Chef Michael Stadtlander with his wife Nobuyo and their son Hermann in the kitchen at Haisai
Serendipity sometimes happens.
It was on a Saturday evening in November when we drove on dark country roads from the Blue Mountains in Collingwood to the little village of Singhampton about two hours north of Toronto. The small restaurant Haisai was our destination. Read more…
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. 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…
Croquetas are a breaded and fried snack food with various fillings that are extremely popular in Miami
Carlos Frias, the food editor at the Miami Herald, is my buddy and guide to all things delicious in his Florida home. Read more…
Dutch Babies are a crepe-like dish that can be filled with a variety of goodies
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Carlos Frias at El Palacio de los Jugos with an array of Cuban dishes
I think it was in the early 2000s that I started making an annual pilgrimage to Miami. Read more…
“Bread is Gold” is the result of the “refettorio” launched at Milan’s Expo in 2015. Top-notch recipes from famous international chefs creatively use discarded food. The caramelized bananas with balsamic drizzle from the book (pictured above, recipe below) are delicious! Read more…
In Memoriam: Anthony Bourdain – an inspiration to me and the huge number of devotees who followed his ground-breaking, intrepid and wondrous work – committed suicide while filming an episode of Parts Unknown in France on June 8, 2018. He was one of a kind. RIP dear friend. Read more…
Grilled zucchini with Dirt Candy cookbook’s Yellow Tomato Coconut Curry Sauce
Amanda Cohen was born and raised in Canada. Some years ago, she went to study in New York and has made that city her home ever since. These days, she has good reason to stay; her famous Dirt Candy eatery – what she calls a “vegetable restaurant” – located on the Lower East Side, is a huge hit. Read more…
My love of fish and chips dates back to formative years growing up in London, U.K., the historical home of this popular, populist, down-home dish.
In my early teens, I recall joining Girl Guides where we lived in the North London suburb of Finchley – then a white-collar, white-bread enclave where my Jewish family stood out like a sore thumb. Read more…
I’ve been meaning to make the trip to Orillia – a place you can’t miss about an hour’s drive north of Toronto en route to Muskoka’s cottage country – for many years.
The reason, of course, is food – in this case, one of my absolute favourites: butter tarts. Read more…
