Insider’s Tips - Oct.3

The end of summer is approaching rapidly at the Ontario Food Terminal. Executive Chef Lorenzo Loseto’s opinion this week is that the Ontario farmers are getting set to disappear for the year around Thanksgiving.

With the warmer weather, the bet of a few of the farmers who planted a late second summer crop paid off as they harvested and brought to market this week new cauliflower and artichokes. The Chef arrived at 5.00 am and while most of the Terminal’s small offering of English peas, zucchinis and concord grapes had been sold, his long time farmer/suppliers had reserved an allotment for him.  

While some farmers who lived some distance from Toronto had shortages due to a shortage of pickers this year to help with their harvest, the Chef managed to buy everything he needed from Ontario producers save some lemons and oranges from California along with South American avocados.  

This week, the chef bought a little known fruit grown in Ontario available only at this time of year called paw paw, It is sort of a combination of a banana and mango. You can usually only find it in farmers markets. Like mangos, it must be soft and not hard before it is ready for consumption. 

Astonishingly, the Chef told us that he had only tried it a couple of times in his life and that he was going to experiment before deciding how to best offer it. 

Ontario Grown Produce Highlight:

“Paw Paw” Fruit

There is a shortage this week of Nunavut turbot due to weather and distribution problems. The Chef is substituting gindara black cod from Vancouver Island and hopes the turbot might return next week. It looks like this will be the last week for Nova Scotia swordfish as the season wraps up. Do try the ocean trout cured by the Chef which he serves in the Puglian manner with fresh Italian chicory.

The Chef offers  a new pistachio canoli which customers like and is restoring servings of chocolate beignets on the lunch menu.

Today is the first day when GEORGE has reopened for lunch after being closed for lunch since the pandemic. See the menu below. A less than obvious choice but an amazing one in our view, is the white lasagna. Freshly made every day, it is far from the boring red stuff most of became accustomed to as we began to learn how to cook. 

 And don’t forget we offer a two-sip martini for $7.50 to break the ice as it were