It’s early still, but I’m thinking of dubbing this the year of the olive (for me, anyway). Although truth be told, I think the Everyman has unofficially gone ahead and done it for me already.
My hunt for those elusive Cerignolas last week led me to The Spice Trader, but only after I’d already picked up an overpriced jar of Lucques olives (that barely resembled them) while I was out procuring supplies for New Years Eve dinner at the Leslieville Cheese Market; this was prior to Carlo Catallo contacting me with their name.
Once I arrived home and received his reply, I began a) kicking myself for not using my iPhone as nature intended (to check email while away and thus circumventing this problem) and b) wracking my brain for possible sellers of the Cerignola olive that would be open on the day before New Years Eve. Terroni and The Olive Pit (sister store of The Spice Trader) immediately sprang to mind, both of which auspiciously happened to be in my neighbourhood…
Heading back out into the cold, I wandered down the street to The Spice Trader, half convincing myself that in my sickly state I should just turn around and go back the next morning, but for whatever inane reason I pressed on. It was a good thing I did, too, because once I got there I found a holiday hours sign pasted to the door advising me that the 30th was the last day they were open until the new year. Fortuitously, they also happened to be having a 25% off sale.
Of course, once I got inside I couldn’t help browsing to see what was new and interesting in herbs and spices. In the basement of The Olive Pit, I found my precious Cerignolas, plus an intriguing bottle of pear vinegar that I decided to bring home.
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Tags: Books, Carlo Catallo, Jeffery Alford, Leslieville Cheese Market, Mangoes And Curry Leaves, Naomi Duguid, New Projects, Purveyors, Restaurants, Splendido, Terroni, The Olive Pit, The Spice Trader, Victor Barry
Posted in Books, New Projects, Purveyors, Restaurants | 1 Comment »
Over the weekend, the Everyman and I visited the annual Gourmet Food & Wine Expo here in Toronto.
This year I was fortunate enough to have free admission courtesy of my editor Sheryl, so all that stood between us and deliciousness were those pesky strips of sample tickets.
And even though every year we leave the Expo lamenting how there is way more booze than food, every year without fail we also go in with many more sample tickets than we’ll possibly need. This year, we went in with 100 tickets between the 2 of us, which I could tell was probably too much, but we were both looking forward to hitting up the fancy wine room and trying a few expensive wines like we did last year.
I’d also wanted to see Grant’s presentation on the Food Network Stage which happened to be the first of the day, so we ended up getting there just as the show opened. The unfortunate thing about arriving so early is that most booths aren’t quite ready for service yet, and since we’d decided not to have breakfast beforehand, we were absolutely famished and starving for options.
In order to push back the lightheadedness, we stopped at the first booth that was open, which in this case happened to be Sassafraz. The Everyman helped himself to a pulled meat mini sandwich, while I grabbed what they were hyping as the world’s best brownie. The sandwich was decently textured, but super bland without a generous helping of the various condiments that were available. The brownie was tasty too, but much too sweet to be considered the best of the best.
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Tags: absinthe, Acqua, Canyon Creek Chophouse, Casa Noble, cassis, Eight Wine Bar, Embrujo Flamenco, Essence Of Niagara, Fully Loaded Tea, Gourmet Food And Wine Expo, Grant Van Gameren, jelly, LCBO, Lejay Cassis, Leslieville Cheese Market, Purveyors, Restaurants, Reviews, Sassafraz, Splendido, Taboo, tea, tequila, The Black Hoof, The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, vinegar, wine
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