22 October 2011 by pat.

Compare and contrast.

No, I won’t do that, because that’s comparing apples and …hmm. bread? Two vastly different categories, although both are in similar spaces.

Fifth town, if you read back in my blog, is an organic cheese maker based in Prince Edward County. And they’re here, at the Delicious Food Show. I picked up some of their Quark cheese. I had never tasted quark until this summer, when they drizzled some maple syrup over some and offered tastes. Yes, I’ll take that over dessert any day, thanks. It’s delicious.

The other was a maker, Daiya, that I had heard about, and I saw their products when the Foodist Mart was briefly open in Leslieville. They create a vegan product that tastes like cheese.

They had some slices of pizza out with their mozzarella-like cheese-like product, and I took one and ate it. It did have a cheesy flavour, it melted like mozzarella, and looked like it, too. So for vegans who miss the taste of cheese, there’s a product out for you! They also had some grilled cheese sandwiches with a cheddar-like product, but after wandering all the stalls, I confess, I was sated, and didn’t try it.

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22 October 2011 by pat.

One item I bought in Florence that I’ve wished I could get in Toronto is goat butter — it has more flavour to it than cow butter. It isn’t as strong as the barnyard flavour in a goat cheese, but there’s a hint of that same taste. At the Delicious Food Show, Stirling Creamery was there — and I had the opportunity to sample the goat butter. Delicious!

The list of retailers included Chris the Cheesemonger at the Saint Lawrence Market in Toronto. You can bet (if they’re not already carrying that product) that I’ll be asking them for it!

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22 October 2011 by pat.

Sturgeon caviar is a product we associate with Russia. It’s a shame, but sturgeon has been driven to the brink of extinction there because of fishing practices. Sturgeon farming began in the US in the ’80’s, in California.

Sturgeon’s an incredibly old fish, dating back 200 million years. You can learn more about them on wikipedia.

Now we’ve got a Sturgeon farm based in New Brunswick, on the St. John River. Founded by Cornel Ceapa, who has a PhD in Fisheries Engineering, Acadian Sturgeon sells caviar and smoked sturgeon, and is selling sturgeon eggs and young sturgeon to European concerns to help replenish faltering European stocks.

It takes a long time to get a Sturgeon fishery going, and about 10 years for the fish to reach maturity. Dr. Ceapa is determined that a sustainable, environmentally correct fishery is the direction to be taking before the fish is annihilated, and has been developing the fishery since 2004.  The fish are raised in tanks with water taken from the St. John River. After use and cleaning through multiple filters, the water is returned to the river. It’s important to him that the water be clean both ways! Intake must be clean, or he’s risking his stock. Output must be clean, or he’s risking downstream destruction.

In the mean time, Acadian Sturgeon is selling sustainably harvested sturgeon, about 350 a year. The sale of wild sturgeon will wind down over time, but wild sturgeon will always be the standard against which Acadian measures its product.

The caviar is delicious: I tried some on a hard-boiled half of a quail egg.

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22 October 2011 by pat.

It should come as no surprise that I’m a big fan of garlic! One of the booths at the show was The Garlic Box, which has some glorious cloves of Music garlic at $1.00 each:

 Music garlic doesn’t play an instrument — it’s called that because Music was the last name of the farmer who developed it. It grows very well in Ontario. The garlic used by The Garlic Box is Ontario product.

Now — not all garlic heads look perfect to sell as full heads. What do you do with the rest of them? How about pickles, sauces, and spreads? The Garlic Box has a wide variety. One I couldn’t resist is pickled scapes and cloves.

 I was curious about how they create this combination, since they are harvested at different times. They put the scapes in brine until the cloves are harvested, and then create a layered pickle — scapes on the bottom, cloves on the top.

They have an interesting idea for a Bloody Caesar:

And lots more products.

 Dressings, beans and such.

And dried garlic products, too.

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22 September 2011 by pat.

I love Italian food, and so I eat it when I can.

This past week, I attended another of Massimo Bruno’s Supper Club dinners: this one was themed “Vacanze Romane.”

It was delicious! One thing that stands out for me is the use of herbs and spices in the various plates. After the focaccia, here were four initial plates (two of cod, one stuffed zucchini, one of porchetta and borlotti beans), followed by veal and broccoli alla pomodoro, and then some amazing choux-pastries, deep fried and stuffed with a creamy ricotta filling (bignes). Each dish was herbed and spiced to bring out the ingredients on the plate, and each dish tasted unique in the service. That’s how you avoid taste fatigue!

All the food is served country style, so if you don’t have enough to eat (hah! like that could ever happen) you’ve only yourself to blame.

Here is one picture. The rest are over on my Flickr site. Click here to see all the food from Thursday.

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15 August 2011 by pat.

In the ongoing downpour, we decided to stop for lunch in Wellington. Alas, I was elected the one to leave the car to find out if the restaurant Sandy and Susan had picked out was open (only fair: Susan was driving and Sandy was in the back seat). No dice. The  restaurant was closed, and wasn’t going to be opening that day. I don’t even remember what it was called, unfortunately, and Google Earth has a really shitty low-resolution map of Wellington and no Street View, so I can’t tell you what it is from walking down the street and stopping just before the traffic light. But it was a place Sandy and Susan were hoping we could get to for lunch, since it was too rainy to eat outdoors at any of the wineries with restaurants.

So we went halfway down the block to the Devonshire Inn for lunch, and had some lovely local fare of salads, pork, and fish. While we were finishing up and talking to the waitress, the topic somehow got onto mushrooms and the local mushroom farm/factory. Heck, what else are you going to do on a rainy Wednesday afternoon? We went off to Highline Mushrooms, just past the corner of Gilead and Conley. Go to their website if you want to learn about the place. I’d love to do a tour some time. What they offered was a price list and a fridge full of mushrooms at really great prices.

Price list:

“Cafe” are what they call cremini mushrooms at the grocery store. Ports are portabellas. Susan bought a box of mushrooms, but I’m not sure which variety. Here’s how big a box is.

That’s lots of mushrooms to dry, confit, turn into a spread to go on toast with some paté… oh yes, I could imagine doing things with lots of mushrooms.

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14 August 2011 by pat.

Our third stop was Black River Cheese, a venerable establishment down in the county. It being a rainy day, people were inside, milling about and exploring. And tasting. The cheddar on the left is 6 years old.

I’ve had their cheddar for years. Sandy used to bring some back to university, and when we were sharing an apartment, a late night of studying would be accompanied by some extra old cheddar, hot banana (or Bick’s Mixed) pickles, and long green onions. And espresso. I don’t know how we did it without developing indigestion, but it went over well at 1am.

Eating their cheese curds while driving around is fun the whole family can enjoy. Curds fresh enough to squeek.

They also sell local fare like these delicious tarts from Burt’s Bakery.

And this chocolate sounds like a great idea  – and it’s local! The plant is located in Belleville.

And more local soaps, from a different maker than the ones at County Cider.

 Their factory burned down at the turn of this century, and there were concerns for a while that the company might not survive. They did and they continue to thrive. Their website provides good historical information about the area and its cheese-making history.

I bought a nice block of 5-year-old white cheddar. When the weather cools down, I think I’m going to make a roast-garlic cheddar soup.

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9 August 2011 by pat.

On to County Cider. Our next stop wasn’t quite as busy as Fifth Town — although there were people there, it was a bit more of an open space, and maybe people weren’t into sampling the wares so close to noon on a weekday. Whatever. It was our weekend and it was raining.

A quick reconnoitre of the shop, and then we lined up over at the tasting bar, and sampled the different types of cider that are available.

Feral Cider. This one is quite sweet and fruity. Actually, too sweet and fruity for our tastes. On to the next item.

County Premium Cider. This one is a nice cider for a hot day. Nothing really unusual about its taste that makes it stand out, but it’s a good, workaday cider, and it’s a lot closer to Toronto than BC cider houses are, if you’re considering carbon footprint.

There was one in little brown bottles that I didn’t get a picture of:  Waupoos Premium Cider. It had a nice taste: richer than the others, a little spicier. The woman running the tasting said it works well in a 50/50 with beer (sort of like a shandy, but… different). We all enjoyed this one. Susan bought some of it.

Then we tasted the most wonderfully strange and different item they had. All I can do is quote Miranda “Oh brave new world!” Prince Edward County Ice Cider. This is made from varieties of apple that continue to hang from the tree branches after freezing weather. It’s then aged in some really innovative barrels made in the county by Carriage House Cooperage: each barrel is made of four woods — ash, maple, hickory, and oak, which is then toasted, and then the cider gets to age in the barrel. It’s winning awards, and I’m not surprised. The taste was complex, and first made me think of sherry, then cider, then got some Scotch-like notes from the barrel.

Each of us bought a bottle of it, and it’s laying down, waiting for an occasion. The County Cider website recommends pairing it with foie gras, and my toes are curling in delighted anticipation. Yes, I’ll blog about it.

Learning about the barrels (and then we made a trip out to the Carriage House Cooperage (I’ll be writing about it soon), and seeing some of the local products for sale in the shop, made me realize that there is a cross-breeding happening between businesses  in Prince Edward County that we would do well to emulate in other places. It’s something we’ve lost with importing everything from everywhere instead of doing our own manufacturing.

In cheese stores they sold other food items, soaps, candles, chocolates. In County Cider, there were some clothes, some soaps, some goods from elsewhere.

Our visit here ended with a quick peek out back, with vineyards sloping down to the lake. Alas, we didn’t try any of their wines, and the rain was still coming down, so we didn’t sit out and enjoy the view for a long time, either.

More to follow with the trip to Black River Cheese, then to Carriage House and an interview with one of the proprietors!

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8 August 2011 by pat.

By the time we were ready to hit the road on Wednesday morning, the rain had started. It kept up all day, making driving difficult and forcing Susan to be mindful of big puddles. The first place we went to was Fifth Town’s dairy, located on County Road 8 in Picton.

It was a rainy day, and fairly crowded in the little store. All those people who were on camping trips starting on the long weekend decided to go into Picton (we had the most amazing traffic jam going through — worse than Queen West when all the young’uns are out in their cars, cruising the strip) or to the wineries and cheese places!

I’ve been a fan of Fifth Town’s cheeses for a quite a while: Alex Farms sells some of them, and Fifth Town comes to the Brickworks market, so I’ve bought directly from them there.

I do like that they had samples of most of their cheeses out to try. Susan noticed there wasn’t any quark, though, and inquired about it. Out came a container of quark cheese, and the staff member did something I thought very odd: she opened the container of quark, and drizzled dark maple syrup all over it. Ewwwww, right?

Wrong. Quark with maple syrup is delicious. The cheese is very mild, slightly tangy like yoghurt is tangy, and has a consistency like a dry cottage cheese that has been tightly packed. With the addition of maple syrup, it becomes light and fluffy and creamy (even though it’s a low-fat cheese). I had some on crackers this evening when I started writing this entry. I’ve told myself I can have some more when I finish writing tonight.

Each of us bought some quark.  We also tasted other cheeses and bought some of them. From Fifth Town, I came home with some Lemon Fetish (feta-like round with some lemon zest in it) and some Bagel Chevre with Lavender. Susan was hoping to score some Rose Haus, their washed-rind cow’s milk cheese, but none was to be had: it’s so popular that they have problems keeping it on hand, and even sold some that wasn’t as ripe as they’d like it to be, because of demand.  Either Sandy or Susan picked up some Bedda Fedda, their version of a Greek feta cheese.

While we were in line to pay for our purchases, Fifth Town kept us entertained and educated by running two videos overhead about how their cheese is made. “First, start with some goats or sheep…”

Alas, with the rain, I didn’t get a picture of the underground aging caves or wander around at all. I did go through their website again when I got home, and they’re really quite the model company for the future: involved in their community, cherish their employees, do what’s right for the environment, and produce great product. Go have a look: they’re really upfront about what they do.

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7 August 2011 by pat.

Sandy and I went to Prince Edward County and surrounding areas for a speedy 48 hours this week. We took the train to and from Belleville, and were able to relax in the air conditioning and work, using wifi, both ways. It was a great trip, and I came back with some good pictures and wonderful things.

Susan, who moved to the area recently, met us at the train station in her jaunty convertible, and we began our adventures.

Our first stop was at Maple Dale Cheese in Plainfield. Unfortunately, I didn’t take my camera with me into the store! What a wealth of cheese, local preserves, and other goods that go with cheese. I came away with some roasted garlic oil, cheddar shortbreads, garlic cheese curds, Mediterranean Trimmings cheese (contains green olives, sundried tomatoes, roasted garlic and sweet basil) and a hunk of X-Hot Smoked Cheddar. Other interesting cheeses they have include a beer-rinsed cheddar, a horseradish cheddar, and a number of flavoured curd cheeses. I confess, a lot of it is now in the freezer as soon as I photographed it, because there is only so much cheese I can eat. Sandy and Susan also picked up some cheeses for our afternoon snack (more later).

After Maple Dale, we continued deep into farming country and ended up at the farm and red barn of Chef Drew Ferguson, who grows garlic and is a professor at the Culinary School of Loyalist College. What a beautiful place: the barn was filled with hanging garlic. Alas, Drew wasn’t there for us to winkle some recipes from him, but Betty was, fortunately, so we were able to purchase some.

Of course, we couldn’t walk away empty-handed: both Sandy and I got hanging bunches, and Susan got a big bundle of small heads of garlic. She’s planning on doing some garlic pickling!

From there, it was over to Susan’s place near Roslin, and a tour of her century home and the renovations she’s been making since she moved in in June. The next order of the day was to sit in the shade of the oak tree and eat cheese and pickles and drink wine. Sandy and Susan were in charge of the food: I hauled garden furniture.

We were joined for dinner by Carole and Margot, two of Susan’s friends who have homes in the area.

Susan slow-roasted ribs, made a wonderful salad, and we continued with cheese and olives and pickled garlic. Dessert was amazing polvorons - shortbreads with cinnamon and pork fat that Susan brought back with her on a trip to Spain.  Absolutely delicious.

After dinner, it was time to pull out the Bocce set, and play the game, until the mosquitoes got to us.

Getting dark, time to go in.

The next day, Wednesday, it rained until about 7 in the evening (when we got home!). Susan bravely soldiered on, driving us hither and yon, and we went to a number of places:

• County Cider,
• a house that had an honour system set up for buying maple syrup,
• Fifth Town Cheese
• Black River Cheese
• The Carriage House Cooperage
• and
• Highline Mushroom Farm.

More about them in future blog posts!

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