By: Andrew Mrozowski
Nestled away on the corner of King Street West and Paisley Avenue South lies a small storefront with kitchen accessories on display in the windows. Peering through, you are sure to see a cute boutique filled with cutlery, appliances and cookware. Only if you go into the store, will you find a functioning kitchen and breakfast bar tucked away in the back-right corner.
The Casual Gourmet has made its home in Westdale Village since 1997 but for the last three years, retail has only been part of the equation. Ever since co-owners Tannis Jarvis and Ilona Santa took over the business three years ago, they had a vision for the Casual Gourmet.
“We really wanted to have more than a retail store, we wanted a real interactive place with great experiences,” explained Jarvis.
[spacer height="20px"]Jarvis and Santa quickly saw the potential their Hamilton store had to offer and started to reach out to local chefs to host workshops. Since January 2017, over 84 different workshops have been held from ‘A Night in the Caribbean’ to ‘Knife Skills 101’. The Casual Gourmet will be hosting ‘Dinner with Jonny Blonde’ and ‘Winter Soups with the Burnt Tongue’ in the coming months.
“With Hamilton growing and having such a great food scene, we thought it would be great if we could bring in a lot of those Hamilton chefs to really offer those customers a neat experience. They all bring such a wealth of knowledge,” said Jarvis.
One of these chefs is award-winning pastry chef Maria Boyd of Cake & Loaf Bakery. Growing up in Germany, Boyd got her hands wet in the industry by working for a catering company. When she moved to Canada, she attended George Brown College for Baking and Pastry Arts and Management, completing a two-year certificate.
While making cakes, chocolates and running a flourishing business, Boyd realized one thing: she hated to work with chocolate. She didn’t know what her future held in store but was certain that chocolate wouldn’t be a part of it.
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Chef Boyd knew that the city of Toronto was too large for her to leave her mark. She turned her gaze towards a smaller city whose food culture was growing each day and where she could find a better sense of community.
Setting up shop just west of Hamilton’s downtown core, Boyd opened Cake & Loaf Bakery in 2011 and has quickly risen through the ranks as one of the city’s top bakeries. The following year, Chef Boyd started to ironically play around with chocolate and confections.
“I always try to get my hands dirty and learn something I’m not comfortable with. I always try to challenge myself,” said Boyd.
Honing her chocolate skills and developing a department for Cake & Loaf Bakery, Boyd pushed herself to become a well-rounded pastry chef but now found herself wanting to share her chocolate-making skills with others.
[spacer height="20px"]“I always wanted to do classes, but the bakery never had the space or time to hold them. [The Casual Gourmet] approached us to do evening classes which everyone always wants,” said Boyd.
Presenting her workshop, Chocolate Basics, Boyd taught attendees how to release their inner Willy Wonka by showing them how to temper chocolate, make ganache, truffles, caramel and provide ideas for some festive holiday treats to be shared with loved ones throughout the coming months.
“I want to inspire people to do something that they wouldn’t normally do, or for those who would, just to be able to give them some more things to think about,” said Boyd.
For Boyd, food is about challenging yourself to do something difficult. She went from hating chocolate to becoming a leading chocolatier within the city on the whim of wanting to push herself and accomplish more.
As everyone was gathered around the breakfast bar tucked away in the heart of Westdale village, watching Chef Boyd create a chocolate masterpiece, one could feel the sense of belonging and unity through the power of food. The Casual Gourmet will continue to bring the community together through a diverse range of workshops set for the new year.
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By Drew Simpson
Supercrawl is Hamilton’s annual art crawl showcasing various talents thriving within the city; from art, music, food to fashion. Stages are set, sets are rehearsed, art installations are built and the food trucks line up all the way down James Street North, closing it from King Street to Cannon Street to allow for this rich presentation of culture.
Walking up James Street North from King Street West, a side road called King William hosts a competition. Competitions aren’t a common theme of Supercrawl, however FEED the Social and NOSH, the organizers of the King William Cook-Off, saw it fit to host a one-round, thirty-minute competition between two teams of well-known chefs.
FEED the Social is a social media company based in Hamilton. They specialize in representing for Hamilton’s culinary works. While NOSH stands for north Hamilton, the outlining communities surrounding and south Hamilton.
Under the tent by Hamburgr, two teams of chefs competed. There were barely any rules. No mystery boxes. No mystery ingredients. The instructions were simple, cook the best entrée within the time limit.
Through comradery, both teams knew each other’s chefs, their strengths and perhaps their weaknesses. They planned carefully for this event. Michael Marini, the coordinator of marketing for the city of Hamilton’s economic development office, explains competition can bring out chefs’ creativity.
One time consisted of Chef Harrison Hennick of Nique, Martello and the General paired with Chef Michael Vogt of Frat’s Cucina. They battled Chef Michael Cipollo of Hambrgr, Fsh & Chp and Lost + Found whose partner was Chef Patrick Weise of Twisted Kitchen Catering and Matthew’s Friends Canada.
These talented chefs are both Canadian and world-renowned. Past winner and judge of Chef Wars, Patrick Weise was once Oprah’s personal chef. The chefs chosen to partake in this cook-off give a taste of the culinary talent evident in Hamilton.
King William Cook-Off is a preliminary event of the annual Chef Wars hosted by NOSH, these competitors have been judges, participants and winners of Chef Wars. Originally ran by NOSH, FEED the Social is now in charge of both Chef Wars and King William Cook-Off. While the chefs for King William Cook-Off were hand-selected, Chef Wars is a better representation of using a competition format to showcase all the best in Hamilton.
“I think it brings out the competitive spirit. At the same time, the difference with what we’re seeing in Hamilton and what we’ve been told by chefs coming from Toronto is the collaboration that happens in Hamilton,” explained Marini.
“Even though they’re competitive, they’re not out to destroy each other’s businesses. So they want to work together. They’re going to have a little challenge against each other, but at the end of the day they’re all friends.”
Often competition is used to validate talent. While the president of FEED the Social, Romeo Crugnale, agrees that art encompasses food, he also believes competitions like the King William Cook-Off and Chef Wars can validate Hamilton’s culinary talent.
“With these events…I want to be able to really elevate it to another level. Everybody knows Hamilton is starting to have a really great food scene. Everybody knows that restaurants are coming in and chefs are coming over from Toronto to open up here for various reasons,” explained Crugnale.
“What is the way to showcase that? What better platform than Supercrawl? What better platform that doing a free event…in the spirit of Supercrawl.”
Watching competitions is entertaining, but it also has a deeper purpose. When trying to prove worth, comparisons are made. Often competition is used to decide how great someone or something is. Therefore, competition is a natural way of crowning the worthiest.
There is a fine line to walk between validating the city’s culinary scene and showcasing the intense creativity of competitors through competition. Some may argue that Supercrawl is meant to celebrate Hamilton’s unique culture, not try to equate it to larger cities.
However, it’s undeniable that Hamilton’s food scene is thriving and using competition can go a long way to bring chefs and their talents to the forefront of the conversation around what makes Hamilton great. Everyone has a competitive nature and it can bring out the best out of Hamiltonians and their culinary dishes.
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