changed over the years. The former lighthouse is now in the middle of a landlocked territory. It supposedly takes nature only 10 years to reclaim urban land if left unhindered. That's scarily impressive. Very Jumanji.

I was delighted with how superbly maintained it all is though. These are the things that your admittedly super-high income tax goes into preserving. While I haven't felt the pinch of my own salary being deducted yet, I can see how it's worth it when you're spending a Sunday unwinding. I also wondered, as always, when the Ontario Tourism Board's going to start seriously promoting eco-tourism. It'd be a definite hit.

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 :)

Online Publisher Networks in Canada

July 19, 2012

While I've worked with the Indian and US-based digital markets before, the Canadian space is still new to me. I'm fascinated by the two dichotomies. On the one hand, you've a larger percentage of internet users than any other country in the world. On the other hand, advertisers are still fairly conservative about investing in online strategies.

I've been researching the space online of course, but I find great value in also talking to digital media professionals and getting their take. I love how friendly Canada is... almost everyone's willing to take time out to talk. Yesterday, I'd an informational call with Steve Macfarlane, the VP of Business Development at Suite 66. 

Suite 66 focuses on their publisher network, which includes some high-trafficked local sites such as BlogTo (my personal go-to for all things TO!). While Steve was quick to point out that Suite 66 isn't the biggest agency in the space, they do have an impressive set of long-established loyal clients, and plan to keep growing, a little bit every year. 

He confirmed a few theories I'd developed from my initial reading:

- There are quite a few competitors in the Canadian publisher market, but US still has fiercer competition 

- The majority of agencies in Toronto use 3rd party RTB systems & ad exchanges to allow for economies of scale

- The market's fairly well informed about ad exchanges and how they work 

The publisher side of things isn't my area of expertise, but if anyone's interested: he mentioned that several traffic monitoring agencies were looking to hire. You'll find the listings on the IAB Job Board. 


Next week, I'm talking to Sarah Trimble, Director of Interactive Marketing & Community at Sears. I've rather of gushing to do about Sears' innovative mobile strategy, but I'll reserve it for the post summarizing our conversation!

Exploring the Uniiverse: Stir-Fry Session

July 17, 2012

I'm back after an unexpectedly long, but much needed, hiatus. I spent the last week doing close to nothing, and I think it helped me deal with this. I did make it to Toronto's first TEDx salon for the year, a discussion on collaborative consumption based on this video. 

TEDx Salon, picture from site

I'm not necessarily persuaded by the speaker's conviction that barter-sites will, or should, replace consumption as we know it today. That said, I do use quite a few of these 'new-age' sites frequently, including AirBnB, Netflix, Freecycle, and Meetup... they've shown me Toronto in a way that conventional sites couldn't have, and I enjoy the open, sharing culture of this city.

Yesterday, I attended my first event from Uniiverse, 'the world's local platform for collaborative living.' Catchy, what? :) They've a great collection of listings, some free, some cheap, others justifiedly priced - and they invite you to host your own too. It's a fun way for people to share & showcase their, and other peoples', skills and/or products. 

Picture from site

I've been eyeing it for a while, and finally took the plunge with this stir-fry session. I'm an oil-wuss in my own kitchen, so it was definitely great partnering with someone gutsier. I also fell in love with Walmart's cut cauliflower/broccoli package and definitely need to change my vegetable shopping patterns. So those are my two big takeaways, other than a couple of boxes full of the yummy stuff we stirred up!

We spent an hour cooking up Tofu & Veg Stir Fry and Thai noodles with coriander, and then about ten minutes devouring it. The sad truth of relativity applied to cooking. It was a great meal though, and felt like it hardly took any effort at all to throw together. I'm definitely going to attend more of these in the future. 

A lot of people have been telling me I should host cooking sessions of my own in the free kitchen space at the Uniiverse office. I've to say, I'm tempted. Cooking together is way more fun than cooking alone. Let's see what August brings.