♪ Yes.

So, now our slaw is pretty much done.

♪ Coming together nicely, yup.

Wonderful.

Wonderful.

I'm a journalist and I'm traveling across my home country, Canada.

On this journey I'll be experiencing some of Canada's most fascinating destinations.

My next journey is in southeastern Canada.

in the most populous city in the country.

Toronto.

♪ I've come to the province of Ontario and I'll be exploring the city of Toronto.

It is Canada's largest city and it's famous for its diversity.

In fact, my grandparents on my father's side immigrated to Canada and settled in Toronto, and I grew up just outside of the city.

I haven't lived here for 20 years, so I'm very excited to explore one of my favorite neighborhoods and the diverse culinary scene.

♪ reggae funk beat One of my favorite things to do in Toronto is come to Kensington Market.

This community is known for its bohemian vibe.

There's lots of vintage clothes shops, cool restaurants, and there's one shop that I've been visiting since I was 17 years old called Courage My Love.

It's a very neat vintage clothes shop, and I'm with one of theowners, Cece Scriver.

She owns this cool shop with her family.

Tell me what it's like to own a vintage clothing shop?

Well, when we first opened, it was very weird for everyone else.

But my parents opened in 1975 and they basically decided they wanted to sell used clothing.

They wanted to sell things, no new stuff at all.

It's an amazing thing to sell used clothing because you're selling a little bit of history, you're selling a story, you're selling different things and weird things to people.

And people love it.

They just love it.

And I love selling that because you also are selling one of a kind things.

Tell me what you sell here at Courage My Love?

[CeCe] We sell stuff.

We sell antiques, we sell antique jewelry.

We sell old coats.

I mean, we basically sell everything and anything we like, and we exploit our talents.

[Brandy] And, you know, CeCe, like I really remember coming here and buying lots of jewelry, like rings and clothes from the sixties, and it was a lot of fun.

Yeah.

I just.

I wonder, like, what is it about used clothing?

Why do people want to come and buy old things?

I think people, that this is just my opinion, but I think very smart people want to cause people that are independent thinkers, want to come to a used clothing store and pick out something that they want that they know no one else will have, that they will feel good in- inside out.

And it makes them, it just makes them feel good and it makes them... it's a personality choice and it's a life choice, I think.

And once you do that, you realize, Oh yeah, I can be an independent thinker and not have to go to the mall and have someone design my whole life.

Tell me about Kensington Market.

How would you describe this neighborhood?

[CeCe] Well, it's very diverse.

It's human size.

There's... [Brandy] What do you mean by human size?

[CeCe] Well.

Oh, yeah.

So there's... it's it's it's... there's no skyscrapers.

It's - you don't feel like you're in Toronto when you're here.

It's a little village within a big city.

And Toronto is such a business city that this, this makes people feel like home.

They come here, they, they eat, they shop.

They don't have to go to their 60-storey condo.

They can be in a place where there's, they don't see them.

It's, it's a homey place.

It's a little village.

It's sweet.

And if you could sort of give me a grocery list of your favorite things to do in Toronto, what would they be?

[CeCe] I love going to restaurants.

I love going to every different part of Toronto because when you get there, you realize that there's an ethnicity that is made at their little village.

It's a big mishmash.

It's quite nice.

And actually my grandparents immigrated from Ukraine to Toronto, so I even have that connection.

[CeCe] So amazing.

And I grew up outside of the city and I notice these beautiful hats here.

Of course I notice them because they're so interesting and unique.

You must have made this out of something else.

[CeCe] So, these are made out of chenille blankets.

They're blankets that were bedspreads that you would have put on your, on your bed, your made bed, and it would have fancied up your room.

And I mean, there's different you can tell what era these ones were from and you can tell what era these ones are from.

And so what they do, they come to us white and I dye them and they... then we make stuff out of them because it's just such freaky material.

And I think it's crazy and it's right now, it's the hottest thing.

I love it.

Oh, can I look in this mirror?

I have to see myself in this funky hat.

Oh, it's quite cute.

I feel like I'm in the sixties.

I love this one.

Oh yeah.

This one matches my shirt.

That is awesome.

Wonderful.

Oh, CeCe, you have the best job.

[CeCe] I do.

You really do.

Thank you so much.

[CeCe] You're welcome.

Giving me a glimpse into your life here and what it's like to own a vintage shop.

So cool.

[CeCe] You're welcome.

♪ ♪ driving scratch beat ♪ While I'm in Toronto, I wanted to try Indigenous cuisine and I've come to the Pow Wow Café in Kensington Market and I'm with the owner, Shawn Adler.

What is the Pow Wow Café?

Pow Wow Café is a restaurant that specializes in pow wow cuisine.

So today we're making my Nukumi's, my grandmother's fry bread recipe.

So, most of our items here, we do brunch, we do Indian tacos, we do scone dogs, corn soup, and a bunch of other types of food that are all sort of pow wow related.

But at the heart of pow wow cuisine is fry bread.

So that's what we're going to get into today.

Wonderful.

And what is your Indigenous background and how did it influence the food that you're cooking with?

So my mother's side of the family is from Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation, that's just northwest of Thunder Bay.

And this is really a dish that is at all pow wows across Turtle Island.

And it's an Indian taco.

They're delicious.

I ate tons of them growing up.

And it was really the inspiration for this restaurant.

[Brandy] And Shawn, what is a pow wow?

Pow wow is a celebration.

Usually, it's in the summer of drumming, dancing, eating.

It's the same way you use the term pow wow if you were to have a pow-wow at the office, it means a coming-together.

Well, I want to learn how to make this.

What's the first step?

Let's get you going here.

We're going to start with water.

Very important.

[Shawn] Eggs.

Four eggs.

Okay.

This is oil we use here.

Okay can I pour it in?

You could use lard, but we use oil.

Yep.

Go right ahead.

And this is vegetable oil.

[Shawn] This is vegetable oil.

Kosher salt.

'K?

It has to be kosher salt?

Absolutely.

It must be blessed.

Little brown sugar.

This helps give a nice golden color to the fry bread.

Okay.

So, some people call this fry bread.

Some people call it scone.

Some people call it bannock.

Oh!

Three names, one dish.

This is all-purpose flour.

How much in there?

Let's just put it all in.

I don't remember.

(laughter) I just make this almost every day.

You're like my grandmother, right?

She goes by the look of it and the feel of it.

Absolutely.

Baking powder.

Baking powder.

Baking powder.

Now it's time to roll up your sleeves and just get in there.

Now, when you make fry bread, when you make bannock, you have to think good thoughts.

Because what you're doing is you're, you're kneading it and you're working in those good thoughts.

If you think angry, bad thoughts, negative thoughts, you're going to have dense, tough fry bread.

Well, I'm gonna think about lovely thoughts.

So, tell me a little bit about why you decided to have this restaurant.

Right.

So, Pow Wow Café, I used to do - it sort of came out of the Flying Chestnut Kitchen, which is my other restaurant up north.

It's about 2 hours from here.

And for years, about 20 years we've been doing music festivals in Ontario and pow wows and serving Indian tacos.

Specifically, when we were in Toronto, people would ask, “Where can we get these Indian tacos?

” Because we would sell literally thousands every weekend at these music festivals.

So, it just occurred to me that it was time to open a restaurant in Toronto, bring pow wow food to the masses, and yeah, let everyone really get a taste of pow wow cuisine.

[Brandy] And I love it.

And look at me, here, all these positive thoughts.

This is looking very beautiful.

Coming together nicely.

Yeah.

Tell me more about your family.

You're a mix of a bunch of different cultures right?

[Shawn] So, my mother is from Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation, northwest of Thunder Bay, and my father is a Jew, Polish Jew.

So, my parents met at University of Guelph actually.

And yeah, there's five of us Adlers and we're yeah, we're "Jindians."

[Brandy] Well, this is so fun.

Did you learn anything about cooking from your Jewish side of the family?

Yeah!

All the time.

My Bubby was in the kitchen, matzo ball soup, gefilte fish, you name it, chocolate chip cookie cake, the best.

So, I always joke I own Pow Wow Café, but maybe one day I'll own a Jewish restaurant next door, "Latke Latke," you know?

Why not?

Some of my favorite food, especially the matzo balls and the latkes, I want them right now, too.

So right now, we've made this beautiful mixture.

How's it looking?

It's perfect.

You don't want to overwork it.

You don't want to create too much gluten and make it tough.

So right now, what we'll do is we'll go to the fryer.

Okay, let's go to the fryer.

[Shawn] All right.

Here's the fry bread dough that you made.

It looks great.

[Brandy] Thank you.

[Shawn] I'm just going to take a nice size hunk and we're gonna put it in the fryer.

It'll take about 5 minutes.

And, yeah, we'll be eating tacos in no time.

[Brandy] Mmmm.

[Shawn] I guess we'll need two.

[Brandy] Yeah, because you're going to eat one, too.

[Shawn] So again, I just like to smash it out.

And then plop it in the fryer.

[Brandy] Now we wait.

All right...

These look amazing.

They're crispy and light and fluffy.

We're going to do this hedgehog cut.

[Brandy] Wow.

[Shawn] This is our patented Pow Wow Café hedgehog cut.

[Brandy] Mmmmm!

[Shawn] What this does is it allows all the nice sauce from the beef chili to get right inside that fry bread.

[Brandy] Whoaaaa...

I'm just gonna... [Brandy] Oh, this is nice chili.

What's inside this?

[Shawn] So, this is a beef and bean chili.

It's a yeah, that should be great on top of the fry bread.

[Brandy] It smells fabulous!

[SHAWN] I'll get you to start topping this taco.

So, start with a cheddar.

So, it melts all on top of that hot fry bread.

Yeah.

Don't be shy.

Use it all up.

We've got lots.

This is intense.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, this, the idea here is you get the crispy and soft fry bread hot chili, the churgees.

Now some lettuce.

We use a nice mix.

Use it all up between the two.

Right on the top.

[Brandy] Right on the top?

[Shawn] Yep, right on the top.

[Brandy] Gotta be healthy.

[Shawn] Yeah, yeah.

Use it all.

[Brandy] I love this.

[Shawn] We use a great blend of arugula.

We've got a whole blend of lettuces that changes throughout the year.

Beautiful.

You can use your hands.

Don't be shy.

The tomatoes, we use vine ripened Ontario tomatoes.

They're super juicy.

[Brandy] I bet.

[Shawn] There's cilantro and jalapeño there.

So, it's a taco after all.

[Brandy] Oh, ho ho, I love cilantro.

[Shawn] So, you've got the freshness of the cilantro, the freshness of the jalapeño.

Like, it's rich, but it's fresh, it's crispy, but it's cooked.

There's so many elements of temperature and texture going on.

[Brandy] This is gonna make it spicy.

We have a little bit of sour cream and we put cumin in it.

So just a dollop right on top.

Really!?

Yes.

So, it's a taco, right?

So, cumin, South American spice.

[Brandy] Oh, I'm not good at this Shawn.

[Shawn] That's okay!

[Brandy] Oh, I'm not good at this Shawn.

No, no, that's perfect, perfect.

I'm trying.

I'm trying.

And then to top it off, edible flowers.

Okay I want that to look prettier so I'm adding that.

So that's why we just finish everything here.

Edible flowers.

Edible flowers.

yes.

Where do you get these?

These come from Grey County, from Ginny and Roy at Roy'L Acres.

[Brandy] Wow.

And that's near your other restaurant?

[Shawn] It is, yup.

[Brandy] And you can eat these?

[Shawn] You can eat 'em all.

[Brandy] Whoa.

How did I do?

[Shawn] This is perfect.

You're hired.

(laughing) Am I hired?

Do I have a job?

So, there's the cutlery.

Let's get in.

Okay, I'm hired.

You know, I might need a job, so this is awesome.

Okay.

Shall we go?

Cheers!

Cheers!

Thank you.

Shawn.

I can't believe how gorgeous it is.

I don't wanna eat it, but I do because I'm hungry and it looks tasty, too.

Mm mm...

Flavors are delicious.

I love the chili in there, but it's very light.

The bread is light!

[Shawn] Really fluffy, tender.

[Brandy] It's wonderful!

And all those tastes.

I love the flowers.

You really put good thoughts into the dough.

I can tell.

I really did.

This is just so delicious.

I'm loving this.

I bet if I ate this for breakfast, I wouldn't have to eat for the rest of the day.

[Shawn] This is true.

Shawn, thank you for teaching me about pow wow cuisine.

[Shawn] You're welcome!

It's so good and now I have to go to a pow wow.

You absolutely should.

Mm hmm.What a great party it would be.

It is.

Thank you so much, Shawn.

Thank you.

Gchi Miigwech.

Miigwech.

♪ ♪ uptempo ska beat While I'm in Toronto, I really wanted to have some authentic homestyle Jamaican food.

Growing up outside of the city I would come with my neighbors to this big festival that was called the Caribana.

Now it's called the Carnival.

And there's like lots of Jamaican food, costumes, and it's so much fun.

It's been running since 1967.

Wow.

And I'm here at Chubby's Jamaican kitchen.

I'm with Dadrian Coke.

He moved from Jamaica four years ago, and I'm going to just be so excited to taste some Jamaican food again.

Tell me what we're gonna cook?

Yeah.

So today we're going to do our sauteed greens, which consists of Callaloo, cabbage, which is our slaw and fried plantain and our jerk chicken, which consists of our marinade and our chicken.

Beautiful.

And you moved from Jamaica four years ago to Toronto.

Why did you come to the city?

Just to share my knowledge of homestyle Jamaican food, homestyle Jamaican cooking, share all the spices.

Give that authentic Jamaican taste to Toronto.

So how would you describe homestyle cooking?

So, homestyle Jamaican food is like when you have a Sunday dinner, you invite your friends over, they come, they have, they share your meal, they have your, your jerk chicken, they have your sauteed greens, they have your curry goat and your oxtail stew.

So, in Jamaica, it's like a tradition.

You know, you cook a big pot of food, you share it with the neighborhood, and everybody come and have.

So that's homestyle, authentic Jamaican cooking.

Okay, let's jump in, because I can't wait to learn how to make jerk chicken.

I've had it a lot and I love it.

[Dadrian] So right now we're going to have our chicken right here, which I already break down and cut into quarter.

So, we're gonna add our jerk spice evenly over the meat.

All right.

So, we just pour it on.

We're gonna add, toss it around a little bit, just to get that coat of the chicken, rub it in, rub it in.

And this is how we get our meat to have that... spiciness, that flavor, you know, get it all in the creases.

When we add our dry rub, we let it sit for 24 hours.

Wow.

Right.

Or overnight, if you wish.

When you have it overnight, it gels.

It blends that seasoning.

All the flavors go straight into the meat, right to the bone.

[Dadrian] Yes.

So, we're gonna start our grilling.

So, we're gonna grill our chicken skin-side up, right.

Just to get all that smokiness, all that flavor from the wood that we use and the heat from the grill, like the heated grill, bringing that charred-ness to the chicken as well as getting the smokiness into the meat itself.

So, at this point, we just grill both sides, skin side up, just grill both sides, and then that's it.

You have it there, slowly cooking for 20 to 30 minutes.

And our jerk chicken would be perfect.

[Brandy] Yummy!

♪ steel drums [Dadrian] Yes, Brandy, so this is our complete meal of the day.

So, we have our jerk chicken.

We have also our Chubby's slaw, fried plantain, sauteed greens, and our homemade ginger beer.

Yum!

Yeah.

So, it's perfectly done, and we can just dig in and have a meal.

Well, cheers.

Let's try your ginger beer.

Yes.

Cheers.

That is so delicious.

What's inside it?

So, it's a fresh ginger root, lime juice, a little bit of sugar, and we just blend everything and strain it.

And that's our homemade ginger beer.

It's so spicy.

I love it.

I can't wait to dig in here.

Yes!

This is good.

So, let's dig in.

Mm hmm.

Okay.

I'm trying the plantain first because I always like dessert.

Yes.

So, of course, you can taste the saltiness.

A little bit of saltiness.

A little bit of sweetness, because the riper the plantain is the sweeter it is.

And it brings out that flavor, especially when you fry it.

It just gives you that, that, that sweetness.

I love it.

And I'm gonna go for the jerk chicken now.

Yes.

Should I be prepared for heat?

Um.

A little bit of heat, a mild heat, you know, very flavorful, very tender.

It's so flavorful, tender.

I don't think it's hot at all, Dadrian.

Yeah, it's not that hot so you can purchase a... Yeah, I could get a hot sauce.

I wannna try this slaw.

It's so good, that chicken.

So, you can taste that slaw, that crispiness.

So, every time you have the spice, you can taste the sweetness from the slaw.

This is the best slaw I've ever had.

It's so amazing!

And you have the crispiness.

I could eat a bucket of this.

You can taste a crispiness from the beets, the earthiness, the earthiness from the beets as well, and all the flavor of the chopped herbs, the salt and pepper, everything just gels together.

Okay, now it's greens time.

And now we're gonna try our greens.

[Brandy] Can I put it on here?

[Dadrian] Yes, you can pour it on right there.

It has a spiciness, that sweetness from the onions.

You know, it's so amazing.

This balances out just a little bit of heat from the chicken as well.

You know, just that protein aspect and the callaloo flavor has that unique flavor to it, Dadrian... which you've never had before.

Yeah, but this is spicy.

The greens are actually the spiciest thing on my plate.

Yeah, it's pretty much spicy.

You know, so it give you that kick to the dish as well, you know, just to make sure that it is tasty and good.

This is awesome.

Mm hmm.

And now you just try it a little bit with the ginger beer.

Once as you have it like this, it's pretty much - you're back home.

You just picture yourself in Jamaica, you know, on the beach or, you know, dining out.

It's pretty much good.

You know what?

This is like a festival of flavors right here.

And I just want to thank you so much for taking the time to show me how to cook jerk chicken, plantain, all these beautiful greens.

You're a wonderful chef and thank you so much.

My pleasure having you.

It's wonderful.

Amazing.

[Dadrian] And we say, ‘Ya Mon'.

[Brandy] Ya Mon.

(Dadrian chuckles) ♪ Oud While I'm in Toronto, I really wanted to visit the Newcomer Kitchen.

It's a non-profit organization that started in 2016.

It's a great idea where they gave new Syrian refugees an opportunity to come to a kitchen and cook a meal and then sell their dishes online.

And I'm with Nadima Kinjo.

She's a Syrian refugee, and I'm also with Cara Benjamin-Pace.

She helped to start Newcomer Kitchen.

Cara, tell me where this idea came from?

[Cara] Well, when the Syrian families first arrived in Canada in early 2016, a friend of mine, Lynn Senator, who owned a small pop-up event space, and I just came up with an idea that maybe we would open up the kitchen when it was closed and welcome in Syrian women to come to cook, to get to know one another, to meet other Canadians.

And from there morphed this once-a-week pop-up.

Wow.

And this Newcomer Kitchen, what was that experience like for you to come in and cook with your friends or other newcomers?

When I came to the kitchen, when they welcomed us to the kitchen we sharing a lot of our culture and their culture.

We broken the wall between the Canadian people and the Syrian people.

And we start to live in really... our country.

[Cara] And we've actually developed a training program.

So many women were interested in starting their own businesses that now that's what we do.

And we teach women not just from Syria but from all over the world how to start their own food businesses.

[Brandy] And Nadima you have your own company now.

What is it called?

[Nadima] Yeah, Syrian Sisters Kitchen.

Syrian Sisters Kitchen.

Well, all this talk of food is getting me very hungry, Nadima.

So tell me what we're gonna cook today?

We will cook today kepeh.

We have dough here for the kepeh and we, we already make the dough before.

But the ingredients is bulgar, we wet the bulgar for 15 minutes.

After that we add some onion and seven spices and mashed potato and add together and we add mashed pumpkin inside dough.

[Brandy] Okay, so we mixed it all together with some water.

[Nadima] Yeah, we put in the food processor and after that we make the dough.

We will have now four pieces of dough.

And to make two layer in one tray.

Can you help me to put on the top?

[Brandy] And now you take the rolling pin?

[Nadima] Yeah.

I wanted to show how it's work.

After that, I will give you one to do.

Okay.

[Nadima] Like that.

After that, we put inside here.

And you put it in the tray?

[Nadima] Yeah.

Now we will add the fillings inside.

It's squash and chickpeas and pomegranate seeds.

[Brandy] Okay!

[Nadima] Yeah, we already cooked before.

[Brandy] Perfect.

So how do you cook this together?

How long?

[Nadima] About 15 minutes.

[Brandy] 15 minutes?

Just on a medium heat?

Yeah.

Okay.

Not too much, because already... it's ready.

Just I have to add some pomegranite seeds.

On our small land, my parents, they plant some pomegranate seeds.

Oh, do they?

It's very wonderful and very tasty, pomegranate.

Now, we will put this here like the other one.

And can you make the dough?

Absolutely.

So, I just roll this out?

Yeah, not too much.

Not too hard.

(chuckles) It's not that easy.

Like, just like this?

How come you were able to get yours to go in a circle?

Mine's like more of an egg shape, but.

[Nadima] It's not easy, I know.

[Brandy] It's not easy.

No.

[Nadima] Good job.

(laughs) And I will take the dough and I want to try to make same size.

But like that.

Now I will put in the top... like that.

Cut.

And this is just for decoration?

Yeah, of course.

Like that.

She's gonna do two cuts.

And then you're gonna follow her.

Yeah, of course.

Now you can do that.

Wonderful.

And just cut them like this?

Yeah.

This is called "portion control."

(laughter) Eat within the lines!

No, it's just for decoration.

Eat how much you want.

Now, we will add some almonds.

[Brandy] This is looking so tasty and so beautiful.

It is.

You wanna try it and tell us what you feel?

We will add some oil in the top and put in the oven.

[Nadima] Now it's ready to take it from the oven.

It's here.

[Brandy] It looks really good!

[Nadima] Yeah.

It's a pie, but a savory pie!

That's right!

A savory pie, yeah.

[Nadima] Now it's, ‘Saha wa Hanna'.

That means: "good health and good food and good body for you."

Wonderful.

Well, thank you so much.

I can't wait to try it.

I know, please dig in.

Please can I put this one here?

Okay, this is my fork.

It looks beautiful.

I can see the pomegranate inside and the almonds and the pumpkin.

Yeah, of course.

Ooh, look at that color.

Mm hmm.

Did you like it?

[Cara] The pomegranate, the squash.

[Brandy] Yes.

I can really taste the pumpkin.

To me, it's, like, almost meaty.

Mm hmm.

[Brandy] It's very filling.

[Cara] It's so delicious.

Thank you.

I didn't know anything about Syrian food, and now I want to try so much more.

Thank you for inviting me to the Newcomer Kitchen.

What a beautiful idea and for teaching me about your culture.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

My pleasure.

You are welcome.

Thank you so much, Brandy, for coming to our kitchen.

It's been such an honor and a pleasure.

Thank you!

Let's keep cookin'.

Yep.

(laugh together) I've had such a wonderful time exploring Kensington Market and getting reacquainted with the city of my birth through food.

I'm looking forward to returning soon to Toronto so I can try even more delicious dishes in this ever-changing city.

♪ ♪ ♪