We made the 2010 Toronto Life Wedding Guide!

Check out our recent review in the!

Check out our recent review in the Toronto Life Wedding Guide!

Go for the GREEN in the Garden!

Spring has arrived and the smell, taste and feel of green is all around us. Your local garden center has begun stocking ready mix and gardening supplies. We've decided to step up our green plan and local food initiative to include a few new twists. Here are some of the ways we are helping out the environment and keeping our dishes fresh.

We are planting seeds! Thats right. Edible flowers are all the range in haute cusine this spring. The patio garden had been prepped, edible flowers and fresh herbs to come!

Not only are edible flowers beautiful they are accompanied by amazing flavour, vitamins and minerals.

Lilac blossoms are edible and have a pungent floral and lemony flavour? Make sure they are natural and not sprayed with herbicides and pesticides!

Marigold and Nasturtium contain vitamin c!

We are composting! Weigh in the compost. By measuring compost in the kitchen and what we bring home daily from events we can erase our carbon footprint.  We’ll keep you posted on how many lbs/ kilos we are composting monthly and the overall decrease in our carbon footprint.

We are sorting! Let's Sort. Each time the AY crew does a new event we take 3 containers, blue for recycling, clear for Garbage and a pail with lid for composting and all come back to our shop at the end of every event.

Spring Fever!

Well it looks like spring has arrived and I couldn't be more excited about it, warmer temperatures are rolling into the Guelph area and Spring Fever is in the air. 

Lots of extremely exciting things going on over the next couple of weeks! Between the Canadian Special Events and Meetings Expo last week and the Bob Rumball Fundraser April 17th we've got a ton of events happening.

Last week we attended the Canadian Special Events and Meetings Expo in Toronto at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Fresh ideas, innovation and excitement were all in the air. We checked out some of  the latest emerging trends in the industry. One of our favorite exhibitors was Ice Culture. 

Coming up on April 17th is the upcoming fundraiser for the Bob Rumball Foundation. I've been working with the in anticipation of this year's event. This year the fundraiser will be held at Country Heritage Park. Interested in coming? Check out the details below.

The Gambrel Barn 

Milton 8560 Tremaine Rd.
Saturday April 17th, 2010
7:00 pm - 11:00 pm


Savour the Flavour an evening of fine wine, fine beer, fine food and live entertainment.


To order tickets please call 416.449.9651 or send an email to tasteofniagara@bobrumball.org

All Good Things Must Come to an End

What a great time! The Vancouver 2010 Olympics were unbelievable. Our final week yielded more hard work and dedication. Each night at Sochi Haus got bigger than the last, 4000 people move through each day making it one of the busiest venues in Vancouver.

The line up to get into the Sochi Haus is always huge! Russian entertainers outside keep the excited crowd occupied while they wait to get in.

I got to see the Women's Super-G event at Whistler! Such an amazing experience. Finished work at 2:00 am, slept on a bus to Whistler, met the boys in the morning, watched Lindsey Vonn race to Victory.

I caught up with Curtis and met his dog Bob! Who is a major chick magnet; What kind of a Dog? How old is he? The questions! He is part lab, austrailian shepard, pit bull and soooo cute.

Curtis, Dan and I caught a Julie Black set at the Whistler Live Venue in Whistler Village, which was a phenomenal. We spent the evening and enjoyed a wonderful super at Curtis' place in Pemberton. Dan made a melody of fresh root veggies with and oven roasted demi-glazed chicken.

Well, we left Vancouver today, March 2nd and its right back to the office! Looking forward to catching up with everybody in back at AY.

Thanks for the wonderful experience Vancouver!

Vancouver's Poem to the World!

We never claimed to be perfect,
That means we’ve learned to be humble.           
We say excuse me and I'm sorry…as well as please and thanks,           
Even when its not our fault we apologize.                        
Sure one arm of the torch didn't rise,           
But when the earthquake struck Haiti, Canadians raised their hands to say…”We’ll help.”           
And yah, there is a fence around the torch,                        
But you can walk right up and shake hands with our prime minister and most famous Canadians.                        We put Gretzky in the back of a pick up, in the rain, not surrounded by police…and he was             okay,           
And by the way... the great one is Canadian…and HE wasn’t complaining!           
We do have security at the games, of course, but most people don't even have a gun they have to leave at home.           
The medals ARE under lock and key, but our doors and our hearts are open to the world.           
It has been pointed out that some buses broke down last week…but let’s not overlook the fact that our             banking system didn't.           
We didn't get the "green ice maker" right this time…but we will, eventually,           
Just like we did when we invented the zamboni.           
Citius altius fortius           
If you don't reach higher how do you get faster and stronger?           
Was the first quad jump perfect?                        
Should we not have given snowboarding to the world "in case" it didn’t take off?           
So big deal…one out of four torch arms didn't rise. Good thing we had three more! It’s called             contingency planning!           
But remember…the Canadarm works every time…in outerspace…and insulin turned out to be             okay.           
We couldn't change the weather, but maybe we can help to stop global warming.           
We don't have the tax base of the US or the power of the Chinese but, per capita, we ponied up for some pretty kick-ass venues in the worst global recession ever.           
Sure, some folks couldn't afford tickets, but our health care is universal.           
We have shown the world that we can raise our voices in celebration and song, but moments later stand in silence to respect a tragic event...together...spontaneously…and unrehearsed.           
What's more, we don't need permission from  anyone to have a slam poet, fiddlers with piercings and a lesbian singer tell our story to the world while our multilingual female haitian-born, black head of state shares a box with her first nations equals.           
We’ve shown the world that it doesn’t always rain in Vancouver, that you can strive for             excellence, but not get hung up on perfection.           
And we’ve learned what it feels like to be picked on by some no-name newspaper guy and we don’t have to take it lying down!           
So the point is not the snow, or the hydraulics or a couple guys being 5 minutes late to a             ceremony,           
We know we’re lucky that these are the biggest problems we've had to deal with in the last couple             weeks.           
So take your cheap shots…Guardian newspaper and cynics of the world,           
We're bigger and better than that.           
What's more we're finally starting to believe it!           
Do you believe?

Greetings from The Vancouver 2010 Olympics!

I wanted to update everyone last week, but I think this is the first moment I have had been able to sit down to reflect on the games. I have been so busy I haven’t had a chance to see any events, luckily there’s always someone around to fill me in on the latest news and medal standings. So now I’ve managed to sneak over to my computer for a few quick minutes to fill everyone in…

Well it’s day 7 of the Games and I’ve been working at the Sochi Haus hosted at Science World in Vancouver, here to promote the 2014 Olympics in Russia, with Culinary Capers.

I started off my Olympics experience with a special event, the dress rehearsal for the opening ceremonies with my son Curtis and girlfriend Emilie. This truly is a family event; Curtis is working the groomers at whistler and my other son Dan the Man is on the dye crew at the Creekside Venue. It’s so great having the family out here helping out for the games.

I will be here in Vancouver until March 1st and get to stay right near the action up from Granville Island in a condo apartment that I am sharing with another Culinary Capers team member who also travelled to Torino for the 2006 Olympic Winter Games. Every morning we check out the TV from highlights of the action, then off the Sochi Haus we go.

I’ve definitely had the experience of a lifetime helping to organize the crew here. They are doing an amazing and of course delicious job! The energy and excitement has been both overwhelming and inspiring…Chef Brian has been working 10-12 hours a day – now that takes some athletic ability. We are trying to educate the Russians on how all wastet is recycled on a daily basis. Green is the way to go!

The city is packed and you never know who you’ll run into, saw Wayne Gretzky last night! Well, it’s been a great learning experience to working with all these different cultures from all around the world. I definitely have some great and delicious ideas brewing in my head for the AY menu!

Stay tuned….more to come!

Wedding Invitation Tip

Invitations are well recieved when addressed with a personal touch. When addressing, if you are inviting a friend who has been dating someone for a significant length of time, take the time to find out who "the guest" is. For example, address the invitation to "Ms. Anne Smith and Mr. Johnathon Thomas” rather than “Ms. Anne Smith and Guest”.