The foodie conoscienti spent Friday night sampling Anita Stewart’s foodie finds from across Canada interpreted by Canoe’s executive chef Anthony Walsh. Her book launch took place at Canoe on the top of the Toronto Dominion Building overlooking the urban landscape. Surrounded by jars of home preserves and woodsy mushroom arrangements; the venue, decor and food of the evening reflected the complexity of the Canadian culinary tradition as does Stewart’s book. (more…)

Here is a picture of the Canadian Living’s beautiful kitchen stage designed by our decor editor Karen Kirk. I just wanted to say a thank you to everyone who came to the Canadian Living stage at the Good Food Festival to see my how to ice a Chocolate Layer Cake and Kids Oatmeal Cookie demonstrations on the weekend – it was fun to meet viewers face to face and get feed back about the things that you all find interesting. I especially liked seeing how engaged the kids in the audience were and the great questions they had for me afterward. There were a number of exhibitors that were focused on healthy eating for children – I thought the Gimme 5 stage was excellent and really engaged their young audience. The kids went away with remembering the 5 colours of the healthy fruits and vegetables as well as a healthy lasagna they made with their own hands.

Keep posting those comments – I still have more aprons to give away!

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I am starting a new monthly feature here at the Foodie-file called “Foodie Finds Friday”. The regional and local way of eating has really taken off and people across our giant nation know their own best food finds but if you are outside the geographical area you are out of the loop. I want to celebrate food from coast to coast so from now on Fridays will be the day to showcase a region, city, or foodie-event. Hopefully I will get a lot of participation and we can all learn about the best dishes, fruits, drinks or specialties from downtown Vancouver, BC to Elora, Ontario.

To launch the first friday: A GIVE AWAY! (more…)

I will be at the Good Food Festival this weekend with the whole Canadian Living Test Kitchen team where we will be demonstrating our “Tested Till Perfect” recipes and techniques on stage and interacting with our readers. Saturday afternoon I’ll be at the Canadian Living Stage making good use of my years of pastry training by showing the audience how to mask a cake and use a pastry bag. I will be giving away prizes but you need to come to the show to find out how to win! (more…)

I wanted wine recommendations for our Passover menus this month so I called up Anne Martin, our new wine writer, to ask her the dreaded question – know any good Kosher wines? Turns out, that’s not the loaded question it once was. Not only did she come up with three decent picks but it turns out Canada has three certified Kosher wineries Rodrigues in Newfoundland, Rush Creek in Ontario, Munro Meadery also in Ontario (who really make mead which is wine made from honey and is classified as a fruit wine. (more…)

This is a call to all foodies to look for your local M&M Meat Shop, buy a burger for $2.50 and help to fund research for Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of Canada (CCFC). This is a debilitating disease that greatly hinders the ability of the people who suffer from it to enjoy food of any kind. Every year M&M Meat Shop fire’s up the grill and cooks for a cure. Saturday, May 10th, 2008 celebrates its 20th Anniversary Charity BBQ Day at more than 465 store locations across Canada. Franchisees and volunteers will be flipping burgers and hot dogs and accepting donations to reach this year’s goal of raising $2 million for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of Canada (CCFC). (more…)

Friday night was the first Brewers Plate event in Toronto celebrating local eating and local craft breweries. Arriving a bit late, we found ourselves celebrating more brewing then eating so in fairness I feel compelled to stick to the beer aspect of the event rather than the food. But not to worry - there is plenty to share on the beer front. Thank goodness I ran into Troy Burtch from Great Canadian Pubs and Beer who pointed me right away in the direction of the gems to be had on tap. (more…)

Thank you to all who contributed with great ideas for eating locally in Canada. I loved the personal stories and learning about great new options like the aerogarden and cold pressed canola oil. I hope everyone is taking notes about great places to shop, products to eat and for those more ambitious types - where to forage!

It was hard to pick a winner, too many great ideas - so we put our favourites in a hat and drew one out. And the lucky winner of two free tickets to tomorrow nights Brewers Plate event is (more…)

Have you seen this book? It has been circulating around the office and I have been waiting for it to land on my desk. The photography is gorgeous and mesmerizing (with the exception of the disturbing photo of Anthony Bourdin… talk about your naked chef!) and each photo illustrates the essence of the chef and his or her’s “last supper”. I especially liked Canadian son Martin Piccard’s euphemistic description of his last meal on earth where he “would be full of the adrenaline of his last happiness.” Although some hyper chef-y types went for the haute cuisine, for the most part - (more…)

I have been working on a cookie story for the Holiday Best special issue Canadian Living puts out for Christmas on international cookies. Quite often in Scandanavian countries ammonium bicarbonate is used as a leavening agent in cookies. I was curious to know why this would be the leavening of choice instead of baking soda or powder. I found out a few interesting facts:
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