ABOUT

A lot of my favourite moments in life have happened around a table

I love everything about food. I love learning about it, shopping for it, prepping it, cooking it, tasting it, setting the table for a meal, plating it, eating it, making reservations, perusing menus, sharing it… sharing it, that’s the favourite.

A lot of my early memories are food-related, making Play-Doh hamburgers and fries, building and re-building my Lego kitchen, playing restaurant with my sister. My Barbie house kitchen refrigerator was stocked with mini food and even had an ice cube tray with teeny-tiny ice cubes. Her dining room had a beautiful table and hutch with china, silverware, a silver coffee and tea set where the lid came off the sugar bowl… I have absolutely no recollection of Barbie’s bedroom or any other room. None.

I love

Then there are the real-life childhood memories of food; stealing balls of cookie dough when my Mom wasn’t looking, my Dad insisting on making these horrible buckwheat pancakes when we went camping, my Grandma coming over for dinner and her drinking the water from the steamed broccoli (she insisted that all the nutrients ended up in the water).

I remember helping my Mom in the kitchen all the time, from simple tasks to full assists with holiday meals. I remember hand grinding walnuts for cookies, dicing vegetables for antipasto, breaking down a chicken, setting the table with her wedding china and my Grandmother’s sliver. I was making the family dinner by myself around the age of twelve, I think? Mom got a part-time job at Eaton’s so I would come home to find instructions stuck to the hood fan and carry them out.

I remember the first food-related compliment my Dad ever ever gave me. Every year my Mom would go to Ottawa for two weeks to visit my other Grandmother. She would leave meals for us in the freezer but I would cook a lot too. One day a neighbour called, they brought a truckload of apples back from B.C. and would we like some? That night, after dinner, I served my Dad a slice of apple pie. He asked me if I had taken one of Mom’s pies out of the freezer, “nope, I made it this afternoon.” “Huh,” he said, “it taste’s just like your Mother’s.“ I was beyond chuffed.

FINDING INSPIRATION FROM

Slow mornings, local cafes, the farmer's market, and tv shows and movies about food.

huh...

I Don't think i've ever made
hasselback potatoes ever again

My first big fail happened the same way, Mom was away, I was cooking for Dad and I. I had picked up a recipe card from the grocery store, so this may have been the first time I wasn’t using one of my Mom’s recipes, I was going rogue. I remember it so clearly, it was Hasselback Potatoes. I followed the recipe to a tee and they were beautiful, cheesy, sliced with precision, but then we took a bite and immediately stopped chewing, we looked at each other, jaws suspended, “it tastes like grass,” my Dad said, while removing said bite from his mouth. This is how I learned the important difference between dried and fresh herbs.

I’ve been researching, learning about food, and how to cook it ever since.

My family. My husband, Paul; our kids; I’m really close to my immediate family; my Mom; my sister and her husband; and their little princess of a pup, Lola. I adore my mother-in-love, Cyndy; my extended family, and Paul’s family, although we don’t see them nearly enough.

My friends. I have one group of forever friends, we’ve known each other since Kindergarten, Junior and Senior High School. There are five of us and we’re going on… forty and fifty years of friendship. These are incredible, long lasting friendships, and I feel so lucky to have them. If I were ever going to pee my pants, I’d be with this group of women.

My second group of girlfriends were made when we worked for the same company as event planners. We were kindred spirits almost immediately. This group started with the three of us but when we decided to plan a trip to Thailand together we needed a fourth so my sister, Jodi, joined our group. Jodi and I have been best friends forever.

That leads me right into my next love,… travel. As a kid, we camped, a lot. We drove across the country a couple of times, pulling the trailer, we went to Disneyland twice, and visited Mexico City. I started traveling internationally in 2007 and, so far, I’ve visited 27 countries (~~My travels are documented~~ someday there will be a link. Working on it.)

I was born and raised and still live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I am and always will be completely and passionately in love with my hometown.

...pretty things, reservations, ampersands, stories you can’t stop thinking about, shopping local, kisses on the forehead, movies, the smell of bookstores, pockets, game nights, photography, that quick absence of sound when you drive under a bridge when its raining, genuinely nice people that you already want to hug right after you’ve only just met them, lined paper, day dates, ellipses…

more love...

love, love, love

Dishes.
Inconsiderate people.
Giant pieces of lettuce in a salad.
Inauthenticity.
When people say, “I’m dying.” No, no you are not.

things I don't love

On Thursday, June 14th, 2012 I lost my husband, my first love, to a cancerous and terminal brain tumour. I’m not going to tell our story here just yet. But it’s important to me that Andy is here too, it felt uncomfortable and wrong that he wasn’t included in the love section above. I’ve been grieving him and our life together for years now, all whilst finding a new way, a new love, a new life. It’s been a long journey, one that I’m still on. It’s been difficult, sad, challenging, uncomfortable, and weird. I’ll eventually share more.

We’ve also lost my stepson, who was so charming and clever when he was doing well, and so troubled when he wasn’t. He was vibrant and proud and only 27 when he died, dammit.

My Dad, at 86, was also gone too soon. He had a lung disease that robbed him of his physical health, but he displayed his intelligence and quick-wit until his dying day. I miss him.

loss + grief