The Inviting Life

Pictured above - At age 7 or so, I made my own satirical Playboy booklet.  Playboy Magazine, was on the coffee tables of many households in the 1970s.  As you can see I was clearly a VERY strange child.   Hello there. I hope you are managing okay.  It can be challenging, in light of world events such as the war in Ukraine, to find solace. I try to counter unimaginably awful news with occasional good news stories, if only to remind myself that humans are as capable of altruism and courage as they are of cruelty and wonton destruction. In the case of Ukraine, let us hope that the former will triumph over the latter. The impulse to create, to bring beauty to the world, even in the most terrible of times, is a uniquely human trait.   If you like, you can skip the part where I talk about my own foray into creative practice and scroll down to the end of this post, where I share links to pages and newsletters that I think are well worth devoting your time to....

Howdy all!  I hope you are having a happy hump day.  Later this month, I will be publishing a post highlighting my preferred cookbook authors and recipe sources. In the interim, I'd like to give a shout out to Bonnie Stern, who is my favourite Canadian kitchen wizard.   Bonnie has, over the years, introduced me to a host of new taste experiences. Stern extoled the marvels of Middle Eastern cuisine (she is Jewish) before Yotam Otto Lenghi came along. This is certainly not a diss at Ottolenghi, who is brilliant, and, as fate would have it he and Stern are friends.   Two of Bonnie's Cookbooks, Essentials of Home Cooking and Friday Night Dinners are staples in my household.  I have procured cookbooks over the years that are more aspirational than realistic, but Stern's recipes remain steadfastly in my dinner repertoire.  If you happen to live in Victoria, you could try borrowing Stern's titles from the public library to see if you like them. I recomme...