From apples to smoked salmon to yogurt, I share my latest fabulous food finds
“This is my invariable advice to people: Learn how to cook — try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless and above all have fun.” — Famous quote from Julia Child.
“Cooking is a lot like riding a horse — never let the food know you’re afraid of it!” Famous quote from me, Marion Kane. Read more…
Francis Lam, a brilliant food writer and the host of the radio show The Splendid Table, interviewed the famous chef Jacques Pepin a few years ago.
Francis asked Jacques: “I noticed in your new book, the very first recipe is for a simple roast chicken: no brining, no spicing, just a hot pan and a hot oven. So, let me ask you, why is a simple roast chicken such an iconic dish for French chefs?”
Jacques answered: “For different reasons. It’s like a hard-cooked egg – something that there is no recovery from if you don’t do it right. It’s so simple, like a bread, when you have a real bread made with flour and water and yeast, and that’s it. It has to be done right. Otherwise, there is no recovery.” Read more…
I began my career in food journalism by accident. Before that, I attained B.Ed. in French and English as a Second language. I taught New Canadians for several years and I was a social worker. In the late 1970s, my journalist friend assigned me a few restaurant reviews for Toronto Life. Next, I heard that the Toronto Sun was searching for a food editor – I spent the role from 1983 to 1989. In that year, a Life Editor for The Toronto Star reached out to me – I accepted the offer. I found my calling and my consuming passion – writing about chefs, home cooks and recipes. My role as a food editor/columnist at the Star lasted 18 years. I resigned in 2007 as a freelance Food Sleuth® creating podcasts and blogs on social media. This is a feature, illustrated by the above photo of me, from the Toronto Sun appeared in 1989. Read more…
Listen to CBC radio’s archival tapes by clicking on play buttons in the audio players below. Read more…
My parents met over a dissected frog.
Both of them were studying at McGill University in Montreal. My father Melville Schachter was attending the Faculty of Medicine. My mother was studying biology and zoology. Read more…
Food Finds, Part 2. Do you Notice I Have a Sweet Tooth? My Reply: Everything in Moderation.
“Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to do with the food itself.” Anthony Bourdain Read more…
You must possess cooking skills. You have to have experience in the kitchen. You should pay attention to detail. You must have intuition. It’s essential to be calm in the face of failure.
Lesleigh Landry possesses all of the above. Read more…
(Left to right) Rosemary at work several decades ago in Toronto: In the kitchen at Bumpkin’s Take-Out and behind the bar at the Empire Diner.
(Left to right) Bumpkin’s Take-Out menu. Rosemary at the Varanasi flower market in northern India in 2016 with her goddaughter and stepdaughter. Rosemary in the kitchen.
I can picture her working at Courage My Love in the late ’70s.
With a vintage small black hat perched on her upswept dark hair. And her ivory skin contrasting with red lipstick. Read more…
I will begin with a shocking fact: I have about 1,000 cookbooks.
When I moved into my narrow, tall townhouse in downtown Toronto about a decade ago, I organized them on shelves in my third-floor office — by ethnicity, subjects and reference books. Read more…
Chef Michael Stadtlander with his wife Nobuyo and their son Hermann in the kitchen at Haisai
Serendipity sometimes happens.
It was on a Saturday evening in November when we drove on dark country roads from the Blue Mountains in Collingwood to the little village of Singhampton about two hours north of Toronto. The small restaurant Haisai was our destination. Read more…
