Best not to count how many you eat in one sitting Prime grilling season has arrived again and around my kitchen that means “street” tacos cooked over charcoal. The fire is the easy part particularly once you have all the ‘extras’ sorted out. In my case those include a vat of garden-fresh salsa, some well seasoned beans, a little lime and coriander enhanced crema, and a … Read More →
Time Well Spent So it’s Thanksgiving today in Canada. Virus woes have put a crimp in dinner gathering plans the world over so for the first time in decades, I’m not cooking the usual fare today. I’m sure I’ll correct that omission when the American version of the holiday rolls around in a few weeks. In the meantime, … Read More →
Cranberries Don't Come From A Tin I know the hilarious noises ready-made cranberry sauce emits while extracting itself from the tin next to the roast turkey might be your only glimmer of humour at the annual family feast. I realize that as a kid your only distraction in a time before i-gizmos was wobbling the tray while your whacky uncle in … Read More →
Potent, Ugly, Best Grown At Home You want an edible plant that’s impossible to kill in most any climate? Horseradish is your answer. If you’ve ever used ‘prepared’ horseradish from jars at the supermarket in your coleslaw, tartar sauce, or to dress a bit of roast beef, you only know half of the flavour. Freshly made from home grown crops has … Read More →
Quick, simple, delicious. And oh yeah, it's healthy. The need for my gong bao recipe, one of the pillars of Chinese sauce mastery *, came up in conversation so here are the details recycled from a post long ago. This sauce is what you find wrapped around your beloved Kung Pao Chicken or Broccoli Beef takeaway at the local Chinese. Make a batch … Read More →
What Well Dressed Tacos Are Wearing This Season When you hail from a hot climate, you’re going to end up with sour dairy. That’s how nature works. Thankfully sour doesn’t mean spoiled in many cases and clever food cultures have learned to embrace ambient heat and bacteria to give us all sorts of fabulous tastes from kefir to yogurt. The kitchens of Mexico … Read More →
One spoonful changes everything When a cook in Asia wants to add a zing to dishes, they often reach for a familiar jar in the pantry that is little more than blended garlic and chile. Both benefit from time spent percolating together. Two flavour birds with one stone as it were. The west has discovered this secret and now … Read More →
Worth finding for your dumplings Tamari is to pedestrian soy sauce what ‘extra virgin’ is to olive oils. More intense and rich flavours come from the uniquely Japanese method of production linked to the manufacture of miso paste. While a few pennies more than utilitarian Chinese soy, the taste difference is worth seeking out the genuine article when you’re going … Read More →
Not from a tin Happy Thanksgiving Canada! You should be cooking right now. For you folks down in the Colonies, we whacky Canadians turn the holiday season on its head and have Thanksgiving before Halloween up here. That is to say before our turkeys freeze and snow covers the cranberry bogs. If your cranberry sauce comes from a tin, … Read More →
Pow. Blam. Zing. I really do enjoy Nova Scotia despite the fact that they seem completely lost on a few major ethnic cuisines. Scottish and English food traditions are easily found as are all the delicious permutations of French, Quebecois, and Acadian but you’d hard pressed to find Japanese, authentic Chinese, or most any Southeast Asian fare you … Read More →
Not just for tortilla chips Salsa means very different things depending on where you’re standing on the planet. I’ll focus on the Americas to simplify the discussion but know that it finds its way onto tables across the rest of the globe just as often thanks to new found salsa popularity beyond its native lands. Outside the decades-old wisdom of … Read More →
