News & Events

Flavours of Harmony banquet 2008

About the banquet

FACT's eighth Flavours of Harmony banquet was held on
Sunday, November 9, 2008, at the St. Lawrence Hall in Toronto.
Our major fund-raising event of the year, the sold-out event was a resounding success. (flyer) (newsletter)

The Flavours of Harmony banquet marked the 10th anniversary of our organisation. It featured the Medierranrean healing cuisine with slow sensibility, a silent auction along with many prizes at the tables and a lucky draw. Our major sponsors were Tridel, Nature's Source and Sunlife. We thank them for their generous support and praise the dedicated efforts of all staff, particularly Carolyn, Diane and Maryvic.

The food

The theme of this year's Flavours of Harmony banquet was Mediterranean healing cuisine. Although we selected our theme well beforehand, the New England Journal of medicine recently published another article extolling the health benefits of traditional Mediterranean cuisine. While the article published in July by no means the first such study, it does conclude that "Mediterranean and low-carbohydrate diets may be effective alternatives to low-fat diets" (source).

As with previous years, our menu team (Edmund Rek, Carolyn Wilson and Diane Whittall) devised a unique menu to ensure an unforgettable experience for our special audience. Our thanks go out to the caterers, Mangiacake, and especially to Raj Maru and Chris Hockley (chef).

Together, we learned about the health benefits of Mediterranean food while enjoying organic, local produce — harvested from Ontario and cooked in the Mediterranean tradition. We selected food from the following suppliers:

• Cookstown Greens: greens, sweet potatoes and other root vegetables

  Edmond Rek, Evelyn's Crackers

• Twin Creek Organic Farm: grass-fed lamb
• Forbes Wild Food: wild rice, mushrooms and maple syrup
• Akiwenzie’s Fish & More: local, sustainable fishing of wild freshwater fish
• Bee's Universe: honey
• Evelyn's Crackers: locally-sourced organic crackers
• Lifford Wine Agency: selected the organic Spanish white wine (Basa 2007 Blanco, Rueda, Spain) and the French white wine (Louis Jadot, Combe aux Jacques 2007 from Beaujolais-Villages, Burgundy, France)
• Merchants of Green Coffee: fresh-roasted, fair-trade organic coffee

The menu

Antipasto: Hummus, olives, roasted peppers, pita, handmade crackers

Salads:

• Gathered greens with Moroccan dressing
• Roasted baby beets and grilled Haloumi watercress salad with Bartlett pears and red wine shallot vinaigrette
• Turkish carrot salad with sheep milk yoghurt, garlic and parsley

Pasta: Pumpkin ravioli with wild mushroom, sage and ricotta

Meat: Slow-roasted, grass-fed leg of lamb with honey-rosemary glaze

Fish: Smoked Georgian Bay whitefish with locally-produced pickled vegetables

Accompaniments:

• Wild rice pilaf with cranberries, pine nuts and apricots
• Soft polenta with slow-roasted garlic and fine herbs
• Ontario maple-syrup-roasted sweet potatoes
• Cast-iron corn bread with shredded Ontario cheddar

Dessert: Spiced Niagara cranberry bread pudding with crème anglaise

The programme

Entertainment was provided by James Blight, who played a selection of piano pieces. Julie Daniluk, our Master of Ceremonies, provided menu highlights, made announcements about the silent auction and awarded the many prizes.

Our president, Bob Dunn, made the welcoming remarks, and David Cohlmeyer of Cookstown Greens spoke on the Slow Food movement. Fred Hui, the final speaker, had the honour of thanking our many benefactors.

Our banquet sponsors

We would like to sincerely thank our corporate sponors:

Tridel, our platinum-level sponsor

Nature's Source, our gold-level sponsor      

We have five silver-level sponsors (in alphabetical order):

• Apex Centre for Integrated Health
• Bin Management Inc. (Emilio Pidutti, Barrie office)
• Haber's Pharmacy
• Quantum Energy Health Centres of Canada
• Sun Life Financial

We would also like to thank our many donors, people and organisations who contributed to the silent auction, the lucky draw and the table prizes.

Thanks to Joseph Chan for supplying the photos used on this page. To see more pictures of the 2008 FACT Flavours of Harmony banquet, see Joseph's flickr account.

Why do we do this?

The proceeds of this event support the further development of the FACT website at http://www.thefacts.org. FACT's focus in the coming year is to create a virtual community, working together to advance the field of CAM. For more information, contact us at messages@thefacts.org.

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For more information about joining FACT see our membership page, call 416-299-5113 or e-mail messages@thefacts.org.