20 years on, I’m Still a Fan of Charming Chef Jamie Oliver

May 25, 2020

This appeared as a longer feature article in the Toronto Star food section on January 26, 2000, after I discovered Jamie Oliver’s fledgling show “The Naked Chef” on TVO. I spoke to Jamie in the flesh a few months later when he was consulting at a London restaurant – the Toronto Star article appears below this one. Twenty years later, he’s had his ups and downs, and I am still a fan.

Jamie Oliver must have supernatural powers. He can make a person leap out of her comfy chair, run downstairs, fling open the freezer and act on an overpowering urge to roast a leg of lamb. I should know. It happened to me. Under slightly different circumstances, it also happened to Jody Read, acquisitions programmer for TVO. Read more…

Chef Lynn Returns to Scottish Roots with Mince ‘n’ Tatties

October 15, 2017

This recipe is from the excellent cookbook ‘AT HOME with LYNN CRAWFORD’.

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When I was interviewing well-known Canadian chef Lynn Crawford for a podcast, we chatted about our long friendship, her TV career, our joint project that raised $40,000 for a new kitchen at a Toronto homeless shelter for women called Sistering – and what we like to cook at home. Read more…

Linda McCartney Signed My Book “Go Veggie, Marion!”

August 22, 2017

This article by me appeared in the Toronto Star after I interviewed Linda McCartney in Toronto in October, 1991 about her vegetarian cookbook “Home Cooking”. Sadly, she died too young from breast cancer in 1998 at the age of 56.

In real life, Linda McCartney is nothing like the stilted photo that graces her cookbook.

And, say I, thank goodness for that. Read more…

I Serve up Two of the Best Fruit Desserts I’ve Ever Tried. Yer Welcome!

July 6, 2015

The recipe for this French Apple Tart comes from ‘America’s Test Kitchen’

Food magazine covers often catch my eye.

Such was the case recently when I was browsing the racks of a newstand at the Toronto airport on my way to to visit my elderly mum in London, UK. Read more…

Joanne Yolles and I Get to the Core of the Matter and Bake the Ultimate Tarte Tatin

September 11, 2013

This appeared in my column “Dish” in the Toronto Star in 2004.

I baked my first Tarte Tatin late last fall. Read more…

Two Fall Fruit Desserts: More Proof that Sweet-and-Simple Takes the Cake

October 18, 2012

Joanne Yolles’s Delectable Plum Tart Is A Winner!

Joanne Yolles has long been my colleague, friend and baking buddy. Read more…

Perfect Poached Pears

March 12, 2008

Being snowed in, as I was last Saturday, can be a good thing. On this occasion, cooking seemed like the ideal way to spend the day inside as I watched the blanket of snow reach several feet high outside my kitchen window.

First, I began testing TV chef Tyler Florence’s pizza dough for a column I was writing for the Toronto Star about my trip to Miami to attend the South Beach Wine & Food Festival and to escape the snow belt for the month of February.

I ended up with excellent results after three tries. Check this blog for the recipe which will appear soon along with details of that fab Florida feast on the beach. Read more…

Eco-Eatery is London Hot-Spot

March 1, 2008

Here’s my article from The Toronto Star, February 23, 2008, that I wrote about Acorn House after a recent visit to the U.K.

“Acorn House is the most important restaurant to open in London in 200 years,” Giles Coren, The Times magazine (December, 2006).

LONDON – I’m out of breath, having scrambled up a steep metal staircase behind fleet-footed, 6-foot-6 chef Arthur Potts Dawson to check out the composting system and rooftop garden of Acorn House located a stone’s throw from King’s Cross station. Read more…

Apples of My Eye

November 6, 2007

For me, fall means food fresh from the tree or field. In particular, it usually entails a visit the St. Lawrence Valley – the tiny village of Brinston an hour’s drive south of Ottawa, to be exact – to visit my nanny Evelyn Smail and to savour apple season at its peak.

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This is rich farm country and Evelyn has lived here for all of her 80 years minus the 18 months as a teenager when she came to look after me as a baby in Montreal.

A widow now and sometimes in frail health, she relishes my visits and always has something or someone new to show me. Read more…

Roasts with the Most

October 24, 2007

You know those magical moments in cooking – when you put something together, almost haphazardly, and it turns out to be sublime.

That happened to me recently when a friend came over to cook dinner at my house using the contents of my fridge as our guide – possibly my favourite way to spend time.

I’d just bought a large, good-looking cauliflower at my local supermarket that we decided to roast and eat along with some leftover chicken in its own gravy, baby boiled potatoes and a big salad. Frequent visits were made to my deck to pluck fresh herbs for adding to a dish where applicable. Read more…