Marion Kane: Food Sleuth®

20 years on, I’m Still a Fan of Charming Chef Jamie Oliver

The Naked Chef - Jamie Oliver

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 – the Toronto Star article appears below this one. 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…

More Feasting on the Beach

This appeared in the Toronto Star’s Living section on Saturday, March 22, 2008.

MIAMI – Jamie Oliver, wearing a fitted short-sleeved shirt and jeans, emerges from behind the scenes and is greeted with a barrage of screams, whistles and applause.

His face is flushed. Hot in every sense of the word, this adorable British chef with the Mockney accent and penchant for “easy-peasy” cuisine wipes his brow with a tea towel. Read more…

Perfect Poached Pears

Being snowed in, as I was last Saturday, can be a good thing. On this occasion, cooking seemed like the ideal way to spend the day inside as I watched the blanket of snow reach several feet high outside my kitchen window.

First, I began testing TV chef Tyler Florence’s pizza dough for a column I was writing for the Toronto Star about my trip to Miami to attend the South Beach Wine & Food Festival and to escape the snow belt for the month of February.

I ended up with excellent results after three tries. Check this blog for the recipe which will appear soon along with details of that fab Florida feast on the beach. Read more…

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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