Cuisine Canada Scene

Jennifer Cockrall-King

Jennifer Cockrall-King splits her time between Edmonton, Alberta, and Naramata, BC in the Okanagan where she eats, drinks, writes and teaches food writing courses. Her articles have appeared in Canadian Geographic, Maclean’s, the National Post, Chicago Sun-Times, Slow Canada, Homemaker’s and on CBC Radio among others. She posts them on-line at her website, when she manages to find a few spare moments. She is also the co-founder and the co-publisher of The Edible Prairie Journal, a print publication which began in 2004 and now continues on-line at www.edibleprairie.ca.

What’s your weakness? Dessert or mains?
Definitely mains. I used to have a sweet tooth, but I am definitely more interested now in savoury foods, especially the flavour-packed foods of hot climates. One day I’ll make it to my “culinary homelands” of places like the Middle East or Vietnam and Thailand.

Who or what got you interested in food?
My immediate family loves good food, and my grandmother on my dad’s side was a great, basic Prairie home cook. (My other grandmother is a notoriously bad cook — well, notorious within our family. I don’t think she ever threw a dinner party so no one outside of our family knows how truly bad a cook she is!!) But my Grandma Cockrall canned peaches, pears, sauerkraut and pickles. I got the basics from her. My parents were and still are quite avid foodies. They used to have incredible dinner parties with friends in the 1970s, where they made really cutting edge dishes. I guess they taught me how to be a fearless cook and an adventurous eater.

What inspires you?
I guess I am on the endless search for the “ultimate” in any kind of food: the freshest, most “carroty” carrot, the most savoury tarragon leaves, or the best lobster tail on the planet. I love the basic flavours of food. I get frustrated when there’s too much going on in a dish and I can’t taste the pure elements.

What was your favourite dinner when you were a kid? Do you like it now?
As a kid my favorite dinner was probably something shamefully processed, so I will “refuse to comment” on that

What’s the first dish you remember making?
Melted cheese on Triscuits in my Easy Bake Oven. The cheese used to get all over the light-bulb that was the heat source in those contraptions. But it was a fun way to spend an afternoon — baking cheese appetizers for passersby in our neighbourhood.

Proudest food-related moment?
Probably when I got my first “big” article published. I got a full-page food article on saskatoons published in the National Post in 2000. I loved it because it was so “prairie” yet it got some play in a national food venue. (Remember this was way before local was the new exotic.)

Strangest food you’ve ever eaten?
Knowingly or unknowingly!!?? Lord knows what I’ve eaten unknowingly, but eating cold, sliced beef tongue was the most difficult thing I’ve had to choke down. I was 14 years old and I really thought I would die right then and there. But I had to try it to be polite. Since then I’ve eaten all sorts of weird things, like bison testicles, but nothing was as difficult as choking down that jellied beef tongue as a 14-year-old girl.

Favourite sound in the kitchen?
Oh, good question. Probably the hiss and pop of something hitting a hot frying pan.

Favourite cooking smell?
Caramelizing onions for French onion soup. Somebody should bottle that smell.

Quintessential Canadian dish?
Pancakes with saskatoon berry “topping” which is essentially a cooked compote of saskatoons.

Molecular gastronomy, best thing ever or the unwearable haute couture of food?
I think it’s cool to experiment but I’m sure it’s a “hit or miss” kind of cooking and eating. When I cook, I like to go for the sure bets. I hate misses when I’m dining and especially when I’m cooking, so I tend to not get too interested in making “smoke of rapini in a gelatinized bubble” and stuff like that.

Cilantro — can’t get enough or tastes like soap?
LOVE IT. I’ve got a huge patch of it in my garden because I can’t stand stale cilantro. The more cilantro, the better.

What non-local foods can’t you live without?
Chocolate. End of story. Citrus is a big one too.

What’s your greatest culinary extravagance?
My stash of organic dark chocolate. I spare no expense on good, organic chocolate.

Most over-rated kitchen gadget?
Most kitchen gadgets are over-rated. I am not very comfortable with most machines and gadgets, so I keep it simple. I use my mixer once every few months, and I don’t own a food processor. And those are good all-purpose machines. So something like a “salad shooter” would be totally useless to me, but I do like the concept of being about to shoot vegetables around the kitchen. Ha. I also find it weird how there are such specific one-use-only utensils. I even think it’s stupid to have different types of forks. I mean, who can’t eat salad with a normal fork. You need a special, smaller, flatter fork?? Don’t get me started on that weird cake separator fork-thing. I would have never cut it in Victorian times.

What’s the most treasured possession in your kitchen? Why?
My ceramic Japanese chef’s knife. I NEVER sharpen knives, but I hate dull ones. It’s the perfect solution.

Fill in the blank. If I never cooked / ate / heard about ______ again, I’d be happy.
LIVER. I even strongly dislike foie gras. It’s a filter organ and it tastes bad. I have no idea why people even eat it. Liver pate reminds me of dog food. Yuck.

If you could cook for anyone, alive or dead, who would it be and why?
Well, just for pure fun, it would be Gordon Ramsay because he’s such a force of nature and probably a really fun guy to have dinner with. Also, he could teach me some new swears because mine are the same old ones I’ve been using for years. But really, I would want to cook for Stephen Harper so I could force him to listen to my rantings about how we need to start labelling our foods properly and stop being the patsy for international aquaculture and agriculture companies who farm products here outlawed by other countries.

What would you prepare for him/her?
I would prepare a comparative tasting of organic wild salmon and some farmed salmon, then some other comparative tastings of various fruits and vegetables all grown in Canada. I wouldn’t tell him which is which, but I’d see which ones he eats more of.

What was the last thing you ate?
I just made (and ate) the grilled fennel, grilled onion and arugula salad from Lucy Waverman’s weekend National Post recipe column. It was delish!

If you had to work outside the culinary field, what would you do?
If I could conjure up any sort of talent I wanted, of course, I’d be a rock star. Doesn’t everyone want to be a rock star?