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…
John Ota Serves up Delicious Matzo Balls in Chicken Soup
I Ate Up These Delicious Food Memoirs and So Will You
“The table could sometimes breed violence and it could be the backdrop to the proscribed and the forbidden and the perverse … But feeding people made them happy; it made me happy, and grounded me.” From “Treyf” by Elissa Altman
From left to right in the photo above, here are my favourite food memoirs. All of them are beautifully written (in varying degrees) and all evoke the way food played a part in the author’s life. Some contain a bonus: recipes. Read more…
Alex Prud’homme on Great-Aunt Julia Child’s Rise to Stardom
Julia Child’s great-nephew Alex Prud’homme with his new book
Julia Child often said: “I was born hungry!” She had an appetite for life and sharing a love of good food was her consuming passion. She was North America’s first TV celebrity chef and her great-nephew Alex Prud’homme had a front-row seat. Read more…
As I Turn 70, Immaturity and Hair Dye Keep me Young
“Immaturity and hair dye keep me young.”
I’m repeating the title of this post for a few reasons: First, everything clever is worth repeating. It usually gets a good laugh – one of life’s giddiest pleasures, especially at my age. It’s true and unabashedly honest. It sums up what’s to follow – the announcement that I turn 70 in a few days. And last, it’s original.
I used to think I stole this funny line from my beloved heroine: the American journalist, author, screenwriter and director Nora Ephron. I steal a lot from that eminently quotable woman who died too young at 71 in 2012 from a rare form of leukemia. It’s hard not to steal from her because we seem to have parallel lives. I talk about her in the present because she lives on in my heart.
We both love food and cooking. We consider crushed pineapple mandatory in carrot cake, we like meatloaf – done right – and both have a recipe for cottage cheese pancakes. We both adore Julia Child and all that she’s about. Read more…
My Breakfast Chez Julia Child
1999: Julia Child making her famous scrambled eggs at home in Cambridge, Mass.
(An excerpt from my book Dish, a collection of my favourite columns and recipes from the Toronto Star)
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – I came bearing buns: rye sourdough buns I managed to procure in a mad dash moments earlier, after the croissants carefully ordered for this momentous occasion failed to arrive at my hotel at the appointed time.
Still recovering from that culinary escapade, I was both jittery and elated at the prospect of breakfast chez Julia Child as we drove along her quiet, leafy street a few blocks from bustling Harvard Square one beautiful, sunny morning last week. Read more…
Getting Ready to Celebrate the 100th birthday of Cuisine Queen Julia Child
“I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate.” — Julia Child Read more…
My Interview with Judith Jones, Julia Child’s Editor, at her Home in New York
I arrived at the door of Judith Jones’s compact, six-room apartment in a classic brownstone on New York’s Upper East Side to the sounds of enthusiastic, high-pitched barking on the other side of the door.
It was her little white and furry Havanese dog Mabon who was happy to see me and proceeded to jump up and down as I entered the cozy place where she’s lived for several decades. Read more…
Masala to Almond Cake: Restaurant-Hopping in Toronto’s East End
It’s been a rough few weeks.
In mid-December, my wise therapist, inspired spiritual teacher and beloved friend Terry Flynn died. It was sudden and unexpected. Although he had been diagnosed with the dreaded disease called ALS (Lou Gehrig’s), Terry assumed he had months, maybe more, to live. I miss him with all my heart.
Hot on the heels of this came two work-related setbacks. In both cases, I didn’t see them coming. Both triggered strong emotions. Both made me doubt my judgment, something that’s been shaken up since I quit the corporate world in 2007 after 18 years as food editor/columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest newspaper, and embarked on my intrepid, often lonely, frequently bumpy path as a fledgling freelance food sleuth. Read more…
The Tale of my Missing Cookbooks and How I Made Lemonade from Lemons
It 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…
Pilgrimage to Food Mecca Chez Panisse Disappoints
I have long dreamed of eating at famed Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse.
At an Association of Food Journalists gathering in the Napa Valley more than a decade ago, I tried, without success, to find a way to make that pilgrimage.
A couple of years later, I interviewed its earth-mother, food guru founder Alice Waters by phone while she was on a train en route to Yale university where her daughter Fanny was a student and where Alice was trying “to change the food in the college dining halls and to change the way people there think of food.” Read more…
