If there is a better way to enjoy the fall harvest, point me in the right direction. Otherwise, the best place to head to is the Feast of Fields. While Don was busy with his crew at the dish pit, I was fortunate enough to attend with a media pass. As I was a first time attendee, I was not sure what to expect, but I did hope to see many happy faces and people passionate about food. After spending more than six hours there, Feast of Fields exceeded all my expectations and more! On this post, I?ll be discussing the food, while writing another entry about the crowd and Grow Up Organic. Also, more pictures of the event and the food will be included. This entry will be long enough!

However, before commenting on the food, I think it is very important to mention the tremendous work of the volunteers. Many arrived before 9 a.m. and stayed right to the very end. Without these hardworking people, this event would not exist. Hats off to all the volunteers!

Now, onto the food! With twenty-five farmer-chef teams to choose from, it was impossible to eat everything, but there were many standouts.

Ferme aux Saveurs des Monts/ Fairmount Château Montebello

Stuffed chicken
My favourite, and voted 2009?s winning farmer/chef food team, was from Ferme aux Saveurs des Monts with Fairmount Château Montebello at table #11. The chicken was stuffed with green Swiss chard, roasted pumpkin, cranberries, and pine nuts, topped with a gingery apple compote and a tuile of balsamic vinegar and sugar. The presentation was beautiful and the chicken was succulent.

Butterfly Sky Farm/Domus Café

Tomato crostini
Chef John Taylor?s (Domus Café) creation was a crowd pleaser. His brightly coloured cherry tomato crostini was a beauty. Grilled house-made bread topped with orange & yellow cherry tomatoes, basil, vinaigrette, fresh green shoots, and grated Canadian Romano cheese. Chef Taylor was kind enough to make mine cheese-free as cheese disagrees with me. The flavours were remarkable, especially the cherry tomatoes, sweet and stunningly fresh. I felt as though they were picked off the vines right there and placed on the bread. The freshness, colours, the presentation, and flavours were simply exquisite.

Bryson Farms/Epicuria

Heirloom carrot & beet salad and a panzanella salad
Another table featuring the best of the fall harvest was the team of Bryson Farms with Epicuria. Chef Tracey Black?s creation was an heirloom carrot and beet salad with grapefruit dressing and a panzanella salad with Art-Is-In croutons, maldon sea salt, lemon, and extra virgin olive oil. Unfortunately, I was unable to sample mine as Don, hungry from hours spent washing dishes, accidentally ate my share after eating his plate of food. However, according to him, it was fresh, crunchy, and harvest sweet. It is only in autumn when you can get this flavour. Paired with the citrus, the sugars from the beets had a competing brightness, not overpowering. This is high praise from Don as he generally dislikes pickled beets. For Don, Epicuria?s dishes were one of his favourites.

Ashton Glen Farms/Imperial Food & Beverage

Smoky braised beef on a taco
As I approached table #10, my mouth was watering. There in front of me were trays of smoky braised beef on a taco with red onion jam and horseradish cream. The flavours were simply amazing. The beef was smoky, savory, and incredibly tender. The red onion jam gave it a brightness and sweetness, while the horseradish cream gave a nice bite, just enough fat to carry the flavours. Also worth mentioning is that Ashton Glen Farms/Imperial Food Beverage were winners in the best booth/team category for presentation.

Wright Poultry & Beef/The Piggy Market

Delicious traditional cottage pie
Sometimes, classic comfort food can be elevated to a new level when high quality ingredients are used. Such was the case with Chef Dave Neil (The Piggy Market) and his take on the traditional cottage pie. Don and I often visit his store, buying sausages, roast chicken, goat cheese, and pretty much anything else Dave can convince Don to buy. I, on the other hand, always leave the store with a new bucket of Pascale?s Ice Cream. (If you were at the event, you would have seen the never-ending lineup for her famous ice cream!) Now, back to the pie? think well seasoned beef and fresh sweet peaches and cream corn kernels topped with buttery mashed potatoes. Are you drooling yet? I happily had at least two servings, and stole some more from Don?s plate when he wasn?t looking.

Mariposa Farms

Smoked goose breast terrine (left hand side, below the business card)
Mariposa Farms? creation of smoked goose breast terrine topped with sweet pickled yellow and red beet roots and garnished with chioggia beet chips (also known as candy cane beet root) was another favourite. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of mine before eating, but managed to take a quick snap of Don?s before he inhaled his. (The goose breast is under the orange business card of Dish ? I have no idea why Don stuck the card there). According to him, it was fatty, savory, and flavourful, everything that a goose should be!

During the two hours the food was being served, I managed to sample at least half of the fantastic dishes. This event is definitely appropriately named. For those who paid anywhere from $25 to $50, they could certainly eat their money?s worth. Meanwhile, the chefs and farmers were all cheerful, gracious, and very friendly, happily serving the public and answering all kinds of questions. Congratulations to all the farmer-chef teams on their fantastic work. I?ll be back next year!

Since I wasn't able to attend last year's Feast of Fields (2008), my better half and I vowed to make the best of the upcoming event (2009). Because I greatly support any event that celebrates what Dave Neil from the Piggy Market (400 Winston Ave.) calls "the delicious revolution", I chose to volunteer for the event. The "delicious revolution" is committed to support a local food system by getting to know farmers and encouraging the purchase of local and artisan products. Jenn and I even gave away a pair of tickets to Feast of Fields to raise visibility and encourage attendance. Because we have some great readers, Jenn bought a ticket to attend, take notes, take lots of pictures and write a mega-blog entry, which she plans on releasing in two parts.

She is currently working on her entry. We just finished sorting some of the drool-worthy pictures she took with our new camera. Neither one of us is experienced in using the Nikon D60, so the quality of the pictures may have been because of the amazing dishes we came across.

Tomato Crostini by Chef John Taylor of Domus

Top: Panzanella Salad w/Art-Is-In croutons, Bottom: Heirloom Carrot and Beet salad w/ Grapefruit Dressing by Chef Tracey Black of Epicuria
Then again, Jenn has a far better eye for composition than I do.

While she attended as "media" (Feast of Fields supports local food blogs), I had a different view of the event than the attendees. Like many outdoor festivals, Feast of Field's success can be attributed to an army of hard working volunteers and an organized volunteer coordinator. We had both.

Me, I was a volunteer team lead for the "dish pit" and my team of volunteers was tremendous. No matter the task, they organized themselves effectively, took roles, asked great questions, and quickly got to work stacking dishes, arranging mugs, rolling cutlery, and then collecting bussed dishware and washing them. They were even enthusiastic to go on a number of water runs with me to ensure that our make-shift kitchen could replenish the plastic wash tubs that became our sinks. We had well-oiled production lines, running quickly and effectively.

Of note, whoever said that high school students only volunteer to meet the provincial requirement of hours to graduate clearly didn't come across the three that worked for me. They were easily the hardest working. One, I had to ask Jenn to escort to the food tables and take her well deserved break.

As luck would have it, I also had a pair of professional dishwashers on board. One was a newly minted college student, who washes dishes at the Crazy Horse restaurant in Kanata. The other, a former dish washer who worked at Tucker's Market Place in the ByWard Market. Both had mad skills.

Now that I have heaped some praise on great volunteers, I probably should explain why there is a "dish pit." Since this year's Feast of Fields was also my first, I was surprised by how sincerely the event took sustainability to heart. It provided neither plastic nor paper cutlery or dishware. Organizers have a large stash of real dishware (dinner plates, dessert plates, and soup bowls), drink-ware (mugs), and metal cutlery (forks, knives, and spoons). Our dish detergent was also environmentally friendly, entirely biodegradable.

Dishware and Drink-Ware
Some of the plates came from collections that were released well before I was born. The cups and mugs were equally as varied, including some that advertised local radio stations long gone.

Unfortunately, we hadn't enough cutlery for all of the attendees, only able to roll approximately 300 full sets (spoon, fork, and knife) in napkins.

First wave of pre-purchased attendees
We ended up producing another 80 or so with just spoons and forks. They too disappeared quickly.

It was discovered that at least one crate of cutlery was left in storage. Happily, enough cutlery went out that, when people started asking for cutlery, we were able to start washing, rinsing, and drying used sets and sent them back out. Also, several of the chef and farm teams provided for the contingency. One, more than likely Thyme and Again, handed out sustainable bamboo forks. Epicuria handed out starch forks. Both helped.

Interestingly, as a certain food editor of a local newspaper pointed out, a number of attendees requested we rinse their plates before they headed back for seconds. Others, simply handed back their plates, sans cutlery, and picked up new ones. We accommodated both.

Two things that I would recommend for the festival next year:

1. Provide cold drinking water for volunteers.
2. Remind volunteers that they are entitled to eat from the concessions.

In my case, many members of my team were not aware that they could go eat with the other attendees during their break and food would no longer be served half way into the event. I staggered breaks and ensured that every one of them had an opportunity to try food from the event. I'll bet good money that very few of them had their better halves pick up dishes for them to try as I did. Jenn picked up a sampling for me, just in case I didn't find time to go in myself.

All-in-all, I found the event a wonderful experience and encourage everyone to attend.

My team eventually made me take my break, which allowed me the opportunity to meet some of the chefs and farm owners. Besides visiting some familiar faces, I also had the opportunity to meet Chefs John Taylor (Domus) and Chris Deraiche (Wellington Gastropub) who was apparently accompanied by his father and younger brother.

Speaking of familiar faces, here is what the Piggy Market served up:

Shepherd's Pie
Think freshly mashed new potatoes, insanely sweet peaches and cream corn kernels, and perfectly seasoned beef. After eating it, I understood how homely comfort food can be easily elevated by using quality fresh ingredients. In Dave Neil's case, skills honed at the Sweet Grass Bistro don't hurt either.

And here is Pascale Berthiaume, whose ice cream stand's line never did shorten.

Pascale
I could see the line from the dish pit!

Update: Here is more information on the "Delicious Revolution"

Piggy Market Leaflet

Particulars:
Piggy Market
400 Winston Avenue
(613) 371-6124
thepiggymarket@gmail.com

Domus Café
87 Murray Street
(613)241-6007

Epicuria
419 Mackay Street
(613)745-7356

Wellington Gastropub
1325 Wellington Street
(613)729-1315

This year, from June 1 to June 15, Amnesty International organized the "Taste for Justice" fundraiser to support its work to stop violence against women. Many participants hosted Taste for Justice events or "dined in", by registering online, planing an event, ordering a "Host Kit", inviting guests, distributing donation forms, and directing all proceeds to Amnesty International. Others "dined out" at number of participating restaurants in several Canadian cities.

In Ottawa, 20 restaurants participated as "Taste for Justice Friends." One, Infusion Bistro (825 Bank Street), a "Partner for Freedom." Taste for Justice Friends donate a portion of proceeds from June 1-15. Partners for Freedom restaurants donate a minimum of $750 and actively promote Amnesty campaigns year-round. Chef Matthew Carmichael's e18hteen (18 York Street) donated a percentage of sales from its seasonal strawberry shortcake.

In the Wellington West neighbourhood, we had three participating restaurants: Agave Grill (1331 Wellington Street), Caffé Mio (1379 Wellington Street), and Thyme & Again Catering (1255 Wellington Street).

While I'm told that Agave Grill makes a stunning mojito and is owned by the former owner of Feleena's Mexican Restaurant (Comida Mexicana) in the Glebe (corner of Bank (742) and Third), Jenn and I decided to support Amnesty International by finally giving Thyme & Again a try. After all, we've passed by the caterer/eatery hundreds of times during our 5 years, living in Wellington West.

Thyme & Again
According to its website, Thyme & Again caters events of various sizes, from dinner parties to weddings, and operates a popular brick and mortar retail space, called its "food shop." They also supply the dishes served at the nearby Great Canadian Theater Company's (GCTC) in-house restaurant, mostly food that the establishment can heat up or serve cold.

Regarding their food shop, it is stocked with frozen dinner ideas from game-meat stuffed pasta, vegetable stir fries, soups, desserts, breakfast scones, and even tourtiere. Their "eat-in" options include various pastries (both miniature and full-size tarts), cookies, chocolates (mostly in-house made truffles), soups, pot pies, and sandwiches. They also serve entrees that change from month to month. Everything is listed on their website.

Me, I love sandwiches, so we went to Thyme & Again for a light dinner after work. Unfortunately, we were served sandwiches that were wrapped in plastic and chilled for several hours. We surmise this is because the majority of the store's "sandwich" business comes from its lunch service. Because workers from surrounding office buildings, including from the large government campus called Tunney's Pasture, pile into the establishment during lunch time, sandwiches may be made en-mass in the morning. Such leaves whatever remainder after the lunch rush for the afternoon and evening.

Originally, I wanted a calabrese sandwich: capicolla ham, soprasetta, orovolone cheese, red onion, and spicy eggplant finished with a lemon herb mayonnaise. They were all out. Instead, I had the "Green Thai Curry Roast Beef with Lemon Grass Aioli and Smoked Gouda." Jenn, the dilled Egg Salad: egg salad with fresh dill and chives.

Green Curry Roast Beef ($5.25)
My roast beef sandwich was less than impressive. The roast beef tasted bland and had a refrigerated texture. The seeded kaiser had succumbed to the cold, hardening and tasting somewhat stale. The smoked gouda added some sharpness. The featured "green curry and lemon grass" flavours came from the aioli, which was unevenly spread throughout the sandwich. As such, some bites carried faint flavours. Others, much more.


Dilled Egg Salad ($5.25)
Jenn was equally unimpressed with hers. Her egg salad had only fleeting dill flavours, which is normally a powerful herb. She tasted no chives. Her kaiser was equally hard and stale. In fact, she had difficulty eating her sandwich as the egg salad kept spurting out the opposite end. She also found it somewhat too salty for her linking.

At $11.87 after taxes, but before tip, I was glad a portion was going to charity. Else, this would have been a rather expensive "cafeteria"-style sandwich.

Here is Thyme & Again's card:

Front

Back

In fact, I was so non-plussed that the next day, I moved up my visit to a Portuguese bakery and sandwich shop near my workplace, so I could remind myself what a made to order sandwich tastes like.

Estoril
Located in Gatineau (89 rue Eddy), Boulangerie Estoril is family owned and run. It supplies ethnic Portugese products along with more French-style freshly baked bread. Its signage is tattered and well worn. There are domestic chest freezers in the middle of the retail space. Its eating area only has a handful of tables. However, it serves deli-sliced made-to-order sandwiches, something I readily appreciated after my experience with Thyme and Again. It's owners, an older couple that speak mostly Portuguese and French, are also warm and friendly.

And yes, Estoril is located nearby two large government complexes Place du Portage and Terrasses de la Chaudière, furthering the comparison with Thyme & Again.

For a measly $3.95 (before tip or taxes), I was able to pickup their "Portuguese Special": deli-sliced Portuguese sausage (whose Paprika flavours have me thinking it was linguiça); Portuguese cheese; all, on a freshly baked roll with mayonnaise and yellow mustard.

Lunch

Portuguese Special

Linguiça?
It was delicious, every flavour playing well with one another: savory, spice, sharp, and bright. Best of all, the textures met my expectations for an ethnic sandwich shop: fresh bread, slicer thin meat, and a generous amount of cheese. None, cold!

For dessert ($1 more), I picked up a Portuguese egg tart, which differs greatly from the Chinese variety that is served at dim sum.

Egg Tart
Served chilled, the egg tart's custard was dense and sweet, tasting of vanilla and slight hints of caramel. Its pastry was light and flaky.

If you work in walking distance of Estoril, I urge you to drop by.

It seems the only redeeming quality of our visit to Thyme & Again is our discovering a cache of Pascale's ice cream.

Pascale's Ice Cream
Thyme & Again sells Pascale's ice cream a dollar more ($10.95) than she does at the Piggy Market. This is good information for those evenings when we have surprise guests and we need to make an ice cream run.

Nevertheless, with its reputation, I promise to try Thyme & Again again, perhaps when I find them supporting another charity campaign.

More after the jump...

Sunday afternoon, my better half and I took our guests to the Piggy Market in Westboro to visit Dave Neil and Pascale Berthiaume. Apparently, we arrived two hours before closing. Pascale had just returned from the Landesdowne Farmers' Market. Both she and Dave was visibly worn, but happy to answer all of our friends' many questions. Suffice it to say, Abby and Mlle Ling were curious about just about everything in the self professed "fine food delicatessen with a focus on artisanal pork products, and locally produced foods."

Bread and Smoked Duck Breasts
In the end, we picked up a loaf of oat and cranberry Art Is In bread and a pair of smoked duck breasts. Originally, I promised Mlle Ling duck confit, but Dave was all out. He offered me some frozen ones, but I substituted smoke duck breasts instead.

Abby Carefully Slicing the Art Is In Bread

Pair of Smoked Duck Breast

Sliced, served chilled
Mlle Ling's boyfriend Thomas picked up a tub of Pascale's Hazelnut and Chocolate ice cream for dessert.

Dave also graciously invited me back to see a batch of in-house hot smoked pork belly bacon. Were I not just in the market for appetizers for that evening's dinner, I think I would have walked away with an entire side. It looked and smelled incredible.

Total cost of duck breast and bread: $32.25 (and worth every penny!)

When I tweeted what I planned to serve as an appetizer (thinly sliced smoked duck breast on artisanal bread), Epicuria's Chef Tracey Black mentioned that smoked duck breast goes very well with fruit chutney. Yes, Chef! I then walked up to my fridge and demanded ingredients. My fridge coughed up a pair of mangoes, so I made mango chutney.

Mango Chutney
With limited ingredients and time, I settled on FoodTV's Anna Olson's recipe with slight omissions. The modified recipe follows:

Recipe

Ingredients

Diced Onions

Baking Chutney

Done
Things you'll need:

• 2 cups diced mango - I know, mass would be better. Still, 2 regular large mangoes produce 2 cups of diced flesh
• 1/2 cup diced onion
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 3 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp finely grated fresh ginger
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• zest of 1 orange
• white granulated sugar to sprinkle

Prep:

1. Disassemble the mango, onion, and ginger
2. Pre-heat an oven to 375°F

Method:

1. Combine all ingredients in a non-stick pan and simmer on medium to medium-low heat until the onions are tender and the liquid reduces to a syrup
2. Spoon the mixture into heat proof ceramic containers. I used oval gratin dishes
3. Sprinkle with sugar
4. Bake for 20 minutes

The latter oven baking is meant to create a sugar syrup on top of the chutney. Had I a butane torch, I would have brullé'd the top.

Since there was no time to cool the chutney or allow it to mature its flavours, I chose to add some caramel sweetness and serve it warm. My intention was to pair savory and smokey with spicy and bright. The pairing worked.

Served

Playful Plating
Think duck breast. dry cured with spices. hot smoked. sliced thin, served chilled. Accompanying it, on slices of expertly worked bread, was something sweet, bright, and spicy.

Stew
Here is the additional entree I was asked to make: slow cooked beef stew (4 hours), using beef rib meat.

Beef Stew
Regarding the sauce, it came from blening the onions I stewed the beef with, forced them through a strainer, and using the resultant puree to thicken leftover braising liquid. Major flavourings: light soy sauce, fish sauce, and black pepper.

Bacon Waffles
For breakfast the next Monday, I snuck out of the condo early in the morning to barbecue a typical supermarket-sized package of bacon.

Barbecued Bacon

Bacon Mountain
When I came back, I whipped up a batch of cookingnook.com's waffle batter: 1 1/2 cups milk, 2 egg yolks, 1/4 cup sugar, 2 cups plain flour, and 1/2 tsp baking powder via the muffin method; thinned with 2 oz melted butter and 2 tbsp cold water; and lightened with firm peaked egg whites. While the mixture was hydrating, I ran the crisped and cooled bacon through a food processor and added the fine crumbs to the batter.

Batter

Then, my better half ran the batter through our waffle maker. Result: bacon waffles, which tasted really good with pancake syrup.

Waffle maker

Waffles

Texture
Think light waffles, crisp, and loaded with savory bacon bits.

Lunch in the Byward Market follows after the jump...

More after the jump...

On her birthday, Jenn requested a traditional Japanese honey cake, called a kastella. It is a thick crusted cake that resembles a traditional sponge and is meant to be served with strong tea. I served it with Pascale's premium French Vanilla ice cream, which is a little "over the top", but neither I nor my better half can say no to Pascale's ice cream...

For reference, here is what a personal-sized kastella cakes looks like from one of Toronto's T&T Asian grocery stores.

Kastella from T&T, sold in boxes of 4

2 individually wrapped cakes

Half of one cake

Texture
I find the serving enormous and usually split it with someone.

Here's a successful Kastella from my meager kitchen's oven:

Kastella in its baking pan

De-panned Kastella with a serving already cut out

One serving with a really badly shaped canelle of ice cream

Recipe
What you'll need:

• 6 extra-large eggs (large eggs will do, but the cake will not rise nearly as high)
• 1 1/4 cups of fine granulated sugar
• 1 1/4 cups cake flour (sifted)
• 2 scant tbsp honey
• 4 tbsp warm water (not boiling)
• 1/2 tsp of cream of tartar (optional)

Prep:

• Boil some water and set aside 4 tbsp of it. Let it to cool while you do the rest of the prep.
• Separate the eggs, yolks in one bowl, whites in another. I actually find that a narrower bowl is best for whipping egg whites, and yes, we will be whipping egg whites
• Sift 1 1/4 cups of cake flour onto a flexible cutting mat.
• Pre-heat the oven to 375F
• Either grease and flour a rectangular 7x7" pan or line with parchment. I use a standard lasagna pan.

Method:

1. Add 2 tbsp of honey to the warm water. Mix until dissolved. Set it aside.
2. Add the cream of tartar to the egg whites and beat with an electric egg beater until frothy. I usually do this with a hand whisk to begin and switch to an egg beater after, but it doesn't matter.
3. While beating the egg whites, slowly add the sugar in a gentle stream. Essentially, this will become a meringue.
4. Once stiff peaks can be formed, add the honeyed water and egg yolks. Fold with a silicone spatula until combined.
5. Sift in the flour into the batter, again folding with the silicone spatula, using the flexible cutting mat as a chute. Double sifting the flour ensures that the flour can quickly integrate and will be evenly distributed without losing egg white volume or forming very much gluten.
6. Once incorporated, gently pour the batter into the prepared pan
7. Bake for 45 minutes. The surface will turn a deep brown. Do not lower the temperature or the cake will fall. Continue baking.
8. Remove the cake from the oven and let cool
9. Remove the cake from the pan and serve.

De-panned, de-papered kastella

Texture of kastella
Made properly, a kastella is light with a thick and almost tacky crust. It is sweet so that it can accompany sips of strong tea.

I intended to serve it with a tart blueberry sauce, but a certain birthday girl told me not to bother and sat down to a square of her birthday cake with a glass of milk and some ice cream.

This recipe originally came from Abby and Mademoiselle Ling when they were members of the Queen's Asian Cooking Club (QACC).

BTW, the original recipe included 2 cups of sugar. I've tried that before.

Too Much Sugar
It is inedible sweet. Worse yet, it does not rise well because the meringue tends to be overloaded with too much sugar.

Update: Here are pics of Pascale's French Vanilla ice cream:

French Vanilla

Rich texture, Incredible flavour

Particulars:
Pascale's All Natural Premium Ice Cream
Sold at the Piggy Market
(613)322-4256
E-mail: pascale@pascalesicecream.com