Practical Gourmet | Small Plates for Sharing
Edited by Laurie Stempfle (Company’s Coming Publishing Limited, 2008)
Review written by Margaret Demerson
Entertaining can be fun, but at times it can also be a challenge. Maybe you’re looking for a recipe for Creme Fraiche. Wondering about Indonesian Sweet Soy Sauce? Curious about Dukkah? The answers to these plus a variety of fantastic recipes are combined in a new prize-winning cookbook and, as it says on the cover: “Sharing never tasted so good.”
Company’s Coming Publishing and Jean Pare are well known for their best-selling line …

Apples to Oysters: A Food Lover’s Tour of Canadian Farms
Written by Margaret Webb (Penguin Group Canada, Toronto)
Reviewed by Nancy Hinton
What a refreshing change from the parade of 30-minute meal solutions and chef cookbooks this little gem proved to be!  A genuine piece of Canadian food writing that I highly recommend, Apples to Oysters packs a lot between the covers. Besides being entertaining and informative, it’s a travel tale to make food lovers salivate, a slide show of portraits that touches the spirit and stirs national pride.
On a mission to uncover …

The Complete Canadian Living Baking Book (Transcontinental, 2009)
Written by Elizabeth Baird and Canadian Living
Reviewed by Barbara Barnes
The aroma of holiday baking always puts me in the mood for the festive season.  Recipes from The Complete Canadian Living Baking Book are on my list to help get spirits high. This new baking compendium, designed for Canadian home kitchens, provides the perfect recipe for successful baking this holiday season.
Elizabeth Baird and the Canadian Living Test Kitchen staff received the Silver medal in the English Cookbook Category of this year’s Canadian Culinary Book …

The 2009 Canadian Culinary Book Awards were standing room only. For those who couldn’t attend — and those that did and want to relive the fun — we’ve put together a slide show of the event.
Many thanks go to Laura Berman of Green Fuse Photography for being our photographer for the event and generously allowing us to post the photos here.

Ricardo: Parce qu’on a tous de la visite… (Les Éditions La Presse, Montréal
Written by Ricardo
Reviewed by Amy Proulx
Félicitations Ricardo, pour ton lauréat or, et ton succès avec ton livre « Ricardo : Parce qu’on a tous de la visite… ».  Congratulations Ricardo !  Your new book is fabulous, well deserving of its gold award for best French Language Cookbook in the Cusine Canada Canada 2009 book awards.
C’est pas mal rare que je rie et rigole en lisant un livre de recettes.  Ricardo a écrit ses recettes en savant ce que les jeunes d’aujourd’hui (comme …

Anita Stewart’s Canada (HarperCollins, 2009)
Written by Anita Stewart
Reviewed by Karl Wells

Anita Stewart’s Canada documents an extraordinary culinary journey across Canada. It is an impressive book because its voice is that of someone who demonstrates a deep interest in Canadian food culture. The book’s attractive cover, featuring buttery brioche slathered with blackcurrant preserve, belies the breadth and depth of the book’s rich content. Stewart’s description of ice fishing in Gimli, Manitoba is riveting as she tells of fishing on a frozen lake covered in drifting snow at minus 25 degrees …

The Canadian Culinary Book Awards promise lots of excitement on Friday, November 6th. But once the speeches are over and the reception food gobbled, things really start cooking. Literally.
We have a baker’s dozen of celebrity chefs lined up at the cooking stage. Some of Canada’s best known culinary stars will be sharing their secret ingredients while chef students from Liaison College, Georgian College, Stratford Chefs School and George Brown College prepare a signature dish.
As if that wasn’t enough? At each cooking presentation, six lucky people will win a place at …

(GUELPH, On) Can you judge a book by the cover? The expert panel for Cuisine Canada and the University of Guelph’s Canadian Culinary Book Awards wouldn’t dream of it. To select the best of more than 50 entries, some of Canada’s top food professionals cracked the spine, rolled up their sleeves, tested recipes and read every word. The winners will be announced November 6, 2009, on opening day of the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, in Toronto. This year’s finalists illustrate the range and expertise of Canadian food writers.
Short-listed in the …

Menus from an Orchard Table: Celebrating the Food and Wine of the Okanagan
Written by Heidi Noble
Reviewed by Christina Burridge
Hard to find a better time to re-read this silver medal winner from the 2008 Canadian Culinary Book Awards than the August long weekend when my own Vancouver Island garden is bursting with zucchini, tomatoes, eggplants, peas, beans and potatoes.
A summer visit to the Penticton Farmers Market ultimately led Heidi Noble and husband Michael Dinn to buy an orchard and country farmhouse on the Okanagan Valley’s Naramata Bench, home to some of …

The 2009 Canadian Culinary Book Awards are closer than you think. This summer our judges will be reading, testing and weighing their decisions.
This year, 56 titles vie for top honours. While the subject matter varies widely, all books have met the same publishing criteria and are :

Written by a Canadian author (Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada).
Published by a Canadian publisher or self-published in Canada.
Published between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2008.

If an entry is a revised book, it must meet the above conditions and also contain a …