The Yum Yum Factor

From the time I can really remember until I grew into my late teens and my grown siblings and their young families gathered on Christmas Eve to open presents, eat, drink and be merry. I was the youngest of five so by the time I was about 7 or 8, my older siblings were getting married and moving out on their own and so it was a great treat to have them all back together for the evening, I got to stay up until the wee hours of the morning and I was still young enough to be spoiled rotten. Starting in mid December, my mom always put out the same little cut glass bowl of minty candies and nuts in their shells with a nutcracker in every bowl. She would get a big gift box of turtles, which she would proceed to eat over the next day and a half until she would literally make herself sick and then swear them off for another year, just to do it all over again the next Christmas day.  We ate exactly the same turkey dinner every single year, the same pies for dessert with nothi...

Nona and her tomatoes It's time again for the Great Canadian Food Experience . Every month we approach a different aspect of Canadian food and it's traditions and what it means to each of us. This month we are talking about preserving, which is clearly a huge part of our Canadian culinary heritage. Any country that enjoys a short growing season and long, harsh winters is going to depend heavily on food preservation and Canada is no different. From salting fish on both coasts to our modern freezers, we have always looked for ways to make our summer bounty carry us through until spring.

It's time for my monthly post for  The Great Canadian Food Experience Project  where Canadian bloggers from across our nation write about a different subject each month. This month we are sharing our cherished canadian recipes. As I have said before, I didn't grow up eating anything particularly Canadian or worth sharing so it wasn't until I moved to Montreal that I discovered this regional cooking thing. I will be honest and admit that I lived there for over two years before I tried poutine. I was super health conscious and rarely ate fried foods or junk food and I kind of thought poutine sounded disgusting. Of course, one night - well wee hours of the morning really- after a couple of drinks I was convinced to try my friend's poutine. Holy life changing experience batman. I am so happy that poutine has become "a thing" and you can find it everywhere now. You can find super fancy pants, gourmet poutine with stewed lamb shank , artisan virgin goat mil...

It's time for my monthly post for  The Great Canadian Food Experience Project  where Canadian bloggers from across our nation write about a different subject each month. This month we are talking about great Canadian food heros and since I am from Toronto and I am pretty passionate about bringing diverse, interesting street food options to our city, I chose to write a bit about Suresh Doss, our very own Toronto food truck warrior. Toronto, despite being a world class city that likens itself to places like New York and Paris, has long suffered from draconian city bylaws that hinder any attempt to serve interesting street food. If you were flogging a grilled hot dog topped with condiments that sit out in the sun all day from a cart, or deep frying potatoes and griddle frying greasy burgers in a truck down at the foot of Cherry St,  you were golden but if you wanted to make me a pulled pork sandwich with kimchi, you were out of luck. Don't get me wrong, I like a nice,...

in my super fashionable USA tshirt no doubt getting ready to chow down on some KFC circ 1972 So, our July challenge for The Canadian Food Experience Project is to share a memory of some sort of regional specialty. I haven't really spent much time in my hometown over the last 30 years so I chose to go back in time and write about something from my childhood. How hard could that be?

my own baked beans There is an interesting blogging project going on right now called  The Canadian Food Experience Project  and I am pretty exited to be a part of it. We will all post on the 7th of each month about the current challenge and the June challenge is to share your first Canadian Food Memory. I have been thinking of this for weeks and I have not been able to pinpoint one definitive Canadian food memory from my own youth. My friends from other provinces speak wistfully of dishes passed down from generation to generation and regional specialties that they pine for when they have been away from home for too long but all I could recall was Lipton Soup, Hamburger Helper and Minute Rice. When I moved to Quebec at 20, I had my first taste of ragoût de boulettes and cretons on toasts and everything changed. I had a French Canadian grandmother who certainly cooked all sorts of delicious regional treats but I don't recall eating any of them. Because my father did no...