Sunday, October 27, 2013

Delicious Food Show

"The only other place I've seen this much food is in the Food Building at The Ex... "

When these words were uttered, my husband was equal parts impressed, overwhelmed and full of food. This weekend the Delicious Food Show landed at the Better Living Centre at Exhibition Place and everyone who went weighs slightly more than they did the day before. Hey! That rhymed! Also, it might be an exaggeration, though not for me. I ate. A lot. And I regret nothing.


This was my first time at the Delicious Food Show (a three day annual event, now in its second year) and I wasn't entirely sure what to expect but given the list of participants, I expected that there would be oodles of food. And there was, but even more than I expected. The Better Living Centre is quite large and there were hundreds of exhibitors in attendance. You know what that means, right? FREE SAMPLES GALORE.


At every turn there were samples laid out on tables or placed into your hands. In true free sample style, some of them were teensy bites meant to lure you in to larger purchases but there were a surprising number of very generous servings being offered. Breakfast sandwich segments, dried fruits, soup, granola bars, juice, chocolates, Jelly Bellys, tea, various guacamole, salsas and dips... and I know I only sampled a fraction of the samples. It would have been pretty easy to fill-up on food samples but as tempting as that was, I didn't want to miss out on what else was being offered.


I don't want to knock the free samples but the good stuff, the really good stuff required coughing up a bit of dough. And rightly so! (so many rhymes guys, I'm out of control) Our first stop was at The Frankie Fettuccine Food Truck Co., who were minus their truck but fortunately that didn't seem to hurt their game. Ever since their win for "Best New Truck" at AwesTRUCK 2013, I have been looking for an opportunity to check out their wares, specifically their arancini. Delicious! We followed 'em up with some jerk chicken from Chef Carlton's Island Spiced, which was equal parts spicy and tasty.


Big surprise, my day included a stop at the Hot Bunzz booth. Sometimes I feel like I should make more of an effort to try new dishes at these food events, but in my defense, Hot Bunzz had teamed with Abbey's Kitchen and created a brand new harvest-themed menu. Brilliant. The Harvest Collection was made up of three "courses" (main, side and dessert) with each stuffed accordingly. I opted to try the "side" of roasted beets, quinoa, apples, orange zest, baby spinach, mascarpone, goats cheese & walnut pesto. I don't even want to talk about how good this was because it's not fair to all the other foods. YUM. Hot Bunzz were a tough act to follow but the rice balls from ME.N.U held their own quite nicely. I tried the "Angry Birds" (roasted chicken, mushroom, spinach, onions & cheese) and my husband went for the "Pokeball" (Chinese & Filipino sausage, "sexy assorted veggies" & cheese).


At this point we were starting to feel full but there was too much delicious food around us to stop. We stopped by Kung Fu Tacos for a couple of mini-shrimp tacos (other vendors take note: more mini-versions of foods next year please!) and then spotted one of our local favs Hawker Bar and pushed ourselves right over the line of comfortably full with a spectacular bowl of their Laksa Lemak (curry broth, rice noodles, veggies & chicken). This was approximately when I thought I might burst but there isn't much I won't do for the sake of sweet, sweet noodles. #iregretnothing


We were forced to take a break before even thinking about dessert so we decided to scope out the less literal food exhibitors. There were many of kitchen appliances and gadgets being sold and lots of demonstrations/workshops happening along the edges of the room for adults and children alike. The notion of the "celebrity chef" is still a fairly recent phenomenon and it was cool to see a crowd queuing up to meet Michael Smith or to watch Lynn Crawford live on stage. The biggest name at the Delicious Food Show was *gasp* Martha Stewart, which is pretty impressive, but she was there the evening before so I didn't get to witness the throngs of Martha groupies in person.


Dessert. Sadly, dessert didn't get nearly as much attention as it deserved due to my over-eager eating but we still managed to fit in some sweet yums before leaving. In addition to tea, The Tea Emporium was serving up waffles with fruit and fresh cream and they tasted as good as they smelled. Heavenly. Not counting a few more sweet free samples that was really it for dessert. Shameful. But never fear! We stopped by Crazy Corn and grabbed a bag of "He Shoots He Skorrres" caramel corn (drizzled with milk chocolate & Skor toffee bits) to be enjoyed later.


If I had any more room in my stomach you can bet that I would have filled it with any of the above desserts. Cheesecake, meringues, caramels... everything a sweet tooth like mine could desire. Next year I'll do a better job saving room for dessert. Or maybe I'll start with dessert so there's no fear of missing out. Or MAYBE I'll go twice. One day for savory, one day for sweet! Best. Plan. Ever.

Monday, October 7, 2013

Nuit Blanche

What was once referred to as an all-night contemporary night "thing" is now the well-known (and well-attended) event Nuit Blanche, which took place this past Saturday night to Sunday morning in Toronto. Like many arts events, Nuit Blanche was born in France and now takes place annually in over a hundred cities around the world. Toronto's first Nuit Blanche was in 2006 (yes, I was there) attended by 425,000 people and now it brings over a million art lovers and revelers into the streets of the city for an all-night party.


Now, any time a million people RSVP to a party, you can expect a few certainties. One, not everyone is going to be into it (that many people = as many differing opinions on contemporary art). Two, it's going to be kuh-ray-zee crowded on the streets. And three, some people will miss the point entirely and instead opt to party way too hard. Inevitabilities. I understand why many people who would genuinely be into the artistic aspect of the event might choose to stay home and avoid the nonsense. I understand, but I respectfully disagree. It is still possible to go out for Nuit Blanche Toronto for all the right reasons AND enjoy yourself immensely.


Nuit Blanche began at sundown (6:51pm to be precise), so I in turn began my evening at midnight. Nuit Blanche tip #1: start late, end early. We were out from midnight until 5am. Yes, that reads as slightly insane but if you take a disco nap and drink a vat of coffee, you can do it. There is absolutely no avoiding the crowds altogether, but taking the late shift means that you'll still be wandering as they begin to taper. Nuit Blanche tip #2: plan your evening. There were more than 110 art projects on display this year, which means it was virtually impossible to see everything. Make a list (there's actually a function on the Nuit Blanche website that lets you plan "My Night", very useful) before you hit the streets and plan around your "must-sees" to avoid disappointment. Nuit Blanche tip #3: be open to changing your plans. As you wander, you will no doubt stumble upon random, awesome things that you didn't realize were happening. Stop and enjoy these random and awesome things. Part of the fun of the evening is its unpredictability.


We started our evening at Queen's Park, heading south (these photos are in the chronological order of our travels). I'm a big fan of real-time exhibits so the standout for me was This, I Build For You (artist: David R. Harper), a piece which was being hand embroidered as its likeness was projected onto a blank statue base. Beautiful and mesmerizing. We continued to head south, pausing to stop and sit in the living-room alley installation Take a Load Off (artist: Tongue & Groove) and to marvel at the architecture of Garden Tower in Toronto (artist: Tadashi Kawamata) before heading to Nathan Phillips Square to see some of the evening's biggest (double entendre) art exhibits. Forever Bicycles (artist: Ai Weiwei) was surrounded by people from all sides but fortunately was a large enough showstopper to impress all at once. I was enchanted by the blindingly bright The rose is without why (artist: Boris Achour) but disappointed that Crash Cars (artist: Alain Declercq) appeared to have broken down.


We proceeded north and were momentarily hypnotized by The Big Crunch (artist: Franck Scurti) before we enjoyed the other-worldly atmosphere of Familia (artist: Bruno Billio). This was one of my favorites of the night, heightened by the ferocious pipe organ music being played inside Church of the Holy Trinity (my pic doesn't do it justice, sadly it was too dark for a good shot). We backtracked a bit to City Hall where I got a real kick out of The Little People (artist: Workparty), in part because I recognized many of the Kinder Toys from a long-abandoned collection of my own. On University Avenue we stopped to watch the Music Box (artist: John Dickson) play and had a spirited discussion about how sad the trombone sound was without the aid of buzzing human lips (womp, womp). We walked north on University to Dundas and discovered, to our dismay, that the beekeepers meditating at the AGO had buzzed off (HA. HA. HA.) so we headed south again to Queen Street. It started to rain in earnest around 3:00am so we ducked into The Queen Mother Café to have a bit of fun with To Whom it May Concern (artist: Travis T Freeman). I may have had him say a line from The Mighty Boosh. Art is awesome.


We ended our Nuit Blanche at TIFF Bell Lightbox, where we grabbed some popcorn and howled at the film collage compilation VHS Fever Dreams (artists: Colin Geddes, Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski). The highlight was a bizarre aerobic routine where kittens were held as props, inter-spliced with footage of cats chowing down on what may have been brains or guts or something equally gory. Next up in a neighbouring cinema was CRINGEWORTHY! The Best of the Worst Videos Online (artists: Andrew Gunadie and Andrew Bravener), which was equally entertaining and hilarious but in a very different way. The photo above is of a dance-off to Ginuwine's 'Pony' and it was everything you'd want need expect it to be. Great fun.

And then we hit our wall. It was 5am and still raining so we decided to call it a night. And what a night. Although I had a great time, I think I may invent a new tip for myself for next year. Nuit Blanche tip #4: venture outside the core. I know I missed some really good stuff by sticking to the more high-profile exhibits this year so next year I'm going to make a real effort to see some of the smaller and more far out (double entendre) art. Already looking forward to it!