Country Greek from “The Last Schmaltz” is a Salad Comprised of
the Usual Ingredients Plus the Welcome Addition of Chickpeas
What is a nice Jewish boy from North York doing with a mini-empire of quirky restaurants in a gritty neighbourhood of downtown Toronto? Doing pretty well is the short answer.
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.
This recipe is from the excellent cookbook ‘AT HOME with LYNN CRAWFORD’.
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 Toronto homeless shelter for women – and what we like to cook at home.
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.
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.
I recently spent four glorious days in midtown Manhattan.
For two of those, I was pretty much closeted in the Roger Smith Hotel attending back-to-back seminars at a cookbook conference.
And apart from a few heart-wrenching hours spent watching the stunning but tragically haunting photos and videos of the holocaust at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, there was no other agenda.
There’s a chill in the air. Time to get out the vintage velvet jackets and enjoy the onset of fall. It’s been a sweaty summer and I’m looking forward to a kinder, gentler season reminiscent of my formative spent in London, England, where spring and autumn actually exist.
For an intrepid, always-curious food sleuth, finding Fiesta Farms is a real coup.
It’s strange that it took many years of living in Toronto (the store opened 20 years ago) for me to make this discovery but I have and, naturally, I must share.
Billed on its web site as “Toronto’s largest independently owned grocery store,” this wonderful food emporium is just that – and much more.
U.K. – In January, 2009, I wound up my annual trip to London to visit my mother with dinner at Gordon Ramsay’s newest restaurant York & Albany located at 127-129 Parkway in my favourite neighborhood, Camden Town.
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).
