Kayahara.ca

I’ve long been a fan of the idea of using eggshells as serving pieces, especially since I saw Michael Laiskonis’ recipe for The Egg at Le Bernardin. The challenge, of course, is to remove the top of the shell cleanly. Apparently, it can be done simply with a serrated knife and a lot of practice, […]

Today is Victoria Day, which marks the unofficial start of the planting season for most gardeners in Southern Ontario. I have yet to see much in the way of local farmed spring vegetables. On the other hand, foraged foods have abounded: fiddleheads, ramps, morels and, lately, spruce tips. Spruce tips are exactly what they sound […]

In light of my recent explorations of Mexican cuisine, it seemed only appropriate to pair those meals with Mexico’s indigenous spirit, tequila. If your mental image of tequila evokes frat parties and efforts to remember the proper order to lick-shoot-suck, you should know that there’s a whole world of tequila out there for you to […]

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to attend a chocolate and confectionery workshop organized by Kerry Beal, The Chocolate Doctor, at Niagara College in Niagara-on-the-Lake. As you may know from some of my previous posts, I don’t consider myself to be an especially adept chocolatier, so I always relish the opportunity to get some practice […]

Building on my new-found tortilla-making skills, I decided to expand my experience of Mexican cuisine by making mole, the “national dish of Mexico,” according to Rick Bayless. I used Bayless’s recipe for Classic Red Mole with Turkey from Mexico One Plate at a Time, although there seems to be some debate as to whether it […]

I’ve never really cooked a lot of Thai food – that’s more my husband’s department – but I love the flavours. And who can resist the national noodle dish, Pad Thai? So naturally, when I stumbled on the Pad Thai recipe in Modernist Cuisine, I had to give it a try. This might in fact […]

If there’s one major national cuisine that isn’t very strongly represented in Canada’s food scene, it’s Mexican. There are a few Mexican restaurants and a couple of Latin American food markets in Toronto – and burritos are certainly a common sight – but the full range and depth of regional Mexican cooking is thoroughly underrepresented, […]