First, a humble and heartfelt thank you to all the people who have been in touch during the last few days to offer encouragement and support. I\u2019m amazed and delighted \u2013 and determined to cherish this revenant blog as a place where I can continue to write about food (and wine and whisky and all sorts of other good things). Restaurants will be a part of it, to be sure, but now that I have my freedom I can clamber out of that rather limiting mandate and start exploring all the social, cultural, artistic, political, moral, immoral, geothermal, nonsensical, paradoxical lumber we pack around the things we put into our mouths \u2013 everything that gives context and resonance to the merely culinary \u2013 food\u2019s intellectual and emotional terroir, if you will. I\u2019m looking forward to it no end.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, on Saturday night, Michael Stadtl\u00e4nder will be cooking an extraordinary dinner at The Wychwood Art Barns. I\u2019m lucky enough to be the emcee. I don\u2019t want to give away the menu but it involves white and green asparagus, squab and foie gras, lake trout and piglets, Canada\u2019s finest cheeses and L\u00fcbeck mazipan \u2013 not exclusively and not necessarily in that order. It\u2019s the last event of the Salut Wine + Food Festival and will raise funds for The Stop Community Food Centre. As some of you may know, I love nothing more than describing Stadtl\u00e4nder\u2019s food and this time the great chef has also chosen all the wines to accompany his dishes. Most of the ingredients come from his farm or from his close neighbours outside Singhampton (not the marzipan). If you can join us, that would be great! Tickets are available through www.salutwinefestival.com. If not, check here afterwards for a report describing all the succulent magic you missed.<\/p>\n
This just came through the ether from some disembodied vox americana:
\n\u201cTop Chef is coming to Canada! Based on the highlighly successful US show we are looking for Canada\u2019s next culinary star! Top Chef Canada will select the country\u2019s best culinary talent to face-off in a gruelling competition that will put their skills and creativity to the test. Ultimately only one chef will claim their rightful place in the spotlight, winning the top prize of $100,000 and the Title of Canada\u2019s Top Chef. If this is you or someone you know please go to http:\/\/www.foodnetwork.ca\/topchefcanada\/index.html and download the application. Deadline for applying is June 14th 2010.\u201d
\nA hundred big ones. Got to be worth a shot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
First, a humble and heartfelt thank you to all the people who have been in touch during the last few days to offer encouragement and support. I\u2019m amazed and delighted \u2013 and determined to cherish this revenant blog as a place where I can continue to write about food (and wine and whisky and all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[91,94,1],"tags":[9],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2146,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions\/2146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}