Sistering – a drop-in for homeless and marginalized women – has been a stalwart front-line facility in downtown Toronto since 1981.
Today, this busy place is located on Bloor West at Dovercourt and, for the past three years, it has expanded its services to be a “low-barrier” shelter. That means that they operate 24/7 and turn away no-one. With the homeless crisis reaching a peak this year and only getting worse, it’s a crowded spot.
Dutch Babies are a crepe-like dish that can be filled with a variety of goodies
It was May, 2004, during a glitzy dinner celebrating that year’s James Beard Awards at a mid-Manhattan hotel.
Gabriella Gershenson, at that time a fledgling food writer living in New York, was seated next to me. I discovered that I and this soft-spoken young woman with thick, wavy black hair and a winning smile were kindred souls.
My mother Ruth Schachter (née Nisse) in the garden of her flat in Primrose Hill, London UK, in 2014
I wrote this in 2002 when I was food editor for the Toronto Star. My dear mother, 95, died peacefully in her sleep a month ago on April 21, 2018
Click on this – my podcast chat with domestic goddess Nigella Lawson recorded in Toronto in late 2015 – and you’ll hear her say that we are “kitchen cousins”: http://www.marionkane.com/podcast/chat-nigella-kitchen-cousin
She’s referring to several important things we have in common: A willingness to freely improvise when cooking; an acceptance of failure in the kitchen as a necessary path to learning, and a penchant for eating her dish of Squid and Orzo Pasta cold for breakfast.
This much is clear. The iconic butter tart is everything a dessert should be.
It is more proof that nothing succeeds like excess. It commits unabashedly to over-the-top, tooth-aching, sugary sweetness. Julia Child would heartily endorse its endorsement of butter. It pays no heed to the currently popular culinary buzzword “healthful.” In a nutshell, it lives up to all the prerequisites of its much-loved confectionery genre.
In spite of attending food conferences across the United States over the years – including a magical few days about 15 years ago during which 100 food writers were all billeted at wineries in the Napa Valley – I have never eaten at Chez Panisse.
Let’s get one thing out of the way: Stephen Alexander, the tall, slim, charming owner of two Cumbrae’s butcher shops in Toronto specializing in naturally-raised meat (there’s also one in Dundas near Hamilton) , is easy on the eyes.
This third-generation Aussie butcher is also easy on the ears when he talks about his passion: things carnivorous and how to prepare them.
Here, for no reason other than I’ve made these two dishes lately, are two great recipes I’d like to share.
The first is from Calgary food writer Cinda Chavich’s nifty cookbook The Girl Can’t Cook (Whitecap). It’s a sweet and simple vegetarian concoction that makes a tasty light lunch or supper served with salad.
