Julie Van Rosendaal is food writer, author, stylist and journalist. The food and nutrition columnist for CBC Radio One’s the Calgary Eyeopener, Julie contributes to the online cooking series, Good Bite,  co-hosts It’s Just Food on Viva Network and keeps readers updated on Dinner with Julie. She’s also the mastermind behind Blog Aid, a collaborative cookbook to raise funds for Haiti.

What’s your weakness? Dessert or mains?
Ice cream. I can’t not finish the container. Also anything topped with melty cheese.

Who or what got you interested in food?
My appetite got me interested. As a kid my mom was a really healthy cook – everything was grainy and when we were young she’d offer up apples for dessert – I figured if I learned to bake cookies and cupcakes myself, it would equal an unending supply of the stuff I craved. When I was 7 I opened a cupcake company, called the Kooky Cupcake Company – I got a $20 loan from my mom for ingredients, baked cupcakes using the One Egg Cake recipe in Joy of Cooking, and sold them up and down our street. When it was all paid back I made about a $7 profit. (Most of the profits were eaten up.)

What inspires you?
People. People are amazing.

What was your favourite dinner when you were a kid? Do you like it now?
I dreamt of McDonald’s because we never used to get it. And for my birthday I asked for Wonder bread with Jiffy peanut butter and jelly. I still remember my mom making it for me while I watched Happy Days. Today? Wonder Bread? Not so much.

What’s the first dish you remember making?
I pulled the ends off the long grasses in my backyard and turned it into “cereal” and made my sister eat it. She cried. It looked just like the wholesome waving wheat on the cereal commercials on TV…

Proudest food-related moment?
I won the Calgary Stampede chili cook-off when I was 13, and up against the grown-ups! The interviewed me on TV and it was very exciting. It was also my first time trying to be funny for the camera in an attempt to hide my shyness, and not the last time it didn’t go over as well as I thought in my head that it would… they asked me why I learned to cook and I said “someone had to or we’d all starve to death!” My mom almost left me there at the Stampede grounds to walk home myself.

Strangest food you’ve ever eaten?
Honestly, I can’t think of anything that strange. Frogs’ legs? Offal? (and it really is..)

Favourite sound in the kitchen?
Willem, my 4 year old, chatting as he cooks.

Favourite cooking smell?
Browned butter? Coffee? Baking bread? Roasting turkey? I can’t decide!

Quintessential Canadian dish?
Poutine. So easy to make, and so much better than you can get at most fast food joints.

Molecular gastronomy, best thing ever or the unwearable haute couture of food?
Don’t dig it. But maybe I don’t understand it.

Cilantro — can’t get enough or tastes like soap?
Used to taste like soap, but now I like it. I can get enough though.

What local foods can’t you live without?
Bison. It’s the new Alberta Beef! also flax oil from Highwood Crossing.

What’s your greatest culinary extravagance?
Extravagance, money-wise? Hmmm.. going out to nice dinners? Cheese? Bernard Callebaut chocolate? Oh yes – real Nutella – Bernard Callebaut chocolate and ground hazelnuts – $15 a jar and worth every penny!

Most over-rated kitchen gadget?
Salad spinner. Takes up far too much real estate.

What’s the most treasured possession in your kitchen? Why?
My grandma’s measuring cups and sifter. I love that the 1/2 cup measure has actually been repaired – a new metal handle attached back on – who these days would actually fix a measuring cup rather than go buy a new set?

Fill in the blank. If I never cooked / ate / heard about  ______ again, I’d be happy.
BLACK LICORICE. I’d be happy if no one else ate it anymore either, thank you.

If you could cook for anyone, alive or dead, who would it be and why?
My grandparents. Or John Cusack.

What would you prepare for him/her?
Oh boy, I have no idea. It wouldn’t matter, really.

What  was the last thing you ate?
Leftover lasagna and a Strongbow. I’m still eating it. Before that, Tim Horton’s and a cruller. Before that, baklava. It hasn’t been a good food day…

If you had to work outside the culinary field, what would you do?
Write, if I could, or photograph.