Whenever I taste or smell barley, the memory that pops into my head is the huge pot of soup that used to sit on my mother’s back burner in the dead of those frigid Montreal winters.  We could always count on some type of soup to warm us up on our return from school.  Our [...]

Local apples are at their peak and the varieties are endless.  We recently went apple picking with our grandchildren and came home with 2 huge bags.  I’m not normally a Golden Delicious fan but when they’re right off the tree they’re incredible.  I had leftover turkey and these crunchy apples and made a salad with [...]

My Auntie Doreen is the loveliest person – full of energy, generous, and lots of fun to be with, BUT when we were younger we never wanted to go to her house for dinner.  She really didn’t enjoy cooking and she made no bones about it.  HOWEVER, the one thing she knew how to make [...]

I realized as I was shuffling through my huge oversized recipe drawer trying to find a recipe amongst the 3,000 torn, withered, and stained pieces of paper, that it was time I went through them and figured out which ones I really want to save. It’s bad enough my kids will have to clean out [...]

The French have a way of taking basic ingredients – potatoes, grated cheese, and a little cream – and transforming them into a heavenly gratin.  Potato gratin may sound and taste fancy but it isn’t complicated to prepare.. In order to make the dish properly you’ll need a vegetable slicer that can cut potatoes paper [...]