The Yum Yum Factor

Okay my people, if you are in Toronto, you are in for a treat this month. I am going to make big, family style meal for 20 at The Kingston Social that is inspired by my recent trip to Barcelona. As always, Tanya will be on hand to whip up her amazing cocktails with a lovely wine and beer list available as well. Come and join us for a night of fun, delicious food and drink and if you are really lucky, some table top flamenco dancing by yours truly Reserve your spot by buying a ticket here

I am back from a ten day trip to Barcelona and man, am I fired up! I just spent 10 days eating and drinking and exploring, I lugged home three sizes of paella pans, cazuelas, spices, dried peppers, black sea salt and a brain overloaded with ideas.  Keep your eyes peeled for my upcoming posts about my trip, about what we ate, what we saw and where we went, but, for now, here is what is happening in the upcoming month: For our March Supper Club, I am going to do a bit of a Mexican/Greek mash up. There will be tasty cocktails, great food and great dining companions, as always, so go reserve your seat now Get your tickets for our March 18 Supper Club Opaaa! Upcoming Cooking Classes for March For the cheap and cheerful crowd, I have two What's For Dinner Classes at the Musgrave Loblaws in March. You pay $15 and get a $15 dollar gift card for your trouble. March 8 March 22 Also, my next series of Instant Pot classes this month will be taking place ...

Okay, Toronto Peeps, it's a new year and we are starting up our monthly Supper Clubs at The Kingston Social House, in Toronto's East East End. The first dinner of the year, this Sunday, January 21, will feature one of my favourite meals to cook and eat - my Peruvian Flavah dinner. We start with Aguadito de Pollo, a hearty chicken soup that is full of cilantro, white rice as well as black rice, chicken, aji amarillo all topped off with crispy chicken skin.

It's an Ugly Sweater Party!

For my Toronto readers, I am back at The Kingston Social House, next Wednesday August 9 for another Pop Up! This time the menu was inspired by my friends, the  MVPs - Most Valuable Peruvians.

As I edit my Paris/Rome photos like a maniac and get ready to start sharing my trip with you, I thought I would just let everybody know that I have two fun things to share for my Toronto peeps: Next week, on Thursday April 6, I will be cooking up a storm at The Kingston Social but this time, it will be my menu only that night! There will be plenty of goodness for meat eats and vegetarians alike and full bar service so make sure to stop by, grab a bite and say hi On Monday April 10, I will be holding my latest Instant Pot workshop at the Deppaneur and you can book a spot, online, here For this class I will show you how to make a tasty Potato Leek Soup, Mushroom Risotto, Spicy White Bean on polenta and what is probably the most popular Instant Pot (any brand of electric pressure cooker is welcome so don't let not owning an actual Instant Pot stop you from coming), the cheesecake. Also, hold June 15 for my next Loblaws class - Healthier Mexican 

The weather has been so lovely this week and suddenly,  February feel more like March so I am having a hard time getting excited about making more stick to the ribs weekly specials at The Kingston Social. My brain is all about spring and sun and the need to be warm so all I want to eat is ceviche and fish and salad, drink Gin and Tonics on the porch and pretend it's time to start on the garden. With that in mind, I looked to North Africa for inspiration after making some carrots roasted with ras el hanout, a Moroccan spice blend, during my last cooking class at Loblaws. Ras el Hanout (means head of the shop or top shelf in Arabic) = North Africa = chermoula and chermoula = some type of seafood and since my latest obsession happens to be sous vide shrimp, a dish was born. You might think it silly to cook shrimp using sous vide when they already cook in minutes on the stove top but sous vide results in the most amazing texture. Since I intended to almost pickle the shrimp...

I have partnered up with the wonderful women of The Kingston Social , in the east end of Toronto, to host a monthly supper club to bring a little of that west end fun to our neck of the woods and I am happy to report that the response has been wonderful. For our May dinner, I knew that I was going to put both of my Anova sous vide machines to work on some sirloin cap, my favourite cut of steak and serve it with chimichurri but after that, I wasn't sure. This has been a weird spring and I couldn't be sure about what would even been in the market by the end of May. I assumed that I would find lots of seasonal produce like fiddleheads, ramps, colourful radishes and everyone's favourite weed, rhubarb. 

First things first: On October 3 I am going to host my first in a series of cooking classes called "Not Your Grandmother's Rutabaga" at The Kingston Social in the east end of the city. I have spent years listening to friends complain that they don't know what to do with half of the produce they find in their CSA boxes come late fall and they end up throwing half of it out. Look, I get it. I grew up eating turnip twice a year, boiled and mashed with butter and brown sugar as part of our turkey dinner and hated it. It never occurred to me that what I was eating was actually a rutabaga and that there is so much life beyond boiling and mashing. Let me help you. I will continue this series over the winter and strive to wow and delight and turn you into a root vegetable lover by the end of it all. Click here to register and come learn how to teach some old dogs some new tricks The highlight of my week was the first ever Food and Wine Show right here...