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...
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...
I wasn't sure how I felt about finding one of my cookbooks at Dollarama. Dollarama is like any other dollar store. Florescent lights shine down on crammed aisles filled with everything from cheap coloured pencils, wrapping paper, glass vases and gardening gloves. Sometimes useful things. Often soulless...
A big tangled pile of dulse sits in my food processor. I add chopped garlic, tamari, olive oil, dijon and a splash of vinegar and pulse it all together. I'm making caesar salad for dinner tonight. I have lots of romaine in the fridge, the...
I'm on my way to Cherry Bombe Jubilee, a one day women in food conference in Brooklyn that I consider mandatory continuing education. Last year my recap included a heated #METOO panel discussion with Toronto restauranteur Jen Agg, one that artist Jessie Kanelos Weiner captured perfectly...
A photographer I once worked with told me that his first kiss was behind the Maldon Sea Salt factory in Essex, England. Maldon sea salt is worthy of such a memory; it’s also a food stylist’s dream. Each crystal is textured with just the right...
I worked at a frozen yogurt shop the summer I was sixteen. I remember bicycling to work, the wind lifting my pony-tail as I coasted straight down steep Sackville Street all the way to the waterfront. We served soft serve yogurt milkshakes, yogurt sundaes covered in...
This morning I stepped outside the back door into a glazed wonderland. It was as if everything - the steps, the frozen ground, the tiniest branches - had been candied in sugar syrup. My car even looked like a giant marron glacé; I had to crack it...
I’ve been collecting mentors my whole life. Friendship mentors, dating mentors, cooking mentors, writing mentors and parenting mentors. Cathy is my 'mother of boys' mentor. The other day she was in town and we visited over coffee, I hung on her every word. Cathy and her family...
When life gives you lemons I’m sitting in my kitchen, Sarah McLachlan’ Song for a Winter’s Night is filling the room. In my hand is a cup of hot lemon - that concoction of lemon, honey and ginger that is both soothing and nostalgic. My mother used...
Uber Eats and the Demise of the TEAM This was our television when I was a kid. Except the dial on our Sony Trinitron was higher up on the right hand side; I remember this because eventually it broke (from little sisters turning channels really fast) and we...