August 27, 2016
Here is a recipe for a simple potato salad that works well with any summer meal. It can be made in advance and kept in the fridge for a couple of days without diminishing its quality and travels well to a boat or a picnic. I don’t know about what it’s like where you live but here certainly it is beginning to feel like fall. We wake up to cooler temperatures and a little rain... View Article
August 26, 2016
Summer beets are completely different species than their winter counterpart. In the summer beets are fresh, cook quickly and their natural sugars come forward in a subtle and delicious way. I prefer roasting beets (unless I intend to pickle them) as roasting brings out their flavours beautifully. I don’t trim them too much before cooking, to avoid the juices from running and some of the flavour with them. It’s not a bad idea to wear thin... View Article
July 24, 2016
Endive usually features in my fall salads but I love how it pairs with blue cheese so when I am in the mood for blue cheese in a salad there is nothing like Belgian endive to make it with. I was travelling south of Kelowna with a friend yesterday and bought beautiful blue cheese from Poplar Grove, a . I wanted to use it before forgetting it is there, which can happen in my always... View Article
July 5, 2016
I have posted a few watermelon salads before but one more wouldn’t hurt. Watermelon makes a refreshing summer salad and it combines surprisingly well with a number of surprising sweet and savoury things such as raspberries, tomatoes, cucumbers and even some salad greens. Local raspberries are available now, lush, soft and delicious, so why not use them as much as I can? This recipe though is straight forward: watermelon, raspberries, mint, chopped candied nuts and... View Article
March 2, 2016
If you haven’t been using fennel in your cooking I encourage you to try it. It has a crisp texture and anise-like flavour that may take getting used to but once you do, it’s very attractive. Fennel makes a beautiful base for a salad and pairs well with citrus, pomegranates, olives, celery, Belgian endive and a few cheeses, such as parmesan, pecorino and mild blue cheese. For a salad I like to slice it thinly... View Article
September 3, 2015
Vine ripe summer tomatoes are the sine qua non of my kitchen. Can’t be without them and regularly buy more than I can use. After all there are only two of us eating here, yet I buy enough for an army. You want to come over? You’d think that at my age (almost 30….NOT) I’d learn some balance but as the saying goes, A BALANCED LIFE IS A LIFE WITHOUT PASSION, and I cannot be... View Article
August 20, 2015
Is celery a seasonal vegetables? I wonder. It’s one of those vegetables that sits in the background, always available. Celery seldom gets to play a major role in recipes and we usually treat it as an aromatic, one of the vegetables that create the flavour base for soups, stews and sauces. True, it is known as a low calorie veggie, good for the snacks category for its crisp crunch, low calorie and high fiber content but... View Article
August 6, 2015
Cooking is an aesthetic experience. Before I even start to cook I may browse through beautiful food images in books and magazine and get inspired by an image, a colour, a combination of ingredients, a table setting. It’s already beautiful. Then I landscape the countertop with the cooking ingredients: colourful vegetables, fresh herbs, exotic spices, crusty bread, beautiful bottles of oil. The cooking itself is also aesthetic: flames rising to touch food on the grill,... View Article
July 23, 2015
Driving through Banff the other day we stopped for lunch at Nourish Bistro on Bear Street, known for their innovative vegetarian and vegan cuisine. We ordered three dishes between the two of us: fresh peas and coconut soup, 420 burger and a slaw with pickled asparagus garnish. The menu was not overly descriptive so I cannot tell you what each dish was made with other than describe what I saw. According to the menu the... View Article
June 9, 2015
By the time you read this post I will be well on my way to Central California driving along the Oregon coast and Route 101and hopefully will write from the road. I scheduled a few recipes to intersperse between the travel posts (that I hope to write) because after all this is primarily a blog about cooking. The experiential travel is fun for me to write and hopefully fun for you to read. So while... View Article
April 20, 2015
Once spring and summer arrive we have potato salad on the menu often. I don’t make the traditional mayo based potato salad too often. The Italian and French salads, made with an olive oil and vinegar dressing, appeal to me more. I add other vegetables that are in season, like green beans, radishes, carrots, peas, whatever works with the potatoes. The other day I was looking at some food blogs and saw a beautiful image... View Article
January 28, 2015
I have taken a liking to salads that are composed of many vegetables, all finely chopped and tossed together in a harmonious pile. They are easier to eat than a large leafy salad and the flavours blend together so nicely with the dressing, just my kind of thing. I have had one such salad recently on a side trip to Merida last week. We went there to take a cooking class at Los Dos cookings... View Article
