Canadian Food Experience Project – Concord Grape Pie

Canadian Food Experience Project – Concord Grape Pie

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 

Peach Melba Ice Cream

Peach Melba Ice Cream

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. 

Filling the Knowledge Gap – Apricot Pistachio Tart

Filling the Knowledge Gap – Apricot Pistachio Tart

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 

Roasted Golden Beet Salad with Tarragon Dressing

Roasted Golden Beet Salad with Tarragon Dressing

Gold is the new red. At least for me when it comes to beets. In the past I have been more than a little vocal about my dislike of your garden variety red beets. I want to like them. Really. They have a gorgeous ruby 

Stuffed Mushrooms with Plums and Hazelnuts

Stuffed Mushrooms with Plums and Hazelnuts

Perhaps it’s the difference between European and North American sizes. Maybe our crops are bigger and our platters smaller. If shown the same mushroom, would French and Canadian eaters argue over whether it was small, medium or large? I don’t know. But I do know 

Apricot and Honey Jam with Lemon Verbena

Apricot and Honey Jam with Lemon Verbena

I’d officially like to apologize to apricots. For years now, I’ve been the mean team captain who always calls dibs on her friends and chooses the popular kids first, leaving the smaller classmates kicking the grass with their yet-to-be-broken-in sneakers and pretending that being picked 

Hazelnut-Stuffed Baked Peaches with Mascarpone Cream

Hazelnut-Stuffed Baked Peaches with Mascarpone Cream

Gravity. It makes things fall. It’s why sauces drip and eggs crash to the floor when dropped. It’s why coffee pours out of the carafe and into the mug — not onto the ceiling. It’s why the milk bottle stays on the shelf after you 

Chocolate & Cherry Vanilla Ice Cream

Chocolate & Cherry Vanilla Ice Cream

Next time I go to the Farmers’ Market, stuff wax in my ears and lash me to the shopping cart. Cherries are the Sirens of the fruit world and I can’t resist them unaided. Last week, I ventured forth on a mission to buy easy-to-hull 

Maple-Blueberry Buttermilk Ice Cream

Maple-Blueberry Buttermilk Ice Cream

Whoever perfected commercial buttermilk is part genius, part half-wit. On one hand, they found a way to mass produce a low-fat, tasty dairy product that makes loaves tender, muffins moist and scones split into perfection. On the other, they sell it in cartons with two