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…
My Pal Rosemary is a Free Spirit
(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…
My Favourite TV Food Shows
John Catucci is my morning meditation.
During the pandemic, he gave me hope. He’s a comedian and he is funny – in a low-key way. He is endearing. The two TV shows he hosts — You Gotta Eat Here and Big Food Bucket List — are entertaining and educational. They are life-affirming. They are two of my favourite TV food shows. Read more…
Surviving and Thriving in Toronto’s Kensington Market
(Left to right) Potsothy (Pots) Sallapa, Adam Zimmerman, Danny Zimmerman at
4 Life Natural Foods
Whither Kensington?
These are podcasts recorded a few years ago about the changing nature of Kensington Market.
Everyone knows him as Pots. His full name is Potsothy Sallapa. This popular, kind, soft-spoken man has found his roots — literally and figuratively.
His dream is to build a rooftop greenhouse above his store 4 Life Natural Foods on Augusta Ave. in Toronto’s downtown Kensington Market. These are the literal roots. Read more…
Recipe for Success – or Failure
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…
John Ota Serves up Delicious Matzo Balls in Chicken Soup
Ingredients: A hunger for knowledge; boundless energy and enthusiasm; a love of architecture and design; a passion for cooking and for good food. Read more…
This Sensational Salad Recipe is from the Cookbook “South”
This Tomato and Watermelon Salad from SOUTH is Sensational Read more…
NYC Chef Michael Lomonaco Survived 9/11 and is Still Cooking
“I dedicate my work every day to the colleagues I lost on 9/11” – chef Michael Lomonaco.
Michael Lomonaco loves food and people. But it was an act of hate that pushed him into the spotlight: the tragic events of September 11th, 2001.
Michael was executive chef of Windows on the World: a restaurant once on top of the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. Following the attacks, he helped raise $23 million for the families of foodservice workers killed that day. Those included 79 of his staff working the morning shift and a hot dog vendor on the ground outside. I interviewed him in May 2002. Read more…
My New, Improved Version of Chicken Marbella – and a Killer Side Dish of Fried Onions
When famous American chef/restaurateur Thomas Keller was in Toronto last year to address an auditorium packed with chefs, foodies and other ardent fans, he listed what he considers the keys to success in cooking: “Patience, persistence, practice.”
These three ‘P’s, it seems to me, go together. To persist, you need patience. It’s a case of constantly tweaking a dish – and practising it over and over again – until it’s close to perfect.
In this case, I’m talking about that iconic concoction called Chicken Marbella – one that’s been a crowd-pleaser at dinner parties since it appeared in that ground-breaking “Silver Palate Cookbook” by Manhattan caterers Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso published in 1979. Read more…
Winning Reader’s Recipe in 2011 Observer Food Monthly Annual Awards is a Winner!
My mother Ruth Schachter (nee Nisse), age 88, is one live-wire.
She reminds me (and others) of the cute little old lady in the original “Ladykillers” starring Alec Guinness and a young, dashing Peter Sellers. White-haired and blue-eyed, that sweet, seemingly innocent, slightly scatter-brained octogenarian is far more savvy than she looks. ‘Nuff said.
Mum lives in Primrose Hill between Hampstead and Camden Town in north-west London (U.K., of course) and is a busy bee. Read more…
