Dried lavender on Baba Jenny’s sugar spoon

She gave me a knife but I needed a machete.

Recently, after a Sunday supper, Michael’s grandmother sent me into her garden to harvest some fresh herbs to bring home and cook with during the week ahead. I cut chives as long as my forearm and pinched off some green, glossy Genovese basil leaves as ...
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English lavender in my Aunt Janice’s garden

There’s a magical moment that happens when making lavender limeade. It occurs after you have simmered together water, sugar, lavender blossoms, and lime zest to produce a floral-perfumed simple syrup. It happens after you have sliced a little hill of limes in half and divested them of their pulpy, tangy juice. It happens after you ...
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Bathtub basil planter

I snapped this shot in an alleyway just north of Trinity Bellwoods Park during Toronto’s 2007 Alley Jaunt event. I was visiting Michael and the rest of the Wireless Toronto Art Squad and their installation of network “music” and poetry. On the Sunday afternoon, the two of us had slipped away for ...
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Minted white-bean dip

At the risk of making these two dips — white bean and roasted garlic and its fancy cousin, minted white bean (recipes after the jump) — sound completely unappetizing, I want you to know that I think of them as my “Oh, Crap” recipes.

Let me explain.

Let’s say I’m planning a dinner party and get preoccupied with the main course ...
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