Elaina Asselin This is Me

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1. 1. TheStar.com - New crop of farmers

   www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Cont - [Cached]

   Published on: 10/25/2006   Last Visited: 10/25/2006

   Former Toronto chef Elaina Asselin joins husband Gregory Hill on their farm in Northumberland County.
   ...
   Castleton, Ont. - From the kitchens of Canoe and Scaramouche to the fields of Northumberland County, chef Elaina Asselin is pursuing two new passions: farming and married life.
   
   She and Gregory Hill are winding down their first year's harvest at Fous-y-Tout Farms (French for "put everything in"), an organic heirloom tomato farm an hour east of Toronto.
   
   Asselin, a founding member of the Women's Culinary Network, has cooked in some of the finest restaurants in Toronto and Montreal. She helped launch the prepared foods area at Canada's first Whole Foods Market and worked most recently as executive chef at the Hillcrest Victorian Inn in Port Hope. She quit in May to join Hill, a computer designer, teacher, entrepreneur and builder of fine furniture, on his farm full-time.
   
   Both are perfectionists with a deep appreciation for nature, organic food, entertaining and time together. And while Asselin misses working in the restaurant industry, she says it isn't conducive to coupledom.
   
   "You work when everyone else plays ... it's hard to have a relationship," she says.
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   Asselin and Hill are on the back porch slicing Principe Bourghese tomatoes and smoking them with applewood chips.
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   Asselin is tall and slim, with pale blue eyes and rich brown hair threaded with gray. She wears a blue- and brown-checkered flannel shirt, navy Columbia pants and pale blue Crocs.
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   Asselin bemoans their fate - most will not ripen before the first frost. They'll be mulched into the compost pile.
   
   "You can only eat so many fried green tomatoes," she concedes.
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   In late February, Hill and Asselin planted more than 500 seeds in tiny cubes of soil.
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   Asselin lost 10 pounds this summer and weighs less than when she ran her last marathon, despite eating "a heck of a lot more."
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   "It was really sad," Asselin says of all the wasted fruit, especially after this years' disappointing harvest.
   
   Due to the unusually cold and rainy summer, production was 80 per cent less than what they anticipated. While this year wasn't a financial success - they were hoping to make $40,000 and ended up breaking even - it has been "fantastically successful" in all other aspects. The couple was able to work out the kinks and test the market.
   
   For example, they now know that while locals buy red tomatoes, Torontontians prefer anything but. "The weirder the better," reports Asselin.
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   The fledgling farmers also sold a few cases a week to Asselin's "buds in the industry" at restaurants like Canoe.
   
   Meanwhile, the couple lived largely on salads and tomato sandwiches this summer. They like to slather butter (one of their food groups, they say) on a slice of their fresh-baked bread, then add fresh sliced tomatoes and some basil. As for tomato-based cooking, they make a lot of pesto, sauces and stews. (See one of Asselin's recipes on this page.)
   
   With a garden full of herbs and a freezer full of late-ripening tomatoes that will go into winter stews and sauces, Asselin and Hill are now looking into selling sauces and offering cooking classes at the farm.

2. 2. Hillcrest Valenova Wellness Spa Reviews & Articles

   www.thehillcrest.ca/news.html - [Cached]

   Last Visited: 11/27/2007

   Ms. Dines' innovations included not only the saline pool, but outdoor spa gazebos, a new hot tub, new landscaping, new signature treatments, a new innkeeper, Rochelle Larmour,and a star chef Elaina Asselin, one of Toronto's top-rated toques.
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   At dinner, I quickly discovered what an artist Chef Elaina is. Not only are her dishes sublime, they are simply beautiful to behold. (I should mention that the restaurant, with its sweep of windows, is the perfect setting for all this artistry.) An amuse-bouche of daikon, ginger and wasabi woke up my taste buds just in time for the Corn Pepper Soup.
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   There's also a new chef, Elaina Asselin, one of Toronto's foremost chefs. Chef Asselin said: "I am excited to begin creating menus using seasonal produce from the Northumberland farmers.

3. 3. WCN Board of Directors

   www.womensculinarynetwork.org/ - [Cached]

   Published on: 11/7/2007   Last Visited: 11/7/2007

   Elaina Asselin