What’s your weakness? Dessert or mains?
I am good at conceiving dessert dishes, but lack the practice to always do them well.

Who or what got you interested in food?
I have enjoyed cooking since watching my mother make evening meals…it was my brother who said I should become a chef.

What inspires you?
Ingredients and where they come from.

What was your favourite dinner when you were a kid? Do you like it now?
My mother’s lasagna…and yes, I still love it!

What’s the first dish you remember making?
Breakfast in bed for my parents when I was 10…scrambled eggs and toast.

Proudest food-related moment?
Representing Nova Scotia at the first Canadian Chef’s Congress in 2008 at Eigensinn Farm.

Strangest food you’ve ever eaten?
Rattlesnake…I had to spit it out.

Favourite sound in the kitchen?
Deglazing a hot pan with wine.

Favourite cooking smell?
Frying onions.

Quintessential Canadian dish?
Tourtiere pie.

Molecular gastronomy, best thing ever or the unwearable haute couture of food?
I think it is well done by only a few chefs around the world. Everyone else should just…stop it already!

Cilantro — can’t get enough or tastes like soap?
Love it actually.

What local foods can’t you live without?
Maple syrup, lobster, oysters, potatoes.

What’s your greatest culinary extravagance?
When I travel I spare no expense on food in restaurants. I will eat anywhere if I think it’s worth the experience. Money is no object.

Most over-rated kitchen gadget?
Almost any hand-held knife sharpener. Only a whetstone works.

What’s the most treasured possession in your kitchen? Why?
My handmade wooden cutting board. Made by a Valley man at 88 years old. I hate chopping on plastic or glass boards, but the sentimental value is even greater.

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

If you could cook for anyone, alive or dead, who would it be and why?
My Uncle John. He passed away before I became a chef and he loved to cook. He would absolutely be thrilled with my chosen career.

What would you prepare for him/her?
A 10-course tasting menu of my best dishes of the past 10 years…and lots of lobster, his favourite.

What  was the last thing you ate?
A homemade meatloaf and aged cheddar panini.

If you had to work outside the culinary field, what would you do?
I would be a very unhappy and hungry artist.

Who or what got you interested in food?
Globe-trotting.

What inspires you?
Farmers Markets, Fair Trade ingredients.

What was your favourite dinner when you were a kid? Do you like it now?
Cheese blintzes. Yes.

What’s the first dish you remember making?
Lasagna.

Proudest food-related moment?
Cooking my placenta.

Strangest food you’ve ever eaten?
Natto. (Editor’s note: Natto is a traditional Japanese food made from soybeans fermented with Bacillus subtilis.)

Favourite sound in the kitchen?
The timer.

Favourite cooking smell?
Cinnamon baking.

Quintessential Canadian dish?
Root vegetable gratin.

Molecular gastronomy, best thing ever or the unwearable haute couture of food?
It requires too much time.

Cilantro — can’t get enough or tastes like soap?
Delicious.

What local foods can’t you live without?
Apples, maple syrup, cucumbers.

What’s your greatest culinary extravagance?
Spanish extra virgin olive oil.

Most over-rated kitchen gadget?
Apple corer.

What’s the most treasured possession in your kitchen? Why?
My chef’s knife. The steel is spectacular.

If you could cook for anyone, alive or dead, who would it be and why?
Dalai lama- I admire him and he has a tough gig, non violent  in the face of a military occupation.

What would you prepare for him/her?
Cashew Nut Butter Curried Tofu with Leafy Greens.

What  was the last thing you ate?
Quinoa Chili.

If you had to work outside the culinary field, what would you do?
I would make maps.

What’s your weakness? Dessert or mains?
Breakfast.

Who or what got you interested in food?
Family: a long line of food growers and good cooks.

What inspires you?
Nature.

What was your favourite dinner when you were a kid? Do you like it now?
Fresh-caught fish — still my favourite.

What’s the first dish you remember making?
Ketchup sandwich, age 4.

Proudest food-related moment?
Mama’s apple strudle featured on Les Pieds dans les Plats, with Josée di Stasio and Daniel Pinard, viewed by most Quebeckers.

Strangest food you’ve ever eaten?
Summer porcupine stew.

Favourite sound in the kitchen?
“It’s ready!”

Favourite cooking smell?
Basil on melted cheddar, done in the microwave.

Quintessential Canadian dish?
Fruit crisp, cobbler or buckle– in season.

Molecular gastronomy, best thing ever or the unwearable haute couture of food?
I believe that science should focus on a green food revolution.

Cilantro — can’t get enough or tastes like soap?
Love it. Grow it. Think of a sunny beaches when mincing it.

What local foods can’t you live without?
Tomatoes, basil. Wild mushrooms. Apples. Pears. Plums. Raspberries. All things I grow.

What’s your greatest culinary extravagance?
It’s a rare treat to match an interesting meal with a fine Zin or Reisling at a really good restaurant.

Most over-rated kitchen gadget?
Anything that is difficult to clean.

What’s the most treasured possession in your kitchen? Why?
Mapleware cooking utensils, eating tools, and cutting bowls. Because I have built a life around them.

Fill in the blank. If I never cooked / ate / heard about  ___________ again, I’d be happy.
Fast food.

If you could cook for anyone, alive or dead, who would it be and why?
Michaelle Jean and Jean Lafond because I am impressed by their understanding of the importance of supporting a distinct Canadian Cuisine.

What would you prepare for him/her?
Barbequed arctic char; potato and swiss chard roasted in duck fat; fresh garden tomato–to be eaten with Tines; Margaret Dickenson’s Cherry Nut Clusters; Brandied Plums (but in Slivovica).

If you had to work outside the culinary field, what would you do?
Grow more mushrooms.

Who or what got you interested in food?
In my family, food was a big part of all occasions. Despite my forays into fast food, I’ve always felt food and feasting to be a unifying activity, for oneself, family and for creating community anywhere. Many of my best memories include food, especially being taught certain recipes by my mother.

What inspires you?
Great music, singing, and anything with garlic in it.

What was your favourite dinner when you were a kid? Do you like it now?
My mom made a lot of chicken, my favourite recipe was when she used Lipton soup mix with mustard and stuff as the coating. I wouldn’t eat it today.

What’s the first dish you remember making?
I was 8. Kraft Dinner. It exhausted me.

Proudest food-related moment?
I’m very proud of the cooking workshops I run at Dundurn Castle. Groups of people all making food on the wood range, chopping laughing, eating. Always exciting and rewarding.

Strangest food you’ve ever eaten?
Blood pudding (loved it), chicken feet (loved it), and one VERY hot bean in a soup (nearly killed me).

Favourite sound in the kitchen?
My husband doing dishes.

Favourite cooking smell?
Onions frying or bread baking… or anything garlicky.

Quintessential Canadian dish?
Maple anything: ice cream, tea, dressing, syrup, candies. In, on, or under….

Molecular gastronomy, best thing ever or the unwearable haute couture of food?
The science of cooking is interesting, can improve food safety and nutrition, but, I like cooking…with a fire…and can enjoy eating without the science.

Cilantro — can’t get enough or tastes like soap?
Love it…. could put it on everything, but my husband hates it. So I’m limited.

What local foods can’t you live without?
Bread, maple, berries and tomatoes, some fab local cheese, and the chicken wings at the place by the park.

What’s your greatest culinary extravagance?
It use to be sushi, but it has become less extravagant lately.  I love a fine steak, and great seafood.

Most over-rated kitchen gadget?
Although I am quite attached to my hand blender, someone bought me a Jamie Oliver hand held seasoning crusher thing, with a ball in it that you shake (much more vigourously than I can) to combine things like garlic and pepper and such. …never use it, don’t understand why it exists.

What’s the most treasured possession in your kitchen? Why?
My chef’s knife. I love chopping through things with it…it’s like buttah! (The food processor sits in the corner.)

Fill in the blank. If I never cooked / ate / heard about  ______ again, I’d be happy.
Tripe.
If you could cook for anyone, alive or dead, who would it be and why?
My maternal grandmother.  She died when I was four, but her love for cooking was passed down to me through my mom and aunt. She’d be so happy. And so would I.

What would you prepare for him/her?
She’d be most impressed with a full menu for Passover supper, with all the traditional recipes and ingredient restrictions. I’d make things like chicken soup with matza balls and kishkas.

What  was the last thing you ate?
Rice with veggies and eggs and herbs and salsa…a mish mash.

If you had to work outside the culinary field, what would you do?
I worked in social services for 17 years before museums, and I have lots of respect for the work. I’d be happy to return to it.

What’s your weakness? Dessert or mains?
Are you kidding??  BOTH!!!!!

Who or what got you interested in food?
Like any aficionado it’s in my blood.

What inspires you?
CREATIVITY!  My role in life however is to appreciate the creativity of others.  I love eating!  But when it comes to the business of food – that is where my redeeming qualities lie.

What was your favourite dinner when you were a kid? Do you like it now?
As a kid many of our meals were prepared the way that was taught in the 50’s – boil the crap (and nutrition) out of it.  As a result I hated most vegetables until my wife’s grandmother enlightened me in my early twenties.

What’s the first dish you remember making?
Caesar salad from scratch, included the bacon bits and croutons and one or two secret ingredients!

Proudest food-related moment?
In Brantford, while I was running Lynden Park Mall there back in the early ’80s, there was a restaurant there, the Rain Forest that served a melt-in-your-mouth steak Neptune.  I loved it so much that I learned how to make it myself and enjoyed showing it off to family and friends the first time.  They’re still our friends so it must have been OK.

Strangest food you’ve ever eaten?
Lots to choose from here, but Prairie Oysters (buffalo testicles) have to rank right up there.

Favourite sound in the kitchen?
“Let me do the dishes!”

Favourite cooking smell?
I love garlic, and for some reason turnips – I actually think I like the aroma of cooking turnips more than the taste of them.  That ever happen to you?

Quintessential Canadian dish?
Cedar plank smoked salmon, seared perfectly outside, tender and juicy inside with clean separation.  And root beer – ask for it in some states and they think you’re nuts!

Molecular gastronomy, best thing ever or the unwearable haute couture of food?
Sort of like the “alchemy” of food.  I can see where some chefs could spend their whole lives searching for the perfect “explosion” of taste resulting from an ideal combination of some long-researched ingredients. Fusion is pretty much the mainstream version of this and I gotta tell ya – sometimes I love it and sometimes my worst expectations are realized.

Cilantro — can’t get enough or tastes like soap?
Like my grandma always said – everything in moderation.

What local foods can’t you live without?
Corn and St. Albert cheese curds!

What’s your greatest culinary extravagance?
I could tell you – but then…

Most over-rated kitchen gadget?
Those silly, clunky one-motion cork screws.  I feel like an oil rigger trying to get that gadget wrapped around the bottle neck – takes all the elegance out of dinner.

What’s the most treasured possession in your kitchen?
My knives.

Fill in the blank. If I never cooked / ate / heard about  ______ again, I’d be happy.
Ahhh well, I’m afraid I am definitely in the minority here – I hate mushrooms – of any kind and in any form.  They’re right up there with mosquitoes!

If you could cook for anyone, alive or dead, who would it be and why?
I don’t know about cooking, but I would love to have enjoyed a meal with Pavarotti – a man who knew how to live life well.

What  was the last thing you ate?
Chicken penne and I asked Chef to add some curry – fabulous! And the wine was great too – a silky smooth glass of “M” from Mondavi!

If you had to work outside the culinary field, what would you do?
I live in the culinary field but I work outside of it – or rather in the financial aspects of it pertaining to providing opportunities for food developers to get their product to Market – The Forks Market.

Dean Tudor is Ryerson University Journalism Professor Emeritus and the author of  the book Finding Answers. He taught Canadian news media, law and ethics, and computer-assisted reporting and research. He has been writing about beverage alcohol and food since 1968. His articles and books were published in the USA by Libraries Unlimited, R. R. Bowker, Library Journal, and American Library Association. His books Wines, Beers and Spirits and Cooking for Entertainment both won American Library Association reference literature awards. Dean produces his World Wine Watch Online and has two blogs, Gothic Epicures and his award-winning wine satire site Faux Voix VinCuisine.

What’s your weakness? Dessert or mains?
Savouries: I lust for herbs and flavours found in appetizers and cheeses. I could eat small plates all day long. It must be my wine mentality.

Who or what got you interested in food?
Going to Europe opened my taste buds. Then I spent my first full-time paycheque on wine and food, both being upgrades over my usual food budget. I wanted to see what food was all about. After that, the sky was the limit. Eventually, to pay for my habit, I had to get some writing gigs.

What inspires you?
My wife Ann’s cooking. Luckily, she apparently thrives on my accolades and bouquets. She cooks from scratch. When we married we set up some ground rules in the kitchen since she loves to cook. I promised to be her sous-chef and later, when I retired, I also took over all the pots and pans on a regular basis.

What was your favourite dinner when you were a kid? Do you like it now?
My grandmother was Italian-born, so my mum made a lot of peasant-style Italian food. My fave would have to be polenta with tomato sauce and grated Parmesan. I still love it, but I have branched out to variations with pesto, grilled polenta, or creamy Gorgonzola.

What’s the first dish you remember making?
Sandwiches I made as a kid (I made a killer fried egg sandwich) and stuff like that. My adult period:  date squares, Western sandwiches, any kind of soup.

Proudest food-related moment?
I’ve got two. One: just after we met, Ann (a gal from the Midwest who believed that I was some food and wine hotshot from Down East) made me some dynamite buttery croissants from scratch. But she didn’t know I had already fallen in love with her. And two: the sous-chef compromise (above) was a dealmaker.

Strangest food you’ve ever eaten?
I’m not that adventuresome. The most bizarre (at least to me) was in Nice in 1969. I had a Plateau de Fruits de Mer  (clams, oysters, mussels, periwinkles, unidentified other bivalves or crustaceans). It came with a couple of cut lemons. So I squeezed a lemon clockwise around the plate, and everybody twitched in clockwise fashion. To this day, I still cannot say “everything on the plate” — it has to be “everybody” since they were so obviously still alive.

Favourite sound in the kitchen?
A lid being placed on the top of a pot. The worst sound is someone cleaning the pots and pans since that is my job.

Favourite cooking smell?
All of them, but maybe butter and cooked sugar. I may talk about how I love savouries, but I also love the smell of sweets cooking.

Quintessential Canadian dish?
For me, tourtiere.

Molecular gastronomy, best thing ever or the unwearable haute couture of food?
If you can duplicate it in the home kitchen, then it’s okay. Otherwise, leave it to the commercial establishments. Currently, it is overwrought. I’m just waiting for the next big thing, which at one time was supposed to be microgreens, but they never really got out of the ground.

Cilantro — can’t get enough or tastes like soap?
You know, cilantro really is the dividing line between foodies. You either like it or you don’t. Personally, I prefer coriander (joke).

What local foods can’t you live without?
It is easier to list what I don’t like. Usually, I am on a seafood diet: I see food and I eat it. If you pinned me down, it has to be basil, all kinds of nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant) and lilies (onions, garlic, leeks), local cheeses, Red Fife flour.

What’s your greatest culinary extravagance?
Spending money on top quality food in a top quality restaurant. It doesn’t happen very often. We used to go to Joso’s in Toronto for fish at lunch. All we would have is one whole fish EACH. No apps, sides, desserts, beverages (except one Perrier) — couldn’t get out for under $130 (including taxes and tips).

Also, on my 50th birthday I hired my son-in-law, a chef who now owns Tempest Restaurant in Wolfville, NS, to construct a meal (and cook it) for 10 friends of mine. I supplied the wines.

Most over-rated kitchen gadget?
A chef’s knife. Just kidding. Actually, that’s a hard question. For us, it would have to be a microwave. There’s nothing a microwave does that can’t be done better with a real stove.

What’s the most treasured possession in your kitchen? Why?
Any sharp knife, or a decent medium-sized spatula. You can do a million things with a sharp paring knife. A commercial Garland gas stove is a close second.

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

If you could cook for anyone, alive or dead, who would it be and why?
Probably one of the de’ Medici. Then I would be forced to taste (yea!) my own food under penalty of death. Seriously, I have no idea.  Probably my  mother; I never did cook much for her when she was alive. So, call it guilt.

What would you prepare for him/her?
Surely something simple, nourishing, and full of taste. How about polenta with pesto sauce?

What  was the last thing you ate?
For lunch today, I had some blue cheese with a cake made from dried fruit and nuts, held together with a little flour and eggs. My second course was Parmigiano-Reggiano with chewy homemade Red Fife breakfast crunchies.

If you had to work outside the culinary field, what would you do?
I’m principally a wine writer, so I would concentrate more on that area. Also, film criticism has appealed to me.

What’s your weakness? Dessert or mains?
Mains.

Who or what got you interested in food?
My mother — she hated cooking and I knew I’d better love it if I wanted to eat well.

What inspires you?
Fresh tomatoes, mushrooms, pasta, sauces.

What was your favourite dinner when you were a kid? Do you like it now?
Grandma’s meatloaf – made with two cans of soup and a pound of “ground round”. I still love it.

What’s the first dish you remember making?
Jello with canned pears. My mother threw it out.

Proudest food-related moment?
Graduating from University in Home Economics.

Strangest food you’ve ever eaten?
A meal in Istanbul a couple of years ago. I still don’t know what it was.

Favourite sound in the kitchen?
The dishwasher “doing its thing.”

Favourite cooking smell?
Pickles being made.

Quintessential Canadian dish?
Salmon and fiddleheads, grilled on the barbecue.

Cilantro — can’t get enough or tastes like soap?
Can’t get enough.

What local foods can’t you live without?
Fresh local strawberries and fresh local tomatoes.

What’s your greatest culinary extravagance?
Cream and butter (in small amounts) rather than an edible oil topping and margarine.

Most over-rated kitchen gadget?
Garborator.

What’s the most treasured possession in your kitchen? Why?
A rocking chair made by my grandfather and brought from Newfoundland to Toronto in 1920. It sat in my grandparent’s kitchen, then my mothers, now mine, and it’s still used every day.

Fill in the blank. If I never cooked / ate / heard about  __________ again, I’d be happy.
Liver.

If you could cook for anyone, alive or dead, who would it be and why?
Pierre Trudeau, because I think he probably had an educated palate and would appreciate small amounts of great food.

What would you prepare for him/her?
Either peppercorn steak with garlic potatoes and green beans or a lobster dish with a butter sauce.

What  was the last thing you ate?
Oatmeal porridge and homemade brown bread.

If you had to work outside the culinary field, what would you do?
Write.