Over the past two years, I’ve started a new tradition with my kids. Some time during the Christmas break we get together and make our own speculaas cookies. Speculaas…
There is this particular pathway near my house that I love; it is magical. I’ve always gravitated to it, regardless of the season, as sumac trees bend gracefully from…
This is Haitian soupe joumou (pumpkin soup). This is history: history of the Americas, Black history, history of freedom struggle. This is a dish of the Haitian Revolution, of…
Ontario meets the Caribbean in this colorful take on a classic Gin & Tonic. Like many other ’twenty-somethings’, I put my time in behind the bar where the tips…
I’ve been learning a lot about za’atar recently, which is appropriate given the title of this website! I first learned of it through a visit to my local middle…
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about comfort food. The term often gets invoked in various, and even competing, contexts – so what, exactly, do we mean by the…
Lahmajoun sometimes gets called ‘Armenian pizza’ or ‘Turkish pizza’ or ‘Lebanese pizza’ or ‘Syrian pizza’ or ‘Arab pizza’, Wikipedia tells me. But, it’s really not pizza. Pizza is a…
I’m from Canada, where ‘grits’ aren’t really a thing, except as the nickname for one of our political parties. But, in the United States, it is a thing, especially in…
Necessity is the mother of creativity. I’ve always been someone who works better under firm deadlines, due dates and commitment – it forces me to get things done that…
There are lots of things in life that I dream about doing. I’ve fought the label at times – because it sometimes gets used to deride those who never…
There are days that are an absolute grind. Social media doesn’t normally show those; or, I don’t normally show those on my social media. It’s not that I’m trying…
Cooking is a protest against specialization. At least that’s the argument that writer Michael Pollan puts forward in his Netflix show Cooked (and, I imagine, in the book of…