Have you ever prepared for a celebration with a vision in mind of how it will unfold, only to find that reality doesn’t match? A week ago the thought of celebrating Peru’s independence day hardly crossed my mind. We’d been sick for weeks with a clingy stomach flu and we […]
My first taste of sushi was in a home kitchen. A boy named Marcus took me to his house – he was deliriously excited about showing me his bunk beds – and his mother made us sushi for dinner. I taught day care for a few years just after college, […]
Multitasking in the kitchen rarely goes well for me. Yesterday my desire for a hamburger was irresistible. Mixing up a batch of dough for burger buns seemed simple enough, especially since it was the early afternoon – there was plenty of time for kneading, rising and baking before our evening […]
Who knew that making bagels was so easy? For months I’ve been baking all of our bread: baguettes, whole wheat loaves, hamburger buns, flatbread… Bagels, though, are a mystery. Isn’t there an obscure ingredient that gives store-bought bagels their distinctive flavour and texture? Haven’t I heard something about boiling bagels? […]
Today my city goes red. In Ontario, regions are colour-coded according to Covid cases and restrictions that are in effect. Because of my underlying condition, we’re living as though we’re in lock-down anyway, but I find it depressing to know that my community is once again moving in the wrong […]
Traditionally seasoned turkey with canned cranberry, stuffing and mashed potatoes rouses in me wonderful childhood memories of Christmases spent north of Toronto, with my aunt and uncle, in a snow-draped landscape – towering pines everywhere, a real fire burning day and night, chocolate initials in our stockings. Magic. But my […]
Subtle flavour and gentle sweetness are sensory pleasures I discovered later in life. My husband and I stumbled, together, across an obscure Japanese bakery in Markham, years ago, and the lightness of a strawberry shortcake we found there is with us still. Later, I tried, for the first time, an […]
When my grandmother passed away I unearthed, in her garage, a large envelope stuffed full and carefully labelled: Recipes Collected For Years. In it I discovered a gold mine: booklets from the ’50s with tips on how to bake prize-winning cookies, a school-issued curriculum for young ladies, Tested Recipes, published […]
I tried, once before, to reproduce the golden deliciousness of stuffed yuca as I remembered it from Peru. But I failed. Just boiling and frying yuca acceptably seemed beyond my capabilities. Still, what better season will there ever be for trying new things at home? Step One: Have someone else […]
How many times have I passed over yucas in the grocery store, selecting, instead, the more familiar Yukon Gold potato for mash, fries and soups? My first taste of yuca, also called cassava root, was in Peru. Stuffed yuca, served to us hot and golden in a relative’s home, was […]