Marion Kane: Food Sleuth®

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San Francisco

Pilgrimage to Food Mecca Chez Panisse Disappoints

May 5, 2011

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…

Filed Under: Julia Child, Restaurant, restaurant reviews, San Francisco Tagged With: alice waters, California, Chez Panisse, restaurant, San Francisco

A Feast for All the Senses in San Francisco

April 28, 2011

The last and only time I had been to San Francisco was in 1968, a year after the so-called summer of love.

My then-husband John Kane had a friend living in Haight Ashbury which I recall as a hotbed of head-shops, tie-dye T-shirts, peace symbols and crunchy granola. I also recall buying my first item of vintage clothing in that lively neighborhood: a fur jacket that I wore until it fell apart and was the bellwether of a sartorial style that is my chosen one to this day.

On my recent visit to San Fran – a magical five-day stay in late March complete with sun and balmy temperatures – it looked as if not much had changed in what Hunter Thompson once dubbed Hashbury. The place has been cleaned up, corporatized in spots but there are still head-shops and funky stores specializing in Grateful Dead T-shirts and garments made from home-spun fabrics. Noted: Pipe Dreams, The Anarchist Collective Bookstore and a charming retro diner called The Pork Store that dates back several decades and where I had a tasty salad. Read more…

Filed Under: Restaurant, San Francisco Tagged With: Bi-Rite Market, Food, San Francisco, Tartine Bakery, Zuni Cafe

Save the date (March 8, 2011) for Kitchen Sisters: A Fundraiser Feast

January 30, 2011

For 18 years, as food editor and food columnist for the Toronto Star, I shared my passion for things culinary. Most important and gratifying was the joyous connection it gave me to people who enjoy and prepare food – from the Filipino taxi driver who enthusiastically described how his mother makes Chicken Adobo to the firefighters with whom I cooked and then ate a luscious, convivial meal of grilled chicken and rhubarb crumble at their downtown Toronto firehall one lovely evening. In addition to writing about the latest balsamic vinegar and the best way to deep-fry calamari, I used my platform with Canada’s largest newspaper to discuss social, cultural and even political issues associated with food. This includes the disturbing issue of those who go hungry in a land where there should be plenty to go around. When I resigned from my job in 2007 having written Julia Child’s obituary, after interviewing Joe “Dogs” Iannuzzi about his role as cook for New York mobsters while he was under the witness protection plan and feeling that I had new fish to fry, I turned my hand to radio, blogging and working with non-profit groups – always with the focus on food. And thus was born Kitchen Sisters: a fundraiser feast at which some of Toronto’s top women chefs will join forces at Mildred’s Temple Kitchen on March 8, 2011, the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, to raise money for much-needed expansion and renovation of the kitchen at Sistering, a drop-in for homeless women. Read more…

Filed Under: San Francisco, Sleuthing, Women Tagged With: 100th anniversary, balsamic vinegar, calamari, chicken adobo, firehall, food columnist, food editor, homeless women, international women, julia child, kitchen sisters, lovely evening, mobsters, profit groups, taxi driver, temple kitchen, top women, toronto star, witness protection plan, women chefs

Marion Kane, Food Sleuth®

Marion Kane, Food Sleuth®

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Marion Kane, Food Sleuth®

Marion Kane has been a leader in the world of food journalism for a few decades. She is an intrepid populist whose work combines social commentary with a consuming passion for all things culinary. For 18 years, she was food editor/columnist for Canada's largest newspaper: the Toronto Star. She lives in Toronto's colourful Kensington Market and is currently a free-wheeling freelance food sleuth®, podcaster, writer and cook.

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