Weekly Tips: March 13
For coffee lovers or those traveling to Italy, there is a good review of different Italian coffees, some of which are available in Toronto, on YouTube by Vincenzo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDDzb7wmu6o.
Also worth your time is an enjoyable book review on food in the latest Atlantic Monthly. The article reviews three books written by women which focus on the evils of Big Food and what it is doing to all of us. It presents the case that mothers are our first and most important food influencers and that there is a culture shift going on. Click here to read it.
After a few days of spring-like weather, Chef Loseto returned from the Ontario Food Terminal full of hope that the new season will be upon us soon.
Signs of spring included newly arrived wild morels from Oregon and wild onions, as well as miner's lettuce and stinging nettles from BC. He was pleased to see the stinging nettles but passed on them, as when you finally cook them, they disappointingly have little taste.
An exciting European arrival this year, for the first time in a few years, were blood oranges from Spain. These European varieties are so much better than the rather bland California blood oranges. Apart from their wonderful bittersweet taste at breakfast in the morning, they are unusually good when accompanied by rum in the late afternoon.
Other imports available that Chef bought and recommends are kiwis from Greece and persimmons from Israel. Look out for white sweet potatoes from Florida. Chef is using them to make French fries. These hold up well during cooking and are not mushy. To help with this, Chef adds a bit of light batter (tempura) to the recipe. We recommend you try them at GEORGE.
For fish, Chef has procured wild mid-Atlantic bass, which is now in season for about 8 weeks and worth trying. It is pan roasted with broccolini and polenta. Tuna is now hard to find, but Nova Scotia swordfish has arrived. Chef is still buying delicious turbot from Nunavut.
Chef is replacing venison on the GEORGE menu with Ontario lamb loin dishes. He buys the entire saddle of lamb, which includes lamb bacon that he will be using and is currently working on recipes for. A new beef tenderloin recipe is also promising. Chef sears the outside so it is rare inside, then shaves it so it looks like a beef carpaccio.
For dessert, Chef offers a noteworthy vanilla cheesecake with a sponge toffee wrap and pistachio crumble.
The Italian Dinner was very successful earlier this month and Chef will be repeating it on March 28. You can make a reservation here.
To celebrate the impending arrival of spring, GEORGE is launching the GEORGE 3 Course Experience. At dinner for $85 pp, the menu features Chicken Breast, Rapini, Béarnaise or Halibut, Potato Rosti, Cipollini Tempura as the main course. At lunch for $55, the menu features Lamb, Carrot Puree, Artichokes or Salmon, Thai Curry, Lentils as the main course.