Food For thought with Alex Bielak - High Flying Food

  High Flying Food

An aerial theme this week, as well as a couple of more earthly delights for you to consider.

It turns out Food for Thought has a fan in Los Angeles. Deborah Bryan made the link between the Hamiltonian having a political bent, as well as a food and wine column.

She sent a link to a video titled “Flying Kitchens over parliament - Happy Beefgiving.” Produced for Meat & Livestock Australia, it pokes fun at two Australian politicians, Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott.

Deborah wrote they “rarely get along,” but my Australian contacts (thanks Andrew and Fin) were basically a lot less polite about the two and the havoc they are wreaking down under.

I got the sense from them that even the rock bottom of the Chretien/Bouchard or Harper/Duceppe relationships would not be a match: So watch the video’s punch line and imagine our PM and the retired Bloc leader soaring over our Parliament, or perhaps, given the recent news, the Premiers of Alberta and B.C. spiraling over the oil sands.)

In more prosaic and culinary vein, the video features several chefs grilling over an amazing, and soon to be airborne grill. I want one!

Food for Thought with Alex Bielak- Fringe Food

Fringe Food


This week we are talking about Food in Theatre. (Or perhaps it is Food as Theatre, you be the judge.) The Hamilton Fringe Festival features two shows related to food and another that teases with a culinary expectation. (The three shows run Friday 20th to Sunday 29th July. See the Fringe website for all showtimes.) 

The one I am heading to first is “The Cooking Show” (at the Hamilton Theatre) directed by Hamilton’s own Ray Rivers. “It’s a spoof of sorts on the Food Network,” says Rivers who is Playwright, Producer, and Director for the show, as well as appearing in it as the Maitre d’ and Musician. It’s a real multi-tasking family affair as his wife, Jean, is Stage Manager, and deals with props and costumes as well.

The show promises “humour, romance and intrigue (in a) comedy with a surprising ending.” It includes “extra-curricular activities,” real recipes, and thoughts about lamb and wine. It also features a trip to the first restaurant in France that Julia Child ate at, one that inspired her culinary career. (It was 1948 at “la Couronne” in Rouen, and she loved the sole meunière.) 

Ray – who dabbled for a couple of years as a vegan, but is now a devoted meatie – is also politically active

Food for Thought with Alex Bielak- A Dining Divide: The Alex and Rapscallion (Part 2)

Matthew Kershaw at the pass. 

A Dining Divide: The Alex and Rapscallion (Part 2)

During our interview (for Part 1 see last week’s column), Chef Matthew Kershaw, co-owner of “The Alex” and “Rapscallion” in Burlington and Hamilton respectively, told me some of his own favourite dining had been at places like Black Hoof in Toronto and au Pied du Cochon in Montreal. (Both are known for their relatively informal, snout-to-tail approach to cuisine.)

“I love fat, I love flavor and I love meat, so that’s what we wanted to do for Rapscallion”. The best meal he’s had in the last two years was at Chasse et Pêche in Montreal, with its hunting and fishing lodge theme, and renowned for its use of local meats.

He makes around half the charcuterie for his restaurants, including duck prosciutto, bresaola, and pancetta. Things that take longer (e.g. lonza, prosciutto) he sources from Woodbridge and Niagara. There’s a charcuterie board at the Alex which is at a very reasonable price point ($16), but Kershaw says it’s really a teaser for the one at Rapscallion which has a “much broader array…seven items (of ten) on any given day” ranging from “spicy soft salami you can actually spread on bread, foie gras, terrines, chicken liver brulé parfait and other smoked meats.”

Food for Thought with Alex Bielak- A Dining Divide: The Alex and Rapscallion (Part 1)

Chef Matthew Kershaw

A Dining Divide: The Alex and Rapscallion (Part 1)

I first met Chef Matthew Kershaw during the Hamilton Food and Drink Fest earlier this year. If you’ve been following this column, you may remember I mentioned Kershaw - who together with his girlfriend and partner, Erin Dunham, owns Burlington’s “The Alex” and Hamilton’s “Rapscallion” - was part of a “culinary nexus that bears watching.”

I finally had the opportunity to eat at the Alex recently. It was during the Burlington Sound of Music Festival. My wife and I joined another couple (let’s do it again soon, Chris and Anne) for dinner at the “small plates” restaurant on Brant Street before going to enjoy Matt Anderson. (The great Maritime blues man was singing in soaring counterpoint to the Hamilton Symphony.) More on the interesting food we enjoyed will await a future column, once we have a chance to get to Rapscallion too.

After dinner we were able to sit and chat at length with the Chef about how he had come to be running the two establishments and what distinguished them. Bespectacled and with a ginger beard, he’s a big guy who at first take appears a bit diffident. Once he gets going, however, the words tumble out and his passion becomes evident. Good thing I recorded the interview so I could catch the plethora of rapid-fire thoughts and opinions, one atop of another.

Though he grew up in Ancaster, his formative time was in Hamilton where he was Chef at the Hamilton Golf and Country Club. He always wanted to open up his own place, and once he had the time and money and felt comfortable doing it, he looked “for the longest time” for a place in Hamilton.