Listen to CBC radio’s archival tapes by clicking on play buttons in the audio players below. Read more…
20 years on, I’m Still a Fan of Charming 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. 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…
My Breakfast Chez Julia Child
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…
Pastry Chef Joanne Yolles and we Bake the Ultimate Tarte Tatin
This appeared in my column “Dish” in Toronto Star in 2004.
I baked my first Tarte Tatin late last fall. Read more…
Getting Ready to Celebrate the 100th birthday of Cuisine Queen Julia Child
“I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate.” — Julia Child Read more…
Melissa Leithwood Names This Year’s “It” Meat – No Kidding
As I write, my kitchen is filled with the luscious aroma of goat curry warming in the oven. And I have Melissa Leithwood to thank for that.
I met this lovely young woman several years ago when she interviewed me over tea at the Royal York Hotel for her master’s thesis on how chefs grow their businesses sustainably and support local food. Her case study is a leader in this field: well known Toronto chef Jamie Kennedy. Read more…
Love, Loss and What I Ate – Nora Ephron
My psychic bond with Nora Ephron, though one-sided (my side, of course), is a long-standing one
I have never met the brilliant American author, movie director, screenwriter, humourist and foodie but feel I know her well.
I did interview her by phone for my column in the Toronto Star a few years ago when her hilarious little book about the downside of being a middle-aged woman came out called I Feel Bad About My Neck. I could relate. Read more…
Save the date (March 8, 2011) for Kitchen Sisters: A Fundraiser Feast
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…
Screen Cuisine
This article appeared in the Toronto Star on December 28,2008.
Home for the holidays? ‘Tis the perfect time for relaxing between festivities to savour some screen cuisine.
Happily, there’s no shortage of tasty offerings on several channels. 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…