Cultivate Academy

Schedule

FRI., SEPT. 20TH

7:20 – 8:20 PM
8:50 – 9:50 PM
Unplugged and Personal
Artists chats with Shannon Linton

Ever wonder what inspired your favourite song? Join the songwriters of Cultivate as they share the stories behind their music and perform acoustic versions of each song. An intimate opportunity to get to know some of your favourite Cultivate artists.

SAT., SEPT. 21ST

The Rodney Bowers Kitchen Party

Join Rodney and friends throughout the day as they explore incredible food with lots of laughter, live music and tons of fun.

Unplugged and Personal
Artists chats with Shannon Linton

SUN., SEPT. 22ND

Join chair of ICAN, Jospeph Shawana, on a journey through indigenous food. Specfifc content to be announced soon.

Featured Chefs

Rodney Bowers

Rodney Bowers shares his culinary skills regularly on THE MARILYN DENIS SHOW as the daytime series’ latest cooking expert, a position he won after he successfully completed MARILYN’s “Search for the Next Cooking Expert” in March 2014. The nation-wide search followed six incredibly skilled cooks from across Canada, as they battled it out in a week-long series of intense culinary challenges on live television.

Growing up in Grand Falls, Newfoundland, and being born into two large families full of bakers and professional cooks, Rodney was always surrounded with good comfort food. After his father joined the Military and moved the family around the world, Rodney began helping out in the family in kitchen, as his mother was always at the restaurant.

Rodney got his first job in the business at the age of 13 – in a local pizzeria. He hopped from one opportunity to another, moving from Newfoundland to Germany, Belgium, England, New York, and Connecticut, before ending up in Toronto.

In just a few years, Rodney rose from Entremetier in the Toronto kitchens of North 44 Canoe, to junior Sous Chef at the Four Seasons Hotel with Lynn Crawford, and Restaurant Chef at Massimo Capra’s Mistura.

In 2005, he opened his own restaurant The Rosebud, which was quickly acclaimed as one of Toronto’s top eateries. His other former bistro The Citizen, in Toronto’s Leslieville, also garnered rave reviews.

Rodney opened Hey Meatball! in 2011, as a quick simple family restaurant where parents don’t have to worry about the horrors of the fast food industry. It established a trend with being the first ever farm-to-table restaurant, serving quick service style food in Canada.
Rodney also appears as a regular guest chef on CANADA AM. He has also appeared on TRIPLE D and hosted THE DELINQUENT GOURMET. Rodney’s combination of kitchen skills, ability to connect food with people, business sense, charm, and competitive perseverance has catapulted him from cook to culinary master at the forefront of Toronto’s culinary scene.

Joseph Shawana

Chef Shawana is Odawa, part of the Three Fires Confederacy. Born and raised in Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve located on Manitoulin Island in Ontario, Joseph was brought up knowing that food is life. Having 6 brothers and 6 sisters, and being the oldest male, he paid a lot of attention to his mother while she was cooking, who she learned from his grandmother and great grandmother. Since starting in the kitchen when he was 13, he knew that the chef life was for him. He graduated with honours from culinary school, and everyday that passes his passion for food grows more and more. Trained in classical french, and with his Aboriginal background, he cooking infuses Classical French techniques with Native American Cuisine. Full of flavour and never compromising quality over quantity. Joseph started a program to help young youth to come into his kitchens and work alongside the chefs and teach them the culinary field in every aspect. Chef Joseph Shawana, the force behind a new high-end Indigenous restaurant in Toronto, where he experiments with traditional Indigenous ingredients, many of them wild, including fir tips, sweetgrass and seal.