Posts

The Foie Gras Tin and Other Delights: A Memoir of High Service and Higher Egos

-
The Foie Gras Tin and Other Delights: A Memoir of High Service and Higher Egos At fourteen, I proved myself equal to a full day’s work at Heffernan’s, a general store on a lonely stretch of Highway 7 between Peterborough and Norwood. There, I wrote out receipts for local farmers and first grappled with the discipline of the pen. My initial attempts at cursive were so illegible that I began using a ruler to steady my hand. This obsessive habit developed into a formal penmanship. It is a hand that has earned me consistent compliments from schoolteachers and has served me for decades. I have used it to render daily specials on restaurant chalkboards with practiced, idiosyncratic clarity. Between pumping gas and clerking, I found my way to the kitchen at the back of the store. This was my first brush with the messy alchemy of baking. Like most aspiring cooks of my generation, I was a devotee of Julia Child. Her televised rigour gave my amateur efforts a certain pedagogical purpose. I remem...
Post a Comment
Read more
-
Image
Interview Unlocked and Inspired: August 30, 2023 Forest City Culinary Experiences and Chef/Experience Facilitator Bryan Lavery A quintessential entrepreneur, Bryan Lavery is a chef, restaurateur, food writer, experience developer, retailer, Tourism London Board member, and member of a community of tourism innovators. In the most recent issue of the Southwest Ontario Culinary Guide, Blackfriars Bistro identifies as an authentic Farm-To-Table Experience. Specifically, it says, "The cuisine at Blackfriars combines precise technique and skills with quality, hand-selected ingredients. The restaurant supports and depends upon indie farmers, sustainable fisheries, local artisans, and craftspeople for seasonally changing offerings."    • Why are these values important to you?    Ethical eating is conscious of our food consumption choices regarding its environmental, social, and industrial impact. Simply, it means that the food we choose must minimize the harm caused to the e...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ethically-grounded Economic Behaviour

-
Image
Ethically-grounded Economic Behaviour   BY BRYAN LAVERY   Farmers' Market season is over. Romaine lettuce was eight dollars a head at one of my favourite food shops, Vincenzo's in Kitchener. Cauliflower is ten dollars a head at the Covent Garden Market. With escalating grocery prices and the cost of lettuce such as romaine at an all-time high, we can say goodbye to the Caesar salad this winter. The concept of "greedflation" by Canada's largest grocery retailers has appeared as one of the most talked about concerns in the last few months. Food prices continue to increase.  We are living through a gastronomic renaissance, and more than ever, my work puts me in front of the orthodoxy of local food procurement, business incubation, culinary innovation and food start-ups advancing "local" in our food culture. Chefs and restaurateurs that genuinely support farmers and food artisans and pay close attention to the provenance of their ingredients hold a great...
Post a Comment
Read more

Homegrown Revolution – Cultivating Tropical Fruit in Huron County

-
Image
Homegrown Bananas – Cultivating Tropical Fruit in Huron County By Bryan Lavery   On a concession road deep in Huron County, about two hours due west of Toronto, you’ll pass many well-established farmsteads. Often referred to as Alice Munro Country, the writer’s birthplace and the subject of her prose, this neck of the woods is characterized as rural and conservative, with ingrained farming practices and stalwart beliefs. Visitors, arriving at Canada Banana Farms, will drive up a lengthy laneway with “No Trespassing” signs, past cords of stacked wood, ending up at a large modern brick house. To the right of the circular drive are three hoop houses and a view of an expansive field and large woodlot. Inside the main hoop house, a path follows the perimeter of the tunnel –shaped 30-foot by 100-foot structure. Surrounded by exotic plants usually found in more temperate climates, Canada Banana Farms, owner and farmer, Laurie Macpherson, is busy planting organic vegetables for h...
Post a Comment
Read more

Indonesian Eclecticism at Loloan Lobby Bar in Uptown Waterloo (from the archives December 28, 2018)

-
Image
Deeply Nuanced Southwest Asian Cuisine at Loloan Lobby Bar   BY BRYAN LAVERY  Paul  Boehmer, a George Brown College graduate, has a well-rounded career including apprenticeships at Michelin starred hotels, Langdon Hall a Relais & Chateaux property, and the iconic Three Small Rooms at Windsor Arms, before opening Bhima’s Warung in 1994. Boehmer travelled on research trips to spend time with home cooks all over the Indonesian archipelago and beyond, documenting recipes. He owned and operated a fine dining restaurant in Bali, Indonesia for five years– which became part of the inspiration for Loloan. When Boehmer opened Bhima’s it was an ambitious undertaking to embrace the spectrum of regional cuisines, and variety of ingredients, spices and cooking methods largely unfamiliar to most diners. Boehmer has made a point of evangelizing cuisines that are less well known while not necessarily sticking to a strictly codified authenticity allowing room for creativity a...
Post a Comment
Read more