After writing a couple of hundred posts about cookbooks, I’ve learned a lot about myself. Of all the personal insights, the most crucial one: joy. I want to read it, make it, bake it, feel it, and serve it to people so that we can all experience it. Sometimes joy is in the heart of the beholder — not every author or every cookbook lends itself to these joyful musings. But, as I’ve found with Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Home is Where The Eggs Are”
The success of Smitten Kitchen should be a surprise to no one. Since 2006, when Deb Perelman started her blog, her inviting tone and delicious recipes have engendered confidence and trust in her readers. From the beginning, Perelman began writing about her experiences as a home cook and, it’s from this place that she connects with people. She understands her audience – people who are Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Smitten Kitchen Keepers”
There’s something undeniably attention-grabbing about a “Best of” list. 2022 is ending and, people want to know about the noteworthy cookbooks. This year I’m going to try something a little different – not quite a gift guide, yet not a “Best of” list either. Where I want to go with this post is simple – help home cooks find a little joy in their kitchens. Joy is what moves me forward and, it’s never steered me wrong when I’m talking about cookbooks (it was one of the favourite parts of my conversation I had with Lindsay Cameron Wilson on her The Food Podcast this year (link here). However, my joy may not necessarily be someone else’s joy because we all have our own personal set of criteria concerning joyful kitchen experiences. So, through the next 8 sections, I’ll briefly discuss some of the books that stood out to me this year. For any books that I’ve already reviewed, I’ll add a link so that you can visit that review for more information. There will be books I haven’t reviewed yet but still deserve a mention. Continue reading “Joy and Cooking: The Cookbooks of 2022”
When a copy of Brian Levy’s Good & Sweet arrived in the mail, I felt leery about the subject matter. To be honest, I am tired of the narrative of sugar being unhealthy – has there ever been a time when someone ate sugar because it was healthy? I find that these narratives set up sugar as a false opposite – while refined sugar is “bad,” books go on to convince home cooks of the Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Good & Sweet”
Even though the air is getting much crisper as these November days shorten, when I walked my daughter to school this morning, I did as I usually do, I kept on walking. Maybe it was the cloudless blue sky or the bright sun that beckoned me forward on this cool morning. Growing up, I lived an in-between experience – a weekday city Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Outside”
For me it’s a core memory: on those wintery November mornings, waiting at the window for the first sight of my aunt’s car. She would be making the drive into the city with my cousins from their farm so that she could make pyrohy with my mom. Us kids would be bundled up and shooed outside and they would get to work. Mum would already have a giant Tupperware vat of potato filling on the kitchen table – filling which would then make its way into Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Pierogi”
There is something so touching about Bonnie Stern’s work. Is it her earnest desire to help home cooks find their way in the kitchen or impart personal stories we can all relate to? With well over a dozen cookbooks to her name, Stern has become a trusted companion in many Canadian kitchens. Even during the pandemic, I would take Friday Night Dinners off the shelf to browse the recipes, remember all the good family meals I had enjoyed with hopeful feelings of more to come. And it’s from the Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Don’t Worry, Just Cook”
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about joy — the kind of joy found in cooking delicious food or time spent with a wonderful cookbook. Although I have yet to visit a Mandy’s Gourmet Salads (and it’s important to note that since my review (click here) of their first cookbook — Mandy’s Gourmet Salads — back in the summer of 2020, they’ve Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: More Mandy’s”
Packing a lunch is like giving a present, whether it’s to your future self, a child or someone special, being able to make a lunch and pack it up with love is a beautiful thing. This isn’t to say that when this “beautiful thing” returns in the evening, empty containers ready to be washed, I’m enjoying myself a bit less. I prefer the making to Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Lunchbox”
With most meals I make for my family, there isn’t much choice. Food is plated, then served, and, while my husband and daughter enjoy those meals, they absolutely love the meals that harken to the classic book series, Choose Your Own Adventure. This is what meals served on boards feel like — a culinary adventure where Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Boards & Spreads”
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