Publications

The intention to preserve traditional family recipes has morphed into a cookbook that contains 50 years of collected favourites and many of the original dishes I’ve created. As well, it is a bit of a memoir, relating tales of travel, biographies and anecdotes about fellow food aficionados I’ve met along the way.

With the trend to leaner cuisine, I know that few people of sound mind would want to make some of the time-honoured favourites herein. It’s nice to know about them anyway, in case you want to go a little nuts and savour a bit of history for the fun of it. Cover paintings and illustrations throughout the book are by the author. .........

Do you remember your mother telling you: Don’t play with your food? Mine did. Furthermore, Thousands of children are starving in India. (Or was that China?) Food was a serious business when I was growing up. My mother and her sisters often had little to eat besides potatoes, milk if they had a cow, perhaps a little cabbage. Mom made it her business to see that she would never be wanting again. She planted a garden everywhere we lived, and crops dared not sprout nor dawdle on their way to fulfillment.

It was my good fortune that my mother-in-law, Kay, excelled creativity in the kitchen. Her enthusiasm and joy in producing appetizing, eye appealing dishes was echoed by all of her daughters-in-law at that time. Preparing and serving food was not just an art, it was an act of inspired genius. She’d stand by and beam as her family and guests tucked in to delicious servings made with her generous heart and the love she put into each dish.

The main thing is, as Kay taught me, enjoy the process. Those of us who prepare the meals spend a lot of our lives in the kitchen. We need to get as much joy out of it as we can. So go ahead, have some fun, play with your food.