Taylor Clarke was suspicious of Bengal cats, celery juice, and people with no apparent jobs who were always on vacation. He held up a mirror to Toronto, the unaffordable city he loved, and he called out the most ridiculous, unfair parts. In his corner of the internet, as Chef Grant Soto, he created a community for people to laugh and vent their frustrations. On March 8, he died of an accidental drug overdose. He was 38.Taylor Clarke was a screenwriter who had worked in the restaurant industry. He channelled his insights about the ego-driven business into Grant Soto, a “celebrity chef” who served owl meat to his elite customers and even worse meals to his staff. As Clarke described the absurd and fictitious exploits on social media, he skewered Toronto’s restaurant scene. He used his account to draw attention to injustice in the industry, and when he needed a break from confrontation, he liked to create Toronto personas. A late January post showed a young man in a suit holding a cannabis plant: “What’s good? It’s me the Cannabis investor bro. I’m at the forefront of business because I got money from my father last year to invest in a marijuana company because all of my buddies were doing it and I didn’t want to be the only guy at AMBER lounge left out.”He loved Toronto, but he split his time between this city and his hometown of Thunder Bay. He had moved back home in 2014 to care for his mother, Pamela, and friends say he’d been having a hard time since her death in 2017. When his sister, Tara Vilas, spoke to him the day before he died, he was in a great mood. A writing project was coming together, and he hoped it might be a big break that would finance a trip to Vancouver, where she lived in the suburbs (which he made fun of). “He was in a happy place,” she says. “Yes, he struggled with depression, but from what I can tell as his sister, I was proud of him.”His friend, chef Matty ...
|
