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Cooking School in a Book

Oct 27, 2008 by jennifer

Since I was about fourteen, I have spent many afternoons imagining that Martha Stewart was hovering over my shoulder, guiding me. She has helped me learn how to roast a turkey, make various types of pastry, how to properly hold a chef’s knife, how to make fresh pasta, how to make stock, and much, much more. She was my inspiration when I first started out in the kitchen and my first reference most times when I want to try something new.

Now you can easily access all of this amazing inspiration and information in one book: Martha Stewart’s Cooking School: Lessons and Recipes for the Home Cook. Throughout the 500-odd pages you can learn, among other things, how to grill a steak, frost a cake, roast a leg of lamb, make ice cream and even how to fillet a fish. She has also included her “golden rules” of cooking, which of course are Good Things.

The book is full of valuable information and even step-by-step photographs to make things even easier when implementing the recipes. It is indeed just like taking endless cooking classes with Martha herself. What more could you possibly want?

World Famous

Aug 1, 2008 by jennifer

Though I may reside in the city, at heart I believe I am a bona fide cottage-goer. I love the planning, the packing, the driving, the arrival, the unpacking, the stay, the clean up, and even the long, weary trip home. I think what does it for me every time is the truly magnificent eats we always manage to have. My parent’s cottage kitchen is about 3 feet wide by 7 feet long – it is an original “galley” kitchen. There are no fancy gadgets and not a heck of a lot of space, but some of my most memorable meals have been prepared in that kitchen. Something special happens to food once it travels north of the city; it takes on a new fascination for me, a whole new meaning and of course an entirely new flavour.

Everyone has an undisclosed cottage recipe for something, don’t they? It could be your top-secret recipe for barbecue marinade made with some odd ingredient you can only find in a remote shack-store off of highway 115. It might be your hush-hush procedure for grilled fresh-caught fish that can’t possibly be replicated at home. Or it could be your undisclosed formula for making a perfect pie with the delicious berries you pick yourself at a farm off of a little-traveled stretch of the 118.

Whatever it might be for, the recipe is entirely yours and you make it better than anyone else would, did they try. I have always thought a cottage cookbook would be an excellent invention. Perhaps one in which you could add your own recipes, notes and photos! But, now have found the closest thing to it. Marty’s World Famous Cookbook: Secrets from the Muskoka Landmark Cafe is that find.

This cookbook has some really fantastic recipes; from his restaurant’s House Bread, to Mario Batali’s Basic Tomato Sauce to his very original Buttertart BBQ Sauce and Rub. And of course you can’t overlook his top-secret (I have been instructed that I am not allowed to publish it, it’s so secret!) recipe for making the perfect buttertart. Marty weaves these amazing recipes along with the stories of whence they came and gorgeous photos of his food and the magnificent scenery in his vicinity.

If you have a secret recipe that you like to cook at the cottage, or if you are looking for one, this cookbook is for you. If you don’t believe me, believe Chef Michael Smith of Food Network Canada: “Marty Curtis is the Michelangelo of buttertarts. In this highly anticipated cookbook, at last he reveals his tasty secrets…”

Love is a Powerful Thing

Apr 13, 2008 by jennifer

When I got married a few years ago I vowed not to cheat on my husband; never to love another the way I do him. I pledged a few other things as well (like to not irritate him too much and to make him breakfast on the weekends) but the “love” one is the promise causing me some difficulty today. When I started this blog I swore to myself that I would not allow it to enter into my private life too much, that I would avoid blogging about the really delicate facets of my existence. I am about to break these two very important covenants.

Today I realized I am in love – and unfortunately it is not only with the man I am married to and have a child with. This new love is all-consuming, completely demanding and becoming overwhelming…I am in over my head. It has taken over my heart and my soul in a way that no love has ever done previously. I found myself dreaming of the object of my affections as I slept next to my husband last night, tossing and turning and waking only to realize S. was next to me, and not the one I craved.

This afternoon I came clean with S. After all, I respect him deeply and do care for him a great deal. We have built a life together and as worried as I was that this new love might destroy it all, I had to be honest. I needed to tell him. We sat in the kitchen, and looked across the table at each other, exchanging furtive glances and wondering what the other one was thinking. I passed him a plate of freshly baked cookies in the hopes that they might better prepare him for what I was about to admit. I stumbled over a few words and stopped. I started again, completely unsure as to what I was about to say. I stopped again and took a deep breath.

“…I am in love with my new KitchenAid mixer…”

The silence was deafening…other than the crunching of the cookie in his mouth. He laughed, looked over at the gorgeous, gleaming new mixer on the kitchen table — that I had just used to make some truly delicious chocolate chunk cookie batter — and he smiled. The relief flooded through me. It was okay. I could indeed have more than one love in my life.

I was lucky enough this weekend to upgrade my previous “love”, my KichenAid Artisan mixer, to one of the newest “bowl-lift” models. I am very pleased with it and intend to use it a great deal in the next while. I’m temped to tuck it in next to me in bed tonight, but I think S. might want to draw the line somewhere…”

Sweet Serenity Now!

Apr 7, 2008 by jennifer

I grew up in a house where dessert was never an after-thought. That sweet, final touch to each evening meal was something we were guaranteed to get, no matter the occasion – or lack thereof. Dessert to my family is something you don’t dare question or forget, you indulge in it, enjoy it and most of all you’d better not forget to bring it.

My parents’ freezer is stock-piled with ice cream of a variety of flavours – just in case. There is always a tin or tray of fudge on the counter and more than likely a plate of recently baked cookies a foot away. There is a large mixing bowl on the top shelf of the hutch, filled with candy bars. There are multiple packages of red licorice in one of the cabinets and probably a bag of "goodies" candy-coated black licorice stashed somewhere that sugar-deprived prying eyes won’t think to look. The house always smells of something sweet baking in the oven, even when there is nothing sweet baking in the oven…although there is usually something sweet baking in the oven.

My mother makes the best Nanaimo Bars, the most delicate and delicious pie pastry and one of the most sinfully decadent chocolate cakes I have ever tasted. She is the person who introduced me to sweets and educated my palate with tutorials of ice cream floats, brown sugar sandwiches and empire cookies. I doubt I would enjoy dessert as much as I do if it weren’t for her schooling.

I search day and night for more and more recipes for pleasurable confections and I have a rather large collection of "sweet" cookbooks. Recently I came across *one more* that I simply had to add to my collection and I enjoyed it so much I want to share it with YOU. I have copies of The Sweet Melissa Baking Book: Recipes from the Beloved Bakery for Everyone’s Favorite Treats by Melissa Murphy and am giving them away to the first five people who email me with the answer to the following question…

What was one of the desserts that S. and I served at our wedding? And no, "cake" is not a good enough answer!

Thank you for all the responses but the winners have been chosen and notified.

No More Sticky Fingers

Mar 24, 2008 by jennifer

Those who know me well know I am a huge tea drinker. Actually, just about any hot beverage appeals to me, but tea seems to be at the top of my list lately. I used to be a chronic java addict, but I tried to give up coffee last summer while in the hospital (not a difficult task when the coffee is as bad as it is in there). It stuck for a while but these days I find a cup of coffee every now and then is a lovely indulgence.

A nice hot cup of tea first thing in the morning (before breakfast, before showering, before talking to anyone about anything) is a necessity. A pleasant cup of herbal tea with honey is my usual way to end any day – especially any difficult day. Lately I have even been caught carrying around tea bags in my pockets or my purse, just on the off chance that I happen to encounter a situation that constitutes a “tea emergency”.

Until recently however I have also unfortunately been caught with ripped or ripping sugar packets or leaky (“stolen”) miniature hotel honey jars in my pockets or purse. How do you explain the dripping of unctuous golden fluid from the cell phone pocket of your purse? Or the strangely sweet white powder that flies out of your sons diaper bag every time you open it…?

Well now I don’t need to. I have found the solution to tea-on-the-go: honey-on-the-go. This ingenious new product has saved me from grubby packages of sugar at the bottom of my purse and sticky fingers from carrying around small jars of honey all the time.

Honibe (a Canadian company) is pleased to introduce the Honey Drop, the world’s first pure, non-sticky honey that you can hold. It dissolves quickly in a cup of tea and you can even crush it up in its solid state and sprinkle it on ice cream, pudding, cereal or cookies warm from the oven. It is even good enough to suck on right from the package – how do you think I managed through this winter without a sore throat?

By the way, I have also found a great place to get delicious herbal teas online at Language of the Leaf (another Canadian company). With exotic and evocative names like Casablanca Jasmine, Queen of Siam, Goddess of Mercy and Fruit Monkey you can’t help but try out new flavours each time you order.

Little Cakes

Mar 6, 2008 by jennifer

I think that teeny, tiny desserts are a fantastic way to end a meal. Such sweetness and delicate flavours all tied up in a cute little package to present to your dinner companion(s). I’ve been wanting to get my hands on a book of mini desserts for a while now…and finally I found one.

The mother-and-daughter team who wrote the amazing baking book, "The Whimsical Bakehouse" are now tempting us with plenty of wonderful new recipes for tiny cakes, cupcakes, tiered cakes, cheesecakes, pound cakes and muffins – and ingenious ways to decorate them (think mini cakes that look like bowls of popcorn, ice cream cones, hats, and even baskets of flowers).

"Little Cakes from the Whimsical Bakehouse" (by Kaye and Liv Hansen) also offers up loads of great tips and tricks for the at-home cake decorator (which you can also use when decorating regular-sized confections!). Lots of information on making and using different kinds of icing, glazing, and making chocolate decorations are trickled throughout the book. It also has some really handy guidelines on the various kitchen paraphernalia you need in order to get started, and there is also a cake pan chart that tells you batter capacity and size of various pans for reference. And invaluable to most at-home-bakers – two pages of tips that are good to remind yourself of just before you start any baking recipe.

I was quite impressed with the various recipes for icing flavors and cake/icing flavour combinations in this book (something I loved from the original "Whimsical Bakehouse" book, which I still reference when I’m at the beginning of any cake-baking endeavor). Dulce de Leche Buttercream, Eggnog Whipped Cream and Chopped Cherry Whipped Cream all sound amazing. But wait, they go one step further: Spicy Chocolate Cakes with Cinnamon-Chocolate Whipped Cream, Pistachio Ganache Truffles with Caramel Sauce and Peanut Butter Brownie Cakes. You’ll think you’ve died and gone straight to miniature heaven.

This book is an excellent reference for anyone wanting to indulge on a miniature scale. And if you feel like you’re not quite ready for some of the more complicated decorations, Little Cakes also has a few very easy presentation ideas to make even the simplest miniature cake look impressive.

Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill Cookbook

Nov 15, 2007 by jennifer

I have been on a spice kick lately – perhaps it’s just the cold weather getting to me. Or maybe it’s that I have always loved spicy food and getting back into the kitchen has only served to rekindle that flame. I add jalape�os to my cream cheese for my morning bagel and cayenne to dishes in the way most people add salt. I crave that tingle in my mouth when I’m eating something that doesn’t have it and long for someone to point out a really excellent Mexican restaurant in my area (please?).

When I opened Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill Cookbook I was looking for this sort of fiery recipe to tickle and tantalize my taste buds. I know a lot of people who think Bobby Flay is just some flash-in-the-pan chef who hooked up with the right people at the right time and who “mails it in” on a regular basis… Actually, I might have been one of those people – that is until I cracked open his new cookbook.

I love books that have both recipes and information about food – and this book has both. Along with recipes from every course there is a whole section at the beginning with a list of what he thinks are the “building blocks of flavour for southwestern cooking” (avacado, corn meal, coconut milk, tomatillos, etcetera) and a description of what each is and how to use them. Then there is a section on chiles, a description of about 14 different types and a Scoville unit chart to satisfy the chemist in the kitchen. He then has a section of “Mesa Kitchen Basics” which includes descriptions on cooking techniques such as cold-smoking, toasting dried chiles and making simple syrup – easy things but important for his style of cooking. There is even a section on Tequila in the Drinks chapter – everything you ever wanted to know about the stuff.

The recipes in this book are simple but really quite mouth-watering and the photos certainly didn’t hinder my appetite. From Queso Fundido (a melted cheese dip topped with a green chile vinaigrette) to Grilled Asparagus and Goat Cheese Quesadillas (which sound absolutely divine) to Grilled Prawns with Habanero-Toasted Garlic Vinaigrette I drooled my way through the book. Even the desserts chapter doesn’t leave you wanting more – which tends to happen when the chef writing the book isn�t a pastry chef by trade. Warm Chocolate Cakes with Dulce de Leche will be served at my house sometime very soon and I am looking forward to trying out the Milk Chocolate-Peanut Butter Cr�me Brulee in the near future.

All in all, this book is quite good. It offers a wide variety of very interesting, delicious recipes that are simple but impressive. I can feel my tongue tingling in anticipation of my next meal… Will it be the Cumin-Crusted Chicken or perhaps the Chile-Rubbed Short Ribs…? It’s difficult to decide.

What a Way to Start Your Day

Aug 29, 2007 by jennifer

Kitchen gadgets have always been my “thing”. When I see those Infomercials for a kitchen tool that can slice, dice, get you out of bed and make you coffee in the morning? I’m fixated.

Remember the Ginsu Knives? The ones that could cut through a tin can and then slice tomatoes perfectly again and again? I coveted them every time I saw the advertisement. The tiny blender that chopped, diced, sliced and made smoothies and guacamole? I had the phone in one hand and my VISA in the other until my husband came into the room and forcibly removed them from my vicinity. The coffee maker that made hot chocolate, coffee, tea, cappuccino and also dry cleaned your shirts for you?! Well, you get the point. I guess I’m just a sucker for Infomercials when it comes right down to it.

These days, just about anything that can gave me help in the kitchen would be a welcome addition. Those infomercials make it all look so simple. “Just pop some flour in here and poof! Out comes a cake – already iced and ready for guests!” Like Betty Crocker came into my kitchen and did everything for me while I slept.

It’s not that I don’t want to cook or bake these days, it’s more that with life moving so fast, sometimes it’s nice to know that someone, somewhere is thinking about how to make your life easier. And those infomercial people sure do make you feel that way at 4am when you can’t sleep and are way too tired to get a frying pan out of the bottom drawer.

And then the light shone through the heavens upon this masterpiece and I knew immediately that I couldn’t live without it. Of course I’ll have to wait for a while before I buy anymore new-fangled kitchen gadgets. My husband has conveniently ‘lost” my credit card since the last time I had to have something off of an infomercial and we ended up with a gadget that I now don’t know what it is. It could be a salad spinner, but then again it might be a mini-deep fryer…personally I think it�s a hot dog toaster.

* I am not endorsing this product, I have never tried it and I do not own one – I just happen to have a serious weakness for breakfast sandwiches�

What to do…What to do…?

May 16, 2007 by jennifer

Sometimes you just need a little spice in your life. And why stop at a little? Why not go for the gusto and have an entire bottle at your disposal?

There are many days when I simply do not know what to do with myself. I long to be active in the kitchen but I just can’t settle on doing one thing. I putter around aimlessly wondering if I should clean the fridge, scour the oven or re-organize my kitchen cupboards. Should I alphabetize my spice rack or arrange it by colour code? Perhaps the Dewey-Decimal system would work better for my little glass bottles of tumeric, cinnamon and mustard powder.

On these such days I will generally opt for “none of the above” and will instead run through the recipes I have for some of the necessities I like to have on hand in my kitchen. I could bake some cookies…but with S. trying to lose a few pounds and me still trying to fit into a sexy dress for an upcoming wedding, cookies are not a good thing to have laying around. I thought of making a few new tea towels and an apron out of this gorgeous fabric I found recently but the foot has fallen off of my sewing machine and I can’t find the manual to fix it – so that idea fell by the wayside almost immediately.

Then it hit me – we have a huge vat of extra virgin olive oil sitting around that isn’t quite delicious enough for everyday use on its own and I have been craving some spicy oil for cooking lately. So, I settled to my task.

A little of this, a little of that and voila! A gorgeous bottle of spicy Red Pepper infused olive oil and another of Rosemary-Garlic infused olive oil. Yum. Now, if only I had some nice crusty bread to dip into it

Photos by John-Marc Hamilton

Thank You!

Apr 19, 2007 by jennifer

When I asked questions about your cookbook collections I had never thought I would receive so many responses. I have been enjoying reading all of them (so very many of them!) over the past week or so. I have found out so much about you, dear readers…and I really wanted to share it all with you, so bear with me while I go into "stats mode".

The top ten cookbooks/cookbook authors were the following:

Nigella Lawson (most votes were for "The Domestic Goddess", but a few votes for "Feasts" and "How to Eat")
Jamie Oliver (anything by him – he is so appealing, I wonder why??)
Ina Garten
Giada de Laurentiis
The Joy of Cooking
Martha Stewart
Donna Hay
Julia Child
Larousse Gastronomique/The Professional Chef/Cooking Encyclopedias
Essentials of Baking/Essentials of Cooking – by various authors (Williams-Sonoma’s books rated high on this list)

And I have to add an honorable mention here – many of you have a huge binder, folder or drawer stuffed with recipes that you have printed out from blogs, torn out of magazines or inherited on scraps of paper. I love that binder, drawer and folder (I have all three, by the way) with all my heart and I use them regularly, fill them frequently and pour over the recipes on a regular basis.

I found that most of you want books that are full of good, simple, well-written recipes made with easily attainable ingredients. Your favourite cookbooks are filled with recipes that are prepared with not too much muss or fuss. Most of you reach for old stand-by books full of recipe "essentials" and family food that you are familiar with before those with new recipes that you’ve never tried before.

You will buy a cookbook that is full of pictures more often than one that is not and writing is just as important as the recipes in cookbooks for most of you. Price factors in somewhat – but if you love the book or the author you don’t hesitate to add it to your collection. You buy books based on magazine reviews and word of mouth, but most often on blogger recommendations, which I think is amazing.

Believe it or not, most of you own more than 25 cookbooks (some of you beat me with more than 100 – and one lucky person has 300 in her collection!), and most of you consider 25 cookbooks to be too small of a collection and are itching to buy more.

Among the cookbooks I kept in my kitchen (there are 35 in there and about 40 now banished to the study) were all of your favourite cooks and writers – Nigella (of course), Jamie, Giada, Julia, Martha, Donna and Ina. And as well there are a few "essentials" books – Williams Sonoma "Baking", the GoodHousekeeping Illustrated Cookbook, Better homes and Gardens "New Cookbook" (from the 1950′s) and The Essentials of Mediteranean Cooking, which is a great reference for when your in-laws are Middle Eastern and you are not. Then there are the "I feel like a chef today and will produce gorgeous food in the kitchen" books like The French Laundry Cookbook and Pierre Hermes Chocolate Desserts.

I don’t know how to narrow it down to one favourite to be honest because I, like many of you, think of them as a collection, not as individual books. The ones relegated to the study are older books, usually lacking in photos and more collectors items than anything else, inherited from my mother (without her knowing!) or given to me as gifts long ago.

I did manage however to narrow it down to one "winner" – I took everyone’s names and wrote them on pieces of paper, folded them up and put them into a mixing bowl. I plucked one out and on it I had written "Meredith Dale Hill". So, Meredith, if you contact me we’ll figure out which of my favourite cookbooks you don’t already have and I will get it to you as soon as possible.

Thank you all so much for this – I really appreciate the work and thought you put into your answers to my questions. Now of course I have about 30 cookbooks that I want to buy – on all of your recommendations!

Questions for YOU

Apr 9, 2007 by jennifer

With S. gone I have been doing all of my spring-cleaning lately. Whenever he is away from home for extended periods I tend to clean. Or, I rearrange the furniture. Or, I paint the furniture and the walls wild and wacky colours. These days I don’t exactly have the energy or the patience to live in an ‘upside down home’ whilst I rearrange furniture (it takes a few days and lots of hemming and hawing about where certain pieces should go). And since I do know that the paint fumes would be bad for Leith, I decided to just do some super cleaning projects that I had been meaning to do since I got home from the hospital last summer.

I cleaned out our closet – top to bottom. I pulled out clothes that I had put away during my first trimester of pregnancy (and they fit me now, yay!). I tossed clothes that will never fit me again (some too big, some too small) and packed up the very last vestiges of my maternity wardrobe (I was clinging to the black suit pants that saw me through my entire pregnancy when I saw what my butt looked like in them now – saggy!) for whomever is lucky enough to get pregnant next and wants them. I ended up with two and a half garbage bags full of clothes to be toted to Value Village or Goodwill and a closet full of clothes that fit, that I like and that I can wear without being embarrassed about my wardrobe. That took one evening.

What next? I cleaned out the fridge and freezer, the bathroom had a good scouring, Leith"s closet was next, then S.’s office. I cleaned the kitchen – more than once – as well as the dining room and living room. I even cleaned our storage room and arranged the recycling bins in a more appealing manner. Everything in our house is now organized to the point where I am pleased as punch and it is done just in time for S. to come bounding through the door in two weeks and mess it all up again. Don’t get me wrong, I really can’t wait for him to come home, but a home with my husband tends to be a slightly messier home…

Anyway, what I was going to get out (in my own round-about way) is that I purged my cookbook collection. Well, I "purged" it in that I took down all the books I don’t use on a weekly basis and moved them into the study so if I do need them they are still within reach. I left the more "popular" books on the shelf in the kitchen for me to gaze at longingly all the time. I am wondering if my favourite cookbooks are the same as anyone else’s favourites and if your favourites are ones I should look into buying.

So, here are the questions:

What are your favourite cookbooks? Why?
What do you look for in a good cookbook? What will make you purchase one over another book?
How many cookbooks do you own?

To repay you for this kindness I will take down the names of anyone who emails me their responses to all the questions above, and draw one out of a hat and send them a copy of one of my favourite cookbooks (I will make sure it is one you don’t already have, don’t worry!). So get emailing! I’m super curious!

Canned Culinary Chow

Mar 29, 2007 by jennifer

Okay. The great debate continues. I was discussing the past few entries with a friend recently and we had a very long, very interesting conversation about what constitutes “cheating” in the kitchen. We went back and forth along the line and verged away from it a myriad of times. The “line” being fresh food, fresh ingredients and actually working in the kitchen (or “singing for your supper” as I referred to it at one point).

What ideas surfaced during this tete-a-tete? Well, you name it, actually. We both decided that while we might indulge every once in a very blue moon, Kraft Dinner definitely doesn’t count as homemade. It might have when we were 12 but now, even if you add hot dogs or bacon or extra cheese to it, it is hardly a chef-d’oeuvre.

On the other hand, pasta served with a light tomato sauce made from good canned tomatoes could be considered a fresh dish worth writing home about. That happens to be one of my favourite things to make in the dead of winter – when the tomatoes from the summer have run out and all you have is a can of Italian tomatoes, (I am lucky enough to live a 1 minute jaunt from an excellent Italian grocery), a dried bay leaf, some garlic and shallot at hand. I tend to add a smidge of anchovy paste and perhaps a dash of wine (I freeze wine left-overs in an ice cube tray for just these circumstances) and salt and pepper and voila…simple, but still homemade.

Then came the polenta debate. Quick-cook or traditional? Well, there is a significant difference in texture and were I making an elaborate dinner for guests I might gravitate towards the traditional and spend an hour at the stove to get that smooth, silky mouth-feel. But for dinner on a Monday night when there are swimming lessons to attend and a 10-month old to pacify and a hungry husband to deal with I would go for the instant or quick-cook every time. My friend agreed and the conversation continued along this vein for some time.

As we sat with our coffees (definitely not instant, made with a great old espresso machine) at hand and our children asleep we discussed a book I had recently gotten: Nancy Silverton’s “A Twist of the Wrist: Quick Flavorful Meals with Ingredients from Jars, Cans, Bags and Boxes”. We picked out recipe upon recipe that we would consider good, worth making, and while based upon simplicity and shortcuts, were still packed with fresh ingredients and homemade flavours.

Recipes such as the Frittata with Anchovies, Chives and Shaved Truffle Butter, Crostini with Pea Puree, Prosciutto and Parmesan, Pulled Barbecue Chicken with Cole Slaw on Garlic Sourdough Toast and Peppered Balsamic Ice Cream with Fresh Strawberries got my gastronomic brain going. My pantry just happens to contain things like sauerkraut, extra-virgin olive oil, mayonnaise, mustard, vinegar, anchovy fillets, French peas, Parmigiano-Reggiano and good balsamic vinegar. All of these dishes and more were mine for the making.

The trouble I had with the cookbook were the few recipes that called for canned or pre-packaged foods that are just as readily available and easy to use fresh as they are canned. The Capellini with Tomato Sauce and Fresh Ricotta sounds great but is made with jarred, store-bought tomato sauce, which in my kitchen is non-existent. The Chorizo, Potato and Spinach Frittata with Crumbled Fresh Goat Cheese might indeed be delicious but is she seriously asking me to cook with canned potatoes? I thought only astronauts and people who live in Antarctica used those. And while the Seared Lamb Chops with Ratatouille is something I would happily cook for company, I simply don’t think I could bring myself to used pre-packaged “eggplant appetizer” or jarred onions in the ratatouille. Eggplant spread is so simple to make why would anyone buy it pre-packaged anymore? Except perhaps once in a while from St. Lawrence Market, where there is a stall where the woman makes it herself and it is to die for.

So our conversation ended at a bit of an impasse. She thought using pre-packaged ingredients (a can of this, a jar of that, and stir) could still class her food as “homemade”, while I thought that “homemade” should require just a little more work, a bit more elbow grease and a smidge more love. This book goes back and forth from the line that I have drawn for myself in the sand and meanders very sadly far away from it in a few recipes that I don’t think I will ever try, except perhaps by substituting in fresh ingredients for the canned or jarred ones. All in all a good read, inspiring in the flavour combinations and great pictures…but don’t let me catch you actually buying canned potatoes and calling them a rational shortcut to good food!

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