Brickworks Culinary Wedding

An urban country wedding - thestar.com
[WE had been wondering  about  weddings at the Brickworks, as it's just down the hill from our house.. and lo, it's beginning.....]

".... Streiman, 30, and Epstein, 31, love food. There really is no overstating that. And so, their wedding is about fresh, local food, country living, family, and the Jewish faith, perfectly packaged together in an old industrial building at the Evergreen Brick Works, along the Don Valley.

Birds chirp and bees buzz at the old brickyard, which has been turned into a community environment centre but still has faded bricks and shattered windows. Fruits trees and tomato plants are tagged for sale nearby...(Guests) mingle over bread, cured beef and duck, sheep’s milk cheeses and fruit laid out on tables covered in burlap sacks. They sip beer and water out of mason jars that will later be used for canning... Last December, the couple bought a 40-hectare farm in Maple Valley, not far from renowned chef Michael Stadtlander’s Eigensinn Farm and the town of Creemore. They plan to open a bed and breakfast called Mad Maple Farm, with comfortable suites, farm-to-table brunches, cooking classes and foraging expeditions. Their urban wedding is the beginning of their foray into the country. Roughly 20 chefs are preparing an incredible meal at five stations set up in plain view of the guests.

These are rising stars in Toronto’s restaurant industry, and close friends of Streiman’s, who knows where every ingredient in this feast has come from. The fish was caught the day before the wedding, by Akiwenzie’s Fish & More, a small First Nations fishing company in Georgian Bay. The rainbow carrots, beets, salad greens, fennel, eggs and duck came from a co-op of 20 farms called the Kawartha Ecological Growers, as did the 128 chickens, raised just for today.

The fruit is from Niagara and the water, the Niagara escarpment. The artisanal breads were made at St. John’s bakery, part of St. John’s mission in Toronto. The cheese is from Monforte Dairy in Stratford. The beer from the Steam Whistle brewery. The list could go on. Luis Valenzuela, chef at Torito in Kensington market, admits he pulled an all-nighter because the fresh lamb and baby chickens arrived just before the wedding.