The arrival of a new year always brings a lot to look forward to - this year, more than most! And as much as January can be a time to look ahead, it’s also very much a time to reflect on the past twelve months. What has been accomplished, what we’ve been through, what we’ve learned, and who we’ve met along the way.
As a small business, one of our big challenges is talking about ourselves. We are a very small team with very big goals. From our whole-animal butchery to our 4000 square foot rooftop garden to our brewery (and more), we’re so pre-occupied with doing that we often lose sight of the part where we tell all of you about it!
With that in mind, we have a newly-invigorated appreciation for everyone out there who is carving out a little bit of time, putting pen to paper, and spreading the good word about what’s happening in their world - be it the world of hospitality and restaurants, the world of brewing, green roof agriculture, and so much more.
We think it's the right time to reflect on the past year, and post a few of our favourite pieces from some our go-to publications, who are already doing a great job at taking time out from doing, and sharing their work and their stories with the rest of us.
We’ve been in this pandemic for coming up on a year now, and we don’t know about you, but we are struggling to fill our down-time (is it possible to watch every single program on Netflix? Asking for a friend…) and we’re always on the lookout for our next good read.
We don’t want to be so bold as to call it a New Year’s 'resolution' per se, but it is absolutely our 2021 'goal' to get better at telling all of you what we’re up to here at Avling. In the meantime, here’s a shortlist of some of 2020’s most memorable long-reads for you to dive into this month…
1. Black Lives Matter. Period.
In June of 2015, Desmond Cole wrote a personal essay for Toronto Life Magazine about the biased police practise of Carding. Fast-forward to early 2020, and the release of his first book, The Skin I'm In. In the years since his TL article was published, Cole has become a leading voice in Canadian race politics, and an advocate for anti-Black violence, the need for media representation, and what true liberation means. We found his interview, from The Walrus in May 2020 to be especially prescient, and just as important as it was back in 2015.
Extra credit: the next instalment of Ren Navarro's Book Club, Expanding Minds, is Feb. 21st and the topic is none other than The Skin We're In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power, written by Mr. Cole. Sign Up and get more information here.
2. Civil Eats
Juneteenth 2020 marked, among other things, the Hunger for Justice Speaker Series in NYC, and featured one event in particular which brought the focus onto farmers, chefs, and good food advocates from around the globe for an intergenerational, cross-cultural discussion about Black and Brown voices and the fight for justice in the food system.
Toronto-based writer Nancy Matsumoto was a part of the event, and her feature highlights the importance of food sovereignty for the black community and the need for education and support for young BIPOC farmers.
3. Connect the Dots
Fact: More than one-third of the land on the planet is dedicated to food production. When we talk about climate, health, or biodiversity, whether we know it or not, we are also talking about food.
If we do a better job of creating a Circular Economy - one where we focus on consumption, regeneration, and designing out waste and pollution - there are a ton of major benefits. Medium.com outlines some of them here, and the outcomes are so astounding (in a good way) it's giving us all hope that there's, well, hope for us yet!
4. It’s an Honour Just to be Nominated.
Horn-tooting alert: we won an international design award in 2020 for Best New Bar that we are still fully glowing about. The nominees are in for the 2021 Frame Awards, and we are thrilled to share that our friends Gusto 501 have made the shortlist.
Congrats, pals! We're raising a nice, cold IPA to you and wishing you luck!
5. Fran Forever.
Our favourite writer-with-writer's-block Fran Lebovitz discusses the pandemic ("it's not fabulous"), the state of American Politics, and never leaving New York (of course) plus so much more, all in this humorous gem of an interview from the New Yorker, April 2020.
And for all the old-school purists in the crowd, may we suggest a few good ol' fashioned magazines for your perusal...
From Toothache Magazine, July 2020
Toothache creator Nick Muncy talks with Naomi Pomeroy, Daniel Patterson, Nelson German, and Gavin Kaysen to discuss A Possible Future. Sure, we can speculate, but these five prominent members of the culinary community have a combined education that might make them more qualified than most to predict what the hospitality industry will look like once we climb out of this pandemic once and for all.
From Pipette - Summer 2020
Inspired by the murder of George Floyd, one Oakland-based Sommelier started organizing protests that quickly transitioned to organizing BIPOC wine classes, in an effort to level the playing field in what can sometimes be a slow-to-embrace-change industry. Class in Session is a beautiful and insightful piece about Connectivity, Activism, Discrimination, and Education.
From Noble Rot - Summer 2020
What do you do if you're a leading restaurant critic in one of the top culinary cities in the world, and nothing is open to review? Morina O'Loughlin contemplates her Perfect Restaurant, and has the rest of us dreaming up what ours might look like too.
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