50 Reasons why Alex Bielak's Food For Thought has been So Successful

Alex Bielak
 photo by Ninka Bielak

The Hamiltonian and our readership are truly fortunate to have Alex Bielak as our "foodie" and expert in the celebration of food and drink. Alex's enthusiasm for the appreciation of fine food and drink, is infectious and is laden with depth and elegance. With this week's edition of Food for Thought, Alex has reached a milestone marking this edition as his fiftieth.

Alex has definitely caught the attention of our readers and is also a sought after personality in the food and drink circles. He was invited to be a judge of the First Flamborough Chili Festival (http://www.waterdownlegion.ca/12415/Hall-Rental-Social-Events.htm) in support of the Flamborough Women’s Resource Centre and also a judge at the 1st Hamilton Battledish (http://dishcrawl.com/hamilton/) held last October. He has been to various food events including the Ontario Culinary Tourism Summit (https://ontarioculinary.com/octasummit/) and is a proud member of the Food Bloggers of Canada http://www.foodbloggersofcanada.com/ . 

His writing will also be featured with our friends at Hamilton Magazine and has an article in the most recent edition of upcoming “Wine Food and Friends". Alex will also be featured in http://rarerepublic.com/ in the future.

Alex tells us that he is most happy that people read his material and that he is having fun writing. Thank-you Alex for your hard work, enthusiasm and contributions to The Hamiltonian. 

In truth there are not fifty reasons for Alex's success in The Hamiltonian and beyond; there is only one- Alex Bielak.

Cheers Alex and thank-you. We are all looking forward to edition 100 of Food for Thought ;-) For now, let's enjoy the fiftieth edition by clicking here.  

Teresa DiFalco and staff of The Hamiltonian

Food for Thought with Alex Bielak - Sips and Bites – the January 2014 Value edition

Sips and Bites – the January 2014 Value edition 

Certainty is elusive. The vortex is polar and the loonie is falling. But there can be value upsides.

The cold winter has been great for ice wine producers who have had plenty of time and optimal conditions to harvest what looks like a bumper crop. And the weather is appropriately brisk for the Ice Wine Festival that concludes this Sunday, January 26th. This means there is still time to nip down and partake of some of the excellent-value “Discovery Pass” events at a variety of locations, from Beamsville to Niagara on the Lake.

I’m pleased to have been invited to the sold-out preview event for a Taste of Burlington at the Burlington

Food for Thought with Alex Bielak - White Gold (and a missed opportunity?)

White Gold (and a missed opportunity?

What is whitish, mottled, lumpy, pungent, and might generally be qualified as visually underwhelming and unattractive, yet is a luxury food that normally costs in the range of $7 - 8,000 per Kilo?

My wife and I had the opportunity to find out just before Christmas at a $60 per plate event held at Konoba, the Croatian restaurant and lounge in Hess Village. The answer is of course a sought-after seasonal delicacy Tuber magnatum Pico. That’s white truffle to you and me, and no, we’re not talking the chocolate kind. Rather we were sampling the elusive fungus hunted with dogs (really – there are lots of videos on YouTube) in the Motovun forest in Istria, Croatia.

The white truffle is truly a luxury item available in the fall through to December. They are tasty (more on that below) and aromatic beyond belief, which is why dogs (and pigs) can be trained to find them where they grow in the wild. The most highly prized are from Italy and Croatia and, according to Wikipedia, stratospheric prices in the range of hundreds of thousand dollars have been paid for large specimens of a kilo or so.

We were among a small group of enthusiastic guests that joined Konoba’s Chef and co-owner, Vedran