I said to myself,  ‘ Finally, I get the change to showcase our Venezuelan traditional Christmas dish’, the Hallaca.

This is the first time a South America Christmas dish is been featured on the Food
& Drink section of Toronto Life!!

The Hallaca by Ryan Szulc Photography

Fresh hallaca with chayote relish

Hallacas are similar to tamales, but they are steamed in banana leaves instead
of corn husks. The white corn masa [harina Pan]which is gluten free, is colored
yellow with annato oil and we add water or chicken stock and salt. The stuffing
consists of a stew made with pork, beef and chicken with olives and raisins.
Depending on the family recipe, you can add peppers, cooked eggs. etc. etc. . .
Every family has their own variation.

The Hallaca by Ryan Szulc Photography

The hallaca represents Venezuela’s mestizo heritage. Cooking in a banana
leaf was a technique brought by African slaves. When talking about hallacas in
Venezuela everyone will say “Las mejores hallacas son las de mi mamá” which
translates to “my mom makes the best hallacas”.

Ready to eat!

The Hallaca by Ryan Szulc Photography

The hallacas is usually serve with Pan de Jamon [ham bread] Ensalada de
Gallina [chicken salad] Torta Navideña and Ponche Crema [eggnog].

Pan de Jamon with chicken salad.

I am offering 3 to 7 courses tasting menus of these tasty Venezuelan delights from $35 to $75 per person.

Call or email me if you are interested on having a Venezuelan dinner on
this Holiday season.

Yours, celebrating  food and culture.

Carlos

The exhibition was named ‘An Extraordinary Alien‘, after the American
visa ‘O’ which is granted to people with “Extraordinary ability in the
fields of science, education, business or athletics”. As far as the
law was concerned, Villanueva was indeed an extraordinary alien.  The
evening of the opening I met fellow Venezuelans and exhibition
curators Ruth Mora and Gaston Soucy. Both Ruth and Gaston are architects who were influenced by Villanueva’s work and now they live and work in
Toronto. They had acquired a collection of photographs that showcased
Villanuevas’s work but had nowhere to exhibit them. They met  Eduardo
and a new exhibit was born.

You can check out the exhibition at Arepa Cafe,  runs until March 29 .

Eduardo and I were so exited about the turn out of the exhibit
opening, that we decided to do something about it.
I said: let’s organized an event to celebrated our roots, art, design
and food from latino America and he loved the idea.

I got on the phone the next day, I called a few Latino chefs that I
know and they all said ” Claro que si” — Let’s do it.
So we had a few food and wine tastings to come up with a great menu.

That’s is how my friends Elizabeth  RivasPlata from the  [AGO], Francisco Alejandri [ Agave & Aguacate] Luis Manuel Cordoba [ Arepa Cafe] Andés Macas [ Que Pasa] Jose Arato [Pimenton] and I we will be cooking at Arepa Cafe on Monday, March 28th

Adrain Marquez from the [AGO]  will be pairing the wines for the evening.

Music by Latino American Choir Cantemos

Reservations, please call 416-362.4111

Or email; info@arepacafe.ca

Proceeds will be used to support local Latin creative and artistic efforts within the GTA.

Don’t miss out is going to be fun.

Yours celebrating roots, art, design and food from the Americas

Carlos

Empanadas are made all over the Latin world, but with different and sometimes unique techniques and recipes. For example, in Venezuela and Colombia, empanadas are made with corn meal, salt, water and oil, and they’re fried. In the rest of the central and South American, they’re  made with flour, eggs, lard or butter and water, and they’re baked.

On a resent trip to my home town of Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, my brother and sister took me to eat empanadas at the ferry terminal where empanaderos make them 24 hours a day and they’re so delicious. On this particular night, it was my birthday, so after a long night of partying, we got hungry and decided have to some.

Hot and ready to eat

The most famous empanadas are the Argentinian and Chilean versions of this beautiful savory or sweet pastry,  served with different sauces, salsas  and dips depending on where it’s made.

Here in Toronto you can get them in any Latin American food store, but my favorites are made by  Marina Queirolo, owner of Surkl Empanadas. She sells them at The Brickworks Market and the Cheese Boutique.

Here’s my version of a spinach, queso fresco and pine nut empanada, with salsa criolla [spicy-sweet peppers, tomatoes and aji] on Market Mondays on Taste T.O

Happy cooking!

Yours on making Empanadas

Carlos

This will be the first time working with Chris, his Cava partner Doug Penfold and Carlos Rodriguez from Hart House. It will be the second time working with Marina Quierolo, owner of Surkl Empandas.

It’s very important to say that it’s much easier to educate non-Latinos about our food than it is to get our community to support the local food movement, so we’re going to bring the two together.

The good thing is that, for a few years now, some local farmers have begun to cultivate crops native to Central and South American. We’ve now got blue potatoes, tomatillos, cape goose berry and chayote growing in Ontario, and the list goes on.

In fact, local dairy and meat is already being used to make different kinds of queso fresco, chorizo sausage and other Latino-style charcuterie here in Toronto

La Tortilleria sells fresh corn tortillas. Fresh Mexican-style sauces made by  Jose Hahad owner of Frida Restaurant and the Mad Mexican food company. I’ve sung the praises of Segovia’s chorizos here before, but you can never say enough good stuff about them. We Latinos chefs — and anyone who wants to support local food and learn about Latino food and culture — can now do it locally, and that’s pretty exciting, too.

This Slow Food event is going to be a great follow-up to the Latino representation at the Brick Works Picnic last September. With friends Eduardo Lee and  Marc Lukacs of Arepa Café, Adrian Marquez, sommelier at  AGO, Veronica Laudes and Luis Valenzuela from Torito Tapas Bar and Marina Queirolo , we got to spread the word and the flavours of Latino cuisine. I only wish more Latinos chefs will come out to be part of this great event.

On the menu

Venezuelan Arepas, stuffed w/ queso fresco, caramelized onions & fresh thyme

Peruvian style ceviche, mussels and sweet potato

Marinated  heart skewers w/ spicy herb salsa & potatoes Huancaina style

Andean style pickled beet tongue with escabeche

Argentinian BBQ w/ chorizo, sweetbread, grilled bread and chimichurri

Sweet corn tamales stuffed w/prunes , candy orange & served w/white chocolate pistachio sauce

Yours Celebrating Local Latino food and culture

Carlos

Last week I started the 2010 Pan-Latino cooking series at IQliving and at the LCBO.
Happy to report the two first classes were sold out.

It’s great to see how much interest has grown in Latin cuisine, not just in Toronto, but all over Canada as well.
It has been a long road trying to introduce my roots and culture, but finally it’s paying off.

And just yesterday, I was invited by the secretive CB to do the ultimate Pan-Latino dinner… Stay tuned.
Four more classes planned for March, April, May and June.
Dates and times here.

Last night’s class was at the Summerhill LCBO kitchen.
On the class menu that night:
Arepa with local queso fresco, organic avocado and basil

Tiradito of wild bass with posole relish

Escalivada with fresh pickled fish and pan al ajillo

Four-chili-marinated flank steak with pico de gallo

Ingredients: local queso fresco, posole, chillies, yuca, sweet peppers, eggplant, Arina PAN and much more.

Yours celebrating Latino food and culture
Carlos

As I got to know Mary Luz better, I discovered that we had a lot in common. We both have a mission in life: to promote and celebrate our Hispanics roots. And when we compared our greatest influence, we both came up with Cuban-American chef and restaurateur Maricel Presilla.

Maricel is considered to be the continent most influential Latin American food historian. She’s an author, holds a doctorate in medieval Spanish history from New York University, writes for Gourmet, Saveur, Food and Wine, and contributes a weekly column to The Miami Herald.

Out of the blue, Mary Luz calls to say that she had signed Maricel to a episode of At The Table With, that she was going to Miami to interview her, and then to Hoboken, NJ, home of Maricel’s two restaurants, Cucharamama and Zafra, where the remainder of the episode would be filmed. [The episode will air in the fall.]

Mary Luz [left] and Maricel in Miami

Then, comes the call. Mary Luz says Maricel is coming to town on business and would I like to come to dinner? Would I like to cook?

Who wouldn’t love the opportunity to cook for a culinary heroes? I couldn’t believe my good fortune. So last Monday, there we were at Mary Luz’s house, cooking for the Queen of Latino American cuisine.

We started with pan-seared scallops, dusted with annatto, and served with an avocado, cucumber and apple salsa, inspired by my wife Stephanie, who first made this dish in a similar version. We paired the dish with a pinot gris.

Finishing the scallops with Mary Luz

Next came roasted organic pork tenderloin, with a parsnip and mushroom stew, and a relish of fennel, pickled eggplant and green olives. We paired this with an Alsatian Gewurztraminer.

Mary Luz’s husband, Mario, made the main course — a Croatian-style dish of paprika sweet peppers, stuffed with beef and barley, served with a light tomato sauce and sour cream. We paired this with a Spanish garancha.

For dessert, I made sweet plantain empanadas stuffed with dulce de leche and served with vanilla almond ice cream. Mario brought out a great port from his cellar.

Sweet plantain empanadas just waiting to be eaten.

It was an incredible experience just because of the guest of honour, but it was also like dinner with old friends you haven’t seen for a while. You are having so much fun you don’t want the night to end.

Yours in cooking for new friends
Carlos

With films showing the diaspora of the Spanish language, the festival reveals an unlikely integration of Latin influence on many seemingly disparate cultures. Most interesting is Zhao, a film directed by Susi Gozalvo, about a young Spanish woman of Chinese origin, struggling between the love of her life and the compromise to the country where she was born. Another film is My Mexican Shiva, a Jewish-Mexican comedy on death and culture.

The world is getting to know a new generation of award-winning Hispanic filmmakers like Maria Novaro, Alejandro Gonzalez Irarritu, Marcelo Piñeyro, Luis Puenzo.

Thanks to festival organizers Raul Galvez and Kim Mckenzie-Galvez for bringing a little of our roots to us through film.

The Galves hosted a launch bash at the Drake on Wednesday night, featuring jamon serrano courtesy of Michael Tkaczuk from Serrano Imports.

Slicing jamon is a unique skill, and called in to do the honors was Jose Luis Atristain, who happens to be from the Spanish consulate.

Yours celebrating Latin American film in Toronto
Carlos

With Ospina: champion of Latino accomplishment in Canada

It’s time to identify and properly recognize our role models, Ospina says. The fact is that there are more than 900,000 Hispanics in Canada. We are five years younger than other immigrant groups, and we are more likely to be university educated than other Canadians. Most of us live in the GTA, and more than 70 per cent landed here in the last two decades.

The November 18th awards dinner is like a dream come true for me. Seeing all these accomplished Latinos, celebrating the contributions they made in our adopted country.

This year, 600 attendees will vote for their choice of the top 10 from a shortlist of 20, which were selected by a distinguished panel of journalists and executives from the CBC, the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, Canadian Business Magazine, the Hispanic Press Association of Canada, the Canadian Council of the Americas.

With Dr Zuniga-Pflucker and his wife

These are last year’s winners:

ELVIRA SANCHEZ DE MALICKI is founder of the Canadian Hispanic Congress, which has united Hispanics from 22 different countries, with over 250 member organizations to lobby government on such issues as persuading Statistics Canada to amend census gathering data to better reflect the true Hispanic profile. Ms Sanchez de Malicki has been a nightly news anchor for CFMT-TV and an independent producer of the national TV program Hispanos en Canada.

LUZ  BASCUAN has a teaching degree from the University of Chile and an MA from University of Toronto. As a public school trustee for the Toronto Board of Education for three consecutive periods, Ms. Bascuan became the first Latin American elected to public office in Canada. Since 1998, she has been the Education Advocate of the Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto and created Escuela Pioneros de la Paz for teaching conflict resolution and social skills to children and youth within the context of the Latin American culture.

LITA GONZALEZ-DICKEY has been the Spanish Community Relations Officer of the Toronto Catholic District School Board for nearly 30 years. She has been instrumental in placing thousands of Hispanic children into schools, including those from many undocumented and refugee families. Ms Gonzalez-Dickey created Centro Bienvenidos, the board Spanish Resource Centre from where she helps children with their homework and provides opportunities for foreign trained teachers to get familiarized with the school system and obtain Canadian experience.

MARIA CARMEN ROMERO was granted a fellowship by the Canada Council for Arts and Humanities to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Toronto. Her postdoctoral research at York University analyzed the positive effects of bilingualism in the early development of literacy. A teacher and principal for 28 years, Dr. Romero worked in the Canadian Centre for the Prevention and Treatment of Torture with refugees from all over the world. She has done similar work in Guatemala with the Canadian Central American Relief Effort. She initiated the opening of 17 educational programs in both the Toronto District and Catholic District School Boards.

JUAN CARLOS ZUNIGA-PFLUCKER is a professor of immunology at the University of Toronto. He recently discovered how to grow T cells in a laboratory using embryonic stem cells. T cells are the foundation of the immune system, which HIV, chemotherapy and radiation destroy. Dr. Zuniiga-Pflucker work attempts to answer one of the fundamental questions in the field: How certain cells respond to key molecular signals, making them develop into disease-fighting T cells.

JUAN CARRANZA, LLB, is the first Central American called to the Law Society of Upper Canada, with a law degree from Osgoode Hall and an MBA from Queen’s University. He is founder Carranza Barristers & Solicitors, Toronto’s largest ethnic law firm, serving clients in over ten languages, including extensive probono work by he and his firm. In 2000, Juan received the prestigious Community Service award from the Law Society of Upper Canada and was instrumental in obtaining from the CRTC Canada’s first Spanish-language radio station in 2003.

MARCO A. GUZMAN before attending St Francis Xavier University, where he was later awarded an LL.D., Mr Guzman he created Voluntarios en Accion in his native Bolivia, an organization with a 36-year record of such humanitarian work as providing thousands of school desks for children. For the last 10 years, he as been Executive Director of Frontiers Foundation Inc. He has placed thousands of national and international volunteers into partnership with aboriginal Canadian hosts and co-workers in hands-on affordable housing and education projects, such as Project Amik is a 75 -unit facility in east Toronto, with half the suites designated for aboriginal residence and 14 of the total space reserved for handicapped tenants.

ALEX JADAD. MD is one of the few doctors in the world with a doctorate in knowledge synthesis, which he received from Oxford University. In 2000 he joined the University of Toronto and founded the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation. In 2001 and 2002, he was featured by Time Magazine as one of the new Canadians who will shape Canada in the 21st century.

ESTEBAN LASSO is an international development professional with 14 years experience in social development projects, working extensively in the rural and child development sector with organizations such as Christian Children’s Fund, Catholic Relief Services and UNICEF. Since 2001, Mr Lasso has been dedicated to improving the availability of quality medical treatment and care for children and adults with left clip and palate, and related cranion-facial disorders through the nonprofit organization Transforming Faces Worldwide.

FEDERICO ALLODI, MD is recognized internationally as a pioneer, expert and activist in the field of mental health for immigrants, refugees, and torture victims. He founded the first specialized centre for the treatment of torture survivors and has participated in numerous international campaigns (many in Latin America) to advocate for health coverage for the poor.

Yours in proudly celebrating the accomplishments of Hispanics in Canada,

Carlos
Happy Hispanic Heritage month…

Finding organic chayote was a challenge, but luckily Whole Foods had some that was naturally grown, which means it wont be long before certified organic is available, too.

My offering on that drizzly day, which beautifully turned into a gorgeous sunny day at Everdale farm, just east of Georgetown it“ was a chayote guiso [Spanish for stew] with boniato [white sweet potato], topped off by organic chorizo from The Healthy Butcher.

it was great to see people enjoying the food, particularly the groovy organic vessel I designed to carry the guiso to avoid plastic or unnecessary paper.

We cut squares of plantain leaf, wrapped them into the shape of a cup and then pierced them with small, sturdy wooden skewers from Chinatown, all of it beautiful compost.

I don’t mind saying I’m proud of that, too.

The crew, left to right: Annick le Goaix, Andrew Pemas, Stephanie Ortenzi. Those are the famous plantain cups in front of Annick. Great work guys. Thanks.

A high note for me was meeting Linda Crago and her riveting basket of colourful organic heirloom tomatillos: pink, purple, yellow and green. Beautiful.

Who knew you could get them so close to home? This opens things up for me: doing Latino locally. Linda says tomatillos have been grown in Ontario for over 10 years. Who knew?
And guess what else she grows [although there wasn't enough hot weather this year]? Chayote!

Linda Crago with some of her beautiful heirloom vegetables
My next move is clear: spread the word about how easy it is to cook these beautiful these vegetables, but more importantly, how delicious. Or should I say, Sabrotito!

On another note; it was great seeing Michael Stadtlander and Mike Dixon promoting the Canadian Chef’s Congress coming up this weekend. Guess who’s going?

Yours in good food from 2008 Feast of Fields
Carlos

I am going to celebrate with a class to showcase the Mexican influences on the regional flavours of California cuisine.

Our foodie-road trip and what we’re making…..

First stop: Gilroy, the garlic capital of the world and the southernmost city in Santa Clara County.

Sopa de colilfor con ajo y crema
Cauliflower-garlic soup with crema la vaquita

Second: Oxnard, a community also in south, which has been honouring its Latino heritage for the last 15 years with an annual festival.

Oxnard salsa picante, queso fresco y tortillas.
Spicy tomato salsa, fresh cheese and corn tortillas

Third: Guadalupe, in Santa Barbara County, with Mexican influences not only in food but in music and art as well.

Ensalada tibia de cordinez con chili y chocolate
Warn quail salad with organic greens and spicy chocolate sauce..

Last stop before returning home the Anderson Valley, is located along highway 128 in Northern California about 2 1/2 hours north of San Francisco. famous for its culinary and viniculture heritage.

Torta con Fresas y dulce the leche
Strawberry shortcakes with dulce de leche

The cherry on top:
Great wines to match each course.

For more info please call LCBO Summerhill, 416 922-0403

Join us.

Yours in good food and celebrating Mexican culture and cuisine
Carlos