Lady Fat

Cosy Up to Collards March, 2011

I hate March. When I first arrived in Toronto, I never understood why everyone fled the city during the month of March. Some go to the snow but most fly south to find the sun, to feel its warmth and enjoy being outside, preferably on a beach in the company of a cocktail. March is the cruelest month. After many years of winter I now comprehend this mass exodus. By this of the year time, even if you love winter and I don’t, you’ve had enough of the cold, the snow, the ice, the shoveling, and the slush.

My Favorite New Product is Salt February, 2011

Salt is essential for life and for cooking. It has the mysterious power to improve the flavor of any food, savory or sweet. While salt is simply sodium chloride, not all salts are equal and each salt has its own character. Some are clean tasting, others have definite mineral overtones, and some, like sel gris, can transport you to the seaside. Sel gris, a gray unrefined sea salt with coarse damp irregular crystals is my choice as a cooking salt.

French Onion Soup January, 2011

“Who would not give all else for two pennyworth only of beautiful soup?”

Mock Turtle in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

While the Mock Turtle was referring to turtle soup, his words ring true for almost any soup. Soup, especially in January, is warming, fortifying and delicious. It can be an opening act for a dinner or complete meal in itself. Best of all, soup is simple to make and one of my favourites is onion soup.

Jennifer's Homemade Quincemeat December, 2010

My Christmas food memories are of heavy English-style meals – roast dinners and steamed pudding eaten during the stifling Australian summer. So when I think back on Christmas past, I remember not delicious food, but lying on the cool bathroom floor in an attempt to recover from the combined effect of overeating and the heat.

There was one essential Christmas food that didn’t send me running to the cool of the bathroom tiles – mincemeat.

A Star is Born November, 2010

Star anise first caught my attention when I was working as a food stylist. I was always looking for something different to slip into photographs and star anise is a very photogenic spice. Its extraordinary form while usually described as star-shaped, to me it more closely resembles a dried flower, with its petals enclosing shiny brown oval seeds. In reality star anise is the fruit of a small evergreen tree that grows in southern China and South-east Asia.

A Dinner Party October, 2010

A dinner party – I find this a strange description to use today. I invite people for dinner but not to a dinner party. For me the term dinner party conjures up formality, numerous courses of food, polished silver, and my husband having to wear a jacket and tie. The last dinner party I attended was years ago, in the Australian countryside.

A Reluctant Tomato Lover September, 2010

At this time of the year it seems everyone, that is everyone except me, is tomato crazy. I am happy to see this symbol of summer but I am allergic to tomatoes. Nothing serious, but perhaps it explains why I don’t love raw tomatoes. I discovered this allergy when I tried growing them. I began the project with enthusiasm and self-confidence.

A Fava Fanatic June, 2010

Do you have a food fantasy? I have several and one was inspired by an article a food magazine …………it’s spring, I’m in Rome, sitting in a restaurant on the edge of a beautiful piazza. In the centre of the piazza there is a fountain, water cascading over stone gods and out of the mouths of weird beasts. I have a glass of chilled white wine and on the table are slices of the local ham and a basket of bright green fava beans in their pods. I break open a pod and ease out the small beans, no bigger than my fingernail, and eat them. So young and tender these beans don’t need to be peeled.

For the Love of Butter May, 2010

When you cook and write about food for a living there is a general assumption that your mother, or your grandmother sparked your interest in food. People imagine a childhood spent in the kitchen soaking in the smells and tastes of food and learning the art of cooking. I too like this image of the younger me watching wonderful food lovingly prepared by my mother and grandmothers. I can almost see myself perched on a stool at the edge of the stove so that I can reach the cooking pot and stir it under a maternal gaze.

Confessions of a Risotto Expert April, 2010

“The Chinese, the Arabs, the Greeks, the Indians, the Spaniards, the Turks, the Persians, have marvelous national rice dishes:……The Italian risotto is a dish of a totally different nature and unique.”
                                 Italian Food Elizabeth David, 1954

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