It was the day before Father’s Day and I’d dropped by one of my favourite haunts: The Cook­book Store in down­town T.O.

As usual, I wound up talk­ing shop and kib­itz­ing with Ali­son Fryer and Jen­nifer Grange, trusty staff who’ve been my friends for more than 20 years.

Out of one eye, I noticed a short woman with bobbed brown hair and red lip­stick chat­ting ani­mat­edly in a Euro­pean accent.

Sud­denly, she turned to me, clasped my hand, exclaimed “You’re Mar­ion Kane!” then added, “I loved your col­umn today about your father. I’m going to make the Swiss Steak.”

Eva (“Ibi”) Gabori is a Hun­gar­ian Jew­ish widow. She had just attended a 100th anniver­sary gath­er­ing at the Yorkville library and was cel­e­brat­ing a per­sonal mile­stone: 50 years of work­ing there as a librarian.

She’s an avid cook so dishes like cab­bage rolls and Hun­gar­ian crepes called palascinta quickly pep­pered our conversation.

It then moved on to Gabori’s firm opin­ion that I look much bet­ter than my column’s photo, her time spent in Auschwitz and the deep love she has for her grown daughter.

She told me she always gives her only off­spring a card on Mother’s Day “thank­ing her for mak­ing me a mother.”

At 79, Gabori looks and acts years younger. Her intel­li­gence, curios­ity and indomitable spirit had me and oth­ers in the store entranced. As she left, I looked around. I wasn’t the only one with tears in her eyes.

A cou­ple of weeks later, I was wait­ing to buy a ticket at my local train sta­tion when I noticed two dash­ing fire­fight­ers stand­ing in line.

Since a friend’s recent base­ment con­fla­ga­ra­tion, I’d been won­der­ing about fire safety in my home. “Excuse me,” I began ten­ta­tively, “do you think I should get a fire extin­guisher for my kitchen? Is it necessary?”

“Well, with all the cook­ing you do, I’d say yes,” was the quick reply from one. It turned out this fel­low reads my col­umn reg­u­larly and even recalled the one in which I helped cook din­ner for 30 at a Toronto firehall.

I tell the above sto­ries for a rea­son. They are just two among many that illus­trate what I’ve loved about my job at this paper for 18 years: the easy, some­times instant, always warm con­nec­tion it has helped me forge with all kinds of peo­ple through that uni­ver­sal con­nec­tor and my burn­ing pas­sion – food.

Yes, dear read­ers, this is my farewell col­umn and please excuse the tear-stains.

Around me, in my home office, are pow­er­ful reminders of expe­ri­ences I’ve shared with you for so long. Hang­ing on the walls are framed pages from the 11 years I was the Star’s food editor.

There’s TV chef Emeril Lagasse, at the peak of his pop­u­lar­ity, sam­pling bread pud­ding after we smug­gled him into the Test Kitchen at 7 a.m. in 1998.

Two pages show me with the late Julia Child.

In one, I’m big-haired and euphoric shar­ing wine with my friend and men­tor at the kitchen table of my Kens­ing­ton Mar­ket home in 1991.

In 1999, I’m in her Cam­bridge, Mass., kitchen tak­ing notes as she makes me scram­bled eggs. That arti­cle includes a side­bar with the head­line: Crazed food edi­tor car­jacks bag of buns. This inci­dent involved late deliv­ery of crois­sants intended for Child’s break­fast and a look on Star pho­tog­ra­pher Richard Lautens’s face that I’ll never forget.

In another fea­ture, I asked three Toronto chefs to cre­ate a recipe for Stones rocker Keith Richards’s favourite dish: shepherd’s pie. The band was in town at the time. Keith loved the story and signed my page.

My tale of a three-hour Ital­ian lunch with Sophia Loren almost a decade ago bears the head­line: Cook­ing with Amore. I was cov­ered in self-inflicted pinch marks after that amaz­ing meal.

The Star has given me entrée and a plat­form to share yarns that range from weird to won­der­ful and every­thing in between.

In the early ‘90s. I wrote about New York Mafia cook-turned-informer Joe “Dogs” Ian­nuzzi who phoned sev­eral times from parts unknown to talk about his cook­book while he was in the wit­ness pro­tec­tion plan.

Nine months after 911, I inter­viewed a teary Michael Lomonaco, for­mer exec­u­tive chef of Win­dows on the World, who escaped the ter­ror­ist attack by chance, decid­ing to buy glasses in one of the Twin Tow­ers instead of tak­ing the ele­va­tor to work.

On a lighter note, I dressed up in cab­bage leaves 15 years ago to illus­trate a story about ecol­ogy in the kitchen. The year before, I adorned my older daugh­ter Esther and two of her friends in let­tuce and car­rots for a veg­e­tar­ian fea­ture called The Young and the Meatless.

Twice, I wrote major arti­cles about Kens­ing­ton: my beloved neigh­bour­hood of almost 30 years. On a visit to Lon­don, I attended my high school reunion and, in a piece enti­tled Con­fec­tions of a British School­girl, recalled bak­ing cheese­cakes for my French teacher.

All this is a long way from being an inter­preter for the U.N. – a dream I had as a uni­ver­sity stu­dent immersed in languages.

It seems that being a food writer – a career that hap­pened almost by acci­dent in the late 1970s when I began pen­ning restau­rant reviews for Toronto Life – has been my nat­ural niche.

It’s given me an excuse to be nosey, which I pre­fer to call curi­ous, and to gab with oth­ers. After all, every­body eats and it’s a rare indi­vid­ual who doesn’t want to share a story about some­thing he or she has eaten or cooked.

That’s how I wound up at Neville’s: the ulti­mate source in Bar­ba­dos of pud­din’ ‘n’ souse, that country’s national dish, thanks to Heather, the grill chef I befriended at my resort.

Last year, I dis­cov­ered pig tails: a sur­pris­ingly tasty spe­cialty that’s a barbecue/picnic tra­di­tion in the region around Strat­ford where I live. Through the grapevine, a home cook here offered a defin­i­tive recipe.

This job has been a two-way street and my exploits often elicited help from you. There’s the Lat­vian cook­book a reader sent when I wrote that my mother, a holo­caust refugee from that coun­try, was seek­ing a recipe for a cer­tain apple tart.

A woman sent me her mother’s cake pan after I bemoaned the fact that Nigella Law­son called for this impossible-to-find vin­tage size for her Choco­late Fruitcake.

I’ve had a big response when I addressed polit­i­cal issues, in par­tic­u­lar columns about under­priv­i­leged Toron­to­ni­ans. My columns about food banks, hos­tel cooks, day-care meals, bread-bakers at an east-end church and the young man at a down­town drop-in who makes delec­table dev­illed eggs have touched your hearts.

So dear read­ers, please keep in touch. You can con­tact me via my web site: www.marionkane.com and check out a blog I’ll soon be launch­ing. There’s also my recent book: a col­lec­tion of Star columns and recipes called Dish (White­cap; $24.95).

Mean­while, I plan to per­fect a plum cake I’ve been work­ing on, a return to St. Jacobs Farm­ers’ Mar­ket for the ulti­mate apple frit­ter, and to travel.

I’ll watch local chef Mark McEwan’s show The Heat and Brit bad boy Gor­don Ramsay’s Kitchen Night­mares on TV, cook from books by Tyler Flo­rence, Jamie Oliver and Bon­nie Stern, refer con­stantly to www.epicurious.com, use my kitchen bible The New Best Recipe (America’s Test Kitchen; $43.95) and fin­ish read­ing The Belly of Paris by Emile Zola.

Wher­ever I am, I’ll be sleuthing, savour­ing and prepar­ing food. I’ll do my best to buy local (prefer­ably organic), use cloth bags to shop and break bread with kin­dred souls — start­ing with my new friend Eva Gabori.

Here are three dishes from my col­umn that make a great din­ner party menu. As Julia Child used to say: Bon appetit!

Fresh Pea Soup

From Bare­foot Con­tessa at Home (Pot­ter; $45) by Ina Garten. You must use flavour­ful peas. I rec­om­mend frozen President’s Choice Small Sweet Peas or fresh peas straight from the vine. I’ve served this hot, at room tem­per­a­ture and cold.

2 tbsp but­ter
2 cups chopped leek, white and green parts (1 large or 2 small leeks)
1 cup chopped onion
4 cups chicken or veg­etable stock, prefer­ably home­made
5 cups freshly shelled or frozen small sweet peas
½ to ²⁄₃ cup chopped fresh mint leaves, loosely packed
1 to 2 tsp kosher salt
½ tsp freshly ground black pep­per
½ cup crème fraiche or plain yogurt
½ cup chopped fresh chives, optional

Heat but­ter over medium-low heat in large saucepan. Add leek and onion; cook 7 to 10 min­utes or until onion is soft. Add stock. Increase heat to high; bring to a boil. Add peas. Reduce heat to low; sim­mer 3 to 5 min­utes or until ten­der. (Frozen peas will only take 3 min­utes.) Remove from heat; add mint, salt and pepper.

Puree soup in batches in blender or using hand blender. Serve with dol­lop of crème fraiche; sprin­kle with chives, if using. Taste; adjust seasoning.

Makes about 6 servings.

Chicken Marsala with Mus­tard and Mascarpone

From Giada’s Fam­ily Din­ners (Pot­ter; $43) by Giada de Lau­ren­tiis. Serve over fet­tucine or creamy mashed potatoes.

1½ lb/750g bone­less, skin­less chicken breasts
Salt and freshly ground pep­per
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp but­ter
¾ cup chopped onion
1lb/500g crem­ini, brown or shi­itake mush­rooms, sliced
2 tbsp finely chopped gar­lic
1 cup dry marsala wine
8 oz/250g tub mas­car­pone cheese
2 tbsp dijon mus­tard
3 tbsp chopped fresh pars­ley plus extra sprigs for garnish

Sprin­kle chicken with salt and pepper.

In large skil­let, heat oil over high heat. Add chicken; cook, turn­ing once or twice, until browned on both sides, about 8 min­utes in all. Trans­fer to plate.

Reduce heat to medium. Add but­ter and onion to skil­let; cook, stir­ring, until onion is soft, about 3 min­utes. Add mush­rooms and gar­lic; cook, stir­ring, until mush­rooms are soft and juices evap­o­rate, about 12 min­utes. Add marsala; cook until reduced, about 4 min­utes. Stir in mas­car­pone and mus­tard. Taste; adjust seasoning.

Slice browned chicken cross­wise into ½-inch slices. Add to sauce in skil­let; cook over medium-low heat until cooked through, about 2 min­utes. (If sauce is too thick, add a lit­tle water or chicken stock.) Stir in 2 table­spoons of chopped parsley.

To serve, mound noo­dles on plates, top with chicken and sauce. Sprin­kle with remain­ing chopped pars­ley and a pars­ley sprig or two.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Rich Stout Cake

This black-as-coal, deep-flavoured cake is from Green & Black’s Choco­late Recipes (KC; $29.95). Use bot­tled stout (e.g. Guin­ness), not canned. This calls for a 330-mL bot­tle of Guin­ness and ¹⁄₃ cup more – so just drink the rest!

1 cup but­ter, at room tem­per­a­ture
2 cups dark brown sugar
4 large eggs, beaten
1¾ cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp bak­ing pow­der
2 tsp bak­ing soda
2 cups stout or Guin­ness (330 mL bot­tle + ¹⁄₃ cup)
1 cup good qual­ity cocoa pow­der
5 oz/150g dark choco­late, grated
Icing sugar for dust­ing, optional

Pre­heat oven to 350F.

But­ter 9-inch/23-cm spring­form pan; line bot­tom with parch­ment or waxed paper.

With elec­tric mixer, beat but­ter and sugar until creamy. Grad­u­ally add eggs; beat until light and creamy.

In bowl, sift together flour, bak­ing pow­der and bak­ing soda.

In another bowl or large mea­sur­ing cup, com­bine stout (allow head to set­tle) and cocoa; stir in grated chocolate.

Add flour and stout mix­tures alter­nately to bat­ter, stir­ring after each addi­tion, until com­bined. Trans­fer to pre­pared pan. Bake on mid­dle shelf of oven about 1 hour or until tester inserted into cen­tre comes out clean. Cool on wire rack in pan about 10 min­utes; remove rim. When com­pletely cool, dust with icing sugar, if using. Serve with softly whipped cream or vanilla yogurt and fresh berries, a lit­tle apple­sauce or rasp­berry puree.

Makes 8 to 10 servings.