The first Mother’s Day gift I made was a card. It had a flower and stars and kittens on it because I was obsessed with flowers and stars and kittens. Mom was allergic to two of these, but I was young and unable to fully understand how my mother might not love everything I did. [...]
Altogether now. On the count of three, “Ivy, you’re a genius!” Ivy Manning, author of Crackers & Dips: More than 50 Handmade Snacks (Chronicle ©2013), wasn’t always receptive to this praise. As a caterer, she found complex dishes like Pheasant Under Glass went virtually unnoticed. But when she brought out the basket of simple homemade [...]
I’m often asked to recommend cookbooks as gifts for someone’s mother-in-law, sister, aunt, neighbour, co-worker, friend visiting from far off foreign lands. I feel a bit like I’ve been asked to select a paint colour for their living room without seeing the house let alone knowing how many people live there. Sure, I could point [...]
Being born at the height of The Depression, my mother never wasted food. When there wasn’t enough leftover pastry dough to top a chicken pot pie, she made a roly-poly. She made them so often and with such authority, I assumed the roly-poly was the natural conclusion for all such scraps. Turns out –once again — I [...]
Andrew and I are mature, level-headed adults. We can easily discuss our budget, the laundry schedule, and who goes where at Easter. We listen to each other, see the other person’s point of view and devise workable action plans. We use terms like “action plan,” or “fiduciary.” We do regular check-ins on newly devised systems. [...]
I seriously miscalculated the potato requirement for last night’s dinner. Maybe I was distracted by the dishwasher that kept telling me the intake/drain needed my attention. Maybe I got a little pre-occupied trying to remember where I had hidden Andrew’s birthday present. Either way, I ended up with eleven leftover baked potatoes — there had [...]
The vanilla extract on the left is full of seeds and has a whole pod in the bottle. The vanilla beans on the right are fresh, fragrant and supple enough to knot. Both products are Really Horrible. Seriously. They’re from Really Horrible Enterprises located in Ottawa, ON. I rarely review food products but couldn’t resist the company [...]
When I was a kid there were three kinds of salt in my little world: Rock, kosher and table. That was it. The only specialty salt was Morton’s. Their slogan —When it rains, it pours.— gives you an idea of how simple life was back then. We got excited over salt that wouldn’t clump in humid [...]
I am capricious. One day I’ll view a certain cookbook as General Cooking and file it away as such. Then after using it for a while, I realize I’m drawn only to its dessert section and stick it in with the baking books. Only it’s not a baking book, so I forget I did this. [...]
This is jar of freshly stained homemade ghee – pronounced GEE. It’s clarified butter pushed to the edge. Done right, it will reward you with golden brown, nutty goodness. Done wrong? Both you and the butter will end up weeping into the compostable waste bin. But don’t be intimidated. Homemade ghee just requires a keen [...]
