Cuisine Canada Scene

Karen at the 2009 Canadian Culinary Book Awards

Karen Baxter, Brazilian born, from German immigrants, has now settled in Fergus, Ontario, where she lives with her husband and daughter. She has started her career in Business Administration, later completing her MBA at the University of Guelph with a specialization in Hotel and Food Management. Karen works as a Project Manager with Cuisine Canada and the Culinary Book awards presented at the Royal Winter Fair every Fall.

What’s your weakness? Dessert or mains?
Did you say weakness? I would consider an undeniable desire a strength. Definitely mains. With meat, stews, curries, beans, rice… The smell is what first gets me, and then I can’t stop thinking about it until I eat it.

Who or what got you interested in food?
I do not think it was an immediate happening. At first I recall my mother insisting I eat the green peppers (which this day I still don’t like) on my plate. But I also remember, as a child, walking in the house and smelling the wonderful things that were happening in the kitchen. The food in Brazil is fairly simple, with beans and rice as staples, cooked with a lot of garlic and onions. I think I almost took food for granted, as it was always there, good and tasty, ready to eat.

When I was 23, I moved away from home for the first time. I had two roommates. One introduced me to KD. “Wow!” I said, “I never thought cooking could be this easy.” Well, to my horror, she also ate green peppers as you would eat an apple. My other roommate had much more sophisticated taste, and she started to show me some really neat techniques, like baking an apple pie in a paper bag, and baking fish with very tasty herbs. I began to get inspired and started calling my mother — in Brazil — for recipes. They were the most expensive dishes I created when you counted the phone bills. From that time on I began to cook.

What inspires you?
The sea! I must have been a fish in my previous life. I really become whole when I am near/in the ocean.

What was your favourite dinner when you were a kid? Do you like it now?
Favourite dinner; Goulash with Spaetzle. My mother learned how to make this when she married my father. His parents were German, and she wanted to impress them. Yes, I love it to this date, and have myself mastered it, although mine is not as good as hers. My daughter Maia also loves it, and started asking for “Peate” since she was a wee one.

What’s the first dish you remember making?
Coq au vin.

Proudest food-related moment?
Not sure there is one. I think whenever I create something delicious from the ingredients I already have in my fridge and pantry, and can spark some “Yumm, this is good!” from family and friends, then I feel happy that my gut feeling in assembling things delivered a tasty concoction.

Strangest food you’ve ever eaten?
They are called “picorocos”. I was on this ship heading down the Pacific Ocean, towards some Glaciers in the south coast of Chile. The Captain announced the menu; “Sopa de Picorocos” which means Barnacles soup. The plate came to the table with the soup and this volcanic looking shell, with a hook coming out of the top, inside this giant barnacle! It looked scary at first, but truly delicious!

Favourite sound in the kitchen?
Sizzling onions and garlic – it could be the smell they emanate though, that makes me like the sound!

Favourite cooking smell?
Above answer!

Quintessential Canadian dish?
Fiddlehead soup.

Cilantro -- can’t get enough or tastes like soap?
Definitely, can’t get enough! Love it, love it.

What local foods can’t you live without?
That is a tough one, I may be inclined to say the eggs from our neighbor. I think all his chickens (maybe 10) have names, and the eggs are so fresh.

What’s your greatest culinary extravagance?
I am inclined to say that seafood for me is an extravagance. And I mean good, fresh (never frozen) seafood; not fish sticks, or shrimp rings. I remember dining in a fancy restaurant once in NY city, and I asked for the seared Mahi-mahi. It was barely cooked, and the flavor was out of this world. Melted in my mouth. It was perfect.

Most over-rated kitchen gadget?
Food processors.

What’s the most treasured possession in your kitchen? Why?
Well, let’s see if I can explain this in a very complicated mathematical equation:

Brazilian = coffee
Coffee = Coffee Beans
Coffee Beans + Coffee Grinder = Good Coffee
Coffee Grinder inside coffee machine = Very expensive De’Longui Cappuccino maker!
No need to explain the “why” part is there?

Fill in the blank. If I never cooked / ate / heard about ______ again, I’d be happy.
Tripe! Blahhh.

If you could cook for anyone, alive or dead, who would it be and why?
My husband and my daughter, just because they really love my cooking.

What would you prepare for him/her?
Curries, beans, check peas and rice.

What was the last thing you ate?
Sushi. I ordered take out and it took a lot of self discipline to wait until I got home to eat it. At each set of lights that allowed my hands to be free, I considered just a little bite. But then again, considering what it would take to open the take out box, dip the sushi in the soy sauce and wasabi, and drip it all over the seat and clothes…., I remained determined to wait.  Once home, the dog wanted attention, the phone was ringing, but I decided “first things first” and savored the lovely Japanese snack.

If you had to work outside the culinary field, what would you do?
I would love to be a landscape architect or marine biologist.