Les Pommes de Nuit Blanche

This past weekend was Toronto's 5th annual Nuit Blanche event. Being a night-owl and creative type, the idea of a dusk-to-dawn massive public art-party event naturally excites me. And when I received Not Far From The Tree's call for volunteers for their "Cider Making Spectacle" as part of the event, I couldn't help but join in on the fun.

I showed up at 3:30am at the Gladstone Hotel's Art Bar, along with 3 other volunteers. For the event, Not Far From The Tree brought in 400 lbs of apples, which was a small portion of the thousands of pounds of fruit they collect from trees around the city each year. For the last 3 hours of the event, we turned these unloved apples into steamy hot cider, which sold for $2 per sample.

The cider-making process was simple, but labour intensive:

Wash apples. Peel-off skin (using neat-o peeling device). Slice into quarters.













Crank slices through manual grinder.















Press. Collect cider (i.e. unfiltered juice).






















Heat with cinnamon sticks. Pour into little cups, and sell.






















By 6:30am, our little operation/performance/installation served out many little cups of cider, and a little cider-making know-how, to many happy people.

Pots, Jars and Bottles

Last Friday, my partner and I decided to take a day trip to Prince Edward County, and see what “Ontario’s new wine region” and “one of Canada’s top escape destinations” was all about.

We ended up visiting about 8 wineries in “The County”, and taking home 18 bottles. Honestly, the wines were hit-and-miss… most were just okay, and surprisingly expensive (average mid-$20 per bottle). The best wine, by far, was the 2008 Unfiltered County Chardonnay from Norman Hardie. It was described as having an unmistakable note of “gun smoke”... how could I resist? It was bold, intensely flavoured and a real pleasure to drink.

Almost all of the wines sold by the wineries we visited were VQA-certified. Some of these VQA wines contained grapes from Niagara, some contained grapes from the County but not grown by the winery itself, and the rest contained grapes grown by the winery right in the County. Aside from being a badge of distinction, being VQA certified also allows the wine to be sold directly to restaurants (versus having to go through the LCBO).

We also visited the Highline Mushroom Farm. But don’t be fooled, as we were, by the name: this farm is actually an industrial complex, employing hundreds of people and shipping mushrooms to all over Canada.

As we rolled up with great reservation into the parking lot, we could smell what only can be described as rotten cabbages and compost. The farm’s “sales office” was a small corridor, where an elderly lady wearing a hair net pointed us to the stand-up fridge where the small selection of mushrooms-for-sale were kept. We bagged about a pound of portobello and shiitake, costing us only $6.

After stopping in Wellington for lunch, we popped our heads into the museum. They had a small exhibit on canning, to reflect the County's long history of industrial canning. I thought these directions for How To Can Chickens was particularly neat:

We also spent some time in the local library. I found this old gem, The Laura Secord Canadian Cook Book, which dates back to 1979:

Near the back pages of the book were recommended set dinners, one for each Canadian province. The Ontario Dinner included "Scalloped Turnip and Apples" and "York County Corn Bread"... neat-o. I also found a recipe for Toronto Pie, which is "a delicate, hot-milk sponge cake split and filled with raspberry jam".

Overall, it was a lovely day in Prince Edward County. If you’re looking for a wine-touring day trip from Toronto, I might encourage you to consider the more established Niagara region, but the County surely offers a refreshing change of scenery.