Spaghetti with mussels at Pazzo (above). Photo: John Gundy

June is usually a time when the last of the snow melts and I put away my toque for a few weeks, this year was no exception and I kicked it off with a road trip. Paul Finklestein has asked me to be his food writer in residence at Stratford Northwestern Secondary School (I’ve always thought of Stratford as Canada’s Berkeley, Califoria and "Fink" as a less slutty version of Alice Waters), so I thought I’d head up to Stratford with my friends, John Gundy and Jeremy Gries, to check it out. Jeremy is a cook who will be attending Stratford Chef School in the fall, and to him and I Stratford is Ontario’s culinary mecca. Most people think of it only as the host to the Stratford Theatre Festival, but to us it’s the home to some of the province’s best farmers and cheesemakers. Antony John’s amazing greens from his Soiled Reputation Farm and Ruth Klahssen’s incredible cheeses from Monforte Dairy, are only some of the best known out of a large group of producers who are making Ontario’s food scene the envy of Canada.

We rode into town on opening night of the aforementioned, famous Stratford Theatre Festival and the place was abuzz. Fink had arranged for us to stay at The Ritz, a B&B owned by the hospitable Ritz family (their son Jared Ritz appeared on Finklestein’s show Fink for Food Network). We quickly checked in to our spacious rooms and headed out for dinner at Pazzo. Jeremy’s entrée was a very simple but perfectly executed pasta dish – spaghetti with mussels, oven-dried tomatoes and artichokes in a delicate mussel-scented broth-y sauce. If you go to Pazzo that’s the dish to order. Seduced by the excitement of opening night we then headed to the bar where all the actors hang out after the show, Down The Street. Things got a little blurry.

Early the next morning we went to the first breakfast place we could find, an ugly little joint called Tango where a very hungover Jeremy and I watched with frustration as the hopeless line cook gabbed away while our order flapped in the pass. Our server was the saving grace, I can’t remember her name but she knew a hangover when she saw one and took care of us accordingly with lots of liquids, laughs and winks.

Then we took off to see Fink at the Screaming Avocado, the student-run restaurant at Stratford Northwestern Secondary School that acts as a real food alternative to the cafeteria’s offerings. After being introduced to a group of totally uninterested adolescents, Jeremy and I challenged them to a black box competition, à la Iron Chef. I got three great girls on my team, while Jeremy got what looked like a four year old, a loco tattooed girl and a kid who had the “I wish I was anywhere but here” look perfected.

For the black box each team was given a cabbage, pork chops, collard greens and button mushrooms. My girls and I made coleslaw with diced apple, mushroom caps stuffed with garlic butter and pan-seared chops glazed with juice-box apple juice served over wilted collards.

Jeremy’s team came up with a pretty good plate, probably because Jeremy did most of the cooking. The star on his team ended up being the tiny girl but halfway through she confessed that she was skipping class and took off back to her grade 7 curriculum. Grade 7! Tattooed nutter made a pretty decent cheese sauce, which they garnished their sautéed cabbage and collards with. She told me it was something she made for the kids that she babysat and to get them to eat it she’d use food colouring to dye it pink or green. There’s a great tip for you, reader!

My girls won.

Under perfect summer skies we headed to C’est Bon cheese in St. Mary’s, a few miles down the picture perfect road from Stratford, where we met the owner, George Taylor, who gave us a pretty intense talking to about his operation. He’s retired after a twenty-five year stint at TSN and has used his chunk of change to start making goat cheese. His is the only place in the country where the goats and the cheese made from their milk are on the same property. His cheeses are fantastic and in limited supply because he is a one-man operation so his batches are small. (If you live in Toronto, check out Provincial Fine Foods on Yonge or About Cheese on Church: you might be able to pick up some C’est Bon.)

Then we headed down the road to McCully’s Hill Farm where we got to see the tiniest rooster in the world. He was about as tall as a corncob and had the flashiest pimped-out feathers I’d ever seen. His name was Jonesy, how perfect is that? Jonesy the pimped out rooster is Jeremy’s favourite animal in the world right now. We also got to see some tiny black lambs and I held a baby bunny while baby chicks ran everywhere. If you can stand in a sun-dappled barn while doing all of the above your hangover will go away, I promise.

After stocking up on butter tarts and dandelion jelly we began the trip back to Toronto. Stratford serves as a reminder that small towns are not the outcasts of a big city but actually the beating hearts that support it’s gaping maw.

Ivy Knight is a freelance food writer and cook in Toronto. Her website is www.ivyknight.com.