A taste of Italy
We just returned from 12 glorious days in Italy. Beautiful sunny skies, 20 degrees most days, really delicious coffee and dining al fresco every night. I didn’t take many pictures; my camera wouldn’t do it justice, so I just enjoyed the view. We made a point to try the food specialities of each area we […]
Excuse me?
Recently I read an article about Boomers who own, and live in, their “forever home”. The children have grown and flown. According to that article Baby Boomers are considered, by some, to be “a significant contributor to current housing shortages and high prices”. Excuse me? The logic behind this is Boomers, like me, are staying […]
Care chaos
It doesn’t happen very often but it’s, Thursday the 19th as I’m writing this column. I usually have a pile of notes and on Sundays I sit down with my cup of Joe, CBS Sunday Morning on the telly and pull everything together. But I’ll be stuffed inside an MRI tunnel on Sunday and I […]
County uncorked
In early December, a group of PEC winemakers gathered to talk about their 2024 pinot noirs. More recently, in March, we got together to taste and discuss their chardonnays. Both are quintessential signature grapes of Prince Edward County, and the similarities were hard to miss. There is most certainly a regional style that is easy […]
Restaurant quality
I am not a baker, but I can make restaurant quality desserts and I do make excellent pastry for both sweet and savoury pies. A bread-maker I am not, except for quick breads. I wanted to make pita bread just for fun. I made the first batch with bread flour, but found it too dry […]
Bee 101
All around the world we continue to hear about the plight of bees. “Save the bees” and “colony collapse disorder” are pretty important things to be paying attention to going into 2026 because up to 90 percent of the food that we eat is pollinated by honeybees. This is part of the reason that more […]
A new discovery
I have never heard of butter swim biscuits. They originated in the Southern US because someone found cutting butter into flour and rolling biscuit dough too difficult so they came up with this method of stir and bake in a ton of melted butter so they are literally swimming in it. I disagree; I make […]
Scattering of brains
When I was a kiddo the word “scatterbrained” was lobbed at those among us who couldn’t follow through with a thought or an idea. Little kids were scatterbrained because of the eight be-jillion things we wanted to be, do, have, say. Sometimes those ideas were flying around as if they were caught up in a […]
Riesling Day
You could say I grew up on riesling. There was always a bottle of Deinhard Green Label on the dinner table at family gatherings. To this day, there still is. I’m not sure when it first appeared, but I’ve known that bottle since I was far too young to drink it. When I started studying […]
Maple Madness
Maple madness is now on every Saturday and Sunday until the end of March. You can visit sugarbushes, eat some sweet stuff and buy some maple products to bring home. I didn’t have to leave my ’hood to get to my nearest sugarbush—we wanted some yummy brunch from Big Mike’s BBQ and lucky for us […]