“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…
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…
“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…
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…
“I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate.” — Julia Child Read more…
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…
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…
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…
Yippee, it’s peach season and time for that quintessential dessert: peach pie.
I’ve been baking up a storm in this genre – okay, I’ve made two pies in the past week – with great results. As with many cooking coups, the first excellent pie I made was the result of a happy accident. I ran out of flour while making Julia Child’s amazingly foolproof and delectable food processor dough and had to improvise. This meant patting the too-moist dough that was impossible to roll into a 12-inch pizza pan, then folding the edges over my peach mixture to make what is called a free-form pie or galette. The result was sensational. It was quickly devoured by assembled family and friends accompanied by PC vanilla Chocolate Fudge Crackle ice cream and drizzled with my home-made red currant sauce, all to rave reviews. Here’s the recipe. Read more…
Okay, so I stole this clever headline from an article I found online about the soon-to-be-released movie “Julie and Julia” starring Meryl Streep as my friend and amazing mentor Julia Child.
Written and directed by the equally amazing Nora Ephron, the film is based on a blog and book by the same name written by a young New Yorker called Julie Powell who cooked her way through Child’s iconic and first of many books “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” – that’s more than 500 recipes in a mere 365 days.
Happily, the Ephron/Streep collaboration has produced a brilliant, funny and food-filled film that captures the personalty and passion of the wondrously charismatic Child. Read more…
