First Ever Ontario’s Southwest City Fare Hosted by iYellow Wine Club

Ontario’s Southwest City Fare 2015 was held at Artscape Wychwood Barns. This first time event was put together by Angela Aiello and her team at iYellow Wine Club and they did an excellent job of bringing together food and drink purveyors from Windsor-Essex, Norfolk County, Oxford County, Sarnia & Lambton County, Elgin County, and Cayuga.

There were delicious wines from Lake Erie wine region by Bricklayer’s Estate Wines (Sangria), Cooper’s Hawk Vineyards (Talon red), Norfolk County’s Bonnieheath Estate Lavender & winery (Don’t Count Your Chickens wine), Wooden Bear Winery (apple/cherry wine), Burnt Kiln Winery (cab frank), Blueberry Hill Estate (blueberry wine) and Lambton County’s Alton Farms Estate Winery (riesling),

Railway City Brewing Co. had their line of beers including Black Coal (espresso infused beer), Dead Elephant India Pale Ale, Iron Spike and Witty Traveler. Refined Fool Brewing Co. had their Short Pier, Long Walk beer. Rambling Road offered samples of their beer-bathed potato chips.

Other libations included sparkling apple cider from the Cider Keg and Laurie Lilliman‘s The Amsterdam gin cocktail.

JP Mooney of JP’s Barbeque was on hand serving his smoked Norpac beef seasoned with his barbecue rub.
Chef Dan Megna of the Twisted Lemon was quite entertaining while serving his shank dish.

Other tasty dishes included Robbie’s lamb sausage merguez with Atmosphere’s Argentian Chimichurri on a ciabatta bun, Papa D’s hot sauce infused mac & cheese, OneSixtyNine‘s trout crudo and Smackwater Jack’s bacon skewers.

There was a taste test between organic asparagus from Kerr Farms and regular asparagus. The consensus was the organic asparagus was much more flavourful than the non-organic version.

Mountainoak featured their delicious Dutch gold cheese, Dutch smoked cheese and chili pepper cheese while Bright Brand offered their Havarti, asiago and cheddar cheeses.

Some wonderful desserts that were available included Chocolatea‘s Verde Fresco chocolate made with lime, and Racing Turtle chocolates made with chipotle.
Killer Desserts & Cafe showcased their various flavours of butter tarts including, pecan, salted cashew, rum raisin and chocolate chip).
The Blue Elephant‘s sweet potato bread pudding with caramel sauce was quite scrumptious.
Other exciting treats included liquid nitrogen vanilla ice cream and toasted coconut rumba marshmallows and vegan black bean fudge.

Jakeman’s Maple Products gave out samples of their maple syrup and maple candies. Parks Blueberries and Country Store had their line of raspberry and blueberry dressings as well.

Music by a bluegrass band brought a lot of energy to the event.

It was great to learn about the food and drink region of Southwest Ontario and to taste their delicious products.

John from iYellow

Angela and John from iYellow Wine Club

(photos by sari)