My parents met over a dissected frog.
Both of them were studying at McGill University in Montreal. My father Melville Schachter was attending the Faculty of Medicine. My mother was studying biology and zoology. Read more…
My parents met over a dissected frog.
Both of them were studying at McGill University in Montreal. My father Melville Schachter was attending the Faculty of Medicine. My mother was studying biology and zoology. Read more…
Dutch Babies are a crepe-like dish that can be filled with a variety of goodies
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I’ve written about the wondrous little downtown Montreal wine bar called Pullman before. At that time, I also noted the wisdom of gleaning tips from those who work in restaurants when it comes to sleuthing a locale’s top spots to nosh.
It was a lovely young waitress in a Kingston (Ont.) pub who directed me and Ross to Pullman while we were dining on her establishment’s excellent fish and chips a year ago. In particular, she recommended the Green Beans with Almonds and Truffle Oil. She turned out to be right on all counts. Read more…
Clad in one of my several animal-print coats, I succumbed to the coffee-and-cruller craving en route from Quebec City to Montreal and stopped for that all-Canadian traveller’s fix at – where else? – Timmy Ho’s.
This one, in Trois-Rivieres, was really hopping on Easter weekend. I spilled my coffee on the tailgate of my boyfriend Ross’s red pick-up. Luckily, as he noted sagely afterwards, it is lined with indoor/outdoor carpet.
This appeared in the Toronto Star food section in November, 2008.
Dear readers, you read it here first.
The all-Canadian culinary controversy about the origin of poutine that has simmered, and occasionally boiled over into a food fight, for several decades has been resolved thanks to yours truly and a trusty team of helpers. Read more…
I’ve long wanted to visit Brasserie Magnan (Magnan’s Tavern), 2602 Rue St. Patrick: a huge vintage restaurant that opened in 1932. About a 10-minute drive from downtown Montreal and located in a semi-industrial part of the city, this is a wondrous, mainly blue-collar eatery popular with working fellows and recommended to me by several chefs who go there to chow down on the famous roast beef on their day off.
I had a super lunch there and skipped the daily special of the 10-oz rib-eye steak to savour a delicious plate of roast beef (6-oz) for $15.75 accompanied by mashed potatoes and smashed turnip. The coffee – a barometer of any restaurant’s attention to detail – is excellent. Read more…
Every time I visit my birthplace, Montreal, I discover some new delicious food source. Of course, I try to re-visit favourite spots (Schwartz’s and L’Express top that list, depending on my mood.
A couple of weeks ago, my brother Eric and I – he lives in the city’s Francophone, blue-collar east-end ‘nabe of Hochelaga Maisonneuve – made a return pilgrimage to wondrous Portuguese eatery Doval located at 150 Marie-Anne Est not far from the former Jewish ghetto where our dad grew up. This noisy, always-packed, inexpensive eatery with the giant portions and great prices has another attraction: it’s a block away from Leonard Cohen’s house that faces a small park not far from Bagels Etc. on Boulevard St Laurent where there have been sightings of Lenny by my trusty bro. Read more…
My brother Eric and I were both born in Montreal. We didn’t live there long as the wanderings of our academic parents began soon after, taking us to Halifax, Nova Scotia, followed by London, England, where we spent 15 years and then back to Canada in the late ’60s.
Still, that lovely city of my birth has always loomed large, partly because, as children, we regularly made summer visits there to see both sets of grandparents, crossing the Atlantic several times by ocean liner (not a good memory) and because my dad would sometimes talk about growing up in that city’s famous Jewish neighbourhood now called Mile End or The Main. Read more…
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.