September 2, 2014
Pizza and flatbreads are nice to make any time of the year. With summer entertaining and perhaps casual foods on the menu, here is a flatbread recipe that can be used to serve as an appetizers with a glass of wine when friends come over. I make the dough in a food processor and bake it in very hot oven. It makes a chewy and crisp crust that is a nice base for many toppings.... View Article
June 3, 2014
I have posted a similar item before but made a couple of changes so here it is again. We had a group of friends over and I usually like to offer some appies with a glass of wine before dinner. It’s an ice breaker for people who may be new to each other, providing an informal opportunity to chat and get to know one another before we sit down at the table for dinner. It... View Article
May 20, 2014
It is hard to drag me away from the kitchen this time of year. I have so much fun cooking and photographing the foods. Of course I have to squeeze “life” in there and I have a long list of other pursuits that interest me but I must say that the creative element of cooking, styling, photographing food and sharing it on this blog gives me a lot of pleasure. This week I have been... View Article
May 4, 2014
People seem to be afraid of artichokes. They worry about how to eat them, how to trim them, how to cook them. Really, they are not any more difficult to handle and cook than anything else. Yes, it’s more work than, say, peeling a carrot, but it’s completely doable and so worth it. Needless to say I love artichokes and cook them in season (spring) whenever I can. I even wrote a post about artichokes... View Article
March 30, 2014
One of the foods on my “culinary must do” list while in Spain was eggplant fritters with honey. It is seemingly an unusual dish, I have never had it before and never really thought of serving a savoury eggplant with honey but it did sound good. I imagined it crispy on the outside, soft inside, a little savoury with a sweet honey drizzle, surely it would be delish. According to Claudia Roden (the Julia Child... View Article
March 20, 2014
While I was travelling in Spain recently I was contacted by an olive oil expert and fellow blogger Judy Ridgway about writing a guest post for her blog. Judy is an international olive oil expert and for the past twenty years has worked with olive and olive oil producers in all of the European producing countries as well as emerging “new world” producers in California, Australia, South Africa and South America. Judy published a paper... View Article
January 22, 2014
What can be more French than leeks in vinaigrette? We went on a wine bar tour with Paris by Mouth and tasted wines along with a few hors d’oeuvres in a couple of wine bars. The first stop was at Septime La Cave in the 11th arrendissement. It’s a small wine shop/bar opened by chef Bertrand Grebaut across the street from his restaurant Septime. You can stop by the wine bar and have a glass... View Article
December 9, 2013
You have to hand it to the Italians. The best foods come from their culture and history. Pasta, risotto, polenta. I can live on these foods, and believe me, I do. It might surprise you to learn that in some parts of northern Italy (Veneto, Friuli and Lombardy) pasta was virtually an unknown food as recently as three generations ago and it was polenta that sustained life in those regions. I find this fascinating. I... View Article
November 19, 2013
A few weeks ago my friend and blogger Val of more than burnt toast and I went to micro bar bites on Water Street shortly after they opened. We love the compact space, sitting at the beautiful long wooden bar and had fun and delicious food prepared by the talented chef Evelyn Takoff. I especially enjoyed the small plate of roasted shishito peppers, a mildly flavoured Japanese chili pepper that is harvested while green but will turn... View Article
November 11, 2013
Most people love potatoes and for some, a meal is not a meal without them. This ubiquitous veggie is of global importance being the fourth most important food grown worldwide after corn, wheat and rice. Potatoes appear in every cuisine and sustained civilizations for thousands of years (Peru, Incas). Potatoes grow in a wide range of soils, climates and geographical conditions and to this day help enhance food security because they are easy to cultivate and calorie... View Article
October 30, 2013
Sometimes I am in the mood for potato chips. It’s hard to avoid them altogether. If I happen to have a bag of good chips at home I am not beyond getting into it it once in a while. However, here is a better version of chips, using variety of vegetables to create a lovely melange of vegetable chips with or without oil. Commercial potato chips, after a few handfuls they lose the appeal and... View Article
October 20, 2013
I recently jumped on the bandwagon for spoon appetizers, I wonder where they started. I liked the idea right away, when they first came into vogue, but it took me a while to follow this trend. Once I begun making them though, I was hooked. Yesterday I had the opportunity to make some pre-dinner appetizers and my inspiration was a lunch at Noble Ridge Vineyard and Winery prepared by Chef Darin Patterson of Bogner of Penticton restaurant.... View Article
