All the planning in the world won’t help you in Candy Land. Win, lose – your fate lies in the shuffling of the deck, and the luck of the draw. But, as you drift down the rainbow road, you’ll find yourself in delicious worlds like Peppermint Forest,  Gumdrop Mountain, Princess

Happy Halloween! As we traipse about the house in our costumes, let’s take a moment to appreciate Canadian-born candies. What does it say about our culture that we are the inventors of a gum whose tagline reads: ‘It still tastes like soap’? They may think us mad, but many of

No matter how obscure the task – how to re-attach GI Joe’s legs, how to dress like a Hobbit, how to meow like a cat – You Tube has a tutorial. But, decades before PayPal alumni Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim birthed their video-sharing behemoth, companies were offering how-to tutorials

Chocolate, sour cherries, sponge cake, kirsch, whipping cream, dark chocolate curls. What’s not to like? Black Forest cake – or Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte –   gets its name from Schwarzwälder Kirsch, a sour cherry liqueur distilled in Germany. Some say that the inspiration for this 16th Century sweet came from the Bollenhut, a heavily

Comtesse d’Haussonville, created in 1845 by Jean-August-Dominique Ingrés, is one of the most popular paintings at New York’s beautiful Frick Museum. What might historical admirers drink whilst pondering her challenging gaze? Absinthe: the much-banned, heavily alcoholic green spirit first produced in Switzerland and crafted from a mix of botanicals that include

Amaretto – ‘little bitter’,  the liqueur you might know from the Amaretto Sour, The Godfather, Blueberry Tea – is reputed to be the result of a surprise romance between a 16th Century artist and his widow Madonna muse. In 1525, Bernardino Luini  was brought in to paint frescoes for Santa

As the sun warms our bubbles, we Canadians are in the mood for ice-cream. The flavour that fascinates us most in 2020? Banana. This according to Google Canada’s 2020 list of Ice Cream search trends. . .. When it comes to Canadian cities seeking ice-cream intel,  Vancouver comes in at

‘Are there any tea-cakes?’ asked the young mistress. I was excited to unearth a 115 year-old cookbook, pre-Covid, in a second-hand Vancouver bookstore. Books And My Food was written by Elizabeth Luther Cary and Annie M. Jones. It features both literary quotes – Dickens, Austen, Thackeray, Bronte – and original recipes

With Canada Day approaching on July 1st, we spoke to talented chocolatier Glenn Knowles, owner of Gem Chocolates.. i. What are 6 adjectives that come to your mind when you hear the word ‘Canada?’ “Big, diverse, welcoming, peaceful, patriotic, flexible.” . ii. What are some unique things you have noticed

It’s like one of those bare bones recipes from Paul and Mary’s technical challenges. ‘Make the dough and prove. Make the filling with all the ingredients, apart from the baking powder, then rest.’ But this isn’t the Great British Bake Off. This is 1900 Canada and Mrs. Malcolm MacLeod is