Food Day Canada Dinner

August 8, 2012$10 challenge, agriculture, beef, Blog, books, chef, cooking, cuisine, Dining, dinner, farm, farm fresh food, farmer, food, food obsessions, garlic, grilling, herbs, honey, local crops, local food, lynn ogryzlo, Maple Syrup, Ontario Farm Fresh, Ontario local food, seasonal food1 Comment

It’s a long weekend and it’s Food Day Canada. Just outside Sarnia in the small neighbourhood of Courtright, farmers bring their food for a Food Day Canada farm dinner. It becomes a different kind of menu, one that centres around the food, its origins and its preparation. There is as much time and attention spent on the raising of animals and the butchered meat; the planting, nurturing and harvesting of produce, as there is time and attention paid to the preparation of the best food of the county into a delicious, memorable meal. The site is the Smith Homestead […]

The Trouble with Grocery Stores

July 29, 2012agriculture, bakery, Blog, cooking, cooking class, cuisine, dessert, dinner, food tour, lynn ogryzlo, Niagara, seasonal food, social media4 Comments

There is a reason why traditional grocery stores are always at the bottom of the list of places I shop. It was Sunday morning and armed with an eclectic list of ingredients for dinner I ventured out. My shopping had to centre around the bulk food store because I needed a tablespoon of a few different spices that I didn’t have in my cupboard. I was making veggie burgers and baked fries with humus for movie night with the family. I got what I needed from the bulk store and with only 3 ingredients left, I went into the […]

Radishes, fresh or roasted – yum!

July 24, 2012agriculture, Blog, cooking class, cuisine, culinary tourism, Dining, dinner, farm, farm fresh food, farmer, Farmers' Market, food, food obsessions, Foodland Ontario, garlic, gourmet food, grilling, local crops, local food, lynn ogryzlo, Niagara, Niagara Cooks, Niagara Culinary Trail, Niagara food, radishes, Recipes, seasonal food, social media4 Comments

Radishes have to be one of the most visually appealing vegetables piled high at farmers’ markets and when I see a mountainfull of multi-coloured radishes at the Atwater Market in Montreal, I just can’t resist. Not only am I addicted to the crunch and freshness of biting into a crisp radish, but the exciting part of being at a big city market is the huge volume of a good thing. There was a colossal pile of traditional red radishes next to an equally bountiful pile of sexy French radishes, you know the long ones with the white tips. Next […]

From Farm to Jar – what foodies learned

July 20, 2012Blog1 Comment

Maureen McSween of Quiet Acres Farm in Niagara-on-the-Lake couldn’t have planned a better day for a group of food writers and bloggers to visit her farm. The sun was soft, peaking from behind the light cloud cover ever so often while a cool breeze rustled the leaves of the orchard and kept us all cool and comfortable on a warm July day. Quiet Acres is a 300-acre tender fruit farm with a market stand on Lakeshore Road. For the market, they grow a variety of vegetables from peppers and eggplant to garlic and zucchini. From the vegetables Maureen offers […]

Yellow Plums, the lemon substitute

July 19, 2012agriculture, cooking, cuisine, dessert, farm, farm fresh food, farmer, food, food obsessions, gourmet food, local crops, local food, lynn ogryzlo, Niagara, Niagara Cooks, Niagara food, Niagara local food, Ontario local food, seasonal food, yellow plums4 Comments

I was sitting in the Glenlake Orchards farmhouse kitchen when owner Kevin Buis walked in with a basket full of yellow plums. “Make something good with them”, he said. So I took them home and put them on the counter. I had a pound cake in the refrigerator so I set out to make a sauce. I put a little bit of honey and chopped up yellow plums in a saucepan thinking they would caramelize, but they just got soft and the honey didn’t change the incredibly sour flavour so I added a bit of sugar – they still […]

Capturing Summer’s Sunshine

July 18, 2012farmer, food, food obsessions, local food, lynn ogryzloLeave a comment

My grandmothers cantina was most beautiful every fall. The room was approximately 10-feet by 10-feet and three walls were lined with short, narrow shelves, the perfect size for large canning jars. In the centre was a concrete wine press, the favoured cork screw kind of Italian home winemakers. The large cantina was in the basement of the house with a few small vents that let in the outside air covered with mesh that my grandfather replaced each year to keep out the rodents who were eager to feast on our delicious work. To feed a family of 13 over […]

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