Eat Out, Give Back

Positive News   
June 21st, 2012

By: Claudia Cahalane

A decade since Jamie Oliver launched his famous Fifteen restaurant in East London, to provide training and apprenticeships for disadvantaged young people, it has turned into a chain with restaurants in Cornwall and Australia. Twelve years prior, a London church called St Martin in the Fields and a handful of other charitable organisations were running cafes employing ex-homeless people, however, the spotlight on Fifteen got more people thinking about how the catering industry could become a force for good.

Two volunteers at the Station House Community Cafe, London. Photo © FoodCycle

Around the UK we can now see a budding collection of places to eat and drink where profits benefit those most in need. From helping ex-addicts, prisoners, troubled young people, those with learning difficulties, or anyone who is struggling to find wo…………… continues on Your Olive Branch

As the WestJet air carrier gained altitude, thoughts of Canadian bacon and maple syrup circled.

Pre-trip research left me with a virtually empty plate of traditional Canadian cuisine in Toronto, Ontario, where the airplane hustled me northwest to taste the flavors of the city for four days in May. Still, my palate was cleansed and poised to explore.

Armed with a plane-ride’s worth of local food folklore from my seatmates Jack and Naida Cormack, 79 and 76, I stepped off the aircraft to eat my way through Toronto. Finding “Canadian” food was a bit tricky because it’s a melting pot metropolis.

The Greater Toronto Area is the fifth largest metropolitan area in North America, with 5.1 million people speaking 128 languages. Like New York City, there are dozens of ethnic neighborhoods, including five Chinatowns, two Little Italys, Greektown, Little India and Koreatown.

We stayed with the friends of my traveling companion, at their condo in the Entertainment District.

1178 Queen St. W., 647-351-6868, nunuethiopian.com

On our first evening, we walked the rainy, yet trendy, Queen Street West to dine at Nunu, offering fine Ethiopian cuisine in a sophisticated environment. Nunu means “come, come,” a nice sentiment to be greeted with, having arrived in the country a few hours…………… continues on The News-Press