restaurants • mackaycartoons

Wednesday June 7, 2017

June 7, 2017 by Graeme MacKay

Illustration by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Hamilton’s Food Coat of Arms
Go Section, Wednesday June 7, 2017

Hamilton’s Food Coat of Arms

Anyone who meets me can tell I’m the sort of person who probably over indulges with food which may not necessarily be very the healthy. I love fried chicken and chips, smokey bbq’d pork, and grilled rib steak. My brain is wired to be stimulated regularly by taste bud receptors being in contact with cuisine flavours from around the world i.e.: coconut green curry, garam masala, chimichurri, pesto, Rending, Balsamic vinegar, tarragon and so on.

August 15, 2015

So when I was asked to illustrate a story on my hometown food s I was more than delighted to offer my service. Almost all of the foods follow in the tradition of being old favourites of this one time lunchbox city as chosen by Spectator readers. I’m certainly not one to stick my nose up at a maple dipped donut, roast beef on a bun or rotisserie chicken – admittedly, as a one time butcher, I’m not so fond of wiener meat found in hot dogs. Many of these classics go back decades in Hamilton and back in August of 2015, I illustrated another story which embraced the nostalgia of this city’s restaurant history.

Some people have pointed out that there’s no real healthy food on this current list. As if foods like kale and flax seed haven’t gotten enough coverage in recent years, we’re talking about favourite local foods in this story as voted by readers!

I think a glaring omission is the ever increasing availability of delicious ethic foods in Hamilton, particularly from Asia. Yes, there’s good representation from Italy with our love of pizza, and sausage, and wieners, and Kielbasa from Eastern Europe. But what about pho, vindaloo, tacos, and orange beef? Pardon this glaring endorsement, but I have eaten Indian food all over the world but nothing, and I mean nothing, comes close to the quality and yumminess served up at India Village in Dundas. You read about more of my local hits (and misses) through my TripAdvisor review account.

Perhaps this poll of favourite eats in Hamilton represents more of an older, nostalgic audience of locals. My bet is if a poll is taken a few years from now the sausages of this city will be in for a bigger challenge from the sushis.

Friday March 3, 2017

March 2, 2017 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday March 3, 2017

Subway defends its chicken after CBC Marketplace report

Subway stands behind its chicken.

The sandwich chain is disputing the findings of a CBC Marketplace investigation into fast food chicken. While most of the samples were found to contain close to 100 per cent chicken DNA, Subway sandwiches contained substantially less than the other chains. Tests showed an average of 53.6 per cent chicken DNA for the oven-roasted chicken and 42.8 per cent for the chicken strips.

The story has garnered worldwide attention, and raised questions about how much chicken should be in a chicken sandwich.

Subway says the report was “absolutely false and misleading,” and demanded it be retracted. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the chain says its sandwiches contain 100 per cent white meat with seasonings, although the ingredient list it provided to CBC News lists soy protein as a component of the company’s chicken.

Marketplace stands by its report and is releasing the Subway test results as well as additional detail about the methodology and investigation. (Continued: CBC News)

Saturday August 15, 2015

August 15, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

Click here for a larger image

By Graeme MacKay – Saturday August 15, 2015

Homage to the Paper Placemat

Source: Newseum.org

The Hamilton Spectator recenly put out an appeal for people to send in memories of their favourite local restaurants. After the results came in and the eateries were tallied, Spec reporter Saira Peesker was tasked to write the story, Librarian Tammie Danciu researched and dug up old archival photos, and I was called on to draw some kind of map. Afterall, I am a self confessed map-maniac. Maybe it’s my own experience with greasy spoons that an immediate visual lit off in my head at the mere mention of the words “map” and “diner”, was the simple often under-appreciated image of a paper placemat. While at age 46 I’m too young to remember many of the locations on the map, the experience is quite familliar eating in similar retro establishments common all over North America. As a kid, I loved poring over the neat little drawings on paper placemats, particularly on road trips to the beach. I’d be totally in my element with my family, in a restaurant booth somewhere in northern Florida waiting for my order of chicken & fries in a basket while anticipating in the excitement that laid ahead gazing upon a welcome to state paper placemat map. It was a complete delight to use those memories as inspiration to come up with this map.

Wednesday June 11, 2014

June 10, 2014 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday June 11, 2014

Don’t like ballot choice? ‘None of the Above’ an option for Ontario voters

Ontario voters fed up with the offerings of the mainstream political parties may feel sorely tempted to vote for none of the above come election day — and one party is well placed to capitalize on the sentiment.

Registered for the June 12th election is the None of the Above Party of Ontario — or NOTA — whose main plank is to press for elected politicians not bound by party control along with recall and term limits.

“Almost nobody knows we even exist and as soon as people do, they’re sending emails for lawn signs,” said leader Greg Vezina, a founding candidate for the federal Green party in 1983.

“I’ve only got candidates in eight ridings but I’ve got requests for lawn signs from Thunder Bay to Ottawa.”

Half of voters don’t bother to cast ballots while the other half want something different, said Vezina, who is running west of Toronto.

If voters find him NOTA good choice, they do have plenty of other options among the 20 registered parties.

They include Canadians Choice, Family Coalition and the Ontario Moderate party, along with John Turmel’s Pauper Party of Ontario.

For Turmel, who is in the Guinness World Book of Records for running and losing in more elections than anyone else, this will be the 80th election in which he’s been a candidate.

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“This is my third hat trick,” Turmel said proudly.

“Back in ’80 and ’82, I managed to pull off running in federal, municipal and provincial elections simultaneously.”

If elected premier, Turmel said, his first act would be to decommission nuclear power stations, which he calls the “biggest threat to all our lives.”

Besides adding some spice or even frivolity to the serious business of democracy, fringe parties, which collectively picked up about 54,000 votes in 2011, often press issues the main parties aren’t discussing.

For example, the Equal Parenting Party’s two candidates are adamant changes are needed to reform family law, which they say tends to favour mothers over fathers.

“If you want to divorce and you have children, it will be a 50-50 deal as far as time spent with, and money spent on children goes,” the party says on its website.

“This forces a mother to bargain and gives a father something to bargain with.”

Another party fishing for votes is the Vegan Environmental Party, which bills itself as “the voice for animal rights” with a platform focused on animals, the environment and social justice. (Source: CTV News)

Wednesday June 4, 2014

June 4, 2014 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday June 4, 2014

Lister grill owner plagued by money woes

One personal bankruptcy, at least four corporate bankruptcies associated with his name, and one business pushed into receivership with millions of dollars in debts that led to the forced sale of a Puslinch horse farm.

At least two successful civil lawsuits against him as a defendant, including one judgment against him of nearly $160,000 that resulted in the forced sale of a Burlington condominium unit.

At least 15 small claims court lawsuits against him or his companies with outstanding judgments and claims totalling nearly $100,000.

And the list goes on.

One company he was associated with dissolved for failure to comply with Ontario’s Corporations Tax Act.

The suspension of his standardbred horse license by the Ontario Racing Commission.

At least $348,000 owed at one point to the Canada Revenue Agency, and another $145,000 owed to Ontario’s finance ministry, based on DesRoches’ bankruptcy documents.

DesRoches, the man who turned his downtown La Costa restaurant into a small chain across southern Ontario in the 1990s, is preparing to open 28 Lister, a 1920s-style chophouse on the ground floor of the Lister Block. The opening of the restaurant has been postponed several times since last year for a variety of reasons, including the death of the executive chef in April.

DesRoches and his company, 28 Lister Restaurants Inc., were chosen by the city from four submitted bids for the lease in April 2013.

In addition to the $267,000 that the city agreed to pay for the project, documents show that DesRoches would invest another $200,000 to develop the restaurant.

According to an April 2013 report to city councillors, “28 Lister Inc. met all of the criteria including the financial criteria.”

But the city now acknowledges it was unaware of the financial information about DesRoches uncovered by the Spectator’s investigation. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

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