Dish: Memories, Recipes and Delicious Bites - Press

Food writer has broken bread with mobsters and celebrities, acquiring some good stories and recipes
JUDY CREIGHTON
Canadian Press

Food writer Marion Kane has eaten, cooked and shmoozed with an eclectic cast of characters, including actress Sophia Loren and famous chefs like Julia Child, Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver.

But none was quite as colourful as (Joe Dogs) Iannuzzi, a mobster and major player in the Gambino crime family. For more than 30 years, he was the family's resident chef, working out of Florida and New York.

Iannuzzi decided to turn informant for the FBI after another mobster tried to
kill him for some unpaid debts in 1981. He is now in the witness protection program.

When his Mafia Cookbook came out, Kane, then food editor at the Toronto
Star, was determined to interview him. "He would phone me and I had no
idea where he was but after the third call he had taken quite a shine to me
and wanted to come to Toronto and meet me," she says with a chuckle. "I
said 'no, I don't think that's a good idea.'

"The stories he told me were unbelievable and his recipes were really, really good."

That story is just one of many through Kane's new book titled Dish: Memories, Recipes and Delicious Bites (Whitecap). It is a collection of stories from her 30 years as a food writer.

From sharing a hot lunch in a homeless shelter to talking to cabbies about their favourite dishes – many from their homelands such as India, Turkey, Iran or Somalia – Kane says she likes to connect to people through food.

"1 am very sociable, very curious and very nosy,'" she admits cheerfully,
"and talking about food is the perfect way to find out about people."

However, there have been moments when she actually regretted being a
food writer.

"I would go to a dinner party and people would only talk about food
because I was there and would ask me questions," she recalls.

"I just felt my work was following me into my social life and I couldn't get
away from it."

But Kane doesn't feel that way now.

"I really relish the opportunity to talk about food, anywhere, any time."

She is critical of those who regard food and entertaining as fashionable.

"I don't like things to be fashionable for their own sake. And I differ with
Martha Stewart, who regards cooking and entertaining as a "way to impress
people."

Her favourite evenings are with her friends sitting around enjoying a very
casual relaxed potluck dinner.

"It seems that all my friends are good cooks. They are people who like to eat, which is the main criteria for being a good cook," Kane says.

She credits her love for cooking and food to her parents and has wonderful
memories of Jewish brunches, parties and dinners in the family home in
London, England.

A chapter in the book is dedicated to her friend Julia Child, who died last year. Kane orchestrated Child's first visit to Toronto, and found that every
minute with the famous TV chef was a pleasure, They became good friends
and kept up a constant relationship mainly through e-mail.

"She (Child) was always plugged in and interested in what I was doing," says Kane. "She was so alive and so curious and so real."

Recipes dot the book's Pages. Some are Kane's own, many are those that
she was given by other foodies, chefs and ordinary people.

"Cooking is like working out in the gym which I discovered years ago," she says. "Once you realize it makes you feel good you want to do it again."

"Cooking is like sex. It can be addictive and you are giving people pleasure and you are getting pleasure yourself."

Marion Kane is a leader in the world of food writing, both in Canada and abroad. Her work combines humour, social commentary and a passion for cooking that makes it a toothsome pleasure.

She wrote for Canada's largest newspaper, the Toronto Star, from 1989 to 2007, for the first 11 years as food editor, then as a food columnist for the weekend paper.

"There’s just one way to sum up this book: Mmmm good!"
 - Patricia A. Carvacho, SceneandHeard.ca

Pacific Palate with Don Genova
Interview and photos (August 10, 2005)

Shelagh Rogers on CBC Radio's "Sounds Like Canada" [22 MB - wma]
Hear Marion's interview about her book, Dish. (June 8 2005)