Moira Sanders & Lori Elstone: Authors of shortlisted title "The Harrow Fair Cookbook"

Moira Sanders and Lori Elstone, along with Beth Goslin Maloney, are co-authors of The Harrow Fair Cookbook, which was shortlisted in the English Cookbook Category.

Moira Sanders is a fifth-generation native of Harrow, Ontario. After graduating from culinary school, she worked in restaurants across Canada from Meinhardt in Vancouver to Senses in Toronto. Moira now lives in Mount Albert, Ontario with her husband and their two children. She keeps a recipe blog at www.moirasanders.com.

Lori Elstone received her bachelor of science degree from Brock University, as well as graduating from culinary school. She regularly writes food and wine articles for local publications. She lives in St.Catharines, Ontario with her husband and two young children, and is an avid gardener.

What was the biggest challenge you faced in writing/publishing The Harrow Fair Cookbook?
Depends on which one of us you ask! All three of us have young children so trying to make the cookbook a priority was a constant challenge.

What aspect of the book are you most proud?
The recipes. We have had so many wonderful compliments from people telling us that they actually USE the cookbook!

What do you wish you knew before starting the project?
If we would have known how rewarding having our book published was going to be, we would have done it a long time ago.

What advice would you give aspiring culinary authors?
Have a clear vision of who your target consumers are for your book and really stick to it. Writing the book is the first step – then you have to sell it!

Massimo Capra, Michael Bonacini and Jason Parsons: Authors of shortlisted title "3 Chefs"

Michael Bonacini, Massimo Capra and Jason Parsons are co-authors of 3 Chefs, which was short-listed in the English Cookbook Category.

Michael Bonacini is a partner in Oliver & Bonacini Restaurants, which operates a portfolio of stylish, upscale eateries, including Canoe, Auberge du Pommier, Biff’s Bistro, and Jump, each of them starred and acclaimed. Born and raised in Wales, Michael apprenticed under renowned chef Anton Mosimann at Dorchester Hotel in London, England, before coming to Canada to work as executive chef at the Windsor Arms Hotel and then Centro. Michael’s latest projects include Luma
and O&B Canteen, two new restaurants at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, home of the Toronto International Film Festival.

Massimo Capra is one of Canada’s most beloved chefs. Born in Cremona, Italy, Massimo came to Canada in the 1980s, and he was for many years the culinary heart and soul of the renowned Prego della Piazza. He is now the chef and co- owner of Mistura, one of Toronto’s hottest Italian restaurants, a favourite of Hollywood stars and local food lovers alike. Whether appearing on Restaurant Makeover or CityLine, or writing his food columns for the Globe and Mail, he’s known for his sense of mischief and fun as much as for his courtly hospitality.

Jason Parsons heads up the Peller Estates Winery Restaurant, offering delicious locavore cuisine and selections from one of North America’s top vineyards. He has racked up some impressive culinary miles in the United Steatses, England, and Canada. From Langdon Hall in Canad to Chewton Glen in England, and Grand Amsterdam in Holland to Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago, he’s worked with some of the best.

All three chefs appear regularly on City TV’s CityLine.

Answers provided by Massimo Capra:

What was the biggest challenge you faced in writing/publishing this title?
The hangover after all the all the 3chefs meeting at Peller Estate to discuss recipe composition. In reality the difficult part was picking the right balance between all the recipes.

What aspect of the book are you most proud?
The ease of which one can navigate through the pages and find something interesting to read, see or cook. By the way, the recipes are also made for a variety of levels of culinary ability.

What do you wish you knew before starting the project?
How long it took each and every time to organize meetings between three busy chefs to write, organize and promote the book.

What advice would you give aspiring culinary authors?
Keep the public in mind, know your demographics, and go for it.

Jane Mundy: Author of shortlisted title "The Ocean Wise Cookbook"

Jane Mundy is the editor of The Ocean Wise Cookbook, which was shortlisted in the English Cookbook Category.

A freelance writer, editor and photographer based in Vancouver, BC, Jane  writes on a variety of topics, from food and travel to business and legal issues. Her articles have appeared in The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Vancouver Sun, UP Magazine and Western Living Magazine. She also has more than 20 years’ experience as a professional cook.

She currently writes for several newspapers and magazines and is the president of the Travel Media Association of Canada (TMAC) BC Chapter.

What was the inspiration for The Ocean Wise Cookbook?
The Ocean Wise program and the state of our oceans.

What was the biggest challenge you faced in writing/publishing this title?
Rounding up 90 chefs across Canada, making sure I wasn’t getting 90 salmon or tuna recipes, and translating their recipes.

What aspect of the book are you most proud?
The contributors; without their recipes…

What do you wish you knew before starting the project?
How long it was going to take. I thought it would take 6 months. It took over a year.

What advice would you give aspiring culinary authors?
Listen and listen then try to write on a daily basis.

Carolyn Hemming and Patricia Green: Authors of the shortlisted title "Quinoa 365"

Patricia Green
Patricia is a health-conscious mother, balancing family and career while constantly creating nutritious meals tasty enough to please her husband and two active children. Patricia’s post-secondary studies include nutrition, marketing and geography.

Carolyn Hemming
Residing just outside of Toronto, Canada, Carolyn Hemming is dedicated to eating right and being physically active. Always busy balancing career & fitness goals, whether she is travelling on business or training for a marathon, Carolyn seeks foods that provide the right balance of energy and nutrition. A sociology and communications graduate, Carolyn’s critical perspective causes her to evaluate every bit of healthy information.

What was the inspiration for Quinoa 365?
Patricia was cooking quinoa regularly, convinced her sister Carolyn that it was something she should eat often. Once Carolyn tried it, she also loved it and realized how easy it was to cook. The tremendous nutritional benefits of quinoa convinced both of us to begin incorporating it into everything we possibly could, the things we were already eating everyday. There was a lack of recipe ideas out there and everyone had so many quinoa questions, so we felt the need to create a book.

What was the biggest challenge you faced in writing/publishing this title?
The biggest challenge was the distance between Patricia and I when we were writing. Because she lives in Alberta and I live in Toronto, we were collaborating by phone and email much of the time.

What aspect of the book are you most proud?
We are very proud that this is really the first ever comprehensive book solely written about quinoa. We are so impressed by how much this book has changed people’s lives. We love hearing the stories from readers on how they are so surprised they can improve their eating by using quinoa. We love hearing about how the book helped improve a triathlete’s best competitive times, how it has helped those who can’t eat gluten now eat better than before, helped folks lose weight, get their kids to eat better, have husbands stealing the food to take to poker night, and has impressed everyone attending their holiday feast.

What do you wish you knew before starting the project?
There is nothing that we really wish we knew before. We are very grateful for how successful this book is, we are most thankful. It is a fantastic reward that readers are so happy with it.

What advice would you give aspiring culinary authors?
Consult industry experts, know your market and forge relationships within the industry.

Meeru Dhalwala and Vikram Vij: Authors of shortlisted title "Vij's at Home: Relax, Honey"

Meeru Dhalwala and Vikram Vij are the authors of Vij’s at Home: Relax Honey, which was short-listed in the English Cookbook Category.

Meeru Dhalwala was born in India, and grew up in Washington, DC, where she worked with various interna­tional non-profit organizations on human rights and economic develop­ment projects. Upon moving to Vancouver to join Vikram in 1995, she quickly took over the menu and has been creating new recipes ever since. Meeru continues to work closely with her all-female kitchen staff—all of whom hail from villages in the Punjab—to experiment with various cooking techniques and spice combinations. Meeru’s particular interest and focus at Vij’s and Rangoli is to forge business relationships with other local businesses and farmers. She is committed to improving her business environmental footprint.

Vikram Vij was born in India and grew up in Amritsar and Mumbai. He studied hotel management in Salzburg, Austria, before moving to Canada to work at the Banff Springs Hotel. He opened the original 14-seat Vij’s Restaurant in Vancouver in 1994. In early 1995, his wife, Meeru Dhalwala, joined him. In 2002, Vikram and Meeru opened up a second restaurant and market called Rangoli. Together they manage a staff of over 70 employees. Vikram is a certified Sommelier and is passionate about encouraging people to enjoy wine as they do food, and to engage in learning about the growing of grapes and the production of wine as they would any other food source.

Answers provided by Meeru Dhalwala:

What was the inspiration for  Vij’s at Home?
I was actually lacking a defined inspiration for Relax, Honey for a long time. Just because we both had recipes didn’t mean I had a fun and meaningful format in which to present them.  Finally, my inspiration hit in the form of an ongoing argument between me and Vikram and fixing this argument by going out and buying a dining table and making a dining room in our house after over 10 years of not having one. The inspiration was this:  my marriage and family is no different from anyone else’s with our bickering and our joys — even if the bickering and joys of our family was comprised of two professional chefs who have food a big part of their home life. My dining table suddenly connected me to the public at large, as if I were now part of an important club.

What was the biggest challenge you faced when publishing/writing this book?
We didn’t want a part 2 Vij’s cookbook, but we wanted a continuation of our intertwined professional and personal lives in a new dialogue.  The second cookbook wasn’t meant to impress but to encourage and to relate. My challenge was to write as if I were talking to the cook/reader as my neighbour and/or friend versus as a customer who pays to be wowed by our restaurant food. Well, I knew I wanted to write my dialogue in that casual way, but I didn’t want it to read as if I were trying too hard. I wanted to encourage the reader from far away in the same way I encourage another parent at my kids’ school — the way other parents encourage me to give vegetable gardening a try.

What aspect of the book are you most proud?
I feel it in my heart that I succeeded in achieving the dialogue with our reader and that I was able to relay my family’s true food culture at home. The last thing Vikram and I wanted was a cookbook that implicitly or explicitly says: “Look how smugly food hip we are.” The other challenge was to figure out a way to have photographs of my daughters without them being overly exposed.

What do you wish you knew before you started this project?
We did all the food photography at our home, in our kitchen and dining room. It only made sense.  But I didn’t realize how much stuff would be all over the place in my house for long periods of time and how much work it would actually be in terms of clean up!  It was worth it, but next time I’ll be better organized.  For the first cookbook, we did all the photographs at the restaurant with our kitchen and staff readily available to help out.

What advice would you give aspiring culinary authors?
The dialogue and ambiance of your writing, and the potential relationship that dialogue creates between you and the reader is crucial in terms encouraging people to cook and relate to your recipes.  The dialogue is what frames your recipes for success.  So work hard on expressing your feelings as much as you would on the actual recipe.  But you have to get a balance so that you don’t overdo this dialogue.  I was sure to include “relax, honey” in the title because I do think we all need to relax more, including when we write.

Austin Clement (left), Jeff McCourt (middle), Allan Williams (right): Co-authors of short-listed title "The Flavours of Prince Edward Island"

Flavours of Prince Edward Island is co-authored by Jeff McCourt, Allan Williams and Austin Clement. It’s short-listed in the Canadian Culinary Culture category.

Island-born Jeff McCourt is the vice president of the PEI Association of Chefs and Cooks. Jeff served as sous chef to Chef Michael Smith for five years before becoming executive chef at The Mountain Lodge and Spa at Delphi in the west of Ireland. He is now the chef at Red Shores Racetrack and Casino.

Allan Williams is president of the Association and a research chef at Canada’s Smartest Kitchen, a division of the Culinary Institute of Canada located in Charlottetown.

Austin Clement is the program manager for the culinary and hospitality programs at the Culinary Institute of Canada.

Answers provided by Austin Clement.

What was the inspiration for this book?
My inspiration has always come from the amazing ingredients we have here on Prince Edward Island. We have such a close knit group of artisan farmers, fishers and producers that play a huge role in the food we create. P.E.I. really is a chef’s paradise. Inspiration is unavoidable!

What was the biggest challenge you faced in writing/publishing this title?
Logistics! Our book was an eight-month marathon. Lining up the photo shoots, the stories and the recipes was challenging. On some days we would be lying on our stomachs in a field among a herd of cattle to get the perfect shot in the morning, and then standing in a lobster boat fifty miles away after lunch. Truly a labor of love, and love it we did!

What aspect of the book are you most proud?
The stories. I think we really captured the food stories of P.E.I.. I think readers can sense the genuine connection that chefs have with the food culture that effects us the most. Our book was a great realignment of our philosophies and the emotions that define us as chefs. The photography is also something I am really proud of. It is refreshing to find someone (James Ingram) who really “gets” our food and can translate it so accurately through a lens.

What do you wish you knew before starting the project?
How much time and effort a project like this takes. True sweat and tears!

What advice would you give aspiring culinary authors?
Jump in with both feet, but be sure you know who you are as a chef. The value is in the story and experience you bring to the food, not the recipe itself.

Kootenay Country Store Cooperative: Authors of short-listed title "Seasonings"

Seasonings began with a January email from Nelson Library adult services coordinator Anne DeGrace to Kootenay Co-op marketing manager Jocelyn Carver. As editors of what developed into a community project, neither is willing to take credit, except to say that Anne loves writing and Jocelyn loves food, and vice versa — and so a literary cookbook made great sense to these two long-time friends. From that moment forward, Seasonings became the celebratory sum of its parts as dozens of cooks and scribes came forward, submitting recipes, poems, stories, and essays celebrating gardens, growing, seasons, and food.

Designer Steven Cretney and food photographer Heather Goldsworthy were similarly caught in the vision. Could we submit biographies of everyone who made this book happen? We didn’t think so. This, then, will have to suffice: a metaphorical group portrait, with food.

Answers provided by Jocelyn Carver and Anne DeGrace:

What was the inspiration for Seasons?
There were just so many inspirations! Seasonings was an opportunity for our public library and our local food cooperative to join forces on a project that spoke to two important local (and national) passions: writing and food! We were also truly amazed by the sheer number of people who volunteered their time and skills to make this project happen. It took a community to raise this cookbook; a community of world-class designers, photographers, writers, and foodsmiths.

What was the biggest challenge you faced in writing/publishing this title?
Choosing content was hard. We had far more submissions for the literary and culinary aspects of Seasonings than we could accommodate—and they were all good. We also discovered that every cook writes their recipes in a unique way that reflects how they think and cook. Working with recipe contributors to find a common way of formatting recipes was a painstaking journey.

What aspect of the book are you most proud
Seasonings is a testimony to the talent and passion of our region. We’re proud of the caliber of recipes, writing, photographs and design showcased in its pages. What began as a much humbler project became a beautiful book that all of the contributors treasure. As a book that celebrates our seasons and the things that are grown locally, it’s all about place and the people who live here—from the people who grow food to the people to cook it, from the people who photograph it to the people who write about it.

In addition to being a literary cookbook, Seasonings is also a fundraiser for our local library. All the proceeds from the sale of the book are donated to the library. Since October 2010 we’ve raised almost $15,000. This means that everyone who helped create the book and everyone who buys the book is investing in our community. That feels good.

What do you wish you knew before starting the project?
How much time it would take! We both took this on as part of our jobs—Jocelyn as marketing manager for the Co-op, me as adult services coordinator for the Library—and had to work to keep the project from taking over everything, happy as that scenario might have been to us both personally.

What advice would you give aspiring culinary authors?
Feel the passion. Let it translate onto the page…and maybe give yourself more than 6 months to get it to print!