Julia Aitken has been a food writer and editor for more than 30 years. Her latest book is 125 Best Entertaining Recipes (Robert Rose). Julia lives in Toronto with her husband.
What’s your weakness? Dessert or mains?
Mains… Unless the dessert is the finest quality homemade ice cream.
Who or what got you interested in food?
My mother. Despite having no formal culinary training she was a great cook and adventurous as all get out. She was forever bringing home bargains (conger eel and lambs’ testicles are two I remember) that she’d never cooked …

By Dana McCauley
Quite often food trends trickle down from the foodservice world to the grocery realm. Consider balsamic vinegar. In the 1980s when Cal-Ital restaurants become popular, this was a new and exotic ingredient that home cooks quickly started asking for at the grocery store. Today balsamic vinegar is a kitchen staple and sold in even well-stocked convenience stores. The modern equivalent is black garlic, which as 2009 dawned was brand new to most chefs but is now, less than 18 months later, available at chain grocers such as Longo’s …

Interviews, like so many things in life, often involve paperwork. Before your appearance, the media outlet may require some preliminary information. As one friend always says, “Enquiring minds got to know!”
The amount of pre-interview information varies depending on the type and length of the interview and the media outlet. For some stations, your original news release or media letter along with a copy of your cookbook, recipes, restaurant menu, cooking class schedule or product may be all that’s required.
With radio interviews, especially for first-time guests, a pre-interview may be requested. …

Writer, photographer, award-winning author, Pat Crocker from Neustadt, ON is passionate about food, gardens and herbs. She loves her work as a culinary herbalist and asks, “In what other profession would one be encouraged to wander alone in gardens; grow and cook with herbs; write about these and other culinary wonders, and tell others about those pleasures?” Winner of the Herb Society of America’s Literary Excellence Award and Best in the World for her Juicing Bible (1998) and her Vegan Cook’s Bible (2009), Pat has nine published cookbooks to her …

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 …

Cuisine Canada member Pat Crocker recently won a Gourmand World Cookbook Award in Paris, France. Her recent book, The Vegan Cook’s Bible (Robert Rose) took top honours as the Best Vegetarian Cookbook in the World.
For Crocker, this is  her second big Gourmand win. Her book, The Juicing Bible,  also won Best in the World in 2000.
Awarded the Gertrude Foster Award for Excellence in Herbal Literature from the Herb Society of America in 2009 and a Gold Medal from Books for Better Living, Crocker seems to know the recipe for success.
When …

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. …

UPDATE:  According to Julie’s Twitter account, the book has raised more than $10,000 in its first few hours of existence.
Less than three weeks ago, Cuisine Canada member Julie Van Rosendaal sent an email out to the food writing community to see if there was interest in compiling a cookbook to raise funds for Haiti. There was. And today Blog Aid: Recipes for Haiti is available for purchase. The turn around time on this project is breath-taking. So is the passion behind it.
You can watch the project unfold on Julie’s blog, …

Micheline Mongrain-Dontigny is a teacher, cookbook author, food historian and lecturer. She is also the author of the bilingual web site Les Éditions La Bonne Recette, a French-language blog Cuisiner avec Micheline Mongrain Dontigny and the coordinator of the Canadian Culinary Cookbook Awards.
What’s your weakness? Dessert or mains?
Really fresh fish and seafood, couscous, and traditional dishes of Italy, France, England, Canada and Quebec.
As for desserts I like sugar pie and fruit desserts such as kuchen. But the best memory for dessert is the Britany Kouing Aman — absolutely delicious. I’ve never …

There’s less than a month left to submit nominations to the 2010 Canadian Culinary Book Awards. Deadline for submissions is February 16, 2010.
Hosted by Cuisine Canada and the University of Guelph, these annual awards recognize excellence and creativity in food and beverage writing and publishing. Not only do these awards promote our Canadian culinary food culture, they celebrate Canadian authors and publishers.
Are you eligible?

Books must be written by a Canadian author who is either a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada.
Books must be published by a Canadian publisher or …