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This improv recipe is a testament to my impulse shopping, poor sense of timing and the power of the common cold. Impulse shopping:  A few months ago, I found fresh Cornish hens at the butcher shop. As I stood at the meat counter waiting to be...

Concord Grapes leave me conflicted. They fill up my senses in a way that would do John Denver proud. They also break my heart. When I see their deep blue-purple skins overflowing the baskets at the market stalls the joyful, creative part of me wants...

Cherries, currants and raspberries arrive at such an inconvenient time. It's hot. It's often humid. And our old stone house holds the summer heat like a wood-fired brick oven. Once the warm weather has worked its way into the walls, I'm hesitant to fry a...

I think we had frost last night. I'm not sure. I got home at midnight after a 15-hour day which involved three amazingly inspiring meetings and one stomach-churning moment where I irrevocably shattered the screen on my beloved iPad. I'm proud to say I didn't...

My Cherished Canadian Recipe Everyone in my immediate family uses the same shortbread recipe. We got it from my mother, who got it from her mother, who got it from a rather odd neighbour. My grandmother wanted the recipe so badly she dutifully wrote out the...

The other day I admitted I had a great big culinary knowledge gap. Oh, I was willing to share my apricot ignorance, but I was a bit smug about peaches. I considered myself a veritable Ms Know-It-All when it came to my favourite stone fruit....

Ever feel like you're the last person to learn something? For example, did you know WTF does not stand for "What's the fuss?" Or maybe you were absent for the lesson on narwhals. How else would you know they're real creatures and not some Disney...

This ruffled plant is not a flower. It's a King Oyster mushroom. I grew it from a kit I got at the Food Bloggers of Canada Conference back in February. The kits, courtesy of Mushrooms Canada, are intended for kids. It says so right on...

Living in Ontario has many advantages. Spring brings maple syrup, fiddleheads, ramps, rhubarb and garlic scapes. Summer provides back-to-back crops of fruits and vegetables starting with seed-studded strawberries and ending with juicy, sweet peaches. Good luck keeping up with all Autumn provides -- apples, beets,...

Like most kids, when I discovered wordplay I was so thrilled with my new found skill I told jokes and made puns non-stop. On one occasion, I followed my grandmother around her apartment like a duckling, quacking knock-knock jokes at her in a continuous loop. Knock...