A tapped sugar maple tree at Mad Maple Inn near Creemore, Ontario, March 11, 2013.
Jim Leithead is, among other things, a chainsaw artist based in Dunedin, Ontario. Dunedin is just up the Niagara Escarpment from Creemore, and just around the corner from Mad Maple Country Inn where I found him on Monday at about noon tending a roaring fire over which, upon a grill, sat to big billies of boiling sugar maple sap. With days above freezing but nights that are still below, the short sugaring season has begun in Ontario and Jim was doing a demo of sugaring off for the benefit of a few dozen George Brown Hospitality School students and alumni, who were busy inside eating, drinking and making lunch.
Jim Leithead sugaring off at Mad Maple Inn.
GFR readers will recognize Mad Maple because of its connection to Miriam Strieman who runs and owns the B&B, cooking school and “agritourismo” with her husband Neil Epstein. Strieman, who worked as food stylist on big time cooking shows like Top Chef Canada, is best known as an organizer of chefs: first for the always sold-out Slow Food Picnic series, then for the Mega-Quarry events, Foodstock and Soupstock. That’s exactly what she was up to on Monday, as she played host GBC’s Italian exchange students and alumni. The students had just come back from their stay in Italy and were in the process of making a multi-course feast made entirely from local producers, right down to flour for the bread and pasta from K2 Milling.
Maestra Miriam Strieman conducts the orchestra of chefs at Mad Maple Inn, including contestant Dennis Tay (far left) from Top Chef Canada Season 3 (Keriwa Café).
Miriam (who, full disclosure, is a friend and colleague) will also be chef wrangling at various events associated with Terroir 2013, as she did at Mad Maple last year. She seems to bask in the chaos of a dozen cooks in the kitchen working on half a dozen dishes, and she keeps an eye on each team, bringing them whatever they may need at any time as they work around the big island in her professional kitchen. The young chefs and chefs to be were clearly having a good time, pulling roast chickens out of the oven to rest, or snipping at greenhouse herbs to garnish this or that. Miriam explained to me that the event is part of big push at Goerge Brown to use sustainable and local foods throughout their hospitality and tourism curriculum. They picked Mad Maple because of her connection to the school and her amazing network of Ontario producers.
Chefs and students cook it up under the watchful eye of George Brown faculty member Paul DeCampo.
Maple Syrup is, of course the first, product of the growing season and in this way Jim Leithead and his bubbling sap seemed to take on ritual significance and portend all the delicious things to come.
Malcolm Jolley is a founding editor of Good Food Revolution and Executive Director of Good Food Media, the not-for-profit corporation which publishes it. Follow him at twitter.com/malcolmjolley
