The Locavore

If you are looking for seafood in Barcelona, the guidebooks will tell you that a good place to go is Barceloneta. The neighbourhood borders the city’s beaches and was once home to the fishermen who set sail from there every day to earn their living from the Mediterranean. Today’s tapas bars and seafood restaurants are some of what [...]

Wherever I go this summer, everyone is talking about urban agriculture. Last week, I gave a talk at the Toronto Botanical Gardens (What an evening! Cool night, nice crowd, great food, amazing gardens) and toured their container and kitchen gardens with head of horticulture, Paul Zammit. He harvested fingerling potatoes from a recycling bin, hoping [...]

During canning season last fall, an article in the New York Times Magazine quoted a woman who said when she canned peaches and pears, she was making an investment she knew would pay off. Well, every time I hear that pop when I open a  jar of jam I made last summer, or open my [...]

Locavore officially launched on Saturday at the Green Barns market in Toronto. It was a lovely affair-with delicious food made by Dawn Woodward and Ed Rek of Evelyn’s Crackers and featuring Ruth Klahsen’s (Monforte Dairy) spectacular cheese. The launch was one of many, many Locavore-related engagements. There have been already 18 interviews on radio and [...]

I enjoyed my interview this morning with Andrew Krystal, host of Maritime Morning News, 95.7 out of Halifax. His show broadcasts to PEI, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia–and everywhere else via the internet, of course. It was a pleasure to talk to someone who was so enthused about local food. Andrew had a question about [...]

I’m really enjoying a book I came across by accident titled Serve the People: A Stir-fried journey through China by Jen Lin-Liu, an American journalist who moved to China after graduating and found herself wanting to explore food as a way of exploring her cultural heritage. She enrolls in a cooking school and begins to [...]

I’m recovering this morning from a spectacular feast shared with friends last night. On the menu: duck, cabbage cooked with fish sauce (a delicious way to  enjoy any bitter-tasting brassica–just don’t forget to add sugar and water), turban squash, potatoes from my dad’s garden, chestnut soup and a lovely dessert concocted by my husband that [...]

Thanksgiving is one of my favourite times of the year–the harvest is in, the jams are made, the leaves are golden, and the focus is good food . On the holiday weekend, I always like to try something new with food, like making cinnamon rolls in a brick oven like we did last year.
On the Sunday morning, my [...]

First I made strawberry jam, then I preserved peaches and then I made gooseberry jam–my dad and I picked baskets of the berries at the farm. I froze the extras and plan on turning them into tarts in the winter in addition to concocting lovely foods with the rhubarb I sliced and froze, the zucchini [...]

Last night my friend Zoe was visiting from NYC–the same night the local, sustainably grown peaches arrived that my sister and I planned to can. Instead of yacking around the kitchen table sipping mint tea, the three of us got to work. As soon as the kids were in bed, we put the pots of [...]