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Marble Quad Tray 18Karat - Doris Cheung

Go, Go {Kitchen} Gadget: 2 Top Products

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Sweet solutions for ripening and peeling your favourite fruits and veggies.

Marble Quad Tray 18Karat - Doris CheungMONEY WELL SPENT | With so many kitchen gizmos out there, you’d have thought that someone, somewhere would have long ago designed an attractive receptacle for ripening market-hard fruit on a windowsill. You can find clear plastic fruit ripening bowls, of course, dome-lidded containers that sweeten up a pile of fruits simultaneously (doubly quick when you add a banana to the mix), but I find these products cumbersome counter hogs. What I want is something that will tuck up out of the way on my windowsill and ripen just a few fruits—pears, tomatoes, avocados, the occasional cantaloupe or pineapple—in natural sunlight; something that looks attractive empty. Read more

Dorie Greenspan's French Apple Cake

Dorie Greenspan’s Apple Cake Is Easy

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Taking over from Julia Child, Dorie Greenspan offers contemporary French cooking for those with more taste than time.

Dorie Greenspan's French Apple Cake

 

EASY & DELISH | In a world awash in cookbooks filled with pretty pictures and recipes that come up flat, Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan, published last fall, reads and eats like a classic—a book that will do for contemporary French cooking what Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking did for Cordon Bleu. Read more

Bosa Food Products - C. Phaisalakani

Could Bosa Foods Be Our Italian Costco?

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Could Bosa Foods be the “Italian Costco?” In some ways it certainly is.

Bosa Food Products - C. PhaisalakaniSHOPPING AROUND | In 1960, when my grandmother lived two blocks up from the original Bosa Foods on Victoria Drive, I remember being a curious five-year-old suburban kid standing in the store, totally in awe, wishing I had easy access to so many noodles back in Burnaby.

Bosa has been selling an unrivalled selection of imported Italian specialties since 1957, and in 2006 finally opened a spacious second store off Boundary Road near 1st Avenue. Called the “Italian Costco” by some, the new store has a very un-Costco-like Tuscan bell tower, but the description does fit the generous supply and variety of free samples—cheeses, biscotti, mini cannolis, pizza and breads—offered. Read more

Nu Food Cart Souvlaki

Carmen Ruiz y Laza Shares Her Vancouver

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Media relations maven and woman about town Carmen Ruiz y Laza shares her sources for looking good and living well without breaking the bank.

Nu Food Cart SouvlakiA hyper-connected media relations specialist with clients who have ranged from Cartier and Hermès to the Vancouver Opera and United Way, Carmen Ruiz y Laza knows what’s what and who’s who in Vancouver. As a producer of high-profile events like the Fashionista’s Ball (see our story here), she always needs to be well-turned out. Originally from Spain, Carmen follows the old European tradition of wearing timeless classics. She invests in a few really good quality items in neutral colours and wears them for years. Here are her five cheap, free or worth-it things to do, see or buy in Vancouver. Read more

Vista d'Oro jam

Celebrities Pick Foods They Use In a Pinch

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Vancouver’s top chefs, cooking instructors and food writers weigh in on the tinned, packaged and frozen products they reach for in a pinch.

Vista d'Oro jamSAVE TIME | Much as we might like to make every dish we eat from scratch, we don’t always have the time to do it. Even top food professionals cheat with premade products on occasion, which is why we asked three top foodies—critics, writers, chefs and instructors—to reveal the tinned, packaged or frozen ingredients they reach for  in a pinch. Read more

beet & paneer salad

Make Bal Arneson’s Yummy Beet Salad

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Celebrity chef and “Spice Goddess” Bal Arneson whips up an adventurous summer salad — plus fresh cheese in under 20 minutes!

beet & paneer saladDINNER IN A MINUTE | Quick and healthy may not be the first words most of us would use to describe Indian cuisine, but “healthy, aromatic and delicious meals that are quickly and easily prepared” were the mainstay of Vancouver bestselling cookbook author Bal Arneson’s childhood diet in India, and they are the focus of her recently released second cookbook Bal’s Quick & Healthy Indian. Read more

Classic Whoopie Pies With Sprinkles - Antonis Achilleos

Make Whoopie Pies

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After overwrought cupcakes and posh macaroons, the next big sweet thing has just got to be humble {whoopie} pie.

Classic Whoopie Pies With Sprinkles - Antonis AchilleosSIMPLE TO MAKE | This past week, my favourite francophile foodie/writer Dorie Greenspan reported on her entertaining blog that while the cupcake craze is alive and well in Paris, “the cupcake’s American cousin, the whoopie pie, is squeezing in on its territory.” What she didn’t mention is that in North America, the whoopie pie is also squeezing in on the territory currently occupied by its French cousin, the chi-chi macaroon. Read more

Drinking Tap Water

Stop Drinking Bottled Water This Instant

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Why you need to stop drinking expensive bottled water this instant—and something amazing to do with the money you’ll save.

Drinking Tap Water

 

JUST SAY NO | Since this is Drinking Water Week (May 1-7), we’d like to point out that anyone in Vancouver who continues to drink bottled water at home or in restaurants is choosing to waste their money, simple as that. Also, there’s every reason to believe that by purchasing packaged water, which is so effectively hawked by celebrities like Jennifer Aniston, they’re actually saying yes to a seriously inferior product. Read more

Grass Fed Cows iStock

Have You Tried Non-Medicated Meat?

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Beef, pork and chicken from “naturally” raised animals are purer than conventionally produced meats—and way less expensive than organic.

Grass Fed Cows iStockMONEY WELL SPENT | We’re fast coming up on barbecue season when everyone eats more beef burgers, lamb chops and chicken parts than usual. It’s no lie that meat is expensive and that organic meats, much as I would prefer to eat them, are even more so. So I was happy to learn about a less-expensive but solid alternative to the hormone-laden conventional meats in most grocery stores and many butcher shops. Read more

Purebread

Lesley Stowe’s 5 Things You Ought To Try

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Lesley Stowe, the mastermind behind everyone’s favourite Raincoast Crisps, picks five, cool things we really ought to try.

 

PurebreadParisian-trained chef and bestselling cookbook author Lesley Stowe is the founder of Lesley Stowe Fine Foods, the specialty food company that manufactures Raincoast Crisps, B.C.’s most recognizable snack and the number-one gourmet cracker for taste-conscious hosts throughout North America. Read more