Marion Kane: Food Sleuth®

Baking

Recipe for Success – or Failure

Failed carrot cake - instead, pudding!

The Stuffed Carrot Cake I baked was obviously a failure but it was extremely tasty as a pudding

First, a little first-person backstory.

I quit my job as food editor and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest newspaper, after 18 years in 2007. It was arguably the best job for a food journalist in Canada. Four years later, I re-invented myself as a freelance Food Sleuth. Meanwhile, I did a couple of community cookbooks with residents of Toronto public housing and for an advocacy non-profit group called FoodShare. Read more…

I’m a Convert to Mairlyn Smith’s Healthy Fibre Crusade

Decadent Chocolate Chunk Cookies from “Peace, Love & Fibre”  

“Dear Canadians, Fibre not only keeps you regular, it lowers your chances of developing breast cancer and heart disease. Add a salad to your day, eat a handful of nuts, switch to whole grains, eat some beans! Signed Your Body” – Mairlyn Smith. Read more…

Fond Memories of my Mum and her Delicious Food

LONDON UK – It was about six years ago and my mother and I were about to leave her flat on Steeles Rd. in Primrose Hill. We were standing in the small hallway when she put on her new navy blue gabardine coat with a hood. Read more…

Sistering’s Vintage Cookbook Yields a Lovely Lemon Loaf

Sistering – a drop-in for homeless and marginalized women – has been a stalwart front-line facility in downtown Toronto since 1981.

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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. Read more…

Mutual Love of Prunes is One Bond I Have with Gabriella

Prune Soufflé
The Prune Soufflé that my mother used to make from her 1940s edition of the ‘Joy of Cooking’

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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. Read more…

My Lovely Late Mum Ruth Made a Mean Beef Stroganoff

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

Today is Mother’s Day and this is a tribute to the person who first inspired my love of food and cooking – my mum. Read more…

Sweet! Two Delectable Chocolate Creations That Take the Cake

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.

Nigella and I have another important bond: a love of chocolate cakes. In her book “Feast,” published in 2004, there is an entire chapter – beloved my me – called “Chocolate Hall of Fame.” This collection of nine recipes includes her famous Chocolate Guinness Cake – delicious but tends to sink in the middle – Chocolate Gingerbread, also good, and Chocolate Malteser Cake that I haven’t yet made. Read more…

Marion Kane, Food Sleuth®

Marion Kane has been a leader in the world of food journalism for a few decades. She is an intrepid populist whose work combines social commentary with a consuming passion for all things culinary. For 18 years, she was food editor/columnist for Canada's largest newspaper: the Toronto Star. She lives in Toronto's colourful Kensington Market and is currently a free-wheeling freelance food sleuth®, podcaster, writer and cook.

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