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Unsurprisingly, I came back from Ottawa with a renewed enthusiasm for playing around in the kitchen, and especially to tackle some of the projects I’d had less success with the first time around. First on that list: retrograde starch mashed potatoes. This time, I had a better idea of what was essential to the process [...]

The Collins is not just one drink; it’s a family of drinks, and like any family, it has its luminaries and its underdogs. The complete family history can be found in David Wondrich’s book Imbibe!, but you’ve probably already met the most eminent member: the Tom Collins, which is made with gin, lemon juice, sugar [...]

In Canada, maple syrup is classified into three grades and five colours: Canada No. 1 syrup is divided into “extra light,” “light” and “medium” colours; Canada No. 2 is also called “amber” and Canada No. 3 is “dark.” Unlike the USDA classifications, we have no grades “A” or “B”, though USDA Grade A is essentially [...]

The weather outside is starting to hint at spring, and that can mean only this: it’s maple syrup season! In their book Culinary Artistry, Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page have a list of flavours associated with various cultures. The entry for Canada consists of only one word: maple. (Even Canadian bacon didn’t make the cut, [...]

Although I’m not exclusively a cocktail writer, I do sometimes write about cocktails. So it was inevitable that, sooner or later, I would write about the Old Fashioned, as so many others have done. The Old Fashioned comes from a time when “Cock-Tail” meant something specific, before “cocktail” expanded to encompass any mixed drink. (“Martini” [...]

I didn’t make it very far into my latest cookbook purchase, Fresh Canadian Bistro , before landing on a recipe that caught my eye and drove me into the kitchen to check my vegetable supplies: Chives Chef Darren Lewis’s “Grosse soupe du petit jardin” (literally “big soup from the little garden,” but glossed in the [...]