“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 was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate.” — Julia Child
I’ve been a busy member of Canada’s food media for many moons – more than 30 years of telling stories about my consuming passion, 18 of them as food editor/columnist for Canada’s largest newspaper, the Toronto Star.
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.
I should have heeded the above warning before I gathered ingredients and spent a couple of hours struggling – in the end, unsuccessfully – to duplicate the Apple Torte with Breadcrumb Hazelnut Crust pictured in all its supposed gorgeousity on the cover of October’s issue of Bon Appetit magazine.
