Ambrosia Pears are on the stove poaching beneath a layer of parchment. I can see the liquid, now red from dried roses and haskap berries, bleeding to the top and clinging to the paper. Earlier I put a single star anise in the poaching liquid and...
Aran Goyoaga, a cookbook author, photographer and stylist, has a playlist on Spotify that’s 113 hours long. She calls the playlist Rain. Rain is fitting. Aran lives in Seattle, a city that’s grey, melancholy. But great photographers know that in the darkness there must come...
I was rummaging in the cupboard the other day, undoubtedly searching for dark chocolate, when a box of gelatine fell to the floor. The box hadn’t been used since my jelly-binge last winter- the haskap jelly, the blood orange jelly, the whole podcast episode on...
A few mornings ago my eldest son called from his early morning football practice. He had dislocated his shoulder, could I pick him up? I carefully took him to the hospital, his twisted torso still covered in football pads and a jersey. It wasn’t yet...
I have a square piece of cotton folded in my desk. I found it yesterday when I was rummaging for a pen. I opened it and smoothed it flat with my hands. It came from an exercise we did at the workshop I attended in August....
The house was facing in the wrong direction. The dormer stretched horizontally across the roof, the back door flush to the house facing the road. My friend Brian lives next door. His small kitchen window faces the tree-lined ocean; the picture windows face the street. He...
Welcome to Part Three of Side Dishes, The Food Podcast mini series exploring the Flavours of Home. Jasmine Oore is a filmmaker, she is a writer, she’s a visionary, she’s a friend. She’s also an Israeli/Polish/ Canadian pickle soup maker. In this episode, Jasmine explores the flavours...
I hear angels singing as I stuff extra pillows onto the top shelf of our new linen closet. I stack a few towels further down - things that had previously been housed in an ugly wicker trunk at the foot of our bed. Our collection is small - remnants,...
Bits of hair, escaped from my ponytail, are blowing across my face, tickling my nose. A tiny ant works its way up my arm, just as a dried leaf brushes against my right foot. A lawn mower’s hum blends into traffic sounds. Sirens wail. Teenagers...
I’m not sure where to start, so I’ll begin in a sheep barn in New Hampshire. It’s a red barn, with big open windows overlooking a grassy chicken run. The sheep have moved out for the week for our workshop, and the barn is full...
There was a time when I tried to be a certain kind of parent. The kind that stays up late on December 24th to build a train table for a four year old. The kind that carves chocolate cake into a WWII trench and tosses plastic...
In the middle of my parent’s property on the edge of the Saint Mary’s River stand two tall spruce trees, growing together, intertwined. They began as many trees do, small and seemingly well spaced apart. In the summer of 1999, a big wedding tent was erected...
Have you ever been to a rousing dinner party when towards the end, you insist everyone gather round to watch a video on your phone? They agree because they’re your friends, but then they lean closer, they shh the others, because what they’re watching is...
I write about life, about memories, flavours, and flavour memories. My parents are often woven in. How could they not be? They were there, they set the stage. Sometimes I ask their permission, sometimes I just run with it. It’s a selfish endeavour, harvesting memories...
On this day, three years ago: I’m at Stagecoach Festival in Palm Springs on a stagette with a bunch of old friends. As the sun sets we take a walk away from the stage toward the food trucks and stop to eat under the twinkling...