We accosted a handful of our guests at random and asked them to share some of the most unforgettable food experiences of their lifetime, as well as the experiences they dream of having in the future. Think of it as practice for submitting ideas online.

Name: Jason Parsons

 Occupation: Executive Chef at Peller Estates Winery

 Why are you here?: To make Ice Wine Cotton Candy for the guests!

 What is one of your most poignant food memories?:  As a chef, you have two: one when you’re eating and one when you’re cooking. The one when I was eating was when I dined at Gordon Ramsay’s house. It wasn’t a meal of interesting or unusual combinations, it was just simple food done perfectly; the experience had an effect on how I cook myself.

I’ve cooked for the King of Sweden, I’ve cooked for our prime minister, but the memory of cooking for someone that stands out for me the most is when I had a chance to cook for my mentor’s mentor. He enjoyed what I made, which of course made me feel good, because I had made my mentor feel proud by impressing his mentor.

What’s one of your dream food experiences?: It really is all about bacon: I would bathe in the stuff! More seriously though, my dream food experience is about eating any ingredient in its prime: that first bite of asparagus each spring, or that first bite of fresh strawberry. When winter comes, you forget about it, and then biting into these foods come spring is like tasting them for the first time. So, yes, I’d have to say experiencing fresh food in season is my dream food experience.

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Name: Cheryl Carter

Occupation: Senior Business Development Manager, Barbados Tourism Authority

Why are you here?: Carmen Correia! Carmen has been supplying us with chefs for the Food & Wine & Rum Festival in Barbados through her company, the Chef Network Inc, for a few years now.We wanted to come check out this new project of hers.

What’s your most poignant food memory?: The garlic pork from Barbados, where I grew up. I have been away for 9 years, but will never forget the garlic pork I ate in my country as a child; they make it using lime and ginger and a whole bunch of other good things there.

What is your dream food experience?: Garlic pork! I love it so much and it reminds me of home, so to have it made well here would be a big comfort.

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Name: Clay

Occupation: Professional Student

Why are you here?: To support my girlfriend, who works for Feast On It!

What’s your most poignant food memory?: That scallop I ate five minutes ago; it was like a knife in my heart it tasted so good!

What’s your dream food experience?: To attend a multi-course dinner set to live music. I think it would be interesting to have musicians tailor their sets to each course of the meal throughout the evening; they would play something, for example, that matched perfectly to that crème brulée you were eating. I also think the opposite would be interesting, to have a chef create a multi-course meal based on the songs various musicians were going to play throughout the evening.

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Name: Rita DeMontis

Occupation: National Food Editor/Toronto Sun Lifestyle Editor

Why are you here? I was invited as part of the media and I think this is an amazing experience: it’s like a flash mob food scene. I think Toronto has the hottest food scene in North America and this is part of it.

What’s your most poignant food memory?: My mother making papassino cookies in Sardegna; I remember the kitchen always being warm and feeling like my mother was at peace there. When she was in her kitchen, she was creating.

What’s your dream food experience?: A feast in a supermarket. Take a bunch of foodies into an ordinary supermarket, have them go bring their favourite ingredients over and then we’ll cook a big feast.

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 Name: Denae Peters

Occupation: Event Planner

Why are you here?: Feast On It! is an awesome idea, and I want to support it.

What’s your most poignant food memory?: Eating in a random restaurant in Milan with twelve old Italian men, none of whom spoke English. My Italian roommate brought me to the place – apparently it’s only old men eating there all day long.

What’s your dream food experience?: A tour of Italy with someone like Mario Batali or Jamie Oliver.

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Name: Elliot

Occupation: Food Entrepreneur

Why are you here?: Feast On It! is a unique idea that the city is missing; I dig it.

What’s your most poignant food memory?: Being a kid at my grandmother’s house in Argentina and watching her make empanadas – and then eating them, of course.

What’s your dream food experience?: To influence how people eat. I am on the food production side, so I would like to change how people eat, I’m just not sure how exactly yet.

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Names: Lindsey & Jason

Occupations: Lindsey works in PR. Jason works for Queen Mary Gourmet Foods

Why are you here?: To check the whole Feast On It! concept out.

What’s your most poignant food memory?:

Jason: I used to work as a chef in Iceland and while I was there I tried putrefied shark, which is considered a delicacy there. It was absolutely disgusting – I’ll never forget the taste.

Lindsey: I was travelling in Southeast Asia and I had never had Wasabi before. I was in a restaurant and I ordered chicken fingers, and they were served with a side of Wasabi. I had no idea what it was so I dipped an entire chicken finger in the bowl of it; it practically burnt my face off.

What’s your dream food experience?:

Jason: To go to some shady restaurant with Anthony Bourdain.

Lindsey: I love sampling lots of different stuff, so I think it would be cool to have a feast where you sample a bunch of different authentic types of cuisine…on a beach somewhere.

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Name: Alex Boake

Occupation: Illustrator & Comic Artist

Why are you here?: I write and illustrate a monthly column for Feast On It!

What’s your most poignant food memory?: My mom’s apple pie. I don’t eat grains anymore, so I can no longer indulge in it. I need to come up with a grain-free adaptation of her recipe.

What’s your dream food experience?: I once ate duck in a can at Montreal’s Au Pied de Cochon. It was the best thing I’ve ever tasted. The waiter simply comes over, opens the can and plops the contents down on your plate. My dream experience would simply be to eat that there again, or have them and the duck in the can come to me.

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 Name: Donna Li

Occupation: Entrepreneur

Why are you here?: I’m someone who wants to know how the food community in Toronto really operates. I also like to be around other people who are interested in food.

What’s your most poignant food memory?: The first time I tasted Macaroons. I saw them in a magazine before I’d ever tried them and couldn’t understand why everyone loved them so much – they looked like coloured hamburgers to me. But when I tried them, I finally understood why everyone was crazy about them; I love the texture and the Earl Gray tea flavoured ones are my favourite.

What’s your dream food experience:? I would like to learn how to make macaroons from a real expert. Let’s have fun with it – why not stuff them with other ingredients, for example?

 To submit your own ideas for dream food experiences, or see ideas others have submitted, go to our community page. You can also go here to buy tickets for the unique events we already have in the works.

Unraveled Ice Wine Cotton Candy Floss, courtesy of Jason Parsons.

Fed on Ox Heart Philly Cheesesteaks from The Feasting Room.

Savoured Gorditas with Sautéed Huitlacoche from Pachuco.

Performed Acadian Sturgeon Caviar Wrist Shots.

Sampled Salmon Crudo on Black Risotto with Wasabi Corn Purée and Bomba Chili Sauce from Alimento.

Lined up outside for Balinese Chicken Tacos from Gourmet Bitches.

Tilted down oysters from Diana’s Seafood.

And we drank….

And drank some more. (Sazerac’s cocktails are just a little too drinkable.)

But the best part was this:

Our guests sharing their food dreams. We want to make these happen, so please submit ideas to us online, browse others & vote.

Thank you for bringing your imaginations to our party.

“There’s always a line for tacos,” I tell him.

This is actually the first time I’ve ever lined up for tacos, though I made sure to get to this event early – 11:50 for a noon start – and waited a very doable 7 minutes (I didn’t actually have to get in any line till 12 sharp.) The last person standing in line at 12:07 is at the edge of Queen street, two long storefronts away from Snack Bar’s 181 Bathurst street location. Nevertheless, this is probably the shortest taco line Toronto has ever seen.

Why are we all here? Well, it’s The Grid’s birthday, don’t ya know? One year old and celebrating with a week-long series of $5 pop-up lunches, all served at 416 Snack Bar but all prepared by chefs from various restaurants. The dishes served represent some of The Grid’s favourite meals of the year, and include a SmartWater in the price, with $1 of all sales going to a community improvement project.

This crab taco – prepared by Cory Vitiello of The Harbord room -  is crazily delicious. It is breaded fried crab with cilantro, sour ceam, guac and some salsa-y looking sauce on a soft corn tortilla. This is the best lunch I’ve had since Banh Mi Boys last week (I’m lucky, I have a lot of good lunches at this job.)

Here’s a list of the rest of the dishes – and the restaurants that will prepare them – for the coming week:

Friday May 11th: Taiwanese Steamed Pork, Fish & Veggie buns, prepared by 416 Snack Bar.

Saturday May 12th: House-made Hot Dogs, prepared by The Stockyards.

Monday May 14th: Slow-smoked Beef Short Ribs with sweet barbeque glaze, prepared by Barque Smokehouse.

Tuesday May 15th: Pulled-pork Sandwiches with barbeque sauce, chipotle mayo and caramelized onions, prepared by Black Camel.

Wednesday May 16th: Fried Pork Belly with pickled shimeji mushrooms, nori paste and puffed rice, prepared by The Black Hoof.

Anyway, any residual negative feeling I had from the beginning of the day slowly ebbed away as I began to actually get some of that ridiculously good Cinco De Mayo-inspired food into my system (which took a while, of course, with all the lines). With over 30 food vendors and a whole slew of wineries, there was a culinary fantasy for everyone. Plus, there were a lot of hunky guys (some playing music) and tequila cocktails, which definitely helped with the good karma.

So, I leave you with my top 3 dishes of the night, in no particular order.

1 - La Carnita’s Crispy Squid Taco. Perfectly cooked squid with a deliciously crisp batter and an amazing sauce with quite a bit of kick to it. Yum. Just thinking about it has me drooling again. La Carnita has proven time and time again just how worth the hour and a half line up it is.

2 - Rock Lobster Food Co’s Lobster Roll. Perhaps it’s my East Coast relations that have instilled a love for lobster in me, but if you say lobster anything, I guarantee you I’ll want to try it. Rock Lobster did not disappoint with their lobster roll. A perfectly buttered grilled bun (yeah butter!) with a generous heaping of lobster – I was in love. I was not as fond of their Lobster Poutine however, which I found to be totally average. Not enough gravy or lobster.

3 – Comida Del Pueblo’s  Cornbread Grilled Cheese. A decidedly amazing sandwich that was exactly what I needed. Perfectly crispy on the outside, this was cornbread with cheese smothered in the middle and a dollop of guacamole on top. Gosh. I’m going to have to try to remake this sandwich. Or go all fan girl and follow them to every single event they’re at.

And while I didn’t actually eat this at the #SFBP (I was way too full), I brought some of Dough TO’s doughnuts home with me for the next day. The Margarita Doughnut was to die for; lime-y cream filling with just a hint of saltiness on the glaze; this is what doughnuts are supposed to be!

I just realized I basically ate a week’s worth of calories in two days. Salads and water for the rest of the week. Sigh*

When we got to Willcocks Commons, there was a line up of about 7 trucks that included: El Gastronomo, Portobello Burger, Gorilla Cheese, Blue Donkey, Smoke’s Poutinerie, Beaver Tails and Tiny Tom.

In the end, Katherine decided on the Spanish Inquisition Salad ($6.50) from El Gastronomo and I got the Gorilla Sarducci ($7.50) from Gorilla Cheese.

Both were amazingly good. Katherine could not stop exclaiming her love for the salad, which consisted of Israeli couscous, Spanish chorizo, tzatziki, cubanelle peppers, roast corn and smoked paprika. She also got the ice tea ($2.50), despite the cold, and enjoyed it immensely; the homemade brew consisted of a blend of rooibos, lemon peel, lemongrass, pineapple, coconut, cinnamon and cloves.

The Sarducci – which was a mozzarella, tomatoes, red onion, fresh basil and balsamic glaze sandwich on multigrain bread – was amazingly delicious. I am a self-proclaimed connoisseur of grilled cheese sandwiches, and this one was fantastically good. The fillings blended well and the sandwich itself was grilled perfectly.

If this is the calibre of food that mobile kitchens can provide, I’m definitely campaigning for a better food truck scene in Toronto.

I went to Vancouver and I was a good foodie.

I ate lots of sushi, including a roll called Pirates of the Caribbean (it was made with kiwi and lemon zest and was incredible). I ate ginger Crème Brulée (holy crap, that was good.) I had a wild samon salad with cashews, dried cranberries and mixed greens (accompanied by a delicious R&B Raven Cream ale.)

My biggest foodie activity, however, was visiting the Granville Island Public Market. The market is housed in an old factory on Granville Island, which isn’t actually an island but a piece of land under a bridge that juts out from the mainland. A former industrial site, the area’s old factories have been converted into bakeries, restaurants and various artisan shops. The biggest of those factories is home to the market.

Going to the market on an empty stomach is dangerous: the diversity of the food here is overwhelming. It is like the St. Lawrence market but with more variety, more places to sit and eat, and more shops whose aim is to actually serve you lunch.

Siegel’s Bagels was our first stop simply because it was the first thing we walked past that we couldn’t resist. Siegel’s makes Montreal-style bagels in a woodfire oven. They also stuff such bagels full of things like spinach, feta, cream cheese or Montreal-smoked meat. We went with the smoked meat, which was basically like a Montreal smoked-meat sandwich inside a bagel. It look like a normal—albeit massive—bagel from the outside, but was packed with meaty and mustardy goodness on the inside.

“It’s all the fat that makes it so good,” my partner explained. Indeed.

Our next significant culinary experience was cheese. We stumbled upon a cheese vendor that specialized in raw varieties exclusively, something I’ve never encountered in Ontario. We ended up buying a raw cheese from Quebec that tops my list of best cheese I’ve eaten all year.

The fruit at Granville is also worth mentioning; there were rows upon rows of fruit throughout the market, including some I had never heard of. Discovering new fruit excites the bejesus out of me, which was why I was delighted to stumble upon goldenberries. If you’ve never heard of goldenberries, I’ll start by telling you that they look exactly exactly as their name suggests. We found them in cartons amongst the strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. At 9.99/lb, they were out of our price range, but we both gave the vendor 25 cents each to sample a berry. They tasted like a forest berry meets a cherry tomato.

Last but not least was the Okanagan Valley Sweet Ambrosia apple; this wins the prize for biggest apple I’ve ever eaten in my entire life. If I had to kill someone with fruit, I would choose this apple to do so. Indeed, B.C. apples seemed generally bigger, which I’m assuming has something to do with the mild climate.

If you love food and are planning a visit to Vancouver soon, make sure you get to the Granville Island Public Market. We saw everything there from vegan chocolate chews to fish to gigantic hamburgers. This really is an adventure in food.

Has anyone else been to Granville Island Public Market? If so, what would you recommend people buy/sample/eat?

Many of the food events I’ve been to in the past have been disappointing, with a few bright spots. TUM however, was amazing all the way through, despite there being an extreme cold warning and some very LONG line-ups. We waited, for example, for almost an hour and a half in the La Carnita line. In the freezing cold.

My friends and I decided to take a divide and conquer approach to our dining experience. At least one person would be in the La Carnita line (which was the longest by far), while the others would go find other interesting tidbits to snack on, then bring them back to share. This system worked remarkably well. While waiting for our Voltron fish tacos and Steak tartar tostada, we got to sample a wide array of fantastic foods.

There are a couple of things I sampled that really stuck out to me. The PB&J pie from Cashew & Coco was one of my favourites of the night. The warm blueberry jam (with whole blueberries!), peanut butter, and graham crust really hit the spot after standing in the cold.

Fidel Gastro’s Havana Club was also really good. It would have been amazingly good if it were warm (which might be a biased opinion because I was so cold my hands were shaking) but even on the slightly chilly side, I enjoyed that sandwich far too much.

The Bombolinies were equally impressive. This is one of the last things I tried at TUM. I was almost too full to eat anything, but I’m glad I tried these. Deep fried dough rolled in cinnamon sugar with a drizzling of jam on top, these dough balls were light and sugarlicious. The jam drizzle upped the ante and made this dessert phenomenal, even as full as I was.

And last, but not least, were the tacos from La Carnita. Even though the servers were freezing (our server’s hands were shaking violently as she passed me my tostada,) they were super friendly.  I had the steak tartar tostada and fell in love. The shell was crisp and the steak was sublime. Definitely worth the wait!

Overall, I think that TUM is definitely a food adventure that everyone should try at least once. The Evergreen Brick Works provided the perfect back drop for the food vendors, and while the food was amazing, the atmosphere created by the people there was what really made the event so enjoyable. Everyone there was friendly and glad to be there despite the extreme cold warning, as well as respectful and patient while waiting in line; there were no cranky people shoving elbows in your stomach trying to get ahead.

It wasn’t until I got home that I realized I hadn’t taken a single photo of anyone there, only the food. I guess, when it comes to good food, I have tunnel vision.

It’s 6:50 pm on a Sunday night and I am looking for a guy on a wine barrel. Charlie has instructed me to do this via the email invite to his Chateaubriand dinner.

I end up finding not one but two men on a wine barrel at the corner of Avenue and Davenport. I am then led to the secret dinner location (L’Unità, an Italian restaurant just down the street,) have my coat and ‘donation’ taken, and am immediately handed a cocktail.

Thank you!

It’s a Boulevardier with a twist: bourbon, campari, cinzano and orange zest. I forget what the twist is, even though one of the ‘servers,’ who, at a Charlie’s Burgers dinner is never just a server, overhears my companion and I talking about it, comes over to explain it to us in detail, then asks if we can taste the bourbon. I confess that I can’t; I only taste the campari and an additional sweetness.

This is one of the elements that makes a CB dinner so special: you feel respected and included by everyone from Franco, aka Charlie, to the sommelier. Franco, an experiential marketing director by day and foodie by night, dashes from table to table to explain each course to everyone before they consume it. He and the other servers, who are actually all industry insiders involved in organizing the events, regularly visit to ask what you think about the food.

They make you feel like they truly care about what you have to say.

This, it seems, is what everyone here wants; it definitely pleases our dinner companions—a banker and a buyer we ended up with as dinner companions simply by choosing random seats at a random table. (That’s how it works at a CB dinner.)

Charlie and Co. have been running secret, underground dinners with various themes (insects, beer) at various locations (an art gallery, a public wine storage facility,) since 2009. The first event had 18 people. This one has at least 40. In other words, the idea has taken off. To get an invite, you need to go to the Charlie’s Burgers website and enter your email address. You will then be sent a questionnaire. After that, you may or may not be invited to attend, with the understanding you will pay the significant donation (this particular dinner costs $225 each.)

The people here all look semi-famous, like maybe I’ve seen them somewhere before. Caplansky of Caplansky’s is sitting at the table across from us. I am doubtful when I first arrive and see that Caplansky is flanked on one side by an oversized and very orange Italian man and his girlfriend, and by a very demure-looking middle-aged couple on the other, that we are all going to get along.

But we do. We fall in love with each other over food and drink. What do you think of the deer tartare? What do you think the crunch in it is? I really like this (seventh glass of) wine—it smells like chocolate!

A handful of amuse bouche starts the feasting off:

1. Fresh Pecorino with trout roe and kumquat. The roe—and the kumquat—are orange-yellow, bright flavour bursting off the creamy cheese.

2. Gnocchi that is sweeter and denser than usual, and covered in brown butter and sage. Franco tells us it is made with a special type of potato.  This is one of my favourite dishes of the night.

3. Deer tartare with quail egg. Mustard seed expanded in vinegar explodes delightfully in our mouths with each bite.

4. Greens: cow parsnip, verdure, mustard leaves. What is that powder they are covered in? We are too busy consuming this deliciousness to ask.

During the amuse bouche they come around with CB champagne and fill and fill our glasses. The man pouring our champagne is wearing a French suit jacket, a bowtie and army cargo pants. His mustache is waxed and curled upwards as if he were a Lion Ringmaster.

He is handsome. Indeed, I have never seen so many good-looking men in one room. I note that all but one of our servers is male, while the two executive chefs for the evening are female. The chefs, Agata Felugga et Delphine Zampetti, are from Chateaubriand, which, according to the memo sent to guests about the night, is the top-rated restaurant in France. The chefs, however, explain in a little speech they give before the meal that they are not exactly representing Chateaubriand: “the food this evening,” they say, “is very us.”

And how thrilling and beautiful “us” is.

The first real course is turnip of various colours—gold, rose—carved into gorgeous shapes, accompanied by smoked whitefish and surrounded by lemongrass bouillon. I have trouble with all the bitter parsnip, but the bouillon is fragrant and lovely.

Here, also, is the first glass of white wine.

The next course is lake trout with a tiny strip of pancetta, a scattering of brussel sprouts and some dried rose petals. My favourite element of this course is the wine paired with it, a white, of which the lion ringmaster/sommelier says: “The first thing I think when I smell this wine is grilled pineapple.”

Me too. Our tablemates order a whole case of it from our server. Cost: $500 bucks. Just like that. Who are these people?

Here’s the partridge. So ridiculously tender and flavourful. Shit. How many drinks in am I? Six. We are all quite ecstatic about this course. Our first red is poured.

Everyone is drunk. Caplansky and the bronzed Italian are best friends.

And finally, what I have been waiting for: the cheese course, which the menu for this event said had been “awaiting telegram confirmation.” I guess if you are going to communicate with the French about cheese, it has to be via telegram.

I do not recall the details of the two selected cheeses, as drunk as I was, but I do know that one was goat and absolutely blew my mind. One of our companions, the banker, felt the choice of cheeses was “too safe.” “These are cheeses everyone would like,” he proclaims. I suddenly feel guilty that I like them so much.

Last but not least, we get to the dessert course, during which I have an “oh my god” moment. If I was at all skeptical before that food was truly an artistic practice, I am no longer. At this CB meal, eating dessert is akin to participating in a conceptual art project.

The sorbet is made of lemongrass, sweet basil and chili pepper. When you first put it in your mouth, a cool sweetness hits you, then, as the buyer describes it, “the spicy finish kicks you in the ass.” Seriously exciting. The sorbet is paired with poached pear in a sweet beet jus, which is stunning to look at and delicately sweet. It is all topped off, of course, with some Hennessy, just to add some more fire to the mix.

I am intoxicated by it all: the deep red beet juice, the pale pear flesh, the golden brown of the cognac, the cool white kick of the sorbet.

Everyone is leaving. Our tablemates ask to meet the chef and our server obliges – no problem. I love this lack of kitchen/front of house divide.

Upon leaving, it is Franco who takes my coat ticket and runs to get it for me.

“Franco,” I ask, “how did you get so many handsome men into one room?”

“These are all my friends!” he exclaims, then, turning to one such friend, he points at me, “She just called you handsome!”

Handsome, talented, whatever: these guys have something really, really good going on.

 “My hearse will be followed not by mourning coaches but by herds of oxen, sheep, swine, flocks of poultry and a small traveling aquarium of live fish, all wearing white scarves in honour of the man who perished rather than eat his fellow creatures.”

 ~ George Bernard Shaw 

The George Bernard Shaw Vegetarian Cookbook is the oddest cookbook I have ever encountered. Written by RJ Minney and Alice Laden (the former was the famous playwright’s personal cook,) this book is packed with the curious and sometimes frightening vegetarian dishes that pleased Shaw, alongside frightening sketches featuring men eating carrots or crawling on the floor with spoons.

Shaw became a vegetarian at 25, and although he claimed it was the Percy Bysshe Shelley poem “The Revolt of Islam” that prompted him to stop eating meat, it is more likely he actually made the switch—at least initially—due to poverty. While in London living on a fixed income before his fame, Shaw discovered that eating lunch at small restaurants offering only vegetarian dishes was much more affordable. Whatever the stimulus, Shaw decided to continue his vegetarian ways on ethical and health grounds, declaring things like “no one should live on dead things” and “meat is poison to the system.”

Ironically, Shaw’s meals are often far from healthy; to Shaw, vegetarianism pretty much meant cheese, butter, cheese and more butter. Having flipped through Shaw’s cookbook periodically since my roommate found it in a pile of free books in front of a quaint house on Ward’s Island last summer, I was dying to try some of the unique recipes in the playwright’s repertoire. Upon reading that Shaw served up some of these recipes to the literary and political elite of his day over hours-long lunches, I decided it would be entirely appropriate to throw my own George Bernard Shaw lunch party.

The Menu:

First Course: Cucumber Paprika Salad

Main Course: Cheese Fritters

Dessert: Marshmallow Ice

I chose my menu carefully. If I had wanted to be cruel to my lunch guests, I could have served the Egg Mold Salad (eggs, tomato and mayonnaise in a gelatin mold,) Nut Cutlets (brazil nuts and coconut wrapped in bread crumbs,) and the Apricot Mold.

Making the cucumber paprika salad was a cinch; it was basically a question of slicing and mixing. You have to love when a recipe tells you to add sugar to your yogurt, which is exactly what this one did (Shaw apparently added sugar or honey to everything, and even ate sugar cubes as a snack.) I opted to swap the parsley for dill in this recipe, and noted that the paprika you’re asked to sprinkle on top does nothing but add a little bit of colour to the salad. My lunch guests were all relatively pleased with this dish, as was I: it was light and refreshing and tasty, although I did feel the amount of yogurt was a little overwhelming.

The cheese fritters were far more fascinating to make and eat. The recipe begins “Sprinkle flour with a pinch each of salt and pepper and sift.” While I personally like the lack of what I feel is obvious information, that is, that you have to put the flour in a bowl before you do this, I worry that newbie cooks might not know where their flour is supposed to be. Similarly, later, after you have mixed the flour and egg and cheese, the book tells you to let the mixture rest for an hour, but it doesn’t say where. I figured, considering the raw egg, that the fridge would be a good idea. A few other surprising things: 1. Although this recipe is called cheese fritters, it contains barely any cheese. (It’s mostly flour and oil.) 2. The recipe tells you to heat the oil to fry the fritters in “until just smoking.” Um, I’ve never heard such an instruction, indeed, I’m pretty sure you should try to avoid making your oil smoke at all costs. Anyway, apart from all that, this recipe is pretty damn magical. The liquid mixture—which looks like it isn’t friable in the least—turns into alien-shaped blobs as soon as you pour the tablespoons of liquid into the hot oil. They float around in there like funny shaped critters and quickly turn into solid, golden-shaped crunchy things.

I served the cheese fritters with sour cream and hot sauce, which, in all of the lunch party’s opinion, were essential to their enjoyment. While they were not very cheesy, they were good and rather addictive, but more like potato chips. If I were to make these again, I’d add onions and red peppers, or maybe some dill, extra cheese or chili pepper. And I certainly wouldn’t treat them as a main course, which is how they are listed in Shaw’s cookbook. I can’t imagine serving up a plate of these for a dinner main, unless it was as part of some kind of elaborate joke.

And finally, for dessert: marshmallow ice. I took ridiculous pleasure out of cooking with marshmallows. Outside of campfires and rice krispie squares, I rarely encounter these little dudes. Shaw’s marshmallow ice is all cream and milk and melted marshmallow. If I were to make this again I would buy mini marshmallows instead of spending my time cutting up big ones with scissors as instructed. Once again: instructions were vague: you are told to heat the milk and plop in the marshmallows in a pot, but not at what temperature. I did medium low. Curiously, you then pour the mixture into ice cube trays and freeze. It was odd serving ice cube-shaped dessert. Why not freeze it in a different form? Were ice cube trays different back in George’s day? While I served some of them as actual cubes, I also mashed some up into a much more pleasing-looking dessert. The consensus of my lunch guests was that this dessert pretty much tasted like a crappy vanilla ice cream (it does have some vanilla in it,) with a hint of marshmallow flavour.

Conclusion: this lunch was a fascinating foray into vegetarianism of a different era; Shaw lived around the turn of the 20^th century, when quinoa and tofu were unheard of. Seeing and tasting how he coped with vegetarianism in a less vegetarian-friendly environment made me incredibly thankful for the increase in awareness and options these days. The introduction to the book outlines how Laden had to drive for miles on end to find the vegetables Shaw required for his meals, how training to be a vegetarian cook was rare, and how dinner guests often expected a separate meat-based meal when dining with Shaw.

I hope a few sheep, decked out in their tiny white scarves, did follow Shaw’s funeral coach—maybe he deserved it.

Meet Danielle, Creative Director

What is the most disturbing thing you’ve ever eaten?

I was in Mexico a couple years ago with a group of people doing some volunteer work. We were helping the host family with some stuff they needed done around their property. As we were working, they came out with some refreshments and treats for us. We gathered around what looked like a plate of grilled pork and asked them what it was; they wouldn’t tell us. After most of us tried it and deemed it delicious, they confessed that it was DOG MEAT!

That is definitely the most psychologically disturbing thing I’ve ever eaten. Bleh.

Meet Alison, Marketing and Communications Manager

What is the oddest food experience you’ve ever had?

The oddest, and arguably worst, food experience I can remember took place in Quebec City over a decade ago. I was a kid on a week-long trip with my grade school. On one of the travel days our tour guide organized a lunch at a restaurant themed on Lower Canada dining during the fur trade era. One of the featured dishes was a plate of orange scrambled eggs. Yes, orange.

Why were the eggs this colour? The kitchen staff mixed scrambled egg powder with orange juice. The result was lumpy chunks of egg soaking in a juice sauce. It looked as gross as it sounds and tasted even worse. It was almost like a caterpillar crawled into my mouth and then died. I’m not sure how authentic this dish was to the dining habits of the time, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend trying this. Ever.

Meet Denae, Program and Events Director

What is your ultimate food adventure?

There are few things I love more than travel and great food, so my ultimate food adventure would require several days and a passport! I would love to return to places where I’ve had incredible food experiences, such as tapas in the bustling La Boqueria market in Barcelona, a wine and cheese tasting in a wine cellar beneath the Louvre in Paris or eating a tiramisu-stuffed brioche while walking the streets of Milan. But there are also so many other experiences that I am dying to have, like an early morning at the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo (the largest in the world!), street food in Mumbai or an obscenely large steak in Buenos Aires. If I could somehow hit all of these places in the span of a week, then that would certainly be my ultimate food adventure.

Meet Katherine, Community and Content Director

What is your current food obsession?

The salty caramel budino at Il Campagnolo. I honestly can’t get enough of it. I’ve had it three times (and, well, I’ve only ever been to Il Campagnolo three times.) Salty-sweet really gets to me when it’s done well, and Il Campagnolo does it to perfection; the texture of the caramel is impeccable and the little dish is served with salty cookie chunks. I keep telling myself I need to order a different dessert each time I’m there, but I am finding it impossible. Please forgive me, other desserts; I promise to sample you soon.

Meet Kenn, Co-Founder

What is your earliest childhood memory involving food?

Whenever we had a family gathering when I was a child, it would revolve around food.

One of the dishes I have fondest memories of is the braised pork belly my mom would cook. It’s a simple dish made with garlic, whole white peppercorns and sweet soy sauce, which creates a distinct caramelized flavour and aroma.

This was probably the catalyst for me to learn more about food, which began with me joining my mom in the kitchen to watch her cook.

Meet Louis, Member of the Board of Directors, Business Advisor

Are they any foods that frighten you, or that you refuse to eat? If so, why?

In Peru, you will not find Guinea pigs in pet stores – they are sold in the market instead, as a meat—a delicacy really. I had guinea pig during a visit to Lima a few years ago when attending a special dinner; the host would not tell us what it was until after we had eaten it. It tasted great, but I don’t think I’ll try it again, because I loved my first pet from childhood, a Guinea pig.