Cheese and Crackers with Pesto

Cheese and Crackers with Pesto

This is a more grown-up version of regular old cheese and crackers. Adding a bit of pesto, like pesto Genovese or my lemon dill pesto, dresses up this little appetizer and adds a touch of colour and hit of flavour. You can use many types of cheeses for this simple but tasty appetizer. Here, from […]

Toronto Bike Paths: Tommy Thompson Park

Toronto Bike Paths: Tommy Thompson Park

Over the weekend, a bunch of us went cycling around Tommy Thompson Park. The park is located on Leslie Street Spit, a man-made peninsula that has been growing since the 1950s. Made of construction rubble like bricks, concrete and re-bar, Tommy Thompson Park is now a city park that is great for joggers, cyclists, rollerbladers, birdwatchers, […]

Lemon Dill Pesto

Lemon Dill Pesto

I find that bunches of dill I get at the market are often very big – too big to use up before it all wilts and goes icky. So why not make a batch of lemon dill pesto! If you don’t have any fresh chervil, you can add 1/2 cup flat leaf parsley instead, for […]

Homemade Ginger Beer

Homemade Ginger Beer

Last week, one of my clients gave me this recipe for homemade ginger beer. He made it sound so easy that I wrote down the recipe and made a bottle this weekend! Let the mixture simmer for a longer time if you want a spicier ginger beer. I simmered the mixture for 20 minutes, but […]

The Year in Books: July with Salt by Mark Kurlansky

The Year in Books: July with Salt by Mark Kurlansky

In July, I’m going to finish reading Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky. Salt is a cheap flavouring that I’m always telling people to eat less of at work; I never really realized how important it was in the history of the world until I read this book. Only when I start to consider how […]