Don’t miss the Vegan Rumble & Shake at the Drugstore on June 15th at 8:30pm. Nutrisco and ‘Round Table Tours are hosting this face-off between ChuChai, Crudessence and Green Panther. Each restaurant will be backed by an urban farm: Lufa, D-Trois Pierres, Zephyr and Carya, by a food supplier: Prana, Les Douceurs du Marché and Truffe Import. They will also be associated with a blogger and exercise activity. 4 Corners of the Table is asscoiated with ChuChai, Amie Watson of Midnight Poutine with Crudessence and Marie-Ève Savaria of Brutalimentation with Green Panther.  The sports include hip-hop dancing with Ethel Bruneau‘s descendents, a work-out activity with Sportera and pilates with Goa. Participants sign-up in one of the three teams and follow their team’s activity. From the activity, the chefs will recruit assistants to help them assemble 300 bites! All fifteen recruited helpers  (five per team) will receive a prize. Twelve prizes of a value of two hundred dollars will be given including extravagant dinners, free sports and dance training, organic vegetable baskets and food tours as well as three prizes of a value of $75: food, food and more food). After the ‘Rumble’ comes the tasting and the ‘Shake’. There will be dj’s and mingling.

A bite that illustrates ChuChai's style and that won a prize for the best bite of the year. Imagine what chef Lily will do with local organic ingredients from D-Trois Pierres and specialty Asian ingredients from Les Douceurs du Marché!

Tickets are $20 and are available for sale at info (at) nutrisco dot ca and in the participating restaurants (ChuChai, Crudessence and Green Panther) Get them soon, they’re going like energy balls!

Crudessence's "smoked salmon" sushi. What are David Côté and Stéphanie Audet going to come up with with what their long-time suppliers and friends Lufa and Prana provide them?

Ingredients growing- some for the Rumble & Shake. Zephyr and Carya in Senneville are partnering-up to supply Green Panther. Zephyr provides space to Santropol Roulant for their peri-urban farm and grows seedlings for Urban Seedling. Carya hosts "soirées champêtres" or "country evenings" where top chefs are paired with a farm to serve a private five-course meal in Senneville. Get to know your local farmers and mushroom forager and truffle importer through Chef Luis' creations on team Green Panther!

How did a zany night like this come about you may ask…..

I have been hard at work on the development of various food tours for my new food tour company ‘Round Table Tours or Tours de la Table (recipient of the best female entrepreneurial project in Montreal in 2013.) The most recently added tour is called Vegan Montreal. It is a tour of tasting in vegan restaurants, food production sites and on urban farms. I wanted to do a tour that wasn’t about meat, sugar and booze, but one that focused on well-being, ethical business practices, sustainability and the future.

At the Crudessence loft with Mathieu Gallant for raw vegan culinary playtime on the Vegan Montreal tour. (Photo by Mélanie Dusseault: http://melaniedusseault.com/fr/)

I interviewed the owners of Crudessence, ChuChai, Aux Vivres, Prana, Lufa farms and the agricultural director of Santropol Roulant. I heard their amazing stories and saw businesses that were putting their deeper values to work and offering examples of what the future could look like. From Crudessence that strives to “be the change”, to Lufa that strives to grow vegetables in the city for the city without using more land, to Prana that creates organic, raw, vegan, gluten-free sustainable snacks, to Aux Vives that makes vegan food a “normality” with their comfort food approach and bringing food to the 80% non-vegan masses that is their clientele, and Green Panther that has created a lush and swinging oasis in the city. ChuChai redefines veganism as luxury and a party. Yes a party, they have taken control of the kitchen at the Drugstore and are catering the Piknik Électronik. It was when I approached ChuChai that I met their promoter Aisha Issa aka Nutrisco Sensorial Marketing. She right away proposed that we do an event to ring in the summer and announce their new presence at Drugstore and at Piknik as well as the beginning of the Montreal Vegan tour. She suggested we leverage with other vegan restaurants. She told me to think about it and get back to her.

Peaking at the Mother Mushroom in her lair at Rise Kombucha's factory headquarters. (Photo by Mélanie Dusseault: http://melaniedusseault.com/fr/)

I have had the privilege of being good friends with Judith Colombo the agricultural director of the largest organic farm on the island of Montreal, D-Trois Pierres, for ten years, and I know they are always looking for partners and I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be great if there were urban farmers in the mix?’  My tours are about networking and team-building, so I started thinking of how I could incorporate a sense of team and participation into the event. I thought of Ethel Bruneau’s family of tap and hip hop dancers, Kevin Pillu of Sportera (winner in the Quebec Entrepreneurship contest for Services to Businesses) and Dana El-Hallack of Goa Pilates. We needed someone to put the event on an unconventional pedestal and bloggers seemed to be the way. I also thought that the bloggers should have a challenge and opportunity to collaborate, so I thought of different mediums to associate with each one: photo, paint and video (Mélanie Dusseault, Jean-Phillippe Cousineau and Rachel et Michel). This was great as the event became part of FIMA’s programming. The idea was so wacky, but if you’re going to leverage and be wacky, you may as well do it right. Everyone said yes and embarked on the collective craziness! (except Aux Vivres who was renovating and Santropol Roulant whose production is too limited in mid-June. Green Panther, Jardins Carya and Fermes du Zephyr quickly took-over)

The Vegan Montreal tour highlights innovation, new approaches and practices and those businesses that transcend conventional boundaries. It was in the Vegan community where I found a feverish enthusiasm, a can-do attitude and a love for creating outside-of-the-box. From the food production sites, to the farms to the restaurants I was met with goodwill and a desire to share and grow in collaboration.

The Vegan Montreal tour is tested and and raring to go. From visiting Lufa, the only rooftop commercial greenhouse, to ChuChai’s innovative fake meat in the thai tradition (no onions and garlic- Buddhist temple-style), to Crudessence’s workshops that spread the good news about live food and experimenting in the loft, to the pioneering of Aux Vivres, the funkyness of Green Panther, Rise Kombucha’s mother mushroom (!!!), Prana’s factory and Santropol’s oasis in the city, the Vegan Montreal tour brings you into a universe that you may think you know, but you really don’t until you get inside and behind the scenes!  All participants in the Rumble & Shake will receive a 20% discount on the Vegan Montreal Tour, and three people will win a free tour.

Come on out and Rumble, Tour and Shake!

I have the privilege of blogging for the ChuChai team and being on an all-girl team of chefs, dancers, farmers, shop managers and photographers. See the gallery below of the ladies on the team:

Yours truly with Thai chef Lily Sirikittikul of ChuChai. Gentle and demure, but Lily is a culinary powerhouse; she was born in a wok! (Photo by Mélanie Dusseault: http://melaniedusseault.com/fr/)

Judith Colombo: Long-time friend, organic farmer, great cook and member of the dinner club for 9 years!

Ethel Bruneau: tap dance legend with some of her family that will be breaking it down- old school! (Tisha, Majiza and Makita!)

Mélanie Dussealut: Photographe Extraordinaire! In front of the camera on this one. 4 Corners of the Table is lucky to have her at it's service for the event!

I don’t have a photo of Erica Dancose from Les Douceurs du Marché, but you’ll meet her there!

Myself, Mélissa Simard, blogger with 4 Corners of the Table in team ChuChai and co-organizer of the Rumble & Shake with 'Round Table Tours. Bringing people together around food everyday! (Photo by Mélanie Dusseault: http://melaniedusseault.com/fr/)