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 message is simple…. Save The Land That Feeds Us….

Please take a look  at TVO and  Blog T.O. for more information about the event.

With fellow Chef Heather Baker as we arrived to the event!

It was cold and rainy, but people were keep showing up, an estimated 28.OOO came up to support the event!

Helping up chef Christopher Palik and his team from Paese Restaurant.

Checking out chef Michael Stadtlander pumpkin soup bowl. It was really cool!

Yours from Foodstock!

What an amazing event it was. Thank you to the organizers, chefs, farmers and volunteers who help to make the event a reality!

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

It was an honor for me and my crew, to have been invited to the
picnic, thanks to the event organizers decision to recognize cultural and
ethnic groups from around the world that make Toronto home.
Connecting the global palate using foods grown locally is a great
opportunity to bring environmental and cultural traditions together,
which at the same time makes our city more beautiful in the eyes of
the world.

The crew, from right to left, Adrian Marquez, Marc Lukacs and Eduardo Lee, thanks for your help guys!!

There were food stations from Central and South America, Africa, the
Caribbean, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asian and India.

With that spirit of global food, I decided to make a “Guiso de
Calabaza, queso y Siqui-siqui” (Organic Delicata squash stew and fresh
cheese). I got all my food products from Pfennings Farms and the queso
fresco from Local Dairy Produce (Ingersoll, Ontario) and the
Portuguese Cheese Company, which is based in Toronto.

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.

To make the containers we cut squares of plantain leaf, wrapped them
into the shape of a cup and then held them together with small,
sturdy wooden skewers from Chinatown. All of it will become beautiful
compost.

Happy to report that it was a hit with all my new vegetarians friends.

Yours from the 2009 Bricks Works Picnic
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

Luis believes that doing so he is helping to improve the lives of people who do not have the chance to go to school in one of the most impoverished region in Colombia.

Foto: Andrea Moreno / EL TIEMPO
He started out with 70 books and has grow into a traveling library of nearly 5,000 books.
This began as a necessity,” Soriano told the NY Times, “and then it became an obligation, and after that a custom. Now, it’s an institution.

The most admirable and impressive thing he does is to travel without any escort in one of Colombia’s most volatile regions. On the battlefied are Colombian national army, numerous paramilitary groups and FARC, the Spanish acronym for the Columbian Revolutionary Armed Forces.

In this environment, Soriano has been robbed, and because he didn’t have any money (all he carries is books], the theives tied him to a tree and left him there for several days, but he says nothing will stop him from doing this work.

He’s married with three children, He and his wife have open a little restaurant, so they could make ends meet and to help to buy more books. They don’t get any help from the local or national government.

Luis Sorriano you are my hero.

I just want to leave you with this quote from Jacques Cousteau, which comes to mind when thinking of Sorriano.

” If we were logical, the future would be bleak indeed. But we are more that logical. We are human beings, and we have faith, and we have hope”

Yours honoring an exceptional hero

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

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

With Ed Robertson [center] Rosa Maria Tortorici [right]

The New Canadians team

In the CBC ustudio

Having to defend my honour by answering questions about Canada.I’m pretty passionate about my citizenship, and I’m pretty knowledgeable on the subject, so I was up for the challenge.As well my other thirty three teammates from our New Canadians Team.

We were on a fight of knowledge about our nation against 5 stronger teams; Canadian Forces, Reach for the Toppers, Tours Guides, Weathercasters and the American Canadians.

Wanna know who won?Tune in on Sunday, September 7 at 8 pm.

Yours at the CBC

Carlos