Restaurant Week Toledo returns

Editor's note: The price of Ventura's Mexican Restaurant dinner was printed incorrectly. The price of the dinner is $10.

Here’s the deal: You get to eat at great local restaurants for much less money than you usually have to pay. The great restaurants get your business (and maybe your repeat business, if you like what you tasted) during a slow time of the year. And some of the profits go to Leadership Toledo, a nonprofit organization that endeavors to teach area youth and adults how to become leaders.

That’s some deal. Those who are likely to use such terms would call it a win-win-win situation.

Seventeen restaurants, so far, have signed up to participate in the second year of Restaurant Week Toledo, which will be Jan. 29-Feb. 4. For a fixed price of $10, $20, or $30 (not including drinks, tax, and tip), the restaurants will offer a two-course lunch, a three-course dinner, or both.

For instance, Ventura’s Mexican Restaurant will have a three-course dinner for just $10. The appetizer will be a choice of bean soup, bean dip, cheese dip, tossed salad, or pico de gallo with chips. The main course will be a choice of two kinds of burritos, three kinds of enchiladas, or two kinds of tacos made with fajita meat. And dessert will be a choice of cinnamon chips or fried ice cream.

Want to go more upscale? Rockwell’s at the Oliver House offers a $30 dinner menu starting with appetizers of wild mushrooms in a sage Marsala cream sauce on puffed pastry, olives in Moroccan spices with Manchego cheese and crostini, or a duck confit pizza. The entrees will be a 7-ounce prime sirloin steak, chicken stuffed with prosciutto and boursin cheese, or a tuna steak. Desserts will be a choice of creme brulée, cheesecake, or a seven-layer chocolate cake.

Other restaurants participating in Restaurant Week Toledo are Bar 145°, Bobby V’s, Burger Bar 419, Dégagé Jazz Café, Fifi’s Reprise, ICE, La Scola, Manhattan’s, Poco Piatti, Rosie’s Italian Grille, Spicy Tuna Sushi Bar & Grill, Tea Tree Asian Bistro, the Blarney, and the Hungry I.

For more information, visit restaurantweektoledo.com or call the restaurants (reservations are recommended). And don’t forget to tip your wait staff based on what the meal would have actually cost, not on what you’re paying for it.

Farmers and Foodies

This year’s Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association conference in Granville, Ohio, Feb. 18-19, looks like it is designed to appeal in equal parts to organic farmers and to people in the slow-food, CSA, environmentalist-Birkenstock crowd.

As proof, we offer this: The keynote speakers will be Woody Tasch of the Slow Money Alliance talking about "Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, And Fertility Matter" and environmental attorney and food-safety advocate Andrew Kimbrell on "The Future of Food." On the other hand, agricultural experts will discuss such specialized topics as "Brix Levels as an Indicator of Vegetable Quality," "Identifying and Managing Beneficial Insects in Vegetable Crops," and "Managing Organic Soil Fertility to Improve Spelt Bread Quality."

More than 70 workshops will be held during the two-day conference, along with three very healthy meals and even activities for children. The conference, now in its 33rd year, has gained in popularity and has sold out in each of the last two years.

Granville is about 30 miles east of Columbus. Admission to the whole conference is $170 for adults ($110 for members of OEFFA) and $110 for one day ($75 for OEFFA members, $75 for students, and $65 for students who are OEFFA members). For registration details or more information, visit oeffa.org.

Slimming

Eat animal fats and lose weight.

The Toledo Chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation will hold a two-hour class on how to do that (eating whole grains helps, too, they say) at 6 p.m. Jan. 24 at the Grace Lutheran Church Fellowship Hall, 4444 Monroe St. The Toledo Chapter leader and retired dietitian, Kris Johnson, will lead the class.

Reserve a spot by calling Ms. Johnson at 419-836-7637. There is no charge, but donations will be welcomed.

Pie, pie, Pyewacket

Ordinarily, we don’t fall for national days celebrating one thing or another, particularly when they are held on Jan. 23 because "celebrating the wholesome goodness" of the product "is as easy as 1-2-3."

Ahem.

But then, most national days aren’t the National Pie Day. As determined by the American Pie Council, Jan. 23 is a grand day to, uh, celebrate the wholesome goodness of pie by baking, buying, eating, or sharing some delicious pies. Then again, so are the other 364.

The American Pie Council, it may hearten you to know, is the only organization committed to maintaining America’s pie heritage. At least, that’s what it says in their press release, and who are we to doubt them? And since they have this awesome responsibility, it is their duty to promote the National Pie Championships, which they sponsor in conjunction with Crisco.

The contest is open to professional bakers and amateur home chefs in separate competitions, and each competition is broken into 17 flavor categories, from apple to sweet potato. The grand prize in each competition will win $5,000, a new range, and a gift basket of Crisco products. We will pause now while you imagine a gift basket of Crisco products. First prize in each flavor category will receive $200 and Crisco, second prize will get $150 and Crisco, and third place will take home $100 and Crisco.

Last year, you may recall, the best in show award went to Toledo’s own Phyllis Szymanek for her Royal Macadamia Raspberry Pie.

Submissions are now being accepted at piecouncil.org. Only original recipes will be considered.

And for National Pie Day, if you don’t have an original recipe or if you don’t want to bake your own pie, you can buy one from a bakery or a store and pass it off as your own — according to the American Pie Council, 7 percent of Americans have done that.

No wonder pies are as easy as 1-2-3.

Items for Morsels may be submitted up to two weeks before an event to food@theblade.com.