Oh, to be in Scotland

I’m not sure if it’s a back-to-school thing, or a weather-getting-cooler thing, or a need-more-dietary-fibre thing, but lately I’ve been drawn to oatmeal.  And none of this flaky rolled-oats business, either.  I’m talking Scotch oats, aka: steel-cut oats, aka: a thousand other names).
This morning it was bothering me that I couldn’t remember the name of [...]

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Coming soon to a sleepless city near you …

With apologies to Central Canadians, I just stumbled across this schedule this very day: 2009 Canadian Regional Barista Championships
The middle-of-the-map event has already come and gone, but there are three more competitions still to come, in Eastern Canada, Western Canada and the Prairies.  These events are open to the public, who can watch with jittery [...]

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You can’t spell “flair” without “air”

Can you believe it’s been nearly three months since the 2009 CRFA Show? Nope, me neither.
As part of my nostalgia-tripping, I found this vid on YouTube, featuring the team from BartenderOne, who helped keep things hopping on the Cocktail Stage along with the legendary Dale DeGroff:

On BartenderOne’s main page I [...]

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Victory is both savoury and sweet

COOKING to a deadline?  That’s nothing new for any chef.  But doing it on stage, under bright lights and a big, angled mirror, in front of a crowd, with judges and a master of ceremonies?  That’s not every day.
Throw in a warehouse atmosphere that quickly turned hot food cool and minimal kitchen equipment and you [...]

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I can’t believe I walked the whole thing

Ah, I’m just kidding about walking the whole CRFA Show, which wrapped up yesterday.
We’ve estimated that if an attendee walked every aisle, they’d have covered six kilometres in total, or 3.75 miles.  It would have been worth the walk to have a chance to see every single booth — trust me — but I failed [...]

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On eating meat and salvation by Susur

If you’re looking for photos from Day 1 of the Canadian Chefs’ Congress,
scroll on down … the link is just two posts below this one.
When I found out last week that I had the opportunity to attend the Canadian Chefs’ Congress, I knew I had to make a quick decision: to eat or not [...]

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