The second season of CTV’s The Launch continued this week and T. Thomason has been chosen as the second champion. Thomason’s edgy style and profound storytelling ability gave him the edge over his competitors and after a powerful performance of his version of the single, “Hope” he was selected to have his song launched across Canada and the world.
Thomason released three albums by the age of 19, garnering support from popular television shows like Degrassi: The Next Generation and sharing bills with acts including Carly Rae Jepsen, Gord Downie, and Collective Soul.
While music is obviously Thomason's first passion, his eagerness to talk food with us was evident from the get-go. Growing up in Halifax, he says he was obsessed with maple syrup. "Going to maple farms where they would pour it on snow and wrap it up for you on a stick and the maple would get hard on the snow," Thomason says. "That was my favourite all-time thing and we even had one of my birthdays at a maple syrup place."
At home
I do this thing where I take hot Italian sausages and I bake them in the oven with tomatoes and olives and garlic cloves and onion and balsamic vinegar, and then I have that for the week. It lasts for a long time and its really tasty. I recommend you put the oven to 400 degrees, turn the sausages every half hour for an hour and you’re good. You can’t always go meal-for-meal, it’s got to be something that’s going to last.
My mom, at Christmas, always makes lemon curd with chocolate sauce. They’re so good. I also really like hot Italian sausages—there’s this Jamie Oliver sausage pasta that my mom makes for me that’s made of hot Italian sausage meat with cilantro and fennel and it’s just really really good. Hearty comfort food is my jam, for better or for worse.
Concert rider
I have a fantasy rider and then I have an actual realistic rider. My fantasy rider, if I could eat anything before I perform, which is not the case, would be a lot of orange pop and pizza and candy like gobstoppers—my favourite candy—and caramel; but that is not what you want to eat before you perform.
In reality, it’s like room-temperature water and a chicken caesar salad. I had a chicken caesar salad the other day that had sriracha in it, which I thought was pretty cool and very tasty.
Breakfast and brunch
My friend Jo, she would hate that I’m saying this, but she is an up-and-coming chef. She’s working as a line cook at Little Oak and another place called Bar Kismet and they’re both really amazing, high-end restaurants. She makes amazing food for me and often makes me breakfast and brunch. She does a really good potato hash and she does really good eggs and toast and all kinds of really yummy breakfast foods. Her house is probably my favourite for most meals but definitely for breakfast. She does this peach and shallot potato hash and it’s really good.
In terms of restaurants, there's a place called the Ardmore in Halifax and it’s just super cheap and it’s really good. If I’m feeling like I have cash to burn, I’ll go to Robie Street Station.
Lunch and dinner
Other than Jo’s, I would say my favourite pizza place in Halifax is a place called Morris East and it has really nice thin crust wood-fire pizza. They also have a salted caramel tart and that’s my favourite dessert. I’ve been going there since I was 14, so like 10 years now. One of the managers has been there since I was 14, so she knows me very well.
I probably go to my parents' house the most for dinner in Halifax.
Drinks
There’s a place in Halifax called Field Guide. They do really fancy cocktails and they have a menu of cocktails that is multiple pages long and it’s awesome. The thing I like about Field Guide is that they have so many drinks that I’ve never heard of before. I’m pretty sure they make them up. One time I had one—I’m not sure how to describe it—the vodka was flavoured like Fruit Loops and it was like a cereal kind of theme. It was thick and kind of milky. It was really really cool.
If I’m not going to go for something really out of left field that’s just showing up on the menu that day, I usually go with an Old Fashioned. You can’t go wrong there.
