Marion Kane: Food Sleuth®

Bonnie Stern

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…

Jewish Penicillin: Chicken Soup Soothes both Body and Soul

chicken soup

This was written in 2013. My mother died, age 96, at her flat in NW London (UK) in April, 2018. I still make her food. RIP dear Mum and Dad.

My Jewishness is fraught with complexities and contradictions.

Raised without any religion in the North London suburb of Finchley in post-war Britain, it was white-bread, white-collar and Anglo-Saxon all the way. I’ve noted on recent visits, it’s not the case today. Finchley is a neighbourhood where kebab shops, curry houses and the Tally Ho! pub rub shoulders in a multicultural mix.

My late father Mel Schachter grew up poor and tough on the mean streets of Montreal’s Jewish ghetto to become “my son, the doctor” – a profession he once said he chose because “it was the best racket going.” Read more…

Cooking up a Storm with the Help of my Kitchen Sisters

For some reason – probably as an antidote to stress, this being the onset of that silly season – I’ve been cooking a lot of late, in particular trying new recipes from books by my Toronto foodie friends.

If you’ve read the previous blog – my tragic tale of the missing cookbooks – you’ll understand why the tomes in question are dear to my heart.

Especially treasured are those 100 or so that I keep close at hand on shelves I had built for this purpose in the important room where it all happens: my compact, cozy kitchen. Read more…

The Tale of my Missing Cookbooks and How I Made Lemonade from Lemons

listen-to-the-podcastIt all began about a year ago when I gave two people I had no reason to distrust full access to my large, fully-furnished house while I was away.

All went well for several months during which time I would visit the place occasionally to pick up mail and move items to my new place – mostly clothes, work-related stuff and some important papers.

The pride and joy of my former abode was its cookbook library: a room I had specifically designed to hold the 1,200 or so cookbooks I had accumulated during my almost 40 years as a member of Canada’s food media. Many of those – 18, to be exact – were spent as food editor/columnist for this country’s largest newspaper the Toronto Star where I received review copies of cookbooks on a regular basis. 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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Marion Kane: Food Sleuth®