Bring your appetite to Alton village in Caledon, and taste your way through Headwaters Country at the Alton Mill Arts Centre’s Cuisine-Art 2014.
A sumptuous showcase has been cooked up featuring local chefs, flavourful beverages, artisanal food producers, a roster of musicians and Alton Mill artists to create the region’s premiere epicurean event.
Two dozen Alton Mill artists, 19 area chefs and local wine experts, cider and beer masters will be the guides to fine art, tastings, demos and cook-offs. Sample the region’s best artisanal food and drink while browsing original art in the galleries and studios.
Under the big tent at the Brookfield main stage, the weekend’s key ingredient, MC Ali Hassan, host of CBC’s Laugh Out Loud, oversees hourly food demos and workshops include: oyster shucking, wild edibles foraging, cake decorating, and knife skills.
Culinary meets canvas during “Recipe of an Artist,” a fast-paced paint-off, where Alton Mill studio artists race the clock and each other to create a culinary still-life on canvas from an artfully-arranged “black box” of local foods. Pianist Lou Pinto will perform as the paint flies each day at 1pm.
Witness the drama of the kitchen at the 2pm cook-off as two top chefs work their magic on the same black box of ingredients rendered by the artists as the stopwatch ticks. Which chef can take the heat and create the best original dish within the allotted time limit? Only one can win the coveted “This Chef is Hot” award.
Festival-goers can pop into studios and galleries to nibble and sip the samples while watching artists paint, sculpt, throw and create their art. Or give it a whirl yourself, in Studio 200 where encaustic painter Andrea Bird offers the chance to try your hand at painting with beeswax.
At the Good Things Marketplace, vendors tempt visitors with foodstuffs, crafts and goods ready to take home.
New this year is the Market Stage with non-stop live music, including special guests the Moody Hues: Bob “Omar” Tunnoch, Gary Taylor and friends.
Cuisine-Art is not only fun, but a fundraiser to help clean up the historic Alton Millpond and Shaw’s Creek, a tributary of the Credit River. The water that flows right through Mississauga and empties into Lake Ontario at Port Credit, starts in the Headwaters region, just north of Alton. Clean source water is critical to the health of the entire Credit watershed. So we’re raising funds to raise the pond water level, which will both clean and cool the water and improve the fish habitat. What a delicious way to help the environment.
Beautiful food, delicious art, clean water. Oh, and did we mention wine? In the past five years Cuisine-Art has emerged as a regional favourite. It has won the Best Arts, Culture or Heritage Award and been named the region’s best culinary tourism experience by Hills of Headwaters Tourism. Visitors love the combination of art, food and drink in a festive and naturally beautiful environment. Experience the culinary adventure at Cuisine-Art 2014.
